Template:Did you know nominations/Railway of the Prince Imperial


 * 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: rejected by Allen3 talk 10:42, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Insufficient progress toward resolving outstanding issues

Railway of the Prince Imperial

 * ... that the railway of the Prince Imperial was the first documented model railway in the world?



Created/expanded by NearEMPTiness (talk). Self-nominated at 08:43, 29 August 2015 (UTC).


 * Symbol question.svg This article is new enough, long enough (over 2,300 characters), and neutral, although it is quite problematic in that it has no inline citations and the only two references (listed at the end) do not link to resources available online. For this reason, I am unfortunately unable to judge the citation quality of the article or check for copyright concerns. The hook (to which I have made a few minor modifications) is short enough and quite interesting, but I am unable to confirm its veracity due to the aforementioned issue with the article's references. Furthermore, the nominator only has two previous DYKs, so QPQ is not required. In further good news, the image is public domain due to age and is used in the article. If this article can be properly referenced, I'll be happy to review the citations and check for any copyright issues, but I can't pass this nomination without proper inline citations. Sorry. Michael Barera (talk) 02:17, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the review. As this article is a translation from the German Wikipedia, I do not have access to the references either. I will ask the German author for help. --NearEMPTiness (talk)
 * Thank you for your help, and for understanding that I can't pass this nomination without inline citations. Michael Barera (talk) 00:34, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have now added two inline citations into the article. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 07:39, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Symbol voting keep.svg I am accepting the inline citations in good faith, as I unfortunately cannot read either French or German, although on the other hand having foreign-language citations essentially precludes the possibility of plagiarism by definition. I know that having just two citations in an article is quite unusual for DYK, but considering the length of this article as well as its subject matter I think that it is passable in this case. If other users disagree with me on this assessment, however, please speak up and voice your concerns. To me, though, I think that this article is good to go (again accepting the sources in good faith). Michael Barera (talk) 01:51, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Links to the references are here (middle column) and there (illustration). --NearEMPTiness (talk)

Thanks. I've added the URL for the first of the two references to the template in the article, but the second reference (the illustration) is not the Reder (German-language) source, is it? So, I'm still accepting both references in good faith because I can't read French or German. Michael Barera (talk) 01:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Symbol possible vote.svg I have returned this from prep 4 because the hook is uncited. It seems there are only one or two references for this claim, one offline and another in French. If someone can translate the French, the hook might be verified that way. There is another uncited claim in the article that this was the first known photograph of a model railroad, which should also be cited. Otherwise, it might be worthwhile doing a google search for "world's first model railroad" to try and find further verification. Gatoclass (talk) 15:02, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I found this on an enthusiasts' website: Mathias Baldwin, founder of the Baltimore Locomotive Works, made an early passenger train model in the 1830s. By the end of that decade, several other toymakers had produced their own versions.  George Brown & Co., of Connecticut is credited with making the first known self-propelled American model train in 1856.  It utilized clockworks. Model Train History. I guess the first self-propelled model train is not the same as "the first documented model railway" though, as the latter would seem to indicate a fixed display. Gatoclass (talk) 15:29, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * While I had accepted the references in good faith, I think that it may be better to have someone who can read French, and maybe also German, review this article and its citations more closely. Michael Barera (talk) 23:57, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * From my limited French, the first source only contains a first hand description of the railway. I don't have access to the German book and, even if I did, it lacks a page number (not feeling like going through ~250 pages for this). Pinging the nominator. Fuebaey (talk) 01:54, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I read French without difficulty. The Monde Illustré source definitely does not confirm that the railway of the Prince Imperial was the first documented model railway in the world. Nor does it support a number of other statements in the article, a good part of which – through no fault of the nominator – appears to consist of speculation or WP:OR, compounded by poor understanding of the source (for example, the engine is described in the source as being 50 cm wide, but the Wikipedia articles (en, de, da) give that as a length). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:47, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment on the confusion about width and length ("Sa locomotive, qui peut avoir cinquante centimetres de largeur,...") which has now be corrected in both the German and English article. --NearEMPTiness (talk)
 * The hook does not appear to be sourced. If you're still working on this nom, please add an in-line citation to the sentence or provide another suitable hook. Fuebaey (talk) 18:32, 8 October 2015 (UTC)


 * ALT1: ... that the oldest known photograph of a model railway shows the railway of the Prince Imperial? --NearEMPTiness (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:56, 9 October 2015‎ (UTC)
 * Symbol redirect vote 4.svg Reviewer needed to check proposed ALT1 hook. I've struck the original hook due to its lack of required sourcing. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Symbol possible vote.svg Although it appears that the claim in ALT1 is supported by an offline source (and referenced by an inline citation in the article), I think there are a few other reasons why this article is likely ineligible at the moment. Supplemental rule A2 states that block quotations should not be counted when determining article length. If you exclude the large block quotation in this article, it falls below the required 1500 characters. Additionally, rule D6 says an article is likely to be rejected if there are dispute tags in the article. As of this moment, I count four dispute tags in this article (and one more could arguably be placed on the unsourced sentence at the end of the "Historic documents" sentence). I think this hook could make for a very interesting DYK, but the article first needs to be expanded and the citation issues still need to be resolved. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 22:41, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , it looks like your last edit was on the 17th of October, but when you see this, please let me know how you would like to proceed with this nomination. This article will need to be expanded and the dispute tags will need to be resolved before this nomination can be approved. Thanks, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:50, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

@Notecardforfree: this Looks practically like a "no go", because I do not have Access to one of the sources of the article that I translated. --NearEMPTiness (talk) 13:45, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Symbol delete vote.svg Unfortunately, I'm going to have to mark this nomination as ineligible for DYK pursuant to the length requirement and Supplemental rule A2., if you have access to the relevant sources in the future, you can re-nominate if you do a 5x expansion of the text or if this article achieves GA status. Thank you for being understanding and professional through this process. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:03, 28 October 2015 (UTC)