The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk)

• Featured article candidates/Peter Jeffrey (RAAF officer)/archive1

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Nominating for A-Class review following a successful GAR and because I think it has the military detail commensurate with ACR. FWIW I won't be taking to FAC until or unless I find more on his civilian life, which is admittedly a bit brief, but should be sufficient for here. As for the chap himself, I found him more interesting and admirable as a leader the more I researched him, and I think you will too as you read it. Any and all comments welcome, as usual...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support As usual Ian, this is a comprehensive and well written biography. I've got a few suggestions for further improvements to the article:
  • The second sentence sits a bit awkwardly with the first - it seems out of place as a whole sentence and implies that he became an ace after becoming a senior officer
    • Mmm, originally it was going to be longer and also mention that he commanded at squadron and wing level but I decided that was too much. What if I stuck the sentence at the end of the first para of the lead (which is chronologically where it belongs as his 5th victory was with 234 Wing)?
      • Tweaked a bit here and there, hopefully an improvement. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk)
        • That reads well now. Nick-D (talk) 06:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do we know the name of Jeffrey's mother? - it seems a bit odd to say only that he was the 'son of A.L. Jeffrey' when he isn't important enough for a red link
    • Heh, hope this doesn't sound too defensive but a) I wouldn't normally bother with parents' names at all except it seems a de facto standard even when they're not notable in themselves and b) the only source I had was Who's Who which, traditionalists that they are, only considered his father worth naming. Really, if no-one has objections I'm happy to lose it as the source doesn't even give the old man's profession, which would be worth keeping if only we knew it.
      • He listed 'Colleen Jeffery' as his next of kin during his World War II service: [1]. I suppose we can't really assume that's his mum though (though I'd be surprised if it wasn't). His NAA file hasn't been digitalised unfortunately. Nick-D (talk) 06:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Now Nick, my dear friend and colleague, are you sure you read the whole thing? See the sentence with the red link for Alan Rawlinson... Don't feel too bad, making me check revealed a typo at any rate... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:45, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Oh. Yeah. She's wasn't his mum :0 Nick-D (talk) 08:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should all words in 'Specialists Signals Course' be capitalised?
    • That was so in at least one source I had.
      • Fair enough Nick-D (talk) 06:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Jeffrey flew obsolescent Gloster Gladiator biplanes" - it should be noted that the entire squadron was operating these aircraft
    • Not all actually, but most, so fair point nonetheless -- I think that was laziness... ;-)
  • Do we know why Jeffrey was selected to command No. 3 Sqn? - given that his service in the RAAF was relatively short and the article doesn't mention any significant personal successes, it's interesting that he was appointed to this role.
    • Wish I knew myself for sure, I always like to include motivations if I can find them but I don't recall any of the sources saying. As a flight commander he would've been one of the next in line, and actually would've been considered mature by virtue of having joined well before the war.
  • Is there an article about the German offensive in April 1941 that can be linked to?
    • Believe me I looked -- it seemed that every campaign and battle in North Africa has its own article but this one...

Nick-D (talk) 10:13, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many tks for reviewing Nick. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:48, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support: I reviewed this for GA and believe that it has improved since then to the extent that I feel it meets the A-class requirements. I have the following comments for the sake of this review:
  • no dabs, ext links work, alt text is present;
  • images appear appropriately licenced;
  • spot checks indicate no copyright violations. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tks Rupert. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

