Talk:Mikhl Gordon

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 TarnishedPath talk 11:30, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

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• ... that Mikhl Gordon's song Di bord humorously depicts a woman grieving her husband's shaved beard?

• Source: Roskies, David G. (1999). The Jewish Search for a Usable Past. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. p. 99.

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/On Eagles Wings 2

Created by Ploni (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 29 past nominations.

 Ploni^💬  14:51, 8 July 2025 (UTC).

• Unfortunately, while the hook is interesting, it does not meet WP:DYKFICTION as currently written as it is about an in-universe depiction of a fictional event (in this case, it's talking about the in-song woman and her husband's beard). As much as I would like to IAR approve the hook, it would get scrutiny from other editors and would be unlikely to survive. As such, a new hook is needed here. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:27, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

• Fair enough—how about one of the following?  Ploni^💬  02:05, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

ALT1: ... that Mikhl Gordon's first collection under his real name wasn't published until 1889, just a year before his death? (Source:  Rosenthal, Herman; Zametkin, M. (1904). "Gordon, Michel". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 48.)

ALT2: ... that Yiddish poet Mikhl Gordon was the brother-in-law and early mentor of Hebrew poet Judah Leib Gordon? (Source: Stanislawski, Michael (1988). For Whom Do I Toil?: Judah Leib Gordon and the Crisis of Russian Jewry. Studies in Jewish History. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 14–17, 162–163.)

• @Narutolovehinata5: Does the above satisfy your concerns? Z1720 (talk) 23:47, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

ALT1 is okay, ALT2 is too specialist and should be rejected. ALT1 should be modified to state what Gordon was: was he a poet or a writer? The lede mentions multiple things. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 23:49, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Did you mean something like the following?  Ploni^💬  08:22, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

ALT1: ... that Yiddish poet Mikhl Gordon's first collection under his real name wasn't published until 1889, just a year before his death?

Yes, something like that. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:09, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

OK, please let me know if it is approved, or I will propose another.  Ploni^💬  08:02, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

• Thank you. I was not intending on reviewing this, but merely pointing out the issue with the original hook. This is now ready for a full review. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 02:58, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
  • I'll review, by tomorrow or throw rotten fruit at me. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:08, 19 August 2025 (UTC)
    • Ploni, a few notes:
      • Where does the birthdate come from? It's not in ref 1, which only mentions November 1823, and the uses in the lead and infobox aren't cited.
      • Might suggest clarifying what "his Maskilic circle" means to the layman. It seems relevant to understanding this guy's activities but the connection between the term and the linked article is not immediately clear because "Maskilic" doesn't appear in the lead till the third paragraph.
      • This is less of a DYK concern and more something for your own time but might suggest expanding on why Gordon's reputation might have suffered from publishing in Yiddish at the time
      • I would suggest swapping the links to the blogspot site for active links to the Leksikon, at the Congress for Jewish Culture website. Also, please double check your author links - the Joshua Fogel you've linked is a Canadian Sinologist who does not appear related.
    • All that being said, article looks in reasonable shape for DYK. It was new and long enough when nominated, hook checks out, sourcing looks good, no POV or CV issues. QPQ has been done. If we sort the first two issues out we should be fine to go here (the other two are not DYK issues, just nice to do). ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:35, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
  • @Premeditated Chaos: Thank you for the thorough review! To points 1, 2, and 4, I've added a citation for the date of birth and a clarification to the unclear sentence, and updated the link. The third point is noted! Regarding Joshua Fogel, the sinologist and translator-of-Yiddish-biographies are in fact (impressively) the same person (see e.g. this article).  Ploni^💬  18:12, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
    • Damn, that is wild. I did skim his bibliography but I obviously missed the Yiddish in the sea of Chinese-related publications, haha. I'm happy to sign off on this one. Cheers! ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:23, 20 August 2025 (UTC)