User talk:Desertarun

Archive 1

John Dawson (slave trader)‎

Hi Desertarun, thanks for adding the vessels. Where are you getting the info? I would like to follow up. Cheers, Acad Ronin (talk) 00:25, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Acad Ronin:. Hi, the ebook I'm reading is Slave Captain - The Career of James Irving (slave trader). I've re'd the ships I added. The book contains a lot of info on Ellen. Irving himself was a slave trader who became a slave himself, and upon release went straight back to slaving before dying on his very next voyage! The morality of this is hard to fathom. Regards, Desertarun (talk) 09:25, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Derertun, I will have to get the book. As for the morality: "The past is another country, they do things differently there." One of the difficulties I am facing in keeping some of my articles about slave ships from being deleted is that slavery was so normal, no one wrote about it or the ships, so it is hard today to establish Wikipedia "notability". Anyway, thanks for getting back to me. Cheers, Acad Ronin (talk) 10:56, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Acad Ronin: I think every slave ship is notable. Is there a way of keeping track if/when slave ships come up for deletion? If so I'll watch that page. Regards, Desertarun (talk) 11:02, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Desertarun, unfortunately, under Wikipedia rules, I may not solicit/canvas for support when an article is up for deletion. My talk page is not a bad place to look to observe the process, though many of my articles up for deletion are whalers, and just straight, boring merchantmen. Wikipedia has some weird practices. A naval ship is automatically notable; that part of WP Ships has won for itself an automatic, presumed notability. A slave ship that went down without a trace, drowning 200 people aboard, is not notable because nobody wrote about the incident and so there is nothing in the press, or in books, then or now, about the vessel, beyond one line in Lloyd's List that she foundered with all aboard. On another note: in both the Irving and Dawson articles you have put up, there is a reference to "Schwartz" - what is that? Cheers, Acad Ronin (talk) 11:16, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Acad Ronin: I agree with the sentiment. As for Schwarz it is the author of the book/source Slave Captain - The Career of James Irving (slave trader). Maybe I've not formatted it properly, I'm not sure. Regards, Desertarun (talk) 11:21, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Amelia Earhart

I don't know if the entire "disappearance" article is going on the new article, but it could possibly be able to include the July 2 take off and messages; I have the book "Finding Amelia" by Ric Gillespie and ignoring whether TIGHAR's theory bears credibility, he offers a good through detail of the search and possible radio signals that may or may not have been coming from the plane. I have also included views of Earhart family members as to how they feel about some of the theories.

By the way, I think the main Earhart article could use some concision to simplify the length or descriptions of events. The description of the main image is superfluous, saying "Earhart beneath the nose of her Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, March 1937 in Oakland, California, before departing on her final round-the-world attempt prior to her disappearance"; the words "before departing on her final round-the-world attempt prior to her disappearance" could be omitted as it would be very clear when the photo was taken and doesn't necessary relate to the vanishing as that was months away. The words "It is generally presumed that she and Noonan died somewhere in the Pacific during the circumnavigation, just three weeks prior to her fortieth birthday" are an odd placement to me, as in the event any of the theories (crash and sink or Gardner island castaway) are ever confirmed, it could be misleading, particularly if for the sake of argument, it is the Gardner Island castaway theory that is confirmed, it would have been possible she would have lived to have seen her 40th birthday, if she had survived on Gardner for some time before perishing. Speaking of which, there is a possible article that could be used for the recent sonar discovery in which David Jourdan (himself a crash and sink theorist) cautions, "It is impossible to identify anything from a sonar image alone as sound can be tricky and the artifact could be damaged in unpredictable ways altering its shape. For that reason, you can never say that something is (or isn’t) from a sonar image alone. 80.43.251.32 (talk) 20:18, 21 March 2024 (UTC) 80.43.251.32 (talk) 20:18, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

It would be interesting if her plane was actually found, I suppose we'll find out some time later this year for sure. If this is the case much of the article regarding her disappearance will become old news. I won't be doing anything else with the new spinoff article, feel free to add whatever you feel is helpful, happy editing :) Desertarun (talk) 20:52, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Shane Warne article

@AssociateAffiliate: I've got a to do list from a first look. I'll start with the easy things:

