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Template:Did you know nominations/King Gong of Chu and King Kang of Chu

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The following discussion 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 Carabinieri (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

King Gong of Chu, King Kang of Chu

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Created/expanded by Zanhe (talk). Self nom at 01:08, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

  • Both articles are new enough, long enough, and sufficiently cited. The hook is short enough, and certainly sounds interesting for April Fools. The only problem I can find is that the article on King Gong uses a mix of both Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters, but that's not big enough of a problem to get in the way of the DYK nom. -- クラウド６６８ 05:41, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the review. I fixed the page to use traditional characters only. --Zanhe (talk) 06:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
"Once upon a time" is about as unencyclopaedic opening to a sentence as is possible: it seems to be present only to use the assonant pun true/Chu, which will be invisible to the vast majority of readers. Unless their reigns were contemporary with each other, it was not once upon a time.
ALT 1 ... that King Gong and King Kang ruled Chu? Kevin McE (talk) 22:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
But April Fools hooks are supposed to be funny, and not use the dry "encyclopedic" language that's normally used. If you don't Ike the literal meaning of the phrase "once upon a time", I can change it to "long long ago". --Zanhe (talk) 08:22, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I cannot see what is remotely funny about the initial proposal, nor about introducing thoroughly unencyclopaedic language. Discussion at WT:MP suggests that there is no compelling consensus for lowering encyclopaedic standards on any given date. What surprise/humour there is presumably rests with the similarity (to Anglophone ears, at least) of the two names to King Kong, a character that does not emanate from the fairy tale genre. Frankly, I'd rather the notion "hey! these foreign names sound funny" be nowhere near an encyclopaedic project, but if they must feature on that basis, let's not undermine them totally. Kevin McE (talk) 10:16, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
For better or worse, drawing attention to funny-sounding names is the kind of sophomoric humour that dominates the April Fool's version of DYK. If it's any consolation, the articles that are linked to are generally pretty solid, and these hooks may induce certain users to read about something other than video games, porn stars, and sports. As for the hook, how about "... that there was once..."? --Orlady (talk) 13:56, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I still don't get the point of trying to present a pseudo-fairy tale setting, simply as a device for being able to describe a kingdom as true, when it is not apparent why anyone should assume that these names are not true. If they were not genuine historic figures, DYK would have to make that clear. Kevin McE (talk) 18:57, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm traveling, so sorry for not being able to respond to your comments promptly and in detail. How about this compromise:

ALT2 ... that there was once a Chu kingdom ruled by King Gong and King Kang?

It's 100% accurate and encyclopedic without being too dull. --Zanhe (talk) 15:42, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there an accent in which the words true and Chu (or some assumption as to how that is pronounced) share anything more than an assonance, because if not, I'm still not getting this. I really don't think we can list non-simultaneous reigns as once. Re content of articles: is there a reason why the end of Gong's reign is not year of the beginning of Kang's? Kevin McE (talk) 18:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
I would like to note that when I passed the hook, the kingdom's name Chu was used instead of the word "true". Personally, I don't really get that part after it was changed to "true", but I thought the part about the kings' names is funny enough for April Fools. -- クラウド６６８ 08:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
I modified the hook to make it sound funnier, but in hindsight it probably didn't work out the way I intended. I've now changed back to the original. --Zanhe (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Here are two more hooks for consideration:
Personally I think the use of "once" was proper as it can mean sometime in the past, but I removed it anyway. The word "true" is no longer used in any of the hooks. Re your question about the kings' reigns, it's customary in Chinese history to start counting a king's reign from the first new year after his succession. --Zanhe (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: this nomination was originally approved for April Fools Day in early March. But in mid-March User:Kevin McE raised questions on almost every DYK nom for April Fools Day including this one. I was traveling for most of March and tried to address his concerns whenever I could, but he stopped responding near the end of March, and the nomination missed April 1. I'm now moving it back to the regular DYK, with April Fools Day-themed hooks stricken out. The remaining hook is easily verified at this reference --Zanhe (talk) 02:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Although I see no problem with the original hook and ALT4 (aside that it may not be "hooky" enough), could someone please give a second opinion regarding this? -- クラウド６６８ 05:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
  • While I think the original hook is not usable, I see no problem with ALT4. You might improve the hooky quality by including length of rule and/or time of rule, e.g.:
I'm not sure "sequentially" is the best word to convey that they weren't joint monarchs, but that seems to be an important desideratum, and was the word I could think of. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:13, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions. How about this:
It clarifies the relationship between the two kings and that they weren't joint monarchs. --Zanhe (talk) 16:22, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
As I've learned the hard way on my own DYK hooks, overly clarifying things can strip out what makes a hook intriguing. In this case, the interesting part is the two kings whose names seem very close to "King Kong". Putting them first grabs the reader's attention; having little separating their names is best, so I've stripped out "his son". I like the "then"—it's simple. How about combining your ALT4 and ALT8 as follows:
ALT9 sounds great. Thanks again for the suggestions! --Zanhe (talk) 17:26, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Rechecked as requested, ALT9 good, hook facts check out in article. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
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