Template:Did you know nominations/Stephen Bishop (cave explorer)

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 MeegsC (talk) 19:38, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Stephen Bishop (cave explorer)

Drawing of Stephen Bishop (not done from life)
Drawing of Stephen Bishop (not done from life)
  • ... that Stephen Bishop's (pictured) 1842 map of Mammoth Cave, drawn from memory, was so accurate that it remained in use for over forty years? Source: "the Bishop map was used into the 1880s." [1]
    • ALT1: ... that self-taught geologist Stephen Bishop (pictured), while working in enslavement, explored Mammoth Cave and took Jenny Lind and Ralph Waldo Emerson on tours? Source: "continued leading tours, which sometimes included famous visitors such as opera singer Jenny Lind, Ralph Waldo Emerson" [2]Source: "Stephen was a self-educated man; ... and much knowledge of geology" [3]
    • ALT2: ... that Stephen Bishop (pictured) discovered the key to proving that the Mammoth Cave System is the longest cave system known in the world, 130 years before a 1972 expedition verified that fact? Source: "Guess who first discovered Hanson's Lost River. Stephen Bishop! I'm sending you a copy of his 1842 map. The passage is shown as a dry passage taking off just beyond the second boat landing on Echo River."[Brucker, Roger W.; Watson, Richard A. (1987). The Longest Cave. SIU Press. pp. 253–254]
    • ALT3: ... that Mammoth Cave explorer Stephen Bishop (pictured) was initially buried in an unmarked grave and his tombstone even has the wrong year on it? Source: "By the end of the summer of 1857, though, Stephen Bishop had died"[4],Source: "In July 1857, they sold 112 acres they owned near the cave. ... A few months later, Bishop died at age 37 from mysterious causes."[5]
    • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/2022 British Indoor Athletics Championships
    • Comment: This article was originally created by User:Intrigue in September 2004.Improved to Good Article status by Shearonink (talk). Self-nominated at 20:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC).
    • Comment: GA Nominator Shearonink started work on this article during Black History Month in the US.
  • Very interesting article, nice work! - just one minor sourcing issue and a QPQ needed. Article is newly promoted to GA and is long enough. I see no neutrality issues and Earwig returns no copyright violations, however the section "Fictional depictions" is not verified with inline citations. User:Shearonink could you please either add citations or remove this section? The proposed hooks are interesting, neutral and verified with inline citations. I've slightly tweaked the first hook to mention that the map was drawn from memory as per the source, which I think is pretty interesting. I would go with that one or ALT2, I'll leave that up to you. A blurb about crossing the Bottomless Pit would also be pretty good. The images used have appropriate licences, however I'm not sure I would use the infobox image on the main page given it's a later depiction. A QPQ is required as you have had more than 5 DYK's. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 14:52, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Ah, I see you've already done a review for QPQ. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 14:56, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
      • Ivar the Boneful - I just used the QPQ tool on myself, I had no idea I had that many DYK?s...lol it's been over a decade since the most recent one. And, I'm actually not all that sure I submitted any of those myself, I think it might have been a mentor-editor who was helping me out at the time.
      • Re: the image...that is the only one that is purportedly/supposedly of Bishop. Oddly enough that image was created in the 1880s for a book and is probably only a fanciful depiction done off of an artist's imagination and N.P. WIllis' description in his "Tropics" publication (since Bishop actually did die in 1857). Despite the mislabeled photograph I found on the internet (I think in "Ancestry" or maybe "pinterest"?), there are no known/reliably-sourced photographs of Bishop and no drawings of him exist that were done from life.
      • Re the "fictional depictions" section - I changed that into the more-appropriate "Further reading", only retaining the 2 works I know of that were written by WP-notable authors. Seems important to mention somewhere within the article that notable authors have written works with Bishop as a major player. As a "Further reading", cites are not required. Let me know if that suffices. Shearonink (talk) 16:23, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
        • Ivar the Boneful? theleekycauldron (talkcontribs) (she/they) 20:49, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
          • heavily relying on the original review, I'll confirm that the problems ItB raised have been addressed and tick this. Although I think that the image shouldn't be used if we don't have a drawing from life, yeah. So- approved, but no image. theleekycauldron (talkcontribs) (she/they) 03:08, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
            • theleekycauldron Thanks for stepping up, greatly appreciated. Lol - I knew I shouldn't have put that fact in the caption! But, I am nothing if not precise in such matters... So are you saying the 1880s drawing of Bishop can't/shouldn't be used if this DYK gets into the queue? If that is so, I think the image of Bishop's map for the first hook would be good - here it is - but I don't know how to put that into the template and take "Bishop" out... (Image removed) Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 04:13, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
            • theleekycauldron For that matter, ALT3 could have the image of Bishop's tombstone... (Image removed) Shearonink (talk) 04:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
              • @Shearonink: hmm. They're not terrible, but the map doesn't appear to be readable at Main Page resolution, and we generally don't use tombstones as biopics. So, I'm hesitant? theleekycauldron (talkcontribs) (she/they) 20:49, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
                • Theleekycauldron Oh...now that I've taken a closer look at the present map...yikes. But...Eureka! The image itself is copyright-free, and I found an available online repository at the Tennessee Virtual Archive (TeVA) - a digital repository of the Tennessee State Library & Archives ->> here and this is TeVA's image page for Bishop's published map with all the pertinent info/copyright status. The present image on Commons is from a 2004 download onto Wikipedia of an image from a National Park Service website and that image looks to be a copy, of a copy, of a copy, etc.... If I can figure out how to get this better image onto Commons or onto Wikipedia I'll do that and then swap this higher-res image in for the original image in the article. If I run into issues I might call upon your better talents. Shearonink (talk) 21:46, 21 March 2022 (UTC)


