Template:Did you know nominations/Charles Manby

Charles Manby

 * ... that Charles Manby was an engineer on the first steamship to cross the English Channel, and served on the international scientific commission on the Suez Canal, the International Commission for the piercing of the isthmus of Suez?

Created/expanded by Paul W (talk). Self nominated at 09:34, 22 July 2013 (UTC).


 * New article within policies and referenced. Added a ranking to the talk page, as well as CE and formatting of citations in the article. Hook is interesting, but a little long. QPQ - CZmarlin (talk) 14:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Support. Shorter hook could be ... that Charles Manby, served on the first steamship to cross the English Channel, and on the International Commission for the piercing of the isthmus of Suez? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:13, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol possible vote.svg Some very close paraphrasing of http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Charles_Manby. This passage, for example, is taken straight from the source, with a few changes in capitalisation:
 * "In 1838 he was appointed engineer to a steamship company, established in London by Sir John Ross, to run steamers between England and India. Only one vessel, the India, was built, and this vessel was afterwards bought, and the company absorbed, by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company."
 * There are several other examples of almost word-for-word copying. What concerns me is that this article's main source isn't available online, so there may well be further copyright violations that the rest of us can't pick up on. DoctorKubla (talk) 20:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Edited copy and added DNB reference. Paul W (talk) 14:00, 17 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg Edits did not address the issue of close paraphrasing—almost word-for-word copying—noted above. Because of this, I don't see any reason to leave this nomination open; it is not even close to eligible for the main page in its current condition. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:58, 18 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Apologies. I was on holiday last week and only able to do some superficial editing. Have now returned and done some more intense research (which also identified errors in the original article), and have added further references to other works.Paul W (talk) 09:21, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Paul, welcome back, and I appreciate that you've done some additional work. However, you continue to make only cosmetic changes to the close paraphrasing endemic in this article. Take the text cited by DoctorKubla above, which in the article now reads:
 * In 1838 he was appointed engineer to the London-based India Steamship Company, established by Sir John Ross, to run steamer services between England and India. One vessel, the India, was built, and later bought, and the company absorbed, by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.
 * This is still far too close to the Grace source, a copyrighted site. Do you not see why this continues to be a problem? In this case, there is a way to salvage the issue in dealing with the Grace material, much of which comes from the public domain 1885 Dictionary of National Biography source; if you were to use the Dictionary's wording as your basis rather than Grace's wording (with a proper public domain credit notice in the reference section), that would take care of this particular instance of close paraphrasing. Frankly, my worry is the extensively used and cited Telford source, which is not accessible online (being behind a pay wall). Given how closely your wording resembles that from cited sources that we have been able to see, it seems likely that the Telford source would be used similarly, which could have serious repercussions, yet we are unable to check it to see whether the 23 uses are properly paraphrased or not. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:50, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, BlueMoonset. I have addressed the Steamship sentence in the manner you suggested. However, I don't have access to the Telford source myself; the article was started by User:Sprocketonline (at GLAM/ICE) and only later did I begin to develop its content so it wasn't reliant on that single source - so, please, it's not 'my wording' as such. I have tried to find additional online sources that could be used in place of the Telford references, but, like you, I can't be sure how far the text might still resemble the Telford text. However, I have compared the current revision with that dated 19 July and I believe it has now moved substantially away from the text then created.Paul W (talk) 08:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks like there's still some near-verbatim copying of the Grace source: compare for example "All resigned their functions when the Company commenced commercial operations" with "they all resigned their functions when the Company commenced commercial operations". Nikkimaria (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I have replaced that sentence with something, I hope, less similar, and reviewed the rest of the Grace's text to ensure it isn't replicated in the article. Paul W (talk) 07:09, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
 * As with the other article, the paraphrasing is a bit superficial. Compare for example "it was navigated across the English Channel by Sir Charles Napier, becoming the first iron vessel to make a sea voyage and to carry a cargo from London to Paris direct" with "was navigated across the Channel by the present Sir Charles Napier...not only the first iron vessel that ever made a sea voyage, but also the first that conveyed a cargo from London to Paris direct". Nikkimaria (talk) 16:28, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Tried to eradicate this para-phrasing too. Paul W (talk) 17:10, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol redirect vote 4.svg I have recut the whole of the article which I believe will remove the paraphrase problem. Can someone overcheck please? Victuallers (talk) 21:18, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol voting keep.svg Much better - AGF because I don't have access to the Telford and a couple others. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: The introduction needs to state the date of the crossing, given that it was a first. Amandajm (talk) 01:46, 23 October 2013 (UTC)