Template:Did you know nominations/Puhi Kai Iti / Cook Landing Site

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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 08:33, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Puhi Kai Iti / Cook Landing Site

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Stone obelisk marking James Cook's landing in New Zealand

... ~~that due to reclamation, the monument which marks where James Cook first landed in New Zealand is now over 75 metres (246 ft) from the shore?~~ Source: Department of Conservation, 2006, p. 29 - "By the 1950s reclamation was beginning to undermine the integrity of the site. In 1906 when the monument was unveiled, it was 80 feet from the sea. By 1959 the distance was 250 feet."
- ALT1: ~~... that Puhi Kai Iti / Cook Landing Site takes its name from the feathered streamer on a waka which brought Māori to New Zealand?~~ Source: NZGB Gazetteer - "Puhi Kai Iti was one the puhi (feathered streamers) from the taurapa (sternpost) of the great ocean waka Te Ikaroa-ā-Rauru."

Created by Turnagra (talk). Self-nominated at 19:23, 16 March 2022 (UTC).

Turnagra The original hook you proposed is interesting, but can you find any source confirming the current distance of the monument from the sea? The concern is that it was 250 feet from the sea in 1959; this could have easily changed since then due to further reclamation or erosion, for example. Cielquiparle (talk) 08:10, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Cielquiparle - I haven't been able to find a specific source outlining how far it is from the sea these days, so the closest I've been able to come up with is Google Maps. This has a current distance of 120 metres to the Tūranganui River or 267 metres to the ocean proper at the closest point, both due to expansion of Gisborne port. I've got no idea how suitable that is as a source (probably not very) but hopefully it corroborates some of it at least? Turnagra (talk) 08:41, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

In that case, maybe a Maori hook is better after all...but ALT1 is too complicated somehow. (Simpler tends to be better, preferably with one familiar element that appeals to a broad audience. Also...it's often better if the hook leaves something unanswered that compels you to click to find out more.) Is it possible to simplify ALT1 or propose another one? Or something like...

Monument to James Cook

ALT2: ~~... that the Cook Landing Site (pictured) now also commemorates the Māori who discovered New Zealand four centuries or more before he did?~~Cielquiparle (talk) 16:03, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
ALT2a: ~~... that the Cook Landing Site also commemorates the Māori who discovered New Zealand four centuries before he did?~~
ALT2b: ~~... that the Cook Landing Site (pictured) now also commemorates the Māori who landed in New Zealand four centuries or more before he did?~~Cielquiparle (talk) 09:08, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how ALT1 could be simplified, so might be better to go for something else? I like your proposed ALT2, I also considered this one:

ALT3: ~~... that the monument built to mark the location where James Cook landed in New Zealand isn't actually where he landed?~~ Turnagra (talk) 20:27, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

ALT3 is not OK. For one thing, it seems too generic (arguably many monuments are in the "wrong" place). It also appears to be based on a slight misreading of the source (NZ History). The overall tone of that article is critical and ironic, but it seems the author is sincere that Williams managed to place the original monument within 50m of the actual landing site ("pretty good going for the pre-GPS age"). Meaning, within 50m along the old shoreline, whereas the 75m+ referenced elsewhere is distance from monument to new shoreline (corridor to the sea). As an alternative, I would propose:

Cook Landing Site

ALT4: ... ~~that the monument built to mark the location where James Cook first landed in New Zealand (pictured) is "barely within sight or scent of the sea"?~~