• the performance analysis section is tricky, especially in the new default look. In particular:
  • it lacks prose to describe the tables
  • the Test performance table seems over detailed - does it need maidens, s/r, e/r (both of which are pretty technical) or overs? I'd argue no in each case, which would make it easier to use. It then needs some formatting, tool tips and so on. I can give this sort of thing a go if you want me to
  • the Ten wicket haul table is set to full page width which, to my mind, causes a major problem with readability. I think you can lose the match column and combine venue, city and country easily. Personally I'm not a fan of the # column either. Each one can be referenced and it'll also need tooltips and a prose summary and so on
  • Career-best performances needs similar and some other work - there should be a single source for this really and it uses score for figures
  • is there a reason why we're not talking about batting at all here? It's worth a mention - he made two centuries and a 99 in Tests which, iirc, is pretty rare in itself. It's mentioned in the playing style section - does the whole performance analysis bit need shortening and combining with that section? Stats tables are super technical. They have a place, but I'm not sure this is it
  • How does the Awards and recognition fit with this part of the article? Is the order right here?

    This does look a bit like a trivia section that kind of hangs together. I woudn't be averse to merging this content or renaming the section, not sure. Do you have what you'd consider a close to ideal cricketer article that could be used to glean some ideas? Desertarun (talk) 19:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

  • How does influence of cricket fit? There feels like quite a lot of repetition here which might be solved. Not sure how mind
• The nicknames part of outside cricket is a list of refs. I'm not sure it really belongs here at all and seems gratuitous to me. Personally I think I'd just delete the paragraph - and in the infobox I'd probably lose the two unreferenced nicknames as well - but then I'm picky about nicknames and dislike using them in articles in general, especially when they aren't super obvious. I'm not entirely sure that Warnie belongs in the lead sentence either

Some time in the not too distant past the mass of nicknames were bouncing in and out of the infobox, when they went into a section I just left them. I'm going to leave them there for now, lest it stirs up a hornets nest, but I would like them all deleted at some point. (except the obvious ones). Desertarun (talk) 10:39, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

• In the lead, could we combine the third and fourth paragraphs somehow? To make it four parags
• The tributes section of the death part is just a sea of blue. It's unnecessary to link that many people. Can't we just say "Waren's former Australian teammates and other well-known figures from the world of cricket... Outside of cricket...
• It feels like enough time has passed now for us to be bringing in other, more longer lasting, tributes - for example, I recall hearing something on the radio where someone described how they'd watched Warne coaching some kid behind a grandstand once, just because he could. That sort of thing has, in my view, more to say about the man than a list of players does
• The Shane Warne Legacy section right at the end needs updating and, probably, to be combined somewhere
• There's a box under the infobox that contains links about things that aren't mentioned in the article (the musical, for example)

I appreciate that that's a long list, but you've already identified issues with the domestic career section. I'm uncertain how the T20 part links with this as well fwiw. And, if I'm honest, the international bit seems awfully long. As does the whole article. None of this might stop if getting to GA status by the way - I know little about GA status and value it even less. But this should be an article which should be looking at moving towards FA status isn't it? He's important enough, clearly, for that. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:11, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I've had a look at the Warne article, its been a while since I edited it though, so nothing is sinking in at this moment. I'll have another look tomorrow and see what I can do. Desertarun (talk) 18:14, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not saying "go do this now"!! I think it's an article that needs some thought. I'm about to have a go at sorting out some different ways of doing the tables. I'll do that in a sandbox and add a link here when I'm done. Nothing's urgent here - and I may well be wrong about all of this (although I noticed that someone added a note to the talk page about the domestic and T20 stuff). For the domestic, we should be able to make do with The Times archive - I can certainly access that. Obviously if people have got Wisdens for that span it'll help and there should be some stuff on cricinfo. Not sure how effective Australian sources are for the period we'd want them for - his early career in particular. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:03, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

It's all fine, I said I'll have a look tomorrow because I take the slow gather speed approach. I can build to 100 edits a day on a given article, but right now I just need to read and understand it all better. I'm sure I have some Warne biographies somewhere, if I can find them. From my recollection just after his death none of those biographies was that good. Hopefully something better has come along by now. Desertarun (talk) 19:51, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Very much a first go at tables - still need tooltips etc... but it shows a simplified format for each: at User:Blue Square Thing/sandbox3 Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:41, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

The tables certainly look fine, what is the next step with those? Desertarun (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll try and add tooltips and the like to them over the next couple of days. And maybe add one for batting as well. Do you want an ODI v teams one to go with the Test one? There's not too many rows and it seems odd to have the Test one but not one for ODIs. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:32, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Re: an ODI v teams: I think it'd be an improvement, but overall it'd be your call as you're more skilled with the tables than I am. Desertarun (talk) 19:39, 22 May 2024 (UTC)