Talk:William Brown (admiral)

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[edit] GA Nom Comments

I dropped by to review the article for GA and have a few quick comments. First, the article is interesting, seems complete and has a good number of references. It needs some attention yet

The main problem in terms of GA is that the lead section does not meet WP:LEAD. Please read the standard and adjust to meet it.

In terms of language. It's clear but there are some stylistic issues that make it hard to read in spots. I'll give examples later, but this is a problem for me.

While it wouldn't prevent me from promoting the article, some attention to completing the references would be helpful. THey do not, as a rule, contain the author, publisher, place and date of references. I know this isn't always possible, especially with web sources, but should be there if available. May I suggest consulting a print source or three to lend credibility to the article.

I'll also put the article on hold later, if another reviewer doesn't get here first. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 10:01, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi there. I've improved the lead section as per WP:LEAD, I've edited all references in the page as per WP:CITE, and as you suggested I've added some printed sources to the article (see Further reading section). Regarding the "stylistic issues" about the language, as you can see in the history page spelling and typos were fixed several times by different native English speakers; if the prose still represents a problem for you, it would be nice to hear some examples.

Hope the page now meets Wikipedia's good article standards. Thanks for your time, --200.89.166.132 21:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

My apologies. Real life did not allow me to get back here as I hoped. YOu've done some good work here. Citations and the lead look fine now, and the article is now readable. I'll promote it, although it could still use some improvement. I'd recommend:

• Shorten Sentences: English readers, especially Americans, find it easier to read sentences that have one or two clauses and one subject so: "A short time after the arrival, the friend who had invited them out and offered them food and hospitality died of yellow fever, and several days later, William's father also succumbed to the same disease." Is awkward.
• Keep Subject-Main Verb-Object together: In the same sentence, try: "shortly after they arrived, a friend died of yellow fever. William's father died of the same disease a few days later."
• Avoid passives: These slaw down readers and make the passage feel "fuzzy" to them. For example, "Brown's ship was seized by a French man-of-war, and he was made a prisoner" could be "a French man-of-war seized Brown's ship and imprisoned him."

I hope this helps. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 20:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Personally I dislike this dislike of passives. They are a perfectly legitimate part of the English language, and should not provide any difficulties for native speakers. To me "a French man-of-war seized Brown's ship and imprisoned him." produces images of a ship throwing Brown into prison; the passive is more accurate. -- Arwel (talk) 01:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FA status?

Should we try to get this article up to Featured Article status in time for next March's anniversary? I think it would be nice if we could get on the main page on March 3rd, but I may be a little close to the article and unable to see problems, so I'd appreciate comments from outside! The article appears to be a nice length, not excessively long or in too many sections, no problems with any of the pictures' copyright status, etc. -- Arwel (talk) 01:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)