# Talk:Robert Surcouf

Hmmm. I believe this particular individual has been given quite a bit of sensationalism. No small wonder when you consider the dominance Britain exercised over her opponents on the seas and oceans during this period. The article suggests that the Kent had over 300 able bodied soldiers and seamen on board when infact that is a gross over-exaggeration. Furthermore, the article seems to insinuate that Surcouf is dealing with a man-of-war. A much needed figure I think to reinvigorate a public that was far too used to seeing their navy bested time and again.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.157.93 (talk) 22:07, 30 July 2014 (UTC) 

This article was automatically  assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

As a native to St. Malo I do believe one of his ships was called Le Renard could be mistake or omitted info. Will correct.

It is mentioned in the article [1]. Rama 07:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
There's no verb here: "In 1812, Surcouf his last ship, the Renard ("Fox"), a 14-gun cutter." I'd fix it but I don't know if thats the date he scuttled or took command of his last vessel. 173.26.188.104 (talk) 13:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Can we please have a source for the assertion that Surcouf was educated by the Jesuits ? My sources state he was educated at what is now Collège Roger Vercel, in Dinan. This was never a Jesuit establishment. 
Boulet rouge (talk) 21:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The article states Surcoouf was captured by a British vessel. The very next sentence, however, seems to assume he's free. Thus the clarify tag.
How was he captured? How did he get free? What happened here? CapnZapp (talk) 18:18, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Robert Surcouf/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Tomobe03 (talk · contribs) 16:47, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
I'll review the article shortly.--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:47, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Images:

Images of the "Documents on Surcouf's Legion of Honour" are accompanied by captions that produce scrollbars adjacent to them. Is there a way to present them without the scrollbars?
Files "Le RenardWiki.jpg" and "Forbin-Bougault.jpg" lack licensing for the United States - could you please add appropriate PD tags so that the images comply with the WP:GACR?--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:45, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
I would suggest converting the ship "list" - which is actually a gallery into a table containing the same information. Galleries are discouraged per WP:IG. If you insist on keeping the current arrangement, that has no bearing on GA review as the issue is not a part of the WP:GACR. I posted this particular issue (gallery) merely as an advice.
References:

Please provide a reference for the last claim in the Surcouf managed to board his larger opponent and, after over an hour and a half[42] of battle across the decks of the ship,[43] seize control of the Kent. (seizing control of the Kent).
Claims in the "notes" section need references. I understand that they are right now composed to provide a mention of the author and page where the claim is based, but those should be reworked to include {{cite book}} or other appropriate templates providing references (including page numbers etc). On a further note - consider which notes are actually needed for understanding of the topic and remove those not necessary (if there are any). Also, try to incorporate those that are closely related to the prose into the actual prose text - in order to achieve a more streamlined presentation.
The site www.netmarine.net does not appear to be a reliable source per WP:RS.
The same applies to marine-imperiale.pagesperso-orange.fr.
The site goodgentlewoman.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/the-three-wives-of-general-frederick-st-john/ appears to be a blog, likewise not a RS. This source and the preceding two need be substituted by reliable published works as references or removed altogether if they are redundant.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:02, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Add language=French and trans_title= parameters to the {{cite book}} templates. For those books that have no ISBN, you can add oclc= parameter (for instance oclc=7012415 for Biographie maritime ou notices historiques sur la vie et les campagnes des marins célèbres français et étrangers). OCLC numbers are easily googled.
MOS:

There are several duplicate links in the article which need be removed: 12-pounder long guns, Sumatra, La Réunion,  Nicholas Surcouf, Jean Dutertre, Seychelles, Joseph Potier - per WP:OVERLINK.
Single digit numbers should be spelled out, rather than presented as figures per WP:ORDINAL.
Likewise, per WP:ORDINAL, recommended number delimitor is comma (,) - not space. Space as a delimiter is particularly problematic as it allows wrapping of text in the middle of the figures. Please change those spaces to commas.
In structures such as 18 12-pounder carronades the first figure should be spelled out (per WP:ORDINAL).
Per WP:LEAD the lede should contain no more than four paragraphs. Since all of those now in the lede are short, you may as well consolidate two of them containing related information.
Units of measurement should be separated from the value using a non-breaking space per WP:NBSP. Alternatively {{convert}} template may be used where appropriate.
Other comments:

