Talk:Paul Needham (librarian)

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 AirshipJungleman29 talk 21:58, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that librarian Paul Needham has been called "the most vociferous voice from within the rare book world" for the destruction of book bindings made of human skin? Source: Rosenbloom, Megan. "The First Printing". Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 27–28. ISBN 978-0-374-13470-9.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/History of philosophy
  • Comment: There might also be something doable about finding the Christopher Columbus letter -- a couple good candidates here.

Moved to mainspace by Vaticidalprophet (talk). Self-nominated at 11:02, 5 July 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Paul Needham (librarian); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Eligibility is good, hook is interesting but must be reworded. Maybe: ...that librarian Paul Needham is one of the most prominent voices in the rare book world in favor of destroying books bound in human skin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isthistwisted (talk • contribs) 23:21, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
  • The trouble is that's not actually accurate -- he's not in favour of destroying the books, but removing their bindings and replacing them with non-anthropodermic ones. Vaticidalprophet 23:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
• Full review needed (has been listed on 'old nominations' for several weeks). Vaticidalprophet 02:58, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
  • I will review this, because I understand that the earlier review has been abandoned (or not Isthistwisted?)
    • The article is a fresh GA and thus eligible.
    • The article clearly has over 1500 characters of readable prose.
    • The article is sourced. I did spot checks on a few sources and they checked out.
    • The article is written in a neutral and non-promotional tone.
    • Earwig did pick up some similar phrasing, but after review I found them harmless.
    • Hook
      • The hook has the right length and is interesting.
      • I added the necessary inline citation directly after the hook.
      • One concern: The hook could be read in a way that suggests that Needham instigated the specific binding's destruction. The source, however, only suggests that he called (unsuccessfully) for the binding's destruction (or its burial). I would thus suggest a rephrasing of the hook that makes this clear. Furthermore, I would suggest using a more neutral term then "destruction" - something like "calling for the rebinding" or so. I will, however, not make my approval depended on this, because the (quality) source speaks itself of the binding's destruction.
    • QPQ done
    • Conclusion: Thank you very much for creating free knowledge, Vaticidalprophet! I will approve this nomination if the issue with the hook is dealt with. WatkynBassett (talk) 20:13, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
      • Thank you! How do you feel about 'supporting the destruction', like so?
        • ... that librarian Paul Needham has been called "the most vociferous voice from within the rare book world" for supporting the destruction of book bindings made of human skin?
      • (a little clunky, but probably most accurate?) Vaticidalprophet 11:44, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
        • Thanks! I would approve this – but still struggle a bit with "destruction". Would you also be fine with:
        • "... that librarian Paul Needham has been called "the most vociferous voice from within the rare book world" for supporting the rebinding of books made of human skin?"
        • If not I will approve your version. WatkynBassett (talk) 19:25, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
        • (sorry forgot to ping) Vaticidalprophet WatkynBassett (talk) 05:58, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
          • hmm. The delay in reply is because I'm not sure here. I can see the case for either -- I'm not sure 'rebinding' is meaningful to a broad audience, but I understand the query of 'destroying'. It might be best to leave the decision between the two to prepbuilder judgement. Vaticidalprophet 17:51, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
          • That is a very thoughtful idea! Approving - the choice between "destruction" (ALT1) and "rebinding" (ALT2) is explicitly left to the promoter:
          • ALT1: "... that librarian Paul Needham has been called "the most vociferous voice from within the rare book world" for supporting the destruction of book bindings made of human skin?"
          • ALT2: "... that librarian Paul Needham has been called "the most vociferous voice from within the rare book world" for supporting the rebinding of books made of human skin?"
          • WatkynBassett (talk) 18:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
• Unpromoted per WT:DYK and WP:ERRORS RoySmith (talk) 20:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
  • @RoySmith: As the person who approved the hook I would be happy, if I could be pinged in the future on WT:DYK. In addition, I struggle a bit to see why the promoted hook was removed: It is clearly established that Needham has been called the "most vociferous voice from within the rare book world". The source says "for the bindings destruction" – to find a more neutral term then "destruction" I suggested "rebinding" because Needham himself does not see his proposal as a "destruction", but as a call for a proper burial (see e.g. here: NYRB) and the hook outside the quotation marks is written in wiki-voice. In my mind the possibility that someone would read this hook and come to the conclusion that the whole book (and not only its binding) is made out of human remains is quite remote – furthermore it seems a bit clunky to write "for supporting the rebinding of book bindings made of human skin." But as I understand the rules I cannot intervene any longer as the original reviewer – right? WatkynBassett (talk) 17:45, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
    • WatkynBassett, the issue was that the "most vociferous voice from within the rare book world" in the source relates to one specific book; it says nothing about Anthropodermic bibliopegy in general. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:49, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
      • @AirshipJungleman29: If the usage of plural is the issue, because the cited source speaks about one book in particular, would "... for supporting the rebinding of a book made of human skin?" thus using the singular alleviate your concern? WatkynBassett (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

From WT:DYK, this was my suggested alternate hook:

• ALT3: ... that the librarian Paul Needham has argued for the "respectful burial of the human remains" included in a book bound in human skin?

Not sure if this solves the problem (I am not sure I understand what the problem is). —Kusma (talk) 10:56, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

• Reviewer needed (again) to assess this hook, I think. Vaticidalprophet 14:05, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
• Stagnant for over a week so I'll take this on. Comments/approval to come! ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 13:02, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

• Happy to approve ALT3! No other issues with the article itself and it appears it passed review multiple times with the exception of the hook anyway, so this should be good to go. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 13:28, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Paul Needham (librarian)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 20:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Yadda yadda ping if I don't do it within the week. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

• Lead is clear and concisely summarizes the article, no gripes
• "first person to be promoted to senior librarian" - did the post not exist before or what?
• "William H. Scheide [de; ru] bequeathed the Schiede family's full collection of rare books to Princeton" can there be a little context as to who these guys are?
• "Needham spoke to NPR about the experience" it might be interesting to see what he said
• "before he became employed himself by the" I think "before he worked for" or "prior to his employment with" might be simpler
• Going from Needham helped expose the forgery to "Needham was a contributor to Galileo's O, a 2011 essay compilation analysing the book." makes it seem like Needham was contributing information about it being a forgery to that book. Only later do we learn it was a supportive assessment. Can we revise?
• I think it might be worth saying what Houghton had done that Needham objected to
• I swear to god at some point I was told that sentences with quotations had to be immediately followed by a reference, even when it covered the rest of the paragraph. I can't find it at MOS:QUOTE, WP:QUOTE, or WP:CITE, but...maybe consider this for the quotations about human skin books, just in case future revisions distance the citation from the quote.
• "Selected works that Needham has been involved with" - shouldn't this be a "Selected works" section, bulleted?

No serious prose gripes, and I think it's safe to treat what's above as suggestions rather than anything prohibitive of a pass. No concerns about reliability of sourcing, no CV or close para detected (Earwig hits are proper nouns). Spot checks of Dark Archives and other accessible news sources didn't turn up any concerns. Sole photo is appropriate and correctly licensed. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.