Talk:Glen Rock (boulder)

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 Theleekycauldron (talk) 07:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

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• Article history

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The Glen Rock in 1890

• ... that the Glen Rock (pictured) is very gneiss?

Source: Page 7: [1]

Page 550: [2]

• ALT1: ... that the Glen Rock (pictured), a well-known 570-ton New Jersey boulder that has a town named after it, is a New Jersey state landmark?

Source: "well-known... New Jersey Boulder": Becker, Martin A; Bartholomew, Alex (2013). "Rickard Hill Facies of the Schoharie Formation (Lower Devonian) Glacial Erratics from the Preakness Formation (Lower Jurassic) of High Mountain, Passaic County, New Jersey". Atlantic Geology. 49: 194–203. ISSN 0843-5561.

"that has a town named after it, is a New Jersey state landmark": [3]

• ALT2: ... that the Glen Rock (pictured), a 570-ton New Jersey boulder later designated as a state landmark, was almost destroyed by road developers in 1912?

Source: "New Jersey state landmark": [4]

"was almost destroyed by road developers in 1912": [5]

• Reviewed: N/A (I don't have 5 DYK creds)

Created by Mhawk10 (talk). Self-nominated at 23:31, 16 December 2021 (UTC).

• Article was created 16 December. No issues of copyvio or plagiarism. All sources appear reliable. QPQ is not needed. I personally like ALT1 as it is the most informative and interesting but the others are acceptable as well. All set to go! Thriley (talk) 06:00, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment: Excellent image, User:Mhawk10, very peaceful—I'm sorry I have to take this for a quirky. :(

To T:DYK/P5 without image

Why is the length the short dimension?

What defines which dimension is deemed length or width? Is a front or back defined? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:35, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

The dimensions are taken from this report. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 12:00, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Also, where did it get the name? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:39, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Unclear. The Glen Rock, New Jersey page indicates that the boulder was in a glen, but the sources cited in the page don't actually say that. I likewise can't find reliable sources that say that this is the reason for the rock's name. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 03:27, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Glen Rock (boulder)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mujinga (talk · contribs) 16:33, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Review

• I like rocks! I'll take this on for review, comments coming today or tomorrow Mujinga (talk) 16:33, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

• Earwig flags up no copyvio

• All three images are relevant and appropriately licensed. It's not a GA passs/fail issue but it would be great if terms of accessibility if they all had alts

• Infobox is ok, could be expanded to add things like dimensions and the New Jersey State Office of Historic Sites designation.

• Regarding broadness, no news since 1964 about the rock?

• No original research, spotchecks on references are fine, sources are reliable, ref layout is to GA standard. Article is neutral and stable

Prose

• Per MOS:LEAD, everyhting in the lead should summarize what is in the text below in the body. Right now that's not the case and if you moved stuff down, then the references could be in the body not in the lead. The lead doesn't normally have references.
• Hudson Highlands and New Jersey Highlands can be wikilinked
• "Pamackapuka" should be either Pamackapuka or "Pamackapuka".
•  "Native Americans" could be wikilinked to one of the more specific articles and in any case, yo've mentioned the Lenape in the lead and they should be mentioned here as well.
• "After the arrival of colonists to the region, the rock was used as a landmark on colonial trails" - two "colon-"
• "In 1894, citizens of Ridgewood, New Jersey " - this sentence can be moved up into the previous paragraph
• "In order to properly grade streets near the rock, soil was gradually excavated, revealing the Glen Rock's massive size" - this does faithfully report what the source says, but I don't know what it means to grade streets - maybe an Americanism?
• In "1910–1912 excavation and construction" the two paragraphs could be merged
• "the Glen Rock to honor the veterans" - "the Glen Rock to honor the local veterans" ?

Overall

• Thanks for the interesting read. I'm putting this article on hold for seven days to allow the comments made above to be addressed. Let me know if something needs clarifying. It's mainly prose, fixing the lead and a question on broadness. Mujinga (talk) 18:59, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

  @Mujinga: Thank you for the feedback. I think the edits should directly address all your concerns except for three: expanding the infobox, the use of "coloni-" twice in a sentence, and post-1964 history. The reason for the first is that the infobox template lacks fields for size and landmark status, though I would be willing to create custom fields if you believe that doing so would be proper in this case. The reason for the second is that I'm having trouble with rephrasing; do you have any suggestions. The reason for the third has largely to do with the sorts of things that post-1964 sources tend to cover, such as a car running into the rock. I'm doing some searching for more information using a variety of search terms and I've found these bits of history that I think can be incorporated into the article:

