Talk:Nathan Farb

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. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 (talk) 18:22, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

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• ... that Nathan Farb would carry his large-format 8x10 Deardorff view camera into the backcountry of the Adirondack Mountains to capture spectacular scenery far from the areas most people visit?

• Source: "He turned his focus to the Adirondacks when he was nearing 40 and “really distraught and sad, and I had to be alone for a certain period of time,” he said in an interview on “The Leonard Lopate Show” on WNYC in 2005. “I needed to be in the woods.” The most spectacular Adirondacks scenery, he was convinced, was miles from the places most people visit. He made his way there carrying 60 pounds of equipment, including a large-format 8x10 Deardorff camera that allowed him to create images of the natural wonders he had discovered as a child, rendered with extraordinary depth of field and detail." NY Times

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Coral Sea Islands

Created by Thriley (talk), Alansohn (talk), and Planetary Projectionist (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 211 past nominations.

Thriley (talk) 20:09, 15 April 2026 (UTC).

• -- New, long enough, well written, interesting, no copyvio, QPQ done, hook interesting. Please consider dropping "spectacular" from the hook, as it is implicitly subjective; you could keep it in quotations in the hook, but it would look sarcastic. Note how the term is not even present as such in the Sandomir source, nor in the article you wrote -- which actually state that Farb felt the scenery was spectacular. You can in fact quote Sandomir, both in the article and in the hook, for the other expert opinion, namely that the images produced had "extraordinary depth of field and detail". Dahn (talk) 15:38, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

• ALT1 that Nathan Farb would carry his large-format 8x10 Deardorff view camera into the backcountry of the Adirondack Mountains to photograph the "natural wonders he had discovered as a child"? Thriley (talk) 02:54, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
• @Thriley: I cannot locate the exact quote in Shaw. If it is from another source, please review and change the citation accordingly. Dahn (talk) 04:05, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I fixed the issue. I forgot to add the correct citation. Thriley (talk) 18:38, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

• ALT1 good to go. Dahn (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment from promoter @Thriley and Dahn: There's some WP:CLOP from Adirondack Life that needs to be cleaned up before this can be promoted. Dclemens1971 (talk) 16:03, 27 April 2026 (UTC)
    • @Dclemens1971: There isn't. It is at a 30% certainty, and that percentage, upon an examination I had already made, relies on two strings of words that are not identical (and can't really be rephrased), plus a direct quote, quote marks and all. Dahn (talk) 16:07, 27 April 2026 (UTC)
      • Compare the two passages. This is absolutely close paraphrasing. Happy to ping in a copyright expert if you still disagree. Dclemens1971 (talk) 16:13, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Source: His mother later moved them to Lake Placid when she married his stepfather, Alfred Kahn, a rabbi and Talmudic scholar 25 years her senior. Kahn conducted services at the small synagogue in Lake Placid whenever he could get a minyan, most often in the summer. In the winter there were usually not enough Jewish men in town to read the Torah. Instead, he became a “traveling rabbi,” serving as Jewish chaplain to various sanitariums in Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake. But he didn’t drive, so Nathan’s mother had to, meaning young Nathan had to go, too. Nathan was a reluctant student of the Torah. The Hebrew alphabet, like all letters and written language, seemed to him opaque, like magic symbols. Instead, while his parents conducted services, Nathan would go by himself into the nearby woods, forging the deep association between wilderness and spirituality that guides him still.... There were few Jews in town. Nathan and his family lived in the working-class section, where resentment, misunderstanding and anti-Semitism persisted, and where, at 11, a gang of boys in the neighborhood attacked, beat and stripped him naked. When his stepfather died in 1953, his mother moved them to New York City, then across the river to Hackensack, New Jersey.

Article: She and Nathan moved to Lake Placid, New York, when she married Alfred Kahn, a rabbi and a Talmudic scholar who was 25 years older than she. There were few Jews in Lake Placid, and the family lived in the working-class section of town where anti-Semitic attitudes lingered. When Farb was 11 years old, he was stripped naked and beaten by a gang of neighborhood boys. Kahn conducted services at the small synagogue in Lake Placid whenever there was a minyan (the required quorum of ten Jewish adults), which happened mostly in the summer. During the winter there were usually not enough Jewish men in town to read the Torah. Consequently, Kahn served as an itinerant Jewish chaplain to several sanitariums in the villages of Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, both within the boundaries of Adirondack Park. Because he didn't drive, Bertha drove Kahn to the various communities he served, and young Nathan had to come along. While his parents were at services, Nathan would retreat by himself into the nearby woods, where he developed a deep connection with nature and spirituality. Hiking and camping in the Adirondacks was a formative part of his life. When his stepfather died in 1955, his mother moved with him to New York City, then across the river to Hackensack, New Jersey.

