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OK, this article, about drinking on Christmas Eve and the results thereof, comes out in Christmas Eve and is so full of mangled sentences, bad English, and crazy facts that one suspects it may be a seasonal prank, arising perhaps from a modern drunk-fest, no? Should we lay off the editing and let the joke ride? --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 20:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a prank. It actually happened. There was a book written about this back in 1979 on it. Chris (talk) 21:40, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The table in the "personnel involved in the riot" section, in the column "Sentence", frequently says "Dismissed". It is not immediately obvious whether that means the defendant was dismissed, or the charges.

A reader who investigates sufficiently can figure out that it can't mean the charges were dismissed, because some of the entries say something like dismissed, but sentence remitted, which doesn't make sense if it was the charges. But the fact that the reader has to do that means that the table is not clear enough. Moreover, even once you figure out that the defendant was dismissed, it's still not clear exactly what that means (expelled from the school, discharged from the Armed Forces, both?), and constructions like dismissed on four charges remain obscure (surely, you can't be expelled for four charges but allowed to remain on the other ones???).

So I hope that someone who has the references, and understands exactly what all this means, will be willing to clarify. --Trovatore (talk) 22:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Column changed to verdict with result from the verdict afterwards. Chris (talk) 23:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's a modest improvement, but it still doesn't explain what "dismissed" means. --Trovatore (talk) 03:00, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dismissed changed to expelled. Chris (talk) 20:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is so badly written as to be close to incomprehensible. It is, at minimum, confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.126.87.202 (talk) 21:04, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example:

"Hitchcock went down to his room to sleep. He heard three knocks on the door on to have the people leave away from him."

OK, he heard three knocks on his door. He didn't hear them in order to have the people leave away from him. Obviously he performed some other action to cause this to happen. Perhaps someone should consult the source that was cited and produce a better constructed sentence. The "leave away from him" suggests to me that this sentence may have been copied wholesale from an older primary source with a few words left out and without proper quotations. Just a guess, but I don't feel it's a great leap. TimBRoy (talk) 17:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Hitchcock found another inebriated cadet who wandered the cadet." I can't begin to comprehend what this sentence means. Is there an area on USMA campus known as the "Cadet Walk", the "Cadet Circle", or the like which is popularly/commonly known as "the Cadet"? Or does this just mean "Hitchcock found another inebriated cadet wandering around."? Enquring minds DO want to know!75.200.109.125 (talk) 01:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've given this a substantial going-over (sorry I didn't note that I wasn't logged in when I made the edit). I've tried to clean up the style as best I can. It's a bit difficult in parts because I have no access to the main source material for the article, which means I've had to try to puzzle out what the original author meant as best I can. At several points I've made educated guesses about what was meant; in particular the identity of Nathaniel Eaton is not clear. I think he is another cadet, as there was a Nathaniel Eaton who graduated in 1827 (see findagrave, but it's not clear. I've also revised 'wandered the cadet' to 'wandering the academy', but this is at best a wild guess as to what was meant.

The whole thing still reads a lot like random sentences taken from Agnew's book, but I'd need to get a copy of it to improve it much further. GoldenRing (talk) 13:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't read like an encyclopedia article. It reads like a paraphrase of some primary sources.--75.83.69.196 (talk) 00:19, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't even read this article. It's got so much wrong with it.24.38.96.66 (talk) 17:26, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree.. it's difficult to understand the basics of this event. The introduction isn't clear about what caused the riot.. because they were drunk? Or to protest that alcohol was smuggled? And how many people rioted? ("A third" of an undisclosed number isn't helpful..). What did the "riot" actually consist of? Burning cars? And the article itself is difficult to follow, partially because the English isn't good. 24.84.9.97 (talk) 01:11, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds about as confused as the night itself probably was! 93.97.184.230 (talk) 02:31, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article could be interesting, perhaps even historical, but currently it's garbage and should be removed or edited by at least a sixth grader — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.197.76 (talk) 23:00, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Smithsonian.com published an excellent article about this incident. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.143.22 (talk) 20:28, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reference to the phrase "eggnog riot" in the source upon which this article depends. While it's still likely the best name, since it's not capitalized in found sources it should not be capitalized in this encyclopedia.

Hopefully sinebot will sign this for me, as the tilde has vanished from my phone. ~TPW 13:15, 24 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]