Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jean-François-Marie de Surville/archive1

Jean-François-Marie de Surville

 * Nominator(s): Zawed (talk) 09:01, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

This article is about Jean-François-Marie de Surville, a French mariner and explorer of the 18th century who sailed from French India as leader of an expedition hoping to find the mythical Davis Land. The expedition was unsuccessful but it ended up being only the third European visit to New Zealand, after those of Abel Tasman and James Cook, the latter preceding him by only a matter of days. My first ever FA nomination, I have been working away on the article, on and off, for a while, taking it to GA earlier this year. I look forward to the feedback of the reviewers. Zawed (talk) 09:01, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Support. This article seems to me to meet the FA criteria. It is highly readable, evidently comprehensive, very well illustrated, and thoroughly referenced from a range of sources. A few duplicate links – Malacca, East Indies, North Cape – don't greatly bother me, though I could do without the otiose linking of "French" in the opening sentence and "New Zealand" later. "British" and "English" are used seemingly interchangeably, which I'm not sure about. But nothing to prevent support, I think. –  Tim riley  talk   06:25, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support. I have dealt with the dupe links, the linking of French and New Zealand, and also resolved the inconsistency between English/British. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 06:39, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Image review


 * Image scaling should be done using upright rather than fixed px size


 * File:Magasins_de_la_Compagnie_des_Indes_à_Pondichéry.jpg needs a US PD tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:45, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have adjusted image sizing as indicated plus add a USPD tag as required. Thanks, Zawed (talk) 10:35, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Does not compute. ..."when the ship arrived at Port-Louis, only 69 of the original complement of 173 men had completed Surville's expedition; 79 had died through sickness or attacks by hostile islanders, and another 28 had deserted.". I don't have the Dunmore book to check but a further three seem to be AWOL. Moriori (talk) 22:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That's a good catch, I should have thought to add up the numbers as a doublecheck. The total number of survivors was actually 66, I must have made a typo when writing this section of the article up. Corrected now. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 07:47, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Sources review

 * Spotchecks: For first-time FA nominations I like to carry out a few spotchecks on sources, for accuracy, close paraphrasing etc. In this case, there's only one source which provides an online link, that to the DNZ biography (Dunmore 1990), so I've checked the four citations to that (Ref 3). Incidentally, this gives pp. 411–412, which I can't see in the source.
 * Ref 3a: Your text: "Surville's employer was a commercial enterprise established several years previously to trade in the East Indies". Where does it say this in the source?
 * It doesn't and looks to be an error that crept in as the article was expanded and new refs inserted. I have added a ref from Salmond (a well regarded professor of anthropology at the University of Auckland) to support this. Zawed (talk) 23:05, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Ref 3b: Your text: "During the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War he served in the French navy." Checks out
 * Ref 3c: Your text: "he married Marie Jouaneaulx at Nantes. The couple had two sons, who later joined the French Army" Checks out
 * Ref 3d: Your text: "Father Paul-Antoine Léonard de Villefeix, the chaplain on Saint Jean-Baptiste, conducted the first Christian service in New Zealand when he celebrated mass on Christmas Day 1769." you need to qualify this, in accordance with the source, which only says that it is likely that Fr de Villefeix did this.
 * Have done. Dunmore's 1981 book (which I only acquired a couple of weeks ago) goes into a bit more detail on this but he is careful to only present it as a possibility, albeit a likely one. I have expanded slightly on this for more context. Zawed (talk) 23:05, 3 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Formats:
 * WorldCat gives 2009 as the date for this edition of Quanchi and Robinson
 * The copy I used came from my local library and the publication year in that is given as 2005. Doing a quick google search also supports this as the preview pages show 2005 as publication date on pages iii and iv]. Zawed (talk) 23:05, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Otherwise, all refs and sources seem to be consistently formatted

Brianboulton (talk) 20:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Quality and reliability. No obvious issues here. The sources seem to be satisfy the criteria for quality and reliability.
 * thanks for looking at this, my replies are inserted above. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 23:05, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Support Comments by Ian
Recusing coord duties to copyedit/review...
 * Can we say what sort of vessel Bagatelle was?
 * None of the sources I have state what she was. Zawed (talk) 09:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Surville is described as returning to the French East India Company in 1748 and 1765 but I didn't see where he'd left it in-between. I assume it was in the 1750s due to his service in the Seven Year's War but be nice to see it spelt out.
 * I have rephrased to mention him returning to active duty. Zawed (talk) 09:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Surville sailed first to the Nicobar Islands to verify the presence of a Danish colony there and then, without stopping, proceeded to Malacca, arriving on 29 June 1769 -- "Without stopping" reads a bit oddly to me; do we mean he verified the colony's existence as he sailed past?
 * I have rephrased this section to provide more clarity. Caught a page citation error in the process so fixed this as well. Zawed (talk) 09:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)


 * ...several of his crew deserted. In retaliation, Surville kidnapped some of the Bashi islanders -- "Retaliation"? Did the Bashi islanders induce Surville's men to desert?
 * No I don't think so. Retaliation is probably not the right word to use here so I have rephrased for greater clarity. Zawed (talk) 09:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

That's about it. The article seems quite comprehensive, which I imagine would be a bit of a challenge given the times we're talking about, so well done. Will take Nikki's image check and Brian's source review as read. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:17, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
 * , Thanks for the feedback, I have replied to your various points above. Zawed (talk) 09:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Tks mate, that's all fine (tweaked things a bit but you probably expected that!) -- happy to support. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:26, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by Kaiser matias

 * "Born in Brittany, France, Surville joined the French East India Company when he was 10 years old, in 1727." Would this be better like: "Born in Brittany, France, Surville joined the French East India Company in 1727, when he was 10-years-old."?


 * "...including an account of Abel Tasman's journey of 1642 to New Zealand." Perhaps: "including an account of Abel Tasman's 1642 journey to New Zealand."?

Other than that don't see anything really needing to be worked on. Interesting topic. Kaiser matias (talk) 17:35, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you looking at this, I have rephrased as per your suggestion. Thanks, Zawed (talk) 08:17, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Great, then you have my support. Well done. Kaiser matias (talk) 02:36, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  16:58, 12 August 2019 (UTC)