Talk:Charles Sweeny

A fact from Charles Sweeny appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 March 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Charles Sweeny was expelled from West Point twice, but went on to became a Polish Army brigadier general, a US Army lieutenant colonel, and an officer in the Royal Air Force and the Foreign Legion?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Charles Sweeny.

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This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion not met

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:35, 7 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that Charles Sweeny was expelled from West Point twice, but went on to became a Polish Army brigadier general, a US Army lieutenant colonel, and an officer in the Royal Air Force and the Foreign Legion? "Col. Charles Sweeny ... has been, among other things, a colonel in the French Foreign Legion, a lieutenant-colonel in the U.S. Army, a group captain in the R.A.F., and a brigadier general in the Polish Army." (Different sources give different ranks (but all officer-level) for the RAF and the Legion.)
- ALT1:... that soldier of fortune Charles Sweeny became a lifelong friend of Ernest Hemingway and served as an honorary pallbearer at Hemingway's funeral? "Honorary pallbearers will include ... Col. Charles Sweeney (sic) of Paris"

Reviewed Sammy Byrd

Created by Clarityfiend (talk). Self-nominated at 19:39, 1 March 2021 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited:
Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: The article is close but some improvements must be made. The fact that he was in the Polish Army and Royal Air Force should be made clear in the body, not just the lede; the body does not mention Polish Army. TOC should not be floated right unless there is a reason. An infobox would do well for this article. The one photo can be moved up in the section to avoid running into the next section. Ergo Sum 17:04, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully, I've addressed all the shortcomings. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:53, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clarityfiend The body of the article still does not mention that he was in the Royal Air Force. Ergo Sum 21:11, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? It states "The British, on the other hand, made Sweeny an RAF reserve captain, group captain or honorary group captain." Clarityfiend (talk) 22:03, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was doing a searching for Royal Air Force. I've changed the first instance of RAF in the body to Royal Air Force. Feel free to discuss. It's best to use a full term rather than its abbreviation at its first instance in the body unless the abbreviation is so common that it is immediately understood. Ergo Sum 22:08, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Passing. Just a helpful word for future improvement of the article: there are many citations that are a bit distracting. It would be helpful to congregate them at the ends of sentences or after punctuation in longer sentences. There is also unnecessary paragraph breaking. Paragraphs that are only one or two sentences long should be joined to adjacent paragraphs. Ergo Sum 22:11, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I place references after what they refer to. WP:INTEGRITY doesn't state it explicitly, but it is implicit in the example "The sun is pretty big,[1] but the moon is not so big.[2]" I also use breaks to maintain one topic per paragraph. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's all well but citation bundling is often used (and indeed expected at e.g. FAC) when there are many citations per sentence. Likewise, conventional English paragraph usage surmounts strict topical segregation. It's not an issue for DYK, but just my advice if you intend to take the article through GAN or FAC. Ergo Sum 23:44, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CITEBUNDLE applies "when there are multiple sources for a given sentence, and each source applies to the entire sentence". As for your paragraph claim, "Is a one-sentence paragraph OK?", written by two highly experienced writers, doesn't agree with you. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:12, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CITEBUNDLE also states "Bundling is also useful if the sources each support a different portion of the preceding text", but three of the four "supporting" points contradict that claim. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:18, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've brought up this seeming contradiction in Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Contradiction?. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:26, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]