Talk:Justly Watson

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A fact from Justly Watson appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 December 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Justly Watson died suddenly in 1757 from the effects of poison administered in his coffee, it was believed, by a black female servant?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Justly Watson.

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This article has been rated as Start-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

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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 Bruxton (talk) 17:52, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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Portrait of Watson

... that Justly Watson (pictured) died suddenly in 1757 from the effects of poison administered in his coffee, it was believed, by a black female servant? Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Watson,_Justly
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Sabrina Thompson

Created by Ficaia (talk). Self-nominated at 18:40, 2 December 2022 (UTC).[reply]

New enough, long enough and within policy. Picture is in public domain and QPQ is done. The hook is very good. It is supported by inline citations leading to two sources, one of which I cannot access and the other I don't really know how to interpret. But I can accept them in good faith. One of them is quite dated (from 1898) but the other is from 2008. So no objections, this should be good to go. Yakikaki (talk) 11:43, 11 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- @Ficaia and Yakikaki: I'm afraid this is going to fail the length requirement, as the public-domain wikisource text doesn't count. Also, why exactly are the race and gender of the alleged culprit important to this hook? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:05, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Theleekycauldron: I just thought the most interesting thing about his life was that he was murdered by a black female servant, because history usually ignores that kind of person. I'll work on changing the prose. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 08:27, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Theleekycauldron:@Ficaia: My apologies, I should have checked and concluded that it failed the length requirement as much of the text is indeed copied from a public-domain wikisource text. I guess that means this will have to pass, since it by now is too old? That is to say, even if the article is re-written now, it should have fulfilled the criteria at the time of nomination? Terribly sorry for this! Yakikaki (talk) 19:03, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Yakikaki: no, not at all! We usually give DYK nominators the spacetime to sort out their nominations to meet criteria, if they want :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:14, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, good, that's a relief! Thanks theleekycauldron! @Ficaia:, let me know when you've addressed the issue and I'll be happy to take another look at this. As regards the hook, I agree with you on that it is interesting as it indicates there may be an underlying drama or injustice. In fact, I'd love to know more about it. But I suppose the sources are not yielding more on that? Yakikaki (talk) 21:21, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Yakikaki: I think this should pass the 1500 character length requirement now. There are 761 characters in the lead to start with. 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 09:27, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for your patience. It is now ready. Yakikaki (talk) 07:50, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discrepancy in place of death

The top summary section of the article differs from the last paragraph of the Career section regarding Watson's place of death. The former says Nova Scotia, the latter St. John's, Newfoundland. 47.54.37.221 (talk) 01:06, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Amount of pension

The notation "40l" for the pension received by Watson's mother is unclear. Better to put spell it out or use a more standard notation.Bill (talk) 06:36, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why was he poisoned?

The intro and body text of the article both assert he was poisoned, and how, and by whom (probably), but there isn't a hint of why. Any ideas? Minturn (talk) 17:39, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Probably lost to history, alas 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖆𝖎𝖆 (talk) 18:47, 27 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]