# Talk:Ducie Island

The crew of the wrecked whaleship Essex thought they had landed on this island, when in fact they where on Henderson Island, to the west.

There is no such person as the Baron Curtis Ducie of Warkworth, Canada.  And Baron Francis Ducie is not the great great great great grandfather of this person. I am deleting this false claim. 
Davelapo555 22:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I downloaded and read the reference entitled "DUCIE ATOLL: ITS HISTORY, PHYSIOGRAPHY AND BIOTA" and these statements are not supported by the reference.  In this reference the exploration conducted in 1975 revealed the lagoon to be almost complete dead with very little life.  In addition the lagoon (in the reference) is described as less than 53 feet deep (not an especially deep lagoon).
I think the confusion is that the reference does catalog many dangerous sharks outside the lagoon which were captured and cataloged.  But in no reference could I find any information on poisonous fish or sharks inside the lagoon.
I recommend editing this to say that there are sharks found outside the lagoon.
Evan1261 (talk) 19:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ducie Island/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: J Milburn (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Interesting topic. Review coming soon. J Milburn (talk) 11:13, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


### Fourth read through
Sorry, this is turning into a heck of a review, but there are still problems.

Para 2 of "geography" is still looking over technical. "the Oeno alienation" What's this? "the fracture zone FZ2"? "ternary reorientation"? "that deviated 15º after" What are you referring to? "the motion of the Pacific Plate." What motion?
Still the inconsistency regarding the highest point on the island
Repeating that the islets border the lagoon is surely unnecessary?
"The islet has the form of a horseshoe" doesn't look like it on the map- or are you meaning vertically?
"most of them are common in southeastern Oceania, Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and some in Easter Island." That's a weird claim- could you check your source?
In places the writing is still very choppy... Lots of comma splices in the history section.
I think "grounded" is probably a better word than "wrecked" for what happened to the mail ship. If it was genuinely wrecked, I doubt they would try to refloat it- or am I wrong?
"The original name given by the natives of Pitcairn to the island was Fenua-manu, the 'island of birds'.[34]" That same sentence... It's not just tacked on to the end of an unrelated section
"the Pitcairn Scientific Expedition between" Why italics?
Para 1 of "Sovereignty" still doesn't read well- non-sequiturs
More comma splices
I'm starting to think that I'm getting too involved in the prose here- I think a second opinion will be needed for this article. It's mostly coming together, but I still worry about the prose. J Milburn (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I did some modifications to the formation of the island in order to be written in a less technical fashion. I also took care of the minor issues that you have listed. About the prose, comma splices and such, I have listed the article in The Guild of Copy Editors to get some extra help.--GDuwenTell me! 23:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Just noting that, while you changed the information about the maximum elevation, the information is still cited to the old source, meaning the information is not included in the source to which it is apparently cited. I have made fixes for similar issues in the article- it's something you really should be aware of. I'm wondering about how to proceed, here. I think work is still required, and I think further eyes would be a benefit. I am not sure whether this should be placed on hold while we wait for someone else to look over the article, whether this review should be closed so more work (perhaps a peer review?) can be done in preparation for a future nomination, or whether we should request a second opinion- someone else to move through the article and pick up anything I've missed. J Milburn (talk) 23:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
I think that the best option here is to put the article on hold, in order that I can do some more work checking references and so. As you said, a review by another user in addition to yours would also help.--GDuwenTell me! 15:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)


### Closing
I've had a think on this. The article review has already gone on far longer than normal, and somewhat longer than the reviews are meant to last. I think we both accept that copyediting and source checking need to take place, and so, while this article is looking far better than it was (and is rounding out into a strong article on an important subject), it's still that little bit off GA status. As such, I'm closing this review- the article has not passed. I most certainly do not want to say that the article has "failed", as it has improved and will be, I hope, soon ready for a renomination, and for a new set of eyes to work with you on any necessary improvements. So, what needs to be done now-

