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A fact from Christmas (surname) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 January 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the origin of Christmas is uncertain?
Latest comment: 2 years ago9 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.
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
There's a long list of people who had this surname, and another list of several fictional characters that had it. But only the "Joe Christmas" Faulkner character merits his own section in the article, in addition to a separate mention in the opening paragraph. I think that the two links to Light in August that are included with the "Joe Christmas" entry in the list of fictional characters are sufficient, and that the separate mention in the first paragraph and the entire section at the end should be eliminated.
I can explain why I added it, and let you decide on if you think it warrants inclusion? When I was checking sources of the history, a lot of sources showed up about the importance of the surname of Joe Christmas. I was intrigued. The Light in August article barely names the characters, and I wasn't interested in researching them, so adding detail on one character's name (not even the character), and nothing on the others, felt it would tip the balance of that article. And, of course, the detail is about the last name, which is pertinent to "Christmas (surname)" as a topic; it feels less uneven included here. As for why it is mentioned in the lead - as you note, there is a paragraph about it. To follow MOS:LEAD, it is appropriate to introduce/mention in the lead every point that has significant coverage in the article, as an overview of the topic. In short, if the significance of Christmas as the surname of this character is one of the more prominent things people have to say about the surname, it feels appropriate that it is in the article. If covered in the article, it gets mentioned in the lead. "Eliminated" is a rather extreme verb choice, in any case - the information is encyclopedic and since it's been added, Wikipedia in general prefers it go somewhere rather than be removed. Kingsif (talk) 23:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)Reply