see French ship Surcouf for a list. before the actual "list" is redundant and it would be best to remove that bit altogether.
John Nichols disambiguation page is linked from the article - please link correct one instead.
Since Rouvier, Cunat, Hennequin described the Kent (rather than the British authors) I'm wondering if you have conveyed the correct unit of measurement here when you claim "1200 tons". Please verify that you really meant tons and not tonnes (metric unit of measurement).--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:02, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
I will post further comments as soon as the referencing issue(s) are addressed.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:56, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the review and suggestions. I will go through them with great and let you know as soon as they have been implemented. Cheers! Rama (talk) 11:31, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the review. I have implemented the changes you suggested, I hope successufully and without missing anything. The OCLC is a particularly valuable addition that I will remember in the future. Two points:
The tons are not units of mass, here, but units of volume (as in Tonnage); while warships are usually measured by their mass, merchantmen are byt he volume of cargo they carry. In this particular case, it is difficult to state in which measure the disrepancies are due to different units, different measurement methods, exageration, or a combination of these.
I have removed references from non-notable websites, but Netmarine is a little bit of a borderline case: netmarine.net is a personal project of people who are or have been in the Navy, and have published solid work; in particular, Lieutenant-Commander Roche is the author of the Dictionnaire des Bâtiments which is one of the present-day authoritative reference (here [2] is an official webpage of the Historical Services of the Defence which recommands it). The particular page on the site that I have linked was written by Alain Roman, author of Robert Surcouf et ses frères, who summarised his book there. I realise that ideally, a direct reference to this book would be best, but I do not have access to it and it is a rather expensive item to order. I have put the book in the bibliography and edited the references to Netmarine to state that the page quotes from the book; could this be an acceptable compromise until direct references from the book can be found?
Thank you again for your review and many valuable suggestions, and cheers! Rama (talk) 07:49, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
2nd reading notes:

Nicholas Surcouf is still "overlinked".
According to WP:SURNAME, after the 1st mention of a person, all subsequent mentions should be by surname only i.e. Surcouf for Nicholas Surcouf. Please implement this throughout the article.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:03, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
The notes should be included in the prose wherever possible and appropriate to improve flow of the text. I took the liberty of moving one of them already. Could you do the same for the rest of those as appropriate?
I will have to seek a second opinion on the website that is not as clearly identifiable as a WP:RS. Your claim that it is a reliable source may very well be true, but I have to check that, if you don't mind (once the rest of the review is over).--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Why does the gallery of ships named Surcouf include Renard and Forbin?--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:27, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
WP:MOSIM advises against sandwiching text between images. While this is not always possible to achieve, please consider which images are really needed to convey the information and which are decorative and remove the latter. Adding extra images may be detrimental to readability of the article - additional images can always be linked at the Wikimedia Commons using {{Commons category}} template. Right now the article seems jam-packed with images I cannot really appreciate as central to the topic.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:32, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
Will return to review the prose once the notes issue is resolved.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the Nicholas Surcouf thing; I had not noticed that we had two variants of the spelling in the article.
The surname would I think be problematic: since Robert and Nicolas were both named Surcouf, it would be difficult to understand which is which without the first names. I, for one, would assume that any "Surcouf" without first name in this article would refer to Robert. Do you have an idea on how to alleviate this on "Nicolas Surcouf was given command of Louisa"?
Of course, the two need be disambiguated where needed.
I've tried to move the notes as much as possible and remove the less useful ones in the previous edits (but I missed yours); those that remain seem to me like typical footnotes, in that they discuss tangential matters that are not really the subject of the article, but provide context, explanations or justification to what is said. But I'd be very interested if you have a specific instance in mind.
OK, but they need to contain inline citations. However, those are quite complex to explain here, so please check once more if anything else warrants inclusion in the prose (if anything at all), and I'll fix cites in whatever is left myself.
Second opinions are pretty much the point of this whole process, so I do not mind at all, far from it.
Renard was very close to Surcouf, so I though providing her image as an example would be useful to picture the sort of ship a steam aviso is. Forbin was a sister-ship of Surcouf and would be undistinguishable from her.
Right, but the gallery purports to list ships named Surcouf, nothing else.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:28, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
I'll try to moderate the over-illustratation of the article.
Thank you again! Rama (talk) 11:58, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
The notes are now converted to a version where inline citations are possible. You might want to reformat those cites to match style of the rest of the citations used in the article though. I'll just inquire about the www.netmarine.net as a source, and we'll be wrapping this GAR up.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:53, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your help. I am sorry to be less responsive these days; happenstance unrelated to Wikipedia have suddenly made my time quite scarce during the week. I hope to be more available at least during the week-ends. Thank you again and cheers! Rama (talk) 20:15, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


### 2nd opinion request
The article uses www.netmarine.net as a source, but I cannot verify that this is a WP:RS sufficient to comply with GA criteria. I would like to have a second opinion on this matter before the article is promoted or failed.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:02, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I would say that netmarine.net is RS because its president is an acknowledged expert on the French Navy and I've used his books myself.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for stepping in!--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:17, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much to all for the many improvements and the tremendous help. Rama (talk) 10:55, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

La Confiance is described as a brig (with citation), despite clearly being depicted as a fully-rigged ships (with three masts) in all paintings of its battle with the Kent. What is the story here? Does the sentence need to be amended to corvette?99.196.29.75 (talk) 01:07, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

