A fact from Bill Renwick appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 September 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that when Bill Renwick was asked to review a neo-Nazi case at the University of Waikato it was meant to take three weeks, but instead took nearly two years?
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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments4 people in discussion
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.
... that when Bill Renwick was asked to review a neo-Nazi case at the University of Waikato it was meant to take three weeks, but instead took nearly two years? Source: "The initial expectation was that the review could be completed in about three weeks" William Renwick (September 2002), A Review of the Case of Hans Joachim Kupka, p. 167, Wikidata Q113587565 https://unipr.waikato.ac.nz/news/kupka_report/pdf/kupka-report.pdf
ALT1: ... that Director-General of Education Bill Renwick's brothers were a welder and truck-driver, and he wanted to be a carpenter? Source: "His early desire to be a carpenter was soon quashed by the enthusiasm of his teachers, who recommended, to his somewhat bewildered parents, that he return to school for fourth, fifth and sixth-form year" Brown, John (21 August 1975). "Top educator from the 'backwoods'". The Press. Vol. CXV, no. 33927. p. 14. – via PapersPast. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19750821.2.72
ALT2: ... that Bill Renwick organised his international trips around his choir rehearsals and wrote a biography of Uncle Scrim, whose radio programme had inspired his love of singing? Source: "...Mr Renwick's last book being his biography of Uncle Scrim...Listening to Uncle Scrim's programme as a child also awakened Mr Renwick's love of singing...he was probably the only senior civil servant who insisted that where possible overseas travel should be arranged to fit in with the Phoenix Choir's practice times" O'Sullivan, Vincent (3 August 2013). "Leader guided views on education for 25 years". Stuff. https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/obituaries/8998599/Leader-guided-views-on-education-for-25-years
Overall: What little Earwig matched was school and medal names. For anyone double-checking, the source for ALT0 has the verifying content on what is labelled as page 1 (but is the 7th page of the pdf) under the "The conduct of the review" section and the "nearly two years" part is verified by comparing the initial date in that section to the report's date. The other two sources verify the content in quickly obvious places. In the Early life and education section of the article it might help to clarify when "His father was unemployed" before later getting work. Other than that, everything is sourced and a few spot checks verify that the sources actually verify the content, so it looks good to go. I do think ALT0 is the more interesting of the hooks, as ALT1 isn't super interesting; having siblings with professions and wanting to be things when they grow up isn't a particularly interesting hook, and while ALT2 is somewhat more interesting, it's not as interesting as ALT0 which is by far the most interesting (to the point that it alone is what made me choose this DYK to review). - Aoidh (talk) 01:28, 12 September 2022 (UTC)Reply
Aoidh, thank you for the review. Unfortunately the source is not specific about the timing of either the unemployment or employment, so I hesitate to change that, unless more information comes to light. (To quote "Bill Renwick was born at the time of the Great Depression. His father Arthur was unemployed, and he and his wife Agnes went to North Auckland to find relief work. Later in his life, Mr Renwick would take his own young family to visit a paddock at Matakohe with a hay barn that had been the primitive shack where Mr Renwick and his family had lived while his father worked on a road gang.").
As it was the review Renwick wrote for ALT0 that sparked my interest in writing this bio in the first place, I'm very happy for ALT0 to be the hook used. DrThneed (talk) 08:56, 13 September 2022 (UTC)Reply