Template:Did you know nominations/Trevor de Cleene

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify it. 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 PumpkinSky talk 12:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Trevor de Cleene

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• ... that controversial New Zealand politician and lawyer Trevor de Cleene kept a pump-action shotgun under his bed for personal protection?

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Frenchy Bordagaray
• Comment: Five times expansion, but there's more to come (infobox & professional career are as yet missing). Schwede66 20:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Created/expanded by Schwede66 (talk). Self nom at 20:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

• Length and timeliness expansion checks: Prose size (text only): 8066 characters (1364 words) "readable prose size" Article created by Hugo999 on September 8, 2007, Assuming article is at 5x now, expansion began 15 edits ago on January 2, 2012. Checked sources using Duplication Detector. There are a few words in two sources that might be a bit close. See this and one similar sentence, but cannot see a way to change that wording with out changing the meaning. Not a problem for me. Hook is correct length and interesting. It is supported by the inlined sources.
• I do not like describing him as controversial. If some one else is willing to give it a pass with the wording, that would be good. It strikes me as a potential POV statement. There are other potential POV statements in the article. Example: "Law seemed an ideal profession for de Cleene. He was a gifted scholar, was good with words and loved public speaking. He was a brilliant debater, was witty and a very quick thinker. Due to his presentation, he quickly became the centre of attention wherever he went."

• This needs a second opinion for NPOV issues.--LauraHale (talk) 23:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. Let me put some context around the 'controversial politician'. The main source used for the article is ref #2, a 38 page biography written by local Palmerston North historian Mervyn Hancock. It's part of a series of biographies written in 2005 by Hancock, covering all 16 MPs who have represented the Palmerston North electorate. That's 524 pages of biographies; a pretty solid and thorough effort. Another major reference is the obituary that was published in The New Zealand Herald; a pretty reputable newspaper. Both of the sources don't have any problem describing de Cleene as controversial, because that's clearly what he was. I recommend the second to last paragraph on page 485 of the bio as an example (can't copy and paste from that document - sorry). The other passages I recommend are 'Pithy descriptions of Trevor de Cleene' and 'Summary', both on page 514 of the bio. The obituary has the following sentence: "Devoid of stuffiness and pomposity, he was a controversial and entertaining politician". Is that enough evidence to justify calling him 'controversial'?

The 'example' for POV given is paraphrasing what it says about him in the bio on page 482 under the headings 'Personality' and 'Lawyer'. If you have other examples where you'd like a source, just say so and I'll provide the page reference. Schwede66 07:17, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I've asked some one offline about the neutrality of the statement. They told me it was probably neutral except for the word brilliant, which could be puffery. I'll go with that. Remove brilliant and I'll pass it. --LauraHale (talk) 07:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Brilliant -> good. Schwede66 07:41, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Article neutrality problems resolved. Article is good to go. --LauraHale (talk) 07:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)