Talk:Fritz Duquesne/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Jonas Vinther (talk · contribs) 18:18, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• Well-written

a. the prose is clear and concise, it respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct

b. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation

Here is a list of sentence or grammar errors I discovered.

1. Is it really necessary to mention ten nicknames in the infobox? It's good if you can find nicknames on people, but don't overdo it.

2. The "Boer and German" sentence from the infobox should be changed to "Boer people and Germany" as "Boer" is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer. I know it's used to describe people form Cape Colony, but since that is already mentioned in the article, I would suggest this or a different wording.

3. "sometimes Du Quesne" - I would suggest changing this sentence to "sometimes referred to as Du Quesne", but this is just a suggestion.

4. "was a South African Boer and German soldier, big-game hunter, journalist, and a spy" - This sentence should be changed to "was a South African (later German) soldier, hunter, journalist, and spy".

5. "Duquesne was captured and imprisoned three times by the British and once by the Portuguese, and each time he escaped" - Just a suggestion, but I would change this sentence to "Duquesne was captured and imprisoned three times by the British and once by the Portuguese, but escaped each time".

6. "and led an attempt to sabotage Cape Town and to assassinate the commander-in-chief Lord Kitchener" - When his military rank/position is followed by his name it should be capitalized per MOS:JOBTITLES.

7. "Lord Kitchener was en route to Russia" - Visibly misspelled word.

8. "where he faced execution for the deaths of British sailors" - Visibly misspelled word again.

9. "Between wars, Duquesne served as an adviser on big game hunting to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, as a publicist in the movie business, as a journalist, as a fictional Australian war hero, and as head of the New Food Society in New York" - This sentence should be changed to "Between wars, Duquesne served as an adviser on big game hunting to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, publicist in the movie business, journalist, fictional Australian war hero, and as head of the New Food Society in New York".

10. "and spoke of many battles, some fact and some fictional" - I would suggest changing this to "and often spoke of both factual and fictional battles".

11. "Fritz Duquesne was born to a Boer family of French Huguenot origin in East London, Cape Colony in 1877 and later moved with his parents, Abraham Duquenne and Minna Joubert, to Nylstroom in the South African Republic (now Modimolle, South Africa) where they started a farm" - This needs to be changed to something like "Fritz Duquesne was born in 1877 to Abraham Duquenne and Minna Joubert, a Boer family of French Huguenot origin in East London, Cape Colony. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to the South African Republic (now Modimolle, South Africa) where they started a farm".

12. "Abraham made his living as a hunter who also frequently traveled to sell skins, tusks, and horns, and he hired local natives to work the farm. He had two younger siblings, his sister Elsbet and his brother Pedro. He was a descendent of the French Huguenot naval commander Abraham Duquesne (1610–1688), and claimed his uncle was Piet Joubert (1880–1900), a hero in the First Boer War and Commandant-General of the South African Republic, although his family relationship is disputed" - Intersting, but the "He had two younger siblings, his sister Elsbet and his brother Pedro" part appears to WP:OFFTOPIC.

13. "As a youth, Fritz Duquesne became a hunter like his father" - Two errors here. 1. It's either "As a youngster" or "In his youth" and 2. There is no need to mention Fritz's full name when it's already stated earlier in that section; simply use his first name.

14. "waiting motionless for the perfect time to strike while cautious Cape Buffalo" - The letter "a" is missing between "while" and "cautious".

15. "In the Second Boer War" - The article previously referred to the Second Boer War as simply "the Boer War" presumably on the grounds that its plainly obvious Fritz was too young to have served in the first, so there is essentially no need for the "Second" addition.

16. "in the 1930s he stamped "all of his communiques to Germany with the figure of a cat, back arched and fur raised in anger" - The quote should not begin at "all" but at "figure".

17. "and the Duquesne family was forced to retreat the nearby river" - The word "to" is missing between "retreat" and "the".

18. "fought a long gun battle against the Impi and Fritz Duquesne shot and killed several" - Again, there is really no need for the full name mention.

20. "When the fighting ended, his Uncle Koos" - Uncle should not be capitalized.

21. "When he was 13, he was sent to school in England" - It appears the letter "a" is missing between "to" and "school".

22. "Duquense himself writes that after he finished school in England he was sent to Europe to study engineering, but on the ship he met an embezzler named Christian de Vries and the two decided to take a trip around the world" - Two errors here. 1. England is in Europe so don't use the "sent to Europe" part and 2. The article just mentions "the ship" as if we were supposed to have heard anything about some ship previously in the article.

23. "He was wounded with a bullet through his right shoulder" - Replace the word "with" with "by".

24. "and promoted to the rank of captain in the artillery" - It's not grammarly correct to say "captain in the artillery". You can say "captain of the artillery department" or "captain of artillery".

25. "For Duquesne, this would become the watershed event, as Ronnie states" - This sentence appears to written from a personal point of view.

26. "He then infiltrated the British army" - "army" should be capitalized when preceded by "British".

27. The article again states "As Ronnie states" which seems to be non-neutral.

28. "would turn him into what (Duquense biographer) Clement Wood called" - The article has already mentioned that Clement Wood is a biographer so need for that addition in this quote.

29. "conspiracy against the British government and on (the charge of) espionage" - The "()" in this quote should be replaced with "[]".

We're only at the second section and already I have listed 29 points. Because of this I will recommend the GA-nominator or other major contributors to have a look over the article with grammar-critical eyes again.

• Verifiable with no original research

a. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline

b. It provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines

c. It contains no original research

The bulk of the articles sources is books which are fine, but many of the books are missing required information such as ISBN numbers. The article also cites History Channel which is not a reliable source. In addition, the article also has sources listed simply like this http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=27541. Not all the sources are arranged alphabetically and many have wrong template information. I'd also suggest the editors who worked on this article re-look the source section.

• Broad in its coverage

a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic

b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail

The article is very broad in its coverage and does not go into unnecessary detail (content that comes off as off-topic has been pointed out in the "Well-written" section and will therefore be ignored in this question).

• Neutral

It represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each

The article is neutral and does not include personal opinions or statements (some non-neutral comments have been pointed out in the "Well-written" section so will be therefore ignored in this question).

• Stable

It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute

The article does not seem to be stable. A long discussion/dispute occurred in June and in August there was a long improvement talk which seems to discuss errors that are still in the article.

• Illustrated

a. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content

b. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions

The article has a total of eleven images all of which are uploaded and from Commons. However, the placement and size of some of these images comes off rather unorganized and messy. I would recommend also glancing over the images and their placement.

• Pass, fail, or hold?

Per all my points mentioned in this review I'm going to fail it. I will happily review again when further improvements and changes are made. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 20:21, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

While I have no opinion about the conclusion, and am impressed by the thoroughness with which this editor has approached their GA responsibility, I would simply note it is not very helpful to have a semiretired editor with a completely redacted Talk page engaged in GA work. 71.239.87.100 (talk) 15:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)