Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Midland Railway War Memorial

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article promoted by Zawed (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 08:20, 15 February 2019 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list

Midland Railway War Memorial

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Nominator(s): HJ Mitchell (talk)

Midland Railway War Memorial (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/Midland Railway War Memorial/archive1

Another war memorial! This one commemorates the 2,833 employees of the Midland Railway who "joined the colours" in the First World War, never to return. It's in Derby, and I used to live within easy cycling distance of it, but sadly that was before I owned a decent camera. I'd given up on being able to get this article to this level; I din't think there was enough to say. It's still not a long article, but it was covered in a book I've only recently acquired (thanks to a grant from Wikimedia UK) so I decided to revisit it. With the help of that book and my shelf full of railway history books, I think I've managed to squeeze out every last detail. Any feedback would be most welcome. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:14, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Image review - Pass

All images are appropriately licenced. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:13, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

SupportComments by Gog the Mild

I have made a couple of copy edits which you will want to check.

• Just a thought, should there be a definite article before "names" in "Affixed to the wall are bronze plaques which list names of the dead"?
  • Done.
• " The company had its headquarters in Derby, establishing itself there more comprehensively than any other railway company in any other town in Britain, and becoming the town's largest largest employer—at the turn of the century, it employed over 12,000 people in Derby alone." This is a long sentence, it is trying to say a lot, and I found the last clause - starting with a hyphen to then be interrupted by a comma. Can I suggest replacing the hyphen? Possibly with a semi colon; or, my preference, a full stop.
  • Done.
• "the Midland railway station and the Midland Hotel dominated the town" This seems point of view. If only because I would personally disagree with it. Apart from anything else, they are quite a way from the town centre.
  • Reworded; I think that's a relic of a previous rewrite. I meant to say that it was the company that dominated the town.
• "The railways also gave up large numbers of their employees for military service" "gave up"? This reads as if it were something the companies did, as opposed to their employees volunteering. I see, I think, what you are driving at, but is there a more felicitous turn of phrase? I do realise that from 1915 employees were 'required' to seek permission to enlist.
  • It might not be the best phrase for it, but the employees would have had to obtain their employer's permission to volunteer (unless they resigned, though even that was made much more difficult by various statutes curtailing employment rights during the war). I's likely that this was more-or-less automatic until the new rule was brought in.
• "almost half of fighting-age men employed by the railways; most of the remainder were in "reserved occupations" " Is that" most of the remainder" of "men employed by the railways" or of "fighting-age men"?
  • The latter; edited for clarity.
• "The war memorial lists the names of the 2,833 men from the Midland who were killed; another 7,000 were wounded." There is, it seems to me, an implication here that the names of the wounded feature on the memorial. Is there a better way of phrasing this sentence?
  • Not sue I agree, but reworded.
• "and to pay an allowance to their families" Was this paid while the men were serving> If so it may be useful to say so. What, if any, were the arrangements for payments to the families of (ex-)employees killed?
  • Clarified to spell it out. I haven't found any details on allowances or widows etc, but they would have been eligible for war pensions or other support from the government.
• "Lutyens' cenotaph became one of the most influential war memorial designs and he designed multiple others in Britain and the empire, including the Midland Railway's. Most are based heavily on Whitehall's, though with considerable variation." When I started this I assumed that "Lutyens' cenotaph" referred to the cenotaph in Derby. It may be worth inserting 'Whitehall' after "Lutyens' " to make your meaning clear. Also: "Lutyens'"; "Whitehall's". Both referring to the same cenotaph. Consistency may assist a reader. (Possibly 'Lutyens' Whitehall cenotaph' in the second sentence?
  • Reworded as you suggest.
• "The recumbent soldier's position at the top of the pylon" I cannot find a dictionary which gives the meaning of "pylon" which you seem to be attributing to it.
  • Ah,, I should have included a link. Now added to pylon (architecture).
• "further enhanced by the greatcoat covering his face" Given that only one example of anonymity is given prior to "further enhanced" it seems to me that "further" is redundant.
  • Removed.
• "In the foreword, by the Midland's general manager, Frank Tatlow, the book described the memorial as expressing "the triumphant end of the war, as well as the sadness and sorrow it entailed, and is intended to embody the whole meaning of those troubled years which have bequeathed to us the memory of so many good lives lost and stout hearts which no longer beat. It marks the victory which crowned their whole efforts, and the pride with which the Midland Company can truly affirm—'our men did not a little to that end'"." The MoS suggests that quotes of "more than about 40 words" should be formatted as block quotations.
  • I can see why the MoS suggest that, but I feel this fits quite nicely into the flow of the prose, and I think putting it in a blockquote would disrupt that.
• "The Midland memorial is now the responsibility of Network Rail." Suggestion only - a short sentence explaining how Network Rail succeeded LNWR?
  • I wondered about this and decided it was straying too far from the topic, but since you've suggested it I've added the lineage (MR → LMS → BR → [eventually] NR).
• "as part of a national of Lutyens' war memorials." ?
  • Missing word: "collection".
• Tallow needs an OCLC - 894752448.
  • Where did you find that? I can't imagine a book published in 1921 having such a modern identifier, especially since I'm not sure it was ever publicly distributed.

