Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Victoria Cross for Australia/archive2

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

The article was promoted by Karanacs 00:39, 5 August 2009 [1].

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Victoria Cross for Australia

Nominator(s): Woody (talk) 22:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Victoria Cross for Australia/archive1
• Featured article candidates/Victoria Cross for Australia/archive2

It has been a while since I graced these pages... This had a previous nomination in 2007 which failed due to a number of concerns, mainly that there was not much separate information; now we have had a recipient and all of the publicity that goes with that. I believe that this is the most comprehensive resource on this medal and I have scoured the web and books for anything else that could be added and I have come up with nothing to add. In that sense I think this meets all FA criteria: comprehensive, reliably sourced, MOS compliant etc. Thanks for your time, Woody (talk) 22:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Done; thanks. Alt text is well done, except it's missing for File:Victoria Cross (UK) ribbon.png. Eubulides (talk) 01:19, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Done now thanks. Woody (talk) 09:59, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

1a looks good.

• Can you check the commas in this quote, please? The one after "enemy" is ... eccentric if it's official! The others aren't stunning either as a flowing package.

The Victoria Cross for Australia is the "decoration for according recognition to persons who in the presence of the enemy, perform acts of the most conspicuous gallantry, or daring or pre-eminent acts of valour or self-sacrifice or display extreme devotion to duty."

• "they are highly prized"—please clarify "they".
• pp. with space is normal for page ranges, I think. Can you check them all?
• Why is information lost in this pipe? "Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855)"
• I removed "It is estimated that", since the citation is there, and to state the fact of the estimation seems redundant. I hope this still works.
• "last" --> "most recent"? Unsure.
• If common country-names must be linked, better to pipe them to a more specific article. They're fine in plain text, I believe, here.
• A$—I'd link first time only, and A is enough (once it was AU, once AUD). Unless it's unclear, after the first time, you don't need the letter: it's assumed. Tony (talk) 14:47, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment Per Tony's suggestion, I went through and put spaces between "p."/"pp." and the page numbers (there were inconsistencies). I also made the date format in the references DMY. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:06, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

In terms of the quote see the actual gazette (PDF). The commas are in the original quote, eccentric or not! ;) I think I have clarified "they", pp. was dealt with by Dabomb and I dealt with A/AU/AUD/$.

In terms of the Sevastopol link, the (1854-1855) is a disambiguator as there was another battle in WWII. It is already stated in the previous sentence that it was backdated to 1854 to include the Crimean War, do you think the dates of the battle need to be explicit in the text?

I think that "estimated" is needed in the sentence as nobody is certain how many medals can be made. I don't think "About 80 to 85 more Victoria Crosses could be cast from this source" makes it explicit enough that this is a complete guess on Hancock's part.

I don't understand your "last"/most recent comment. I couldn't find most recent in the article, and the only "last" is in reference to Keith Payne. He was the last VC recipient as no more Imperial VCs will be awarded to Australians so "most recent" would be inaccurate.

Thanks for your review Tony, regards. Woody (talk) 16:14, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

All clear, Woody. Pity the gazetted text is so appalling, but I guess everyone is stuck with it. Who is paid to do it? Tony (talk) 03:28, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks Tony. I have re-added estimated in there now and left out about and approximately so I think it works without having any redundant words in there. In terms of the gazette, you would hope that they consulted historians and text experts but you never know, it was probably a bored civil servant! Thanks again for your review, regards. Woody (talk) 09:25, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

As Commonwealth citizens Australians can join the British Armed Forces so arguably the possibility does remain open (or a British VC could be awarded to an Austrlaian on attachment to British Forces), though now it would be considered a foreign decoration by the Australian authorities. David Underdown (talk) 15:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Fair point, hadn't thought of that, though I don't envisage it happening anytime soon, and in my opinion the wording is still valid as is. Regards, Woody (talk) 18:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

• Support Meets the FA criteria - well done. Nick-D (talk) 23:47, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Image review – The three images are quite fine. Good work. NW (Talk) 14:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

• Support - have previously made a few tweaks to the article, but nothing major. This is a well composed and presented article that fully meets the criteria. I do, however, have a few minor comments, but my support is not reliant on them:
  • "Both the Australian and New Zealand Victoria Crosses are to be made from the same gunmetal as the originals." - considering that both the Australian and New Zealand varients have been awarded, shouldn't this sentence be updated to reflacted that they are awarded from the same source?
  • "The Australian War Memorial in Canberra currently holds 61 Victoria Crosses, 59 awarded to Australians and two to British soldiers" - one of the 59 Australian VCs is actually Donaldson's VC for Australia, which he loaned to the museum soon after receiving it. This should probably be added in.
  • The presentation of dates in the citations is slightly inconsistent.

Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:27, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I have made edits regarding the AWM and the metal, but are you sure about the dates? I can't seem to find any inconsistency (Dabomb run a script over it earlier.) Thanks for the review, Woody (talk) 08:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Woody; they look good. I think it was only ref no. 29 that appears inconsistent. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Got it, thanks again. Woody (talk) 09:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• Comments -
• Newspapers titles in the references should be in italics. If you're using {{cite news}}, use the work field for the title of the paper, and the publisher field for the name of the actual company that publishes the paper
• http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24920258-31477,00.html deadlinks

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I think I got all of the newspapers, and I fixed the dead link thanks. Woody (talk) 13:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• Support: I support this for FA, but have the following comments that I feel should be addressed before it is promoted (nothing major, just style):
  • Please check the numbering of the in line citations, in the first sentence of the Original medal subsection, they are out of order...I think it would be better visually speaking if they were in numerical order (e.g. currently 12, 10, 11, but they should be 10, 11, 12);
  • There is some inconsistency in how numbers are treated. For example in the last paragraph of the Original medal subsection, you have "96 Australians" followed by "Ninety", should they not be both numbers e.g. 96 and 90;
  • In the References section one of the titles is capitalised irregularly;{{Done}} (fixed it myself)
  • In the Further reading section, the "Register of the Victoria Cross" doesn't quite follow the same format as the other entries;

Good work though and I hope to see it featured on the main page! Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 14:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your review, I think I have got all of your issues. (Oh and use of the {{done}} templates is discouraged so I have disabled it. Thanks again, Woody (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.