Template:Did you know nominations/Thomas Minott Peters


 * 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 Miyagawa (talk) 21:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Thomas Minott Peters

 * ... that despite being a slave owner prior to the Civil War, Alabama Chief Justice, and botanist Thomas Minott Peters (pictured) fought strongly for equal rights for African Americans and women after the war and wanted to hang Jefferson Davis?
 * Reviewed: Holm Park

Created by HalfGig (talk), Sminthopsis84 (talk). Nominated by HalfGig (talk) at 02:59, 1 March 2015 (UTC).


 * Symbol question.svg The article is new enough – the article was created today.
 * It is long enough – the Page Size tool counts the "readable prose size" as 2044 characters.
 * I cannot find any violations of core policies or guidelines.
 * The image is Public Domain (1870) and has roll-over text.
 * However, the hook it too long, at 211 characters. It needs to be fewer than 200 characters (shorter is better).
 * Also, the hook includes a number of facts and I am concerned that I cannot find references for them all. Specifically, that he kept slaves, that he later advocated for rights for African Americans, and that he wanted to hang Jefferson Davis. In the article, these all seem to hang on and Ref 3 (the Dupree book) is not available online as far as I can see.  I am willing to AGF, but that feels like a lot to take on faith.--Gronk Oz (talk) 08:26, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I own the Dupree book. Yes, all that's in there. Send me an email and I'll scan in the pages and send them to you if like. As for the hook, my Word counter says it is 208 characters but if you take out "(pictured)" it's only 198--it's my understanding "(pictured)" is not counted against the length. I've gone ahead and taken out "lawyer" since being a Chief Justice pretty much ensures one is a lawyer. I'm open to other tweaks if this isn't enough shortening.   HalfGig   talk  12:11, 1 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Symbol question.svg Thanks for the offer,, but if you say those facts are clearly stated in the book then I will be happy to take your word for it. However, the length of the hook is still a worry - based on our mutual uncertainty I went looking for guidance and the best I could find is in Did you know/Hook length, which says to count "the text as it displays to the public (not from the edit screen which contains wikitext)" - including the spaces.  And Did_you_know confirms your understanding the "(pictured)" is not counted. Including spaces but not (pictured) the current hook is 228 characters. I tried to reduce it, but so far the best I can do is a frustrating 201 characters:
 * ALT1 ... that Alabama Chief Justice and botanist Thomas Minott Peters (pictured) owned slaves before the Civil War, but later he fought for equal rights for African Americans and women, and wanted Jefferson Davis hung?
 * I did a slight reword of ALT1, it now says 198 char, so this is fine.   HalfGig   talk  13:15, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Symbol voting keep.svg I agree - that new ALT1 looks good to me.
 * Symbol question.svg I don't mean to upset the apple cart here, but paintings are hung, people are hanged. Changing "rights for" to "rights of" and "hung" to "hanged" you have the same char count. ALT2 ... that Alabama Chief Justice and botanist Thomas Minott Peters (pictured) owned slaves before the Civil War, but later he fought for equal rights of African Americans and women and wanted Jefferson Davis hanged? SusunW (talk) 18:15, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * IMHO that's semantically no big deal but whichever ALT works for me. It's much more minor that the atrocious grammar that was in the lead DYK about two days ago, but I can't recall the article name.  HalfGig   talk  19:56, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Symbol voting keep.svg I agree - that new ALT2 looks good to me. --Gronk Oz (talk) 00:46, 2 March 2015 (UTC)