User talk:Lexysexy/sandbox

Comments

Infobox

Country of allegiance should be there, as well as its flag. Use {{flag|Australia}} to get both.
There's an RAF ensign available to go with the service name. Use {{air force|United Kingdom}} to get both.
Always use endashes for date ranges (applies throughout article of course).
Even in the infobox, one generally spells out "Squadron". All units should be linked where possible in the infobox and on first appearance in the article itself.

Lead

Don't generally open with rank escept for 1-stars and above.
Instead of an early Australian military and civil pilot, consider a pioneering Australian military and civil pilot.
...Point Cook in 1926, and accepted a Short Service Commission in the RAF following graduation as there were no places available in the RAAF -- should be linked/tweaked as follows: Point Cook in 1926, and accepted a short-service commission in the Royal Air Force following graduation, as there were no places available in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Note I didn't include the acronym for RAF as you don't mention that service again in the lead, unlike RAAF.
Have a look at a few other entities and towns you can link in the lead as well.
Rightly or wrongly, QANTAS is rendered Qantas in WP.
Spell out state names.

Early career

The others were L. C. L. Murray, E. H. Irving, G. Selk, F. Townsend, and C. H. A. Colman. -- unnecessary unless notable in themselves.
In Egypt, Koch had continued his interest in rifle shooting[5] and photography. -- if we can't cite photography, best drop it.
...and was lucky not to be aboard the ill-fated Southern Cloud. -- think we need to explain why he was lucky, e.g. was he originally scheduled for that flight, or something like that?
The Singapore service commenced on the 2 August 1938 -- no need for "the".

World War II

...opened on the 4th of August ==> opened on 4 August.
Some examples of what became collector's items are held by the QANTAS Museum. -- this might better be rendered as a footnote, or at least in parentheses, since it's jumping ahead in time.
This little plan -- bit informal, perhaps change to This initiative or simply This plan.
He had a further unhappy time when, in command of Camilla on an RAAF contract involving the transport of military personnel to Port Moresby on the 22 April 1943, he found himself, when off the coast of New Guinea, unable to proceed due to bad weather, and was forced to attempt a night landing on the open ocean. -- I can follow this sentence but it's pretty long and should perhaps be broken in two. Also He had a further unhappy time could be considered editorialising -- we'd expect the reader to gather that being forced down was an unhappy experience.
...no Court of Inquiry be held - in effect Koch was exonerated. -- the dash should be an emdash, with no spaces surrounding it. This tidbit also needs citing.

Post-war Career

Sentence case for section headers, i.e. Post-war career.
Member of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire -- in WP this is generally rendered as Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Civil Division.

Notes & References

Suggest review Peter Jeffrey (RAAF officer) for pointers re. note and reference formatting/linking, especially #35 and #49 for Trove citations.

In summary, the prose generally reads well to me, and most of the article is well referenced. The majority of my comments are style related, and if the above were actioned I expect it would be assessed as B-Class for MilHist -- good job! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Few more things:

If he's primarily known as a civil aviator, like Lester Brain, probably should use the aviator infobox, not the military one -- see Lester's article for an exmple.
Marriage needs to be cited and wouldn't normally appear in the lead (unless his wife was famous in her own right of course) but at the appropriate chronological point in the main body.
In my first read/review I focussed on the basic things, i.e. prose/referencing/style, which should be of benefit in general. Re-reading, I guess there might be some question of just how notable this chap is in WP terms. Most of the people I write about, it's a no-brainer: VC winners, 2-stars and above, aces, or, if all else fails, subject of an Australian Dictionary of Biography entry. It's a good sign that you've been able to write a fairly comple bio based on newspaper and book sources, however I think at best he appears to be on the cusp on notability. If his main claim to fame is involvement with the Archbold Expedition, you'd probably need to expand on that a bit. We could also get a reality check from a third editor; there are a couple of fellow Aussies around who regularly review my stuff, but aren't of an aviation background, who could do that... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]