Talk:Lewes Friends Meeting House

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A fact from Lewes Friends Meeting House appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 March 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Lewes Friends Meeting House, built in 1784, replaced an earlier building whose proximity to a slaughterhouse made it "unfit to sit in"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Lewes Friends Meeting House.

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 PrimalMustelid talk 23:52, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

( Comment or view )

( Article history links:

)

Horsham Friends Meeting House in 2018

... that the Friends meeting houses in both Lewes and Horsham (pictured) were built in the 1780s for Quaker communities which have met continuously in those towns since the 17th century? Source: Reports from the Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project for the respective meeting houses, as cited in the articles: ref [1] for Lewes, ref [9] for Horsham; but for Horsham perhaps more clearly expressed in the Victoria County History of Sussex (ref [5]). Original hook struck; see separate approved hooks below
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Leonia Alternative High School and Template:Did you know nominations/Summer Streets
- Comment: Alternative hooks welcome; I'm also open to splitting into two separate nominations if suitable hooks can be found for both.

Created by Hassocks5489 (talk). Self-nominated at 13:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Lewes Friends Meeting House; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

Both articles recently created when nominated, and well developed past the length requirement. There are a few stylistic issues, most noticeably the overuse of unattributed quotations, especially in the lead of both articles. (Per WP:MOS#Attribution, the reader being able to identify the source of a quotation via an inline citation is the bare minimum, not the standard. Statements for which attribution isn't needed would probably better be presented in Wikipedia's own voice. It's not a major policy violation, though, so I won't hold it against the DYK nom.) I found the articles a bit hard to follow, though nothing actually wrong with the writing. Maybe it's the subject matter. The Horsham article notes discrepancies among sources regarding the construction date, but then takes the Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project's as the authoritative one, though its report does not go into detail on this. Unless there are other sources that comment on the Heritage Project's authority (and the date by extension), I would suggest that the article be reworded to take a less absolute stance. Verification of the hook would depend on such clarification. (It's not the most interesting, but the term "Friends meeting house" is about enough to pique interest by itself. Also, Friends meeting house should be linked in the article leads if possible, per WP:CONTEXTLINK, though it has citation needed tags so I'd understand not wanting to link them in DYK.) --Paul_012 (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Paul 012: Thanks for reviewing. I have re-reviewed all the sources and updated the text accordingly. The correct date was first recorded in the Victoria County History, citing Marsh's Early Friends in Surrey and Sussex, which I believe was published in 1886, and is then given in all other sources, including the Heritage Project (the date did not, as I had originally written, originate in the Heritage Project report; I have corrected this.) The incorrect 1834 date was given solely in the original (1965) version of the Buildings of England: Sussex and for unknown reasons was then repeated in the Horsham Historic Character Assessment report document (because according to its footnotes the HHCA cites the Victoria County History, which has the correct date!). Incidentally the Heritage Project was a recent, multi-year, in-depth survey of every Friends meeting house, commissioned by Historic England and Quakers in Britain (the national organisation) and undertaken by qualified architects, so its statements/conclusions are essentially definitive. Most quotes now have a citation directly after them; any which don't are supported by the citation at the end of the sentence in question. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 22:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Hook facts largely verified, but taking another look, I think it may be better to run these separately. The old place being too close to a slaughterhouse could work for the Lewis house. For Horsham, if the part about the headstones being used as paving slabs was mentioned in the article, that could be a good hook.

The issue with quotations here isn't that they need footnote citations (which are already provided), but that their frequency rather disrupts the flow of the text. If the verbatim wording of a quotation is important, it should be attributed within the text, e.g. "... ", according to such-and-such, or Such-and-such described it as "...". If such attribution isn't warranted, the statement should probably be paraphrased. Or for simple uncontroversial statements, just present it without quotation marks. With single words or short phrases especially, putting them in quotation marks has the effect of "scare quoting". For example, in the Horsham article, the description On the "simple" front (east) elevation seems to insinuate that the Wikipedia writer disagrees with the description. As I said though, these are suggestions for improvement that I won't regard as conditional for DYK. (And FYI, editing a comment to add a ping doesn't work; a notification is only sent when the edit includes a new paragraph and signature; see Help:Fixing failed pings.) --Paul_012 (talk) 19:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Paul 012: Thanks for your suggestions (plus the tip about pings). I have made some tweaks, possibly with more to come tomorrow when I have time to re-read fully. Based on your suggestion I will submit the following ALT hooks, forming two separate nominations; both are cited to the Heritage Reports and I have added citations in the relevant places: Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 22:43, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...that Lewes Friends Meeting House, built in 1784, replaced an earlier building whose proximity to a slaughterhouse made it "unfit to sit in"?
...that the headstone of George Bax Holmes, who is buried at Horsham Friends Meeting House (pictured), is now a paving slab?
- Thanks. Both hooks are verified and within length. QPQ has been provided for both articles. I'll go ahead and approve the above two hooks, to run separately. The picture is clear, used, and freely licensed, so it can run with the Horsham hook if desired, but I'll leave it to Hassocks5489 to add the (pictured) if so (or add another one for Lewis house). --Paul_012 (talk) 15:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks; I have struck out the original hook and have added (pictured) to the Horsham hook. The Lewes picture doesn't really work well enough at thumbnail size to be worth including. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 20:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]