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Template:Did you know nominations/Nashua and Lowell Railroad

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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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 16:53, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Nashua and Lowell Railroad

Improved to Good Article status by Trainsandotherthings (talk). Self-nominated at 02:53, 8 January 2022 (UTC).

The hook looks fine to me, but where is it cited in the article? I can only see the hook fact mentioned in the lead, and it isn't cited even there. Gatoclass (talk) 08:58, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Gatoclass: You are correct, that was my mistake. I've mentioned and cited it within the body now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:00, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, but I also notice that the "Station listing" table is unsourced. Gatoclass (talk) 03:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
That's not correct, it does include a citation. Look at the top left cell. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 04:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Trainsandotherthings, that source is over 100 years old, IMO you need something more up to date. Gatoclass (talk) 05:52, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this is getting ridiculous. This article just passed GAN, and was subject to what I would describe as a rigorous and thorough review. There is no reason why DYK nominations should be held to a higher standard than good article nominations. I'd like to mention that many of the sources are 100 plus years old, because the railroad itself is 100+ years old. There is zero reason why a source from a railroad itself such as a timetable cannot be considered reliable for something as basic as a station listing. Stations are very basic info, and the railroad is not going to lie about where their stations are. Need I remind you the Nashua and Lowell existed from 1838-1880 as an independent railroad, that was a long time ago. There is nothing that has changed since then that would mean contemporaneous sources would somehow be less reliable that recent ones. I don't understand why you are applying such an intense level of scrutiny to a DYKN, but I think it is absurd. Paging @Pi.1415926535: who may wish to comment here as well as he is the author of the station listing table. I am also going to formally request a second reviewer take a look at this nomination. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:41, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Gatoclass, I'm in agreement with TAOT here. Recent sources are required in areas where knowledge has changed (science) or interpretation has changed (law, historical analysis), but old sources remain perfectly valid for events and details of their time – and can even be preferred (see the third paragraph of WP:OLDSOURCES). That timetable is the best possible source of any age for this usage. I also agree that discussion of this source is well outside the scope of a DYK review, given that the article has just passed GAN and that the source is unrelated to the DYK hook. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:47, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

My apologies for the delay in getting back to this. Trainsandotherthings, if the table is meant to represent a listing of the line's historical stations, that's fine - but IMO it needs to be made clear in the article, otherwise it can be mistaken for a listing of the line's current stations, and no source has been provided for that. Gatoclass (talk) 10:11, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

The current line has no active stations, and this is indicated in the text. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:57, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
@Gatoclass: I could add more text to overemphasize that the line has no active stations, but then you would once again move the goalposts and find yet another reason to refuse to approve this nomination. I'm going to be blunt, I am frustrated. DYK is not meant to apply FAC level scrutiny to nominations (and I would know, because I just had a FAC nomination fail today). It is meant to verify the hook is ok and there are no major issues. Your complaints are not based on anything in the DYK criteria (New enough, long enough, and within policy, meaning neutral, cites sources with inline citations, and is free of close paraphrasing, copyright violations, and plagiarism) and I'd appreciate if you stick to checking against those criteria, or else recuse yourself from this nomination and let someone else take over. Thank you. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:01, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Trainsandotherthings, it's really not helpful to start throwing around bad faith assumptions about my motives; I review nominations to help the project, not to harass people. In this case, the relevant rule is that all content must be reliably sourced, so where there is a discrepancy between the content and the source, that has to be resolved before an article can be promoted.
As it happens though, it occurs to me that there is a quick and easy solution to this issue. If the "Station listing" header was changed to "Station listing, 1917" that would be sufficient to address my concerns. Would that be acceptable to you? Gatoclass (talk) 04:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Alright, that is something I believe is reasonable. It has been done now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 13:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Recently promoted GA that exceeds DYK length requirement, hook and article content fully sourced and cited to reliable sources, hook is interesting and QPQ completed. AGF verified. Gatoclass (talk) 14:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
To T:DYK/P3