Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Irish Mercantile Marine during World War II

Irish Mercantile Marine during World War II

I would appreciate an external view. Its a very large topic, yet some detail is needed. Did I get that balance right? This is an 'umbrella' article, with articles on ships, companies and events to follow. (Irish Oak "jumped the gun" and was nominated earlier than I intended - that was a good thing). When this article makes GA, I will follow with MV Kerlogue, ST Leukos and others. WP:IMAR is a little lonely at present. All opinions welcome ClemMcGann (talk) 02:39, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

NtheP

Clem, this is a fascinating read, thanks for all your work so far. I'll probably have more later but my first impression on balance was, where is a section about Allied attacks on Irish shipping? It's mentioned in the lead but then the topic doesn't appear to surface again. I appreciate that events like the Kerlogue being bombed by the RAF are covered in the Kerlogue article but I think there needs to be an overview on this page. NtheP (talk) 08:05, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. You are correct. In the lead I have 'attacked by both' and "rescued both". I'll add back the RAF attack (and denial) on the Kerlogue. (it is in note 32) Since I have U-boats stopping ships and letting them go, I'll add RN ships doing likewise - probably the Irish Plane and "where is County Clare" story. However I'm concerned lest it is too big. ClemMcGann (talk) 08:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

RAF attack on Kerlogue added Y

revised my opinion, I left out the "where is Clare" story N (unless you advise otherwise) ClemMcGann (talk) 15:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D

As the grandson of a member of the Australian World War II merchant navy I think that it's great to see good quality articles like this on the important contribution made by merchant mariners during the war. My suggestions for further improvements are as follows:

Nick, thanks for the compliment and thanks for your detailed comments, I appreciate your time.

• The list of books consulted should be placed in alphabetical order - Done Y
• There are way too many notes, and most of them need to be referenced. -  Doing...

I will review them - is there a convention for refs on notes?

Yes, all material needs to be cited in higher-rated Wikipedia articles, so notes aren't exempt. Nick-D (talk) 03:16, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I meant: is there a way to put a ref within a ref? ClemMcGann (talk) 03:21, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, you can just place a reference within the note - there are a couple of examples of this in the Dutch 1913 battleship proposal article Nick-D (talk) 03:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Ta very, I was not aware of such syntax ClemMcGann (talk) 10:01, 2 April 2010 (UTC)  Thanks

some(?) now referenced  Doing... done Y

• The single paragraph sub-sections in the Background section should be consolidated

will do  Doing... Y Done

• The 'Change of Flag' section repeats some material which is in the background section

will review  Doing... Y Removed

• The 'Cargo' section seems a bit short - are more data on imports and exports available?

Data exists, although some official data is unreliable, it was exaggerated for wartime propaganda

CSO data on tillage added Y

• The 'Food consumption, per capita, in Calories' table doesn't seem very useful as it gives only the pre-war and post-war figures

I'll look again, my objective was to show that Irish consumption remained stable while others deteriorated. Again some wartime statistics cannot be relied on, pre-war and post-war figures are better. Earlier I was looking at UK imports from the dominions, they seemed to exceed shipping capacity. A friend pointed out that they were published during the war and were inflated for propaganda.

changed from table to a bar chart Y

back to a table N

• It seems a bit inaccurate to say that "some foods were not traditionally grown in Ireland, as the climate was deemed unsuitable" - surely the climate was unsuitable

Point taken - thanks - Done Y

• The full names of people should be provided when they're first mentioned (eg, "To the great annoyance of Gray" is a bit unclear). In other cases who they were needs to be explained (eg, "Frank Aiken reverted that policy").

Point taken - thanks - Done Y

• The text of the article states that restrictions on the use of gas were ' enforced by the Glimmer Man' but note 19 says that no such inspectors actually existed

I will probably just delete the note. There were various fictional inspectors. The public believed in them - and feared them. So they were effective. However from a wikipedia pov there are plenty of books saying that they existed - so they can be verified - Done Y (even if they didn't ;) )

• The 'Inver Tankers' section seems to be miss-placed in the 'cargo' section, and may be too detailed

I will look at it, I need to put some thought into this

reduced - moved to a note Y

• The statement that "The advantages of protection and cheaper insurance were not borne out by experience. So they chose to sail alone." needs to be expanded upon. Overall, Allied ships sailing in convoy suffered dramatically lower casualty rates than those sailing independently - did Irish ships experience the opposite as they were less likely to be attacked due to their neutral status?