She is described as a three-masted ship in Gallois, Napoléon (1847). Les Corsaires français sous la République et l'Empire (in French). Vol. 2. Julien, Lanier et compagnie. p. 370. (a few pages lated, the same author mentions a boarding axe of honour rather than a sabre).
The painter was himself an officer on Confiance and had taken part in the battle against Kent, so his depiction should be reasonably accurate. Rama (talk) 01:15, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Citant un ouvrage français, je m'exprimerai donc en français.
J'ai  travaillé en étroite collaboration avec Mr Roman - spécialiste incontesté de R.Surcouf -concernant l'article dédié à R.Surcouf sur Wikipédia France où rien ne fut omis ni occulté.
1) Saint-Malo ne fut pas Nantes en matière de traite négrière. Ce triste commerce ne fut qu'une infime partie de ses activités commerciales. Se référer aux ouvrage traitant du sujet. 
2) Il n'a jamais été dissimulé que R.Surcouf avait commencé sa carrière maritime sur des navires négriers. Motif simple de son choix : Sa famille étant ruinée, il devait contribuer à la nourrir. Or Les navires négriers ayant du mal à recruter leurs équipages (ce qu'on n'évoque jamais) ces derniers y étaient mieux payés.
3) "Traite négrière de l'armateur Surcouf" : Vous trouverez en page de discussion de wikipédia Français une intervention de Mr Roman lui même sur le sujet :

 "Entre 1815 et 1822,Surcouf a armé entre 4 et 6 navires négriers.L'imprécision du chiffre est due au fait qu'il s'agit de voyages illégaux et que l'on manque de documents.Les voyages certains sont:l'Africain en 1815 et 1819 et l'Adolphe en 1820 et 1822.Cette activité négrière est une goutte d'eau par rapport à son activité commerciale:près de 120 armements entre 1815 et 1827.Les références peuvent être trouvées dans mes livres:Saint-Malo au temps des négriers et Robert Surcouf et ses frères ".

Même en comptant des transports supputés ( mais non avérés), cela représente au maximum 5% de l'activité de l'armateur Surcouf. Parler de marchands d'esclaves est donc à la foirs erroné sur un plan historique et diffamatoire. 
4) Conclusion : S'il n'est pas souhaitable d'occulter les recoins sombres de l'Histoire, il n'est pas plus souhaitable de la tordre afin de faire plaisir à telle ou telle idéologie du moment. Laissons cela aux nazis dont c'était usage et méthodes. 
St Malo (talk) 21:56, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Bonjour, vous ne contestez donc pas que Surcouf a donc armé plusieurs navires négriers, illégalement. Je vous prierais donc de cesser d'enlever ces faits de l'article. Rama (talk) 06:16, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Pendant que j'y suis, veuillez également cesser de déteriorer les références en dupliquant les références aux livres et en enlevant les numéros des pages des passages cités. Merci d'avance. Rama (talk) 06:26, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Bonjour vous êtes en train de falsifier un article et la  vérité historique  pour des raisons purement idéologique. Des gens comme vous ne se présentent plus.
Mr Roman a été très clair sur ce point et j'ai même mis sa réponse sur cette page.Pire vous utilisez son nom  pour avaliser vos mensonges
Rassurez vous la vérité sera rétablie tôt ou tard, vos méthodes étalées, finissant de discréditer ce que vous avez prétention de défendre...Continuez...Continuez...St Malo (talk)
Surcouf s'est livré à la traite d'esclave. C'est un fait historique qui n'est pas contestable, est attesté dans plusieurs livres et par des documents autographes — et que même vous ne contestez pas.
Trafiquer des esclaves fait de Surcouf un trafiquant d'esclave. Ce peut bien être une source mineure de sa fortune, et une faible proportion de son activité, cela reste un fait d'une grande gravité puisqu'il nie l'humanité des victimes. On ne peut pas non plus l'effacer au nom du relativisme moral, puisque la pratique est déjà illégale quand Surcouf s'y livre.
Je vous prierais donc de cesser de me traiter de menteur, de me menacer, et de comparer au Nazisme l'historiographie moderne de l'esclavage. Rama (talk) 15:01, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Pour le cas où vous ne l'auriez pas remarqué, l'existence de ces deux voyages n'ont jamais été occultés dans l'article.
Le rôle d'une encyclopédie est de donner les faits bruts qu'ils soient plaisant ou pas. Nous n'avons -  ni vous ni moi  - à tenter d'en biaiser la présentation  à l'aune de nos convictions.
Votre émotion ( que je partage )  est louable aussi je vous convie de vous investir au plus  vite à faire libérer tous les esclaves actuellement en Afrique- continent continuant cette infamie Parmi les pays concernés : Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Mauritanie ( ci joint vidéo d'un avocat africain en lutte contre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUjHqyEREuw). Je note d'ailleurs que l'article anglais sur le Mali en parle au passé alors que c'est, hélas, toujours d'actualité. Je compte sur vous pour rectifier l'article anglais au plus vite. St Malo (talk)

According to the article on Triton, he was called Burnyeat, not Burnycat. Which is correct? 2001:9E8:6B48:F400:DC54:8CB6:C2E1:3F9A (talk) 13:34, 15 December 2023 (UTC)