Talk:Evergreen Cooperatives

References

This is a great start - thanks! However, please remember that references should be added as inline citations. You can add references in two ways:

• With two "ref" tags: <ref>Gar Alperovitz, Ted Howard, and Steve Dubb, Cleveland's Worker-Owned Boom, Yes! (5 June 2009).</ref>
• With the "cite news" or "cite web" template available in the editing bar under the word "Cite." Click on "Cite," and then on "cite news" and then fill out the information and the program will insert the citation for you.

Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 18:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Awadewit, Thanks for checking in our our page, but we haven't started to edit it yet, this is the existing page. Edits will begin tomorrow, 11/15. I have been tasked with the Wikipedia part of our project, so you can direct any Wikipedia-related questions to me and I will relay that information to the rest of the group. I will fix all of the references soon! Clafoutis (talk) 14:54, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, sorry about that. I didn't check the history carefully enough. Let me know if you have any questions. You can either drop a line on my user page or email me. Also, be sure to use your online mentor. Awadewit (talk) 23:23, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

More sources

Here are some more potential references for you:

• Case Western Reserve University (June 5, 2009). "Employee Ownership and Evergreen Laundry" (Podcast). Western Reserve Studies Symposium. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• Alperovitz, Gar; Howard, Ted; Dubb, Steve (June 5, 2009). "Cleveland's Worker-Owned Boom". Yes!. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• Schwartz, Judith D. (December 22, 2009). "In Cleveland, Worker Co-Ops Look to a Spanish Model". Time. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• "The hopeful laundry". The Economist. January 7, 2010. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• Tozzi, John (February 12, 2010). "Buying Local on a Large Scale". BusinessWeek. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• Gillispie, Mark (July 28, 2010). "Cleveland Foundation seeks to build modern greenhouse in Cleveland's Central neighborhood". The Plain Dealer. Cleveland, Ohio. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• Axel-Lute, Miriam (Summer 2010). "Green Jobs with Roots". Shelterforce. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• "Fixing the Future". NOW on PBS. November 18, 2010. Retrieved November 29, 2010.
• Trattner, Douglas (November 18, 2010). "The Cleveland Model: Evergreen Coops Push 'Buy Local' Model to Extremes". Fresh Water. Retrieved November 29, 2010.

It would also be a good idea to eliminate duplicates in the references section. WP:REFNAME explains how you can cite the same source more than once without duplications. - Eureka Lott 20:16, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice--I tightened up the references sections as per the instructions on WP:REFNAME. Clafoutis (talk) 01:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Comments

This looks very good. I'll add a bullet list of comments below as I go through the article -- you can reply directly after each bullet, if any reply is needed.

• The first two paragraphs don't have any references; looking at the footnotes you already have I would be surprised if you can't reference at least part of them. Can you take a look and see what can be cited?

  I added citations--that was easy.

  Looks good; still one uncited sentence ("These systems emphasize the network aspect of the Mondragon system ..."). Can you cite that? Mike Christie (talk – library) 01:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• The first citation is to this blog. Blogs are not usually reliable sources, but this one appears to be the part of the journalistic work done by the editor of that newsletter, and that can let a blog qualify. Still, it's best to avoid blogs when you can -- if you decide to run this article through Wikipedia's internal quality reviews, you'll find blogs used as sources get a lot of scrutiny and you'll have to defend the blog's reliability.

  I left this because it seemed factual enough and a fairly neutral statement. Do you think it would pass in internal quality review?

  It might. I think I would let it go through myself, but I'd bet there would be some discussion, at least. Mike Christie (talk – library) 01:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• The next citation is also to that website, though not to a blog. GEO acknowledges on that website that it's an advocacy organization, so you have to be careful using it as a source. It's probably OK for factual statements but not for views on what's right, fair, or possible -- or at least you would have to attribute it as an opinion in the text of the article.

  I supported the GEO's claim with another source.

  I've responded to this below the next point, since both discuss the same citation. Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• A separate point with that citation: you use it to support the statement that the laundry can expand to 20 million pounds of laundray per year, but the cited article says "We've got the footprint and the capacity to do 15 million". This is also a quote from a consultant working for ECL, so he's not really a neutral source: I'd rephrase this to say that that's their business plan, which is uncontroversial. We don't know if they really do have the capacity or not. The ECL site does say 20 million pounds but I don't think that's a good source for a claim like this.

  I change this to reflect a claim, but not necessarily a fact.

  I see you added "According to some sources", but I don't think that's quite right -- I don't actually see another source for this -- unless it's the Breckenridge cite? But I don't think "according to some sources" is very helpful; everything we put in a Wikipedia article ought to be according to some sources, and if they're reliable we don't need to mention it. Reading Yates again, the business plan actually only says they want to get to 10 million but have capacity for 15, so the current version is definitely wrong -- I don't see a current volume figure in that article, but the 10 million is a plan goal, and further down it says the first year target is 5 million, so they may not even have met that. So that needs to be corrected to match the source. I think you can just cite Yates, so long as you make it clear these are plans, not actual numbers. Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Where do you get the figure of 3.0 gallons per pound for a typical industrial laundry? I don't see it in the sources, though one of them does give a residential figure of 4-6 gallons per pound. I also can't see a source for "greenest acceptable chemicals".

  Citations added.

