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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of books bound in human skin/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Giants2008 via FACBot (talk) 00:25, 9 October 2023 (UTC) [1].[reply]

List of books bound in human skin

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List of books bound in human skin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Vaticidalprophet 02:28, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Anthropodermic bibliopegy lurks the shadows of the collective consciousness, manifesting in the form of dark occult grimoires, Nazi atrocities, French Revolution contumacies, and lurking serial killers. The truth is stranger than any myth; most books bound in human skin come from respected 19th-century doctors, men acting with the approval of their peers and untethered by ethical qualms. The history of anthropodermic bibliopegy is the history of medical ethics, one of those histories where every law is written in blood.

The full list of books seriously thought to be bound in human skin is short enough for this to be as comprehensive as a semi-dynamic list will ever allow. Some authors chronology longer lists, but these generally predate the capacity for serious testing and have so little written on them as to make including them irrelevant; on the other hand, the number of books that have undergone gold-standard testing is so short even the ones with very little known are worth mentioning, and I've mentioned all I can. It's a fascinating story of medical overreach, ethical debate, and the historical dedication that lurks in the soul of every archivist. I recently split this list from the main anthropodermic bibliopegy article, which is currently in poor shape and had a rather outdated and speculative version of it. This is my first FLC (but not my first featured content), but from consultation with editors more experienced in the process than I, I believe it's ready for prime time. Vaticidalprophet 02:28, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support from PMC

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Putting myself down to comment. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:32, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • In the lead, "the existence of 18 books bound in human skin, out of 31 claimed cases" - is this 31 claims ever, or 31 claims that they tested?
  • "the first book confirmed through its use" might be nice to put what year this was done, or maybe what year peptide testing was invented at least
    • An earlier version had it, but it got trimmed out at some point (maybe that was during the Dark Archives FAC, because this is adapted from that background section). I remember trying to find a way to put it back in and finding they all read weirdly. I've reworded here (produces "in 2014", but eh, it's not like the article's at risk of proseline). This and other additions produced a very overstuffed second paragraph, though, so I've split it at what's hopefully a vaguely natural point. Vaticidalprophet 11:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first mention of executed criminals comes in the 3rd paragraph of the lead, I might mention it a bit earlier first to set it up
  • What is your sort order based on? I can't see any logic to it. It's not alphabetical by book and although I see that you've grouped by collection, the collections don't seem to be alphabetical to me either. If it's by testing/confirmation date, you might want to make that explicit by adding a column.
    • I swear there is an order here, but it may not be apparent to any other person in the entire world. Having said that, there's much more of one for the confirmed books, because I had multiple "oh shit, forgot one [adds to end of list]" for the latter tables. I'll see what I can do about making the there's-an-order-I-swear clearer for the others. Vaticidalprophet 11:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • At the very least, if the default sort order is arcane, I would recommend putting a note explaining it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:37, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • It's based on vibes. There are definitely vibes here, I swear. (More formally, 'thematically similar' things are meant to be close to one another, but I'll see what I can do about making the...theme...apparent to anyone else, especially in the later sections where it's weaker.) Vaticidalprophet 09:56, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
          • Shuffled a bit...is it at all clearer now? There are definitely 'thematic' groupings/similar books and claims near one another. The arrangement of those clusters is a little more arbitrary -- I've tried to put stranger or more attention-getting claims higher up. Vaticidalprophet 10:05, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why does "Essai sur les lieux..." have no comments at all? The empty cell stands out
  • Same question about sorting applies to all the tables
  • I might split up "supposed" into two tables - supposed individual copies, and widely-printed books that have been generally believed to have some anthropodermic copies somewhere. So "De integritatis" would be in the first, but De Sade's books would be in the second. Or at least sort them so they're together.
  • Should the goat skin book not be under "inauthentic" or is that just for ones confirmed inauthentic by PMF?