Good question. Certainly they believed it to be so. The insurance company set up by Irish Shipping made a handsome profit.

One would image that such info would be readily available, but I can't find it. Ireland lost 16 of 56 (including Clonlara in convoy. What were allied in-convoy losses? N

• The 'U-boats' section should probably be earlier in the article given the importance of its topic (eg, the instructions given to German submariners regarding Irish shipping)

Moved Y

You make a few valid points on the structure - this, the Inver tankers, 'change of flag' v background - I need time to consider the structure

• The gallery of photos in the 'After the war' section seems unnecessary Nick-D (talk) 00:57, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right, given that I took them, I'm attached to them :)

Moved to the end and text added to each Y

Thanks again - I now have plenty of food for thought ClemMcGann (talk) 01:53, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Haus

Big fan of the article, but have had a hard time making concrete suggestions. Very nice job nailing down citations. Please take these points in the collegial spirit they are meant:

• Not a fan of the cquotes, the one in the intro seems particularly out of place.

gone Y}

• Should it be "The Irish Mercantile Marine"?

yes - done Y

• WP:LEDE suggests few if any citations in the lead. Statements made in the lead should also be in the body of the article, and cited there. I sense this guideline changed while I was away.
• WP:LEDE suggests that the article name and other alternate names should be bolded in the first paragraph. This, in turn suggests something like "The Irish Mercantile Marine in World War II, known as The Long Watch to..." as a first sentence

changed Y

• The de Valera and Dönitz photos... Not sure how much they contribute to the article, and their placement on the left is at odds with a guideline at WP:MOSIMAGE about sandwiching text horizontally between images.

still there N any other views?

• "Irish ships were offered the protection of sailing in a convoy..."
  • This is an example of a "stubby paragraph", cf User:Tony1/How_to_satisfy_Criterion_1a#Paragraphing
  • Why do ships usually travel in convoy?

+ve: protection, insurance

-ve: 'legitimate target', time

• • Who offered the protection?

Royal Navy

• • I think the best thing to do would be remove the subheadings "Insurance" and "Convoy experience" and make the section three substantial paragraphs.

removed Y

• The two tables in the cargo section. There's a layout issue here. One part is consistency: right now "Food" is to the right of the first table, and "Beef exports" is above the second. However, even if they were consistent, I can't see how, given the relative sizes of the text and the table, these could be formatted in a manner consistent with featured article quality. Maybe - and this is a wild guess - combining all 4 sets of data in a chart, placing it on the right, and removing the Ardmore picture...
• Having the citations and the reference list smushed together is a problem. There are a variety of ways of dealing with this. See, for example, Parsecboy's Derfflinger class battlecruiser.

done Y

Cheers Haus^Talk 10:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC) A couple of bits I forgot:

• Reconsider use of exclamation points per MOS:EXCLAMATION#Terminal_punctuation

gone Y

• The paragraph "U-638 stopped the Irish Elm..." needs to be reworked. I'd move the note material into the text, remove the parentheses, and try to get the paragraph to flow a little more naturally.

can we say that he was Familiar with the town? I vaguely recollect that he was on the SS Urundi when Blueshirts embarked for the Spanish Civil War? I do not have a reference.

sure... i was just trying to nudge the paragraph towards a more natural flow, it's by no means sacrosanct Haus^Talk 12:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

thanks ClemMcGann (talk) 17:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

• Regarding the photos in "After the war"
  • Take a look at WP:CAPTION, I don't think captions like "3rd Sunday in November" are explanatory enough

all expanded Y

• • Consider moving the Ganly/McCarthy photo into the gallery

done Y

• • "Some of these paintings are reproduced on this page." seems off to me

gone Y}

Cheers. Haus^Talk 11:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, and thanks for your past advice, there is a lot here to be considered. ClemMcGann (talk) 11:59, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Coming along very nicely. I think that at this rate, you'll have a smooth road to WP:MHR#A-CLASS by the time the article passes GA. Haus^Talk 15:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

let's be optimistic and think FA!