• "He was Mentioned in Despatches": I saw this capitalized in another article recently; when they checked, it wasn't capitalized in the source. We don't have "proper verbs" over here, that I know of. I'm not sure how we would write this. - Dank (push to talk) 03:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand. I think this was the subject of some debate many moons ago and this was the agreed convention. I agree "mentioned in despatches" isn't always capitalised, but a "Mention in Despatches" is (see here for instance) and I guess everyone decided the capitalisation should be applied to the verb as well. I'm not enormously fussed about it but I prefer the consistency and suspect that if we go lower case someone will just come along and "upper case" it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the link ... based on that, I'd prefer "He received a Mention in Dispatches" (if their spelling is more common than yours). My problem here isn't that you're using the word wrong, but that you're making up a new part of speech, the "proper verb". Actually, I lie ... we do sometimes have "proper verbs" over here, but only very briefly. I imagine when people first used their Xerox machines, they wrote "I Xeroxed it...", but in general, these proper nouns used as verbs either quickly become common nouns, or don't succeed in entering the language at all. (Probably the one with the most staying power right now is "Googled".) - Dank (push to talk) 20:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes we could do that, but that's not addressing the root of any issue here on WP. If I link Mention in Despatches it'll get redirected to Mentioned in Despatches and one prefers to avoid redirects where possible (or pipelinking something minisculely different). The question perhaps should be taken up on that article, not this one... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:01, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • The difference being that I'm not reviewing that article, I'm reviewing this one. I can't support. I'm not going to accept the burden of fixing articles other than our peer reviewed, A-class and FAC articles; that seems like a big enough job to me. (To be clear, I'm not angry, I just can't take on any more duties right now.) - Dank (push to talk) 21:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Heh, if there's a burden to doing anything on WP, it's generally a self-imposed one anyway... I just think you'll save youself work in the long run by addressing it at the source rather than in individual Commonwealth military bios. Anyway, that's up to you... ;-) Having had a look round, I don't think that capitalising "mentioned in despatches" is as ubiquitous as it used to be, so we'll go with that and avoid the redirects/pipes. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:05, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• ←On the point at hand: works for me. On the larger point: so many issues here, I hope I do it justice. I'll talk about all these issues in the context of FAC reviewing, where the roads are well-traveled; the extent to which any of this applies to A-class reviews is really up to the project, not me (although I hope the FAC context carries some weight). At some point, after a certain number of reviews and a certain amount of diligence, a person leaving a comment in a review stops being "just some guy who made a comment" and starts being seen as a "reviewer", one of those guys whose integrity (and hopefully competence, but no promises there) is central to the whole question of whether the process is even worth doing. Being seen as a "reviewer", whatever that is, has one big downside: you start getting in all kinds of conflicts that you were previously able to avoid, because writers assumed your support or lack of it wasn't a big deal, and because you were always able to get away with, "Well, I'm not sure, it's just a wiki, revert if you like, it's up to you." At some point, people (especially the closers) figure out that you do actually have the relevant sources and training and you know something about grammar. So then your reviews start to get a level of push-back that they didn't have before. One thing I see at FAC, in one form or another: "You can't oppose this, because you haven't done your homework ... you need to go fix this other article first." (I'm not accusing you of bad behaviour, of course, that would be a first for both of us ... I'm just taking this opportunity to remind people that we haven't found it practical to ask reviewers to do anything more than focus on the job at hand.) Another complaint: "This is a wiki, we have no experts, and 3 other articles do it this way, therefore by our rules it's not wrong." I can't claim omniscience on language issues, but I do have a lot of the books, and I've been doing this a while. My objection in this case was that I can't find sufficient support in 5 or 6 relevant guides for the idea of a "Proper verb"; they do exist, but not in an "official" sense, and they tend to be ephemeral. That was why I recommended either lowercasing or using a noun. - Dank (push to talk) 21:29, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• "he organised for his men to be accommodated by a beach": not familiar with this meaning of "organized"; we'd say "arranged" I think, but feel free to keep it if it sounds right to you. Also, I think we'd say "near" a beach. - Dank (push to talk) 03:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Organising" to do something is certainly a form of words I've seen elsewhere (perhaps it seems more "military" than "arranged") but I'm quite happy to go with your suggestion. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per standard disclaimer. Once again, there wasn't much for a copy editor to do. Nice work. - Dank (push to talk) 23:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tks mate. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk)

• Support I did not trace down the cites and review them as I sometimes have done, but take them on good faith, especially since I respect Ian Rose's reputation for probity. I found the article itself well-written and comprehensively cited. Stylistically, this article goes well beyond the usual dry encyclopediac recitation, and leaves me with the feeling that I know and admire Peter Jeffrey. I do have one tiny quibble; the sentence that begins, "Survived by his wife and sons" seems awkward; I expect news of his death first, and the survivors later. Can you smooth this out, Ian? Georgejdorner (talk) 14:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Consider it smoothed, and many thanks for your kind words... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article promoted.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.