Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/William Brill

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.

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William Brill

Nominator(s): Ian Rose (talk)

Following on from John Balmer, this article focusses on his successor as commanding officer of No. 467 Squadron RAAF, a guy who managed to get out of all manner of scrapes in the air war over Europe and, unlike Balmer, survive the conflict and play a part in the post-war RAAF. The article has recently passed a GA review. As far as a possible FAC goes, it's a bit shorter than most I've nominated but on the other hand he had a relatively brief life and I don't think any significant area is missing coverage, so welcome comment on that too. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments:

• Is there a reason you don't start with his rank? My personal inclination is to start with it, but I guess different writers have different styles
  • The rule of thumb is that only air officers, that is Air Commodores amd above, have the rank in the opening sentence.
• I believe quote marks for nicknames are more common than parentheses, though MOS:BIO doesn't have any specific guidance on the issue
  • My practice has been to use parentheses for common short forms like Bill, Dick and so on, so I'd prefer to stick to that if it's not violating any rules.
• Place of birth shouldn't generally be in the lead unless it's relevant to the subject's notability
  • Hmm, never heard of that, I almost always give the town or region of birth in articles. I think in this case it definitely reflects the weight given to him being a country boy in at least one of my main sources.
• Could you explain what "militia" means in this context?
  • What Rupert says below -- I generally pipe to Australian Army Reserve but was lazy this time... ;-)
• Is there anything more known about his personal life? The article certainly covers his career well, but there doesn't seem to be much detail on what he did when he wasn't flying. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
  • For a military man who died in harness I think his personal life is reasonably well covered compared to similar articles. I think about the only thing I can add is that he was a Freemason, and happy to do that... Thanks for reviewing! cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support Comments – looks pretty, just a couple of comments from me:
  • no dab links, ext links work, alt text is present (no action required);
  • I suggest changing the militia wikilink to point to Australian Army Reserve, as this will provide more context to what it means. I believe that it was actually the organisation's proper name between 1929/30 and 1948, so it should probably be capitalised as "Militia";
    • Wilco.
      • Even capitalized Militia probably needs an Australia(n) next to the first instances in the lead and prose; its certainly not as well know as The Royal Navy which gets a fair amount of complaints from editors in reviews. Or be consistent with the other articles in the series. Kirk (talk) 16:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
        • Done for clarification, though I haven't made it part of the piped link as it wasn't part of the official name (unlike say Australian Army). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
  • the abbreviation "RAF" should be formally introduced on first mention of "Royal Air Force";
    • Fair enough.
  • this sounds a little awkward to me: "Brill dived the Lancaster and succeeded in blowing out the flames". Perhaps: "Brill put the Lancaster into a drive and succeeded in blowing out the flames";
    • I think I came to the wording I did because what you suggest (which I prefer) is pretty well the exact wording in the source, but will see what I can do...
      • No worries, sometimes there is only a few ways to actually say somethng before it becomes different altogether, so if you can't reword it without changing the meaning, I can live with it. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
  • some of the citations end with full stops but others don't (e.g. compare # 6 and # 7). This should probably be consistent, but it is a very minor thing. AustralianRupert (talk) 04:12, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Hmm, I agree they're not the same but the form is exacly what I always use w/o issues being raised. I think how it is would be acceptable for the same reason that image captions in one phrase or sentence are okay w/o full stops but if you have more than one sentence, you use them. In any case, thanks for taking the time to review, mate. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
      • No worries, its only minor and if its not been an issue before, it shouldn't be an issue now. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support - another well written biography of a remarkable RAAF officer IMO. I've read this from top to bottom and only have one minor point:
  • " Brill, however, made his attack run at 1,500 feet..." I'm no expert on this area but would "bombing run" be more appropriate terminology than "attack run"? Anotherclown (talk) 10:14, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Thanks for reviewing, mate. I think I avoided "bombing run" 'cos there's so many instances of "bomb" (or variations) in there, but tweaked a bit to something different... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:52, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support - other than my minor complaint about the Militia I can't think of anything else - nice work. Kirk (talk) 15:36, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Tks, Kirk. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:45, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 00:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 02:25, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Tks Dan. The only edit I'd take a bit of an exception to (though I get it) is the Lincoln Mk/Mark 30 thingy. The RAAF typically used "Mk" for "Mark", rather than the full word, so what I had was strictly correct. If you don't think it makes sense to the general reader then probably best we spell it out as simply "Mark 30" (not "Mk (Mark) 30") or I can just drop it entirely -- it's not vital. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:45, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
    • I changed it to a link. If that works for you, let's do that consistently at the first appearance of "Mk" in an article ... there are a lot of readers (including some FAC reviewers) who won't get it. - Dank (push to talk) 13:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Okay by me, tks. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:49, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Closed with consensus to promote.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.