  1. In 1969, a time capsule was buried beside the rock. It will be opened in 2044. The Glen Rock has also become a symbol of the Glen Rock, New Jersey community.
  2. A plaque placed beside the rock was stolen in April 1984 and mysteriously returned in September 1986. The plaque was different than the World War I memorial plaque and it wasn't the first time it was stolen (though it might take me a bit more time to dig up information on the prior theft of the plaque). I will add to this comment when I figure out more about these thefts. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 20:40, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

     OK, so there was a plaque installed by the State placed at the location in 1964 (see also: this 1974 news clipping and this 1975 news clipping). It's not clear to me if the photograph on that website is in the public domain (it's a 1964 photograph, so even if it was published that year it could be copyrighted if the copyright on the photograph was registered and subsequently renewed), though it would have been a nice addition to the article. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

     I've added some information to the article from these and some other sources I was able to find. Please let me know if this resolves your concerns. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 22:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• OK to work through your edits:
• The bluelinks can be in lead and body (and infobox)
• There's still references in the lead. There shouldn't need to be, as I said, because all the references are in the body.
• "The Glen Rock is a 570-ton boulder located in Glen Rock, New Jersey.[1][2][3][4] The boulder, which is the namesake of the town in which it is located" this bit is still only in lead, apart from weight. Four references on such a short sentence also seems like a lot
• Grading (earthworks) solves that issue! Nice one
• For "Later, colonists used the rock as a landmark on colonial trails and as a marker for colonial-era land deeds" in lead and the similar sentence in body, I'd suggest something like: "Later, settler colonialists used the rocks as a landmark on their trails and as marker for land deeds"
• The post 1964 stuff is great to have, "rock" is used a lot, could some "rocks" be replaced with "monument" or similar
• Yes I was wondering what parameters the infobox takes, you might have more luck with Infobox monument for example.
• Just checking what's else ... Native Americans can still be linked and can I also check (maybe this is a USEng/BrEng thing), saying "natives" seems strange to me because I tend to use "Indigenous peoples" but if native is accepted usage that's fine
• Back to nominator! Mujinga (talk) 09:09, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
  • I've added bluelinks back to the body. Please let me know if I have missed any.
  • I've removed citations from the lead. I typically like to do this as the very last step.
  • The Glen Rock is a 570-ton boulder located in Glen Rock, New Jersey. The boulder, which is the namesake of the town in which it is located (internal citations omitted) is not only in the lead. Its weight and location are located in the section on "Geology and Natural History", while the statement that the Borough of Glen Rock, New Jersey is named after the boulder is in the "Cultural History" section under the "Indigenous, colonial, and early American use" subsection.
  • I've implemented something along the lines of your proposed sentence to reduce the reliance on "colonists", though the wording is slightly different. Does this work?
  • I've tried to change up the wording in the post-1964 area to reduce the use of "rock".
  • With respect to the infobox, I noticed that Clonfinlough Stone (an Irish glacial erratic) uses {{Infobox historic site}}. I think that it's appropriate here, so I've swapped in the infobox template. There isn't exactly a full "dimensions" part of the infobox, but it does have one for height.
  • "Natives" sounds perfectly fine to my ear and I think it's in line with accepted use.
  • Back to you, Mujinga. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 21:55, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
    • On bluelinks I've added two, see what you think
    • Everything else seems fine, congratulations on bringing this article up to GA standard. Mujinga (talk) 13:01, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Glen Rock weight

I was wondering if anyone can find the source of the claim the rock is 570 tons. I added a NYT article from 1985 that notes the rock is 570 tons, which was echoed in the more recent 2015 NYT article about Glen Rock. However, the origin of this estimation beyond that seems to be difficult to pin down, and I can't find the primary source for it. I am interested because it seems relatively precise, and the fact it is mentioned so often makes me want to confirm where this number even came from. --Cerebral726 (talk) 18:00, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

It appears to be a general consensus estimate, though I can't find the original source. There are a large number of sources pre-1985 that estimate the rock as weighing greater than 500 tons, though sources seem to have settled for 570 tons over time. For what it's worth, here's a 1969 source that gives the weight of the rock as 570 tons, so the NY Times is not the original source. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 19:25, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. I looked through the sources present and I agree that that seems to be the oldest using the exact value. I'll see if I can find anything before that. --Cerebral726 (talk) 19:40, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

"Glen Rock (boulder" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Glen Rock (boulder has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 11 § Glen Rock (boulder until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 04:38, 11 February 2024 (UTC)