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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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:36, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

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Abraham Lincoln's hearse

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Abraham Lincoln's hearse in New York
Abraham Lincoln's hearse in New York
  • ... that Abraham Lincoln's immense hearse (pictured) "paralyzed all beholders" when it drove through New York City? source, cited in article is Twenty Days, A Narrative in Text and Pictures of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (offline)

Created/expanded by DarjeelingTea (talk). Self-nominated at 04:18, 25 February 2017 (UTC).

  • New enough, having been created yesterday. Long enough, all ¶ with citations. Unable to perform copyvio check as most sources offline, but appears to be unlikely from the number of sources compared with the size of the article, assuming good faith. QPQ review done. I find the hook problematic:
  • the part that says the hearse was "immense" is not cited to "Twenty Days" - it is in a different paragraph. Is that from one of the sources in the prior paragraph?
  • the hearse was a horse-drawn carriage, so it did not "drive" thorough NYC - it was pulled through. this may seem a little too literal, but encyclopedic prose should be accurate and factual. I recommend changing the article also on this point.
  • the rest of the hook says "paralyzed all beholders". Since it is in quotes, it is clearly not meant to be taken literally. But I still find it too strong. The article tempers this with "According to one source..." which gives context.
  • the image is used in the article and is public domain, but the caption has the same "drives through" language. More importantly, at 100x100 it is unclear and I don't think it will work for DYK. At the size in the infobox of the article, I am barely able to make it out.
In summary, I think it needs a new hook addressing the above issues. MB 00:43, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
MB - Thanks for this thorough review. I'll make these changes shortly. However, I believe, technically, a carriage or wagon is "driven"/"drove" instead of "pulled"? Though perhaps it needs a linking verb like "was" (as in "was driven" or "was drove") since "driven / drove" absent the verb would imply self-propulsion? DarjeelingTea (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
DarjeelingTea: According to Driving (horse), the horse is "driven" and they "pull" or "draw" things (plows, carriages, etc). So it looks like saying either "when it was drawn through NYC" or "when it was pulled through NYC" would be fine. MB 06:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
But see drive a coach and horses through. Alansplodge (talk) 01:37, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
The hearse, was the catafalque in the funeral procession (presumably on a wheeled platform), and pulled by horses (not driven) through city streets. The confusion comes from the wording in the article, "On April 25, 1865, the death car, carrying Lincoln's body, drove through the streets of Manhattan." It was a funeral train that ran on railroad tracks, stopped at established train depots, and then Lincoln's body was removed and taken to given places to lie in state. The "funeral car" mentioned in the source was just the train car where Lincoln's body was until they took it off the train. Either before or after the lying in state, the catafalque/hearse was pulled through the street by horses - but that was after it was already off the train. Perhaps you have already seen Funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln. Not presuming here about your knowledge of Lincoln, but one of the most iconic historical moments in American history is that black-draped funeral train moving Lincoln's body from one city to another. — Maile (talk) 18:19, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi all - sorry, I totally forgot about this nomination and will update it ASAP. To clarify, I used "car" in the article as a synonym for hearse and to break-up the repetition; no source invoked the word "car" and its use here was based only on the definition of a car to mean any wheeled vehicle. However, in reference to Maile's observation, that very likely would be confused by the reader with the railway car famously used during the cross-country tour so will modify that as well. DarjeelingTea (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@DarjeelingTea: Just a comment since another user has reviewed the article: do you have any information about the fate of the hearse after Lincoln's funeral procession? The article feels kind of incomplete without information about the hearse's subsequent fate, and had I been the article's reviewer, that would be a big question mark for DYK, in my opinion. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 14:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't have that information. Sorry. DarjeelingTea (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
DarjeelingTea, it has been well over two weeks since this article was reviewed, and further issues were raised in the week that followed. There has as yet been no action that I can see to address these issues, not even since the ASAP promise over a week ago, though you have made many hundred Wikipedia edits since then. Please give this nomination your attention if you wish it to remain active. Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:48, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, BlueMoonset; I got distracted and completely forgot about this. I've just updated it. Please let me know if there are any questions. Apologies again for the delay. DarjeelingTea (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I've struck the original hook now that an ALT1 replacement has been proposed, and adjusted the caption. Pinging original reviewer MB and also Maile to see whether their issues have been addressed. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:18, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
My original issue was taken care of. Thanks for asking. — Maile (talk) 23:33, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
DarjeelingTea I still see two potential problems.
  • The image is supposed to be clear at 100x100px and I think at that size it is there is insufficient clarity to tell what it is; I just see a blur.
  • The hook still says "paralyzed all beholders". The actual quote in the source is "just about paralyzed all beholders". I'm not sure who is being quoted and how significant this is. I think using this in the hook may be putting too much emphasis on one comment someone made. MB 03:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
  • No problem, I understand your concerns. It sounds like this may not be salvageable for a DYK. Thank you for taking the time to review it in any case, however. DarjeelingTea (talk) 05:57, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
  • DarjeelingTea, I see no reason why this article can't run with another hook, and perhaps the image could be cropped to better focus on the hearse for the purpose of this nomination (you're allowed to use cropped versions of images already in the article). Would you be satisfied with this hook:
