Talk:Victor Jones (British Army officer)

Types of Dummy Tank

Currently an image caption says "A dummy tank, of the sort used by Jones". The image is of an M4 Sherman. The first 300 of these arrived in Egypt in September 1942 in time for Alamein. Whatever dummies Jones was making between 1941 and then were presumably something else. The dummies used at Alamein in Operation Bertram seem all to have been made of palm hurdles and canvas, definitely not inflatable, and they were made by Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate, where Maskelyne had briefly worked. The inflatable Sherman seems to date from 1944 for use in France. (Maskelyne definitely made prototype tank "sunshields" but it's not clear he made dummy tanks.) What sort of dummy tanks did Jones make or "use"? Some citations might be useful. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You're probably right, I've got nothing clear and that image was added some time ago :) At Al Elemain I have references to him being in charge of 4th Armoured - a fictional brigade created when the real 4th Armoured was torn apart during the retreat. He had command of inflatables and props, apparently, as well as (later) real tanks. No info on exactly what the models were. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

p.s. I'm currently in email contact with someone who has a *lot* of images of these tanks etc. who might be able to upload them under a free license. So there may well be a lot more to play with in the near future. --Errant ^(chat!) 10:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Victor Jones (British Army officer)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Dank (talk · contribs) 01:53, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Review

• The toolbox checks out.
• There are two "deceptions" and one "deceive" in the first paragraph, followed by "deception" in the first section title ... vary the language a bit.
  •  Done see what you think
• "Jones was a socialite and would talk at length about his acquaintances.": I'm not sure what that's saying, or why it's in the lead.
  • Just repeating stuff in the body. Removed.
• "Mentioned in Despatches": mentioned in despatches, or Mention in Despatches
  •  Done
• "The first record of Jones is a posting": Does this mean there's no written evidence of his existence before that?
  • Yep; there is very little about him. I realise this presents something of a challenge to getting it up the quality ladder :) but reviews are always helpful nevertheless.
• "Lieutenant-Colonel": lieutenant colonel
  •  Done
• "; deployed as needed in deceptions.": sentence fragment (like this one). Replace the colon with a comma.
  •  Done
• "causing trouble to": harrying
  •  Done
• "Whilst there he became interested": He became interested
  •  Done
• There are no citations to Rankin or Howard.
  •  Done
• Good Article biographies generally have information on the family and concerning the death.
  • I'll dig through the sources again... but very little else exists beyond his war work. If this is a blocker to GA status that's fine :)
• "pg.": p.
  •  Done
• Otherwise:

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

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): 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):

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 fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   - Dank (push to talk) 02:12, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the review!! --Errant ^(chat!) 07:53, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure. Please review my edits. (Ranks are capitalized like titles ... "King Richard", but "Richard was king". Also, only military jargon allows a "proper verb" like Mentioned in Despatches; I either made it a noun or lowercased it.)

I'm asking for a second opinion on this question: can a biography be a Good Article if there's no information about the death or pre-professional life and almost no information about the family? - Dank (push to talk) 12:06, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks that's useful info to know. I do get confused over all the technical parlance stuff. :) --Errant ^(chat!) 12:08, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Second opinion: FWIW, I'd say the lack of information in those other areas is not a problem. Very few encyclopedias would have that level of detail on minor figures. In any case, I don't think those would qualify as "main aspects of the topic" if they don't show up in any of the given sources, so criterion 3a shouldn't be a problem. I know different editors approach that criterion differently, though, so take my comments with a grain of salt. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:27, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Third opinion: Agreeing with Khazar2 on this in part that only main aspects of the topic need be covered per GA criteria. However, I'd say that the article should say that Victor Jones died, and when and where that occurred at the very least.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:31, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we probably need this information, and I expect it's obtainable. - Dank (push to talk) 02:28, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Give me a couple of days and I'll see what I can do :) --Errant ^(chat!) 08:29, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey. So I'd like to withdraw this review for now :) apologies. I've found out I've made a quite critical mistake, possibly, with some of the information and need to research it in depth. Thanks for taking the time to review the article, it does look in better shape following your comments! --Errant ^(chat!) 08:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Not a problem, and feel free to bring this back when the difficulties have been dealt with. - Dank (push to talk) 12:09, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Withdrawn by nominator - Dank (push to talk) 12:09, 24 July 2013 (UTC)