Fact checking. You need to make sure that the sources say what you say they do. I've corrected this at least once, and spotted others.
Copyediting. I've been copyediting as I've gone, but I worry the prose still isn't stellar. I also don't pretend to be the authority on professional writing.
Take a look through the points I raised above, and see if you've missed anything, or if there's anywhere you could improve.
After this, renominate, and wait for another reviewer. I'll be available on my talk page if I can be of any help before or during any future reviews.
Good luck. You've taken on an interesting article, here- an article that could potentially go all the way. It's an article worth getting right, and I hope it gets there. J Milburn (talk) 10:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The nominator has requested that I give a 2nd opinion here. J Milburn, you can either close this review as not passing, and I'll immediately open a new GA2 review... or I can just take over the current review, whichever you prefer. I'll be sure to read all your concerns either way. I hope to do this review on Monday. – Quadell (talk) 16:18, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
I thought I had already closed it. I believe that there are some other bits that need to be done before another review is forthcoming (see my closing thoughts above). For the sake of neatness, I think it best to close this review now; I would not feel comfortable being the judge of the article at this stage. You can offer your review of the article when editors feel it is ready to be renominated, or, if you want to go ahead and review this straight away, and GDuwen is happy to do that, go for it- that way, I think you'd be a little more likely to end up needing to review and rereview several times, as I did, but it could work. In any case, I'll try to stick around and offer any help I can. J Milburn (talk) 17:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I've had a look through this article myself, and have a few further queries. This is just an aside to the GA assessment, and has no bearing of course on whether or not its promoted. Just some things I thought might be good to be clarified. Benea (talk) 11:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

'During the expeditions of Cuming in 1827, the 1922 Whitney South Sea Expedition and St. John's expedition in 1940...' - could it be made clear what these expeditions were, i.e. their purpose, why they visited Ducie? I assume that Cuming is Hugh Cuming?
My preference would be to group all cites used at the end of the sentence rather than drop some in halfway through. This is the approach recommended at Wikipedia:Citing sources, unless the 'word or phrase is particularly contentious', but I leave that to your discretion.
You've written La Encarnación (Encarnation). But 'Encarnation' is not an English word either.
0.99 miles (1.59 km) is an oddly precise figure to say it is merely 'about'?
'bird species threatened by the increasing populations.' - is this the rat population? Should it not be singular and made explicit if so? It might be understood from this wording that the increasing populations of bird species are what is threatening them (the birds).
As a British Overseas Territory, British English spelling and date formatting should probably apply throughout.


