Talk:Danny Deever

Danny Deever has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 14, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
March 15, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
July 10, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
June 21, 2009	Good article reassessment	Kept
December 18, 2023	Good article reassessment	Kept
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 15, 2005. The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that Rudyard Kipling's 1890 poem "Danny Deever" caused the academic David Masson to cry "Here's literature! Here's literature at last!" to his students, and that it was later described as "Teddy Roosevelt's favourite song"?
Current status: Good article

comment

Nice small article, good job Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 20:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Popular culture/literary references?

The novel Starship Troopers refers to this poem when one mentions that a trooper will be hung for crimes ("making one dance 'Danny Deever'.") Shouldn't this be mentioned in the article somewhere? --Micahbrwn (talk) 08:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The exact quote from Starship Troopers is:

"They were going to do it to him... they were going to do the "Danny Deever" to Ted Hendrick."

This was not spoken out loud, but rather a thought had by Johnny Rico immediately after Ted was found guilty of striking a superior officer, and immediately before sentencing for same at the field court-martial. His sentence was not hanging, as it almost certainly would have been in a general court-martial, but ten lashes and a Bad Conduct Discharge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.180.159.104 (talk) 08:26, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Music section edited as it seemed to give far too much weight to the opinions of dead US Presidents and UC Berkley's tradition of using one of the tunes ascribed to the poem - neither are essential to the article which is about the poem. Bit surprised to see an article on this poem and not see Peter Bellamy mentioned, just another example of wiki's on-going US-centric obsession?? 80.6.147.186 (talk) 01:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the current incarnation of the fiction section from the article, as it's fairly thin (and also unreferenced) - are these mentions really significant? Shimgray | talk | 20:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

References in fiction

Robert A. Heinlein uses the Kipling poem as a euphemism for military execution by hanging in his novel Starship Troopers, by way of the terms "do the Danny Deever" and "dancing Danny Deever". Many elements of Kipling's work are repeated in the novel, including the adverse reactions of young infantry recruits to a public flogging following the court martial of one of their ranks.

The author again references the poem in a later chapter, in which a soldier is convicted of desertion and murder, and is hanged. In this context, "Danny Deever" is the death march played by the company band, as the offender is stripped of his rank, insignia, buttons and cap and then led to the gallows. American military tradition would imply that the song is played without the accompanying words, though this is not explicitly stated in the work.

Nicholas Freeling titled one of his novels (featuring the French detective Henri Castang)"What are the Bugles Blowing for", following a murder investigation, culminating in the execution of the culprit by guillotine. (In common with most of Freeling's work, the culprit is known from the start) Lines from the poem are used to introduce chapters in the book

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Danny Deever/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

Starting GA reassessment. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick fail criteria assessment

The article completely lacks reliable sources – see Wikipedia:Verifiability.
The topic is treated in an obviously non-neutral way – see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
There are cleanup banners that are obviously still valid, including cleanup, wikify, NPOV, unreferenced or large numbers of fact, clarifyme, or similar tags.
Some page needed tags but not all are needed. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:12, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article is or has been the subject of ongoing or recent, unresolved edit wars.
The article specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint.

No probs with quick fail criteria. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:12, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Checking against GA criteria

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose):
b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references):
~~Some references to print material have page needed tags. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)~~[reply]
b (citations to reliable sources):
c (OR):
It is broad in its scope.
a (major aspects):
b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales):
b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
This is an excellent article, but there is one small problem. Page numbers are needed for reference #3, #4 and #5. Tag have been left by another editor. I managed to find an online source for reference #6. I am placing the reassessemnt on hold, whilst this is addressed. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All now directly reffed. I've removed one of the cites, as it seemed to just duplicate material found in another one, and I couldn't find a print copy to confirm. Anything else looks like it needs brought up to spec? Shimgray | talk | 16:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All OK, now. I am happy to keep at GA status. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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Starship Troopers

I made these corrections based on the unabridged audio book. See: https://youtu.be/EOQMpb_R41Y?t=10097. Rklawton (talk) 21:21, 6 December 2020 (UTC) And at time slot: https://youtu.be/EOQMpb_R41Y?t=14795. Rklawton (talk) 23:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment

Danny Deever

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

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:52, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA from 2006. This article has many unsourced statements, original research, and uses circular referencing. Spinixster (chat!) 10:52, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Spinixster Thanks for flagging this. I'm recovering from covid at the moment so haven't much spare capacity, but I'll try and have a look over it in the next week or two and see what can be salvaged. Standards have definitely moved on a bit in the last 17 years! Andrew Gray (talk) 22:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrew Gray, I can also take a look towards cleanup over the next few days if it would be of assistance? Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 12:08, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Eddie891 that would be very kind, thankyou! Andrew Gray (talk) 17:22, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just added a few citations and removed an uncited claim. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 16:26, 3 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've overhauled the background (though it might need more tweaking). Working on digging up some suitable sourcing for critical commentary. Andrew Gray (talk) 00:35, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a little more, and removed an uncited paragraph which does seem to have been editorial. The rest seems to be both sufficient and properly cited. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:35, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, the work by Gray et al. looks good to me. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (she/they 🎄 🏳️‍⚧️) 00:40, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.