Talk:Quebec expedition (1711)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: DustFormsWords (talk) 04:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I intend to undertake a good article review of this article. My initial impression is that it is an excellent article able to be quickly passed, subject to a couple of queries. I may not be able to complete this review today; please be patient. I will indicate when the initial review is complete and I am ready for responses. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well-written:

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct;

The prose is suitably clear and concise (I am unable to suggest improvements) and spelling and grammar appear correct.

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

The article complies with the Manual of Style for lead sections.

Comment (not required for GA) - Ideally the lead section would give a stronger case for why this event is notable or important, beyond simply suggesting it was a notable shipping disaster.

The article complies with the Manual of Style for layout.

The article has problems uner the Manual of Style for words to watch, in relation to the following words:

"recently-installed" (vague chronological reference) - "recently" is subjective. When were they installed?
"recently promoted to Admiral" (vague chronological reference) - as above - when?

(Explained in discussion below) ~~"probably chose Hill" (expression of doubt) - expand this out to explain it, or phrase it as "According to X, St John may have chosen Hill becase".~~

I have a query about the article's compliance with the Manual of Style for embedded lists:

Okay, frankly the list of ships in the fleet is pretty ugly, appears to be a disproportionate level of detail compared to the rest of the article, and therefore on the face of it doesn't comply with the MOS for lists. Normally I'd require you to strip it to notable entries, explain those entries through prose, and dump the list format. However, I don't normally review military articles, and I understand the military projects are quite thorough about standardisation of their articles. So if you can convince me that this kind of list is standard for articles of this kind, and presented to a reasonably normal level of quality for Good Articles, I'll give this the tick. Give me your reasons in the discussion area below.

On the basis of the outside opinion below I am accepting that any problems with this list do not fall under the GA criteria and can be discussed subsequent to passing the article. - DustFormsWords (talk) 21:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Manual of Style for fiction does not apply to this article.

Verifiable with no original research:

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

(I am happy that this is an WP:IAR situation - it achieves the intent of our policies even if it arguably does not literally comply.) On the face of it, the sourcing in the list ("Sources, unless otherwise cited: Graham, pp. 229–231,237; Hervey, p. 318") does not appear to comply with the requirement for all sources to appear in a dedicated section. I don't immediately see a better way to present this information, though, so I'm open to discussion?

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);

All statements and quotations requiring citations are appropriately referenced by inline citations to reliable sources.

(c) it contains no original research.

The article does not appear to contain original research.

Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;

The article is broad in scope and appears to address the main aspects of the topic.

Comment (not required for GA) - I would generally expect in an article of this type to see a larger discussion of its legacy and enduring historic importance. But those topics having been touched on ever-so-briefly, this expansion is not required for GA.

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Subject to a resolution of my query about the list above, the article does not otherwise appear to go into unnecessary detail.

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

As far as I am able to tell the article represents all relevant viewpoints and does not show signs of inappropriate bias.

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
The article appears stable and does not appear to be the subject of any ongoing dispute.
Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content;

All images appear to have valid licensing and license documentation.

(b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

All images are used appropriately and have appropriate captioning.

Comment (not required for GA) - My reading of the captioning guidelines suggests none of these captions should end in a full stop. You might want to consider this, but it is not required to pass GA.

Overview - The article is clearly an appropriate candidate for Good Article, and once my very minor concerns and queries above are resolved I anticipate being able to swiftly promote it to GA. Please let me know on my talk page when you feel you have addressed my concerns and would like me to revisit the review. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:25, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Overview 2 - I have accepted that the discussion about the list, while important, is not necessary to the GA process, and, being satisfied with everything else, I am therefore passing the article as a Good Article. Congratulations on a well-written article! - DustFormsWords (talk) 21:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Responses

Thanks for taking the time to review the article. A few comments in response:

I've added additional text on the political reasons for the expedition to the lead, and clarified Walker's promotion date.
The fleet section here is not unlike the "order of battle" sections of naval battles; see e.g. Battle of the Chesapeake or Battle of the Saintes (although the latter's tables are rather badly broken at the moment). The source entry is placed at the bottom to avoid the hassle of citing each line of the table separately; for listings like this, the number of source pages is generally quite small, and doing it this way reduces clutter. See e.g. Order of battle at the Battle of Tory Island for a separate (featured) order of battle article that uses this style of reference; one alternative is to explicitly describe the sources in prose before the table itself.
Although it is not uncommon for lengthy orders of battle to be broken out into separate articles, I'm not sure doing so in this case would be useful. The listing is at the end of the text, and will only be "in the way" for people looking for references and other end matter.
In re the weasel wording on the choice of Hill: pretty much all of the sources agree that it was highly likely that Hill was chosen because of his relation to Mrs. Masham (at least Graham, Drake, and Parkman, which can all be easily checked, either explicitly claim it, or imply it). The problem is that there is no documentary proof, so everyone is necessarily temporizing the language.
Per MOS:CAPTIONS, all of the captions are complete sentences, which is why they end with a full stop.

If there's more to do, let me know. Magic♪piano 14:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Response - Will look over the article in detail a little later. I'm not worried about the sourcing on the list, because it appears to be a case where strict compliance with the rules will produce a less transparent result than what you've ultimately done. I'm still not convinced about the existence of the list, though. Fleet lists are appropriate for naval engagements because understanding the order of battle grants an encyclopaedic understanding of the tactical situation involved. Here, however, the fleet never saw battle. I'm really not sure it's relevant what the names of the individual ships were, except to the extent that they individually receive significant commentary in the sources (which can in any case be dealt with through regular prose). We wouldn't, for instance, list every man in an infantry unit, or every ship built by a given shipyard, and I'm not convinced that (for example) naming the tender boats is really appropriate given the level of detail of the rest of the article. - DustFormsWords (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update - I have looked over the article, and the embedded list is my only remaining concern. If it's to stay (which I'm increasingly doubtful about) it needs a better rationale than that above. To be clear, my main concern with it is not so much its compliance with the lists policy (although I have doubts about that), but rather than it represents a level of detail disproportionate to the rest of the article, in the same vein as a full cast listing for a film or a multi-page plot synopsis for a novel. - 21:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Outside comment - I was asked by DustFormsWords on my talk page for an outside opinion on the list in this article. After a quick look, I see no issues with including the list. The article is about the expedition, and despite the fact that the expedition seems to be mainly known for its gigantic failure, the ships played a major part in the expedition - without them, it wouldn't have happened at all. Based on this premise, there does not seem to be an excessive amount of detail - all notes beyond the ship's name and captain directly pertain to their role in the expedition - uses and fates. If you want additional outside opinions, you may get more by posting on the military history project's talk page. Dana boomer (talk) 15:06, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have posted an RFC at WT:MILHIST. My feeling is that, at a bare minimum, the table should list the ships directly affected by the disaster. Whether the entire fleet list is needed is indeed debatable; I was just happy to find it. Magic♪piano 22:40, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the debate about the list should be have, but on the basis of Dana's comment above I will accept that there is no consensus that removing the list is required to pass GA. I will accordingly pass the article. - DustFormsWords (talk) 21:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]