This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
ps: molasses has health quality iron and minerals for the human body to digest.
What is the point of including that in this article? Why not just link to the molasses article and put the nutritional information there? in fact, I'll do just that. - ElusiveByte 23:46, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
Bah, I just read the nutritional information of molasses and it says it contains 0% dietary iron. The only mineral of note was calcium at 5% of the recommended daily value per 1 tbsp serving. So I simply deleted this incorrect information rather than moving it - ElusiveByte 23:57, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)
You've got to be kidding. Is this article fictional? :D (I assume it's not fiction, but still...) - Gilgamesh 02:49, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I just thought I'd note that I added the timing of the 18th amendment ratification as just sort of an interesting coincidence. It actually went into effect a year after that, and accounts suggesting that the distilling company was "trying to get in one last batch" are more fancy than fact. In reality, the company continued in business right through Prohibition up to the present day. The Cambridge/Boston facilities were closed some time after this incident, but the company continued to produce alcohol through that period (and they still do). -- iMb~ Mw 01:56, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That was a portion of the Atlantic Avenue Elevated line that ran between North (Union) and South Station until 1938, torn down in 1942. Some accounts suggest that this line was used for transporting molasses, but it was for passenger traffic. A second set of rails for the Union Freight Railroad ran beneath the El, and that is what carried goods from the waterfront. -- iMb~ Mw 03:13, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There is a Ducktales episode called Raiders of the Lost Harp - No. 45, I remeber there is a tank of fluid bubblegum spilling the harbor - quite similar to the Boston molasses disaster. -- Abdull 13:57, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
The overview map showing the area of the disaster is anachronistic--it shows the Sumner (1934) and Callahan (1961) tunnels and the Central Artery (1956). That doesn't make it useless, but the Artery construction in particular changed the North End a lot. I'll change the caption to make this a bit more clear. -- Jnik 18:17, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
The article used to describe the tank as 50 ft tall and 240 ft around. After a change made today, it read 50 ft tall and 90 ft around. I changed it to 50 ft tall and 90 ft in diameter, which is supported by other sources.
The content number was clearly bogus. Calculate a volume with any of the numbers above (pick any shape) and you will see what I mean: there's no way 2.5 million gallons fit into such a tank. Therefore, I changed that number from 2.5 to 2.3 (source as above). Rl 19:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Does it make sense to use a reprint from the New York Times when the Boston Globe's coverage should be considered definitive? (The Boston Public Library's microfiche room staff can tell you which issue to pull because every 5th grader in town ends up writing a paper on this.... I did.) Alexr wiki 03:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd be great if someone could maybe make a note about the scientific feasibilty of this statement. Tomb Ride My Talk 20:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
This article did not go through the current GA nomination process. Looking at the article as is, it fails on criteria 2b of the GA quality standards. Although references are provided, the citation of sources is essential for verifiability. Most Good Articles use inline citations. I would recommend that this be fixed, to reexamine the article against the GA quality standards, and to submit the article through the nomination process. -- RelHistBuff 13:01, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
This article is close to GA quality, but requires some copyediting and cleanup. The following issues should be addressed and the article resubmitted for consideration:
1. The style of writing in the article is inconsistent. For example, numbers are alternately spelled out or written in arabic numerals (such as 18th Amendment vs. Eighteenth Amendment). Furthermore, some of the measurements in the article are linked while others aren't, dates are written differently, abbreviations changed, etc. Some members of a series are linked, while others not.
2. Two quotations appear without introduction or qualification and are quite difficult to separate from the text of the actual article. These need qualification and should adhere to the Manual of Style.
3. Copyediting needs to be done for spelling errors, unclosed parentheses, and minor grammatical errors.
4. Statements like "bomb throwing anti-war anarchists" might violate NPOV standards.
5. The references should be cited appropriately. For example, if you go to the website of the first reference, at the bottom of the page (as in the website the link goes to) it demonstrates exactly how the page should be cited. This should be observed. The second reference should be cited appropriately as well, rather than just naming the source. The appropriate style for reference citation should be observed for all the references given.
This article is quite interesting, and with a little polish, will easily pass when resubmitted. Cheers! Chuchunezumi 16:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Something must be wrong with the metric numbers for the size of the tank. The article says 27 meters in diameter, and 15 meters tall. 27*Pi*15 = 1272 cubic meters = 1.272 million liters. Not 8.7 million liters. Unless this article is suggesting that the molasses was compressed by a factor of 8, which sounds impossible. Akeshet 05:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
V = r2πh
. Thus the maximum capacity of the tank was 13.5×13.5×п×15 ≈ 9 million liters, slightly more than the 8.7 million liters shown in the article. --
Allen3
talk
12:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)Ooops, what the hell was I thinking. Akeshet 02:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
That's a strange way to put it. All people want to know is, how long did it take? How many people worked on the cleanup? Man-decade is something an engineer would use to cost out a job. An encyclopedia reader wants to know who, what, when, where and why. MarkinBoston 01:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I am 19 years old and blind. I am interested in adding relevent items to wiki that help the blind "visualize" and grasp the subjects at hand. I love the tradition of oral storytelling. I have added a link to a radio story by The American Storyteller. This audio story is about the The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919.-- Trgwilson ( talk) 22:39, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
The smell people often claim is the residual molasses smell is really a tar smell. I don't have any references for this, but I live in Boston and know a good deal about the local history, and am also familiar with the nauseating tar smell you can detect in the area of the flood. 75.69.110.227 22:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
The Massachusetts Molasses Massacre. The Great SLOW Flood. The Great Sugar Slaughter. The River Of Death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.88.67.230 ( talk) 00:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
The following section was removed as unsourced and contradicted by NYTimes article:
However, the Boston Globe states on January 16, 1919 on page 7:
So it seems the truth is somewhere in between, but I can't read the whole article. Can someone with access dig this up to get to the bottom of this? Thanks. WilliamKF ( talk) 20:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
More photographs can be found and I believe due to their age, they should be free to use on Wikipedia.
