Template:Did you know nominations/Prayer of Saint Francis

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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 Yoninah (talk) 21:04, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Prayer of Saint Francis[edit]

  • ... that the "Prayer of Saint Francis" (Make me an instrument of your peace) is a 20th-century prayer mistakenly attributed to the 13th-century saint Francis of Assisi (pictured)?
    • ALT1:... that the "Prayer of Saint Francis" (Make me an instrument of your peace) is a 20th-century French prayer mistakenly attributed to the 13th-century Italian saint (pictured)?
    • ALT2:... that the "Prayer of Saint Francis" (Make me an instrument of your peace) was created centuries after the death of Saint Francis (pictured)?
  • Reviewed: WP:QPQ isn't required for my fourth DYK nomination.
  • Comment: Newly promoted GA with enduring international interest, ~250,000 page views per year. Hook info is in the lead paragraph with an accessible ref link.

Improved to Good Article status by Patrug (talk). Self-nominated at 22:15, 5 June 2017 (UTC).

Excellent GA, on good sources, no copyvio obvious, the image is licensed, the hooks are true. However: You loose my interest over the clumsy "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace". If used at all, I would say "Make me an instrument of Your peace". Don't expect our general readership to know who St. Francis is. - btw, what do think of an infobox? - How is this:
ALT3: ... that the "Prayer of Saint Francis", mistakenly attributed to the 13th-century saint Francis of Assisi (pictured), was written in the 20th century? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Gerda. The article already has the {{Francis of Assisi}} navbox, and his bio article has its own infobox, but I think it would be WP:Undue to add his infobox to an article about an anonymous prayer that he didn't write!
"Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace" (a previous title of the article) would be recognizable for some readers unfamiliar with the title "Prayer of Saint Francis", though certainly the hook is punchier without it. I reduced the capitalization as you suggested, but I'll leave it for you & others to judge whether the hook is better with or without the parenthetical alternate title.
Also for the sake of recognizability, I added "Francis of Assisi" to my ALT0 and your ALT3, and I struck my ALT2.
Another option would be to keep the key word "Peace" by highlighting instead an alternate title that re-directs to the article. Compared to our other hooks, something like this might be the most recognizable & concise of all:
ALT4: ... that the "Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi" is a 20th-century prayer mistakenly attributed to the 13th-century saint (pictured)?
Patrug (talk) 20:49, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the offer of ALT4, but - as much as like to put peace on the Main page - I don't think we should give up the best-known name which seems to be the article title. If we also add the first line, we've almost said it all, and I am afraid people will go to the next hook without looking at the article. The most successful hook I watched in 2017 left it all open, The Great Friendship. - The image is not too helpful in small size, and in a way also misleading for a 20th-century writing. - I don't mean to repeat the infobox of St. Francis but make one for the prayer/poem. - Even shorter than before, avoiding repetition:
ALT5: ... that the "Prayer of Saint Francis", mistakenly attributed to the 13th-century saint (pictured), was written in the 20th century? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
I thought your first objection was that St. Francis alone wouldn't be recognizable enough for general readers. But OK, if you think it's better to keep the hook a bit more mysterious, we can forget about Assisi & the image. How about approving both ALT5 (with the image struck) and also ALT6 below (with the more-direct grammar that I prefer, including the extra word "peace")? Keep in mind that some other editor is likely to rewrite it anyway in the final hours of the DYK queue, as usual!
ALT6: ... that the "Prayer of Saint Francis" is a 20th-century peace prayer mistakenly attributed to the 13th-century saint?
Since most of the articles in Template:Prayers of the Catholic Church have an image in the top right corner, and not a single one has an infobox, can you point me to another prayer article that illustrates what you have in mind for an infobox? —Patrug (talk) 00:12, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
No, that's why I said poem also, for example When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd. It's not necessary for DYK, but would show a reader immediately that the article is not about the saint. Can be short. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:30, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
OK, thanks – and I moved the image down to the "Mistaken attribution" paragraphs to minimize confusion. See what you think. —Patrug (talk) 08:16, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
I struck my longer hooks, in favor of versions ALT5 & ALT6. —Patrug (talk) 18:42, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
love it,prefer ALT6! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)