Template:Did you know nominations/De Akkermolen

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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

De Akkermolen

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~~... that De Akkermolen (pictured) from the early 17th century was in constant use as a gristmill until it was damaged in 1950?~~

Reviewed: Not a self-nomination

Improved to Good Article status by Taketa (talk). Nominated by Oceanh (talk) at 23:17, 21 July 2014 (UTC).

Well, it's long enough and a GA. The hook is verified. BlueMoonset, what else is there to do? Drmies (talk) 13:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Drmies, you're uniquely positioned to do a close paraphrase check, since you read Dutch and can see whether there are signs of direct translation (or close to it) from the sources. This clearly wasn't done as part of the GA review. Looking at a Google Translate of FN2, I don't see any confirmation of the extraordinary claim that the mill was in constant use as a gristmill from the early 17th century through 1950. (The word "constant" doesn't, to my mind, allow for any significant downtime, including for extensive repairs lasting months or even a couple of years.) There's also something odd about the wording: the "from the early 17th century" doesn't fit well given the sentence structure. A general problem is that we don't know just when the mill was built and put into service: FN1 says "c. 1600", because of a mention in 1605 ("one assumes it was rebuilt" is how Google Translate puts it) and FN2 says "around [rond] 1625"—a quarter century is a bit of a difference. Also, how reliable are these two sources? The "Further reading" section of the article gives two additional sources, both of which were cited at the bottom of the FN1 source. Shouldn't a GA have relied on these directly, or is that only considered desirable at the FA level (or not even then, perhaps)? BlueMoonset (talk) 01:56, 25 July 2014‎ (UTC)

User:BlueMoonset, that's a lot of (valid) questions. Let's see.
1. The image has a 3.0 license, so that's good enough, no?
2. I don't have much of a problem with the wording in the hook, or with the date. We have, as you note, two sources, with slightly different dates--in this case (such cases), 25 years difference doesn't bother me so much, and I have no doubt that "early 17th century" is written in that way to play it safe. Ref. 2, from De Hollandsche Molen, does not mention a 1605 rebuild, but note that ref. 1 does list the 1625 date--albeit with two question marks.
3. I find these sources to be good enough for windmills; esp. De Hollandsche Molen has a decent reputation and is comprehensive (but the real expert is @Mjroots:!) However, in this case I am bothered by the terse phrasing: it states that the mill was already a banmolen in 1550--but since it does not mention that the earlier watermill had been replaced by the current mill's predecessor, it has a watermill as a banmolen, which strikes me as, to put it mildly, terrifically odd. But the account in our article leans more on the other reference; by the way, I found no all-too close paraphrasing/translating at all.
4. It's not my article. If it were, I'd have gotten those two books. If I had reviewed this for GA, I would have asked for it. (I'm about to go look at that review.) I am very hesitant about promoting articles that have only web sites for references, esp. if print publications are available. For DYK I think it's decent enough.
5. Oh, the hook. I think that in this area "in continuous use" probably means "not used as a mustard mill in the meantime" or something like that, which is why I didn't have a problem with it, but I see where you're coming from. Perhaps Mjroots has an opinion here as well--they're a GA and DYK veteran as well, and apparently someone made them admin. I'll gladly defer to their opinion. Thanks BMS, Drmies (talk) 02:32, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Drmies, thanks for the comprehensive response. To reply: (1) the 3.0 license is fine (and it's in the article, also a requirement), (2) the "early 17th century" struck me as indeed playing it safe, but there's always the possibility that the mill came back on line in 1598, so playing it safer might be better. However, I think the phrase should probably be displaced to later in the hook; right now it just doesn't read well to me. For (3), let's re-ping @Mjroots:. Also, you didn't quite finish this one, so I'm not sure what you didn't find, though I suspect it's close paraphrasing; if so, that's a good thing, and thanks for checking. For (4), it sounds like the sources are sufficiently reliable and thus good enough for DYK, so that's okay here. With (5), "constant" (or "continuous") strikes me as overblown; I'd want more specific wording in the sources for such an extraordinary claim in both article and hook. Sorry I forgot the four tildes last time; I've corrected my omission so the time is indicated, and included them here. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:24, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, I finished that sentence, and it is as you thought. (Occasionally I accidentally select an entire sentence and then overwrite it with this mini keyboard.) I am going to have a look at the GA review, but what shall we do with the hook? I rephrase, or the author rephrases, and you approve that part? It's easy to do, actually--

ALT1: ... that De Akkermolen (pictured) was used as a gristmill from the early 1600s until it was damaged in 1950? Drmies (talk) 03:35, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I've made a couple of changes, replacing {{infobox building}} with {{infobox windmill}}. Sources all meet RS, with the first two being excellent sources that can be trusted implicitly. The issue re "downtime" - yes, the mill would have had some downtime - storm damage, replacement of life-expired sails etc. What I think is being stated here is that the mill never spent a considerable period out of use due to a lack of will to work it. In olden days, a damaged mill would generally have been repaired fairly quickly. Mjroots (talk) 05:57, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Mjroots--if you're OK with the article and the (revised) hook, can you tick it off? I think that's what BlueMoonset prefers. Drmies (talk) 18:42, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
- - per discussion above, ready to go. Mjroots (talk) 19:02, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  - Many thanks. I've just labeled ALT1 and formatted it so it's more visible for the promoter, and struck the original hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:30, 25 July 2014 (UTC)