Template:Did you know nominations/Minor White

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: rejected by Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Doesn't look like the referencing errors are going to be addressed.

Minor White[edit]

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... that photographer Minor White included two copies of the same photograph in his 1974 work Totemic Sequence, flipping the second copy upside down?

5x expanded by Lexaxis7 (talk). Self nominated at 18:55, 20 July 2014 (UTC).

"Flipping upside down" is technically vague. What really happened is the image was reflected over the horizontal axis but that doesn't make for a very good hook. At the risk of being a bit colloquial...

ALT1 ... that photographer Minor White's 1974 Totemic Sequence presents two versions of the same image, flipping the negative over vertically between the first and the second? EEng (talk) 22:30, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Full review needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:00, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Hello, to review this article you will need to seek out an editor with access to the (literally a small shelf of books) referenced publications. Perhaps a photographic art student with the relevant interests. Otherwise, a lengthy and well composed booklet of detailed information on a revered American photographer. You should try Wikiproject Photography and Art and such places. Maybe an art student with interest in the subject could access the books. You could try the hook "...began his career by taking a cross country road trip with a 35mm camera...?" I think the ALT1 hook would generate interest but partly because it would be difficult to understand, maybe better, maybe not. You should also submit this article for a GA review as it probably would just need some pictures and/or minor adjustments. Unfortunately, neither the hook suggested by the OP or the one I suggested can be confirmed without access to the cited books. Perhaps the hook should say that the flipped images constitute both the first and last images of the sequence... ~ R.T.G 21:51, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Or - you could do a 5-second Google search and find the Totemic Sequence as published online at http://www.reframingphotography.com/resources/minor-white. It's quite easy to see the first and last image in the sequence are the same but rotated 180 degrees. Lexaxis7 (talk) 04:07, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
I just don't think even half of those books will be available for their full content online and there is so much prose added it probably needs checked for copying. The whole article has just been added. It is several pages long. Or if you know where to look... ~ R.T.G 12:29, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

RTG, there is no requirement that all of an article's text be immediately verified by a DYK reviewer (or even GA or FA). There's a little thing called AGF, which may be necessary. Proof that the books exist (ISBN numbers which check out, for instance) can be sought, and should be included, to avoid the possibility of a hoax. However, insinuating that an editor has copied extensive amounts of text (i.e. is committing a copyright violation) and insisting on "requirements" which aren't actually in the DYK guidelines is certainly overstepping one's bounds.

Your concern is obviously this diff, in which 25k of text was included in one go. This appears to be Lexaxis' standard way of writing: do something offline (in Notepad, perhaps) and then insert it in one go. This has some benefits, including avoiding the possibility of edit conflicts and keeping Google from picking up a work in progress (and thus giving readers incomplete information). I know of one frequent FA editor (Wehwalt) who often does something similar. Regarding the possibility of something actually being copied verbatim, the format of the article (a succinct biography) and diction (often very simplified) certainly does not appear to be something from a published book. If you remain concerned about the possibility, do some spotchecks with the online sources - as is often done when many references are difficult to access. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:55, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I am afraid there is no ambiguity. The composition of the text is not supposed to be up for debate at all except to say that it is more than 1,500 characters and makes the most basic of sense, but the sourcing is supposed to be fully checked. It's in the review instructions. Frequently editing FAs is not relevant to this page. Trust is not relevant to this page. I am not concerned with the amount of text added, I am applauding it and telling the editor to give this one up to GA review, but it's got to be checked. Why do you think it has sat here all this weeks? The editors who are regulars to this page also contribute FAs regularly. None of them have touched this article, and it is for them to speak for themselves, but I can see no other reason but for difficulty checking the sources. Including without checking is not the way to ensure you avoid hoaxes. There is no way to, as you suggest, determine if this prose is copied or not. So it lacks a few commas. That says nothing about the origin of the text. This is less of a disapproval and more of a novice attempt to explain why this article has no interest on this page while all others are reviewed way down the page. It can be the only reason. I read the whole article. There's nothing wrong with it. It just needs checked. You shouldn't consider this an insult. It's totally procedural. When I checked the noms contribs to see if they were searching for an editor who could check the sourcing, they weren't doing it. All they need to do is leave a one sentence note on three or four interested projects. If any of this is wrong please correct me... ~ R.T.G 10:06, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I apologize that I assumed you meant close paraphrasing/copyright infringement checks; as they have historically been a problem at DYK, I thought that was your main concern.

