Wikipedia:Peer review/Rhyolite, Nevada/archive1

Rhyolite, Nevada

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for March 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to prepare it for FAC. It was promoted to GA on March 1, and I have since added a geology section. I'd welcome any advice on any aspect of the article. Thanks, Finetooth (talk) 21:18, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: This is very interesting and well done and seems close to ready for FAC to me. Here are some nitpicky suggestions for improvement.

• The second sentence stops me every time: The town began as one of several mining camps that sprang up when a prospecting discovery in the rhyolite that forms the hills led to a gold rush in 1904. I think it might work better if the gold rush part were moved earlier within the sentence, perhaps something like The town began as one of several mining camps that sprang up as part of a gold rush, sparked by a 1904 prospecting discovery in the rhyolite that forms the surrounding hills. (still not great, but you get the idea). It may need to be split into two sentences
  • Thank you. Yes. It was once a good sentence that I tinkered with until it became a bad sentence. I have re-cast it and the sentence after it to try to make this section more clear. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Would it help to add "which was" or "which is" here: Many settled in Rhyolite, [which was] in a sheltered desert basin near the Montgomery Shoshone Mine, the region's biggest producer.
  • Yes and done. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Would it help to add "Mine" back in Industrialist Charles M. Schwab bought the Montgomery Shoshone in 1906 and invested heavily ... ? If you want to conserve the number of times the word "mine" appears in the lead, it could probably be removed in In 1908, investors in the Montgomery Shoshone Mine, concerned that the mine was overvalued...
  • Yes, and done. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• This is very nitpicky, but could someone be confused as to what the BLM oversees in The Goldwell Open Air Museum lies just south of the ghost town, which is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. (Museum or ghost town)
  • Yes, and done. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• The Name section might be clearer if it was written so as to provide more context to the reader. For example: The town is named for "Rhyolite", an igneous rock composed of light-colored silicates that is usually buff to pink and occasionally light gray.[2] Rhyolite belongs to the same rock class, "felsic", as granite, but is much less common.[2] The Amargosa River's name comes from the Spanish word for "bitter", amargosa. The river flows through the desert, where it takes up large amounts of salts, which give it a bitter taste.[3]
  • Thank you for catching this. Done. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Would it be OK to remove the first "Mountains" in To the west, roughly 5 miles (8.0 km) from Rhyolite, the Funeral Mountains and Grapevine Mountains of the Amargosa Range rise.. or does this make it clearer that they are separate?
  • Yes, and done. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• There are several places where the same ref is used twice in a row in the same paragraph, but it is not a direct quote or extraordinary claim. In places like this it seems better to me to only use one ref. I struck one example above, another is Rhyolite is high enough in the hills to have relatively cool summers, and it has relatively mild winters.[16] However, it is far from sources of water.[16]
  • I ended up removing at least 20 citations that seemed redundant after you pointed this out. I don't know quite how it happened, but I seemed to have cited every imaginable thing. I hope I have not now gone too far in the other direction. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• I would add the 1907 date to the photo caption The Montgomery Shoshone Mine near Rhyolite[, as seen in 1907,] had a large processing mill served by a railroad spur line.
  • Good catch, and done. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Given the name section, is the anmed for part of this needed: Rhyolite, named for the deposits of the mineral rhyolite that contained much of the gold, became the largest of these settlements.[26]?
  • Yes, and done. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Be consistent about capitalization - is it Mine (elsewhere) or mine (here) It sprang up near the most promising discovery, the Montgomery Shoshone mine, which in February 1905 ...
  • I thought I had caught all these, but I missed one. Thank you. Fixed. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Is the caboose pictured the one that served as a gas station? If so, should that be noted (in the caption perhaps)?
  • Here I am stuck. I feel fairly certain that it's the same one, but none of my sources says so. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• I know the price of gold varies, but would it be possible to give a value for the gold produced in Over its entire life, the mine processed about 2,800,000 short tons (2,540,000 t) of ore and produced about 690,000 ounces (19,600 kg) of gold.[54]?
  • Yes. Good suggestion. Gold was selling for about $300 an ounce in 1998, and I multiplied this times the number of ounces to get a figure of about $207 million. I added this to the end of the Barrick Bullfrog subsection. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Question - I am not sure of this either, but should the Ghost town and Resumption of mining sections be subsections of the History section too (as Boom and Bust are)?
  • Yes. I'm glad you asked. They were combined at one point, then divorced, now re-marrried. I also shortened the ungainly title of the last subsection. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hope this helps and let me know when this is at FAC. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to review this and for your excellent suggestions. I will give each item further thought, make changes, and respond over the next couple of days. I will certainly let you know how it goes and when I nominate. Finetooth (talk) 20:20, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That takes care of them all save the unanswered question about the caboose. If I can find an RS that identifies it as the gas station, I'll add that to the caption. Finetooth (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)