Template:Did you know nominations/William Hamm Jr.

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 AirshipJungleman29 talk 19:13, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

William Hamm Jr.

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... that the first time the FBI successfully used silver nitrate to lift fingerprints was when solving the kidnapping of a brewery executive?

Source: "Barker/Karpis Gang". Famous Cases and Criminals. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved December 2, 2024.

ALT1: ... that William Hamm Jr., the president of Hamm's Brewery, was kidnapped and held for $100,000 ransom? Source: "Barker/Karpis Gang". Famous Cases and Criminals. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved December 2, 2024.
ALT2: ... that the first successful uses of silver nitrate to lift fingerprints were on ransom notes for William Hamm Jr., president of Hamm's Brewery? Source: "Barker/Karpis Gang". Famous Cases and Criminals. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved December 2, 2024.
Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Operation Blooming Onion
Comment: Open to suggestions on hook phrasing

Converted from a redirect by Darth Stabro (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 14 past nominations.

~Darth Stabro^{Talk • Contribs} 13:52, 2 December 2024 (UTC).

I'll take a look at this one. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:38, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing: - The article gives the time of the kidnapping as June 15, 1933, at 12:15 p.m., but the cited source gives the time that Hamm was last sean as 12:20. Can you explaim where the 12:15 time comes from?
Neutral: - The article currently states in WP:WIKIVOICE that Hamm married Dorothy Heywood on October 1, 1927, which is supported by the second cited source. However, the first cited source gives the marriage as having been in November 1927. Unless there is a very good reason for rejecting one source in favor of the other, we should probably not be so definite in the article. Can you explain a bit about this editorial choice?
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

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

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Not much to add to the above, though it's possible I missed something in my spot checks. Generally quite an interesting read. I prefer hook Alt2, as it has his name and mentions the silver nitrate; this is a biography, not an article on the event that is his kidnapping. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:41, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

User:Red-tailed hawk good catch on the marriage date there, I genuinely hadn't noticed. The source with the November date I had used to get her maiden name and I didn't realize the mismatch. These all seem to indicate the October date. As for the time of kidnapping, on that same page 12:15pm is also indicated under the "Events in Kidnapping" side column. I'll amend it to "shortly after noon". ~Darth Stabro^{Talk • Contribs} 05:08, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
I had missed the side column; no need to correct that part, the decision makes sense. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:11, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

In light of the above, this looks good to go. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:27, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
@Darth Stabro and Red-tailed hawk: I'm not sure we should be using an FBI-published source to make fairly contentious claims about the FBI? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:42, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
@Theleekycauldron: What's contentious about it? ~Darth Stabro^{Talk • Contribs} 18:50, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
"First" claims are generally considered extraordinary at DYK, and claims of significant FBI accomplishments in the historical record are also not trivial details. I don't think the FBI counts as due weight for claims that make the FBI look better. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:53, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
Respectfully, Leek, I understand that "first" claims are ordinarily somewhat extraordinary. But the primary (Alt0) is an extremely qualified sort of "first" claim—it's about the first time the FBI used a particular investigative technique (and I feel like the FBI would probably be an authority on that). And this hardly seems like a controversial claim; see "Forensic Chemistry: The Revelation of Latent Fingerprints" (The technique was first used in the United States to solve the 1933 kidnapping of William A. Hamm, Jr., president of the Theodore Hamm Brewing Company). We should avoid implying that the FBI was the first group to use silver nitrate as a means of obtaining fingerprints (silver nitrate's use to develop latent prints had first been performed 1891, per a 1951 journal article), but I think Alt0 is A-OK. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:17, 31 December 2024 (UTC)