Template:Did you know nominations/A Little Lower Than the Angels (novel)

A Little Lower Than the Angels (novel)

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• ... that Latter-Day Saint Apostle John A. Widtsoe gave A Little Lower than the Angels a negative review for Virginia Sorensen's portrayal of Joseph Smith as an "ordinary, insipid milk and water figure"? Source: Howe, Susan Elizabeth (2002). "Virginia Sorensen's A Little Lower Than the Angels and John A. Widtsoe; A Lesson in Literary History". Annual (Association for Mormon letters): 87–94.
  • ALT1:... that Virginia Sorensen's main characters in A Little Lower than the Angels were based on her own grandparents, who brought books across the plains as pioneers? Source: Sorensen, Virgina (1980). "'If You Are a Writer, You Write!': an interview with Virginia Sorensen". Dialogue. 13: 17–36.

Created by Bassknight(byu) (talk). Self-nominated at 21:39, 6 November 2020 (UTC).

• New enough, long enough, neutrally written, well referenced. As most sources are offline, unable to check for close paraphrasing. No QPQ needed for nominator with less than 5 DYK credits.
• Please look at how I edited the article to bring it in line with other Wikipedia book articles.
• Neither hook is accurate. ALT0 is rather wordy and includes a quote that doesn't appear in the article. ALT1 is so-so in terms of interest but the article says it was her great-grandparents, not her grandparents. If you have any corrections or new hook ideas, please add them to the bottom of this thread. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 00:06, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Yoninah: Thank you for your help with this article! This is my first original article, and definitely was showing it. How flexible can these hooks be grammar-wise? I know that they need to be quotes from the article itself, but most of the sentences in the article don't make sense on their own without the context/antecedents. Should I edit the article to repeat book and person names more frequently? My next best idea for a hook would be from the "Publication" section: "The success of the novel outside of Utah was credited in some part to the open way Sorensen portrayed this early Mormon culture in a human, unthreatening way." I'll work with Rachel to get you something better. Thank you again! Bassknight(byu) (talk)

• Article tagged for paid contributions —valereee (talk) 13:12, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

• @Valereee: this is no different than other editors who have (byu) in their usernames. They use the LDS library to write about LDS subjects, but try to be factual and impartial. This is a new editor who is still learning Wikipedia style. Yoninah (talk) 19:32, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Yoninah, his user page says he's paid by the library to create articles about them. —valereee (talk) 19:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee: This is the same statement given by User:Rachel Helps (BYU), our first and longtime BYU editor, and User:Cstickel(byu). Yoninah (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Yoninah, do we have consensus on whether this is a major COI or not? I've seen Rachel Helps around before, but the statement that "I am an employee at the Harold B. Lee library at Brigham Young University (BYU), hired to write and edit Wikipedia articles related to the University and its history" is pretty plain. Have we had an RfC on this at COIN? —valereee (talk) 20:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

valereee I am not aware of any consensus. I've been reviewing these articles for years and they all seem straightforward and impartial. Yoninah (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Yoninah, I'm really uncomfortable with it. If we haven't had one, maybe we need an RfC. I believe the Mormons are a well-intentioned lot. I don't believe they'd intentionally violate our rules. That doesn't mean they don't have a COI that needs to be examined. —valereee (talk) 20:13, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Valereee: OK, go ahead and open an RfC. These are the 3 editors that I'm aware of. Yoninah (talk) 20:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)