Talk:R. Nelson Smith

A fact from R. Nelson Smith appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 October 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that chemist R. Nelson Smith replaced his colleague's desk chair with a porcelain toilet?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/R. Nelson Smith.

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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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 06:28, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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... that chemist R. Nelson Smith replaced his colleague's desk chair with a porcelain toilet? Source: Pomona College Magazine Chemistry faculty were constantly on the lookout for Smith’s outrageous pranks, which included...new office décor for Corwin Hansch—complete with a porcelain toilet for his desk chair.

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/1993 Finchley Road bombings

Created by Sdkb (talk). Self-nominated at 23:24, 1 October 2021 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 00:05, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To T:DYK/P7

Something doesn't make sense ...

"Smith was well known for his humorous teaching style and for fostering an active prank culture in his department. His notable pranks included ... replacing colleague Corwin Hansch's desk chair with a porcelain toilet."

Smith is supposed to have replaced colleague Corwin Hansch's desk chair with a porcelain toilet ... but the infobox indicates that Smith's birth name was Corwin Herman Hansch - so how could he be a colleague?

The article gives no indication why Hansch changed his name to Smith.

Prisoner of Zenda (talk) 05:47, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Prisoner of Zenda, looks like just a copying error from the editor who added the infobox. It's been fixed now; thanks for pointing it out! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:40, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]