Template:Did you know nominations/Black City (Baku)

Round symbols for illustrating comments about the DYK nomination The following is an archived discussion of Black City (Baku)'s DYK nomination. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page; such as this archived nomination"s (talk) page, the nominated article's (talk) page, or the Did you knowDYK comment symbol (talk) page. Unless there is consensus to re-open the archived discussion here. No further edits should be made to this page. See the talk page guidelines for (more) information.

The result was: promoted by Miyagawa (talk) 11:02, 16 February 2013 (UTC).

Black City Baku

edit

Black City in 1905

Created by Parishan (talk). Self nom at 16:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

  • New enough, long enough, neutral, well-sourced, AGF on offline sources, no copyvio issue on the online ones. The link supporting the hook has gone dead, but sources like this one support it. Good to go - but first needs a quid pro quo review. Aymatth2 (talk) 23:46, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
* I think it's good to go now. I made some basic corrections in style, hope you don't mind. Cambalachero (talk) 01:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
  • The article still desperately needs copyediting by a native English speaker.--Carabinieri (talk) 10:11, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I am not concerned about the quality of the language, which seems better than most to me. My concern is just the technicality that User:Parishan displays 8 DYKs on their user page, so should have reviewed at least one other article under the "quid pro quo" rule. I see that BlueMoonset dropped a note to Parishan on 28 January (I should have done that when I raised the quibble), that since then Parishan has done just 3 edits. I will leave another note. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Here are a few examples for this article's need for copyediting:
  • "Plants and factories were built in a capitally constructed and organised manner, but in general were quite inconvenient for the population due to exhaust pipes constantly polluting the air" - what's 'capitally constructed ?
  • "The land which was partially formed from the farms and pastures of the neighbouring village of Keshla accommodated the dismantled factories" The word 'formed' seems wrong.
  • "For the first time in the history of Russian urban planning, the design an urban area was based on the principle of symmetrical construction" There's a word missing somewhere in there.
  • Those are just some examples.--Carabinieri (talk) 02:56, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • It is a new article, and meets the main criteria of sourcing, neutral, avoiding copyright concerns and so on. To the examples, I interpret "capitally constructed" as meaning "very well constructed": "That is a capital idea!" means a very good idea; "taken" is perhaps more accurate than "formed", but perhaps less neutral since it implies lack of compensation; the missing word is "of". Certainly the wording can be improved - it can always be improved. I would take a shot, but the rules say someone else would then have to review it. It is not bad at all. Once the QPQ is done I would let it go, warts and all. Aymatth2 (talk) 03:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, I'm in the process of making some copyedits to the article. Perhaps they'll help. - ʈucoxntalk 06:44, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I copyedited the whole article and checked some of the sources (to the extent that I could, not understanding Russian). The prose is at least a little better now. The originally proposed DYK hook was mainly about Villa Petrolea, which has had its own page since 8 May 2012. The citation for that hook on the Black City (Baku) page led to a broken link. I added the citations for the location of Villa Petrolea from its own page but one is in Russian so it needs to be verified. Considering that the information from the original hook was has been on wikipedia for a while in the Villa Petrolea article, I proposed a new hook, which is cited in the article and short enough. A reviewer other than me should check this out.- ʈucoxntalk 22:29, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
    I believe this is the source for the Nobel pipeline: [1] Grandmaster 23:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the copyediting, Tucoxn. I hate to do this after the effort you've put into it, but I still have some quibbles. For one the first claim in the article that I tried to verify (" A Western traveller who visited Black City in 1890 described it as follows") turned out to be slightly inaccurate, as the cited source was Turkish - technically to the West of Azerbaijan, but not really what I had in mind when I read "Western". This makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the article. Furthermore, much of the article cites that book by Henry. It does not however give any page numbers, making it unverifiable in practice. I like the alternative hook you proposed, Tuco, but unfortunately this fact is also backed up by that book, without a page number. I tried searching an online version of the book for the words "pipeline" and "Balakhany", but those words apparently don't appear in the book (Balakhany might be spelled differently, or the search program might just have been unable to recognize the characters).--Carabinieri (talk) 23:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • It is on page 88:

As soon as Robert began to refine the crude from Balakhani he recognised that the practice of carrying oil in barrels was slow, wasteful and expensive. The other firms refused to co-operate in a pipe-line project, and Ludwig had to be applied to. For £10,000 a pipe was laid down from Balakhani to the Black Town, and the fact that it paid expenses the first year gave Robert and Ludwig a widespread reputation, and encouraged other firms to do the same. In this way they laid the foundation of modern activity and enterprise at Baku.

  • You need to search for "pipe line" and "Balakhani". Grandmaster 23:32, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Ok, oops. But I don't see where it says that it was the first pipeline in the country, but I'm probably missing something again.--Carabinieri (talk) 23:38, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Considering that the oil industry of the Russian empire almost entirely concentrated in Baku, it should be true. The pipeline is also described on page 73. The statement could be supported by another source: In 1878, the Nobels completed Russia's first pipeline, 5.6 miles long and 2 inches in diameter, with a capacity of nearly 10,000 bpd. [2] Grandmaster 00:02, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
    Maybe the hook should also mention that the first pipeline was laid by Nobel brothers? Grandmaster 00:26, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I have to agree with Carabinieri regarding wondering about the accuracy of the article. Most of the sources are in Russian so I'm not fit to evaluate the information that comes from those.
Regarding adding the nobel brothers to the hook, I propose the following 180 character update (which sounds a little wordy to me):
- ʈucoxntalk 03:19, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The hook is good. I can check accuracy of any Russian reference, I'm a Russian speaker. Grandmaster 08:42, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I added some more content, maybe too much, citing online English-language sources. All these sources are consistent with the original version of the article, but it needs a fresh review. I suggest ALT4 below, as a simpler variant on ALT3. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:04, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

New review needed. Aymatth2 (talk)

I made some minor fixes. Otherwise is is good, in my opinion. The only thing is that I don't see how Stalin is relevant to the topic of Black City. The info about him is interesting, but might be more appropriate in another article. Grandmaster 20:23, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Stalin came up in two "book-with-preview" search results as collaborating with gangs and organizing kidnappings and strikes in Black City in the 1900s. I think that is relevant to the history of the place. I would like to see more about the social and industrial changes in Black City during the chaotic century after 1905, but will leave that for some other editor. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:18, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Alright then. Grandmaster 21:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
I thought it was relevant that Black City, a major oil (income) producer, is in present-day Azerbaijan as opposed to Russia. It's "hooky" because it shows a contradiction. That's why I included that fact in the hook. Please consider updating it to include that fact. Thanks. - ʈucoxntalk 21:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough - ALT5 (below) captures that. Although I suspect "first oil pipeline in the Russian Empire" will be the main interest. I am probably breaking all sorts of rule, but have added myself to the DYKmakes for this one (I did almost double the size) and added a QPQ review. So it just needs a check for the other criteria. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:24, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Needs a review by someone who has not contributed to the article. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:41, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

  • I think I still qualify as impartial even though I took part in the discussion above. The article is long enough, meets all the minimum standards. ALT6 is interesting, short enough, and so forth.--Carabinieri (talk) 17:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)