Template:Did you know nominations/Natural History (Pliny)

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 Yoninah (talk) 13:28, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Natural History (Pliny) edit

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~~... that Pliny's encyclopedia Natural History (12th century manuscript pictured) was one of the first ancient texts to be printed, in Venice in 1469?~~

ALT1:... that Philemon Holland's English translation of 1605 of Pliny's encyclopedia Natural History (12th century manuscript pictured) has influenced literature ever since?
Reviewed: Not a self-nomination

Improved to Good Article status by Chiswick Chap (talk). Nominated by Oceanh (talk) at 14:14, 28 May 2014 (UTC).

Everything in the criteria checks out apart from perhaps OPQ (I still don't know how to easily check whether this requirement has been fulfilled). The hooks, in my opinion, are dull when Pliny offers us dog-headed men and monopods with umbrella feet (with pictures). They are accurate though. Aside from the DYK review I'd comment that it seems odd that the "Reception" section starts in 1509; did later writers of antiquity have nothing to say on it? Belle (talk) 07:33, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Main hook is incorrect. Printing has been widespread since the 9th century in East Asia. The book was one of the first ancient texts to be printed in Europe, but not in the world. -Zanhe (talk) 02:50, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the review. I stroke out the original hook, because the fact is contested. To Belle: QPQ is only required for self-nominations and does not apply here. I agree that a hook on dog-headed men or monopods might be more interesting, but these facts do not have inline citations (and I have no access to the source). Oceanh (talk) 05:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about not noticing that QPQ wasn't required. Surely the source for the weird races is Pliny. I think we could bend the rules a little here for the sake of a punchy hook rather than the deathly dull ALT1.
ALT2:... that Pliny's encyclopedia Natural History includes descriptions of dog-headed men and monopods with umbrella feet (pictured)? Belle (talk) 09:41, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Article is new enough (recent GA), long enough, and well written. ALT1 supported with offline source, accepted AGF. Image is public domain. QPQ not required. Good to go. -Zanhe (talk) 06:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Much of this article does not have sourcing. Most of the Table of Contents section has no sourcing, but I'm not sure why a Wikipedia article should even have a section on a book's Table of Contents. No sourcing for sections Geography, Anthropology, Zoology, Metallurgy. Unsourced paragraphs in the sections Botany, Drugs medicine and magic, and Art history. There are some scant online sourcing, and The review does not mention if it was checked for copyvio, close paraphrasing ~~The disambig tool shows a dab that needs to be resolved.~~ External links tool shows a dead link that needs attention. Also please current discussion at WT:DYK — Maile (talk) 11:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
It does have sourcing: to Pliny's "Natural History". This is equivalent to a plot summary and these normally seem to escape the requirement for secondary sources. I must confess myself slightly baffled by Wikipedia's moveable citation requirements though. Belle (talk) 12:17, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Bellemora, I'll take your word for it on the "equivalent to plot summary" issue, and am striking my previous comments about that. Also, the dab issue seems to have been resolved, so I'll strike my comments about that. That dead link still needs to be taken care of. With that, I'll step aside here and let you and others decide the rest of this nomination. Fair enough? — Maile (talk) 23:49, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I fixed the dead link. However, this is a DYK review, not an FA review. If we were required to check and fix every url linked from every article we review, we'd hardly have time left to write content. I agree that Belle's ALT2 is more interesting than ALT1. It's verified with inline reference to the original text (which is in Latin, so AGF). Also AGF on paraphrasing, as most sources are either offline or in foreign languages. -Zanhe (talk) 00:32, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Teechnically, I don't think reviewers should have to correct dead links. How would the reviewer know the source? That goes with the nominator or article creator. But good job on doing that, anyway. — Maile (talk) 16:13, 5 June 2014 (UTC)