Template:Did you know nominations/Deans Cottage, Riccarton House, William Deans

Deans Cottage, Riccarton House, William Deans

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( Article history links:

• Deans Cottage
• Riccarton House
• William Deans

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Riccarton House in 2010

• ... that neither of the Canterbury, New Zealand, pioneers, William and John Deans, moved from their 1843 cottage to the 1856 homestead (pictured) built on their estate? Source: "This cottage, their second, was also built in 1843,..."Deans Cottage heritage registration; "Riccarton House was the centre of Canterbury society for many years. The house was built in three stages. The first dates from 1856 and was built for Jane Deans (1823–1911), the widow of John Deans (1820–1854), one of the earliest permanent Pakeha settlers in Canterbury." Riccarton House and Bush; William Deans (died 1851) and John Deans (died 1854) were both dead by the time John's widow Jane moved into Riccarton House in 1856. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography entry

• Reviewed: Residential red zone, Kate Jeffery, Adenike Oladosu
• Comment: Three new articles to complement the existing articles for John and Jane Deans. I have one DYK credit and will add two more credits as I review articles. UPDATE: added a review; one to go. UPDATE2: Now added a third and final review.

Created by Schwede66 (talk). Self-nominated at 18:33, 9 February 2020 (UTC).

• Starting review --valereee (talk) 11:30, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

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:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: --valereee (talk) 11:30, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• William Deans: new enough, long enough, adequate sourcing. Neutral. No obvious copyvio. Hook info is not in this article, but it would be an awkward insertion; the sentence giving his death date is sufficient, and it has a citation. --valereee (talk) 12:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• Riccarton House: new enough, long enough, adequate sourcing. Neutral. I think the hook support sentence is probably Riccarton House was commissioned by Jane Deans (1823–1911) after the death of her husband, John Deans (1820–1854). but that sentence does not have a citation. No obvious copyvio. --valereee (talk) 12:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• Deans Cottage: new enough, long enough, adequate sourcing. A couple of sentences confused me, I tagged them with explanations in the edit summary. Neutral. Hook assertion is supported by sentences giving the Deans' death dates, which have citations. No obvious copyvio. --valereee (talk) 12:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not in love with the hook. William is kind of shoehorned in, since he had zero to do with the house. John Deans would have been easier to work in, since we know he did plan to live there. Are there other possible hooks? Or maybe tweak it to 'William Dean's brother John' died before he could blah blah blah' or something? --valereee (talk) 12:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Ping Schwede66 --valereee (talk) 14:19, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks; have attended to the requested clarifications. That should be all good now. With regards to the hook, let me give some context. The Deans family is super-well known in Canterbury. The two brothers were the first Europeans to get established on the Canterbury Plains (most Cantabrians would know that); the main contingent of settlers arrived seven years after them. That made them the providers of all sorts of services to the newcomers. There are heaps of notable descendants that carry that family name (Robbie Deans, Bruce Deans, Bob Deans, Austen Deans; there's a ton of others who don't have articles yet) and that is commonly known. The Riccarton estate with the last remaining stand of lowland forest (Riccarton Bush; I'll write a proper article soon) and Riccarton House are super-well known; there's a popular Saturday market on the grounds. What most people would be unaware of is that neither of the brothers ever lived in Riccarton House. In that sense, I suggest that the hook is in fact excellent. :-) I can see your concern regarding Riccarton House not even mentioned in William Deans' article but if that's stopping us, I can add that fact. What do you think? Schwede66 20:43, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Schwede66, Nah, I don't think adding the fact to William's article helps that article at all, and that's the whole point of this exercise: make the articles better. :) I totally get that to Cantabrians (God I love demonyms) this is a surprising and therefore interesting fact. My concern was more whether that makes it 'interesting to a general audience.' I'd like to provide just even one more alt you'd be happy with, just even what really only amounts to a rewording as per the suggestions above, to give a promoter who has the same concern another choice without them having to open the nom back up again. --valereee (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, well, here's a couple of pioneers who live in a little shack and neither of them moves into the homestead built on their property just 13 years later. What's not interesting about that, either to a general or specific audience? Schwede66 22:17, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Hold on, I'll go ask for some opinions on 'general interest'...--valereee (talk) 11:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Hooks that require backstory explanations to become hooky are rarely great hooks, especially if the hooks themselves are too technical or vague. Speaking as someone with no knowledge about the subject matter, if I were to read the hook as is, I would not find it interesting as I would not know the details or the context. When it comes to writing a hook, you need to gain people's attention on the first read, and you need to make readers get it even if they know little-to-nothing about the subject. Hooks on niche subjects can and do work, but what's important is that they appeal to general audiences, not only to the smallest of niches or only to experts. With that in mind, I would suggest proposing other hooks, as the earlier proposed one is unlikely to be understood by general readers. Otherwise, if no suitable hook can be proposed that mentions all of the currently bolded articles, the I'm afraid that the only other option would be to propose separate hooks for each subject, as opposed to one hook for all of them. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:13, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll provide a fourth opinion. I agree that if a backstory is needed, it is definitely not going to fit into one small hook. I suggest maybe playing around with two hooks (one of them for one article, and the second for the other two) or three separate hooks. For example, I would propose a hook about how the Riccarton House was built 13 years after the Deans Cottage, or something like that. Then something else for William Deans. epicgenius (talk) 01:16, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

The original hook is not uninteresting, but it's a bit misleading as it implies they didn't move to the homestead out of choice. A more accurate and more interesting hook would be:

• ALT1: ... that neither of the Canterbury, New Zealand, pioneers, William and John Deans, lived to move from their 1843 cottage to the 1856 homestead (pictured) built on their estate? Gatoclass (talk) 03:23, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

• Excellent. Thanks, Gatoclass. That’ll do the trick. Schwede66 08:50, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Actually, having taken a closer look at the articles, it does appear as Valereee suggested that William Deans looks a bit tacked on, as the house evidently wasn't planned for him. So the hook might need a little more work after all. Gatoclass (talk) 11:03, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Schwede66, great! I think that solves it for me. Gatoclass, I can live with the William article included, with ALT1 as the hook, thanks for the suggestion! Good to go with ALT1!--valereee (talk) 13:57, 28 February 2020 (UTC)