Talk:Reuven Fahn

A fact from Reuven Fahn appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 December 2020 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Galician Jewish scholar Reuven Fahn wrote about the Karaite community of Halicz?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2020/December. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Reuven Fahn.

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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 Yoninah (talk) 21:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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... that Galician Jewish writer Reuven Fahn wrote about the Karaite Jewish community of Halicz? https://library.osu.edu/projects/hebrew-lexicon/02699-files/02699200.pdf ("In later periods of his life, according to his own words, he was influenced by the encounter with the Halicz Karaite community and its unique culture, and also by his intellectual work and studies in Vienna.")
- ALT1:... that Galician Jewish writer Reuven Fahn was able to speak and write Hebrew, German, Yiddish, Polish, and Ukrainian by age 15? https://library.osu.edu/projects/hebrew-lexicon/02699-files/02699200.pdf ("Reuven Fahn was a Wunderkind who could easily speak and write literary Hebrew, German, Yiddish, and apparently, Polish and Ruthenian (Ukrainian) by the age of 15.")

Created by Futurist110 (talk). Self-nominated at 00:17, 11 November 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Article new enough (created on 10 November 2020), long enough (4925 characters (805 words) "readable prose size"), within policy, hook interesting, passes basic hygiene checks. QPQ not done yet. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael ^(marhata) 03:44, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do the QPQ within a couple of/several days. Is that okay? Futurist110 (talk) 04:36, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Futurist110: It is ok; be sure that to not pass the 7 day limit. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael ^(marhata) 15:28, 11 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

QPQ now done here: Template:Did you know nominations/Arube uprising. Futurist110 (talk) 23:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Someone here still needs to approve this DYK? nomination of mine, no? Futurist110 (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As the reviewer has retired from Wikipedia, we need someone else to finish off this nomination. Are you available, Kingsif? Yoninah (talk) 15:59, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

QPQ good. Article created the day before nomination, long and interesting and well-cited. It's not written entirely in Wikistyle, and the biggest issue is that the ALT1 hook fact is in parentheses when it's not clear why - could this be improved? The citation style also needs work. As for the hooks, they're both in there and cited, but I don't really get ALT0. I'm sure it means something to someone really interested in Jewish history, but even with what I consider my above-average knowledge, it doesn't, so I can't see it being widely interesting. ALT1 is fine, so I'm approving that. Any free image to go with it would be good. Kingsif (talk) 18:44, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Kingsif. I'm just looking at the article for the first time and would like to note that this cannot be approved with a tag on the article and with only two sources, one of which is a bald URL. We usually allow for one or two sources if it's some obscure topic, but surely there are more sources to verify his notability? Yoninah (talk) 20:14, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a bit of copying of sentence structure from the YIVO source which could easily be paraphrased in your own words. Yoninah (talk) 20:25, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Yoninah: I had looked at the sources and, as they appear to be high quality encyclopedic ones, assumed they were satisfactory to cover most relevant details. And that the tag wasn't warranted in that case, but I didn't remove it because more sources are always encouraged, I just don't think they're needed. Happy to pass on it until expanded, though. Kingsif (talk) 21:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah: I tried to reduce the close paraphrasing in some parts of this article right now. Hopefully that's good enough for this. As for additional sources, if you noticed, I also posted a link to an article about this guy by Nurit Govrin. I did not feel it necessary to cite this article in this specific Wikipedia article about him because I already had two sources about him, but if you'll look at the Nurit Govrin article about him, you'll notice that a lot of the information that the existing two sources in the "Reuven Fahn" article provide is also confirmed by the information provided in Nurit Govrin's article. Thus, technically speaking, the "Reuven Fahn" article links to three sources--two of which are cited in the article itself and one of which (the Nurit Govrin article) is cited is an additional source at the end of this article. All of these sources appear to be academic and highly respected. So, anyway, what do you think? Futurist110 (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kingsif: For what it's worth, I also have a link to an academic article by Nurit Govrin at the bottom of this article, though I didn't actually use this article in my text. That said, though, you can see that the information in this Nurit Govrin article does, in fact, confirm a lot of the information that the additional two sources that I used for this article provide. Futurist110 (talk) 21:25, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Futurist110 and Yoninah: Hi, I've expanded the article citation and cleaned up the Govrin external link. I've removed the tag because I don't believe more sources are necessary. If you have any more - any news articles included - they are encouraged. I've also added an infobox, I haven't filled out many of the parameters but there are hints on how you can do this when you open the edit window. I've uploaded a photograph of him that is PD in Poland and the U.S., if you wanted to use it for the DYK. Ideally we'd have @Adam Cuerden: clean it up (pinging him if he ever wants to do it), but it should be fine at DYK size. Kingsif (talk) 22:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent; thank you very much, Kingsif! Futurist110 (talk) 22:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have now directly sourced a lot of the information in the Nurit Govrin article directly into this specific (Reuven Fahn) article. What do you think @Kingsif:? Futurist110 (talk) 02:30, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Futurist110: It still has an editorial, brochure-like tone, rather than an encyclopedic one. Pinging @Yoninah: to ask if this should be fixed before approved. I normally would, it's a style thing that can be fixed, all the information and 4 good sources are all there - though his career section needs to be moved up before his death. Kingsif (talk) 12:32, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just how would one make the tone of this article more encyclopedic? Futurist110 (talk) 20:46, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

By removing editorial language to more simply state facts? E.g. from "Early life", change Fahn's father Avraham ha-Levi was a manager in a mine filled with both earth wax and crude oil. Meanwhile, Fahn's mother Zissel was a descendant of Rabbi David ha-Levi Segal (1586–1667), who served in both Krakow and Lwow. Fahn was able to get an excellent education in his childhood thanks to his parents... to simply "Fahn's father, Avraham ha-Levi, was a manager in a mine, while his mother, Zissel, was a descendant of Rabbi David ha-Levi Segal, who had served in both Krakow and Lwow. Due to his parents' standing, Fahn received a good education...". This removes both unnecessary details (components of mine are not related to the importance of the position, only that Avraham was a manager; ancestor's lifespan tangential) and editorial words/phrases (Meanwhile, excellent). Other particularly non-encyclopedic language includes colloquial constructions, even if they're common - just say what you mean - and sentence structure that is storytelling or promotional in nature, watch out for these because even after Yoninah's corrective edits some of this is evident. Also, the more complete sentences and phrases you have in parentheses, the less encyclopedic an article generally is: you're not supposed to be giving long asides to a reader, either work them into the prose or remove them. Kingsif (talk) 01:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kingsif: I have now fixed this article's editorial language to make it more encyclopedic and less prose-like. How does this article look right now? Futurist110 (talk) 01:45, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Restoring tick per improvements and addition of two sources. Like Yoninah said, there are plenty more sources - on the first page of Google there are more sources, but a quick read and nothing really new comes to light. But good opportunity to work on it further when you have the chance. Kingsif (talk) 03:56, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]