Talk:Ronald Hugh Barker

Downgraded to C-class for two WikiProjects

As created, the article contains far too much information that is personal, i.e., not pertaining to his career as a scientist, and without referencing whatsoever. David notMD (talk) 18:32, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Date of university degree

The article currently says: At the University of Hull, Barker gained a 1st class honours degree in physics awarded by University of London 1954 ... Can the date of 1954 possibly be correct? In that year Barker was appointed a Senior Principal Scientific Office, surely his university degree must have come long before.If he graduated from The Ceaders in 1934, I would have thought a University degree would have come around 1937 or so. Or was the degree delayed by the war? Barkercoder, can you advise at all? DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 15:11, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Barkercoder

Barker's degree was gained at University College, Hull - awarded by University of London in 1934. This got confused with the date he received his doctorate in 1954. Despite reading the article over I didn't spot the mistake, thank you for pointing it out. I am in the process of getting confirmation for the degree to add a cite. It was a long time ago and Covid isn't making it a speedy process. This article is intended to be a biography as well as pertaining to his career as a scientist. My aim was to describe what he achieved having been brought up in hard times. Do the two not fit in Wikipedia as one article? I guess you want it to look more like John Robert Mills with a one liner, a bit too basic for me to accept but I will have a go at reducing it. Cedars school is proven by the photo.

I also noticed your request for a layman's description of Barker code to head that article. I have written one but not being technical I shall put it on the talk page soon to see if someone can describe it more succinctly. Windswept (talk) 18:39, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

The date of a degree is usually not controversial and delay in providing a cite is not usually a problem, Barkercoder.

I am a little surprised at a date of 1934, because in the "Personal details" section it says: He was duly admitted to the school where he stayed until 1934. (referring to The Cedars). Was Barker able to do university-level work while at The Cedars? or to secure a degree in less than a year after leaving? I know that the UK in the 1930s used a very different system than, say, the US in the 1980s, ad while I have read about it a bit, I am sure there are large holes in my knowledge of that time and place. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 19:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

As to the less-technical summery of Barker codes, feel free to place this on the talk page if you are unsure, or just boldly edit the article. Someone will surely change it if they think it at the wrong level. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 19:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

GA nomination

Hey, I was going to review this article, but right now it looks like a quick fail. Here are my comments:

Early career:

• Barker, is recognised for his invention of Barker code or Barker sequence - no need for a comma
• Quote "A sequence of binary digits has very little meaning unless the significance of the individual digits is known". - I don't understand why is it here, in the first paragraph of the first section.
• but soon moved to Warnham Court (see photo), Horsham, England[2]There, - multiple minor errors, that are everywhere - you need fullstops at the end of each sentence, and a space after you sentence. 'see photo' are not really useful, as photos should have appropriate captions.
• second and thirds paragraphs are unsourced
• This photo shows an aerial at the front of the missile which is all important for telecommunications. Aerial design was of interest to Barker who wrote an article published in the Wireless Engineer in November 1948 p361 - it's unclear what photo is 'this', and "who wrote an article published in the Wireless Engineer in November 1948 p361" is a really strange way to say that somebody published something.
• initial firings were at Ynyslas in Wales (see[4]) - '(see[4])' - why this format? can you just use this reference without '(see)'?

Post-war career

• half of the text in unsourced, same minor errors with commas, fullstops and spaces.
• File:Warnham_Court,_Horsham_c1942.jpg should use thumb and needs caption; besides it's marked as 'own work', though it's dated as '1942'. Unless you're 90+ years old, that can't be your work (I can be wrong here, but just to be sure), so that should be updated on commons.

Personal details

• usually it's called Biography, Early life or something similar, and is the first section of the article.
• first section in unsourced

I suggest you to proofread the article and add more reliable sources. For copyediting you can go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests, though it's usually takes a lot of time. Artem.G (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I feel privileged that you had intended to review this article. Thank you for taking the time to provide your invaluable input which will guide me to improving it. In the mean time should I remove the request for nomination?

The source for much of the information is from my father's memoirs, family history notes and official documents; none of which are published. Clearly this may be a problem. Being the author of the article I can personally verify the authenticity of the unsourced information. I have not found any information in 'Citing sources' nor in 'reliable sources' to deal with this situation other than deletion. To do so would be a significant loss as a biography and historical record of this scientist. I would appreciate any ideas or solutions on the best way forward, please. Windswept (talk) 13:04, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

You can proceed with the nomination, that's up to you to decide. I understand your desire to bring the article to GA, but family history and unpublished documents are rarely used on wp. You can ask about possible solutions here Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab), but I'm afraid unsourced parts can be deleted or at least marked with citation needed templates. Artem.G (talk) 15:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

