Talk:HMS Swallow (1745)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) 16:07, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Oh, a ship! I'll get to this in the next few days. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:07, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

• Lead:
  • "In 1755 Swallow joined the Downs Station," may want to point out that this returned her to home waters
    •  Done
• Design:
  • A quick explanation of what a sloop is for the non expert?
    • Replying to all the requests for ship explanations here. I think it better to allow people who want to know more to just click on the links. A quick explanation wouldn't provide enough to really be very useful in my mind, unless you want me to just call sloops, snows, and ship-sloops all "small warships" or the like! If you think differently I would appreciate any suggestions, of course
  • "10-gun vessels, they were actually built with seven" the MOS is ... tricky ... here. Generally, when describing/contrasting a series of numbers - we either use all numerals or all ordinals. I'm not sure which would be better here - and while strictly speaking this level of adherence to the MOS isn't required for GA, it isn't a bad idea to try to adhere to this particular part of the MOS - it is a common rule for writing.
    • seven -> 7
  • A quick explanation of what a snow is for the non expert?
    • See previous comment
  • "The sloops were the largest single-design class of ship procured by the Royal Navy, and continued to be so until the advent of the Swan-class ship-sloop in the 1770s." I think you mean "The sloops were the largest single-design class of ship of Royal Navy when they were procured, and continued to be so until the advent of the Swan-class ship-sloop in the 1770s."?
    •  Done
  • A quick explanation of what a ship-sloop is for the non expert? And what exactly did this refit entail?
    • See previous comment for ship explanation. The major change was the addition of a third mast, which is described in text
• East Indies:
  • "As part of the squadron of Rear-Admiral Edward Boscawen Swallow sailed from the Cape of Good Hope on 8 May; the squadron reached Mauritius, with the intention of capturing it from the French, on 23 June." May I suggest that we put why the squadron sailed in the first part of this sentence - perhaps "Intending to capture Mauritius from the French, Rear-Admiral Edward Boscawen sailed with his squadron, Swallow included, from the Cape of Good Hope on 8 May and reached its destination on 23 June."
    •  Done
  • "The 60-gun fourth-rate HMS Pembroke was then sent to give covering fire to Swallow and the 44-gun frigate HMS Eltham as they sailed along the coast with some engineers on board." Do we really need the "fourth-rate" here? or the "with some engineers on board."? We should attempt to avoid too much extraneous detail as we're discussing a specific ship. Unless the number of guns is important for later events, we can probably lose those too - perhaps "The ship-of-the-line HMS Pembroke was then sent to give covering fire to Swallow and the frigate HMS Eltham as they sailed along the coast."?
    • Removed the engineers part. I would keep "fourth-rate" rather than use "ship of the line" here because they were more often than not grouped separately to the other ships of the line - while a second rate and a third rate might reasonably by called "two ships of the line", if they had a fourth rate in company it is more likely the description would become "two ships of the line and a fourth rate" rather than "three ships of the line".

While I am not going to die on a hill to save my use of gun numbers in articles, I will at least make one attempt to argue the point. I am of the mind that including the number of guns assists the reader in understanding just what type and size a ship they are reading about is. If I simply call a ship "the frigate" then that could be anything between a 580 ton 26-gun frigate and a 1200 ton 44-gun frigate. Adding the number of guns a ship held is in my mind a simple way to pretty accurately illustrate important differences between similar types of vessel. What do you think?

