Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Leonard W. Murray/archive3

Leonard W. Murray

Nominator(s): Friendofleonard (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about an important Canadian military figure in WW2 - and the only Canadian to command a theatre of war in WW1 or WW2. In an earlier form the article was submitted for FAC and underwent peer review as well as external review by three Canadian military historians. At that time (2023) there were differing views from reviewers as to whether the article was too long and detailed or too brief. The article has since undergone further minor edits and is now resubmitted for consideration by the principal author. Friendofleonard (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

File:Rear_Admiral_Leonard_Murray_1943.jpg: when and where was this first published? Ditto File:Midshipmen-royal-naval-college-halifax.jpg, File:Commodore_Leonard_Murray_c_1942.jpg, File:Murray_and_Muselier_c_1942.jpg, File:Rear_Admiral_Murray_in_retirement_c_1965.jpg

File:HMS_Iron_Duke_(1912).jpg: source link is dead; when and where was this first published? Ditto File:Murry,_Admiral_L.W..jpg

File:Murray_Building_S-15_CFB_Halifax.jpg: where is that licensing coming from?

File:Order_of_the_Bath_UK_ribbon.svg is not original enough to warrant copyright protection. Ditto File:UK_King_George_VI_Coronation_Medal_ribbon.svg, File:UK_King_George_V_Silver_Jubilee_Medal_ribbon.svg, File:Legion_Honneur_Commandeur_ribbon.svg, File:Croix_de_guerre_1939-1945_with_palm_France_-_ribbon_bar.svg. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:06, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Noleander

Overall, layout & format looks attractive. I like the occasional block-quote ... breaks-up the wall of text.

Murray was in the inaugural cohort... Some readers may not know what "cohort" means in this context; not sure what the MOS says about jargon vs layman wording. Consider "... inaugural class".

Lead: Following the riot, Murray retired from the ... ambiguous: did the riots cause the retirement? or simply a coincidence? Should tweak the wording to clarify. I see lower in the body, it is definitely cause-and-efffect, so maybe something like "The consequences of the riot led Murray to retire ... " or similar? The WP article on the riot says "The following year, Murray resigned in protest of the Board of Inquiry's findings."

For the good of the service, I went into voluntary exile.... Murray left Canada for the United Kingdom in September 1945 ... This raises a lot of questions in the mind of the reader: (1) Why did he feel a need to exile himself; was it shame over the riots/retirement fiasco? (2) Why did he go to another country? Why not stay in North America? (3) Why did he pick UK? Did he have family there? Did his spouse have family? Or he simply enjoyed UK?

Following up on the above: Although clearly feeling that Canada had abandoned him following the Halifax Riot, ... I think that sentiment needs to be duplicated in the "moved to UK" part of the article. Tho, it still remains fishy that he moved across the Atlantic just because of an early retirement. Did he not have siblings, children, grandchildren in Canada?

POV? Admiral Murray was controversially blamed ... Does the Redman source say he was unfairly singled-out? If not, I'd remove or reword "controversially". I see that the WP article on the riot has: "... it is generally accepted that the underlying causes were a combination of bureaucratic confusion, insufficient policing, ...". I'm not saying he was responsible or not, but the WP articles seem indicate that he was heavily responsible. Of course, if the source Redman, Stanley R., pp. 10, 37, 167 supports "controversially" then it is fine as-is.

Clarify for readers that are not familiar with the two Frances in WW II: This was interpreted as a territorial claim on behalf of General Charles de Gaulle, thereby creating a diplomatic incident between France, Canada and the United States. De Gaulle's seizure of the archipelago was over the opposition of Canada, United Kingdom, and United States, which were concerned about pushing the Vichy government into an openly pro-German stance... Might be better for readers if you specified _which_ France each time France is mentioned. e.g. This was interpreted as a territorial claim on behalf of Free France (under the leadership of DeGaulle), thereby creating a diplomatic incident between Vichy France, Canada and the United States. De Gaulle's seizure of the archipelago was over the opposition of Canada, United Kingdom, and United States, which were concerned about pushing the Vichy government into an openly pro-German stance... I may not have the wording correct, since I'm not a WW II person, but you get my gist.

Clarify A personal highlight of this period ... would help readers to specify who it was personal for: Murray? Churchill? I suppose Murray, but why make readers do the work of figuring it out? A personal highlight for Murray in this period ...

Source? Murray's moment of singular pride came in this period .... the cite following that quote appears to be a dry list of ships? So "singular pride" seems a bit florid for the editor's voice. Not a show stopper for FA, but if there is a source that talks about how special the event was, maybe include it as a cite.

Cite format uniformity: I've heard FA is pretty strict about consistency in cite formats: most simple cites in this article do not end in a period (.), which is okay, but a few do end in periods, e.g. Douglas, p. 184. and Cameron, p. 34. and one or two others.

Did he become citizen of UK? He dabbled in British politics, becoming a member of the Conservative Party and ran unsuccessfully as a candidate in municipal council elections in Buxton in 1965. Many readers might conclude he was a UK citizen, since he ran in an election. Dual citizenship?

Redundant categories: I see two categories at the bottom: Category:Canadian admirals and Category:Royal Canadian Navy officers. The former is a subcategory of the latter. I believe the WP guideline is that only the subcategory (in this case, Admirnals) should be listed in this article on Murray; otherwise his name appears twice within Category:Royal Canadian Navy officers.

Large quote at bottom: Except for the few months at sea in Assiniboine, my.... I've never seen a large quote like that at the end of a biographical article. I just looked thru several recent FA nominations of biographical articles, and I don't see any similar large, standalone quotes. I think the MOS WP:LONGQUOTE is pretty clear that quote boxes are strongly discouraged ("Quote boxes should generally be avoided as they draw attention to the opinion of one source as though Wikipedia endorses it, which may violate the neutral point of view policy") and that large quote functions an awful lot like a quote box, in my opinion (granted, this quote is by the subject of the article, not a "source"). I'm sure many editors would also advise removing the quote, saying "WP is not Wikiquote". I suggest removing it unless (a) there is some precedent for that in FA-quality biographical articles; and (b) there is a strong 2ndary source that uses the quote, and even then you should include the quote within prose, and use the 2ndary source as a cite.

I cannot find any more constructive criticisms to make, so I'll wrap it up. Happy to support once the above issues are addressed or resolved. Note that some of them are optional suggestions. (Support contingent on successful image & source checks). Noleander (talk) 01:01, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]