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Carsten Borchgrevink

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is a biography of a major, but relatively unknown, Antarctic explorer whose achievements deserve a wider audience. Much work has been done since the article's GA review, but I would like it read by fresh eyes, and also a check on its images, with a view to dealing with any problems in advance of a possible FAC.

Thanks, Brianboulton (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments Looks very good overall - here are a few nitpicks and I made an edit or two of even more minor things I found.

  • Does this sentence really need two refs (the smae each time too) Its plans to organize a scientific expedition to Antarctica were not realised,[4] but a revival of interest in commercial whaling gave Borchgrevink an unexpected chance, in 1894, to join a Norwegian expedition that would take him to Antarctic waters for the first time.[4]?
    • No, I intended to move the ref to the end of the sentence, but ended up duplicating it. Now fixed.
  • Would it help to translate Kap Nor (perhaps North Cape?) before it is renamed Antarctic
    • Done.
  • Would it make sense to wikilink lichen the first time?
    • Yes, done.
  • "possible opening" sounds odd in William Speirs Bruce, later an Antarctic expedition leader in his own right, had intended to join Bull's expedition as a natural scientist, but could not reach the ship in time, which created a possible opening for Borchgrevink.[6] In Melbourne, he persuaded Bull to take him on as a part-time scientist and deck-hand.[6] Perhaps something like the following would be clearer in several ways: William Speirs Bruce, later an Antarctic expedition leader in his own right, had intended to join Bull's expedition as a natural scientist, but could not reach the ship in time. This created the possibility of an opening for Borchgrevink, who met Bull in Melbourne and persuaded to take him on as a part-time scientist and deck-hand.[6] - this also avoids the slightly ambiguous "he" in the second sentence.
    • I've adopted your wording. Thanks.
  • In the "Voyage of the Antarctic" section, the landing on Possession Island is mentioned twice - is this an error? If not, it needs to be made clearer that this was their second landing there.
    • As far as I know they landed ther once. I have fixed the text accordingly.
  • Refs should be in numerical order, so fix This was declared to be the first confirmed landing on the Antarctic mainland, although it may have been preceded by a landing on the Antarctic Peninsula in 1821, by the American whaling captain John Davis.[9][6]
    • Fixed.
  • A bit awkward - not sure how to fix it Borchgrevink received, he recorded, plenty of moral support, but financial backing was not forthcoming: "It was up a steep hill that I had to roll my Antarctic boulder", he wrote.[14]
    • Yes, very awkward. I have rewritten this last sentence.
  • I was a bit fuzzy where he was between returning to England in June 1900 and going to Martinique in 1902 (obviously lecturing and writing some of the time, but how did the US National Geographic Society make contact with him to go to Martinique?)
    • Well, he returns to England June 1900. He lectures, writes articles, a book comes out in 1901. He becomes a bit of a celebrity in geographic circles (if not with the RGS), and the American NGS gets to hear of him. So they invite him to join their enquiry into the Martinique disaster. I imagine that's how it went.

I hope this helps, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking time to review this. I have taken aboard all your points. Brianboulton (talk) 14:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are very welcome - I enjoiyed the article very much. I just added two wikilinks and reread parts of the article. I wonder if there are a few places where more context could be provided - perhaps give the years for his American Geographical Society honor and knighthood? Or explain briefly that F. Nansen was a noted Arctic explorer? I was also unclear on what Borchgrevink did for employment after he returned? Did he live off his lectures, articles and book? Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:34, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is excellent. All of the image licenses look fine to me except one. The Bay of Whales description page says that the image is a scan but doesn't say of what, gives no way to contact the cited author, P. Bond, or the scanner, Hal8999. Also, if you know the name of the photographer for any of the photos scanned from books, that data could be added to the "Author" line of the image description. Here are a few suggestions about extremely small prose issues.

Lead

  • "leading a life outside the limelight" - Suggestion: wikilink "limelight"
    • I've changed the wording to "a life away from public attention"

Early life

  • "developed from his reading reports of the work" - "reading of reports" might be smoother
    • He read the reports, not "of the reports". But the sentence was ponderous, and I've simplified it down to: "Borchgrevink's initial interest in polar exploration developed from reading press reports about the work of the Australian Antarctic Exploration Committee."

Voyage of the Antarctic

  • "The expedition which Borchgrevink" - "that" rather than "which"?
  • "headed for a shingled foreshore" - Suggestion: link shingled foreshore
  • "who had doubted the ability of any vegetation to survive so far south" - "which" rather than "who"? Also, delete "any".
  • "Bull and Borchgrevink both left the ship" - Delete "both".
    • All these done per your suggestions.

Seeking support

  • "an expedition which would overwinter" - "that" rather than "which"?
  • "where the Sixth International Geographical Congress was being hosted by the Royal Geographical Society" - Flip to active voice: "where the Royal Geographical Society was hosting the Sixth International Geographical Congress"
  • "and it was these plans which attracted the interest" - "that"?