Now, related to the verifiability of the information here: Please read Wikipedia:Did you know/Reviewing guide, particularly "If the article is entirely or substantially sourced to offline or foreign-language sources, verify the basic facts, or at the very least, the existence of the article subject" (which is, BTW, supported by WP:SOURCEACCESS). That is not a demand that every single piece of information should be verified by hunting down the book(s) used; it is enough to verify that the subject is not a hoax, and (if possible, perhaps with a second source) that the hook fact is accurate. There is an element of trust (which you find not relevant, but is inherent to everything done at Wikipedia) in this, an assumption of good faith that the editor has not gone and falsified some or most of the claims in an article. Why? Simply put, verifying the entire thing it in a timely manner is unrealistic, at any level. I did not say to "Includ[e (what? a ref? information? the article in DYK)] without checking", but recognized (as our reviewing guide does) that we must sometimes assume good faith that a book says the information which is attributed to it. Dictating that reviewers "need to seek out an editor with access to the (literally a small shelf of books) referenced publications" is certainly not supported by policy or guidelines, at any process (including DYK). If you disagree with that, then you may seek consensus more to your liking at WT:DYK.

Although this is not immediately relevant to the this article's sourcing, I feel I must point this out. You state that you believe that this article's use of offline sources is responsible for it not being reviewed quickly. However, you are looking at different facts (article has mostly offline sources, article has not been reviewed in a long time) and attributing causation (article has not been reviewed in a long time because the article has mostly offline sources). That is logically unsound, and there are dozens of reasons which (alone or combined) could be responsible for a slow review: a lack of name familiarity, a lack of interest in the hook, a review page being buried between two others, reviewers starting from the newest nominations, etc.

You seem to mean well, and I agree that this article could (with a bit of massaging) meet the GA criteria. However, I recommend double checking the review guidelines, particularly as related to offline hooks. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:42, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I guess I may as well review while I'm here. Lexaxis7, thank you for this wonderful contribution. However, I'm not sure that the referencing is up to par yet. Not because the references are offline, but because a couple paragraphs don't seem to be referenced (i.e. those starting "During this time White met...", "While in San Francisco...", "Near the end of 1952...", and "In 1965 White was invited..."). Per WP:DYKSG D2, we should have at least one citation per paragraph. If you do go for GAC, I recommend referencing the little sentences at the ends of paragraphs (that aren't footnoted) to make that review easier on yourself. Some ref formatting work will be needed too, if you go that far. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:42, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Crisco 1492. This has been a fascinating discussion, and I've appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the many intricacies of Wikipedia. In retrospect I shouldn't have self-nominated my article since there are nuances to the DYK process that I clearly don't understand or care to learn about. I enjoy writing articles about photographers and photography, and I certainly try to document my work thoroughly. I do have a substantial library of books that are not widely available, but they are published sources that can be verified (I'll gladly send scans of specific pages if someone asks). That being said, I wasn't aware that every single paragraph should be referenced, since I find many, many articles that don't meet that standard.This does give me a new goal for any future articles, however, and I'll do my best to meet it. Lexaxis7 (talk) 17:00, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I hope this won't hold you back from nominating at DYK in the future; such contributions are sorely needed (otherwise we'll end up with floods of Indonesian movies or mushrooms or something ). Although earlier DYKs were not held to this exacting standard, since before I became active at DYK (in 2011) D2 has been part of the "Additional Rules" (now known as the supplementary guidelines). Admittedly many extant articles do not fit this standard, but if you browse recent DYKs you'll see that the vast majority (if not all) do. Hopefully it's just a matter of identifying the source of information and adding a footnote. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:54, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't look like the referencing errors are going to be addressed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)