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Administrators: Clear all reports

Errors in the summary of the featured article

Please do not remove this invisible timestamp. See WT:ERRORS and WP:SUBSCRIBE. - Dank (push to talk) 01:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Errors in "Did you know ..."

Current DYK

• ... that although Israel honored 27 ancient Masada skeletons with a state funeral in 1969, the story of "freedom fighters' patriotic last stand" is now known to be a myth?

Our core policy WP:V states that "quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by inline citations." The hook's quotation – "freedom fighters' patriotic last stand" – is not only not cited, it doesn't even appear in the article. Perhaps this is not meant to be a quotation but scare quotes instead? If so, then that is a violation of MOS:SCAREQUOTES.

This is a highly contentious topic and a recent discussion found that there was no consensus that the article should even exist. A high standard of care and caution is expected in such cases but I'm not seeing it here. In the DYK nomination, the hook was rejected by its first reviewer and it doesn't seem to have gotten a clear approval after that. My impression is that the topic was so disputed that the basic issue of checking the hook got lost in all the confusion.

Anyway, as this is a contentious topic, we should take a safety-first approach and pull the hook pending further investigation.

Andrew🐉(talk) 06:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile pinging. I've removed the quotation marks. BorgQueen (talk) 07:12, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

As such contentious topics are scary it may be that most editors are afraid to touch it and this may be a factor. An experienced admin who is familiar with the case seems needed and that would be Sandstein, ok? Andrew🐉(talk) 07:13, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Putting my oar in as an ancient historian, while the topic is contentious in the sense that people get very agitated about it, there's no serious scholarly disagreement on the facts: just about anyone in the field would consider the hook broadly correct. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:49, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not clear what the definite fact is in the hook. Is the bit about the skeletons? Is it "the story" being a myth? Exactly which story is this? Is it Josephus's account that's a myth? Is it a particular retelling such as Limdan's epic poem? Or what? The hook conflates all these things in a murky fashion so that it's hard to tell. And now, without the quotes, this is being said in Wikipedia's voice. Tsk. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:25, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

The hook was previously discussed at WT:DYK where the issue was whether this was a state funeral or military funeral, as the sources vary. This misses the key point which was that this was primarily a Jewish funeral. You see, it's a matter of Talmudic doctrine (Sanhedrin 46b) that there's a religious obligation to bury the dead and it is an especially great Mitzvah to do so when there is no family to take care of it.

So, a more accurate and attributed hook about the burial might be that:

• ALT ... that although bones found at Masada were given a Jewish funeral in 1969, Joe Zias contended that the presence of pig bones indicated that they were actually the remains of Roman soldiers? (source = Whose bones?)

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:56, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

•  Pulled I think the points made above are valid - we shouldn't be describing them as "patriotic freedom fighters" in Wikipedia's voice, and in any case that terminology doesn't appear in the article, meaning it's not clear what's being described in the hook at all. If an alternative wording can be workshopped we can reinstate.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:32, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Would something like

... that although Israel honored 27 ancient Masada skeletons with a state funeral in 1969, the story is now known to be a myth?

work? It's the original hook without the unsourced text DimensionalFusion (talk ▪ she/her) 11:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

No. For example, one point made by Zias is that the bones were quite jumbled and most estimates of the number of skeletons were a much smaller number than 27. So, that number is not definite.

And the bit about "the story" is not a definite fact. Yadin's account of the skeletons is a disputed conjecture. No-one knows for sure what the origin of those bones was just as no-one knows for sure whether Josephus' account was accurate or distorted. You have to be clear about which story you mean before you can say that it was a myth. And, as there was almost certainly a conflict at Masada, some elements seem to be correct.

The uncertainty about an event thousands of years ago makes it hard to be definite, either way. We should stick to undisputed facts rather than engaging in further myth-making. If we're talking about particular claims then we should specify them and attribute them to be clear what we mean.

Andrew🐉(talk) 12:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Launchballer, @SL93 as reviewer and promoters DimensionalFusion (talk ▪ she/her) 12:47, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(September 20, today)

Monday's FL

(September 23)

Errors in the summary of the featured picture

Notice to administrators: When fixing POTD errors, please update the corresponding regular version (i.e. without "protected" in the page title) in addition to the Main Page version linked below.