Talk:Great Salt Lake whale hoax

Comments left by AfC reviewers

• Comment: Thanks for the barnstar! It looks like you've addressed the "storybook" elements of the draft in this rendition of the page, particularly the lines of "the story continues to captivate imaginations and is retold in various forms even today" as being on the "opinion" end.
  I'd wager the title may need to be changed, as calling it a "legend" while also calling it a "hoax" immediately in the lede is a bit of a discrepancy. Possibly something like Great Salt Lake whale hoax is a more preferable title, unless there were a specific piece titled "Legend of Whales" at some point. The draft looks much better now, but I'll leave it to someone else to review at this point. (I'd highly encourage moving the page to a the new title still.) Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 12:58, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that works too. I meant "moving the page" away from the "Legend of Whales" title, not necessarily the hoax title. Hoax / myth seem suitable. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 16:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I think the "hoax" description in the title is a bit more accurate. Keeps contents inline with other articles throughout the Hoaxes category, to which this article has more in common with compared to the Mythology category.

@Samoht27: I think I'm going to move it back to include "hoax" instead of "myth". The definition on the category page for hoaxes states that "a hoax is widely publicized and intentional attempt to make people believe falsehoods". This seems to be the case here via the news stories about whales, in order to make people believe it and sell whale oil. (The requested move mentioned above already occurred, away from the previous title of "Legend of Whales in the Great Salt Lake"). Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 19:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

This sounds optimal, thank you. It's less of a myth in the traditional sense as it's just a piece of misinformation spread by some newspapers. -Samoht27 (talk) 20:34, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

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• ... that in 1888, a sensational story claimed that a British scientist, James Wickham, introduced two whales to the Great Salt Lake in an attempt to start a whale oil industry?

• Source: https://www.hjnews.com/news/local/the-beehive-archive-a-whale-of-a-tale-from-early-slc-newspapers/article_6c92436d-050b-5fd7-a2e5-57966dd2e7cd.html

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Tropical Storm Chris (2024)

Moved to mainspace by RadicalUranium (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has less than 5 past nominations.

OhHaiMark (talk) 17:09, 29 August 2024 (UTC).