Template:Did you know nominations/Winston Churchill

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) 05:54, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Winston Churchill

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Winston Churchill in December 1941

... that apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, Winston Churchill (pictured) was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies? Source: Roy Jenkins, Churchill (2001), pages 65, 89, 392, 911. London: Macmillan Press. 978-03-30488-05-1.
- ALT1:... that Winston Churchill (pictured) was a keen amateur bricklayer? Source: Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind (1941), pages 178–179. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock. 978-14-17992-77-5.
- ALT2:... that Winston Churchill suffered from recurring attacks of depression, which he termed his "black dog"? Source: Roy Jenkins, Churchill (2001), page 819. London: Macmillan Press. 978-03-30488-05-1.
- ALT3:... that Winston Churchill struck up a friendly correspondence with his namesake, the well-known American novelist? Source: "Mr Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both" ([1])

Reviewed: Maypole in the Strand

Improved to Good Article status by No Great Shaker (talk). Self-nominated at 20:22, 27 August 2020 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I am going for ALT 0; but if the promoting coordinator prefers, ALT 1 also meets all of the requirements and is, IMO, sufficiently hooky. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I prefer Alt 0 by far, but while it is stated in the lead (uncited), I can't find a clear statement with a cite at the end of or within the sentence concerned within the article. (Or set of cited statements.) Could you lead me a little here? Or tweak the article? Great work on getting it to GA by the way. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Gog. My apologies, I did just lift that fact from the lead where it had been stated as a summary of his parliamentary career. I think Gilbert does state the totals but I don't have that book at present (out on loan) so I've found relevant mentions in Jenkins' biography and added a summary statement in the narrative after Churchill stood down at the 1964 election (see Winston Churchill#Retirement: 1955–1964). Hope this is okay. If not, I'll withdraw ALT0 and promote one of the others. Thanks very much for doing the review. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:55, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

No problem. I was happy about the sourcing, but needed the "immediately after the statement" bit. Now done. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Gog. All the best and keep safe. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:16, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

As an outsider, Alt 0 is incredibly dull. Everyone in the world who has ever of Churchill knows he was a politician. Big whoop. And all of these hooks are overly wordy. I think a the best of the lot would be for a shortened version of ALT1:... that Winston Churchill was a keen amateur bricklayer?. Short, simple, and unexpected. That is how you catch people's attention, which is the entire point of a "hook". And strike all the extraneous metadata from the caption: it's entirely sufficient for the sake of the hook just to say "Winston Churchill". --Animalparty! (talk) 04:40, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Very good points but, while the world knows he was a politician, do they know for how long? 62 years in the Commons is remarkable and five constituencies is possibly a record. I agree about the caption but have left the date and I'm shortening ALT1. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:08, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I think ALT1 is a better hook too. I didn't even know about his non-political interests so learning about him having an interest in bricklaying is quite surprising. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi there, what's the status of this? @Narutolovehinata5 and No Great Shaker:?

@Gog the Mild: Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 17:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The status is that I have approved both ALT0 and ALT1 and left it for the promoting coordinator to choose the one they prefer/consider hookiest. (While expressing a personal preference for ALT0, for whatever that is worth.) Gog the Mild (talk) 18:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: please add some kind of tick so the bot will move this to the Approved page. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 12:51, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Yoninah, I can see one there on several of my devices! But I have added a couple more. Let me know if they don't show. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:21, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: yes, they show, but I meant adding one to the bottom of the thread since there were a lot of posts since your original tick. Thanks, this is definitely approved! Yoninah (talk) 15:41, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, I came by to promote ALT1 to a non-image slot because it is so bland, but now I see that No Great Shaker overwrote the hook, making it impossible to follow this discussion. (Please don't do that again. Just write your new hooks as alts.) Here is the original ALT1 hook, followed by the shortened version:

(Sorry about that, Yoninah. Didn't know the process. Will bear it in mind. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 11:02, 15 September 2020 (UTC))

ALT1-1: ... that Winston Churchill (pictured) was a keen amateur bricklayer, constructing buildings and garden walls at his home, Chartwell?
ALT1-2: ... that Winston Churchill (pictured) was a keen amateur bricklayer?
Personally, I like knowing something different about Churchill. I prefer ALT1-1. @Gog the Mild:: did you approve the original hook or the edited one? What do you think of the original? Yoninah (talk) 18:55, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Why has ALT3 been struck? I had no idea there was also a novelist named Winston Churchill and found that very interesting, surely many others would not know that either and it gives the other Churchill some main page exposure. Gatoclass (talk) 05:20, 17 September 2020 (UTC)