Sir George Newnes

  • "had secured British money which they believed" - Another "which" or "that". A lot of writers use them interchangeably. Maybe I'm being too fussy, but I almost always think that the "which" clauses should be set off by commas or turned into "that" clauses. This one might actually work best as "had secured British money, which they believed... ". I won't pounce on any more of these below this point in the article.
    • I've left this as I wrote it. A comma after "money", in this case, slightly alters the meaning, and "which" reads more smoothly, I think.
  • "In the event, of the combined ship and shore parties," - Remove first comma.
    • It's actually the second comma that needed removing, to maintain the sense.
  • "taking numbers of miniature Union Jacks" - Remove "numbers of".
    • Done.

Expedition

  • "leaving a shore party of ten" - Change to 10 since "70 dogs" soon follows.
  • "travelled ten miles (16 km) south" - 10 here too
    • Both these changes implemented.

Return and reception

  • "However, the location of Borchgrevink's choice of a winter site had ruled out any serious geographical exploration of the Antarctic interior." - Suggestion: "had ruled out any serious geographical exploration of the Antarctic interior from a base on Cape Adare."
    • I've brought in the reference to Cape Adare, though in a slightly different way.

Death and commemoration

  • "A management plan for its future maintenance and accessibility was adopted by the Trust in June 2005." - Suggestion: Flip to active voice.
    • Done.

I hope these few comments prove helpful. Finetooth (talk) 20:34, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I find the article nice. However, many links are left out. I'm planning on running through and linking some important things. And a copyedit couldn't hurt... Ceran→//forge 01:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ceranthor, please wait before linking a lot of things. With respect, it would be best to discuss this on the talk page first. I say this because I don't agree that Norway, polar, or explorer should be linked; they are all common. In addition, you've linked "polar" to a disambiguation page. Finetooth (talk) 02:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note for reviewers: As well as responding to the individual comments, above, I have carried out substantial prose revisions which, on close re-reading, seemed to be necessary. The article will sit here awhile on peer review, in the hope that a fresh pair of eyes will look at it. Thans again to those who have worked on the article. Brianboulton (talk)

Yomangani's comments: I'll dip in and out as I get a chance, so the comments may show something of a scattergun pattern or dry up completely.

  • The lead is a little jumbled because of the introductory second sentence. We get told about the Southern Cross expedition then jump back to his first trip then forward to the Southern Cross again, although this time it isn't mentioned by name. I'm not fond of that sentence anyway: as an explorer he was a precursor to Scott etc, but arguably his landing on the Antarctic continent would qualify him for that position without the need for the Southern Cross expedition.
    • Agreed, ad I've reworded to get the chronology right
  • During these years is a little weak: we don't know which years these are.
    • Reworded
  • paid him due recognition I suspect "due" will raise eyebrows at FAC.
    • Reworded
  • This was declared to be the first confirmed landing. Is the passive used here because we don't know who is doing the declaring?
    • Reworded
  • ...taking miniature Union Jacks . Surveying with Union Jacks? Yomanganitalk 12:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • According to the source the expedition took 500 bamboo poles with miniature Union Jacks "for purposes of survey and extension of the British Empire", the latter wording I suspect being a quote from Borchgrevink. I agree it sounds strange, especially the truncated version in the article, so I've amplified the wording, and hope it makes better sense.

Thanks for these & I look forward to any more comments. Brianboulton (talk) 18:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • The family lived in the Uranienborg district, where Roald Amundsen, an occasional childhood playmate, also grew up. Amundsen might need a little introduction if it is not to sound like his claim to fame is as Borchgrevink friend. future conqueror of the South Pole was all I could think of, but it's a little flowery.
    • We've just described Amundsen in the lead as "conqueror of the South Pole", so I think it's plain he wasn't just Borchgrevink's little friend. It would be repetitive to re-describe him so soon.
  • "Nobody liked Borchgrevink very much at that time [but] his blunt manner and abrupt speech stirred the academic discussions with a fresh breeze of realism. Why is the "but" in square brackets here? The quote is cited to southpole.com where it is not in square brackets, and if it actually comes from another source and the but doesn't appear in the original it looks a bit like editorialising - a "because" rather than a "but" would change the sense of the sentence completely.
    • Not sure why the [but] got into brackets. I had actually changed the order of Mill's remarks as reported in the source, and can't remember why I did that, either. I have changed the text, to quote Mill exactly as in the source.
  • Markham denounced Borchgrevink as a "liar and a fraud". Why a liar and a fraud? What did Markham claim Borchgrevink had lied about? He undoubtedly said it, but we don't get much context for that choice of quote.Yomanganitalk 18:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm thinking about this one. Huxley quotes Markaham's words, but doesn't give any context other than Markham being generally pissed off with Borchgrevink for stealing a march and securing funding. Markham was good at flinging insults around—he said the same sorts of things about Bruce—so maybe its pointless analysing his choice of words. I may replace the quoted words with a general "Markham was cross" sort of statement.
  • The caption "Borchgrevink was the first to visit the Barrier after Ross's 1839–43 expedition." suggests Ross might have landed on the Barrier. I don't think you make enough of Borchgrevink's landing here or in the main text (of course, if Ross landed on the Barrier and I've forgotten, then this point is moot). Yomanganitalk 20:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ross didn't land. I've altered the wording to make this clear and also to highlight Borchgrevink's feat a bit more.

Thanks for the bits and pieces of copyediting. This will be at FAC shortly, I think it's probably ready. Brianboulton (talk) 22:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think so too. Yomanganitalk 22:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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