Talk:HMS Victory

List of Admirals who have hoisted their flag...

This issue was raised by User:Martocticvs in July 2008 but as there wasn't much discussion (see Talk:HMS_Victory/Archive_1#List_of_Admirals) so I think it might be useful to ressurect it. Apart from USS Constitution, this doesn't appear to be usual practice so I am suggesting moving the table to a stand-alone list with the hope someone will eventually make it an article. I personally don't see a need to replace it with anything, although a prose section with some of the most notable admirals might be appropriate. Thoughts? --Ykraps (talk) 11:16, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the list in its current form should not be used. It's unreferenced and unwieldy. If we can dig up some reliable sources to demonstrate the notability of the list outside of the ship article then it should be moved over. Either way, mentions of admirals who raised their flag on Victory should be converted into prose as appropriate. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 15:13, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for reitterating your view here. I can only really reference admirals up to and including Saumarez. You said you thought John McKay's 100-gun ship Victory held a list of admirals. Do you have access to that book? --Ykraps (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

There was a discussion at wt:ships a few years back about Lists of Commanding Officers on ship articles, and the consensus at the time was to avoid such lists, leading to WP:SHIPSNOTCREWS. Generally the preference was to see COs added to the narrative prose as part of the chronology. There could be separate articles, where appropriate, such as List of commanding officers of USS Oklahoma (BB-37).

This list on it's face seems like a candidate for a separate article. There may be an issue with sourcing. With some lists, attached refs often aren't required if the list entries are linked to another article, (such as the case here), with the belief that the entry is sourced in that article. Every entry here is linked, but when looking to confirm, there is an issue. Starting with the first five entries; Kepple, Hardy and Parker, there is no mention of Victory at all. Drake has a single mention of Victory, but no source attached, and finally Geary, has a single mention of Victory in the prose, with a source attached (a book).

TL;DR - this list probably shouldn't be in this article, all the admirals should be noted in the prose instead. The list could be forked off on it's own, but there may he sourcing issues. - \\'cԼF 23:57, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I also checked the admiral articles for sources and found them wanting. My thoughts were also, if an admiral's tenure was notable, it should be included in the main body of the text. --Ykraps (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

With most of the USN lists, it was fairly easy to to add notable COs to the prose as most of them didn't have careers notable enough for articles. The exception to that was aircraft carriers, where every CO is a Captain (O-6), and leading a carrier usually means they're on their way to admiral. So with the CO lists on carrier pages, we had to basically add all of them, which was more work.

My point is, every CO on this list is considered notable, and there's many more here that on any CVN page. How would you determine which ones to add and which ones to leave out? Personally, I think the better move here is to fork off the list as a standalone article, keeping them all. Then all it needs is a decent lead, much of which can be lifted from this page, and then add any missing refs, which shouldn't be that hard (or just add cn tags where needed, which is even easier). Jmho... - \\'cԼF 01:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC)