Template:Did you know nominations/Johnny Basham
- 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) 02:34, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Johnny Basham[edit]
- ... that European welterweight champion Johnny Basham faced a manslaughter charge after killing an opponent in a boxing match?
- Reviewed: Michael Roemer
Created/expanded by FruitMonkey (talk). Self nom at 18:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Close paraphrasing and sourcing concerns. Compare for example "his head made violent contact with the boards of the ring" with "Price's head came into violent contact with the boards of the ring", or "he was acquitted by a magistrate who held that the fight had been conducted fairly and sportingly" vs "he was acquitted by the magistrate, who held that the fight had been conducted fairly and sportingly". Relies heavily on sources of questionable reliability and self-published sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:58, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
- I purposefully kept to close paraphrasing due to the nature of this part of the article, and I did not want to misreport the facts regarding a legal judgement or the reporting of what happened by a journalist. Cites were given for each. Also I believe that the newspaper articles from which the information comes from are prior to 1923. Could you also sate which of the sources are of questionable reliability and self-published sources so they can be addressed. FruitMonkey (talk) 23:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
- The second of the two sources I quoted above is definitely post-1923, and is also near-verbatim, which is very concerning, as is your statement that you did this deliberately, regardless of your reasoning. BoxRec has been noted as an unreliable source, particularly for historical boxers (as Basham is); the Lee book appears to be self-published ("TL" stands for Tony Lee). Nikkimaria (talk) 23:42, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
- See WT:DYK about why this returned after so long. PumpkinSky talk 20:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- Interesting that this has been picked up again, but maybe it is worth a shot as it is an article I am proud off. The original problem appears to be down to two major areas. First that I used direct paraphrasing from a source, but that source was cited and I did not wish to change the words as I did not want to interpret incorrectly the journalist of the time. The second issue resolves around questionable sources and self-published sources. I accept the issue that these sources (Boxrec in particular) as being difficult to verify; but in the world of professional boxing the entire sport struggles to find verifiable sources especially before the time of televised fights. The book I used is a self-published source, but it's not a tupenny rag tag affair, but written from a first-hand account of a person who was embedded in the sport and personally knew most of the boxers he wrote about. To the extent that his book is now sourced by preceding books written through acknowledged publishers and university presses. Unless you really knew the difficulties of the history of the sport editors may be more sympathetic to the hard work that is required to bring together these articles. I am not looking for GA status, I do spend considerable time and money in trying to verify these sources and I so do not pick flakey sources to which I 'hope' may be correct. This is a genuine attempt to write as best as I can a valid article about a notable person. I am not attempting to lie, hide or misrepresent. FruitMonkey (talk) 21:45, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- I don't see anything about why this was resurrected. Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- It's easier to explain than it is to find the discussion. It was recently discovered that when this hook got pulled out of a prep area or queue, it didn't get returned to the noms page. --Orlady (talk) 19:32, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:23, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Interesting that this has been picked up again, but maybe it is worth a shot as it is an article I am proud off. The original problem appears to be down to two major areas. First that I used direct paraphrasing from a source, but that source was cited and I did not wish to change the words as I did not want to interpret incorrectly the journalist of the time. The second issue resolves around questionable sources and self-published sources. I accept the issue that these sources (Boxrec in particular) as being difficult to verify; but in the world of professional boxing the entire sport struggles to find verifiable sources especially before the time of televised fights. The book I used is a self-published source, but it's not a tupenny rag tag affair, but written from a first-hand account of a person who was embedded in the sport and personally knew most of the boxers he wrote about. To the extent that his book is now sourced by preceding books written through acknowledged publishers and university presses. Unless you really knew the difficulties of the history of the sport editors may be more sympathetic to the hard work that is required to bring together these articles. I am not looking for GA status, I do spend considerable time and money in trying to verify these sources and I so do not pick flakey sources to which I 'hope' may be correct. This is a genuine attempt to write as best as I can a valid article about a notable person. I am not attempting to lie, hide or misrepresent. FruitMonkey (talk) 21:45, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- See WT:DYK about why this returned after so long. PumpkinSky talk 20:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
- The second of the two sources I quoted above is definitely post-1923, and is also near-verbatim, which is very concerning, as is your statement that you did this deliberately, regardless of your reasoning. BoxRec has been noted as an unreliable source, particularly for historical boxers (as Basham is); the Lee book appears to be self-published ("TL" stands for Tony Lee). Nikkimaria (talk) 23:42, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Fresh eyes, please? This nom is getting really, really old. --PFHLai (talk) 07:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
I seem to see some forest/trees going on here. This entire debate seems to boil down to whether or not the first two cites are suitable for inclusion, but neither of these is the basis of the HOOK. That's the main criterion we should be focussing on, and The Sydney Morning Herald and Merseyside Boxing Archive meet this criterion by any measure. As to the issue of the close quoting, placing such statements within quotation marks and directing citing meets any and all requirements. If we need to move more text inside the quotes, so be it. So then it appears that the only remaining concern is the fact that the first to CITEs are self-published, but given the nature of the CITE being a list of fights that appears accurate, this is an issue for the FA process, not DYK. I'm perfectly happy with the article, and I think it would have considerable general interest. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:13, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- However, the DYK rules require that the article meet Wikipedia's core content policies, which means it must be based on reliable sources. The majority of the article is not. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- The majority of the article is - of the 15 inlines, two (well one really) is under consideration here. That reference is used as a list of fights, not biographical data or any other "important point". As if that were not enough, the reference in question appears to be perfectly reliable to me. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- 41 of 58 citations is a majority. The source is self-published and has been noted for its inaccuracies, particularly for historical fighters like Basham. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- The majority of the article is - of the 15 inlines, two (well one really) is under consideration here. That reference is used as a list of fights, not biographical data or any other "important point". As if that were not enough, the reference in question appears to be perfectly reliable to me. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- However, the DYK rules require that the article meet Wikipedia's core content policies, which means it must be based on reliable sources. The majority of the article is not. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
- Give me some time. All fights can be backed up with contemporary newspaper sources at Trove. Will replace the unreliable ref with print sources (found some fights already it didn't mention). Froggerlaura (talk) 02:32, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- I have replaced the BoxRec sources with more reliable ones where I could. I could not find source replacements for the fights before 1914, before he became more mainstream. The BoxRec cites have been greatly reduced and account for about 2 paragraphs of info (there are ~21 inline cites because every sentence is cited). The majority of the article is now properly referenced and original concern of close paraphrasing has been satisfied by use of quotes. As far as the suitability of the BoxRec cite, it has been accurate in the details of the fights it lists, but the list is not complete. More completeness issue than wrong information. Froggerlaura (talk) 02:54, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
I think Maury has already passed article, but since Nikkimaria had concerns, I will do this again. Froggerlaura (talk) 03:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- In light of the hard work done by Froggerlaura in improving citations, I think this is ready for the front page. Moswento (talk | contribs) 15:31, 22 February 2012 (UTC)