Template:Did you know nominations/Horace Ezra Bixby

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 Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:15, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Horace Ezra Bixby

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... that Horace Ezra Bixby, who taught Mark Twain how to pilot a steamboat, was pilot of the Union flagship at the Battle of Memphis?

Created by Davidhof (talk). Self nominated at 16:58, 20 August 2014 (UTC).

Article: New enough and long enough. Neutral. AGF on the offline sources, and the online ones seem fine. Besides, the 19th and early 20th century sources are probably in public domain now. There are issues with the article that needs fixing. There are no categories, and several of the refs (numbers 4, 19, 29 and 30 and the Thomson and UW La Crosse reference) are not properly formatted. In the "Pre-Civil War career" section a lot of things are presented as irrefutable facts, when really they are statements by Mark Twain, and should be described as such. These things need fixing before the hook can run.

Hook: Short enough and interesting, but the refs for the hook are sort of oddly placed, before the hook fact rather than after. Further, the cited sources describe him as the "chief pilot" of the fleet at Memphis, rather than pilot of the Union flagship. The article even says this is unclear, which it isn't in the hook. This needs to be sorted out.

Other: New editor, doesn't appear to have any previous nominations, so no QPQ is needed. Manxruler (talk) 19:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I fixed multiple Ref Harv references formatting for Short Footnotes (sfn). However, there are more that need to be fixed: Refs 3, 4, 10, 13, 24 and 26. Someone else might want to have a look at those, but they are not formatted correctly. I don't think you can do the Short Footnote (sfn) without dates, and some lack page numbers. Perhaps this new editor needs a little assistance with formatting those.— Maile (talk) 22:44, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I edited "Pre-Civil War career" and "Civil War service" to address the issues raised by Manxruler. Categories have been added. I do not understand the bit about "refs...oddly placed", in the hook, as it looks much like other DYK's I have seen. Is there a suggested alternative? I'm sorry about refs that are not properly formatted. If someone can explain exactly what needs to be done to fix them, I will try to take care of them. (I did study the relevant Help and Template pages in some detail before starting, in an effort to get it right the first time, but, it seems, without total success.) Davidhof (talk) 05:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

What I meant by "oddly placed" references is that you've placed the refs before and not after the text the refs cover (in the case of the Civil War service section). The refs go behind the information, not in front of them. Please place the refs behind the information they cover.

Another issue is that you much of the time make reference to chapters, instead of pages. Now, this I understand in the case of the Twain book, which doesn't seem to have page numbers, only chapters, but surely Bennett, Michael J. (2004). Union Jacks: Yankee sailors in the Civil War has page numbers? Please provide the page numbers for the Bennet reference (no. 17)

The issue with the ref formatting, is that you've only used a little bit of the cite web template, and you need to provide more details. Like the Lundy ref, where you need to include that it comes from Rootsweb (By the way, I don't think this is a reliable source, seems like a forum to me). Same thing with the UW La Crosse reference, you need to include that the University of Wisconsin is behind that. And with the US 116631, the European Patent Office is behind that. This is important info, both to help evaluate the reliability of your sources and prevent linkrot. Same goes for LOTM, IMDb and Bureau of Navigation, Navy Dept., the refs need to be fleshed out. Manxruler (talk) 08:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Davidhof, I know it can be kind of complicated with referencing, with all the options and explanations of them in multiple places. A bit of advice I give to you, is that when you use any kind of template like the SFN, it's looking for specific information. And if it gets that information, when you click on one of the "Notes", it will automatically jump to what it has been coded to point to under "References". You will notice that some under Notes do not make the jump, because they don't have all the info they need. The changes I made should show up in red in these Diffs. That should give you a guide. It would also be helpful if you will install the script found at User:Ucucha/HarvErrors on a page called User:Davidhof/common.js. All you have to do is copy and paste the words: importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js'); (with the semi-colon) onto that common.js and save the page. Then when you look at any article on Wikipedia, if the sfn templates or the harv refs are not coded correctly, it will show on your system as big red errors. You might also find Template:Harvard citation documentation helpful. The advice I just gave you only refers to the sfn template, but hope it helps out. — Maile (talk) 16:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Maile, thank you for that. Manxruler, I believe the refs placement is now fixed. It appears that the external link for a patent is created automatically by some Wikipedia-wide process. In Template:Citation#Citing patents, there is no URL parameter. I imagine this is so that if the EU site ever became unavailable, a single change by an administrator would be all that was needed to send all the patent links in Wikipedia to an alternative site. So writing that the EU is the source of the link seems unwise. I will try to provide a page range for Bennett. Regarding the cite web entries, I will try to make sure that all available information is supplied. Davidhof (talk) 20:18, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it would seem you are correct re the patent. That one is correctly formatted. Sorry for not knowing about the cite patent template. Will check back in once you've fixed the cite web refs. Manxruler (talk) 20:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Manxruler, I'm afraid the cite web refs are not going to be fixed (by me) within the timeframe of the DYK. Off-Wikipedia "real-life" duties are taking precedence. So be it. I did remove the one of them which you said "looks like a forum", as I was able to find a good source for the main item it was used to support. Keep healthy and happy. Davidhof (talk) 20:22, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

@Davidhof: Thank you for replacing the forum-y ref. Don't worry about "the timeframe of the DYK", that for the most part only counts until you nominate the article. Now there's no big rush. If you need a number of days to fix the refs, take them. We all have real-life commitments, so that's of course understandable. Only if you abandon the nomination will it fail, at this point. What I'd especially like you to include in the cite web refs is: |date=, |website=, |accessdate= and if available |last1=, |first1= and |publisher=. You've got the rest of the template in place already. Manxruler (talk) 21:02, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Manxruler, I believe all outstanding issues have been addressed, to the best of my ability.Davidhof (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

@Davidhof: Yes, the refs are well formatted now. However, I can't find the business with disliking Twain's name, or receiving hundreds of letters, in ref no. 9. Please fix that. Other than that, things seem good. Manxruler (talk) 21:18, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

@Manxruler: Those are from ref no. 1. I have added a footnote making that clear. Davidhof (talk) 03:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Very good. Orig hook is approved. As is Alt1, Alt2, Alt3, Alt4 and Alt5. I like the original hook the best, but'll leave the picking up to the editor moving it to the preps. I went ahead and linked binnacle in case nos. 4 or 5 is used, as pretty few will have any idea about what a binnacle is. @Davidhof: Good work, Davidhof. Welcome to the DYK project. Manxruler (talk) 10:25, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Excellent article.

ALT1 ... that Horace Ezra Bixby, who taught Mark Twain to pilot a Mississippi steamboat, piloted the Union flagship at the Battle of Memphis?

ALT2 ... that Horace Ezra Bixby, who taught Mark Twain to pilot a Mississippi steamboat, later said he wished Twain was dead?

ALT3 ... that Horace Ezra Bixby, who taught Mark Twain to pilot a Mississippi steamboat, in later years disliked hearing Twain's name?

ALT4 ... that Horace Ezra Bixby, who taught Mark Twain to pilot a Mississippi steamboat, had a patented binnacle?

ALT5 ... that Horace Ezra Bixby, who taught Mark Twain to pilot a Mississippi steamboat, in later years patented a binnacle and wished Twain was dead?

EEng (talk) 14:39, 24 August 2014 (UTC)