Talk:Clara MacBeth

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A fact from Clara MacBeth appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 November 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Clara MacBeth lived on a cruise ship for over a decade?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Clara MacBeth.

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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. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 00:17, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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... that Clara MacBeth spent US$20 million to live on a cruise ship? Source: Crossley, Harley (2013) [2009]. From Ocean Liner to Cruise Ship: The Marine Art of Harley Crossley. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4456-2345-0. Retrieved 2022-10-16 – via Google Books.
The book notes: "Several passengers lived on board the year round and Mrs Clara MacBeth lived on the ship for fifteen years, spending an estimated $20 million in fares! Caronia was one of the biggest earners of dollars for Britain in the 1950s and 1960s."
- ALT1: ... that Clara MacBeth spent US$20 million to live on a cruise ship for over a decade?
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Dale Haney

Created by Cunard (talk). Self-nominated at 21:58, 16 October 2022 (UTC).[reply]

I'll review this one, if I may.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 22:53, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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: Long enough and new enough. QPQ done, etc. But Cunard, on what ship the waiter worked for? On the Caronia or the Franconia? There is a difference on that in the lead and in the last section. And I'll suggest an additional Alt:

- Alt2 ... that Clara MacBeth spent US$20 million to live on a cruise ship of the Cunard Line for over a decade? Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:39, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thank you for the review and for catching this error, Paradise Chronicle (talk · contribs)! The correct ship is the Caronia. I've fixed this in the article. The ALT2 hook also looks good to me. Cunard (talk) 03:51, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the wait. I approve all three, but the Alt2 is mainly in memory of our editor Cunard. So if there is any concern, that I suggested the hook the prepper can also go with the original Alts.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 13:50, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Uh oh, Cunard, you know you have to disclose COI editing! :P theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 00:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Costs

The daily cost of living on the ship for her and Madoline LaBelle Frank, the widow who joined her, was $396. Without accounting for inflation, Cunard Line received $4 million from her in tickets. While living on the ship, the fares approximately cost MacBeth $20 million, according to a 2013 book.

This section is confusing and contradictory. It seems we have three different sources claiming three vastly different amounts spent on tickets - $2 million ($396 x 365 x 14), $4 million, and $20 (!) million. I can't access the first source, and it's not even totally clear to me that it's talking about ticket prices at all as opposed to on-ship expenses (although it would be weird for that to be a fixed amount). But the second and third clearly disagree with each other. IMO neither are really reliable sources. One is an art book and one is a coffee-table-style photo book, and their mentions of MacBeth are extremely brief, uncited, and in one case it even specifically calls the amount "estimated." Obviously at least one of these sources can't be trusted because of how different their numbers are, and IMO we should simply trust neither and remove this information until we can find a better one. -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that the $20 million number might be inflation adjusted - that lines up if $2 million is the correct non-adjusted amount. But considering the book doesn't even give us enough information to conclude that as more than a guess... -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:17, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Needless to say I also think it is a problem that this is about to be used as a DYK hook - bringing this up there as well. -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

theleekycauldron removed a previous "inflation adjusted" before the $20M figure as WP:SYNTH, which I agree that it is, but I think the solution here is to not include that figure at all. The cited source is a one-sentence passing mention in a brief entry in an art book, so I wouldn't call that an RS. As to $2M vs. $4M, I'm not sure either. "$396 each" would explain the discrepancy, but I don't see the figure in the first source cited for it, can't find "Pencil Me In" on newspapers.com, and don't have access to "Hard-to-believe facts fill new record book". -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 03:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]