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.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Ronald Hugh Barker/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TompaDompa (talk · contribs) 17:40, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a WP:QUICKFAIL based on criterion 1 (It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria) and 3 (It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags (See also {{QF}})). Specifically, it fails WP:GACR 1a (the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct), 1b (it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch [...]), and 2b (reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose)), and needs the corresponding maintenance tags. I'll list some of the specific issues I noted while reading through the article:

• Generally, the article needs a thorough copyediting. I strongly suggest reaching out to the WP:Guild of Copy Editors.
• Barker excelled in mathematics, becoming keen on electronics. He is best known for his ground-breaking work – "excelled" and "keen on" are a bit informal, and "ground-breaking" is a MOS:Word to watch.
• Born in Dublin to English parents his early education years were disrupted by his father's frequent periods of unemployment and moves between Dublin and England to find work as an artist and stained glass window designeroften staying in grim lodgings. – run-on sentence.
• His father died when he was aged 14 of pneumonia. – presumably the father was not 14 when he died, and the placement of "of pneumonia" is odd.
• Barker passed away peacefully on 7 October 2015. – unsourced.
• passed away – WP:EUPHEMISM.
• By using a prearranged pattern of bits (Barker code) the receiver can correctly synchronise the data with a very low probability of error. The code (which now has many variants) is used in most forms of data transmissions within (and out of) our world today. – unsourced.
• Roy cycled back to Heath and Reach where he met his wife to be, Wendy Emily Hunt (1917–1998). Barker resigned from STC, as he felt his work on X-ray tubes was unrelated to the war effort. – unsourced.
• During the years 1045 - 1947 – I'm guessing that's meant to be 1945–1947.
• During the years 1045 - 1947 he was responsible for devising, developing and seeing into production the first system of telemetry for guided weapons. In 1946 R H Barker read a paper describing his guidance system at an international conference on telemetry at Princeton University,US. – unsourced.
• There is a stray period at the beginning of the "Post-war career" section, and a stray paragraph break in the middle of (what's intended to be) the first paragraph.
• Information about SRDE's history is held locally at The Red House Museum and Gardens, Christchurch, England. In 1976 the Signals Research and Development Establishment involved in communications research, joined Royal Radar Establishment to form the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE). The National Archives (United Kingdom) now hold archived documents from SRDE Christchurch. These may not have been digitised. – unsourced.
• The headquarters work was tedious and in 1957 Barker returned to SRDE Christchurch, Dorset, as Superintendent of Research in charge of the site. – unsourced.
• Barker became a member of the council and served on the important Membership Committee for many years. On 6 March 1962 Barker elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He served for a time on the Automatic Control committee of the latter. – unsourced.
• as at the time there was conjecture as to how it worked. Perhaps this was something being researched or just for a bit of fun. After the company was taken over by the Rank Organisation in 1964 he became unhappy with the changes made to the way the company was run. He had no say in this and it soon became apparent that the opportunities for any interesting research were not going to be forthcoming and the future looked uninviting. – unsourced.
• Here, Barker having had line management experience in industry now had a much greater level of responsibility. In 1965, there were 2,500 staff at RARDE and Barker was responsible for half the scientific branches and staff. The research work being undertaken was assessment of non-nuclear weapons systems. Barker retired in May 1979. – unsourced.
• Applications of this are huge – inappropriately informal.

I'll add some maintenance tags to the article itself. TompaDompa (talk) 17:40, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

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.

GOCE copy edit notes

@Barkercoder: I have several comments.

• The lead needs to be rewritten to summarize the contents of the article. Please review MOS:LEAD.
• I've done some reorganizing. Please review MOS:LAYOUT and MOS:BIOGRAPHY (especially MOS:CHRONOLOGICAL).
• As you can see, I've left some tags regarding the citations throughout. Wikipedia prefers secondary sources over primary sources. For example, regarding death and early life, an obituary or autobiography would generally cover those things and make for a good source. I did not tag all of the citations; many of them need to be replaced. Double check all citations and make sure they actually substantiate what the text says.
• I removed some citations that were unnecessary. For example, citing to a source about the Church he was married at is unnecessary. You need a source that says he was married there, not a general citation about the church.
• There was a lot of overlinking going on.
• Use citation templates.
• Do not include (See XYZ) as cites in the body; cite to a reliable source and incorporate wikilinks into the text.
• I removed the paragraphs that were tangential: for example, the final paragraph of the later career section, which describes Barker codes. That belongs in the article on Barker codes, not the article on Dr. Barker himself.

voorts (talk/contributions) 04:04, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

A delayed thank you (due to holiday) for all the work and comments on RHB.

There is a lot to take in and understand. It has been an interesting exercise.

I have a question:

One of the photos Telemetry Trials at Ynyslas, Wales 1945.jpg has been deleted without a reason was this accidental with text revisions? Without it there is a loss of depiction and understanding of telemetry.

I will carry on to improve the article but probably won't be resubmitting it for review. Windswept (talk) 19:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)