Template:Did you know nominations/Wube Haile Maryam

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: rejected by BlueMoonset (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Withdrawn by creator/nominator

Wube Haile Maryam

• ... the end of Ethiopia's century-long Zemene Mesafint era is variously dated to the 1853 defeat of Ras Ali II in the Battle of Ayshal or to the 1855 defeat and imprisonment of Wube Haile Maryam?

Created by Brownweepy (talk) and FeatherPluma (talk). Nominated by FeatherPluma (talk) at 22:01, 2 September 2016 (UTC).

• Please clean up this nomination template. The article is not linked and it is bolded in the wrong place. Otherwise this article is new enough, long enough, hook is sourced. No close paraphrasing or neutrality detected. KAVEBEAR (talk) 22:50, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Will aim to clean up nom template shortly. FeatherPluma (talk) 00:46, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

@KAVEBEAR: Hopefully that's what was needed. Please let me know if I am still missing something. FeatherPluma (talk) 03:35, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Yep. Good to go.KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:03, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• I have pulled this one from p2 as the source doesn't clearly support the hook. It implies that the Zemene Mesafint era ended with the defeat of Maryam, but doesn't outright say it. I think you need to find a hook that is easier to verify. Gatoclass (talk) 11:57, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

@Gatoclass: I think this source: ^[1] page 241 gives evidence that the era ended with defeat of Wube. Brownweepy (talk) 02:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

That's a novel, albeit an historical novel apparently written by an academic with knowledge of the field. So I'm not sure that could be considered adequate confirmation. Gatoclass (talk) 06:49, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

OK, then the source ^[2] seems more appropriate, where it specifically says that 1855 marked the 'reunification' and that was the same year Wube was defeated. Brownweepy (talk) 15:09, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes @Brownweepy: that source is much better. I have edited and expanded the text in several ways based on the sources.

It's quite clear from Poluha "...that this year (refers to 1855) was an important turning point marking the end of the ZM need not be questioned..." The emerging Emperor, previously titled as a Negus, defeats WHM in battle, and 2 days later (approx - various sources actually are within a few days but aren't all exactly the same) is crowned "king of kings" in WHM's own church. Could not be clearer - a step by step narrative. And then the point of 1853 (versus 1855) is very deliberately debated back and forth at length over several pages in the Poluha source, explaining why one or the other. It very clearly makes references to other literature. These sources taken together irrefutably support all the elements within the proposed hook, addressing the concern raised by @Gatoclass:, while the novel, in formal terms, even if it claims to be based on historical fact, is not a great reference.

The Marcus textbook source is also fairly clear in my opinion:

However, it doesn't hurt to have two correlating independent sources that fully concur, and if Marcus on its own was perhaps slightly wobbly, the two together are robust. FeatherPluma (talk) 01:25, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks @FeatherPluma:. I think having two sources sounds good. I see that you have already edited the article with the changes. Thanks for that. Brownweepy (talk) 14:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Gatoclass: Please take a look at the full Poluha reference viz-a-viz explicitly addressing support of the proposed hook. I would appreciate your commentary regarding that source, which makes reference to numerous other sources in support of its contentions, and thus of the hook. Thanks. FeatherPluma (talk) 19:35, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

@Gatoclass: Oops, sorry. It has just been brought to my attention that Poluha is self-published (Xlibris). I failed to properly check the publisher previously. As interesting as this potential hook has been, it fails as a DYK. My mistake - this will be something on the preflight check list for future voyages. It's conceivable that the references within Poluha would allow this hook to be "rebuilt" step by step from those sources but at least some are image files in Amharic and are quite beyond me. So if someone knows how to close this out as a good faith mistake / failed nomination I would appreciate it. FeatherPluma (talk) 20:55, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Author/nominator would like to withdraw the nomination. — Maile (talk) 21:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)