Template:Did you know nominations/Francisca Fernández Hall

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 20:16, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

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Francisca Fernández Hall[edit]

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Created by SusunW (talk). Self-nominated at 20:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC).

  • Article is new enough (created June 25), long enough, and supported by reliable sources. There are problems with the hook, though. First, the article doesn't say was "the first female engineer in CA." Instead, it says she was "the first woman in all of Central America to earn an engineering degree." Not necessarily the same thing. Second, there is no in-line citation for the assertion that she was the first woman in CA to receive an engineering degree. Third, the article doesn't assert that she was "Guatemala's first female diplomat." Instead, it says she was the first female diplomat ambassador. Again, these are not necessarily the same, i.e., there are diplomats both above and below the level of ambassador. See Diplomat#Diplomatic ranks. Fourth, and with respect to the in-line citation for the assertion that she was Guatemala's first female diplomat, found here, I am having trouble finding where it states that Hall was Guatemala's first ambassador. These issues all need to be resolved, possibly with an alternative hook, before this can be approved. Cbl62 (talk) 16:20, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
  • As to point 4 raised above, I found this subpage from the cited source, which does assert that Hall was Guatemala's first ambassador. However, the site is a self-published site created by an individual named Martin Iversen Christensen. See WP:USERGENERATED regarding the use of such sources. A google search reveals nothing indicating that Mr. Christensen, as required by USERGENERATED, is "an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." Cbl62 (talk) 16:32, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

@Cbl62: Thanks for reviewing the article. If you want the hook changed that isn't a problem. I didn't use Christensen as the only source, there is the Prense Libre article that backs up that she was the Israeli ambassador and I did cite the subpage you indicate above in the same sentence. One page shows first ambassador, the other shows dates of her service. I am not sure what you mean by this statement ...the article doesn't assert that she was "Guatemala's first female diplomat." Instead, it says she was the first female diplomat." Did you mean to say first female ambassador? As to why I simply said diplomat, the sources I reviewed listed her as "Chargé d'affaires" or an "ambassador" pretty much interchangeably. I have now added the other sources, but seems to me "diplomat" is a more generic term. Please ping me with any comments, as I did not get a notice you had reviewed the file. Don't know why it didn't show up on my watchlist. Try this as a new hook: SusunW (talk) 18:25, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

