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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Names inscribed on the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great

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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.

Article promoted by AustralianRupert (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 01:07, 20 May 2017 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Names inscribed on the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great edit

Nominator(s): Auntieruth55 (talk)

Names inscribed on the Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Like Project E (below), the title says it all. I thought initially I'd make a category for these men, but the category glordes did not approve, so we have a list instead. The names were taken directly from the publication announcing the opening of the statue in 1851. Upon advice from Catlemur I added references to every name, most of which are ADB or NDB and explained in the notes. Everyone is linked to at least a stub. Some of these guys have very little written about them--in some cases, Frederick was scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of generalship and he ended up promoting a few men with absolutely no talent for leadership or military science. He expected his generals to lead from the front and consequently, he lost quite a few of them in combat. auntieruth (talk) 14:13, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hchc2009: Support

  • The name of the article drew me in - wonderfully obscure (in all the best ways!)
  • good!  :)
  • A very initial thought: I wondered if this should be a "List of names inscribed..." article, since most of it is made up by lists?
  • To confirm: is the capitalisation of "Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great" right? Various sources also put it as the "equestrian statue of Frederick the Great", but not sure which is the most common
  • Final bit of the lead looks broken ("Beneath the statues are bronze plaques listing")
  • duh. fixed.
  • "depicts the king in military uniform" - MOS would have this as "the King" (it is referring to the specific ruler);

same below

  • yes, fixed. But does not apply to his brothers
  • When you say "The pedestal has two bands of sculpture below the statue of the king", who is "the king"? Surely this is still Frederick the Great? Hchc2009 (talk) 19:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The lower of the sculpted bands depicts 74 men of Frederick the Great's time in life-size" would "The lower of the sculpted bands depicts life-size 74 men of Frederick the Great's time" be cleaner?
  • cleaned!
  • "The lowest band" - is this different from the lower band?
  • well yes, there is Frederick on the top, a band of bas-relief illustrations of his life, a band of the virtues, then the band of men on horse backand others, and then a sort of spacing band, and then the bronze plates with the names.
  • The text currently says, though, that "The pedestal has two bands of sculpture below the statue of the king", which I think is where the confusion comes in for me. I found your description here a lower clearer. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The figures represented are predominantly military, but also include six men of note: diplomats, the Prime Minister of Prussia, jurists, poets, and philosophers." - this didn't read well to me; we say six men, and then give five different categories.
  • because there were duplicate categories
  • I'd suggest then "six men of note, including diplomats..." Hchc2009 (talk) 19:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Brother of the King" - capitalisation seems wrong
  • he had several brothers; if there were one, it would be Brother.
  • "Philosopher" -ditto
  • "Diplomat" - ditto (same below where you are giving a role after a comma - sometimes you use lower case - which I think is right - occasionally upper case)
  • I think I've fixed these.
  • "did not reach the rank of General" - is the capitalisation right here?
  • changed to did not achieve the highest military rank.
  • Note on sources - could this be in normal size type? Hchc2009 (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • sure. Done
Thank you! auntieruth (talk) 18:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

MisterBee1966: Support

  • "they are marked with a <Hammer (Last Stone First End)>". I want to suggest color coding these entries in the table and using a searchable character tag such as an exclamation mark (!), etc.
  • Some entries in the section labeled "Standing, full figures" which are marked with an asterisk ... As before, I suggest to add some color coding to make them easier to identify
  • Perhaps this would then have been better as a table than current format?
  • In the lead "Beneath the statues bronze plaques list the names of military men, philosophers, mathematicians, poets, statesmen, engineers, and others important in Prussia's emergence as a military power in the mid-18th century." I suggest to state how many names in total are inscribed and to make a statistical statement saying how many of them are military men, philosophers, mathematicians, poets, etc.
  • OR?
  • I suggest mentioning its close proximity to the Bebelplatz, Humboldt University, St. Hedwig's Cathedral, Nazi book burning (just a thought)
  • that might be original research? Or not? I've added one of the images showing location relative to other places, but not the commentary. auntieruth (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the section labeled "Inscriptions", I suggest making a statement that no names are inscribed on the east face other than Frederick the Great himself and Frederick William IV of Prussia (under his reign the statue was completed)
  • okay will do that. .... Although I don't remember that from the source....?
  • the link to Wiki commons in the lower right hand corner leads nowhere (commons does have a Category:Equestrian statue of Frederick the Great), suggest fixing
  • Ah, but it should lead somewhere....and now it's fixed!
  • "Anton Balthasar König, Biographisches Lexikon aller Helden und Militärpersonen: Welche sich in preussischen Diensten berühmt gemacht haben (Biographical Dictionary of all those heroes and military figures who have earned fame in the Prussian service), A Wever, 1791. v. 4, p. 2" unify naming convention for page numbers
  • done
  • check capitalization. example "Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, (1698–1759), mathematician, first president of the Prussian Academy of Sciences", mathematician is lower case, while in most instances the explanatory text following the comma begins in capital letters. I thought military ranks are only capitalized if they are place before the name. Please check
  • You and Hchc2009 seem to have conflicting ideas about what gets capitalized. auntieruth (talk) 18:24, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, Hchc2009, but the question is this: is the military title capitalized after the person's name. It's clear it's John Smith was a brigadier general, but is it John Smith, Brigadier General, or John Smith, brigadier general? auntieruth (talk) 18:58, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm pretty sure it would be either "John Smith, brigadier general" or "Brigadier General John Smith" - the latter would be more normal, I'd have thought, but happy to be corrected! ;) Hchc2009 (talk) 19:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers MisterBee1966 (talk) 16:08, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've moved all the titles to before their names.
  • Should this be in table format? auntieruth (talk) 19:28, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've tested one section in table format. See what you think. I can add a column that shows where their name is, and then merge all the tables too. auntieruth (talk) 21:19, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I liked the previous layout more. The current table layout creates too much empty space. Cheers MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Well, I was jsut thinking I liked the table layout more. I've filled in some of the blank spaces. I don't think it needs to have such large lines, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Although I like what you did above, it's not sortable, which you said it needed to be....? @Hchc2009:, what do you think? auntieruth (talk) 15:06, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm probably neutral on that one. On my screen at least, the table looks fine, but I'm generally cautious about complicating more simple formatting approaches unless there's a strong reason to do so. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:20, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@MisterBee1966: @Hchc2009: changes you've suggested have been adapted and adopted. auntieruth (talk)

Support

The discussion above 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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