Talk:Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine

Did you know nomination

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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 06:04, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine has been described as the first major English-language book to provide a "comprehensive accessible account" of the Great Chinese Famine? Source: “For many people outside China, the truth about the famine did not begin to emerge until the 1990s. Jasper Becker…in 1996 published his book, Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine. This became the first major book in English that provided a comprehensive accessible account of China’s man-made catastrophe.” [1]
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Lottie B. Scott

5x expanded by Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk). Self-nominated at 08:51, 7 December 2021 (UTC).

• General eligibility:
• New enough:
• Long enough:
• Other problems:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
• Other problems:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Citation needed, Reception second para. Earwig's copyright checker reports 53.1%, but inspection reveals extensive use of online sources, and a lengthy quotation. Deducting this unavoidable duplication lowers copyright vio score to near nil. Per J1 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Did_you_know/Image, picture is not eligible for DYK. Some solecisms in the article: 1) In Background, second para, second sentence is an ambiguous run-on sentence. Break into two, or even three, sentences for clarity's sake. 2) Last sentence of lead para is awkward and could be greatly improved with no loss of meaning by deleting first iteration of the word 'book'. I might add, that it seems to me this sentence could serve as a punchier ALT1 version of the original hook, but here I defer to the nominator's superior knowledge.Georgejdorner (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

@Georgejdorner: Hello, thank you for reviewing this. I'll try to fix some of your concerns shortly. I'm confused what you mean by image eligibility. I'm not including an image in this DYK.Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:55, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Obviously, you are not alone in your confusion. Anyhow, I learned something new while committing this error, so not a total loss. Made correction in review template for pic. Awaiting your reaction to remaining items.Georgejdorner (talk) 05:29, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

marking for return to WP:DYKN. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 09:59, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It's only been three days. How about allowing the nominator time for corrections?Georgejdorner (talk) 23:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Georgejdorner: Thank you so much for your patience. I made some corrections with the article and I completed my QPQ. How exactly would you like the hook to be phrased? Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 06:49, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Nice rewrites. Cite noted. If you want to submit another hook per my suggestion, I will have to review it. Otherwise, this nom is GTG.Georgejdorner (talk) 18:01, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks again. I think the current hook is GTG. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 18:41, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, it is GTG, as is the nomination.Georgejdorner (talk) 19:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d and Georgejdorner: could the quote please be inserted into the article before I promote? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 10:54, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

theleekycauldron  Done. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 18:59, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

• Much of the article is made up of lengthy quotes, and with those properly blocked the article is well short of the minimum original prose requirements. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:46, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Nikkimaria: No, the first two sections amount to 1,826 bytes, which does pass our length requirement. However (and I didn't see these review blocks before), the quotes do have to be fixed, that is clear overquoting and renders the article a fail both on copyright and neutrality. Nikkimaria, please stop pulling articles when you have an issue with them—that was not dire enough to cause a pull. The only time articles are unilaterally pulled from the prep sets is if they are nominated for deletion. When things like this come up, I encourage you to leave a note on WT:DYK, manage the fix, and pull the hook if the discussion goes on for a few days with no progress. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  theleekycauldron, for this to qualify as a 5x expansion it would need over 11,000 characters, and it's well short of that. As to your suggestion, I'm going to decline - articles that don't qualify for DYK shouldn't be left in. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:31, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  My mistake—I took this for a new article, not an expanded one. Which leads me to wonder how Georgejdorner counted this as a 5x expansion—georgejdorner, I'd install prosesize if you haven't already. Also, DYKCheck. And Nikkimaria, if you're going to pull hooks unilaterally, at least leave the proper blanks in their place to make it easier for whoever promotes to that spot. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

  In addition, the final line of the lead is unsourced (and not repeated in the body). This article is a long way off from the required 11,745 (currently at 2.08x expansion out of 5x), and a long way from GA. Thanks for the catch, nikkimaria; Dr.Swag Lord, do you want to shoot for GA, more than double the article, or fold? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 04:04, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

theleekycauldron O, what a shame. I didn't realize block quotes don't count for the 5x prose requirement. My apologies. I guess you can fail this one. I'll try to nominate another article for DYK in the near future. Best, Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:34, 22 December 2021 (UTC)