Talk:Gary Kates

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A fact from Gary Kates appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 March 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that historian Gary Kates turned down recruiters seeking to help make him a college president so that he could teach undergraduate history?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gary Kates.

Wikipedia

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) 03:16, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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~~... that historian Gary Kates turned down recruiters seeking to make him a college president so that he could teach undergraduate history?~~ Source: [1] "When you’re lucky enough to become a dean of a college like Pomona in your 50s, you are naturally primed to be a college president. I’ve been approached by headhunters, so I’ve had to think about that. As interesting as being a college president would be, my ambitions and fantasies for the next stage of my life are much more in a Pomona classroom."
- ALT1:... that historian Gary Kates wrote a book about the Chevalier d'Éon, an 18th-century French diplomat who grew up as a man but subsequently lived as a woman? Source: [2] and others (see article)

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/The Social Network
Comment: Please let me know which hook you think is more interesting; thanks!

Created by Sdkb (talk). Self-nominated at 20:18, 23 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]

I haven't done all the DYK checks on this, but just a note: as an academic, I would say that the first hook needs tweaking, since headhunters can't make anyone president, just suggest names to an internal committee. Perhaps: "recruiters seeking to nominate him for a college presidency" etc. But I prefer ALT1 anyway--d'Éon is quite interesting. blameless 04:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, maybe "seeking to help make" would work? Headhunters don't have unilateral power to make someone a president to my understanding, but they are seeking it and can help with it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
So: ALT0a ... that historian Gary Kates turned down recruiters seeking to help make him a college president so that he could teach undergraduate history? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:36, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just a drive-by comment but I think ALT0a would be the better option here. While the Chevalier d'Eon angle is nice, the way it's written makes it appear to focus more on d'Eon rather than Kates himself. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved sourcing concerns

The article has a citation neeed tag and an expansion needed tag. Could those be addressed? I am interested in reviewing the nomination if those are resolved. Flibirigit (talk) 06:12, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Flibirigit: Thanks for taking a look! I removed the expansion needed tag on the works section, as I'm pretty sure I listed every full book he's written (list is here; I'm not sure precisely what the norm is about what counts as a "work" for academics, though.) Regarding the cn tag for him asking his students to use his first name, it's not negative information, so I didn't think it needed to be super strictly cited to be DYK-eligible. I added it along with the tag since I thought it's better to have it uncited than not at all or cited only to RateMyProfessor, but it's very unlikely to be referenced anytime soon—a reliable citation for it might exist somewhere in the archives of The Student Life, but those are not yet digitized. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:11, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All information in the article must be cited. The nomination cannot be approved with a citation needed tag. Flibirigit (talk) 14:44, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just gave it the best citation I can find. Per D2, the requirement is The article in general should use inline, cited sources. A rule of thumb is one inline citation per paragraph, which is a lower standard than GAs (which require no original research and all citations to be reliable), which is itself a lower standard than FAs (which require all information cited to a reliable source). This article clearly isn't going to become an FA anytime soon and I've made peace with that fact haha. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:32, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that a [better source needed] tag fails Wikipedia:Did you know/Citation D2 which states, "Newly sourced BLPs are expected to be thoroughly sourced". Flibirigit (talk) 20:05, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've commented out the sentence at issue. For future reference, though, I'd caution you that your approach creates a perverse incentive against self-tagging. We shouldn't be evaluating sentence sourcing for DYKs as though this were FAC. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:04, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is incorrect to state that the review in progress was similar to a featured article candidate when only one single sentence was questioned. The statement "I'd caution you" seems both personal and threatening. I will let the nomination continue with a different reviewer. Best wishes. Flibirigit (talk) 22:15, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Flibirigit: I didn't mean for it to come off as either of those things, and I'm rather surprised you took it that way, but I won't invalidate your experience so I apologize. We seem to have differing interpretations of consensus. Thanks for your attempt at review; I'm going to collapse this section as resolved. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:38, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New reviewer needed to do a complete review. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings! I noticed that there's one sentence missing a citation: "He regularly teaches a first-year critical inquiry seminar on the European Enlightenment." Additionally, the hook fact for ALT0a is cited to an interview published by Pomona. I'm concerned that the interview is not WP:INDEPENDENT because 1) Kates himself is the interviewee, and 2) it's published by Pomona, his employer. Edge3 (talk) 04:30, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edge3, much thanks for taking this up. I've added a source for the seminar. Regarding ALT0a, I'm somewhat stuck: I wasn't able to find a non-Pomona source (and even if I did, it'd still likely ultimately rely on Kates' account; there's no practical way to source a claim like that except from the subject). It's somewhat borderline for WP:ABOUTSELF, but we've often accepted claims about academics published via their institution, since it's fairly unusual for professors to lie in that circumstance (see e.g. several points in WP:NACADEMIC). If you think it's good enough, we can go with it; otherwise, the only wording we'd be able to use for ALT0a would be Kates said he turned down recruiters seeking, which makes it sound like we're casting doubt and thus probably goes against MOS:SAID. In that case, it'd probably be better to go with ALT1, even though it's not as much about Kates as Narutolovehinata5 noted above. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:49, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I think your reasoning makes sense. Article was nominated within 7 days of creation, and is long enough. Neutrally written, and no copyvio detected on Earwig. I prefer ALT0a because it's more relevant to Kates himself; I agree with Narutolovehinata5 that ALT1 places too much focus on someone else. ALT0a is short enough, and sourced appropriately (as per above discussion).

I did find an issue with your QPQ. Template:Did you know nominations/The Social Network was reviewed initially by Onceinawhile. Although you helped move the review to completion, your contribution was to propose additional ALTs, not to check the nomination against all elements of the DYK rules. Further, the QPQ has already been claimed by Onceinawhile in Template:Did you know nominations/Idalion bilingual. Edge3 (talk) 06:12, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edge3, ah, I didn't realize that contributions of that sort weren't enough to count as a QPQ. I just reviewed Template:Did you know nominations/Joseph Gelders to remedy. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:44, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! ALT0a good to go. Yeah, the WP:DYKRULES state that QPQ reviews must address all of the DYK criteria. Edge3 (talk) 13:53, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]