Template:Did you know nominations/William Thomas Pike

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 AirshipJungleman29 talk 21:48, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

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William Thomas Pike

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New Century Series vol.6
New Century Series vol.6

Moved to mainspace by Storye book (talk). Self-nominated at 18:40, 17 December 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/William Thomas Pike; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
QPQ: Done.

Overall: I have some minor concerns with the article, which are not directly disqualifying at DYK, so I will not hold this up. I suggest a) trimming the use of quotes to only that material which can't be usefully paraphrased (it's outside copyright, and is cited appropriately, but we still discourage overuse of quotes), b) not including an exhaustive bibliography per NOTDIR and c) reducing the use of tangential images in galleries; the last four images, for instance, could be safely dropped. Also: I have dropped "successfully" from the hook, as it's redundant to "published"; I hope that's okay. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:24, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Vanamonde93 for the review. I shall answer your comments:
  • The quotations in blockquote cannot be rephrased - this is a historical British article, and the whole point of the quotes is that their language communicates the attitude and response of the era. This was a popular newspaper man, and the town was genuinely shocked at his imprisonment. We are not permitted to interpret, but we can show what was said, and leave the reader to interpret. One of the WP rules is to use commonsense in interpreting the guidelines.
  • The first description of the books is apposite, because they were considered a great luxury at the time. I have several of them, and they are heavy and clearly expensive-looking. In the library the other day, one of the librarians was enthusing about the beauty of the cover and pictures of Pike's North Yorkshire. The quotes are by no means superficial or pointless. (Now in separate list article - not for DYK).
  • The second description of the books in blockquote is a gloriously spiteful comment on the grounds of class snobbery, written by someone who perhaps knew that Pike had been in prison too - but we must quote the words and allow the reader to make the interpretation. (Now in separate list article - not for DYK).
  • As for the full list of published books - that is necessary for our own editors, who may well need to refer to those books when writing biographies of men of that era. In order to obtain those books in the UK, one needs to order them from the library. They are a superb resource, and the information should be fully shared. I could possibly split the booklists out into a separate list article, if you like? But it would be very wrong to omit any books from the list. (Update: I have now done that. The new list article is William Thomas Pike bibliography, which is no longer part of this DYK nomination).
  • The last four images in the gallery are not tangential at all. All the photographs in the books, taken by Pike & Co., are absolutely beautiful, and it is important to show that to the reader, to allow them to judge. The portrait photographs are perhaps the finest element in the books. I am not permitted to say that in the article, but I can show three of them. I strongly suspect that Pike himself was behind the camera - someone in the company clearly had a great talent - but we cannot say that. We can only show a few examples of the pictures. (Now in separate list article - not for DYK).
  • The image of the railway station is one single example of all the fascinating pictures in the books, of historic buildings which are now changed, or lost to us. Any rail enthusiast, for example, will see the value of showing just one of those photos. (Now in separate list article - not for DYK).
  • Cutting "successfully" from the hook is fine by me. I meant the word to show that it was a business success, I.e. he made good money despite being fresh out of jail, and managed to finish the series, which must have been a huge operation, and the financial success got him that expensive business premises which he used for some years - but the hook works fine without it. Storye book (talk) 20:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
    • Thanks for replying in detail, so I will do you the same courtesy. I recognize that there are places in which tone and writing can convey meaning that paraphrased content cannot, which is why I'm not suggesting nixing the quotes. However, there are also quotes which do not do this. In the article as it stands, I would argue that the last quote ("Mr Pike, a gentleman well known in Hastings...") could not be easily replaced; the first ("Prisoner stood up and made a rambling statement...") easily could, with no interpretation at all.
      Moving the books is preferable, thank you. Whether bibliographies are appropriate are not is usually a function of how well an author's body of work has been studied, but when an extensive list is present in a biography, I'm inclined to think it becomes a violation of NOTDIR. However, I don't you need move the prose descriptions at all; they were valuable. Alternatively, you could duplicate them; that chunk of prose could work just as well in both places. The images are just about okay in a bibliography, but in a biography that is otherwise well-illustrated, I would consider them a violation of WP:GALLERY. One or two examples is what I would recommend. Best, Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:23, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
      • Thank you for your reply and explanation. I have re-written the "rambling statement" blockquote as prose with selected quotes in it. I have done that because I believe that the selected quotes are essential for the understanding of what was going on. We have the hindsight that Pike in the dock did not - that Watts was a vexatious litigant and would later be recognised as such. Pike did know, however, that he had probably been framed, i.e. the books had been doctored in someone else's handwriting and then presented as Pike's dishonest work. Thus, Pike's verbal forgiveness of the jury in the dock would have appeared arrogant or sarcastic at the time, but viewed in hindsight we can see that he was a good man who meant it kindly - the jury was made up of his fellow townsmen, after all; parochial newspapermen know everybody who is anybody in their small town, and in those days it was the somebodys who were chosen for jury duty. But again, we cannot interpret. We can only quote. So that quote which you thought could be paraphrased completely, could not. British English is always loaded as it is, but 19th-century journalistic English was loaded up to the hilt. Social conventions limted what they would say openly, but boy could they load their writing with tacit messages. And Pike was a journalist.
      • Regarding the use of a gallery with six pictures in it, well I could not find anything in your link which said I was doing anything against WP house style. Like all guidelines, it is not prescriptive in precise terms, so as to allow adjustment for the needs of each article. That row of 6 images takes up only one line on my old-fashioned pc monitor. Modern monitors which are much wider, are in more common use than is my monitor now. You would only see the images covering more than one row if you were using a phone, tablet etc., and the guidelines in your link confirm that those devices are not fit for judging gallieries. The last four pictures in the gallery - the ones you don't like - show the reader what the book is like. The cover and title page might be pretty, but they tell you nothing of the appearance of the contents.
      • There is one other thing that worries me greatly, and that is your use of the word "violation". In common parlance, "violation" can be a definition of rape. In legal parlance it is a term for an offence, as in "violation of the law". But those WP guidelines on galleries are only about a house style. If one uses one too many free-use images in an article, then "violation" is not appropriate terminology, because the extra image has not broken a law and it has not put WP at the mercy of greedy lawyers. "Copyright violation" is an appropriate term. But the use of "violation" in the context of mere house style frankly frightens me. Storye book (talk) 12:04, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
        • information Note: @Storye book: I don't find the hook that interesting, as I think it tries to combine two fairly dull facts into one hook and suffers for it. As DYK slots are currently under high demand, I won't be promoting it. Other promoters may disagree. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:54, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Note that the featured biography book series was and is still an extremely valuable asset to biographical researchers, including British biographers on this platform, and that the books feature regularly in British Who's Who, because it is often the only source for photographs of so many biographical subjects. Many of us researchers - including many professionals,- have been using these books for a long time. Not dull at all. Storye book (talk) 07:14, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

