Wikipedia:Peer review/New Guinea Volunteer Rifles/archive1

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New Guinea Volunteer Rifles[edit]

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it has been completely rewritten recently, but due to the breadth of the literature available and my limited understanding of this period I am unsure if the coverage is sufficient. Have attempted to place the actions of the battalion into the wider context of the events of the New Guinea campaign at the time and hoping for knowledgeable editors to review and provide suggestions for any further improvements / changes before I take it to GA. Thanks, Anotherclown (talk) 22:35, 14 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by AustralianRupert: G'day, great to see a detailed article on this. Good work. I took a quick run through and fixed a few minor typos/MOS issues. I have a couple of quick comments for now, but will read through the article more thoroughly a bit later...

  • "File:NGVR colour patch.PNG": I think the licence here should actually be "PD-shape" per the advice I received during the ACR for the 2/18th Battalion (Australia);
  • "File:2-5 commando company.jpg": if possible, could a better quality version of this be uploaded? I think that the AWM has now cropped this if you follow the link on the Commons page;
  • "File:Rabaul invasion beach 1946 (AWM 129857).jpg": if possible, I wonder if you could crop this?
  • I saw some minor inconsistency in terms of the use of serial commas. For example "In February 1951 a small..." v. "On 17 May 1969, PNGVR..."
  • probably add a link to battle honour somewhere.
  • the motto is listed in the infobox, but not in the body of the article and is therefore possibly uncited.
  • same as above for the Regimental March. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • you could probably also wikilink the Regimental Flower, although you will need to contend with a dab: Flame of the Forest. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:46, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the ce and the comments so far. I've gone ahead and done these (except the commas - will look for them now). Anotherclown (talk) 04:19, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • G'day, I did a bit of copyediting this afternoon. Please check that you are happy with my changes. Also, I have a couple of extra points:
  • "former AIF officer" (AIF hasn't been introduced here);
  • repetitious: "...preparing to destroy key infrastructure to deny it to the Japanese. Meanwhile, another company formed at Lae under Captain Hugh Lyon for the same purpose. Both companies were ordered to destroy key infrastructure..." (destroy key infrastructure)
  • not sure about the punctuation in the sentence beginning with: "These would be concentrated on the Japanese force at Heath's Plantation..." Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:05, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Quite right, that is poorly written. I had a chop at correcting these now. If you could have another look and let me know if you think further changes are necessary that would be greatly appreciated. Anotherclown (talk) 08:43, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, that's better. I have a suggestion, though. Perhaps this might be clearer: "These would be concentrated in three areas: on the Japanese force at Heath's Plantation, where they formed an obstacle to any large-scale movement against Lae; on the Lae area to destroy the aircraft, dumps and installations located there, and to test the defences with a view to larger scale operations in the future; and on the Salamaua area to destroy the wireless station, aerodrome and dumps." Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:25, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Have adopted this wording now, thanks for persisting with this. Anotherclown (talk) 09:42, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • No worries; looks good. Good luck with taking the article further. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:59, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "whites-only", "mixed race", "Europeans": It's best to be careful with language about ethnicity ... and often, there's not a lot of logic in which words are recommended, what's "right" is generally different in different countries, and tends to change over time. So ... I can't say what's right, but I'd start with dropping the quote marks, and being as specific as you can. That is, instead of saying a unit was whites-only, say how it got that way ... was it left up to recruiters to reject anyone whose skin color looked wrong?
    • Will have to have a think about this. The quotation marks are used because that the language specifically used in the sources. Not sure of what instrument was used to prevent their recruitment and can't find it in the sources. Will keep looking though as that would be good to include I agree. Anotherclown (talk) 10:13, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, several points. There are times when it's not a problem (if I understand MOS correctly) to put quote marks around one or two words to mean "This is what people tended to call it", but because of the sensitive nature of the statement, this would be a good time to go "by the book". (See :) quotemarks around "by the book" are fine because we're chatting, so you're not expecting any deeper meaning than the obvious; in encyclopedic text, people are more likely to wonder about the meaning.) And the book says: quotes need to be attributed in-text. But if you say that X called them "mixed race", that of course raises the question of what he meant, a question that probably needs to be answered here. - Dank (push to talk) 13:34, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Gday again. I've removed the quotation marks now and changed mixed race to multi-racial. Added enlistment of PNG and Chinese pers to lead to clarify meaning of multi-racial. Does this work? Anotherclown (talk) 21:06, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Due to the provisions of the League of Nations": I'm not sure what this is saying ... which provisions?
  • "Yet following the outbreak of war": I don't get what's unexpected enough to merit a "yet" here, at least in the sense of "nevertheless".
    • "Yet" is used to contrast it with the sentence before which said that no defensive preparations existed prior to then (due to the provisions of the mandate). Is that grammatically incorrect? Anotherclown (talk) 10:13, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'll discuss this a bit more in the copyediting software, but yes, I don't recommend "yet" here, because it's not unexpected that people would undertake defensive preparations during wartime. Other versions of the sentence might support a "yet". - Dank (push to talk) 13:34, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "enemy aliens which were being deported": ... who ...
    • Mostly Germans and Austrians, added now. Anotherclown (talk) 10:13, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, you're right, if you know they're mostly Germans and Austrians, that's good to know ... but I meant "enemy aliens who were being deported". - Dank (push to talk) 13:34, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oh yes I see what you mean. Changed "which" to "who" now. Anotherclown (talk) 21:06, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did some copyediting, and got down to Rabaul. - Dank (push to talk) 02:29, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks very much for that - I applied some of the changes you made to the lead to the body of the text as well (where I repeated certain phrases). Anotherclown (talk) 10:13, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]