Template:Did you know nominations/Selina Rushbrook

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The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by BlueMoonset (talk) 13:53, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Selina Rushbrook edit

Selina Rushbrook
Selina Rushbrook
  • ... that Selina Rushbrook (pictured) drowned in a lock in Swansea Docks aged 26? Source: [1] for the specifics of her drowning, this print source for her birthdate and thus her age; ignore the contemporary newspaper reports that say she was 25 when she died as at the time the papers got her age wrong.
  • Reviewed: Claudia Mahnke
  • Comment: Run this one with the photo if at all possible, even if it means languishing in prep for months. What's unusual about Rushbrook isn't her life (which was sadly typical of the times) or her rather sad death, but that she's one of the few Victorian prostitutes for whom we have a high-quality photo rather than blurry police images, penny-dreadful woodcuts or prettied-up paintings, and thus can see what a typical Victorian street prostitute actually looked like, as opposed to the ringlets-and-bodices portrayal in a thousand movies and TV shows. ‑ Iridescent 17:59, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Created by Iridescent (talk). Self-nominated at 17:59, 25 March 2017 (UTC).

Sad life, well written, on excellent sources, offline sources accepted AGF, no copyvio obvious. The image is licensed and unusual, almost a must ;) - You will know why the hook contains not even a hint of "most of her life in prison". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:06, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
@Gerda Arendt I intentionally left "prostitute" and "criminal" out of the hook—while including it may mean a few more pageviews, it seems somehow inappropriate to treat the unfortunate circumstances someone was forced into as their defining characteristic. "Most of her life in prison" isn't actually true—although it seems that way because most of whats recorded about her is reports on criminal cases so the article reads like a long list of convictions, all her sentences were fairly short. When you add it all up, she was never in prison for more than a couple of months out of each year. (Prostitution was—and is—legal in Britain; her problem was that she was working in public and running unauthorised brothels, which aren't, plus her habits of stealing from her customers and of getting into drunken fights. The prisons had better things to do than hold drunks and prostitutes; the only reason she kept ending up there was her refusal to pay fines.) ‑ Iridescent 20:19, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for explaining, but didn't I say that you will know, and approved?
Yes, but whoever adds this to the queue won't necessarily know, and may think you're saying it should be added to the hook. ‑ Iridescent 21:04, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
I approved only the above, but please keep an eye on it while in prep, changes happen ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:11, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Hi, I'm building prep sets and keep passing this by, wondering what's hooky about it? Without reading the article, the hook just looks like a missing persons case. Yoninah (talk) 21:34, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Hi @Iridescent: I just saw your reply on your talk page. (Please reply on the template in future.) All I'm suggesting is adding some kind of identification here that would interest readers, like:
  • ALT1: ... that Victorian prostitute and brothel keeper Selina Rushbrook (pictured) drowned in a lock in Swansea Docks aged 26?
  • But I feel you could do even more with the hook:
  • ALT2: ... that Victorian prostitute Selina Rushbrook (pictured) fell into a lock in Swansea Docks and drowned while escorting a client?
  • ALT3: ... that Selina Rushbrook (pictured) continued to work as a prostitute and thief after her marriage? Yoninah (talk) 22:48, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Withdraw this. I'm not going to participate in whatever nasty slut-shaming game you appear to want to play. ‑ Iridescent 06:49, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
Sad to see you withdraw.
repeat that the original hook is approved. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:21, 23 April 2017 (UTC)