I need to consider the comments on structure - thanks, again ClemMcGann (talk) 16:23, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Dank

Sure, you can absolutely think FA, this is a delightful article, but I see a lot of things that make my edit button itchy if you're headed to FAC eventually ... I'm going to take some time today reading ship FAC reviews to confirm or deny some of my suspicions, then I'll give this a whack. - Dank (push to talk) 12:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

appreciated ClemMcGann (talk) 13:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

• These are just some guesses for things you could do with the introduction based on what I've seen at A-class reviews and FAC; don't take these in the spirit of "you did this wrong".

don't worry - I appreciate your opinion.

• You'll run into resistance at FAC over use of the word "ton", since MOSNUM says not to use it: "Use long ton or short ton and not just ton; these units have no symbol or abbreviation and are always spelled out. The tonne, 1000 kilograms, is officially known as the metric ton in the US. Whichever name is used, the symbol is t." I think this is a really tough question, and I'm not particularly happy with the current consensus, either at MOSNUM or at SHIPS. I think we don't write for dead people, we write for whoever's reading right now, and modern readers in Ireland will have a better feel for what a tonne is than what a long ton is (even though the units are very close). Still, there's value in using words and concepts that are used by experts in reliable sources; it can lend both charm and authority. But that position has left too many sentences at FAC struggling under the weight of either conversions among 3 different kinds of tons or, if conversions are omitted, then the unit the reader is most likely to be familiar with is often the one being omitted. But as I say, I'm not in the majority. I never care about unit conversions; I'm just bringing up the issue so you'll be prepared.

I'm not happy with it either. I did add a note saying which ton was used. imho conversions seem to break up the flow of a sentence

• Lose every note in the introduction. In some cases, some of the text should be worked into the introduction;

some notes worked in, some gone  Doing... most gone Y

• "diminutive" isn't enough information, but you could say "thousands of tonnes [or whatever] as opposed to millions of tonnes for most Western European countries", and then give the figures either in the appropriate section or a note in the appropriate section. In some cases you could push all the information down into another section.

thinking ...

"diminutive" gone Y Norwegian comparison added Y

• You may be asked to remove some of the citations from the introduction, on the theory that the information is probably repeated in greater detail below and should be cited there, and mostly on the theory that we want the introduction to be as attractive and simple (but precise) as possible, to draw the reader in.

thinking ... some removed Y although others remain

• I think I'd prefer "non-allied" or "neutral" to "non-participants", but perhaps the latter has a technical or accepted meaning I'm not aware of.

not sure ... unless there are other voices, I'm leaving it alone N

• "... they always stopped to rescue. Irish mariners rescued seafarers from both sides ..." should be tightened, but I'm not sure how.

how? ... can't see how N

• I appreciate the effort to create a "punchy" style in the introduction, reviewers often seem to ask for that, but I think you're taking it too far, for instance: "Vital imports arrived. Exports, mainly food supplies for Great Britain, were delivered. 521 lives were saved."

not sure ... can't see how N

• I agree with a previous reviewer about removing {{cquote}} from the introduction.

Looks like it will have to go. I was attracted to the idea of a cquote at the top 'we are in trouble' balanced with another near the end 'the mercantile marine delivered'

gone Y

• Okay that's all for now, I'll revisit this as it moves through the review process. - Dank (push to talk) 01:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Plenty of food for though there. Thanks for your time ClemMcGann (talk) 10:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

If you like, you can leave things as they are and we'll see how the reviewers react. - Dank (push to talk) 12:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

for some parts, I will Y, I still value your opinion ClemMcGann (talk)

Thanks much. I see you're working hard on this and you've done a lot of good research and have a lot of good ideas. I'll give it another look when it gets to A-class review. - Dank (push to talk) 01:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

No, thank you. Without external opinion i would just drift ClemMcGann (talk) 01:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Response

Thanks to all. I reckon I'm there. A few doubts such as the use of tons. Any final thoughts before I seek GA? ClemMcGann (talk) 01:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC)