Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/John Cunningham (RAF officer)/1

John Cunningham (RAF officer)

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delist Sadly. The nominator of this article has been blocked from editing it and there are outstanding citation needed tags AIRcorn (talk) 09:49, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The more I look at this article, the more citation issues I find, including claims not supported by sources, and sources which predate the claims they purport to support.

For example, the paragraph:

In his retirement... John Cunningham died six days shy of his 85th birthday in July 2002.

had (until I just tagged it) just one citation, placed after its final full stop: {{sfn|Golley|1999|pp=215–216}}. So that's a 1999 publication which speaks about the subject in the present tense, used to cite his 2002 death.

One 135-word paragraph is cited simply to {{sfn|Golley|1999|pp=171–199}} - that's 28 pages.

Elsewhere, we had a 23 August 2012 press article, talking about a forthcoming event, falsely cited as having a September 2012 date, and used to support a claim about the auction price paid at a September 2012 event.

Unfortunately not all of the sources cited are online, and the Internet Archive's copy of John 'Cat's Eyes' Cunningham : the aviation legend that is heavily cited is missing several of the pages cited (e.g. page 24).

Though a secondary issue, the article's prose is also clumsy; see recent edits for some fixes, but they do not address all of the issues. For example:

Attempting his usual tactic, the British crew approached from behind and below. Suddenly the Heinkel lurched into a tight left-hand turn allowing the gunners to fire a broad-side.

The listing of every crew member of a German plane shot down by the article subject is also probably not necessary.

On top of all this, attempts to rectify even minor issues have met with edit warring and abuse, as a result of which a block is currently in place.

I leave it to uninvolved editors more familiar with GA criteria to determine how to proceed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:18, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• Ouch! this will need someone to really check more of the citations to fix the failed verification issues. (t · c) buidhe 02:54, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

• I have been able to cite the dod and the sale price of his medals. In trying to verify the bequeath of his medals to the de Havilland Aircraft Company Trust, I came across the de Havilland museum website which mentions him. There could be a potential copyvio there as the phrasing of the last paragraph of the postwar activities section is similar to the description of the museum website (although it could be because the museum copied the Wikipedia page, not the other way round). Zawed (talk) 07:19, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

• Do we know what the full details of Thomas 2013 and Hooton 2010 are?Nigel Ish (talk) 18:35, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  An do we have better details of the Air Pictorial reference - like a title and page range for the article - even if its a news item, it should have a title? I'm also pretty sure that Air Pictorial didn't have anything to do with the Air League of the British Empire by 1992.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:46, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  "He was promoted to wing commander (war-substantive) on 1 September 1944, serving in a series of staff positions for the remainder of the war." - while its fine to use the 26 September 1944 as a reference to Cumminiham getting promoted, it cannot be used to describe what he did for the rest of the war, after it was written. (and can someone sort out the London Gazette sfns to give a proper cite, without the &?)Nigel Ish (talk) 09:54, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• I've trimmed the mention of staff positions as the next section discusses his roles for the remainder of the war anyway. I also moved mention of the promotion to better put in chronological context. Zawed (talk) 10:42, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The article is sufficiently sourced. Everything is covered. End of story. There is no copy violation. The museum has used this article. The article has been reverted back to its original state before this nonsense started. If you have any doubts about sources, by all means question me. Dapi89 (talk) 18:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Your claims are patent nonsense, as outlined above. Your revert has been undone, and an admin has blocked you from editing it in future. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:42, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

` Comment Nigel Ish I took "Thomas 2013" to be a typo, and changed it to match the other Thomas references. The Gazette issue can be cured by using the correct template ({{London Gazette}}) instead of {{sfn}}. The Hooton2010 ref is the one causing the ref error issue raised at WT:MILHIST. Mjroots (talk) 13:47, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

The Hooton2010 ref issue has now been addressed. Mjroots (talk) 11:25, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

References