### Additional additional comments
[1] seems to indicate an element of doubt over which island was named which by de Queirós. This perhaps should be mentioned.
La Encarnación I assume refers to Incarnation (Christianity)?
The 'Sovereignty' section jumps quickly from the US claim in 1867 to being included in the UK governance in the South Pacific in 1902. Is there any reason the US did not exploit the claim? Why was the claim made in the first place, and who by?
The source used actually says '...it would appear doubtful if they had ever in fact visited Ducie Island before and, due to its distance from Pitcairn and the lack of appropriate vessel, it is more than likely that visits to Henderson Island were then very few and far between. Certainly thay have not visited Ducie since 1902.' i.e. the distance and boat issue are being ascribed to Henderson Island, and it merely says it was doubtful they had visited Ducie, without giving a reason for that doubt. The article uses the distance/boat issue and applies it to Ducie however.
'The lagoon is mainly composed of death coral due to influxes of cold water by the boat passage in the Southwest' - does this mean dead coral, or is death coral a certain type of coral? From the context I suspect the former, but I can't be certain. Does the 'boat passage' mean the channel into the lagoon referred to earlier, or the passage of boats, i.e. some disturbance caused by boats entering or leaving the lagoon? Benea (talk) 23:33, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
I changed the link back to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as being more appropriate by the way. The FCO is the successor of the FO, and given that we don't have a specific article on the history of the FO before its merger with the Commonwealth Office in 1968, is the best link to have. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is also a modern title which postdates Simmon's despatch, and came into existence at the same time as the merger of the FO and CO in 1968. Reports would be made to the office rather than directly to the Secretary, then as now. Also the minister responsible for the Pitcairn Island situation in 1902 would not have been the Foreign Secretary, but the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Benea (talk) 09:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, it was my own confusion after all. About your suggestions:
After some reading, I could clarify what was really the name of the island and why some sources call it La Encarnación.
I tried to back up with the source the part of the history section that talks about the knowledge of the Pitcairners about the existence of Ducie.
One of the links given by J Milburn (reviewer) could help to clarify what happened with the claim of the U.S. Since the article is in a web page called JSTOR (that requires some kind of subscription) I already asked him for some help with that.--GDuwenTell me! 22:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I have Jstor access, and the article - Beatrice Orent and Pauline Reinsch, 'Sovereignty over Islands in the Pacific', The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 35, No. 3, Jul., 1941,  pp. 443-461. - is an interesting read, though there is not much on Ducie specifically. Page 447 states that unlike Henderson and Elizabeth islands, which were annexed in July 1902, Ducie was not claimed until 1903, when it was visited by HMS Consul. Ducie and Elizabeth were visited in July 1937 by HMS Leander, and it was thought that they 'might prove valuable as seaplane bases'. Benea (talk) 22:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I added the information regarding the plane base and the annexion. I think that the article gives a good explanation of why lands like Ducie were not annexed by the United States or the United Kingdom just because they were discovered by them, that actually might have led to the formal accession of the island.--GDuwenTell me! 00:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Bird populations: (paragraph 2 of lead section) I've provided a reference to the IUCN Red List to verify the 90% population of Murphy's Petrel. Unfortunately, the IUCN entries for the Red-tailed Tropicbird and the Fairy Tern make no mention of Ducie Island, so other references are needed for those statements. --Stfg (talk) 10:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Oh I see, it's in the Ramsar Information Sheet. I have put a reference in the lead, though, per WP:LEADCITE --Stfg (talk) 12:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Actually, the IUCN Red List entry gives figures amounting to more than 90% for Murphy's Petrel. As this reference is the more recent and is also reliable, I've used this one for the Murphy's. --Stfg (talk) 20:18, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I have put the islets on the disambiguation pages for each name. Please don't link to these, though, as they merely link back to this article (Geography section). --Stfg (talk) 10:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Most of the second paragraph of the Geography section is readable by experts only. I found the 8 million year figure on p.5 (not p.2) of Spencer. From that point on to the point where you give the p.2 citation, I cannot find any of this in the source. This may well be because the source is also very opaque, but anyway, the reader needs more help here. The reason I tagged the word "following" for clarification is that it is ambiguous as to whether FZ2 was formed as a consequence of the third movement, or merely after it but not as a consequence. I suggest changing "following" to "as a result of" or "after", depending on which of these is the case. --Stfg (talk) 14:18, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
User:GDuwen has now resolved these issues. --Stfg (talk) 10:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Flora: What Frodin says on p.917 is "Ducie ... has, along with Vostok Island ..., one of the smallest island vascular floras in the world". This is not the same as saying they have fewer species than any other island in the world, firstly because it only says "one of the smallest", and also because there are islands that have no vascular plants at all - "smallest flora" possibly excludes cases with no flora :). I have rephrased and removed reference to Vostok Island because it isn't really relevant to Ducie and, according to its WP article, it has 3 vascular plants anyway. --Stfg (talk) 17:09, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Flora: "St. John 1940" mentioned on p.18 of Rehder and Randall is a reference for the Cuming expedition, not a separate expedition. See Rehder and Randall's bibliography (p. 40). I've removed it. --Stfg (talk) 10:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Flora: "influxes of cold water" is in the source, but "by the boat passage in the south-west" is not. I've removed that phrase. --Stfg (talk) 10:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Terrestrial vertebrates: Chaplin's journal, as referenced by Rehder & Randall, only refers to one gecko, and it's only speculated to be a gecko. (It wasn't captured). I've rewritten this part of the paragraph. --Stfg (talk) 10:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
History, penultimate paragraph: the source doesn't say that the memorial is 10 metres from the wreck site. I have corrected this to say what the source really says. --Stfg (talk) 13:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
History, last paragraph: "In 1969, the atoll was proposed as an "Island for Science" and was recommended as a Ramsar Site.[41]" Ref 41 is the Ramsar Information Sheet, which  says that the island is a Ramsar site, but makes no mention of "Island of Science", nor of 1969. I have tagged it {{Failed verification}}. --Stfg (talk) 13:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Birds (end of section): "an expedition in 1991–92". Is this the 1991–92 Pitcairn Scientific Expedition mentioned two sections later? Might as well say so. --Stfg (talk) 15:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
As you see, there are quite a few places where I found the article to be saying things different from the sources. I didn't check all the sources (this was only meant to be a copy edit) and I imagine that there may be some undetected cases. So I've tagged it {{cite check}}, and would recommend doing a thorough verification exercise before the next GA review. --Stfg (talk) 15:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ducie Island/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: – Quadell (talk) 17:42, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Nominator: User:GDuwen

