Talk:East Louisiana Railroad

Did you know nomination

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 SL93 (talk) 23:30, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that the East Louisiana Railroad, which removed Homer Plessy from a train, actually supported his efforts to overturn segregation in the United States in Plessy v. Ferguson? Source: https://reason.com/volokh/2018/05/18/dont-blame-the-railroad-for-plessy-v-fer/ "As to the Plessy case itself, Woodward wrote that "it may be assumed that the railroad had been informed of the plan and agreed to cooperate." Indeed, the East Lousiana Railway had opposed the law prior to its passage, and there is some evidence that the railroads helped finance the case."

  https://www.google.com/books/edition/Plessy_v_Ferguson/u2N-DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=plessy+v+ferguson+railroad&printsec=frontcover "By prearrangement, the railroad conductor and a private detective detained Plessy when he sat in the forbidden coach."

  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Don't Pay UK
  • Comment: Technically this is 8 days after creation, but I had a death in the family and was unable to edit for several days, so I'd appreciate a little leeway.

Created by Trainsandotherthings (talk). Self-nominated at 16:31, 4 August 2022 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems: - might need rewording

QPQ: Done.

Overall: A little late, but not an issue for me (and I'm sorry for your loss, Trainsandotherthings). Hook is really interesting – I'm not especially a train enthusiast myself, so I'm confident others will think so, too. However, I feel that currently, it's a bit imprecise: They did not exactly help him in Plessy v. Ferguson, since that was the resulting lawsuit. They did certainly aid him in getting the case going in the first place, and were undoubtedly hoping for the overturn of segregation – they were just not actively involved on his side during the trial. A rephrasing should do the trick. --LordPeterII (talk) 18:59, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@LordPeterII: How about: ALT1: "... that the East Louisiana Railroad, which removed Homer Plessy from a train, actually did so to help him start Plessy v. Ferguson and attempt to overturn segregation in the United States?" Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:03, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@Trainsandotherthings: Yep, that's better. A little long now, but still clearly below 200 characters so it's fine. I see you have linked segregation in the ALT but not the original hook, which gives quite a few options now to click besides the main article – that's totally your choice though. Btw, I've found you a picture for the article, but I don't think it's of use for the DYK nom.

Approving ALT1 (I've marked it as such). --LordPeterII (talk) 21:37, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

@Trainsandotherthings and LordPeterII: The article does not state that the company removed Plessy from the train, but rather a private detective did. I'm suggesting an ALT below:

• ALT2: ... that Homer Plessy worked with the East Louisiana Railroad Company to arrange his arrest on board their train?
• ALT2a: ... that Homer Plessy worked with the East Louisiana Railroad Company to arrange his arrest on board their train, which led to Plessy v. Ferguson?

Thoughts? Z1720 (talk) 19:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Hmm... yes, you are right. That's technically different, and I missed it. I'd like to keep the court case in the hook, so I'd be fine with ALT2a. If Trainsandotherthings agrees, I'll approve that one. --LordPeterII (talk) 22:12, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I object to both of these proposed hooks. If you read above, one of the sources literally states "By prearrangement, the railroad conductor and a private detective detained Plessy when he sat in the forbidden coach." How does that conflict with ALT1 exactly? The railroad stopped the train and removed him from it. I have added a sentence that explicitly states this to the article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:53, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

@Z1720: I think that new sentence does indeed work. Would this allow a re-tick of ALT1? --LordPeterII (talk) 23:18, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Since it has been more explicitly stated in the article that the conductor helped remove Plessy from the train, I'll readd the tick per the above review. I've also stricken my two proposed alts. Z1720 (talk) 23:22, 18 August 2022 (UTC)