  The first one is fine; looks good. I see you changed "greenest" to "It eliminates hazardous waste by using EPA-approved chemicals" but does that source really support that statement? As far as I can see, it just says "Cleaning and pH balancing agents are all EPA-approved". That may well mean that the graywater waste contains reduced levels of chemicals, but it doesn't actually say that and so I don't think we can say "eliminates" or even "reduces". To be honest, I'm not clear about the meaning of that sentence in the source -- don't all industrial laundries have to use EPA-approved chemicals? Wouldn't it be illegal not to? So is this is a difference between them and other laundries, or just journalistic filler? I can't tell. Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• I think your source for "most energy efficient" is "Equipment was supplied by the M&L Supply Company. According to president Steve Michalec, “We were fortunately able to provide Evergreen with the most energy-efficient laundry equipment available" from the same bxmagazine.com source. I don't think we should take Michalec's word for this -- we could say he claims this, but he's got a vested interest in asserting something to this effect. The Cleveland Plain Dealer article by Tom Breckenridge ([http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2009/10/evergreen_cooperative_laundry.html this article) does say "the latest in energy-efficient laundry equipment", so that could be used to source something similar (though he doesn't say "most" energy-efficient).

  Citation added and language changed.

  That looks fine. Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• "The laundry hired fifteen employees with the prospect for 35 more workers by the end of the year" isn't sourced by the cite you have for it; but one of your earlier cites says that -- the GEO blog post -- so you could use that. However, the quote there is "The laundry has 15 employees and expects to hire 35 more by the end of the year". Your version is a bit too close to that; there's a requirement that even when you attribute your sources, you have to put the material in your own words. For example, "By late summer 2010, ECL had fifteen employees, and was planning to grow to a total of 50 by 2011". Not the best paraphrase ever, but clearly an independent formulation of the same information. Incidentally, the blog doesn't have an easily identifiable date on it that I could see -- I'm assuming that's a late summer post because the prior post discusses a July 2010 event, but if you can see what the date is for that blog post it would be helpful.

  Citation added, does that suffice?

  I don't see the info in that source -- the freshwatercleveland.com website? Is it there and I just missed it? Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• What's the source for "they were also taught financial and safety issues by the Ohio Employee Ownership Center"?

  I changed this to reflect information from another source about on-the-job training.

  Looks good. Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• What's the source for "After seven years working in the laundry, the individual’s share will be equal to $65,000"?

  Citation added

  Again I can't see it in the sources; sorry if I'm being dense. Can you point me at where it says this? Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

  I just found a reference to this in this source, so you could use that, but it says "eight to nine years", not seven. Mike Christie (talk – library) 00:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• In the section on Ohio Cooperative Solar, the second paragraph is all cited to a single source. That source supports the first sentence, but from "In some instances" onwards I don't see the given information in the source. Is there another source for this?
• The info on Ohio Senate Bill 221 is cited to what looks like an amended version of the act itself; this is OK but a little hard to understand. I'd suggest supporting it with this as well, which is much easier for a reader to follow.
• I think the blip.tv video is OK to use as a source; it's self-published but I think the way blip.tv works makes it OK -- on youtube anyone could publish a video pretending to be by Evergreen, but I think blip.tv doesn't give you that freedom. However, it's a good idea to quote the location in the video so that readers can find the part you're referring to. For the first use of this source, Steve Kiel's quote is 3:14 into the video, so I'd add that to the cite. The other uses of this are at different locations in the video so I'd suggest splitting it into three cites and giving the start time of the quote for each one.
• You have two references for the comment that 50-100 workers will eventually be employed: Ohio Air Quality and The Nation. The trouble is one says 50 and the other says 100. I think rather than just giving the range, the reader is better off knowing what the sources actually say. How about adding a note that explains the difference between the sources to the reader? You can just add the note to the reference text, or make a separate footnote that just covers this. It's not clear what the reason is for the two different numbers -- maybe ambitions have increased; maybe someone exaggerated to the Nation journalist -- so I think we shouldn't give the reader the impression that the range is given that way in the sources.

-- Mike Christie (talk) 17:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll stop there for now as I've finished the first two sections. I'd be glad to help fix these issues, if you'd like me to, and to keep going through the rest of the article, if you want additional feedback. Just let me know, and if anything I've said seems wrong or doesn't make sense, just ask.

A good way to respond to the points above, if you need to, is to write your answer right after each bullet point. That way I can see exactly which point you're responding to and it makes it easier to follow the discussions. Mike Christie (talk) 22:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks again, Mike, for your helpful edits and critiques--feel free to continue to give me pointers. Our project also included a so-called "critical analysis" of the Cooperatives, which includes relating the project back to Economic Development theory. I was unsure weather this article would be the best place for that information, or if that would be better suited to articles relating to that theory (Workforce Development, for example, or Import Substitutions). Clafoutis (talk) 01:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll add some responses above after your notes. Quick comment: when you respond inline, as you've done above, it's useful if you also add the ~~~~ signature after each comment -- that way you can follow the threads a little more easily. See this link for a current quality review that has that sort of threading going on in it, just for an example. No worries here, though; it's just a minor convenience. More above when I've gone through. Mike Christie (talk – library) 01:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, done with another pass; I'll leave a note on your talk page too. Mike Christie (talk – library) 02:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

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