Theleekycauldron FYI - I've gone ahead & deleted the 2 extra images - the headstone image and the previous poor-quality image of the map. Now, over there on the right is a new/better image of Stephen Bishop's Mammoth Cave Map that is now in Stephen Bishop (cave explorer). This image is of sufficient res and quality to be readable on Main Page. Shearonink (talk) 02:33, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Bishop's Map of Mammoth Cave
Bishop's Map of Mammoth Cave

DYK Prep-person - Taking into account Theleekycauldron's concerns, perhaps use this map image instead of "Stephen" for the main hook...

  • ... that Stephen Bishop's 1842 map (pictured) of Mammoth Cave, drawn from memory, was so accurate that it remained in use for over forty years? Source: "the Bishop map was used into the 1880s." [6]

or use it for ALT2:

  • ALT2: ... that Stephen Bishop discovered the key (pictured) to proving that the Mammoth Cave System is the longest cave system known in the world, 130 years before a 1972 expedition verified that fact? Source: "Guess who first discovered Hanson's Lost River. Stephen Bishop! I'm sending you a copy of his 1842 map. The passage is shown as a dry passage taking off just beyond the second boat landing on Echo River."[Brucker, Roger W.; Watson, Richard A. (1987). The Longest Cave. SIU Press. pp. 253–254] Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 02:32, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
    • @Shearoning: that would appear as something similar to the right—it doesn't look super clear, is there a way to make the text/lines more immediately accessible? theleekycauldron (talkcontribs) (she/they) 06:55, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Whoops, Shearonink theleekycauldron (talkcontribs) (she/they) 06:55, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
      • I have no idea. I was just happy I could grab a screen-shot of this public-domain image that is better than the NPS scribbles... The TeVA links I posted above said something about maybe getting better-res digital-images from them but I think those cost money. I have to take a break from this for a couple of days. When I have some more time I might get in touch with the Tennessee State Archives/TeVA and see what they say. Shearonink (talk) 07:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
        • Theleekycauldron - SUCCESS. I was able to download and then upload a higher-res file of the map from TeVA. I can read the names on it when I zoom in, I have swapped it in at the article and have removed the previous File above and placed the higher-quality image of the map in its place. Shearonink (talk) 17:59, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
          • @Shearonink: Nice! so the file I'm seeing to the right is the high-res version? I still can't quite read the names without zooming in... theleekycauldron (talkcontribs) (she/they) 22:00, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
            • Theleekycauldron It is the best that is available...heh, maybe we need to remember that Mammoth Cave is the longest-known cave system in the world so this map, even though it's from 1842, is very detailed...maybe think of how readable would a map of the United States be if it were reduced to a Main Page DYK size. I did look through some recent DYKs to try to find some maps as the (pictured) image. There was a map on February 3rd for ... that the proposed Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank (map pictured) constitute an "archipelago" of 165 territories? but the details on that map-image aren't at all apparent, even when I Zoom in on it. I think this map .jpg-File from the Tennessee State Library is more than fine. Shearonink (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)