Talk:Tom Rees (aviator)

Interesting new article!!

In fact unusually good for what is still almost a "first draft" - many "WWI aviator" articles have taken several years to get half as good! Two or three minor quibbles.

1) The first one, which I have NOT as yet addressed, is that Rees should be described as an "Airman" rather than a "Soldier". The article will have to be moved. Would the author perhaps like to do the homours? Of course in a sense all airmen are soldiers, and the members of the Royal Flying Corps were so in a formal sense too, since the RFC was an integral part of the British army. On the other hand we do call every other WWI airman (whether pilot or other aircrew) covered in this encyclopedia a airman rather than a soldier.

Moved to Tom Rees (British airman) --Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:01, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

2) I also noticed that Rees was described as "serving" in an F.E.2b when he was killed. More specifically, he was actually "flying" in the thing when Richthofen shot him. A very minor point, but slightly better style, I think. Much more important is the misdescription of the F.E.2b as a "scout plane". This is wrong - a "scout" in WWI aeronautical parlance was a small single seat aircraft - essentially what we would call a fighter. Aircraft used for reconnaissance duties are in fact still generally called "reconnaissance aircraft" rather than "scouts". The F.E.2b was actually, as a perusal of its Wikipedia article will reveal, a general purpose aircraft, used as a two-seat fighter and bomber aircraft as well as for visual and photographic reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and contact patrol. No need whatever to go into this kind of detail at this point of course. but "aircraft" is in this context much better than "scout plane". (Especially as "scout plane" has in any case the air of having been lifted verbatim from an author with little knowledge of aircraft). All the same - well done!! --Soundofmusicals (talk) 07:09, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

We are trying to fix the minor issues. Changed "scout plane => aircraft" and hope I got them all. Thanks for the technical stuff. I have very little knowledge on this. Did we get everything?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:01, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Harverrors

User:Ucucha/HarvErrors with this installed on my page User:Keith-264/common.js here, I get red signs on a page which has er, harv errors, which makes it easy to spot them, although not always as easy to remedy. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 21:12, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Currency conversion

Not sure when it was when the medals got sold. Here is a current conversion of 1 British Pound Sterling equals $1.68 US Dollar. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

They sold in 1999. Your figure would be close enough. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

$7,560.00 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The referenced article is not quite clear if it was sold on 1999-12-02 or 1999-12-09. Looking at historical currency conversion rates, 1999-12-01 was 1.6003 (£4,500 = $7,201.35) and 1999-12-10 was 1.6215 (£4,500 = $7,296.75). I found it interesting that this was only about a 3.5% variation over the 14 years to the current rate. This is less variation than the 4.8% which can be seen in the exchange rate in at least one month in 1999 (I only checked one month, July, for which it appeared likely this would be the case). — Makyen (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Why was he moved back to "British Army Officer"?

This is really very very silly. The bulk of commissioned airmen in the First World war were "army" (or "naval") officers - since there was no such thing as an "air force" as a separate, independent service until the Royal Air Force was founded in April 1918. If the relocation of this article is correct, then hundreds of other articles are wrong - a bit like the only driver on the freeway who isn't going the wrong way. Maybe someone has a cutesy idea of this one being "different", but I think above all an encyclopedia needs to be consistently organised. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 09:38, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

What is this guy known for?

I was just wondering, as it is not obvious from this article, what is this guy known for exactly? Being killed by Richtofen? Nicolas Perrault (talk) 19:58, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Deletion? WTF?

I very, very rarely use the expression "wtf", but wtf? Notability is temporally relative; this airman was always notable for his distinguished career, apart being the Red Baron's first victim and the historical significance of his medals; he is still notable now. Many "notables" of today's Wikipedia will not be remembered in ten years' time, let alone 100+. Tony Holkham (Talk) 17:16, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Yup. There are a lot of WTF at AfD. It's much easier to delete than save, and what counts as sufficient today will not be tomorrow depending on the mix of personalities active at AfD. Follow WP:RESCUELIST. -- GreenC 17:52, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Tony Holkham how was Rees notable in his lifetime? What was "his distinguished career"? He only became known after his death once people began to learn of von Richthofen's victories. Him being von Richthofen's first kill is pure WP:1E. We wouldn't even have heard of him if von Richthofen had only shot down 4 planes. Mztourist (talk) 10:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Several suppositions. See for more substantial reasons for keeping the article. Tony Holkham (Talk) 11:20, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean "several suppositions"? You say Rees had a distinguished career, what was distinguished about it? His medals are described as "somewhat commonplace" on the BBC story. If von Richthofen hadn't become the top ace (or even one of the leading aces) of WWI no-one would ever know of his first kill Rees. No "substantial reasons for keeping the article" were raised at the AFD, it was essentially ILIKEIT arguments based on vague claims that it met GNG when the sources mostly refer to von Richthofen and not Rees. Mztourist (talk) 18:08, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Your understanding of GNG and SIGCOV is incorrect. It doesn't matter if a book is a biography of JFK, it can contain significant coverage of his commanding officer. Just as a book about the Middle Ages can contain significant coverage of Henry II; and a book about the Moon can contain significant coverage of Neal Armstrong. You should raise these issues in another forum where neutral people can set you straight on the difference between the topic of a source, and significant coverage of a topic. -- GreenC 18:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

My understanding of SIGCOV and GNG is perfectly correct. Read the sources for Rees, they're largely about von Richthofen. Rees should be treated like a WP:VICTIM because he has no notability apart from the WP:1E of being von Richthofen's first kill (and most of the page is about that). As I said above, Rees wouldn't even be known without his association with von Richthofen and his "somewhat commonplace" medals are only of any value because of who killed him. If you can't see that then you need other "neutral people [to] set you straight." Mztourist (talk) 06:34, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Attribution

Text and references copied from Manfred von Richtofen and Tom Rees (airman), See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)