Talk:Richard Smith (public historian)

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A fact from Richard Smith (public historian) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 February 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that public historian Richard Smith called Henry David Thoreau the "first punk rocker"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Richard Smith (public historian).

Wikipedia

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 19:38, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

)

Richard Smith dressed as Thoreau

... that public historian Richard Smith (pictured) has been called "The Punk Rocker Who 'Becomes' Thoreau"? Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/the-punk-rocker-who-becomes-thoreau/65223/
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Ken Balcomb

Created by HouseOfChange (talk). Self-nominated at 04:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Richard Smith (public historian); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[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:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: The article looks all good, no copyvio and the only problem with sourcing I see is that ~~the quote in the quote box isn't referenced.~~ The hook is cited and looks OK to me, but having a backup hook that isn't the Atlantic headline might be good. BuySomeApples (talk) 09:38, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, @BuySomeApples:. I fixed the quote box and made a few other changes. I have a two more hooks to suggest but neither, I think, as good as the original:

... that public historian Richard Smith called Thoreau "the first punk rocker"?
... that an interviewer wondered if public historian Richard Smith "might be the closest I’d get to a ghost"?

Both these are from a 2010 interview already cited in the article. HouseOfChange (talk)

I like those options! This one seems ready to go. BuySomeApples (talk) 02:13, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]