Talk:Great Mill Disaster/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: PCN02WPS (talk · contribs) 03:29, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, I'll be reviewing this article. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 03:29, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I've left some comments below so I'll place the nomination on hold. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 05:51, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy with the changes made, my concerns have been addressed. Interesting about the (lack of) timezone, that hadn't even crossed my mind. Since there were only six, I went through all of the sources (MNopedia gave me pause at first but I checked it out and everything looks good), and everything looks good. Happy to give this a pass. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 17:21, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Lead and infobox

• "occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States in 1878" -- comma after "United States" per MOS:GEOCOMMA
  • Done.
• "Following the blast, Cadwallader C. Washburn (the mill's owner) had a new mill, designed by..." -- sentence flows a bit better in my opinion if the bit in parentheses uses commas instead
  • Done.
• Even though the location of the incident is given, I'd give the timezone along with the time in the infobox
  • I left that part blank because, oddly enough, this explosion actually predates standardized time zones in the United States, which came into existence in 1883, per this article and the Wikipedia article for History of time in the United States.

Background

• Ultimately this is your call, but the sentence beginning "The mill was located along..." sounds a touch disconnected with "and it was adjacent to several other flour mills" added to the end, rather than to the part of the sentence describing the location of the Washburn A Mill - to remedy this, you could move that last section of the sentence to after "near the Saint Anthony Falls"
  • Tried to rephrase that sentence to make it sound smoother.
• "Minneapolis at this time was a hub of flour production" -- rearrange to "At this time, Minneapolis was a hub of flour production..."
  • Done.
• comma after "Buffalo, New York" per GEOCOMMA
  • Done.

Explosion

• "The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as Saint Paul, 10 mi (16 km) away" -- this is admittedly a minor point, but you could eliminate repetition of "away" by rewording to something like "The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as Saint Paul, a distance of 10 mi (16 km).
  • Rephrased that sentence.
• Additionally, "mi" can be expanded to "miles" per MOS:UNITNAMES, which says In prose, unit names should be given in full if used only a few times.
  • Done.
• Is there any information about how long the fires took to put out? The mention that the firefighters were still working through the night is good, and I am curious as to whether they got the fires out before the next morning.
  • Unfortunately I did not find any information on that in the references.

Aftermath

• "flour production steadily increased until peaking during World War I" -- reword slightly to "steadily increased until it peaked during World War I"
  • Done.
• Is there a specific year the new building was abandoned or did that occur when it ceased operation in 1965?
  • Per the reference, "It [the mill] finally closed in 1965, remaining vacant until a 1991 fire destroyed the building." Would it be safe to assume that the abandonment occurred in 1965? If so I can edit the article for clarity.

Memorials

• "a stone memorial marker that listed the names" -- if the memorial still stands today, change the tense from past to present
  • Done.

Other general comments

• The target page (Mill City Museum) gives the original name of the Washburn Mill with quotation marks surrounding the "A"; is this important?
  • I am not sure what the significance of the quotation marks are, but I have seen the name spelled both with and without the quotation marks in various sources. For consistency within this article, I opted for excluding the quotation marks.
• The explanatory footnote is a touch repetitive (Sources vary on the economic impact of the disaster, with sources differing between one-third and one-half) - emphasis is mine - the bolded bits sound very similar and convey the same information here.
  • Rephrased footnote to avoid repetition.

PCN02WPS, just wanted to ping you to say that I have made some edits to the article to address the points made in your review. Thank you again for initiating this review, and if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out. Thanks, -JJonahJackalope (talk) 12:18, 22 June 2022 (UTC)