1a nitpick: "It resembles a long, thin sausage in shape." It doesn't look like a sausage to me, and I don't think that's the most encyclopedic way to put it. How about "Very long and thin, the islet is largely forested..."?
1b suggestion: According to WP:LEAD, the lede should summarize all sections of the article without giving any information not included elsewhere. As such, it does not need citations; instead, the facts can be cited in the body of the article where they are given in detail (as they are). Consider removing citations from the lede.
6b suggestion: Consider captioning the infobox photo "NASA photograph of Ducie Island" instead of "NASA picture of Ducie Island", because it's not immediately obvious it's a photograph.
There's really very little I can find to suggest for improvement. – Quadell (talk) 19:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

All the suggestions are assessed.--GDuwenTell me! 20:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Excellent, well done. – Quadell (talk) 20:29, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Concerning Pitcairner visits to Ducie, the article states that "This claim is contested by Donald McLoughlin on grounds of the distance between Pitcairn Island and Ducie Island and the lack of a suitable boat to navigate the distance between the two, casting doubt on whether they had ever visited Ducie." Though this statement is published in McLoughlin's book, "Laws of Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands." (1971), this is very much a POV statement in the original work. It seriously makes me wonder if he has even visited Pitcairn. The Pitcairners could travel there in the same way, and in the same boats, as they have always regularly visited the nearer islands of Oeno and Henderson. As a matter of fact (and I recognize it is not referenced), my late father-in-law, Walter G. Ferris, who was island Pastor for 4 years during the 1960s, did visit Ducie with Pitcairn Islanders, in the usual open boats they use for other inter-island travel. Admittedly visits to Ducie are rare - there is little incentive for the Pitcairners to go there - unlike Oeno (holidays) and Henderson (for miro wood for carvings). But McLoughlin's claim should be treated as POV. Ptilinopus (talk) 10:58, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

In the box, under "Ducie Island", I read, "Native name: Fenua-manu". I find this an amazing statement. In some polynesian languages this would mean "Land of Birds", or "Birdland". But no such language is spoken on Pitcairn Island, who know it only as Ducie. And no other island peoples have connection or claim or link to it. And since it is uninhabited, in whose language is the "native name" - and who gave it that name? The only place I can find reference to this name outside of clones of the Wikipedia article, in in "The Mutineer. A Romance of Pitcairn Island", a novel by Louis Becke(1855-1913) and Walter Jeffery (1861-1922), from alleged conversation between Fletcher Christian and Tahitian men on board - none of whom were alive when the authors were born. Does anyone know a more authentic source? Otherwise, this "native name" should be deleted. Ptilinopus (talk) 11:04, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done: I removed it. --Closeapple (talk) 16:05, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

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