Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Order of battle at the Battle of San Domingo/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Matthewedwards 17:52, 18 August 2009 [1].

Order of battle at the Battle of San Domingo[edit]

Nominator(s): Jackyd101 (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi, another of my periodic Napoleonic naval orders of battle, this list supplements the article Battle of San Domingo, now wending its way along the torturous road to FAC. The list is quite simple: its an order of battle and casualties total for the battle, providing statistical support to the narrative text, although hopefully I've given enough context to the list that it makes sense on its own as well. Any comments welcome and thankyou very much. Jackyd101 (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Image needs alternative text. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done (I think)--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Woody (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some quick comments after a first pass-through:
  • The opening sentence is very long and unwieldy. Can you break it up?
  • Lead images can be up to 300px though I don't think it is mandatory. I prefer a larger image myself
  • Lighly damaged.? Typo
  • Check for full-stops (periods) after sentence fragments. Lightly damaged doesn't need a full-stop.

I will have a deeper look when I can. Regards, Woody (talk) 21:46, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Had a go at these, thanks. Any additional comments welcome--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:31, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support After having another couple of read-throughs I can't see any issues. Meets all of the FL criteria as far as I see. Well done, regards, Woody (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 16:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
;Comments - interesting read, very nice.
  • Should "ship of the line" be hyphenated or is that optional? Our own article seems to be inconsistent...
I normally do not hyphenate it, following most of the histories I have read - I think that it honestly doesn't matter so long as articles are internally consistent.
  • May be worth linking frigate and corvette in the lead to help us non-naval types! Especially since you do indeed link frigate a bit further on in the British squadron section.
Quite right, done.
  • You have diacritics on the French gent, why not on Cadiz?
Honestly, beacuse British sources usually don't include the diacritic, so I overlooked it. However it should be there and I have added it.
  • Is Rear-Admiral typically hyphenated?
All my sources hyphenate both rear-admiral and vice-admiral. There certainly are sources where it isn't hyphenated however - I think this is similar to the ship of the line question again.
  • "Source: James, pp. 196–197, London Gazette: no. 15902, pp. 371–374,." - remove that rogue comma, and why not make this a proper reference, perhaps against the n of squadron of "Admiral Duckworth's squadron" in the first cell of the table? Similarly for Leissègues' squadron.
I can't remove the comma - the template makes it appear and I can't get rid of it. I'll look into alternatives. To be honest, the reason I have placed the sources at the ends of the tables rather than adding them as inline references to the titles is that I think it looks neater and easier to see if you are looking for sources on the tables specifically. Its really just a personal choice, but I have used it on a number of similar featured lists before.
I had a quick look at the template doc and it appears that you need to add the publication date and then that rogue comma disappears. I've modified the two uses of the template here, and it seems to work. I hope you don't mind. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:35, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all, that looks much better.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My totals don't add up to your totals... I make it 74 killed.
Quite correct, how odd. Not sure what I did there, but it is now fixed.
  • "Admiral Leissègues' Squadron" ->squadron.
Done

