Template:Did you know nominations/William Young (CIA)

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 Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

William Young (CIA) edit

  • ... that as a CIA agent, William Young was characterized by the Agency as American on the outside, Lahu on the inside?

5x expanded by Georgejdorner (talk). Self nominated at 02:26, 7 September 2014 (UTC).

  • size and age ok, "he shot himself to death on 1 April 2011." sounds like he did it repetitively. still checking. no paraphrasing found in the two online sources. Offline sourcing accepted in good faith. Sentence with CIA quote uncited - needs a cite at the end of it. Also, if above is a direct quote, needs quotation marks. Might be better to directly quote. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:25, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Above hook definitely contains no quote(s). Nor does the article. And I cannot see where you can derive any meaning of repetitive gunfire in the above. Nary a volley nor a salvo in sight.Georgejdorner (talk) 05:32, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Maybe it's an Australian thing, but "shot to death" makes me think of multiple gunshots (i.e. keep shooting until dead). "shot himself" in Australian English conveys the implication that he killed himself. "American on the outside, Lahu on the inside" sounds like the language used in a quote. If it isn't, I think it might be a bit flowery (though engaging) for encyclopedic writing. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:10, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Okay (that's an Americanism, mate), I altered phrase in question to "committed suicide", as the reader will deduce the means from the pistol found in the deceased's hand. As for the pseudo-quote...I paraphrased the source to avoid copyright vio, and there are only so many turns of phrase available. As for flowery, is there any law that says an encyclopedia can't have a teensy bit of style?Georgejdorner (talk) 22:45, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree that it can be tricky balancing strictly-encyclopedic-but-dry-as-#&%&($ prose vs. loosening it up a bit to make it a bit engaging...what the hell, I know what you mean so I'll let it fly (as it's a style thang) and see if someone has a problem with it....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • ergo GTG (can you just stick appropirate citation at end of that sentence in text?) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:03, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Not quite sure where you mean, but if you would be so kind as to stick a "citation needed" tag at the relevant spot, I will do what I can to cite it.Georgejdorner (talk) 15:03, 10 September 2014 (UTC)