Template:Did you know nominations/June Lascelles
- 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 BlueMoonset (talk) 00:59, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
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June Lascelles
[edit]- ... that June Lascelles was an Australian microbiologist who taught and researched into bacteria at Oxford and UCLA?
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Australornis
- Comment: First article of creator; sorry it's a bit late.
Created by Brpalmer83 (talk). Nominated by Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) at 03:14, 13 March 2014 (UTC).
Article created on 4 March and nominated on 12 March, three days after the usual five day deadline for DYK; are we treating articles created for the Women in Science Edit-a-thon differently? Article is about 3400 characters, satisfying length criteria. A QPQ review has been completed, but it contains few details about the review. The content of the article is fine and well-sourced, though I have two quibbles. The first is that ref #1 and ref #4 are nearly identical; they appear to be copies of an obituary by Guest and Gest edited by the respective publishers, so choose one version and use that throughout. The other is that, although there is no copied text, the structure of the article is identical to the obituary. Perhaps the section "Scientific career" could be split into "Career" (where she worked) and "Research" (what she worked on), which would provide a unique structure to the text. The hook is OK, incorporating info from various parts of the text, all of which have appropriate citations. Mindmatrix 21:11, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
- On the timing, see WP:DYKSG D9. I had lots of things to do after the event, including tidying and assessing all the articles & then doing 7 DYK noms from them (with QPQs). The 2 obits are not "nearly identical" - 1 is surely much longer than 4? They are somewhat different at the single place where 4 is cited, so using both seems reasonable. The structure of the article is very standard one, & hoping to find a "unique structure" for a short bio like this is way too optimistic. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 03:53, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
- I'll agree with your first point, but not the second. The obituaries are practically identical, with only minor tweaking of phrasing; the first is about 7300 characters, the second 7200. For the cited statement, the differences are negligible; here are the supporting claims in each:
- ref 1: "In 1956, June was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to work for a year with C.B. van Niel at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University (Pacific Grove, CA) and to visit microbiologists throughout the USA."
- ref 2: "In 1956, June was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for work with C. B. van Niel at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University (at Pacific Grove, Calif.)"
- WP article: "In 1956, she was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, and went to Stanford University for a year to work with C. B. van Niel at the Hopkins Marine Station."
- Regarding the last point, I'm not stating it must be done, just that I'd rather see something unique. It verges on copyright violation per substantial similarity ("when paraphrasing is looser but covers a larger part of the source"). When a Wikipedia article follows the same structure as a source, and makes the same points in the same order, it raises a red flag. Mindmatrix 13:14, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
- I'll agree with your first point, but not the second. The obituaries are practically identical, with only minor tweaking of phrasing; the first is about 7300 characters, the second 7200. For the cited statement, the differences are negligible; here are the supporting claims in each:
- On the timing, see WP:DYKSG D9. I had lots of things to do after the event, including tidying and assessing all the articles & then doing 7 DYK noms from them (with QPQs). The 2 obits are not "nearly identical" - 1 is surely much longer than 4? They are somewhat different at the single place where 4 is cited, so using both seems reasonable. The structure of the article is very standard one, & hoping to find a "unique structure" for a short bio like this is way too optimistic. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 03:53, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
I've gone over the article and broken it into sections, as per matrix's suggestion. The ordering of the sections follows the ordering of basic events in her life, but hopefully the sectioning will address his concern. My personal tendency would be to leave both obituary citations in the article, in part because external links tend to disappear; having both increases the chance of at least one being good. But as you note, this isn't a serious issue, and shouldn't hold up the DYK. I did find the hook a little dull, so here's a possible alt: Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 23:33, 26 March 2014 (UTC)- ALT1:... that Australian microbiologist June Lascelles established a basis for understanding tetrapyrrole synthesis in photosynthetic bacteria?
Good to go with any of the hooks, though I don't think ALT1 will draw many readers. (I like ALT1, but I doubt it would interest most readers.) I've included ALT2 below, which is also based on cited material from the article, that I think may interest casual readers a bit more. As an aside, I really don't understand the resistance to removing duplicate sources from this article. Mindmatrix 20:29, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
- ALT2: ... that Australian microbiologist June Lascelles conducted pioneering work in microbial photosynthesis?
- While I think ALT2 reads well, and is indeed stated in the article's intro, it is uncited there, and is the only place where the phrase "microbial photosynthesis" is used in the article except for the title of the book for which she was one of the editors. A book is not at all the same thing as "pioneering work". Barring its cited insertion in the body, or a citation added to the intro, ALT2 is not adequately supported for DYK purposes. (I've not added an icon because I don't want to cancel out the approval of the original hook or ALT1.) BlueMoonset (talk) 23:32, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
- I considered the phrase "...her work provided the basis of understanding of tetrapyrrole synthesis in photosynthetic bacteria...", which has a citation, to support the claim. It's also based on the fact that the microbes with which she seems to have worked most often were bacteria, hence "microbial photosynthesis". The third column of the first page of the source has more reasons (points i, iv, and v), but not all of them are stated in the WP article. If that's insufficient, please strike ALT2 from consideration. Mindmatrix 00:26, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
- Mindmatrix, I ultimately decided to promote the nomination using the original hook, since I did like it, too, and the support for it is quite clear. I think it's important to have clear sourcing for such statements, rather than require knowledge of microbiology to figure out what might be the supporting information, as it would be for ALT2. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:59, 30 March 2014 (UTC)