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Truco (talk · contribs)
  • After you answer all of the Rambling Man's comments, please don't hesitate to contact me because I would love to give a review to this article. But some of our comments are the same.--Truco 503 20:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that I haven't been ignoring these comments, I just haven't had an uninterrupted stretch of time in which to address them. I will get to them as soon as I am able. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. Life is real, Wikipedia, well, isn't...! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved issues, Dabomb87 (talk)
Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) This is beautifully done; I have only a few nitpicks.
  • "120–gun Impérial." I think that should be a hyphen.
  • "Duckworth was able to strike at the head"-->Duckworth struck at the head
  • "while the British suffered nearly "-->and the British suffered nearly
  • "as over 1,500 men killed and wounded" Prefer "more than" to "over", but only a personal preference.
  • "Duckworth's squadron was principally formed from his original Cádiz squadron, less HMS Powerful which had been sent to" This is worded a bit confusingly. Suggest: "Duckworth's squadron was principally formed from his original Cádiz squadron except for HMS Powerful, which had been sent to"
  • I doubt that Indian Ocean needs to be linked.
  • "Various frigates and smaller craft joined the fleet " "Various" is a superfluous word here.
  • "During the engagement" Suggest comma after here to improve readability of a rather long sentence.
  • Can you put an em dash in the blank table cells? It would also be nice if you could center the casualty totals.
  • "as the best available source are the vague totals submitted by" "source are" sounds a bit strange.
  • Notes that consist of single sentence fragments should not have periods at the end; an example is "Not engaged in the battle, returned to France." Dabomb87 (talk) 00:18, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I've incorporated all of these suggestions except two: I have left Indian Ocean linked as I generally try to link all geographic locations as a matter of course and I think this could potentially be a useful link. Secondly I do not understand your point about the emdashes - the reason that those spaces are blank is that the information is missing and I cannot locate it, not that it doesn't exist anywhere. I can't see the benefit in adding a dash into those boxes in this case. In addition, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with the casualty totals: they should indeed be centred and I've added what I think is the relevant code, but they have not moved to the centre. Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response. A few points:
  • I won't press the Indian Ocean issue, but per WP:OVERLINK, we shouldn't link well known geographical locations and terms, as most readers know what and where the Indian Ocean is. At the very least, could you pipe link it to Indian Ocean#History for more relevant info?
  • On the em dash issue, if the information cannot be found, then it's correct that there should not be an em dash. I usually tell users to put em dashes in blank cells on the basis that there is no information available, but clearly this is a different situation.
  • For the casualty totals, which table are you referring to?
The British ones.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Use {{center}}. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Last comment: Could you link despatches? I feel that well-meaning editors may otherwise change it to "dispatches", thinking it a misspelling. Just a suggestion.
I'd be happy to, but I'm not sure what it should link to in this instance.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's strange, I thought I saw an article for it; perhaps it was a redirect. On an unrelated note, you may want to add to the wiktionary definition, which merely cites it as a BritEng spelling of "dispatch" (unless that is the intended meaning here). Dabomb87 (talk) 23:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regards, Dabomb87 (talk) 23:46, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All done now, thanks very much.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:08, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually not done, sorry. Couldn't find any information on how to make an interwiki link between Wikipedia and Wikitionary.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
THankyou very much!--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources look good. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:18, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  1. {{Harvnb}} would be more adequate for the book references and is used on multiple featured articles.
    There's no reason to change from one citation style to another; the existing system is fine. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. As far as I understand the Notes column is about the State of the ships so how about changing it from notes to "State" or "Damage".
1) What do you think are the advantages of the Harvard system to the one currently in use and why would it improve the article to use them. 2) I'm afraid I disagree - The notes in the Notes section are not limited to state of ships or their damage and I think it is better left as it is. Thanks for your participation,--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Harvnb makes links to book references so that when clicked it would highlight the Book that is used, instead of the reader looking for which book was actually used. I did it for Woodman, you can check it out...--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 22:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's useful when the list of inline citations or references is long. However, you can see both the inline citations and bibliography in one screen, making cross-checking easy even without harvnb. It's up to Jacky. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments
A few discrepancies, some based on the data in the Gazette link and this Naval History book, which may or may not need fixing.

A note on these sources - I am aware of them, but have chosen to use one selectively and the other not at all. The Gazette was written in the immediate aftermath of the battle and without the full range of facts. Subsequent sources have, as is common, revealed a number of errors and discrepancies. As for the second source, Edward Pelham Brenton is a chronically unreliable source and should only be used when supported by other sources. His scholarship was atrocious and he came under repeated attacks for his poor research in both contemporary and later histories.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agamemnon had 64 guns according to both sources.
You are correct, this was a typo, fixed.
  • Alexandre had 84 guns according to both sources.
It is not certain exactly how many guns Alexandre carried, certainly some sources suggest 84. However Alexandre's rate was 80, and that is total used in the table.
  • Diomède had 84 guns according to both sources.
Not true, Diomede had 74 guns - see above regarding sources.
  • The surname of the Captain on Impérial was Pigot according to both sources.
Two of the sources quoted in the article (James and Clowes) give Bigot as the captain's name. I am more disposed to trust them than the two above, but I will check with a French user who helps with these articles.
  • The total casualties at the bottom of the British table doesn't add up.
Another typo, fixed.
  • French squadron section states: "the assumed totals for Impérial and Diomède, which are even less certain but reportedly totalled 500 and 300 respectively" Diomède had 250 casualties according to table.
I will look into this and sort it out.
I've researched and established that the best estimate is 250. Article changed.--Jackyd101 (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

--Jpeeling (talk) 17:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The image's alt text needs fixing, it's currently the same as the caption. --Jpeeling (talk) 17:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note FLC is currently short of reviewers; please consider reviewing one or more on the nomination list if you have not already (this message is being posted to all running FLCs). Dabomb87 (talk) 23:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Why are there two brigs listed in the section labeled "frigates". Brigs are not frigates.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.78.129.88 (talk) 03:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that is technically true, although I don't think anyone is going to be confused by it. What alternative term do you suggest?--Jackyd101 (talk) 19:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Upon consideration I've changed it, hope that is better.--Jackyd101 (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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