As stated, only two small portions of the greentext you're dumping here are even remotely alike -- this may be very hard to see when all the text is green, but anyone can click on the Earwig link and see the portions highlighted in red. Then they can look at: "His mother later moved them to Lake Placid when she married his stepfather, Alfred Kahn, a rabbi and Talmudic scholar 25 years her senior" and compare it with: "She and Nathan moved to Lake Placid, New York, when she married Alfred Kahn, a rabbi and a Talmudic scholar who was 25 years older than she", and, using basic human reasonableness, which is supposed to override machine-fed false positives, determine that these are not (a) close paraphrasing and/or (b) phrases you could rearrange in many other ways -- short of omitting info, or short of making Alfred Kahn into a Catholic priest or a Tibetan lama, to avoid the "close paraphrasing" of where we mention that he was a rabbi. Let's not be overzealous for the sake of being overzealous. Dahn (talk)

Per WP:CLOP, close paraphrasing "is the superficial modification of material from another source." This is what's done here, modifying words here and there but with one exception in the order completely recycling the sentence structure and order of the source material. But while I see a lot of CLOP as a new page reviewer, I don't think of myself as a copyright expert so I will ping true expert GreenLipstickLesbian for a second opinion on whether this passage should be considered CLOP. Dclemens1971 (talk) 17:19, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

I propose we call his parents progenitors and render his father's profession as "Jewish clergyman" instead of "rabbi". We can also use "some town or another" instead of "Lake Placid". Dahn (talk) 17:26, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Nah. "Progenitors" sounds pompous, and has too many syllables; ""some town or another" is not at all encyclopedic language. Carlstak (talk) 17:16, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Happy to give a second opinion!

At first glance, I agree that I am seeing a bit of text which appears a bit too closely paraphrased from the sources -- I'm not that worried about words that overlap (after all, there's only so many ways to describe the US-Soviet detente and a parent), but some of the structure does seem to be pulled a bit too much from the sources, in my opinion. Not the biggest deal, and it's the sort of close paraphrasing that occurs very easily when you write with the source in one tab and the article in the other. (Hence why most of my major Wikipedia writing now follows a two-step process: a phase where I take the most concise, choppy, unpolished notes possible on as many sources as I can get my hands on, and then a stage where I write new content, based pretty much exclusively on those notes)

Taking one of the obvious sentences, There were few Jews in Lake Placid, and the family lived in the working-class section of town where anti-Semitic attitudes lingered. When Farb was 11 years old, he was stripped naked and beaten by a gang of neighborhood boys, and compare it to At the time, the Lake Placid Club, founded by the anti-Semite Melvil Dewey, inventor of the library cataloging system, still dominated the village. There were few Jews in town. Nathan and his family lived in the working-class section, where resentment, misunderstanding and anti-Semitism persisted, and where, at 11, a gang of boys in the neighborhood attacked, beat and stripped him naked. It's starting to be a good paraphrase, but they read very similarly. If I was going to write a brief description of Farb's childhood, based on that, I'd probably do something like this:

• family moved to a working-class area of Lake Placid
• Not many Jewish people in Lake Placid
• antisemitism impacted Farb; source gives an example of an incident when he was eleven, he was beaten and stripped by neighborhood boys

I'd then do the same thing with the New York Times article:

• Family moved to Lake Placid after mother's marriage

And then I'd summarize my notes like this:

After their marriage, his mother and stepfather moved to a working class area of Lake Placid. The town itself did not have a sizeable Jewish population, and Farb dealt with antisemitism from the other residents. In an incident when he was eleven, he was beaten and stripped by neighborhood boys.

And that's what I'd end up rewriting those sentences as, most likely. (though, obviously, this isn't the only way you could write it) I've still got the important details (antisemistism, when they moved, that one example), but there's not really any creative language remaining. anti-Semitism persisted isn't the same exact phrase as anti-Semitic attitudes lingered, few Jews in [NAME OF LOCATION] isn't bad in isolation, and neither is family lived in the working-class section, but all together, I think it's a bit much, they've got the same creative spirit and framing. I'd also try to look for any other sources on Farb's early childhood; I tend to find that if I'm writing more than one or two sentences based only from one source, I'm going to end up with some form of article tunnel vision, whether that's with respect to WP:BALANCE or close paraphrasing. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 05:45, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

There are not many sources on Farb's childhood, I looked. Christopher Shaw is the editor of Adirondack Life and taught writing at Middlebury College. At least he's a good source, given what we have to work with. Carlstak (talk) 17:33, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

@Carlstak: Any thoughts about this? Could you perhaps paraphrase some of the information you added? Thriley (talk) 04:35, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm impressed by GreenLipstickLesbian's assessment. I'll be happy to give it a go after my late breakfast. Carlstak (talk) 14:50, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Alright, I've applied the principle of parsimony to GreenLipstickLesbian's suggested text and changed the text in the article to "After their marriage, his mother and stepfather moved to a working class blue-collar area of Lake Placid, a town with a small Jewish population. There Farb encountered anti-Semitism, and when he was eleven he was stripped of his clothes and beaten by neighborhood boys." Anything else? Carlstak (talk) 17:16, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

So what is the status of the article? I was summoned here, responded, and expanded the article. Now it's as if this nomination is frozen. What is going on? Carlstak (talk) 02:59, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

@Carlstak: I believe my original review/approval still stands, as all criteria were met and all of the changes made since were cosmetic (and since, IMHO, nothing in the text before them would have disqualified your fine article). It just appears that preppers are taking their time. Dahn (talk) 09:20, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Dahn, much appreciated. I wouldn't call it my article, but Nathan Farb deserves a good article. I like to believe that maybe his consciousness still exists somewhere.;-) Carlstak (talk) 14:53, 11 May 2026 (UTC)