Template:Did you know nominations/Ark Encounter


 * 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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 04:56, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Ark Encounter

 * ... that a replica of Noah's Ark in the Ark Encounter theme park will be the largest timber frame structure in the world?


 * ALT1:... that the July 7 opening date for the Ark Encounter theme park was chosen to correspond with Genesis 7:7?
 * Reviewed: Andrew McClary
 * Comment: Open to additional hook suggestions

Converted from a redirect by Acdixon (talk) and 1990'sguy (talk). Nominated by Acdixon (talk) at 21:29, 16 May 2016 (UTC).


 * Symbol question.svg The article began as a redirect and was expanded on May 11, but it looks like it was in draft space first. The draft page was deleted by an administrator, and I don't have access to the history to know how long it took to write it in the first place. I'm not sure if converting from a redirect counts as "new", but if it doesn't and this is an expansion, that history would be useful for the seven day rule. The article is clearly long enough, is well-sourced, neutral, etc. First hook is sourced to two newspapers, though one doesn't appear to be online. Second also sourced. I think both are interesting, as well as the fact that the park requires its workers to sign statements of faith before being hired, which is cited to multiple sources and was a really big deal. QPQ ok. Other than the timeline (which may not even be a factor if this is considered new), everything looks ok to me!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:21, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I went back and restored the draft (since I was the one who deleted it to begin with) so you can verify the article's age. It did start from a section of text lifted from Answers in Genesis, so maybe it should be considered a five-fold expansion rather than an expansion from a redirect. I think it qualifies on either account. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:55, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not so sure about this one. If it is considered a new article, I would say everything is great, and this should pass. If it is not a new article since it was a redirect (or since it was forked from a section on Answers in Genesis first), it looks to me from the draft history that the expansion took more than seven days. The expansion started way back on April 20, and May 11 is definitely more than seven days after that. If you look seven days before May 11 (i.e. May 4), the article was 28,113 bytes, not 5x smaller than its current size of 35,610 bytes. To qualify as a 5x expansion, the article would have had to start at 7,122 bytes, which is even smaller than the original section on Answers in Genesis.
 * Then again, the fact that all of this happened in Draft space may make the timeline moot. I'm not too familiar with all of the rules of DYK, so I'll let someone else come along and confirm. In the mean time, I would suggest leaving the draft history visible to everyone so another editor can make a more informed decision. Regardless of the technicalities, great job on the expansion!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:17, 18 May 2016 (UTC)


 * DYK Eligibility criteria - It's a new article
 * Former redirects, stubs, and other articles in which the prose portion has been expanded fivefold or more within the past seven days are also acceptable as "new" articles
 * Articles that have been worked on exclusively in a user or user talk subpage or at articles for creation or in the Draft namespace and then moved (or in some cases pasted) to the article mainspace are considered new as of the date they reach the mainspace.
 * This is considered a new article as of 11 May, the date it was moved to mainspace from draft. According to the page logs, this started out as a small paragraph in 2010, and was speedy deleted the day of creation on "A7, No explanation of the subject's significance". It was recreated as a redirect on 22 April 2016. On 11 May 2016, Acdixon moved what he had been working on in Draft, to this article, in effect converting the redirect to a new article.  It is considered a new article as of 11 May 2016.  — Maile  (talk) 22:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Symbol confirmed.svg Without entering the discussion above about whether this article qualifies within the DYK rules, it seems to me it conforms with DYK intentions and I consider it OK. Either hook could be used. I find the claim that it is the "largest timber frame structure in the world" to be quoted all over the place online and did not find any other wooden structure that made such a claim. The article is neutral and I detected no copyright problems. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:53, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Symbol delete vote.svg No way. The cites for the "largest" claim are (1) the church's own magazine, and (2) what is obviously a press release. Either go with ALT1, or rewrite ALT0 as "claims to be".  E Eng  05:39, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Symbol possible vote.svg Since ALT1 is okay, superseding with an icon that will not cause this nomination to close prematurely. The problematic ALT0 wording should be adjusted not only in the hook but in the analogous place in the article. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:24, 2 June 2016 (UTC)


 * You know what would really help, ? When you edit a DYK nom, the editnotice has a little gallery of the tickmark templates, but nothing to tell you what they mean! Even if you go to the templates themselves, most don't tell you what they mean. I always just guess. Could that be fixed?  E Eng  14:21, 2 June 2016 (UTC)


