Talk:Kasbah of Moulay Ismail

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) 22:21, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

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The main gate of the Kasbah of Moulay Ismail

• ... that the royal palace complex of Sultan Moulay Ismail, built between 1672 and 1727 in Meknes, was so vast and elaborate that it was later nicknamed the "Moroccan Versailles"? Source: various books, but two useful web sources can be found here and here; plus googling "Moroccan Versailles" or similar will bring up endless results about Meknes more generally.
  • ALT1:... that the Kasbah of Moulay Ismail, built between 1672 and 1727 in Meknes, was so vast and elaborate that it was later nicknamed the "Moroccan Versailles"? Source: same as other hook; useful web sources can be found here and here.
  • ALT2:... that the royal palace complex of Moulay Ismail (main gate pictured) in Meknes was so extensive that it was nicknamed the "Moroccan Versailles"? Source: same as other hook; useful web sources can be found here and here.

• Comment: The alternate hook is a simpler/shorter version, but I recommended the first version because general readers might not know what "kasbah" means (in this case a kind of citadel or fortified district, usually for the ruler or governor), and adding other details like "Sultan" might help. Happy to help suggest other formulations for some of the details if helpful. I don't think I need to review a nomination yet for QPQ but I did review one earlier, if necessary I can cite it here.

Created by Robert Prazeres (talk). Self-nominated at 06:22, 6 August 2020 (UTC).

• New enough, long enough, no copyvio issue found, generally within policy, including neutrality and citations. This is the author's third (?) DYK nomination, so no QPQ is needed. The hook is interesting, my only concern is that they're both quite long. I understand the desire to add more information, but the audience of the hook is the main page, so we shouldn't need to have them read a long sentence to understand the hook. I agree with your point about keeping the hook understandable for the general audience though. If ALT1 is your preference, my suggestions are

• "royal" and "Sultan" are partially redundant, suggest getting rid of one.
• we can do without "built between 1672 and 1727" - it's not necessary in understanding the Versailles part, and it costs us 30 characters.
• Suggest removing one of "vast" or "elaborate" and also removing "later".

• A general tip for writing hooks: Try to not think of the hook as a representative summary of the article, but as "what is the most interesting part of this subject". HaEr48 (talk) 23:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I think those are all good points and I'm happy to integrate them. I'm still exploring this process a bit so I appreciate the guidance. Should I edit the original hook directly or write another alternate that reflects this? Robert Prazeres (talk) 01:28, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

@Robert Prazeres: I suggest just adding ALT2 below this line or below ALT1. If you have a proposed image to go along with the hook, it can be considered as well. Seeing that you write high-quality articles on interesting topics, I hope you find the DYK process worthwhile to keep participating in :) HaEr48 (talk) 04:13, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I've added ALT2 as per your suggestions. Also happy to consider other improvements (e.g. now that I see it again maybe the word "extensive" is better than "vast"?). As for an image, I'm not sure where in the template to add one now? I figured it might be tricky to pick one but this one would probably be the most appropriate candidate, and I'm happy to suggest a caption. Robert Prazeres (talk) 05:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

@Robert Prazeres: Thank you. I added a template for your selected image, please add the caption. I agree that extensive is better than vast. HaEr48 (talk) 16:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Done. And switched "vast" for "extensive" in ALT2. Robert Prazeres (talk) 17:26, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

The ALT2 hook is good to go now. The length is appropriate, the fact is found and verifiable in the article, the image has an appropriate license and shows up well in the thumbnail size. HaEr48 (talk) 19:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)