Review: As for the rest of the review: Article is new enough (submitted within 4 days of being created). Long enough. Includes citations. Neutral / balanced, focused on "dual" history of reserve. Earwig flags no copyvio issues. Appears to be exempt from QPQ (first nomination?). Image, if used, is in public domain. So we really are just trying to finalise a hook and make sure it's interesting, accurate, and verified within the article. ALT0 could still be used, with the addition of more evidence within the article to back up the fact that the current distance from shore is at least 75m. ALT1 could be used with a few edits to simplify. ALT2 could be used if we're certain the wording is right (e.g. is it better to say "Māori explorers" or "Māori settlers" instead of "Māori who discovered...")? (Conscious of pre-Maori settlement theories, etc.; at the same time, "discovery" is in the eye of the beholder... But I think a hook along these lines really could be of interest to a broader audience because of just how unpopular Cook statues and monuments are these days; they are regularly vandalised around the world.) Or ALT4, which tries to capture the spirit of ALT0 without committing to exact measurements. One additional comment is that the caption on the image is too long, so it should be shortened based on which hook is put forward. @Turnagra: Thoughts? Cielquiparle (talk) 07:32, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for going through this Cielquiparle - it is my first DYK nomination and I'd missed the QPQ requirement, will definitely be sure to do that in the future! I totally get your point about the controversy around Cook and agree that it'd be better to highlight the dual recognition in the reserve. I think it's fine to say discover, many of the pre-Māori settlement theories are fringe at best and racially-motivated attempts to paint Māori as colonists to justify later colonisation at worst. We could maybe specify the focus which the reserve has on the two waka which settled the area, which may not necessarily be the first Māori to have discovered / explored it. In this case, settled would definitely be a better choice of words. I'd love to have something about the name but I don't think there's a way of doing it that'd be simple enough, so perhaps we stick with ALT2 as above? Turnagra (talk) 07:58, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, Turnagra. To be honest, ALT4 is starting to grow on me because it also raises questions ("why is it not on the shoreline? is it because someone moved it due to controversy, like the Cook statue in Cairns?"). But maybe ALT2 is for the best. (The Cook monument in Yorkshire, England, was spraypainted "Maori's" in 2020...) Cielquiparle (talk) 09:14, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Article is important and informative addition to Wikipedia, great contribution by first-time DYK submitter. Conditionally approved for DYK using ALT2b with image if possible. Strongly recommend using image, precisely because there are so many Cook monuments and memorials around the world... Most people who know James Cook and see "Cook monument" or "Cook landing site" will tend to think of a particular one — perhaps the one that is local to them or that they have visited. The image flags that maybe it's not the one they thought, and the obelisk is sort of a lightning rod (for reasons touched on above). (Think ALT4 is OK too, but someone other than me would have to agree and approve, and after much back and forth we seem to have landed on ALT2, which has been improved to ALT2b.) Cielquiparle (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- UPDATE: Please use ALT2c proposed by evrik below. With image, using caption "Monument to James Cook". Thanks and please let me know if there are any other issues that need to be resolved. Cielquiparle (talk) 15:17, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: are you reviewing this? --evrik ^(talk) 04:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Just identified a few more things that need to be fixed in the article, after cross referencing. Trying to get this approved in as few moves as possible but it also needs to be right, given the sensitivity of the topic. Cielquiparle (talk) 06:00, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Have made the edits to the article lede; think it was mostly a summarisation problem. Review is above. Cielquiparle (talk) 07:49, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Evrik: Could you (or another editor) please review the review? Now that this is on the "Approved" page, I'm seeing best practice requires an outside reviewer to approve the edited hook(s)...though I know there is always a post-review review step anyway. Cielquiparle (talk) 09:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

If you have approved the nomination, you can approve any hooks you did not write. I wrote Alt2a, so you could approve that one. --evrik ^(talk) 14:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@Evrik: Sorry, I didn't realize you had created an ALT2a, which I somehow overwrote thinking I had written it, so I've restored from the history and crossed it out. It's now ALT2b that needs to be reviewed by someone other than me. ALT2a no longer works because the article actually suggests that the Maori may have arrived as early as five centuries prior (hence the new wording "four centuries or more"). Also, we replaced the word "discovered" with "landed" to be more accurate. Cielquiparle (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

How about this?

ALT2c ... that the Cook Landing Site (pictured) also commemorates the Māori who landed in New Zealand four centuries or more before Cook did?

--evrik ^(talk) 14:54, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Better, thank you! Cielquiparle (talk) 15:04, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Strike all the hooks that are not acceptable. Put one more green check at the end to signify this is done. --evrik ^(talk) 15:21, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

DONE. Thanks for your help and the steer. Cielquiparle (talk) 17:12, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

ALT2c to T:DYK/P2 without image