Template:Did you know nominations/Historical significance

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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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Historical significance[edit]

  • ...that historical significance is subjective and open to challenge? Source: "But historical significance is often a subjective decision, something that makes it contestable (open to challenge)." (and [1] the source)
    • ALT1: ...that historical significance defines history books, street names, museum displays, pictures on stamps, bank notes, and television shows? Source: " Ideas about historical significance help to shape how the past is remembered and represented and influence who gets remembered and who gets forgotten and who and what gets included in history books, commemorated on bank notes, in the names of streets and squares, in museum displays, in television programmes, and so on" (and [2] the source)

Created by RTG (talk). Self-nominated at 13:23, 12 March 2019 (UTC).

  • Leaving aside a review of the article itself, I've corrected some grammar issues with the hooks; struck ALT0 as unsupported by the source ("often" ≠ always in all cases) which itself isn't remotely a qualified WP:RS for a point of that magnitude, however WP:BLUEy; and struck ALT1 as unsupported/ungrammatical/tautological. It isn't "defining" "pictures on stamps" or "museum displays" and, to the extent historical significance shapes others' inclusion in that laundry list, such reshaping is the very essence of the concept of historical significance. The hook essentially says "historical significance is historical significance", which fails the "be interesting" criterion for DYK. — LlywelynII 19:24, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
ALT3 seems bland but unobjectionable. ALT4 is a quote quoted by your source; Febvre's original work should be found and cited and it's just his opinion, not a fact. ALT5 isn't cited in the article. — LlywelynII 20:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
  • To check through the rest of the list, though, the article is timely but currently consists of an overlong intro from one source (WP:LEADCITE; WP:ONESOURCE) and three lists without commentary (MOS:LEADREL; WP:LISTDD); all three lists are theoretical and sourced to historians unimportant enough that they lack existing biography articles (WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE) rather than any discussion about the actual criteria used by major past or present historians; it's barely long enough (1520ish elig. chars.) but full of grammatical mistakes and needs a rebuild (e.g., the WP:LEADSENTENCE vaguely describes the topic instead of defining it) that will change that number; removing the current deadweight would put it under the requirement; Earwig finds no major copyvio, but the lists need an overhaul to make more sense even if they're found to be notable; QPQ done.

    At minimum, ♦ the lead sentence needs to define the topic; ♦ the lead section needs to be an overview of the body of the article, not the body of the article itself; as such, ♦ the running text in the body of the article needs to be (at minimum) 2–3 times longer than the text in the lead; ♦ the citations in the lead need to be moved to the body; ♦ the lists that are currently being used should have some indication as to who these people are and why anyone should care about their opinions on historical significance; ♦ the lists that are currently being used should be rephrased to explain exactly what each point means and how it is different from the other points, ideally with clear examples.

    I've often said that this is DYK, not GA, and that's completely true (a good article would include discussions of changing historiography over time discussing major international historians/schools from Sima Qian to hagiographers to Gibbon to the Marxists) but there are some minimum standards that aren't being met here that really should be. — LlywelynII 20:22, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
@LlywelynII: Thanks Llywelyn, I have added a separate short lead and I understand what you are saying about referencing the lists against each other, but these were simply the lists that seem to be used a lot in a relatively superficial search and read up on the topic. I will look into validating the lists a little better but it will be down to online availability. ~ R.T.G 21:16, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Well, if you see what I'm saying, then you understand that online availability doesn't actually make these lists NOTABLE or non-FRINGE. There has to be some context that other people actually pay attention to these particular writers or that their ideas represent widespread consensus in the field, established practice among actually noteworthy historians, etc.

If that's really impossible to manage, then we're better off moving this to a sandbox for future work and redirecting to the good general treatment at Historiography or sth. — LlywelynII 21:21, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
I have expanded the article a little. Historians notoriously do not get the kind of recognition you seem to be trying to demand. I assure you, there is more than copy and paste going on here even if there is no FA yet, so I invite you to the articles talkpage to discuss further relevance of the lists.
I invite you to read historiography for that context, as I have done. This subject is widely published and is not covered on Wikipedia. I am sorry that you cannot bear start class articles, but that's where articles start. If you are offended by this article or believe it misrepresents sources, is based on unreliable sources or is unbalanced by fringe views, discuss on the talkpage or request deletion. DYK is asking for stub-class articles recently. Well, here's one both of us would have expected to be covered already. I've put it on the history project. Let's get it through the DYK and see if an article comes of it, ~ R.T.G 03:58, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
If you'd like to help, find me a connection that says Lis Cercadillo, Ministry of Education (ESP), various important university postings, is the same author. If she is not, why can I not find the Spanish Lis, referred to all over the place in English, who is? ~ R.T.G 04:50, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
@LlywelynII:, I invite you now to review the article again and remember, it is a start, and as such is written to encourage participation and interest, not instil authority, so I encourage you to help me improve the rationale of the lists as an important part of the subject rather than simply demand credentials. ~ R.T.G 14:54, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
  • New reviewer requested; previous reviewer has not been active as is unlikely to return. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:45, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
  • - New enough, long enough, inline citations checks out. I prefer the alt3 hook. QPQ done. Good to go. BabbaQ (talk) 13:19, 14 June 2019 (UTC)