Talk:John Littlejohn (preacher)

Did you know nomination

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 Bruxton talk 20:16, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that pastor John Littlejohn went from selling pornography to sailors as a youth to protecting the Declaration of Independence? Source: The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760-1800: The Shaping of an Evangelical Culture, pg. 73, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7ssfd
  In Debate About Documents' Hiding Place, a Loudoun Legend Lives On, The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/08/18/in-debate-about-documents-hiding-place-a-loudoun-legend-lives-on/d39e399b-816c-48b7-9627-4480e4c98e73/
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Gareth_Knight

Created by Generalissima (talk). Self-nominated at 05:32, 21 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/John Littlejohn (preacher); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• The article meets DYK requirements and I didn't find any close paraphrasing. I do not have access to the sources so AGF on them. QPQ has been done. I do have a concern about the hook though: was the work in question actually pornographic? The source says that Andrews (the author of the source) was the one who said it was pornographic, but I'm not sure if that's enough to make it definitive. At the very least, maybe the current hook as written may be misleading. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 10:49, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
  • @Narutolovehinata5 I do appreciate the AGF, but I think it is relatively unlikely that Andrews doesn't know what she's talking about here, since she's a subject matter expert in colonial American History. Pornographic literature certainly existed in the colonies at this time (see Lyon's Sex among the Rabble (2006)), and since the term 'pornography' had not yet been coined, I do not think that "private stories" -> 'erotica' would be an unlikely conclusion. - Generalissima (talk) 16:37, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

That would probably still be synthesis/OR unless there was a more explicit connection stated in a reliable source. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:56, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Andrews, who I am citing here, is a subject matter expert on American colonial culture and religion. It is not synthesis to assume that they are correct on the field that they study. See WP:NOTOR. Generalissima (talk) 03:12, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

• Disclosure: I talked about this with Vaticidalprophet over Discord DM, but basically, I was convinced that my particular concern is not an issue and thus I am lifting it here. I'm still not totally convinced about the accuracy of the "pornographic" claim but I am assuming good faith now that Andrews is right about that particular claim. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 12:57, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
  • @Narutolovehinata5: So does anything need to be changed for approval? I'm still a little confused. Generalissima (talk) 18:47, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
• Requesting second review due to ambiguity of approval of prior review. Generalissima (talk) 21:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

   Doing... This was mentioned on Discord, but she was just talking about how the reviewer went MIA, not asking someone to re-review it, so I don't consider this canvassed. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 21:33, 6 December 2023 (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: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Looks good to me; I cannot access the JSTOR source but AGF and NLH's concern has been abated. Queen of Hearts ❤️ (no relation) 21:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5, Queen of Hearts, and Generalissima: I too have a concern about the verifiability of the pornography bit- I have to make assumptions and WP:V is the relevant policy. The second part of the hook is verified by the source. I might suggest we find another hook Bruxton (talk) 18:59, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

@Bruxton: Both aspects of the statement meet WP:V. It is not an particularly outrageous claim; it is well established that pornographic works existed in the Thirteen Colonies at the time. It is from a comprehensive and reliable source by a subject matter expert in early American religion and culture. The only confusion or lack of verifiability I could think of would be if there is such a distinction between "pornographic works of literature" and "pornography", but if that is the case, we could simply rewrite the hook to say "sold pornographic literature" as opposed to "sold pornography." Generalissima (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

So @Generalissima: I will promote this as verified

• ALT1: ... that pastor John Littlejohn went from selling pornographic literature to sailors as a youth to protecting the Declaration of Independence? Bruxton (talk) 20:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that works! Thank you very much. Generalissima (talk) 20:19, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:John Littlejohn (preacher)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: MaranoFan (talk · contribs) 21:03, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Review soon! I also have one nominated here if you are interested.--NØ 21:03, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

• AGF on sourcing, and a spotcheck is not included in the review.
• Russellville, Kentucky does not strike me as an extremely well-known place so I think you should do a wikilink in the infobox.
• Occupations should be separated using asterisks, not commas. See Taylor Swift for example.
• I would suggest commas after location mid-sentence, e.g.
  • "who served as sheriff of Loudoun County, Virginia, during the War of 1812"
  • "He retired to Logan County, in southern Kentucky, before dying in 1836."
• "Settling after several years in Leesburg, Virginia, serving as a local preacher for several decades, as well as variously as a land agent, tax collector, and county sheriff." - This is not a complete sentence. I would suggest "After several years in Leesburg, Virginia, he served as a local preacher for several decades, as well as variously as a land agent, tax collector, and county sheriff." unless it changes the meaning.
• I would also suggest commas after dates, e.g.
  • "John Littlejohn was born on December 7, 1756, to a well-to-do family in Penrith, an English town within the county of Cumberland."
• "Within a year, he ran away from London, walking 284 miles back to his mother's home in Penrith."
• "In 1769, his family followed him to the colonies" - Which colonies? Do you mean the Thirteen Colonies mentioned in the lead? That should be included again here since the article body is treated differently from the lead.
• "then to Norfolk, Virginia to apprentice for a harnessmaker" - Similarly to above suggestions, I would suggest a comma after Virginia here.
• "In Annapolis he began regular Church attendance, but had difficulties with Selby, who boarded other tradesmen and collected fines on the breaching of household rules to supply alcohol for frolics." - Replace with "In Annapolis, he began regular church attendance but had difficulties with Selby, who boarded other tradesmen and collected fines for breaching household rules to supply alcohol for frolics."
• "Moving in December 1773 to Alexandria, Virginia, where the seventeen year old Littlejohn was appointed foreman and manager, began attending regular Methodist preaching with his bosses' family, despite ridicule from a Catholic coworker." - Replace with "Moving in December 1773 to Alexandria, Virginia, where the seventeen-year-old Littlejohn was appointed foreman and manager, he began attending regular Methodist preaching with his boss's family, despite ridicule from a Catholic coworker."
• "Sigman's preaching especially affected Littlejohn, writing "His words got to my heart as never any did before, tears gushed from my eyes as voluntary as the water from a fountain." - Replace with "Sigman's preaching especially affected Littlejohn, writing, "His words got to my heart as never any did before; tears gushed from my eyes as voluntary as the water from a fountain."
• There seem to be comma issues in several places. I would recommend reading WP:CinS as that helped me out a lot with this.
• "He ultimately continued in his duties, with Rev. William Watters appointing him as a class leader" - While it is fairly obvious this stands for "reverend", you could maybe use the full form to make sure all readers can understand this.
• "Littlejohn left Virginia in 1777, returning to Maryland." - Suggest simpler sentence structure: "Littlejohn left Virginia in 1777 to return to Maryland."
• "John and Monica Littlejohn married in December 1778" - I would maybe avoid using Littlejohn as Monica's surname in this particular sentence, assuming she had not taken it until after the marriage happened.
• "John Littlejohn died at his home in Logan County on May 13th, 1836, possibly of cholera, and was buried in Russellville at the same graveyard as his son and wife." - I think you can remove "th" and keep just "May 13, 1836".

That's all! Props to you for writing a biography about someone who died in 1836. I shy away from working on biographies even about currently active people, lol. This is  On hold. Best, NØ 20:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@MaranoFan Thank you so much for your review! Made changes as per review. :3 Generalissima (talk) 10:29, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for addressing these points. I'll read through the article and try to correct any more comma stuff I can find myself.--NØ 19:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.