Template:Did you know nominations/Mary Babnik Brown

Mary Babnik Brown

 * ... that a young single lady of Slovenian descent, labeled a blond bomber, gave a major contribution off the top of her head that was the crosshairs to military aircraft precision bombing?
 * Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Epistemological Letters

Created by Doug Coldwell (talk). Self nominated at 13:07, 1 January 2014 (UTC).


 * Symbol delete vote.svg This nomination is very confusingly written at present (excessive use of piped links, it's not clear why her ancestry is important and it's overly vague), and the article seems rather overblown: many thousands of Norden bombsights were manufactured during the late 1930s and 1940s, and Ms Brown's hair was obviously not in all of them. It's rather silly to describe someone who donated their hair as making a "major contribution" to the war effort given that this placed her in no danger whatsoever, and wouldn't have even required much of her time (though it clearly was a significant personal sacrifice). Nick-D (talk) 07:06, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I checked the reference to the statement which implied that her hair was widely used, and it actually says that it was only "used experimentally" for this purpose. Nick-D (talk) 07:27, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

ALT1 ... that Mary Babnik Brown was the first woman to have her hair used as crosshairs in military aircraft bombsights? --Doug Coldwell (talk)
 * Symbol question.svg (edit conflict) I can see how the notability would be questioned, but it has enough sources for GNG or at least a good AfD debate, so I'll let someone else decide. New (Jan. 1st), long enough, within policy, no copyvio found via tool, QPQ done. I rephrased the alt hook to match the sourced sentence. Since this is a big claim for a trivia book, it'd be nice to see what the source actually says on that page 71, if possible with a quote param (quote). The previous concerns appear addressed. There are other small things like "top secret" used a few times, which I believe is a technical distinction and not mentioned in the article. And the Census mention looks like OR the way they're concluded from a primary source. Anyway, I'd clean up any such troubling areas before proceeding. Please ping me if I don't respond.  czar  ♔  22:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll address these issues the best I can.
 * Removed "She quit elementary school in the 6th grade." - as I did get that from the Census (Ancesty.com). Didn't realize that I couldn't use this info.
 * Removed wording of "top secret". Didn't realize that these words shouldn't be used - have replaced these words with "carefully guarded", being similar words that the reference uses.
 * Gave the wording of the source in the article reference. Couldn't figure out how to use the quote templates you suggested, however in Google Books you can find it.
 * Mary Babnick Brown First woman to have her hair used in a bombsight (1942).

Did I cover everything?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 23:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Symbol possible vote.svg Those things were addressed (and thanks for the quote), but there was another Census-cited element that I removed, and I spot-checked the paragraph about her hair care and emotional impact only to find it not mentioned in the article. I don't know the extent to which this pervades the rest of the article—perhaps you can recheck the full prose against its sourcing? If you prefer, I can just step back from reviewing this one and you can DYK?again. czar  ♔  00:52, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll be glad to show you where I obtained the information. I edited the article and gave the quotes from the sources. I have copies of the Denver Post newspaper clippings - so if you would like a copy of them, please e-mail me. Here they are below:


 * "Wolf" reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22738816@N07/11732238405/sizes/o/
 * "top secret" reference. Newspaper article says "one of the most carefully protected secrets of World War II."
 * "traumatized" reference. https://www.flickr.com/photos/22738816@N07/11732998226/sizes/l/
 * "Brown quit school" reference. https://www.flickr.com/photos/22738816@N07/11737595243/sizes/o/


 * Symbol redirect vote 4.svg Yes, I think we should get another person to review the DYK. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:21, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This bomb sight was not "top secret" by 1943: the Germans and Japanese had salvaged plenty of them from crashed US aircraft by this point of the war and the USAAF was no longer under the delusion that they were wonder weapons (an impression it had developed from testing the thing in non-combat conditions before the war: in combat it remained very difficult to drop bombs accurately, especially given the generally poor weather over Germany and Japan). Moreover, top secret is a specific security classification which you are miss-using as a generic term. Nick-D (talk) 23:42, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I must admit that I don't know the exact military meaning of "top secret" and didn't realize that it was a specific security classification that shouldn't be used as a generic term - so have replaced these words with "carefully guarded", being similar words the references use.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 23:59, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I've given the article a copy edit; please feel free to revert anything you don't like. I didn't check the sources, or check for close paraphrasing, but I extended the lead and smoothed out the text a little. Hope it helps. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:30, 5 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Symbol redirect vote 4.svg Reiterating request for a new reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:43, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg The article is in very good shape now; all the extra editing work shows. It's also a fascinating subject. Article is new enough, long enough, well-referenced, no close paraphrasing seen. ALT1 hook ref verified and cited inline. QPQ done. ALT1 good to go. Yoninah (talk) 20:46, 1 February 2014 (UTC)