Talk:Max Wenner

A fact from Max Wenner appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 January 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that exactly how "man of mystery" Max Wenner fell from an airliner flying over Belgium remains a mystery?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Max Wenner.

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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) 17:13, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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... that Max Wenner, who fell, jumped or was pushed out of an airliner over Belgium in 1937, was described as an international man of mystery? Source: https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/singfreepressb19370204-1.2.86
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Uncertainty effect

Created by Jengod (talk). Self-nominated at 19:02, 28 December 2022 (UTC).[reply]

Article is new enough and certainly long enough. Sourced, neutral, and—save for some large chunks of quotes—appears free of copyright violations. Hook is verified in the text, though to be safe, please add was described as an international "man of mystery". QPQ is done. As a side note, this article was quite a fascinating read and has the makings of a decent GA; I'd be interested in reviewing it should you choose to nominate. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 10:18, 2 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"described as" ✅ - thanks also for the positive feedback! If I get in the "good article" line I'll be sure to ping you. Appreciate the review! jengod (talk) 03:12, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New section

Why has this been made a 'did you know' article? It's embarrassingly poor, far too long and full of irrelevant and contradictory quotes. Plenty of silly errors as well. For instance, publishing some articles on Ornithology in the 1930's does not make one a Citizen Scientist, nor does owning a grouse moor. Could someone, please, do some serious editing, or better still delete and start from scratch?BobBadg (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2023 (UTC) And could we have a review of the process of how stuff like this gets showcased - it gives Wikipedia a disservice.[reply]

@BobBadg:, a ruthless red-pen edit and any other contributions you can offer to the article would, of course, be very welcome. jengod (talk) 19:00, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Wenner was presumed to have fallen from the plane at about 914.5 m (3,000 ft) "

'About' 914.5 m? Really? False precision never looks good when making conversions. Particularly as the article later goes on to quote a medical examiner as describing "a fall of 1,400 meters". Which is 4,600 ft or so. Which source is correct, if either, we are unlikely to ever know, obviously, but we shouldn't have the article contradicting itself. Or suggesting that 1930s aircraft could measure their altitude to within half a metre... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:55, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A fine point. I'm wholly overreliant on conversion templates (they're so brilliant tho!). I will edit. jengod (talk) 00:15, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:AndyTheGrump is this better? "Wenner was presumed to have fallen from a height of about 3,000 feet (roughly 900 meters) over the Meuse River valley." Edits and other advice welcome. I have minimal background knowledge of airplanes, the metric system, or, uh, Europe, to draw from, but trying my best! jengod (talk) 00:21, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Büchsenschütz had been working as the secretary of the Swedish Consul-General at Düren in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia state in Germany."

Extensive research in German newspapers could not identify the existence of a Swedish consulate or consul in the city of Düren (which is closer to Aachen than Cologne). There were Swedish consuls-general in Aachen during the time under review (Fritz Mohren, a commodity trader) and Cologne (Richard v. Schnitzler, a banker and later Kurt v. Schröder, Schnitzler's son-in-law and also a banker). I suggest removing that statement as it doesn't add information and is based on a newspaper source far removed from Germany. Ubeeh B (talk) 19:24, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Ubeeh B You rule!! Thank you for researching that. Do you want to be the deleted? If you feel shy I can totally do it but Wikipedia:Be bold is one of our founding principles and you already went above and beyond to coming to talk first. jengod (talk) 20:10, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]