Template:Did you know nominations/St Athan

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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 PumpkinSky talk 21:36, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

St Athan[edit]

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  • ... that legend has it that Tathan who gives his name to St Athan was an Irish monk who ran aground and was blown across the Bristol Channel until he landed at Portskewett in about 540 AD?

Created/expanded by Dr. Blofeld (talk), Rosiestep (talk), Martinevans123 (talk). Self nom at 20:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Reviewed Arslan Hane, Istanbul.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Expansion date and size checked. The proposed hook and ALT1 are both too convoluted and poorly-written to be interesting, and I don't see what makes this a reliable source. I verified ALT2, and it is now good to go. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:39, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
  • With all due respect, reviewers should not approve their own hooks, so this is not good to go since none of the hooks have yet passed muster. ALT2 will have to wait for an independent reviewer, and there's no reason not to also get buy-in from the article's authors and nominators, who may prefer something more interesting than Roman coins. It might be nice for the eventual hook to mention that St Athan is in Wales. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:59, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

" I can't see what is wrong with the first hook, much more interesting. Roman coins hook is a little boring..♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

  • I'll leave interestingness aside for the moment since it is a subjective matter. I'll even leave aside the fact that I had to read them multiple times to understand what they meant, as clarity may also be somewhat subjective. The objective problem is that the source used for the original hooks and the majority of the article, stathanvillage.co.uk, is not reliable. No publisher information, no indication of any peer review or editorial process, and by the looks of it, it could very well be self-published. If you want to use the thing about the parasailing monk, fine, but find an independent third-party source to back it up.
    Also, did anyone bother to actually read this article before nominating it? I'm seeing a mix of "St Athan", "St. Athan", and "Saint Athan" used to refer to the village, typos, incorrect punctuation, wikilinks to articles that are blatantly not the intended link target, missing information, clunky phrasing, run-on sentences, etc. I know it's not a DYK requirement for articles to be at GA level, but don't you guys care about the quality of your work? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 14:04, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

We don't owe wikipedia anything, minor errors are common and I'd say the official site actually is probably the most reliable on it... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:51, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Residents writing about the towns in which they live are inherently biased to make their town seem more interesting it may actually be. If an editing staff existed for such a website, it would be more likely that rumors and errors would be excised, but no such staff exists for this site: as far as we know, it is operated by a single person.
    Furthermore, even if being "official" were somehow enough to make a website reliable (which it's not), we have know way of knowing if this website even is "official". Nothing on the website suggests that it was created by, operated by, or endorsed by members of the local government. It's certainly possible that it is "official", but it is equally possible that it was created by a local resident with some spare time on his hands. Judging by the cookie-cutter design of the website, which could have easily been made by a 13-year-old, the latter is more likely.
    This source is not reliable, and the argument that it is "the official site" should not be sufficient to convince anyone, including yourself, that it is reliable. If you want to use your hook fact, find another source. Alternatively, use a different statement for the hook. It doesn't have to be the coins thing, it just can't be one which uses this website as its only source. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:53, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
What a load of codswallap. If somebody has taken the time to start an official website about the village the chances are they bothered to get their facts straight and did the research. As its acting in self-interest they'd want to ensure its accurate. And none of the website pages are "promotional". The article is fine really, I had similar unncessary difficulties on Toti Soler. Haven't you anything better to do?♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Verifiability has this to say on the matter: "Questionable sources are those ... which lack meaningful editorial oversight, or those with an apparent conflict of interest." The website in question gives no indication of editorial oversight, and the promotional language used therein indicates a conflict of interest: "Visit St Athan village and enjoy its hidden treasures."
  • The Verifiability page also says this: "Anyone can create a personal web page ... and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. Take care when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so." As mentioned earlier, it is certainly possible that the website is non-personal, but it also possible and highly probably that it is personal. The only aspect of the website which even suggests that it is official is the URL. That is not sufficient evidence, as anyone can purchase a domain name.
  • The Verifiability page is not a guideline, it is one of the core policies of Wikipedia, and it explicitly states that websites like this one should not be used. I will gladly consider any arguments on the matter which are based on policy, but not those based on hunches or assumptions. I will also gladly approve the hook if a more reliable source can be found. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 20:54, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Referencing the concerns about quality, I've given the article a scrub. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

  • ALT3: ... that at St Athan, a wild fig tree grew out of the cement of the East Orchard chapel walls? --Rosiestep (talk) 21:14, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
    I actually like this quite a lot! I suspect very few of our readers will have had any experience with cement-dwelling fig trees. Google Books isn't letting me preview the book, but I will accept the reference in good faith. Dr. Blofeld, how would you feel about using ALT3? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 21:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
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