Template:Did you know nominations/Harriette Colenso

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 Allen3 ^talk 10:00, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Harriette Colenso

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... that the British Christian missionary Harriette Colenso bankrupted herself defending the Zulu king Dinuzulu on charges of treason?

Reviewed: Catherine Corrigan

Created by FunkyCanute (talk). Self-nominated at 10:22, 3 April 2015 (UTC).

I'd like a second opinion on this one. The article was tagged as a stub; I changed it to start class. It does cite three sources, technically, but it relies heavily on one source. It's a good source, and maybe I'm being overcautious. Other than that:

Article is new enough, long enough, and not plagiarized.
Hook is short and interesting
QPQ is done; no image (I've uploaded a fair-use image, but it can't be used for DYK. Feel free to replace with a better one.)

I took the liberty of making a few edits.

Replaced "played the role of secretary" with "served as secretary". I know what you mean, her role was that of secretary, but when I see "played the role" I can't help but think "actor".
Replaced "men" with "those": "fought against the attitudes of those, such as ..., whose policy it was..." Again, I know what you mean, but when I see "fought against the attitudes of men" my brain starts down the wrong path.

Not a DYK issue, but some parts feel truncated, or should I say stubby. For example, you say Colenso's influence can be seen in her discussion with Martin Lutuli, and then don't tell us anything about the discussion. In the source article it's worded more clearly: the very fact that the discussion took place at all shows she was influential. Later you say she made the error of supporting annexation, and leave it at that, no context. The source article goes on to say that she "completely retracted" it two years later. Stuff like that. --Rosekelleher (talk) 15:07, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Surely all that matters is that the article is new, long enough and within policy; that the hook is short and interesting; and that QPQ is done (no image on this nomination). Given that you say it passes on all these accounts, does it not pass? The other 'peer review' points are helpful anyway but irrelevant here. It's a new article, hence not complete. Thank you for the edits also, especially the image. FunkyCanute (talk) 15:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

When I asked for a second opinion, I didn't mean from the nominator. It's my understanding that relying heavily on a single source, while not a policy violation, is frowned on. That said, I see that you've gone in and added another source. That's good enough for me.

As to your other point, I'm aware that it's a start-class article, that's why I prefaced my comment with "Not a DYK issue". Are you suggesting I should keep my suggestions for improvement to myself? I don't accept that. Even a start-class article should be well written. This one's good enough to pass, but it has a halting quality with all those very short paragraphs. I'm not going to assume that "all that matters" to you is getting a green check mark. You cared enough to research the article and create it, so I assume you care generally.

Good enough. --Rosekelleher (talk) 18:12, 3 April 2015 (UTC)