That's all I have. No complaints/comments about the actual prose in the tables, which are fairly tight summaries of the circumstances. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:10, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much! First replies, including some changes and some queries. Vaticidalprophet 11:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I still don't love the vibes-based sort order, but given that it's easily sortable for the reader, I don't feel it's worth dying over. The rest of my comments have been reasonably addressed, so I'm a support. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:17, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

MyCatIsAChonk

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I audibly gasped when I saw this hit the FLC list. Fantastic work- truly deserving of Wikipedia:Unusual articles! MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 11:07, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Add Template:Use British English or otherwise appropriate
  • Should "The Gold Bug" be sorted at the top? I'd think it sorts with the rest of the "G"s
  • it "disappeared" in the 1990s. - why quotes? Is it not really gone?
  • Many of the citations are all to different pages to the Dark Archives, but it just duplicates the citation. IMO, putting Dark Archives in a "works cited" section and using sfns is much cleaner, or you can have one citation to Dark Archives and use Template:rp for the pages
  • IMO, the "Notes" column doesn't need to be sortable
  • Ref columns don't need to be sortable either

Vaticidalprophet, all done, fantastic job! MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 11:07, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the review! I've added the BrEng template (usually I'd try to standardize to Oxford spelling, but this article has so few uses of ize/ise words it's easier to go for the more recognizable one). On the other points:
  • I've tried to sort a little more by collection and theme (i.e. what readers actually see in the Notes section -- putting all the Hough books alongside each other, etc) than alphabetical, because I think that's a little more reader-friendly and because people who want specifically alphabetical orders can arrange it that way. I haven't made all that many lists, though, and I'm willing to discuss that.
  • "Disappeared" is what the source says and doesn't elaborate, so I quoted. I'm guessing along the lines that it hasn't been accounted for in the library since the 90s.
  • I'm not a huge fan of shortened footnotes (it looks 'cleaner' to an editor, but readers from non-academic backgrounds don't necessarily recognize them -- I've seen edit wars moving sfns to 'further reading' because they "aren't references"). For rp, in this case the chapter titles are relevant in and of themselves because of one such chapter being a list of known anthropodermic books in libraries.
  • I haven't made a ton of tables, so I'm not sure how I'd go about making some sections sortable and some not. Any advice?
Vaticidalprophet 11:18, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Vaticidalprophet Responses above MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 21:21, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed the table sorting and not-sorting, and reworded the Belgian library statement a bit to avoid a direct quote while getting across the intent of the source. Vaticidalprophet 03:16, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support - excellent job! By the way, if you get time, would appreciate comment at this FLC- thanks! MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 00:26, 8 September 2023 (UTC)MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 00:11, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by SilverTiger

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Placeholder, ping me when Chonk is done with their review. I, too, was excited to see this at FLC, and can't wait to see what you do with the main article. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 13:33, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

