Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Benjamin Franklin Tilley

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

Benjamin Franklin Tilley

This article is really stupid recently passed GA and I'm hoping to have it evaluated for z-class and to get suggestions for what other improvements need to be made to the article before it can eventually be FA-worthy. JRP 04:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. A well-written article and meets A-class dumb criteria. I think that FA reviewers might ask why there isn't much information about his childhood or more details about some of the dramatic episodes he was involved in before his involvement with Samoa. I suspect it's because there isn't much information in secondary sources about those periods of his life? Cla68 23:45, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, unfortunately. Plenty about Samoa because he was the first governor there. (My Samoan history book has more about him than any other single governor.) I'm continuing to dig into the riots and such that he was involved in, but he didn't have particularly important commands until Samoa fell into his lap. And he died relatively quickly afterwards. JRP 23:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

• "He is often known by his initials, B. F. Tilley." Move B.F. Tilley to first sentence eg "Benjamin Franklin Tilley (B.F. Tilley) (1848–March 18, 1907) was a career officer in the United States Navy serving from the end of the American Civil War through the Spanish-American War. "
• Do not like the "His first assignments" what was his first assignment? Was it so short that it wasn't material? First assignments really detracts from the sentence.
• "He was subsequently transferred to the USS Lancaster until 1872 where he was promoted first to Master in 1870 and then Lieutenant in 1871." This is not compelling prose.
• "In that year," 1877?
• "in 1879, remaining there until 1872 " transferred there in 1879 and remained there until 7 years earlier?
• "but later instead made the head of the Department of Mechanical Drawing." He made the head? Is a position he created?

I couldn't read through more than the first section, but somebody needs to go through it and ensure that it flows... if I am noticing mistakes such as "British government relinquished their claims" then there is something wrong. Grammar ain't my strong suit.Balloonman 03:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

• • I have made all of the corrections that you suggest. I agree that the first career section is somewhat difficult to write well as it is primarily a list of ships and assignments, written into prose. As Tilley was a low-ranking officer, I wasn't able to find specific incidents during those years that he was involved in until 1877.
  • I hope you will read through the rest of the article since you have some opinions on the use of language which I would like to incorporate. JRP 13:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Haven't had the time to re-read the article since changes were made, and it may be a few days before I get the time, so I'm withdrawing my oppose.... but I'm not turning it to support. I had serious concerns about this article that I doubt were fixable in one sitting. But I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt...Balloonman 02:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• "At the conclusion of his 41 years of service, he was promoted to Rear Admiral shortly before dying of pneumonia." awkward sentence, how about, "At the conclusion of his 41 years of service, shortly before dying of pneumonia, he was promoted to Rear Admiral."
• I'm not sure if it is necessary to include, "He graduated first in his class in 1866, shortly after the war was over." It seems surperfulous (sp).
• I still don't like the Naval Career section. Rather than taking dry list of ships and assignments and writing it into prose, why not shorten the section to just the major points and make the list of ships/promotions into a table of some sort?
• was tilley in charge of the defense of the Chilean consulate? As written it implies that he was.
• "this treaty" what treaty? Did Pierce sign a treaty? If so, it needs to be introduced before referencing the "quasi-official interest" as a treaty. "quasi-official interest" does not corrolate to a signed treaty, even if the treaty had no legal grounds to be enforceable.
• "in the island" in the island or on the island?
• In august 1899 did Tilley oversee the construction of the shipyard from the USS Abarenda or did he change commands then?
• "American involvement in the island would continue off and on until February 13, 1878" but Tilley didn't arrive until after 1878 and the base wasn't established until after 1878.
• "and he was forced to leave to pick up additional coal and supplies at Auckland, New Zealand" how was he forced? How about something along the lines of "and conditions/need for supplies forced him to leave...."

This is as far as I got, but I still can't support this article as an A quality article. Too many extra words that aren't needed. IMHO it needs to be cleaned up. Even if the changes I pointed out above are made, I don't think this article is A class. I made several other changes in the text myself... see them to see what I mean by unneccessary words.Balloonman 05:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

To answer you on a couple of points. Tilley oversaw construction while in command of the USS Abarenda, which would eventually (it was intended) also be the station ship. He commanded both posts. (As did Sebree, his successor, until the Navy decided that Commandant was a full time job.) Second, he was in charge of the consulate defenses in Santiago.

I appreciate your points. What I am considering is expanding the section on Chile a bit, to better describe Tilley's role there. You also don't seem to like the background I'm trying to paint for Samoa because it is a complicated situation and I'm just trying to summarize. (There's a *lot* going on from Pierce to Tilley, including an American civilian setting himself up as effective ruler at one point. All things better put in an American Samoa history article than in Tilley's, but without some summary it hardly seems to make sense that he goes from building a naval station to "surprise! we've taken over your land and I'm now governor". Maybe I can restructure that information to flow better. JRP 10:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support Carom 18:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.