Talk:Bill Newton

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Bill Newton is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 11, 2009	Good article nominee	Listed
May 26, 2010	WikiProject A-class review	Approved
June 12, 2010	Featured article candidate	Promoted

Current status: Featured article

Biography: Military

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Military history: Aviation / Biography / South Pacific / World War II

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Aviation: Biography

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Australia: Military history Mid‑importance

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This article was created or added to during the Victoria Cross Reference Migration. It may contain material that was used with permission from victoriacross.net.

Victoria Cross Section[edit]

I just came here through an internal wiki-link. Knowing nothing about the man, I have to say that the Victoria Cross section is terrible. Why is there a need to fully cite a decades old article? Also, the citation isn't clearly marked as one. When the text announced an upcoming citation, there was no indicator when it would end. It doesn't even use quotation marks. Furthermore, it related to a fact that wasn't even explained beforehand. Even worse is the fact that the citation is supposed to display wrong information: "The citation, which incorrectly implied that he was shot [...]" So if it was incorrectly reported 66 years ago why even mention it? Usually wikipedia lists correct information and not misconceptions unless they stuck in the minds of the people to modern times. If this is the case here, then where is the reference to this issue?

Anyway, why would anyone want to fully cite an incorrect source? Especially since most of the surrounding description does nothing for the article, other than to confuse. Reading through it, I felt like I was reading war propaganda which it ultimately turned out to be. A single hint that his shot down was dated wrongly by a certain newspaper and linking to it would have been enough (though unnecessary judging by my current knowledge). As a journalist I find the current style of this section horrible and also a waste of time. Coming to the discussion section and seeing that this kind of article assembly is considered good practice in the eyes of wikipedia's officials, will make me reconsider my so far positive view of this site. Also thanks to that, I'll not even attempt to straighten out the above issues myself, especially since this article is under constant watch by others which would certainly result in a quick revert.--88.75.31.48 (talk) 12:55, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if you find some of the Wikipedia Military History Project's conventions problematic, but it's standard practice to quote in full the London Gazette's citations for awards recognising conspicuous acts of gallantry by Commonwealth personnel. Given that convention, I'm sure you'd agree it's better to point out the odd inaccuracy in the citation than ignore them. As to your other points, the block quote style without inverted commas is common to the rest of Wikipedia, and I'm not sure what you mean by the passage being "related to a fact that wasn't even explained beforehand". If you have positive suggestions for improving the presentation of the article, feel free to discuss them as I'm planning to expand it soon with one or two additional sources. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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External links modified[edit]

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