MB, it's in your hands now. I found the facts supporting the hook in the Strausbaugh source (put "160,000" in as a search term), but those 160,000 were not merely the military and dignitaries, so I've revised the article (and the hook below as ALT3) accordingly, taking "immense" out of the bolding, and striking ALT2. I'm wondering whether the hook is punchier with or without the military and dignitaries, so I've provided an ALT3a without them:
  • ALT3: ... that Abraham Lincoln's "immense" hearse (pictured) had an escort of 160,000 people, including soldiers, sailors, marines, and dignitaries, when it was drawn through New York City?
  • ALT3a: ... that Abraham Lincoln's "immense" hearse (pictured) had an escort of 160,000 people when it was drawn through New York City? —BlueMoonset (talk) 14:28, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
BlueMoonset: The text of either ALT3 or ALT3a is fine, although I would pick ALT3a because the large number of participants in the procession is the interesting part. I find "including ..." just extra wordiness. But there is still the matter of the image. If DarjeelingTea doesn't want to try cropping (which may or may not help), you could just drop the image and we could wrap this up now. MB 14:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
I think you make an important point in terms of the viewability of the image at 180px dimension. However, I think it would be preferable to omit the image from the DYK than to crop it in the article for the sake of the DYK.
I'm not entirely comfortable with the edits that have been made in the article to "160,000" as, if the entire books referenced are read beyond the immediate page source, it's clear from the context that the bulk of the escort was one formed of military units and public officials, with a smaller number of lineage and patriotic societies, and invoking the words "including ..." communicates a contextually very different meaning.
As I said before, I think this just may be a case of an article that meets the technical qualifications of a DYK but is, maybe, not a good fit for the front page. DarjeelingTea (talk) 15:30, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
There is no requirement that the image be cropped in the article, just that article images may be (and frequently are) cropped for their appearance in the DYK section on the front page, while the article retains the original complete image. DarjeelingTea, you are certainly welcome to refactor my edits in the article if you believe they have misrepresented the facts, but do note that the Strausbaugh source says about what came after the military units: Behind them snaked a seemingly endless line of groups representing all the city's businesses, lodges, labor unions, and civic organizations. That's a huge number of groups. To imply that the military and dignitaries were the entirety of the 160,000 is misleading by omitting everyone else, even if majority were military (which is not the impression I got from Strausbaugh): "seemingly endless" means that a proportionate mention must be made in the article since you have specifically named the military and dignitaries. I see no reason why this article is not a "good fit" for DYK: it is an interesting subject, and an interesting hook can be made from its content.
MB, if I may suggest, why not approve this with the caveat that the image should not be used unless it is cropped so the hearse is large enough to see well. That way there is no delay here, and the promoter can decide whether the image, when cropped, would be suitable for the main page. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:36, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that the immediate page reference does convey that impression. The whole of each source read cover to cover paints a different picture, in my opinion, and invoking the modifier "including" adds a somewhat carnivalesque quality that I'm not sure is accurate to the material. Anyway, I'm happy to defer to others on the appropriate fate of this article and nom from here on out and think it would be best if I could maybe not receive DYK credit on this one. Thanks, again, to you both for your time, work and feedback on this nomination! DarjeelingTea (talk) 18:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
BlueMoonset: The DYK reviewing guide, under the Image section, states: "Consider the quality of the image, and its clarity at 100 by 100 pixels, the size at which DYK images appear on the Main Page." I don't feel the image is clear enough as is, and don't agree to approve the hook with a note that the image shouldn't be used as is. It is the job of the nominator to get things right now. Who else would try to crop it, the promoter? I will approve ALT3A without the image. MB 23:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
You know, guys, I give up. MB, I've seen more nominations I can count that have been given a tick containing exactly that wording: approved but without the image. Since that doesn't seem to suit you, I'll simply point out that any reviewer can remove the template with the image in it, or at least comment it out, to be absolutely sure the image isn't run, much like we strike hooks. And DarjeelingTea, if you refuse credit for this nomination because you think the article has been corrupted, and are not willing or able to come up with a different wording that you find acceptable and does not read as if the entire 160,000 was the military and dignitaries, something that had originally been implied yet clearly isn't true, then maybe this shouldn't run after all. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
BlueMoonset: I've seen nominations pulled from the queues after being promoted, by editors who seem to review the queues just before they go live, with comments saying reviewers aren't doing their jobs. So I am just trying to be thorough. I've struck (pictured) from the hook and will give it the tick now. I think the line about the 160,000 in the article is fine as it is now.
  • With ALT3a minus the image. MB 04:52, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, BlueMoonset, I didn't mean to come across as obstinate, I just don't personally believe the hook - in the form approved or as now contained in the article - is accurate to the whole body of the references on a careful reading of the entire books (though, I agree, it does appear accurate to two pages available in the Google Books preview of the references). This is the only reason I asked to be removed from this process. I do agree with you that the nomination should not run. However, if there's nothing that can be done to stop this train from leaving the station, I might suggest the following hook as a non-ideal alternative to the possibility of introducing an error to the main page:
Alt4: ... that Abraham Lincoln's hearse was drawn by 16 horses?
Sorry again if anything I said came across as uncooperative. DarjeelingTea (talk) 05:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
  • ALT3b: ... that Abraham Lincoln's "immense" hearse was escorted by 160,000 people as it was drawn through New York City? EEng 16:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
That seems like an excellent alternative. DarjeelingTea (talk) 20:38, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
ALT3b is hardly any different that ALT3a, but if everyone agrees with that I'll move the tick here.

with ALT3b (again, with no image). MB 01:37, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

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