Talk:Gerald McGinnis

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A fact from Gerald McGinnis appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 April 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Gerald McGinnis founded his first medical device company from his own home, working at night and using his kitchen oven as a kiln?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gerald McGinnis.

Wikipedia

Did you know nomination

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 02:46, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that Gerald McGinnis's company Respironics created the first mass-produced CPAP Machines? Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
ALT: ... that Gerald McGinnis initially ran the medical device company Lanz Medical Products out of his own home? Source: [1]
- Reviewed:
- Comment: Article is not ineligible because I created this last Sunday (February 18) and I am on Pacific Standard time, meaning that this article is still technically 7 days old. No QPQ needed as this is my second nomination. Any help with making sure it is medically accurate or expanding the lead section is welcome.

Created by HistoryTheorist (talk). Self-nominated at 03:53, 26 February 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Gerald McGinnis; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

Comment Added alt hook as I learned DYK doesn't like "first [x]" hooks. Feel free to add wording fixes to alt hook. ❤History Theorist❤ 00:09, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

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

QPQ: None required.

Overall: No disqualifying issues, nice article. Both hooks are fine (who said DYK frowns on "first X" hooks?); and I'll accept either, with ALT slightly better than the original, but especially since you proposed, may I suggest a possibly "hookier" third?

ALT2: "... that Gerald McGinnis founded his first medical device company from his own home, working at night and using his kitchen oven as a kiln?" I think that is a cute "hooky" detail, and that naming Lanz isn't that important, and our medical device article isn't really great, as it says "any device intended to be used for medical purposes" which is more redundant than explanatory, while at least kiln will explain a word not everyone knows. But this proposal isn't head and shoulders better than the ALT you had, so if you don't like it, ALT will do.
"The company was able to keep the costs down by outsourcing the labor to Hong Kong ... In 1987, a fire destroyed the company plant in Wilmerding." That's a bit confusing - was the labor in Hong Kong or Wilmerding? Part in each? Was Wilmerding one of a number of plants, so losing it not a big deal, or was this a major threat to the company's survival? A clarifying sentence would not go amiss.
"When Respironics recalled its machines in 2021 due to a defect which caused noise-reducing foam to degrade and release toxic chemicals, McGinnis attributed the recall to a culture shift in the company and called it a "disappointment and embarrassment"." - Again, a sentence or even more would be useful here, since this was a big deal. What was the culture shift, what was the embarrassment, etc.? I read your sources, at least one gave the specific example that when his earlier product had a defect, McGinnis did not hesitate to order a complete recall; if you would go just a bit into that or other examples of the difference between McGinnis and Philips running the company, it would be good. Don't go too deep into the foam problem, since this is the article about him, not about Respironics, which was not really his at the time, but more than just one cryptic sentence about his reaction would be nice.
The same source also implied the sale to Philips was not quite a hostile takeover, but not far from it, which might be useful to explain; the company is his main reason for notability, and the source of his philanthropy, so how he stopped running it also seems important.

Done @GRuban: Hope that satisfies what you're looking for in terms of the hostile takeover. However, other concerns are still to be addressed and will be addressed quite slowly due to to real life. Don't worry, I'll get to them sometime! ❤History Theorist❤ 04:41, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All these issues are not DYK blockers, DYK is not WP:GA or WP:FA, this thoroughly qualifies for DYK, even if you completely ignore my suggestions. Nicely done. GRuban (talk) 02:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Will look at the suggestions tomorrow. It's 10:00 where I live but I'll definitely act on those suggestions, but now that I'm thinking about it, it would be nice if I could improve it to GA-worthy status. To answer your question about first [x] hooks, I was looking through other nominations and some reviewer said something of that sort and I thought that I needed a better hook. ❤History Theorist❤ 05:09, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for stealing my words for Alt 2! Unless I find something better (I might), I Endorse Alt 2. ❤History Theorist❤ 04:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Classification

I've rated this article C class in the interim. I believe it is potentially B, but I will need some time to look into it further. Mokadoshi (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]