Template:Did you know nominations/John Wainwright Evans

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The following discussion 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  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

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John Wainwright Evans[edit]

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Moved to mainspace by Josh Parris (talk). Self nominated at 13:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC).

  • The first hook looks best to me. It might be difficult to cite ALT2 to a reliable source, but I like it also. Best. 64.40.54.251 (talk) 03:45, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
  • (Comment partially struck by Storye book.) New enough, long enough, first hook checks out. Nice, detailed article. Good to go with first hook. --Storye book (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Even ignoring the use of the non-word "murder-suicided", the original hook is not adequately supported by the source given, and I've struck it. The New York Times says that the local authorities were calling it "an apparent murder-suicide"; "apparent" just isn't strong enough to support an extraordinary claim like this being made on Wikipedia's front page. The article should reflect what the source offers as facts. The source would seem to allow a hook along the lines of "chose the name for the town of Sunspot, New Mexico", which should work nicely with the solar astronomer intro, though the article would need to be more specific than its current "had a hand" wording. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Good catch! I probably should have been more careful before promoting this, but I am pretty new at DYK queue prep. Back to the nominator to find a better hook. -Kieran (talk) 00:21, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Didn't spot that. I've struck part of my previous comment. I still think the article might deserve a dyk with a new hook. --Storye book (talk) 08:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment I just wanted to clarify that the NY Times article stated that the police called it "an apparent murder-suicide". The Times article specifically states "Dr. Evans used a revolver to kill his wife and then himself", so the article is stating the murder-suicide as a fact. As the New York Times is a reliable source I think the first hook is still valid, but I'd like input to see what everybody thinks. I would, however, suggest the hook be rephrased to something like

    ... that multi-award winning solar astronomer John Wainwright Evans died in a murder-suicide with his wife at age 90?

    Just wanted to note that I have a dynamic IP and the comments here and edits to the article by 64.40.*.* are all mine in case anybody didn't realize this. My contribs are here. 64.40.54.20 (talk) 05:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually, the Times is referring to the sequence of events given by their daughter Nancy. I still don't think the original hook, even as rephrased, is adequately supported. ALT2, being self-referential to Wikipedia, doesn't pass muster (and isn't particularly notable, not to mention not being about Evans himself). I did add a DYKmake for the latest 64.40.*.* address because one ought to be there; I'd be interested in Josh's opinion as to a potential hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:00, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
You're right. How about adding "apparent" to the hook like this

... that multi-award winning solar astronomer John Wainwright Evans died in an apparent murder-suicide with his wife at age 90?

Or do you think the murder-suicide stuff should not be used. I can see not using it as Evans is notable for his astronomy work and not his death, but this is Josh's baby so I don't want to step on his toes or anything. Thanks for the DYKmake, but all credit really goes to Josh. I just made a one-liner as a test of the Draft: namespace. He was the one that did all the work. pinging @Josh Parris: 64.40.54.20 (talk) 07:04, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I think the murder-suicide aspect should be avoided, frankly. Since pinging doesn't work from template space, I've just dropped a note on Josh's talk page in the hopes that he'll come here and respond to the issues regarding his nomination. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:54, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi all, sorry for my absence; I'm working with intermittent Internet access for the next week or so. Thanks all for your thoughtful attention to the article.

I was never happy myself with the "murder-suicided" phrase. I merely verbized the Wikipedia article title. As for better/more definitive/more reliable sources, I'm happy to (in a week or so) search for them, but given the date of his death a resident of the United States may have better luck acquiring contemporary news coverage; the local paper for example. It's certainly, from an attention-grabbing point-of-view, the "sexy" hook, but I proposed the others because I knew it might be troublesome. The Alt2 hook was purely for editorial amusement and engagement, as I knew it wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting as the other hooks. I'm happy to look into sources to get better info on Evans' role in naming Sunspot, but again this will have to wait a week or two.

So, if you're prepared to wait a while, I'll get the support the hooks need and we debate them from a better referenced position. Josh Parris 05:50, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I've had a look around the Interwebs and while I've found a little extra, I think I've exhausted sources for the voting and for the murder. The details may have come off a wire-feed, because I've got mentions in a couple of other sources but they're almost word-for-word copies of the New York Times. If the in-article sources are inadequate for the tag lines, I'll start digging around in his obituaries for other gems. He seems like the kind of guy who would be a really good source for quality DYK tags. Josh Parris 20:57, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Since I think the murder-suicide is such a bad idea for a hook, I guess it's incumbent on me to propose an alternate hook. This one is based on the facts behind ALT1:
New reviewer needed to check ALT3 hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:30, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
  • The ALT3 hook checks out. --Orlady (talk) 16:43, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
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