Template:Did you know nominations/Syncletica of Alexandria

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 PrimalMustelid talk 07:58, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Syncletica of Alexandria

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... that Syncletica of Alexandria, a 4th-century saint and Desert Mother, was called "an upper-class girl who does not care about her body"? Source: Fabrizio Petorella (2019). "The True Disciple of the Blessed Thecla: Saint Syncletica and the Construction of Female Asceticism", Adamantius, Vol. 25, p. 418.
- ALT1: ... that in the writings and sayings of Syncletica of Alexandria, a 4th-century saint and Desert Mother, were full of metaphors about sailing and the sea? Source: Tim Vivian (2019). "'We Sail by Day': Metaphor and Exegesis in the Sayings of Amma Syncletica of Egypt". Cistercian Studies Quarterly. Vol. 54, No. 1, p. 6
- Reviewed: Ultimate Team
- Comment: ~~It may take me a little while to respond to a review, since I'm going out of town starting next week. Thanks.~~

5x expanded by Figureskatingfan (talk). Self-nominated at 17:44, 15 March 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Syncletica of Alexandria; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing:
Neutral:
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
Other problems: - Not a problem per se, but are most of these sources offline? (See below). Additionally, one sfn for Wheeler cites a page 75 that does not exist; and Petorella is duplicated in whole inline as well as in the Works cited list.

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Nice article overall, beautifully thorough inline citations. I performed some copyediting. QPQ done and already in prep, nomination came before backlog mode was implemented. Out of the two hooks, I prefer ALT0, although I wonder if there's an issue with switching from past tense to present in the direct quote. ALT1 also approved, but needs to remove the word "in".

AGF'ing for offline sources. I'm assuming you accessed Alciati 2019, Petorella 2019, Vivian 2019 and 2020, and Wheeler 2014 offline? Of course, nothing wrong with this, but if they were accessed online (even if paywalled) they should be cited as such. I did find all of them in online databases through The Wikipedia Library and at least Vivian's are open-access, so would be good to link where possible.

Also worth adding: Baring-Gould mentions "consumption in the lungs" (i.e. tuberculosis) contributed to her death. Additionally, Veder 2006 and Dunbar 1901 both describe the "cell" she lived in instead as a literal "tomb"; that's worth looking into to verify which one it was, if possible, and could make another great alt hook. Your call though—as you're certainly no stranger to these antiquity biographies, I trust your judgment! – T C Memoire 18:39, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

@TCMemoire: thanks for your review, I will try to respond to your concerns and questions. Re: the hooks: While the tenses aren't technically grammar errors, I agree that it reads rough. How about this slight tweak: ALT0a: ... that Syncletica of Alexandria, a 4th-century saint and Desert Mother, is called "an upper-class girl who does not care about her body"?

Yes, all the sources you mention were found online, although they were paywalled, accessed with a WP Library account. It's been my practice to not include links to paywalled sources because they aren't easily accessible, but I'm not unopposed to following your suggestion. Just added URLs and access dates.

I added the clarification about Syncletica's death; see about the middle the final paragraph, ref9. The words "cell" and "tomb" are interchangeable; they both mean the very small living space where ascetics lived. I made the editorial choice to use "cell" because it's more understandable for the modern reader.

Hope that I've addressed all your concerns; let me know if anything else need to be done. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk)

@Figureskatingfan: Eh, let's stick with ALT0, I think the "has been" is more correct as implying a one-time event. Thanks for the clarifications, happy to give this the go-ahead! – T C Memoire 22:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC)