Template:Did you know nominations/Lady Mary Grosvenor

Referencing

Lady Mary Grosvenor, Anne Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster
Created/expanded by Surtsicna (talk). Self nom at 23:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * ... that Lady Mary Grosvenor, a motor racing and rally driver, and her five years younger stepmother Anne, Duchess of Westminster, were among the wealthiest landowners in Scotland?


 * Symbol possible vote.svg Dates and lengths both meet DYK requirements. Hook fact however is cited to a "news story" at Before It's News, a blog site that allows anyone with an email to register an account and submit stories for publication.  As the site does not report who wrote the story or provide sufficient information to ensure it has proper editorial oversight then it does not qualify as a reliable source.  --Allen3 talk 18:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, I wasn't aware that it might be unreliable. The article cites a source, however. Does that make it OK? If not, may I suggest an alternative hook? Surtsicna (talk) 19:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * While you are free to propose alternate hooks, they would not solve the problem that the articles are using unreliable sources. Simply removing the text sourced to the blog will not resolve the nomination's problems either as that would cause Lady Mary Grosvenor to fall below the minimum required size of 1500 characters of readable text.  Additionally, if a unsourced article fact is as easy to verify as your edit summary indicates then please add an appropriate citation instead of just blanking the problem template. --Allen3 talk 20:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * What I meant to say was that the supposedly unreliable source cites a source; doesn't that make it reliable? As for the "unsourced article fact", how should I source it? Should I cite sources that say this man, this man and this man are all dead, that they died in 1963, 1967 and 1979 respectively, that she was alive until 2000 and that the year 2000 is more recent than the years 1963, 1967 and 1979? Is that really neccessary? Surtsicna (talk) 13:24, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Have you examined the source listed by the blog site? WP:RS calls for information to be sourced to "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."  When I follow the link in the blog site it takes me to what appears to be an organization interested in Scottish history, but as the group's FAQ indicates membership is available to anyone "who has Scotland’s best interest at heart" I suspect it is more a collection of amateur enthusiasts instead of serious historians.  There is however a book listed on the group's page [].  I would suggest you track down a copy of this or some similar book to provide the needed sourcing.


 * As to your second question, when no single source can can fully support a single sentence in an article then you need to provide multiple sources to cover all the facts in the sentence. Just be careful that the average reader is able to piece together the various parts without violating Wikipedia's policy on original research.  In this case a set of newspaper obituaries showing when each of the three dukes died may be the easiest means to source the sentence. --Allen3 talk 22:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for advice, but I'd rather let this nomination fail. It's really ridiculous to cite sources which confirm that each of the dukes is dead, for more than one reason. Firstly, there could be no 6th Duke of Westminster unless 5 dukes are dead. Mary's father was the second duke and the first to die in her lifetime. Secondly, requesting a source for that fact is like requesting a source to prove that her father was male or that her father's fourth wife was her stepmother. Cheers, Surtsicna (talk) 23:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol delete vote.svg Agree that "BeforeItsNews" is not a reliable source. Fortunately, Google Books snippet view let me properly replace that with a citation to Cramb. Re: the second question, Surtsicna's making a perfectly reasonable inference, and adding obituaries for all the dukes represents a silly demand for shrubberies, which would be rejected by anyone with an ounce of sense or knowledge about the topic. That said, the detailed list of Lady Mary's cars does not appear in the Telegraph obit and it's not clear what the source is. Since the nominator has quite reasonably declined to further engage with process pedantry here, let's let it die. Choess (talk) 18:30, 25 November 2012 (UTC)