Killed by flying debris: Tony1 interviews a prolific featured content participant, Ian Rose.
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This week we open with an occasional piece that highlights a promoted item. The new featured article Paterson Clarence Hughes was nominated by Ian Rose, one of the three current FAC coordinators. Pat Hughes (1917–1940) was an Australian fighter ace of World War II who served with the British Royal Air Force and achieved 17 victories during the Battle of Britain before being killed in action.
The article gives a sense of a colourful and talented young man from isolated inland south-eastern Australia, a part of the continent with an unusual sub-alpine landscape he later described as magnificent and grand. His story is notable for the chasm beween this early, isolated rural life and his death in the sky on the other side of the world from debris flying out of a German bomber he had just shot down at close range—at the age of just 22 years.
The Signpost asked Ian Rose—who was on a long train trip somewhere in the northern hemisphere—whether the juxtaposition of the personal aspects and the mechanics of war has been something that attracts him to military history writing.
| “ | Absolutely. It’s the human element of warfare that attracts me to military biographies. Even when writing unit histories—such as No. 77 Squadron RAAF, or incidents like the Morotai Mutiny—I try to bring out something of the personalities involved. I’d like to share an anecdote about writing the Hughes article, because it might prove useful for other editors. I started working on improving it offline a couple of years ago, but it wasn’t quite coming together. Kristen Alexander’s recent book Australia’s Few and the Battle of Britain provided the spur to finish the article; her publication helped me to resolve a few points where the sources contradicted each other. After I updated the text, referencing Alexander, I noticed she linked the article on her blog; so I emailed her and we discussed some of the subtleties of the Hughes story, leading to further fine-tuning of the article. This was the first time I’d corresponded with the author of a key source, and it was a helpful and an enjoyable experience. Then somewhere along the way I recalled that Caesar Hull—the subject of an article by User:Cliftonian that I’d reviewed at FAC—had died the same day as Hughes during the Battle of Britain; so after Cliftonian had reviewed the Hughes FAC I suggested to him that the two aces could make a good dual TFA—and so it happened! |
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Featured-content managers don't often talk publicly about the forums they oversee, so we took the opportunity of asking Ian about how FAC has evolved since he became a coordinator in 2012. The most obvious change, he says, is that we no longer have an FA director, so the former FAC, FAR and TFA delegates have become coordinators. "But the director, Raul, never interfered with delegates’ decisions, and the only role I recall that he reserved for himself was that of selecting new delegates. I’ve always felt that even under him the delegates/coordinators held their positions at the pleasure of the community." Ian says that FAC nominations tend to stay open longer nowadays because there seem to be fewer reviewers around, "and we don’t like to archive noms for lack of feedback—of course that does still happen but then we leave explanations of why we’re archiving nominations more often than when I started."
Is he happy with the thematic balance of featured articles, are there any changes he’d like the community to consider making to the system?
| “ | To be honest I find Wikipedia particularly enjoyable for its more obscure articles, rather than the kind of thing I could find in "conventional" encyclopaedias—but then the stuff I write about is pretty specialised, so perhaps that’s only to be expected! As far as changes to the system go, I'd prefer to see all nominations go through peer or A-class review before FAC, but I know some articles get no feedback at PR, and my suggestion didn’t gain much traction last time I raised it. | ” |
We boldly invited him to discuss some of the more difficult decisions he's faced over the years as coordinator, but Ian was the perfect politician: "Without trying to be cagey, I honestly don’t store that much in my forebrain about past FAC decisions, but try to judge each one on its merits—and I do see a FAC coordinator as a disinterested judge—there to explain the process and to decide when consensus has been reached, but not making direct calls on the quality of articles. That’s the job of reviewers: they’re the jury."
FAC has its political dimensions: nominators work very hard and then become frustrated or hurt when their work is criticised under review. Does he have ways of distancing himself emotionally from the occasional turmoil?
| “ | As a content creator who regularly nominates at FAC myself, I really do sympathise, but as a coordinator you have to be able to distance yourself; otherwise I don’t think you could do the job properly. I’ve occasionally made decisions that have annoyed not just the nominator but some reviewers as well, but I know I’ve never taken them lightly, so I can live with them. | ” |
What are the most rewarding parts of being coordinator, then? "I enjoy working with Graham and Andy, and I like to see the give and take of a good solid review. I think the FAC process is valuable to Wikipedia, so helping to run it is very satisfying." Which leaves us with the question of what Pat Hughes would have made of all this fuss three-quarters of a century later.
Eight featured articles were promoted this week.
Twelve featured lists were promoted this week.
Twenty-eight featured pictures were promoted this week.
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Discuss this story
Nice job, Tony. - Dank (push to talk) 21:33, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing written about Paterson Clarence Hughes and the text for the FLs are pretty weak too. Armbrust The Homunculus 18:05, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Great interview! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:09, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]