Talk:Roy J. Snell

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: rejected by Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:43, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Hook fact was removed due to sourcing issues, meaning the article is now less than 1,500 characters; the nominator has been mostly unresponsive since nominating the article and never responded to the issues raised despite multiple pings and talk page messages.

Roy J. Snell

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• ... that Roy J. Snell, an American author of juvenile fiction, sold his first story in 1916 for "the great sum of $6.24"?

Created/expanded by EncyclopediaUpdaticus (talk). Self-nominated at 10:03, 15 May 2019 (UTC).

• A few issues need to be fixed here. Readable prose is just under the line at 1,471 characters, it needs a minimum of 1,500. The hook fact sentence is not cited, and the only cite source for that paragraph does not contain the fact. It does appear in another source used in the article, so that would need need citing directly, especially as "the great sum of $6.24" is a direct quote. Another short paragraph is uncited. No apparent copyvio, only trigger is the list of book titles. QPQ-exempt as from what I can tell you have less than five DYK credits. The hook I think passes muster as being broadly interesting. Once the issues are fixed, this should be ready for promotion. Spokoyni (talk) 09:40, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

• I have given the nominator until Friday to respond as it has been over a month without a response from them. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:36, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
• The nominator does not appear to have been active for a while. The article is close enough to passing, that I've added some more from one of the sources to increase the word count, and added the missing cites. It should pass now, though now I've contributed, someone else should approve it. Spokoyni (talk) 09:51, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

@Spokoyni:, I have interpeted the statement above as you are adopting the nomination if there are any questions from a potential reviwer. Is that correct? Flibirigit (talk) 03:54, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

• :REVIEW COMPLETED - The following review was completed by Thats Just Great

QPQ-exempt

Article created by EncyclopediaUpdaticus on May 12, 2019 and has 2050 characters (358 words) "readable prose size"

NPOV

Hook is interesting, short enough Ref 1 Hook appears to be a college student's course work

Hook is sourced to :He sold his first story "for the great sum of $6.24"

Every paragraph sourced

@ Toolserver Copyvio Detector found no copyvio

GTG -- Thats Just Great (talk) 17:46, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

• I came by to promote this, but Find a Grave is not a reliable source because it can be edited by anyone. SL93 (talk) 00:19, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
  • A more urgent issue that I need clarification on is that the hook's supporting reference seems to be from a college student's course work. I hope that I'm wrong. SL93 (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Wow looks like you're right and that date, was it from 1941?Thats Just Great (talk) 17:25, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• It looks like it's just a typed version of a 1941 journalism class paper. The website is hosted by Dartmouth College, but the paper is from Wheaton College. I did some more research by removing part of the url to this and it shows that this portion of Dartmouth College's website was hosted by the article subject's son who is now deceased, J. Laurie Snell. Strangely enough, the paper wasn't written by his son J. Laurie Snell and neither of them attended Wheaton College. SL93 (talk) 19:38, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
• I thought this article could verify it, but it uses this paper as a reference. SL93 (talk) 19:56, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• @SL93: I replaced the sourcing for the hook with his bio from Goodreads, Inc. I replaced the Find a Grave reference with a newspaper obit from the time he died. — Maile (talk) 20:21, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• @Maile66: Thank you. The first paragraph under Biography is still sourced to that paper, but I'm going to try to find a different source. SL93 (talk) 21:07, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• @SL93: This is fixed. If you expand the Goodreads bio section, it has it all there. I believe that first paragraph is covered by that, so I've attached the source link there, and deleted the Dartmouth College PDF sourcing. Revert me if you think I'm in error. — Maile (talk) 22:49, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you. Sorry for not noticing. SL93 (talk) 22:51, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Pulled per a discussion at WT:DYK. The hook is cited to Goodreads.com and concerns have been raised over its reliability. Either a new hook is needed, or the reference has to be replaced. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:57, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Maile66 as they were the one who added the Goodreads reference. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:13, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Valereee As you were the one who reported this at WT:DYK, please explain to me why we cannot use Goodreads as a source. Good luck with finding a new source, and I sincerely hope someone does. I'm the one who came up with the Goodreads source, after a great deal of internet searching, because the previous source was not acceptable. This is a somewhat obscure (by 21st Century mentions) writer whose works appear on Wikisource. Hopefully, someone else here with have better luck finding a source. — Maile (talk) 14:25, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Maile66 I'm sorry. I'm sure you did scour the web, but unfortunately Goodreads is crowdsourced and considered unreliable per Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Goodreads. I'm not sure this article can pass DYK with what's available on the net as sourcing. --valereee (talk) 14:33, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I went to the goodreads bio. Someone found that info somewhere; probably in a book. Unfortunately they don't seem to note any references for it. --valereee (talk) 14:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

And in fact in the meantime Serial Number 54129 pulled the source and the hook material from the article, which I think is the correct move. --valereee (talk) 14:39, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Valereee My participation started out as a request for source help by @SL93: at WT:DYK. I already know about the pull, which is why I responded here - trying to keep this on one page. Since the rest of us have tried in vain to source this, perhaps you might give the search a go. There are editors out there who have access to specialized sourcing through The Wikipedia Library. I don't happen to have access to pull a rabbit out of a hat on this one. I gave it my best. Hopefully, someone else can resolve this. — Maile (talk) 14:54, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Maile66, I've already talked to the reference staff at my local library. They can't find anything, either. Not online (other than what you found), not in any of their bio databases, not in NovelList. I'm now looking for the sources cited in the one source at --valereee (talk) 15:19, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Aaaaaand unfortunately, my library has none of those three sources, and neither do any of the libraries we have interlibrary loan with. I'll try the reference desk, but maybe the guy's just not really been written about much. --valereee (talk) 15:24, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I've posted a request at the Reference Desk. --valereee (talk) 15:39, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. Those folks over there can be really resourceful. I think we are in the "looking for a needle in the haystack" scenario. — Maile (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Welp, the mention in Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing is a sentence fragment. The other source found by ref desk is a mention of a 1930 radio broadcast of 20 minute geography lectures into local schools; Snell is described as a "well-known lecturer and prolific author of travel books for boys and girls" in a three-sentence mention. I think this is a DYK that needs to be marked as not passing. --valereee (talk) 17:52, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree. The article is below 1,500 characters now as well. SL93 (talk) 18:15, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

• The result was rejected. Albeit notwithstanding the efforts of Valereee, who went beyond the call of duty in source-searching, many many thanks. ——SerialNumber54129 18:27, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's fair for this to fail without at least hearing first from the nominator. Especially since it's entirely possible that they have access to sources that we aren't aware off. Let's keep the nom open for one more week while we wait for a response. If there's still no response in a week, then it would be fair to close this nom as unsuccessful. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:03, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

• The result was rejected. ——SerialNumber54129 03:02, 24 July 2019 (UTC)