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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rhyolite, Nevada

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 17:37, 17 March 2009 [1].

Rhyolite, Nevada edit

Nominator(s): Finetooth (talk)

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that it meets all of the requirements. It's about a popular Nevada ghost town that had a brief but spectacular life as a gold-rush settlement in the first decade of the 20th century. My thanks to User:Admiral Norton for a GA review and to User:Ruhrfisch for a peer review. Finetooth (talk) 19:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support I recently peer reviewed this and found it to be up to the FA criteria. Ref 3 needs an access date, and I wish we knew if the caboose pictured used to be the gas station, but otherwise I have no suggestions for improvement. In the interest of full disclosure, I made a few copyedits and did make the locator map some time ago. Very well done, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 20:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your kind words and support. I have added the missing access date to Ref. 3. Thanks for spotting this. Finetooth (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, made a few tweaks but this looks ready. A couple of items:
    • "Another building housed the Rhyolite Mining Stock Exchange ..." The section beginning with this sentence needs some clarity; it's written as if the stock exchanges bought and sold shares ("opened ... to trade shares" and "it had bought and sold"). That isn't strictly true - traders buy and sell shares, usually through a broker.
    • You've been spoiling us with modern-day currency equivalencies until the Bust section. Are these figures in historical dollars or current?
--Laser brain (talk) 20:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your support, and bless you for catching the stock exchange error. I unwittingly compressed the source's explanation beyond recognition. I have re-written three sentences, and I hope this section now makes better sense. I've also converted the bullion figure that opens the Bust section and added a clarifying "historical dollars" comment about the stock prices. With the stock prices, I think the fluctuations are more important than the gross amounts. Finetooth (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tech. Review

Dabs (toolbox)
  • ..are up to speed.
External links (toolbox)
  • ..are up to speed.
Ref formatting (WP:REFTOOLS)
  • The following ref is duplicated, and appears as such in the ref section, use a ref name instad
  • Lingenfelter, p. 210 --₮RUCӨ 21:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I have fixed the duplicate ref. Those rascals are hard to see. Finetooth (talk) 22:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your welcome, yeah, that's why the script does it for me :P (Ref formatting is up to speed.)--₮RUCӨ 00:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. I fixed a few ref formatting errors for you. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for checking these and for fixing the ref errors. Try as I might to ferret them out, a couple of those "p" and "pp" critters always seem to hide in the eelgrass. Finetooth (talk) 18:15, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - This is a wonderful article, drawing in many facets of American history {The Panic of 1907!), geology, finance, mining, (and more) all concisely worded. Pristine prose. Wonderful pictures and captions. A neat TOC, and a comprehensible list of references, this is (to me) what an FA should be. It draws in the reader to learn more, rather than presenting overwhelming evidence that you have covered all the bases. I commend you on your judicious use of wikilinks to a world of articles on other subjects. I don't pretend to know whether you have covered all the MoS issues. But it is obvious that a great deal of care has gone into the construction of this fine article. Minor, minor nitpick is the use of "lies". But really, this is so minor. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your extremely kind words and support. (I must not let this go to my head.) Is the "lies" in the Bottle House caption the one you mean? Would plain "is" be better? Or "fell into"? Finetooth (talk) 02:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is sooo minor, but I was referring to places, such as "Rhyolite lies". But I tried to think of a substitute and did not immediately come up with one. (When it comes to wording, I am over-the-top picky!) —Mattisse (Talk) 12:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I like picky. I couldn't see it before, but now I do. I used essentially the same device a half-dozen times to avoid the passive "is located". I have changed three of the "lie" or "lies" to "is" to vary the pattern. Please let me know if that still doesn't cut it. Finetooth (talk) 15:06, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that is fine! —Mattisse (Talk) 16:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: I sorted out File:Charles M. Schwab - Project Gutenberg eText 17976.jpg and File:Montgomery mine panorama cropped middle.jpg, so along with the self-taken images, the images in the article check out okay. Jappalang (talk) 01:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My thanks, Jappalang. Finetooth (talk) 04:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support meets the criteria, nicely done, very interesting. Dincher (talk) 03:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the kind words and support. Finetooth (talk) 04:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The Library of Congress has some images of this of decently high quality. Would you like me to try for some Featured Pictures? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for offering. Are these Library of Congress photos different from the mine photo I've already used? Finetooth (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's quite a few, actually, and I believe there's also a higher-res version of the mine. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If they are in the public domain and better than what we already have, please do. That would be great. Finetooth (talk) 02:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
  • In general, I'm struck by the similarity between this and similar places here in Alaska like Eagle and Circle, though both of those towns still survive tenuously.
  • In the lede, you give distances to what I assume are the nearest existing settlements -- could you also provide the distance to a city that a reader is more likely to be familiar with, such as Las Vegas?
Good suggestion. Las Vegas added to the first sentence of the lede. Finetooth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assume the Bullfrog Mining District's name is derived from the Bullfrog Hills, but could you state that explicitly?
Yes. Done, citing Lingenfelter. Finetooth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oops. It was so named after the Bullfrog mining claim was filed, implicitly derived from the claim, not the hills. Finetooth (talk) 21:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Now explicit. Both stem from the name the two prospectors gave to their mine. Sourced to Nevada Place Names. Finetooth (talk) 21:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the names section, why is felsic in quotes?
Operator error. Fixed, and I thank you. Finetooth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm also confused about the order in which things happened -- was the Bullfrog mine and district named after the hills, or vice-versa? I'd assume the former, but ...
Implicitly vice-versa. I have ducked on making this claim directly in the article because, although my sources imply it, none actually says directly that the Bullfrog Hills were named after the original mining claim. Finetooth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No longer ducking. Nevada Place Names makes it explicit. All things Bullfroggy in the region stem from the Bullfrog Mine name chosen by Cross and Harris. I have added a sentence to this effect to the Names section of the article and cited the place names book. Thanks for this nudge. Finetooth (talk) 21:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • When referencing Yucca Mountain, I'd suggest "proposed" before the link to the waste depository.
Good point. Done. Finetooth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the boom section, I'd suggest "grew to a population of 1,200 people"
I changed the sentence to read, "Starting as a two-man camp in January 1905, Rhyolite became a town of 1,200 people in two weeks and reached a population of 2,500 by June 1905." Finetooth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure about this, but since you've got conversions for everything else, would it be appropriate to convert the references to "a ton" into metric tons as well?
I had given this some thought earlier but decided that the additional conversions would make the sentences harder to read without adding information of much value. On the other hand, prompted by your question, I have now linked the first use of "ton" to short ton. Will this suffice? Finetooth (talk) 22:30, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Other than these minor fixes, I'd say you've created a pretty darn nice article. JKBrooks85 (talk) 11:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your kind words and helpful suggestions. Finetooth (talk) 14:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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