 * EEng, they're explained in the DYK reviewing guide, which I've added to the DYK toolbox so it's just a click away at all times. The edit notice is more of an aid to memory for people who have read the DYK rules/guides rather than a full explanation, so I'd be reluctant to add that level of detail to it. (And maybe I shouldn't have, since the reviewing guide is in the template box right below the toolbox when you're editing a nomination template. The addition may not stick.) BlueMoonset (talk) 15:12, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I see no harm in transferring those handy desciptions in the Guide to the editnotice. Would you object to my doing that?  E Eng  17:05, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * EEng, the potential harm is a TL;DR the longer we make that area above the edit window. Please first propose doing so on WT:DYK and see what the general DYK community thinks. If they agree, then go ahead. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:01, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Too much trouble for something so simple. I'd just boldly do it (two or three words at most per symbol) so people can see it in situ, but it's protected. Please consider just doing it yourself.  E Eng  23:10, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
 * If it's protected, then I can't do anything with it either (not an admin). Looks like WT:DYK is your only hope. Now, let's end this tangent and let the nomination continue. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:58, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * OK, I was waiting for the rest of this discussion to die down before responding. First of all, let me say that I don't have any particular aversion to ALT1, except that I'm not sure people will immediately connect July 7 with 7/7 with Genesis 7:7, but that's OK, I guess. But let me also say that I specifically chose the article from the Cincinnati Business Courier to cite this fact because they do not say they are quoting any AiG representatives or materials. Some, but not all, of the other articles making this claim did explicitly cite AiG. The question with the ones that didn't is, did they just trust AiG, or did they independently verify the fact? It may be more likely that they are trusting AiG, but if they did independently verify it, would they explicitly state that? I doubt it. Because AiG likely made the first claim that the ark will be the largest timber frame structure in the world, does that mean we must automatically assume every outlet that reports the same is just trusting AiG?


 * And further, AiG has been making this claim for years. Suppose you had built a timber frame structure that was larger than the proposed dimensions for the ark (which again, have been out there for years). Wouldn't you challenge AiG's claim out of your own self-interest? Given AiG's extreme unpopularity among a dedicated subset of the population, would they not have gone to great lengths to uncover and promote the inaccuracy of the claim if it were, in fact, inaccurate? Acdixon (talk · contribs) 18:37, 3 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but what I said before still holds. The church magazine is absolutely useless as an RS for such a claim, and (whether you see it or not) the Biz J piece is patently a press release paraphrase. A claim like this needs to be sourced to an organization in a position to know such a thing e.g. the International Society of Structural Engineers (I just made that up) or Guinness (though I'm not as sanguine on Guinness as some are), or something. We certainly can't use logic along the lines of "no one else has challenged the claim" -- we have no idea if there's some giant blimp hangar in Uzbekistan that (a) doesn't know about this claim and/or (b) doesn't care.  E Eng  20:06, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * First, who's citing a church magazine? If you mean The Messenger, that's actually a daily newspaper in Madisonville, Kentucky, not an AiG publication. It's also not meant to cite the fact presently being discussed, but another part of that same sentence. Also, AiG is not a church. It is a nondenominational, not-for-profit organization.
 * Second, I conceded that the Journal piece is possibly a paraphrase of a press release, but your begging the question does not suffice as proof that it is, just as the absence of an explicit citation to a press release is not proof that it isn't. Further, your condescending "whether you see it or not" is rather unbecoming.
 * Finally, the claim does not seem to originate with AiG, according to their own web site, but with Colorado Timbermill, their partner in the construction. Admittedly, the mill has a conflict of interest because they are helping build the ark, but they also have a reputation to protect by not making false claims within their own industry. They are, as you categorize it above, "an organization in a position to know such a thing". It's their business and livelihood. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 21:29, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Apologies re The Messenger -- the article doesn't link to their piece so some Googling led me to conclude it was a church magazine. But it doesn't matter. Sources need to be independent of their subject (a press release isn't, and a participating construction company isn't) and even then, their reliability is evaluated in light of the claim being made. "Biggest in the world" is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary sources. I can hardly believe you offered this link to bolster your case, reading as it does
 * More False Accusations Against the Ark Refuted! ... A number of secularists have accused AiG of lying about the size of the Ark we are building ... The research conducted by the leading timber frame mill in America, Colorado Timberframe, has shown that the Ark is the largest timber-frame construction—not the largest wooden structure. The front page of the mill’s website declares that they "teamed up with Ark Encounter to create a life-size recreation of Noah’s Ark” and that this project will be the “world’s largest timber-frame structure."