  • The bit about her being the country's first female ambassador is interesting if you can find a reliable source to back it up. If there is no such source available, better to go with an alt hook, though the unsubstantiated claim should probably also be removed from the article if there is no reliable source. As for your proposed alt hook, I still have a couple issues. First, it should probably be revised to say "Guatemala's former Chargé d'affaires ..." Second, and more importantly, I'm still not sure there is sufficient sourcing for the claim that she was the first Central American woman to earn an engineering degree. My concern flows from the following:
a) The cited source here is a bid vague in its assertion. According to google translate, it states: "Then, we say that the first woman to graduate from USAC was [FFH], not only in Guatemala but in Central America ..." Feel free to help with the translation, but that seems to fall short of a positive assertion that she was the first Guatemalan woman to receive an engineering degree.
b) It is also not clear to me whether or not the source is a reliable source, a self-published blog (it is hosted, after all, on WordPress.com, a blog hosting service), or something else. Can you offer some help as to this.
I really don't mean to be difficult, but we can't put facts on the main page unless they are substantiated by reliable sources. Cbl62 (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62: Guatemala has very little information on line, they have had numerous military dictatorships, destruction of literature and censored press through the years. The sources I can find are what I cited. The wordpress article is from the University of San Carlos of Guatemala, her alma mater. Many press outlets in the country publish through blogs not their own sites, which is extremely common in the developing world. If you don't like it as a source, we may as well scrap the entire DYK. She graduated before she became the Chargé d'affaires so she wasn't formerly the diplomat. Unless what you are meaning is that she isn't the current diplomat. Verbatim, this would be how I translate it... "Then, we tell you that the first woman to graduate from the USAC, was Francisca Fernandez Hall, not only in Guatemala, but in Central America, ended happily her studies of the university branch, complex like no other, that of mathematics which were vested with Civil Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering in the year 1947." They are not saying she is the first woman with a university degree, as two paragraphs above that, they stated that there were six women who earned university degrees in midwifery in 1897. I've changed the hook one more time. I don't agree with your interpretation of the translation, but you're the reviewer. And please ping me. I asked that before. I am not getting notice that you have reviewed, I have to keep coming back to the page. Thanks. SusunW (talk) 23:36, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62: I've thought about this now for two days and I disagree with your interpretation. You are using translation software and while the original intent of the writer is hard to know for sure I think you are skewing the intent. It makes no sense for this university to say FFH was the first woman in all of Central America to graduate from their university, it would be logical that the first female graduate was Guatemalan since the university is in Guatemala. What is notable, and why they say in Central America, is that she is an engineer. I also disagree that she isn't an engineer as multiple sources call her that. @Ipigott: language master and writer of translation software, will you please look at the original source from the USCG and weigh in with whether indeed they are saying she was the first female engineer in Central America. SusunW (talk) 14:25, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
  • @SusunW: I am sorry that the review process is difficult, but we do need reliable sources for assertions that are to be published as facts on the main page. I do not profess to be an expert in translation, but even your translation does not appear to clearly support the proposed "alt 1" hook fact. More importantly, the source cited does not appear to "from the university" itself. The university has its own web site (https://www.usac.edu.gt/), and the source currently cited is not from the university site but from a blog on WordPress.com. Absent better sourcing, I am not prepared to approve a hook asserting that Hall was the first Central American woman to receive an engineering degree. Cbl62 (talk) 14:40, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62: I am not arguing that sourcing needs to be there, but we are not going to find the kinds of documentation in Central America that exist in the US and in Europe. What you will find are snippets here and snippets there and instead of a single source you end up with a bunch of sources to develop weight. Perfect sourcing rarely is available. One finds a document that makes a claim and then finds multiple sources that add weight that that is probable. For example, source claims she is the first ambassador. Another source claims she was in the diplomatic corps while in school in Brazil. Another source shows she was serving as early as 1952. Another source shows women got the vote in Guatemala in 1945. Documents show she was the first woman admitted in engineering graduating in 1947. Documents show she graduated from a Brazilian military academy with an engineering degree in 1950. Documents show she was serving as an ambassador or chargé d'affaires in Israel. With the weight of all of the layers, it is more than likely that indeed, she was the first ambassador, as the source claims. The same holds true for an analysis of the engineering degree. The ECC newspaper is a press outlet of the University, not the University itself. There is no original research, as there is a source that makes the claim. The other documentation is provided to back up the reliability of the claim and the source. But as I said in the first review, if you won't accept the source, we have no article. (And for the record, I am not remotely frustrated with your review. It is a systemic bias that assumes that RS meet first world standards, are widely available, are all on line, etc. No one will ever learn about notable people in the third world if that bias holds and indeed explains why the coverage of Wikipedia is mostly on developed nations). SusunW (talk) 15:21, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
@SusunW: (ec) I am sorry, but DYK rules require that there be "reliable" sourcing for facts that we put forward on the Main Page of Wikipedia. The WordPress.com page that you cited looks like a blog to me, but even if you are correct that it is some sort of student newspaper affiliated with the university, we can't rely on an ambiguous assertion in a student newspaper that one of its alumni may have been Central America's first woman to receive an engineering degree. You may or may not be right that there is circumstantial evidence from which one can infer that "it is more than likely" (your words) that she was the first ambassador, but that isn't good enough to put a fact on the Main Page. I just don't see reliable sources for claims that she was the "first female diplomat," "first female ambassador," "Central America's first female engineer," or the first Central American woman to earn an engineering degree. Do you want me to consider "alt 2" or another alt hook? Or do you prefer to have another reviewer reexamine the original and "alt 1" hooks? Cbl62 (talk) 16:48, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62: Ian was able to find this source CEFOL Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala CEFOL is the university's "Centro de Estudios Folklóricos". See page 47. SusunW (talk) 16:32, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
This new source simply says she was the university's first graduate in engineering, right? If so, it supports "alt 2". Or do you contend it supports more than that? Cbl62 (talk) 16:50, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62: It supports Alt2. The thing is for me she is an important woman and we have enough to get her on the front page if we can come to some agreement about how you want the hook worded. If you are good with Alt2, then let's go with it. If not, point me in a direction of what you would accept. SusunW (talk) 16:54, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62: Is there a problem with getting this finalized? I was under the impression that we had reached an agreement that you could approve Alt2, but I see no movement on the file for 3 days. Is there something else you need? SusunW (talk) 13:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
  • @SusunW: Regarding "alt 2", I'd suggest a couple tweaks to the hook as follows:
* alt 3 ... that Francisca Fernández Hall, the first woman to earn an engineering degree from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, became Guatemala's chargé d'affaires in Israel? Cbl62 (talk) 13:28, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62: It works for me. Thanks! SusunW (talk) 13:38, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
@Cbl62:Is there some reason that we cannot get this approved? You have said twice now that you would approve it and have not done so. I repeat what I asked the last time you said you would approve it and didn't, is there something else you need to finalize the approval? SusunW (talk) 14:37, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

I think alt 3 works, but it is probably better form to let a new reviewer examine it since I proposed this formulation. Cbl62 (talk) 14:44, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

  • New enough, long enough, and within policy. ALT3 is interesting; facts have inline citations, three of which are foreign language and one which I can't access, so accepted AGF of seasoned editors. No apparent close-paraphrasing. QPQ done. GTG. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:05, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
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