Talk:Dark Archives

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 AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that Dark Archives reveals most books bound in human skin were made by respected doctors? Source: Rosenbloom, Megan. "Under Glass". Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 3–6. ISBN 978-0-374-13470-9. for direct cite in article; Jacobson, Christine (30 March 2021). "A Look at Anthropodermic Bibliopegy: On Megan Rosenbloom's "Dark Archives"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 14 January 2022. for secondary-source discussion of a specific case
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Barbecue bologna

Moved to mainspace by Vaticidalprophet (talk). Self-nominated at 14:45, 8 July 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Dark Archives; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Reviewing... Moved to mainspace within 7-days of nomination, long enough, reads very well, QPQ provided, hook is interesting and in article. Will complete rest soon. Thank you Vaticidalprophet. Whispyhistory (talk) 06:02, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
• ... Hook in article followed by citation to the book itself. AGF on its content. Copyvio detects copy of quotes and names (not a problem). Whispyhistory (talk) 05:27, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Bibliopegy

Does "anthropodermic bibliopegy" have any advantage over "binding in human skin'? It has more syllables, and I notice that it's explained more than once, whereas "binding in human skin" requires no explanation. 27.134.39.209 (talk) 11:08, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Given it's the technical term-of-art, and the name our dedicated article is at, I find it useful to define in the article. I use both terms depending on which flows better in the sentence, and introduce definitions in its first lead-and-body mention given the fact it is a technical term. There's a value to having a fewer-words description of something even when it's polysyllabic; in medical articles you run into similar issues around symptoms (e.g. clinodactyly and "incurved pinky fingers", epicanthic folds and "additional folds of skin in the corners of the eyes"). Vaticidalprophet 11:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

"Clinodactyly" suggests to me a coining that's designed to help doctors familiar with the relevant word-parts (and to need no additional English); "anthropodermic" perhaps likewise; but "bibliopegy" sounds like the jocular product of some TV game show. After all, for any alternative to human skin, "binding" and "bound" seem to do the job. Still, if this polysyllabic term is used (other than as a droll euphemism), I suppose the article may use it. 110.2.104.224 (talk) 20:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Dark Archives/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 14:38, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Dibs also ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:38, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

You're familiar with the schtick so here we go.

• Maybe link Medical library since it's not necessarily common knowledge that that's a notable concept in its own right
  • Have linked.
• I might split the first sentence of para two, then revise the second clause to lead with the common misconception before going into the "well actually"
• I think publication belongs in the first paragraph of the lead, not lumped in with critical reception
  • I tried to revise the lead, but it looked...worse :P I ended up with a very crowded first paragraph when moving up the publication. I'll see about the misconception split.
    • No worries. If it doesn't work, it doesns't work.
• The caption for the image needs a citation, since neither the book nor the library are mentioned in the body
  • Have cited.
• "particularly popular amongst doctors" I won't die on this hill but the "particularly" makes it seem to me like it's saying "this was really popular, with doctors most of all".
• I notice you've left Anthropodermic Book Project unlinked here, but redlinked it on its later appearance. Intentional?
  • An oversight -- I've moved the redlink up and removed it in the synopsis (I don't dup redlinks, because they're editor suggestions rather than navigation aids).
• Same with medical ethics - it's linked in para 5 of the synopsis, but first mentioned in para 2
  • I looked at this and thought "huh, I remembered linking that earlier". Double-checking, it is linked in para 1, but I hadn't noticed I'd duplinked it in two paragraphs in the same section. I've removed the later link.
• Otherwise, pretty much minimal griping with the synopsis (but boy howdy I bet postmortem tattoo preservation would be a fun redlink to unred)
• Tweaked a few sentences near the end of synopsis and at the beginning of research & publication
• It's weird that the publication details are crammed in at the end of this section, like an afterthought. I think it might flow better to open with them
  • Publication details are hard. I just sort of put them here for lack of a better spot. I'm not sure they work better at the top of the section -- it confuses the chronology.
    • Not a hill I'll die on, but my thinking was that yes it's odd but you get the minor details out of the way and get into the meat of the thing. The way it is now, you've got all the meat and then at the end "oh by the way!" which distracts you from the meat you were just reading. Eating. Whatever.
• You mention multiple reviewers noting a "dark academia" sensibility, but don't really expound on what that means. For the fortunate souls among our readership who don't hang out on Tumblr, could you explain what they mean a bit?
  • Will think of a way! It's tricky, because the sources also assume familiarity and I don't want to OR too much in assuming exactly what elements they reference, but yeah, you're right.

Another weird, interesting article. Well done! Mostly minor gripes that should be fairly easy to address. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:24, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Premeditated Chaos, I've done a few of these now, just a couple left to look at. I do have one query -- do you have any recommendations on how to structure the tannery sentence? I kind of hate how it turned out, and want to fix it before FAC, but there don't seem to be many good ways to put it, and putting it some way is probably worthwhile given how it comes up in reviews. Vaticidalprophet 18:17, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm assuming you mean the one about French Revolution tanneries? Honestly, I think it's fine as-is. You could maybe ditch "or bound" and just leave "made", I'm sure the readers can make the small assumption. As a side note, I noticed you mention Nazis and French Revolution rumors in the synopsis but not the serial killer rumors. I don't recall how much detail she gets into about those in the book, but since you mention it in the lead, it might be worth in the synopsis. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:23, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

It's the one under "Research and publication" (To this end, Rosenbloom visited a tannery to discover more about the process of leatherworking, describing in the book its intense smell and gory surroundings). It's a bit...editorializing, or ugly, but I'm not sure how else to put it. I think I've clarified dark academia now, and I couldn't find any other way to handle the lead. Vaticidalprophet 20:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh, no, I think it's fine. You're making it clear it's her description of it, so I think you're ok on the borderline-editorializing issue. Yeah, I think we're good here. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:47, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

No CV/close para issues, images are fine, no concerns on the spot checks. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:49, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

One Dark and nasty Subject

Given the questionable subject matter, should Wikipedia be highlighting an issue that might only be of interest to those in the medical world? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.166.215 (talk) 11:33, 8 November 2023 (UTC)