Template:Did you know nominations/John C. Beale

The following discussion 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 16:35, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

John C. Beale

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... that EPA climate policy expert John C. Beale (pictured) defrauded the US government out of $886,186 by claiming to be a CIA agent?

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Tilkka

Created by Jujutacular (talk). Self nominated at 15:56, 10 March 2014 (UTC).

The article is new enough, moved into the mainspace today, and definitely long enough. I would say that the hook fact is neutral enough not to be a problem, since this is a living person. The hook fact is not explicitly cited in the article; I checked the Washingtonian source and the number is right in there, but it would be good to have that citation added onto one of the two sentences in the article that actually gives the $886,186 figure. — AJDS ^talk 16:42, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I have added a citation to the DOJ source (which notes that same figure) in the lead. The figure is also cited to the Washingtonian source later in the article. Thank you for your review. Jujutacular (talk) 18:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Perfect. I would say it's good to go. — AJDS ^talk 19:05, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

This is a clear violation of eligibility criteria #4: "Articles and hooks that focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals should be avoided." StAnselm (talk) 20:06, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
- Well, certainly being convicted of fraud is not something positive about a person, but the conviction is the whole reason for his notability. The question is whether it focuses unduly on the negative aspect. Since there really is no relevant positive information, what else could you do? (A hook like "... that John C. Beale simultaneously earned a Master of Public Administration and a law degree?" would be irrelevant to the whole article, wouldn't it?) Moreover, the phrasing in the eligibility criteria says that such hooks "should be avoided," but does not prohibit them entirely; in this case, as I've argued, I don't think there are other facts that are reasonably interesting that wouldn't focus on the man's crime. — AJDS ^talk 20:29, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

My personal feeling is that articles like this shouldn't be included on DYK at all, but I realise there is community consensus to have some articles about convicted criminals, as long as the hook is not unduly negative, and so I won't stand in the way of inclusion if we can find a suitable hook. But if we can't, maybe we just need to let this one go. St Anselm (talk) 20:47, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, how's this: we drop the fraud bit, and we just have that Beale pretended to be a CIA agent for more than ten years.[1] St Anselm (talk) 21:36, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I like that. It's a more attractive hook in my opinion, too: there's more mystery in it. New hook below. — AJDS ^talk 22:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

New hook ... that EPA climate policy expert John C. Beale (pictured) pretended to be a CIA agent for more than ten years?
- And it's already cited in the article. (Simple computation from the 2000 to 2013 statement in the lead.) — AJDS ^talk 22:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm glad we could work this out. St Anselm (talk) 22:26, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

This works for me! Thank you both. Jujutacular (talk) 23:01, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Somewhat belatedly, I would like to point out that John C. Beale was not an "climate policy expert" at the EPA. His work at the EPA was as lawyer who worked on the Clean Air Act. Skepticalgiraffe (talk) 18:44, 6 January 2016 (UTC)