Very nice work. A fine article. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:13, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi Gog, thanks for your comments! They prove the value of A-class in having more eyes on an article before it goes to FAC. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

That was very prompt. Further comments grouped here. If I haven't commented, assume that I am happy.

• The architectural pylon to which you link is a term used to describe a monumental entrance, which this is not. I think that you need a different word.
• Quote. I am not saying that I disagree with you, and I have in the past had discussions regarding this as it applies to my articles. But MOS:BQ seems clear to my eyes: "Format a long quote (more than about 40 words ...) as a block quotation". The quote in question is 76 words long. Which means that the article does not meet ACR criteria A4: "its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant".
• OCLC. I cheated, I looked it up on the internet. My limited understanding is that OCLCs exist solely to provide references for pre-ISBN publications. Therefore none of them will have had an OCLC when they were published. I have found OCLCs attached to 18th century publications, but they probably go back earlier. OCLCs exist for a surprising range of publications: I hope that you will find this convincing. Scroll down a little for the OCLC.

Gog the Mild (talk) 20:30, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: Pylon: it's not exactly the same thing as described in our article, but the resemblance is clear. "Pylon" is the proper term—it's not my word, it's the term used in the sources, particularly the architecture books.

Quote: The MoS can't possibly cover all scenarios (and indeed contradicts itself in places); it's a guideline "to be treated with common sense and with occasional exceptions". You'll also find, if you look deep into the history of it, that lots of these requirements were added on a whim by individual editors, but that's getting off-topic! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:55, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Pylon: After some digging in the arcana of architecture, I discover that you are quite right. It is somewhat obscure and I am not sure that the Wikilink helps, as it concentrates on the gateway definition, but I shall leave the decision on linking or not with you.

Measurements: The measurements the article gives for the size of the alcoves faithfully reflect a RS - Historic England. However, having just measured the alcoves, I now know that they are wrong. Obviously you can't change the article on that basis, but if you have come across another source which gives different measurements and dismissed it on the basis that Historic England must know what it is talking about, then you may wish to revisit it.

The quote: I was unsure on this. I can very much see your point, but I can also see the criteria I am supposed to be assessing against. So I sought the advice of an editor who's views I respect; they are a GOCE coordinator and ex-lead coordinator. What they opined was:

I certainly do understand that the MOS is a guideline – usually a very good guideline, but a guideline nonetheless – which can be ignored with good reason. I have an article with 49-word inline quote and a 33-word block quote. (Other editors agreed with my reasoning for these.) But that's some distance from 76 words. My feeling here is that a long quote like this can fade into the prose. The quote isn't in encyclopedic tone and we don't want it to be mistaken for Wikipedia's voice. I'm a bit cautious with an article on a memorial, which we don't want to sound like a memorial page. This is one of the benefits of a block quote which clearly separates a quote from the surrounding prose. In part, poems and song lyrics are often put into templates for this reason, because they're so far removed from Wikipedia's voice. So between the length, the tone, and the somewhat complex sentence structure (a long sentence followed by a sentence with a dash and a quote-within-a-quote), I would recommend a block quote (I use {{quote}}). These may seem like little nit-picky points, but As and FAs are supposed to be darned-near perfect, and that means addressing these points which might only confuse a tenth of one percent of readers. I would suggest to sandbox it and look at it a couple different ways: (1) as a long block quote and (2) edited down to about 40 words as an inline quote, possibly paraphrasing the rest outside of the quotation. I'll also go ahead and say that it's quite true that not every article has to stick to the MOS. It's also true that not every article has to be an FA.