So, contrary to what you say above, there has indeed been pushback on this "largest" claim, with argument about definitions and so on which an authoritative, independent source needs to speak to before we can possibly put such a claim on the main page -- and at this point I don't think we could even run it as "is claimed to be", given the serious question as to the reasonableness of the claim. BTW, it's complete coincidence that my conjecture -- that a blimp hangar somewhere might compete with this ark thing -- is precisely the counterexample someone's offered to the "largest" claim (as seen at your link), other than the fact that blimp hangars are a well-known example of gigantic structures.

If fear of damaging one's reputation was an effective deterrent to blatant lying, then Donald Trump would still be just a lonely narcissist masturbating over piles of $100 bills in his penthouse while his yes-men wait in the next room, instead of the beloved demagogue he is today. I suggest at this point that we just wait to hear what other editors think.  E Eng  22:41, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I didn't say the fear of damaging one's reputation was an absolute deterrent against lying, but I do contend that it should be some deterrent for a company in a niche market and without the name recognition of your proffered example, Donald Trump – an example that I found unnecessarily crude, btw. So it's a bit of apples to oranges, but that's really here nor there in light of the rest of what I'm about to say.
 * I did not provide the AiG link as evidence of the claim; I provided it as evidence that the claim did not originate with AiG, but with a timber company qualified to make it. I agree (and acknowledged, btw) that their affiliation with AiG is problematic, but in some ways, they are still more authoritative than the pushback you mention. Who is more qualified to speak to the definition of timber frame structure and evaluate whether a particular structure is the largest one in the world to meet that definition, a company that makes its money by constructing such structures, or a group of scientists who are likely trained in biology, chemistry, physics, or some other very worthy discipline that are nonetheless unlikely to be familiar with the timber industry? Add in the fact that there is almost a cottage industry in the scientific community around attacking everything Ken Ham says – and the tone of the criticism offered suggests that these critics are part of it – and you see that the ones offering pushback are neither qualified nor neutral, where the timber company is at least qualified, if not necessarily neutral in the matter.
 * I do not concede that the claim, as published in the Cincinnati Business Courier, is absolutely copied from a press release, as you have so far maintained, but failed to credibly prove. I believe this would constitute an independent, reliable source under normal circumstances. However, your newly raised policy-based point about "extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary sources" is one that I find more persuasive, because I don't think anyone would try to claim that the Cincinnati Business Courier is an extraordinary source for this type of claim. For that reason, and no other, I would say we are better off using ALT1.
 * I admit that I have a more favorable view of AiG than most, and that is why I feel obligated to make sure that subjects like this are treated fairly (but not favorably) based on policy, not the visceral dislike that the majority of Wikipedia seems to have for them. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 00:44, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
 * TLDR, as long as you understand ALT0 is unacceptable without better sources. As for Trump, those of us who will be ending up in the camps a year from now, should things go south, will need to find humor where we can.  E Eng  01:21, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

These claims appear to come from the press releases of the organisation responsible for the project, Answers in Genesis. Compare with: "The ark, described by its builders at the biggest timber-frame structure in the U.S., will also come stocked with hundreds of sculpted creatures ...". Source: "Guided by God and Disney, life-size ark rises in Kentucky", CBSnews.com, May 18, 2016, 5:30 am. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:15, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you didn't bother to read the agreement to use ALT1 immediately above? Presumably, you have no objection to this hook. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:54, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Please see Talk:Ark Encounter. K.e.coffman (talk) 15:35, 6 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Nope, nothing there about ALT1, either. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 16:11, 6 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I see no problem with ALT1 (I've struck ALT0 to avoid any slipups) though for the moment the apparent sourcing problems in the article in general may be a hangup (WP:V being a DYK requirement).  E Eng  18:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There are no sourcing problems in the article. Every sentence in the body is cited to a reliable, third-party source, except one sentence that begins "According to AiG", which is cited to, surprise, AiG. Surely they are authoritative for the fact that they said something. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 19:09, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

The POV tag has now been removed from this article after issues were resolved on the article talk page. The DYK should be able to proceed. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 18:12, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry I was vague in my earlier comment. As noted by EE and on the article's Talk page, the article may be having some teething problems. It's brand new and may need some time to "settle" (pls see recently added POV tag). I'm sure it can be improved in the future and be ready for DYK nomination then. So still Symbol delete vote.svg for now. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:23, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have noticed, and responded to, the POV tag, which I think is inappropriate, for the reasons I stated there. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 19:09, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The article still looks problematic to me, as being overly promotional in nature; please see recent article history. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:49, 8 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Symbol redirect vote 4.svg Full review needed now that POV issues have been resolved; as there have been quite a few edits since the original review, reviewer should do a complete recheck. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:54, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg New enough, long enough. Hook short enough and sourced. No neutrality problems found, no copyright problems found. QPQ done and image properly licensed. Good to go.