• • "and the 50-gun fourth-rate HMS Chester to join the 58-gun fourth-rate Exeter off Pondicherry on 3 August" again, the details of each ship are just distracting from the important parts about the subject of the article.
    • See previous comment
  • quick explanation for "paid off" "in ordinary" - it's usually good to give a quick definition in your article for unfamiliar terms as this prevents the loss of readers to another article
    • Have attempted explanations, do they work?
  • "This work cost £3,370.2.1d" I think we can just say "over 3300" and avoid the exact precision - we're an encyclopedia not a book-length history of the ship
    • Went with 3,370 as hopefully an agreeable compromise
  • Say where the Downs station was based/patrolled?
    • I would feel a little silly saying that "The Downs Station was based in the Downs", and it has already been added that the station was at home for what it is worth
• Downs:
  • "joined the Western Squadron." as above - where was this located?
    • They served pretty widely so I've added that it was based in Plymouth
  • "company with the 28-gun frigate HMS Aquilon" You know what I'm going to say ...
    • See previous comment
  • "captured the letter of marque Le Tigre" - this makes no sense to a non-expert. I think you mean "captured the Le Tigre which was sailing with a letter of marque" but...
    • Ships sailing under a letter of marque are routinely called letters of marque themselves. E.g. the London Gazette referenced uses "Letter of Marque Sloop from Martinico", while Winfield records "Letter of Marque Le Tigre 12.2.1761".
  • "Le Tigre had sailed from Martinique and had on board a cargo of cocoa, elephants teeth, coffee, and caffia." Utterly unneeded details for an encyclopedia article.
    • Removed
  • "captured the 10-gun privateer snow Le Sultan off Bayonne on 28 February after a chase of twenty-six hours."
    • Removed the twenty-six hours part. I don't see how denoting the type of ship is too much information
  • "discovered that they had been encouraged in their actions by Swallow's boatswain." so ... why would this not mean the boatswain should have been executed or at least punished?
    • One would hope so! The source does not say, however: "Croall and Fineran were sentenced to hang but it was not carried out when it emerged that the boatswain had played a part in encouraging them." If I were to guess, I would say that the boatswain was one of the other four brought to court martial, but he did not actually mutiny himself, only encouraging others, and thus could not be punished as severely as the true mutineers. But that's just a theory!
• "The ship was surveyed on 17 August and subsequently received a small repair at Chatham Dockyard between February and August 1766" - she can't "subsequently" have received something after February to August 1766 if the date of the first event was 17 August 1766.
  • The 17 August refers to the previously mentioned year, which in 1763. I've repeated it to make it more obvious.
  • "at the cost of £3,915.1.6d" - again "over 3900" would work fine and avoid too much detail.
    • Shake at 3,915?!
  • You link to "Pacific Sea" - but that's a 1947 collection of poems. Did you mean "Pacific Ocean"?
    • Erm..maybe the navy just really wanted to know more about poetry? I suppose I'll change it..!
  • "was setting out to better John Byron's earlier attempt" better it how? This doesn't make any sense - "better an attempt" usually means trying to improve some sort of record/outcome - but exploring expeditions usually "expand upon" earlier explorations
    • I've clarified a little. Byron literally discovered nothing on his expedition, so the navy were sending out another expedition to actually find something!
  • "where they recorded the height of the native Patagonians." seems an odd detail to include - did they do other exploring/research?
    • This was the major thing they did before starting their passage through the strait - it is mentioned in most histories of the expedition that I've read.
  • "Having spent ten days of the voyage, of which some Swallow was only able to move with the aid of her small boats towing her, the ships began a refit at Port Famine on 27 December." this is unclear - did you mean "After ten days, with Swallow often having to be towed by her small boats, the ships reached Port Famine on 27 December and began a refit."?
    •  Done
• Return:
  • Do we know who she sold to or what happened after that?
    • Not recorded in my sources. Usually such small vessels as Swallow would be bought by civilians and either broken up at a profit or turned into merchant ships. Occasionally they were used as privateers, but I doubt such a bad ship as Swallow would have been bought for such a purpose. Pinging @Acad Ronin: here in the knowledge that if anyone might know what happened to Swallow after her sale, it'll be them.
• I did do some copyediting, please make sure I didn't introduce errors or mangle things.
• I randomly googled three phrases and only turned up Wikipedia mirrors. Earwig's tool shows no sign of copyright violation.

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth (talk) 15:23, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

@Ealdgyth: Hi, thank for another very thorough review and helpful copy edits. I believe I have responded to all your comments above. I realise that I've refuted more points than I usually would in a GAN, for which I apologise. This isn't a competition I'm trying to "win", so if you still think I'm wrong on anything please say so! Thanks again for all your hard work. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

It's all good. A lot of what I bring up is suggestions. I'm not going to fail an article because we disagree on whether something this tiny is in or not. Passing now! Ealdgyth (talk) 12:17, 11 April 2022 (UTC)