Template:Did you know nominations/John Littlejohn (preacher)

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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 Bruxton talk 20:16, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

John Littlejohn (preacher)

Created by Generalissima (talk). Self-nominated at 05:32, 21 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/John Littlejohn (preacher); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

  • The article meets DYK requirements and I didn't find any close paraphrasing. I do not have access to the sources so AGF on them. QPQ has been done. I do have a concern about the hook though: was the work in question actually pornographic? The source says that Andrews (the author of the source) was the one who said it was pornographic, but I'm not sure if that's enough to make it definitive. At the very least, maybe the current hook as written may be misleading. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 10:49, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
    • @Narutolovehinata5 I do appreciate the AGF, but I think it is relatively unlikely that Andrews doesn't know what she's talking about here, since she's a subject matter expert in colonial American History. Pornographic literature certainly existed in the colonies at this time (see Lyon's Sex among the Rabble (2006)), and since the term 'pornography' had not yet been coined, I do not think that "private stories" -> 'erotica' would be an unlikely conclusion. - Generalissima (talk) 16:37, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
That would probably still be synthesis/OR unless there was a more explicit connection stated in a reliable source. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:56, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Andrews, who I am citing here, is a subject matter expert on American colonial culture and religion. It is not synthesis to assume that they are correct on the field that they study. See WP:NOTOR. Generalissima (talk) 03:12, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Disclosure: I talked about this with Vaticidalprophet over Discord DM, but basically, I was convinced that my particular concern is not an issue and thus I am lifting it here. I'm still not totally convinced about the accuracy of the "pornographic" claim but I am assuming good faith now that Andrews is right about that particular claim. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:57, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Requesting second review due to ambiguity of approval of prior review. Generalissima (talk) 21:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
     Doing... This was mentioned on Discord, but she was just talking about how the reviewer went MIA, not asking someone to re-review it, so I don't consider this canvassed. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 21:33, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
  • Cited: Yes - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
  • Interesting: Yes
QPQ: Done.

Overall: Looks good to me; I cannot access the JSTOR source but AGF and NLH's concern has been abated. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 21:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5, Queen of Hearts, and Generalissima: I too have a concern about the verifiability of the pornography bit- I have to make assumptions and WP:V is the relevant policy. The second part of the hook is verified by the source. I might suggest we find another hook Bruxton (talk) 18:59, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
@Bruxton: Both aspects of the statement meet WP:V. It is not an particularly outrageous claim; it is well established that pornographic works existed in the Thirteen Colonies at the time. It is from a comprehensive and reliable source by a subject matter expert in early American religion and culture. The only confusion or lack of verifiability I could think of would be if there is such a distinction between "pornographic works of literature" and "pornography", but if that is the case, we could simply rewrite the hook to say "sold pornographic literature" as opposed to "sold pornography." Generalissima (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
So @Generalissima: I will promote this as verified
  • ALT1: ... that pastor John Littlejohn went from selling pornographic literature to sailors as a youth to protecting the Declaration of Independence? Bruxton (talk) 20:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, that works! Thank you very much. Generalissima (talk) 20:19, 12 December 2023 (UTC)