SilverTiger12, Chonk has supported if you still want to comment :) Vaticidalprophet 02:43, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I do, I just didn't want you to have to deal with two (potentially conflicting) reviews at once. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 04:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The ability to unequivocally identify book bindings as being of human skin dates only to the mid-2010s. "only dates back to"
  • The origin of peptide mass fingerprinting permitted conclusive testing.. "The development of.."
  • Most legitimate anthropodermic books have passed through the hands of physicians, and many of them are dedicated to the practice of medicine. I get what you are trying to say here, but I feel like you could be clearer about it. Most of these books were bound by physicians- I think it's being implied that they were re-bound, unless these were new books being bound- right? And most of them seem to be about the practice of medicine and medical topics.
  • ...bibliopegy expert Megan Rosenbloom relatesconnects this to changing standards...
  • Another book from Hough's collection believed to trace to Lynch. "traced to" sounds like a massive understatement.
  • Another book from Hough's collection, speculated to be bound quite late in his life... "bound later in his life". And in that same entry, last sentence, remove the comma between authentic and due.
  • Is that supposed to be a semicolon and not a comma after Cincinnati Public Library?
  • Why does the Poems of Various Subjects have the While several purportedly anthropodermic books have made claims about the race or ethnicity of the people used to bind them, all such copies have turned out to be inauthentic. - it feels like it's going somewhere with that, like they're the only books where the race/ethnicity claims are authentic - but then it doesn't. Also, how many copies?
    • Two, presumably, or at least if one of the libraries has multiple copies Rosenbloom didn't see fit to mention (which would be odd). I'm not sure where else to go with that summary; we don't know any details about the people whose skin was used to bind those copies, including their race. We do know that other, different books that explicitly mention race are fake. Vaticidalprophet 04:50, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Honestly, I would suggest removing that whole sentence since the same information is also given more generally in the lede, since such claims don't seem to have been made about Poems specifically. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 16:08, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • I've tried to revise this and get across the idea more clearly (it's hard to get that nuance in a table). There's a lot of speculation on why books by the first black woman publishing in the US, specifically, were anthropodermic, and it'd be amiss not to mention it at all, but there's no evidence to base anything off so it's all very up in the air. Vaticidalprophet 07:37, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last two entries of the confirmed list are very short on information. Is there really nothing more that can be added?
  • Overall, in the suspected list, I'd like you to be a little more consistent about why a given book hasn't or can't be tested- some are apparently lost, some the library in question refuses to allow testing, but some you just don't explain why.
    • If I don't explain why, I don't know why, unfortunately. In some cases the last source discussing the book is pre-2014 and I can't find further details on it at all. Rosenbloom does give a little detail on different reasons why a book might be untestable, so I'll add a little on that to the lead, which should hopefully cover most cases. Vaticidalprophet 04:50, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've added a little to the lead about reasons an organization may decline testing. Vaticidalprophet 14:47, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • In that same vein, you could stand to more consistently mention when the books were tested.
  • Source-wise, everything looks fine except the use of Facebook as a source, which I consider... questionable at best.

That's pretty much it from me. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 04:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Thanks so much for your review! I've replied to a few of these and will work on general tweaks/expanding the lead a little. Vaticidalprophet 04:50, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SilverTiger12, I think most of these should be handled now. I've tweaked "passed through the hands of physicians", though I'm not sure if saying something that implies they were all bound by doctors is quite supported by the source, so it's still a little evasive. The "dates back to" one I think is mostly a subjective wording difference. How do you feel about the article right now? Vaticidalprophet 13:23, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This list is well-written, informative, and fascinating. It manages to lay out details about the books and the practice without veering into the lurid and sensational, which I consider quite a feat. Though some might say a clinical, matter-of-fact tone makes it all the more chilling... --SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:10, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Additional source review

Several comments have been raised about the sourcing and style of citations before, but it looks like a separate source review is still needed.

  • Earwig reveals no copyvio.
  • The source most often cited is Dark Archives, which is more or less THE book on this subject, so that's 90% checked right there. As I don't have access to that book, though, spot checks were not possible and I choose to assume good faith here.
  • The most obviously questionable source is Facebook used for a fairly trivial about-self factoid (asked and answered above), so while it isn't ideal I will give this a pass.
  • Citation 21 is to Atlas Obscura, a website with user-generated content. Is the author of the cited article a known subject-matter expert? Otherwise a different source should be found.
  • The rest of the sources look fine, mostly published magazines, newsletters, and scientific papers.

@Vaticidalprophet: so you see this. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the source review, SilverTiger12! I think the AO use here is fine -- they have UGC, but they're not a wholly UGC site, and Allison Meier was a senior editor there. She also has a substantial portfolio, including multiple books and edited compilations on subjects related to this one (bibliography, history of cemeteries, etc). Vaticidalprophet 23:58, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll accept senior editor and published author. Thanks for the explanation. Pass source review. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 00:58, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Hey man im josh

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Image review:

  • Images are relevant
  • Images are appropriately licensed
  • Images have alt text

Support: Looks good and it was a great read. Thanks for the work that you put into this. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:59, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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