ALT2: ... that convicted felon William Thomas Pike published Pike's New Century Series (example pictured), which included biographies of living bishops and aristocrats but almost no women? Source: As above for the imprisonment. and publishing. For Bishops and aristocrats: "Bibliographical aids to research: Pike's New Century Series". Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research. 34 (89, 90): 60–62. May 1961. Retrieved 16 October 2023. Note: The Manchester & Salford volume has a pic of mayoress Mrs William Henry Vaudrey, wife of the mayor of Manchester, but (of course!) no personal biography for her. That is either the only woman included in the whole set, or she is one of a very select few. I possess only 10 of the volumes, but that's the only female portrait that I have found so far. I have found no biographies of women at all so far, although in the male biographies the wives are named as daughters of the fathers in law. Sigh. If you need me to upload more pix or include more in the article to support any of this, please let me know. Storye book (talk) 07:14, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

ALT3: ... that convicted felon William Thomas Pike published Pike's New Century Series (example pictured), which included biographies of living men from commercial persons to aristocrats and bishops, but almost no women? (191 characters. Source as above).

ALT4: ... that convicted felon William Thomas Pike published Pike's New Century Series (example pictured), which included a biography of the Lord Mayor of London, but almost no women? (Source as above. Note the anomaly in the traditional British class system in which the Lord Mayor of London outranks the monarch in formal processions, including the coronation. So a convicted felon (in the terminology of 1901) got away with publishing a formal biography of the man who (in formal terms) outranked the monarch. That is too much info for the hook; just letting you know that it's not boring.).

ALT5: ... that convicted felon William Thomas Pike published a biographical series (example pictured), which include traders, bishops, and the Lord Mayor of London, but almost no women?

I appreciate this hooks are not dull for you, but they very well may be for readers with no special knowledge or interest. These new hooks look much better; are you able to review Vanamonde93? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't think the original was bad, but I agree these are better. GTG per previous review, with a preference for ALT3 as the most accessible to a broad audience. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:13, 26 January 2024 (UTC)