Template:Did you know nominations/Eddie Gallagher (soldier)

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 Yoninah (talk) 12:54, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Eddie Gallagher (soldier)

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... that Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who had been accused of murder, was transferred to "less restrictive confinement" by direct presidential intervention, the first such transfer since William Calley's in 1971? Transfer: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1111965027483951105 . First since 1971: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-war-crime-pardons-could-be-his-most-nixonian-moment-yet/2019/05/20/c212d954-7b19-11e9-8bb7-0fc796cf2ec0_story.html It's an opinion piece but similar insights are elsewhere on the Internet, so not novel synthesis.
- ALT1:... that Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who had been accused of murder, was transferred to "less restrictive confinement" by direct presidential intervention? Same source as above

Reviewed: Lawrence Minard
Comment: ALT1 is the same but shorter, although it misses one interesting fact. Note: Considering the accusations at hand, I'd like to avoid a "via Twitter" hook, suggesting it was due to Fox & Friends lobbying, or anything that's too playful. Best keep this entry serious.

Created by SnowFire (talk). Self-nominated at 04:34, 27 May 2019 (UTC).

This interesting article is new enough and long enough. The hook facts are cited inline and either hook could be used, the article is neutral and I detected no copyright or plagiarism issues. A QPQ has been done. How long is the court-martial likely to take? It would be better to run this, suitably updated, after its conclusion I would have thought. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea how long the court martial will take. I agree it'd be nice to know the conclusion - this article was originally timed such that if President Trump had indeed made a dramatic Memorial Day pardon, it would have been ready to go on the spot. That didn't happen, and the trial was delayed, so who knows. I suspect we may have a "a watched pot never boils" problem here; once we run the hook, the trial will probably conclude the next day, regardless of when the hook is ran. :( SnowFire (talk) 18:28, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

He was just found not guilty of most of the charges against him. The article should be updated. Does this affect the hook in any way? Yoninah (talk) 22:31, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Yoninah: Article has been updated. Yes, it does, mostly in updating the tenses to make clear he's no longer (legally) accused of murder. I've done the above (@Cwmhiraeth: if you want to take a look). We could also do a more ITN-y hook here than a DYK-ish one, and have something like:

ALT2:... that Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL, was ~~just~~ recently acquitted of murder partially due to a surprise confession by a witness claiming he was the murderer himself?"

I am fine with keeping the original hook though, to be clear, just throwing this out there. SnowFire (talk) 01:00, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Approving ALT2, but changing "just" to "recently". I prefer it to the original hooks which read awkwardly with the change of tense, and are less relevant now that he has been acquitted. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:01, 3 July 2019 (UTC)