Talk:Posthumous publication

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: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 14:27, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that mathematician Paul Erdős posthumously published 62 scientific papers in the 5 years after he died? Source: "Erdös's death in 1996 has slowed, but not stopped, his publication rate: Over the past 5 years, journals have published some 62 new papers bearing his name."Seife, Charles (5 April 2002). "Erdös's hard-to-win prizes still draw bounty hunters". Science. 296 (5565): 39–40. doi:10.1126/science.296.5565.39.
  • Reviewed:

5x expanded by Mgp28 (talk). Self-nominated at 15:59, 28 August 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Posthumous publication; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Article is 5x expanded by the editor (28 August) within seven days before its DYK nomination. It is well-written, sourced, no copyvios seen (13.8%). The article meets the required length. The hook is interesting and cited.
• This is the author's first DYK, therefore no QPQ is required. This is good to go. Damian Vo (talk) 11:09, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

  Mgp28 and Damian Vo, i feel like this hook should be reworded because i am fairly certain that erdős didn't publish anything after he died (obligatory xkcd notwithstanding). the quoted source, for example, states that the journals published his posthumous papers. dying (talk) 04:29, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Oops. I do see that now. Here is my suggestion:

ALT1: ...that 62 scientific papers authored by Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős were posthumously published in the five years following his death?

— Damian Vo (talk) 06:10, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you both for taking the time to review my nomination. What I liked about the sentence I cited from Science was the suggestion Erdős was so active that even death didn't stop him. I tried to recreate this by putting him as the verb's subject. If you think ALT1 is more appropriate I'm happy with that. Mgp28 (talk) 08:19, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Mgp28, dyk generally requires hooks to be accurate (or at least technically accurate). leeway is sometimes given for misleading hooks in the quirky slot (the last slot in a set) or particularly interesting examples of wordplay or presentation (as seen in this nomination), and rules are relaxed to allow for improper stylization in hooks meant for april fools' day, but alt0 appears to me to simply be a creative reïmagining of events rather than something that could be considered accurate under any interpretation. i think it's a great visualization, but i admittedly don't think it is encyclopedic. i won't explicitly strike alt0 in case a promoter disagrees with me and you all are willing to defend the hook at wt:dyk and wp:errors, but i will review alt1 to provide another option. (editors aren't allowed to approve their own hooks.)

alt1 is under 200 characters, interesting, cited, and neutral.

• the source actually states "some 62 new papers". i presume that "some" is being used to signify that the value 62 may not be entirely accurate, so i would suggest mirroring this uncertainty in the hook.
• the hook mentions that the papers were published "in the five years following his death", but the source uses the wording "[o]ver the past 5 years" instead. the source was published in 2002, more than five years after erdős died (in 1996), so it seems possible to me that the five years referenced in the hook are different from those referenced by the source. i am not sure how best to address this discrepancy, but i think the statement in the hook can be hedged by replacing "five" with "six".

dying (talk) 04:00, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with your first point. With the second, I think "Over the past 5 years" means that the journals had published Paul's papers continuously throughout those five years, which implies a steady progression of time. Therefore, we should use "five" instead of "six", as it is stated in the source. I came up with two other hooks based on your comments:

* ALT2: ...that about 62 scientific papers authored by mathematician Paul Erdős were posthumously published in the five years following his death?

* ALT3: ...that more than 60 scientific papers authored by mathematician Paul Erdős were posthumously published in the five years following his death?

– Damian Vo (talk) 07:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I wasn't meaning to argue, and I certainly don't wish to argue through three separate fora. The main thrust of my previous reply was meant to be that I had seen the proposed alternative text and have no objections.

I think that "more than 60" is good. We could also have "at least 60".

I would prefer that it not say "six years". That isn't what the source says, and that source was published less than six years after his death. If "five years" isn't supported we could drop the time reference altogether. Something like:

* ALT4: ...that more than 60 scientific papers co-authored by mathematician Paul Erdős were published posthumously?

Mgp28 (talk) 09:03, 1 September 2023 (UTC) edited at Mgp28 (talk) 09:10, 1 September 2023 (UTC) and again at Mgp28 (talk) 09:58, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

oh, sorry, Mgp28! i hadn't meant to imply that you were interested in arguing; i had merely wanted to explain to you roughly how strict the accuracy requirement is at dyk. i wasn't sure how familiar you were with the standards here, since this is your first nomination. i had initially commented to try to help you avoid any possible drama at wt:dyk and wp:errors by gently suggesting that the hook should be reworded.

i'm actually really liking alt4. i admittedly hadn't considered simply dropping the "in the five years following his death". it's a great idea, as the phrase doesn't really add much to the hook, and shorter hooks are considered more effective. i had also wondered if "co-authored" was more appropriate than "authored", but could not verify myself that more than 60 of the posthumously published papers had erdős as one of multiple authors, even though it seems more than likely. did you have another source to confirm that? science uses the phrasing "papers bearing his name", which makes me wonder why they chose to word it in such a manner. (by the way, there should be a space in the hook between the ellipsis and "that".) dying (talk) 10:19, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

No worries - I think I was just a bit startled. Thank you for your help.

I was thinking of dropping "authored" so it would just be "...by mathematician..." but that seemed wrong because someone else must have done something with these manuscripts to get them published. So I went to "co-authored", but what would you think of simply "by"? Mgp28 (talk) 11:04, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Mgp28, between those two options, i am not sure which one would be considered more accurate. personally, i would choose to include "authored", but would also approve a hook without it. (as an aside, i think the tweaks for accuracy that are made to the hook should eventually be reflected in the article as well, so that the hook fact also appears in the article.) dying (talk) 16:05, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Dying Thank you again for your help. I have updated the article.

* ALT4a: ... that more than 60 scientific papers authored by mathematician Paul Erdős were published posthumously?

Mgp28 (talk) 16:31, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

looks good, Mgp28. by the way, thanks for creating the article. i enjoyed reading it. dying (talk) 18:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

• alt4a approved, based on Damian Vo's review. dying (talk) 18:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)