Having chewed this over for the day I feel that this reasonably summarises my view. If you disagree, then I can understand; if that is the case, let us see what other reviewers think. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:51, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, what measurements do you get? Is it possible you're not measuring the same thing, or that HE have conflated two measurements or something like that? As for the quote, it seems a consensus is forming that a blockquote would be preferable so that's what I've done. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:54, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

The significant difference was the depth of the alcoves. If you look at the Midland Railway War Memorial, Derby 16 photograph you took it seems obvious (to me anyway) that a ratio of 3:2 can't be right. The road edge steps in: depending which of the four walls I measured and where on the step ins I measured from I got figures of 3.65 to 3.8m. I got the impression that each alcove was intended to be approximately 12 foot by 24, excluding the child step. That last is OR of course.

I had noticed and have already supported. A fine article. Ping me when it goes to FAC and I am sure that I will be doing the same again. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:15, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Third opinion

Summoned, lo! yet impartial—let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, etc.—I find myself agreeing with both Gog the Mild and our anonymous GoCEr; while agreeing that the MOS is "only" a guideline, there need to be convincing reasons not to follow it. And although, pace Harry, a reason has been presented—as fitting into the flow of the prose—I believe that suggestion has been expressly addressed in the GoCEr's opinion, above. And I don't really see much wrong with this if anything, it breaks the paragraph up nicely.

While a few words above the recommended limit from MOS would be neither here nor there, realistically this is effectively double. And while I'm plainly no expert (WhatSoEver) on A-class criteria, FAC, at least—on the assumption that that's its intended destination—would probably be...less forgiving. Anyway, best of luck with it; apart from MOS-quibble, it's a nice article. ——SerialNumber54129 18:02, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

As I said, apart from the small point above, this is a nice little article, and due to the extremely civilised—and frankly textbook application of collegiality that should be a lesson to the tricoteuses of ANI and the like—I too am moved to support this candidacy for A-class. Nice one! ——SerialNumber54129 20:35, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I prefer ACR/FAC to ANI any day. That board has its purpose, but one can only wonder what Wikipedia would be like if all the energy expounded on bickering there were ploughed into writing articles! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:06, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Comment

The image which is supposed to show the inscription is too faint to be legible. See File:Midland Railway War Memorial, Derby 14 (cropped).jpg. If a better image can't be found maybe the wording could be echoed in the figure caption. Another possibility is to use an image editor to bring out the writing on the stone. I am not sure that is ever done. The present image caption is 'Close-up of the inscription on the side of the cenotaph'. The caption appears to say 'TO THE BRAVE MEN OF THE MIDLAND RAILWAY WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE GREAT WAR'. Another alternative is to simply omit this image. I am not adding a support or oppose because I just happened upon this page and don't know the system. In general it looks to be a hard task to echo the real-world impressiveness of memorials in photographs, at least the kind we normally use. EdJohnston (talk) 23:35, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Ed, you have a point. It's only legible at higher resolution. I've reworded the caption accordingly. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:06, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Another comment

Nice article. Some more images would help improve it. How about asking the people who maintain this webpage if it is possible to have three images released under a suitable license (or be pointed to suitable sources)? An image of the front cover of the book of remembrance, and the drawing of the memorial. If you search the Midland Railway Study Centre catalogue, you will find the programme for the unveiling and a picture of the front cover of that. Carcharoth (talk) 17:20, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Carcharoth. I considered it a while ago. The drawing might add something but I'm not sure what its copyright status would be (if it was held by Lutyens, I suppose it would have expired in 2016; if it was held by the Midland then the chain of ownership is icnredibly complex). The covers of the pamphlet and book of remembrance don't really have any great visual appeal. What I'd really like is a photo from the back, but that requires someone going into the hotel's back garden. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:09, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

CommentsSupport by PM

This article is in great shape. I have some comments:

• became renowned
• suggest "The Whitehall cCenotaph" as it is known as "The Cenotaph" even as far away as Australia.
• perhaps when first describing the front of the cenotaph in the body, mention that it is curved?
• with the Tatlow quote, I suggest a colon after "expressing", and moving the three citations to the colon.

That's all I have. Great job on this. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:45, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Hey PM, thanks very much for having a look! I've addressed all your comments, though some became redundant in some light copy-editing. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:52, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Looks good. Supporting. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:21, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Thought I'd do the source review while I think of it. All the sources appear reliable and of good quality. No formatting issues I could see. GTG. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:55, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.