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Template:Did you know nominations/William S. Hillyer

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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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

DYK toolbox

William S. Hillyer

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William S. Hillyer
William S. Hillyer
  • ... that William S. Hillyer (pictured) was the last surviving staff member of General Ulysses S. Grant who died at 43 while Grant was president? — Sources:Boatner, 1959, p.402;  WorthPoint Corporation, Essay, 2020
  • Created January 14, 2020 by Gwillhickers (talk). Self-nominated at 01:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC).
  • I'll be reviewing this. The "while Grant was president" strikes me as original research, how about
Also, it's good practice to clip Newspapers.com articles so that they're publicly accessible. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:46, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
@Gwillhickers: Please change your refs to {{sfn}} as I have started to do, it's a much better practice. I'll start the actual review soon. Thanks! – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Don't want to fill up the review with anything other than DYK criteria issues. See Talk, below. --
  • The newspaper sources are linked. Not sure what you mean when you say "clip Newspaper articles". -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I mean something like this. This is preferred since Newspapers.com is generally behind a paywall while the clippings are not. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:15, 19 January 2020 (UTC)


General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
  • Cited: Yes - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
  • Interesting: Yes
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
QPQ: Done.

Overall: This is for ALT1, not the original hook. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:08, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

  • Are you considering this general phrase i.e."'appointed Provost Marshal General of the Department of the Tennessee as close paraphrasing? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Not necessarily that particular phrase, but please do look at the Copyvio detector to see the extent of the similarities and edit the text accordingly. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:34, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Working on it now. My apologies for the oversight. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:49, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
ALT1 is too bland. Original hook better ties in with the narrative, that Hillyer, a staff member and good friend of Grant, died at a relatively young age, during Grant's presidency. Original hook was well under 200 characters. Would you please reconsider? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 03:02, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Could you quote the single source that explicitly says the Hillyer died during Grant's presidency, preferably in a single sentence? Otherwise it's synthesis which isn't allowed. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 03:05, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
SYNTH is only an issue if we are trying to advance an unusual or highly unlikely issue not supported by the sources. Hillyer died in 1874, during Grant's presidency. While I don't know off hand if any of the sources say that Hillyer died during Grant's presidency, verbatim, the hook is supported by the facts in the narrative, esp since President Grant was at Hillyer's bedside during his final days. Editors are allowed to make obvious deductions, as is practiced throughout WP. I was speaking in Wikipedia's voice, as an editor who has assessed the sources. Editors determine which sources are credible and which are not, as you did. Likewise, we determine which statements of fact are allowed, regardless if any given source doesn't spell this out for us. Yes? Imo, the original hook, all things considered historically, has the most punch, and leads into the following narrative. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:29, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
That might very well be so, and after thinking about it for a while I've decided you have a point. However, I'd like to rewrite it a bit as follows:
ALT2:... that William S. Hillyer (pictured), the last surviving staff member of General Ulysses S. Grant, died when Grant was President of the United States?
In any case I'm willing to accept ALT1 and ALT2. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:40, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your prompt (immediate) reply. I'm flexible, but we should mention Hillyer's relatively young age, to further spark curiosity as to why. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

ALT3 :... that William S. Hillyer (pictured), the last surviving staff member of General Ulysses S. Grant, died at age 43 when Grant was President of the United States? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:47, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't see any sources for his age or birthdate, however. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:53, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @John M Wolfson: John, -- Many thanks for your review. I just wanted to be clear. When you said 'fair enough' about ALT3 it seems you're approving it. If so, could you apply the 'ok' checkmark to your last comment so the DYK staff is clear on that? ' Best, -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi, I came by to promote this, but the hook angle is not so interesting. It's not even attention-grabbing for a non-image slot. Surely there is something we can say about his accomplishments or career. One thing that pops out of the article is:
  • ALT4: ... that William S. Hillyer (pictured) transcribed and delivered Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant's famous words: "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted"? Yoninah (talk) 17:39, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
@John M Wolfson and Yoninah: — Yes, While I still think ALT3 is interesting historically, ALT4 is actually better. Thanks! -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:05, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
@John M Wolfson: can you give ALT4 the tick? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 10:24, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes on ALT4.– John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 15:15, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

@Gwillhickers: @Yoninah: @John M Wolfson: unless I'm missing something, the quote given in the source for this hook, which I assume is [3], as it's the next one after the quote (although not immediately after, which it ideally should be) does not match that in the proposed hook. The source says that Grant said only "I propose immediately to move on your works", while the article and the hook say the longer and slightly different version ""No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move on your works immediately." I think something needs to be fixed here before this can be run. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:30, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

  • I tweaked the quote, in the article regarding placement of the word "immediately". While the newspaper/obituary source only gives us part of the quote, it is still part of the greater quote found in the article. A citation for the full quote has also been added to the article, immediately following the quote in question. The word "an" has also been added to the hook/quote, previously missing. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 23:50, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
(For good measure I added a corroborating citation for Grant's famous quote:  McFeely, 1981, p. 101 -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:42, 10 February 2020 (UTC))
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