A fact from Gynecology in ancient Rome appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 June 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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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.
menstrual blood could be used to drive away hail, wind, and lightning
?</ref> Source: Plint the Elder, The Natural History, Book VII.
ALT1: ... that
menstrual blood
could be used to drive dogs insane?
Reviewed:
Comment: I personally believe this fact qualifies for "Did You Know" because it serves as a tease. This belief and fact is so detached from the modern scientific understanding of menstruation and the cultural understanding of it that any reader will be instantly desperate to understand more about the topic. Even if they do not wish to read more about Ancient Roman gynecology, their interest will most certainly be piqued.
Created by Graearms (talk). Self-nominated at 21:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC).[reply]
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
Interesting:
Other problems:
QPQ: None required.
Overall: Article looks good (length, newness, sourcing etc). Hook is definitely interesting and the article is very informative (I didn't know the Romans had such advanced anatomical knowledge!) Juvenal was doing better the Ben Shabeepo. The only issue is that the hook fact should also be cited in the article. Once that's fixed and a qpq is done, this one will be good to go! BuySomeApples (talk) 21:49, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@BuySomeApples: I have, or at least I think I have, fixed the errors with my nomination. Graearms (talk) 23:08, 13 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Graearms and BuySomeApples: I was going to promote this, but upon looking at the source used to verify this information in the article, I could not find reference to hail, wind or lightning (although some of the other supposed effects of menstruation were mentioned). The source used to verify this information in the article is Pliny the Elder. Can you provide a link to the exact page that this information is present on, or the quote from the source that verifies this information? If not, can you propose some ALT hooks? Thanks. Z1720 (talk) 00:10, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Z1720:It seems you were correct, the information was erroneous. I have proposed an alternative hook. Thank you for notifying me of this error. Graearms (talk) 01:05, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the new ALT Graearms! @BuySomeApples: can you review ALT1 and re-add a tick if ALT1 is approved? Z1720 (talk) 01:18, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ALT1 is approved; thanks for catching that @Z1720: and for finding an althook @Graearms:! BuySomeApples (talk) 02:10, 15 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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- Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
Article looks good (length, newness, sourcing etc). Hook is definitely interesting and the article is very informative (I didn't know the Romans had such advanced anatomical knowledge!) Juvenal was doing better the Ben Shabeepo. The only issue is that the hook fact should also be cited in the article. Once that's fixed and a qpq is done, this one will be good to go! BuySomeApples (talk) 21:49, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
BuySomeApples (talk) 03:46, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
ALT1 is approved; thanks for catching that @Z1720: and for finding an althook @Graearms:! BuySomeApples (talk) 02:10, 15 June 2022 (UTC)