-- Root Beers ( talk) 07:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Isn't it likely that: William A. Duffee ? Resident in vicinity[2]
Is the same person as William Duffy 58 Laborer (North End Paving Yard)[citation needed]
This sure looks like a typical newspaper error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.88.39.178 ( talk) 22:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
The ships called the USS Nantucket in teh article is the wrong ship. The ship at the disaster is THIS ONE: http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/ship-nantucket.jpg The ship shown currently is a light ship, it that was never a training ship that could carry 116 cadets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.119.144.118 ( talk) 22:57, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
The story says 21 died and the table of fatalities lists 21 by name, but under "Aftermath" there is also the text, "Two found on the fourth day were never identified." So, 21 or 23? -- 72.70.10.74 ( talk) 05:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
I've been researching the Molasses disaster, and I noticed that the diagram showing the location of the molasses tank is very wrong. It shows what I believe to be an earlier tank.
Here is the diagram that I believe is correct: http://books.google.com/books?id=e9OHvbC0_BoC&lpg=PP1&ots=9yyMsWlwB5&dq=dark%20tide&pg=PR14#v=onepage&q&f=false
Also, you can view a 1917 map here: http://www.mapjunction.com/places/Open_BRA/flash/flash4.pl?save=billwarner77,1282198241
The incorrect map is probably based on the tank location shown in a 1908 map here: http://www.mapjunction.com/places/Open_BRA/flash/flash4.pl?save=billwarner77,1282198311 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billwarner ( talk • contribs) 06:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
So I have found an article in my school's data base that addresses the disaster in terms of weather fluctuations. "Contributing Editor SEAN POTTER is a New York based Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM), Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM), and science writer with an interest in weather history."
Potter, Sean. (2011). Retrospect: January 15, 1919: Boston molasses flood. Weatherwise, 64(1), 10-11
Morrowind1984 ( talk) 14:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm no fluid mechanics expert but I find it hard to believe that viscous sugar syrup could kill any body unless they had it poured over their heads and drowned. Yeah, the tank was under pressure, but how could mere fermentation exacerbated by warm temperatures generate enough force to generate a shock wave that threw trucks in the air, not to mention that the article seems to imply an explosion the likes of which have never been seen on Mythbusters or video tapes of demolishing buildings. So help me understand - how could something so viscous cause all the mayhem reported here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.48.56.129 ( talk) 15:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
In the table under Fatalities, if Bridget Clougherty gets to be a "Homemaker", why is Stephen Clougherty "Unemployed"? I'm sure that Stephen helped "make the home" a little bit with his free time. 208.54.40.140 ( talk) 21:31, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
The massive spike in traffic reported here is almost certainly due to this page being linked from http://what-if.xkcd.com/36/ XKCD army incoming! :) • Jesse V. (talk) 04:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
Initially, way back in August 2002, the article said, "It took over six months to remove the molasses from the cobblestone streets, theaters, businesses, automobiles, and homes." In December 2006 this changed to "It took 133 men months to remove the molasses...", and a citation (p. 98 in "Dark Tide") was added. In March 2007 the wording changed to "It took over a man-decade..." The statement continued to take on a life of its own. By the end of 2007 it said, "It took over 87,000 man-hours". Subsequently, a succession of editors have offered various interpretations of this figure, right up to the present time.
The only problem is that there is no such figure on p. 98 of Dark Tide, or on any other page of the Puleo book. I have searched the entire book repeatedly and am convinced that the information is not there. But then, how could anyone possibly know how many hours of effort were involved in cleaning up the countless molasses-soiled places throughout the city? Where the "133 men months" phrase came from is a mystery. The original "over six months" wording is equally unverifiable.
Apparently we have been publishing bogus, improperly-sourced information all these years. Widely republished and quoted, it has misinformed readers far too long. It is time to remedy that situation. I have edited the section accordingly, this time with ample verifiable sourcing, and no specific figure for the city-wide cleanup. Hertz1888 ( talk) 16:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
This article should be called The Boston Molassacre. Or at the very least the event's well-known nickname should get a mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Strobelit ( talk • contribs) 15:44, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Boston Molasses Disaster has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Change "James H. Kinneally" to "James H. Kenneally" -- source on correct spelling of the surname can be found on the Boston Post image that is also on this wiki page. Correct spelling is "Kenneally".
Second source: I am a great-great-grandchild of his and it'd be nice to see the name corrected. Kk02127 ( talk) 18:20, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: move to Great Molasses Flood. Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 13:31, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
Boston Molasses Disaster →
Great Molasses Flood – Per
WP:UCN, the
way more common name is preferred as article title. --Relisted.
Steel1943 (
talk) 02:04, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
Dicklyon (
talk)
16:47, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Category:1919 in Massachusetts, Category:20th century in Boston, Massachusetts, Category:Disasters in Massachusetts, Category:Engineering failures, Category:Environmental disasters in the United States, Category:Floods in the United States, Category:History of Boston, Massachusetts, Category:Industrial accidents and incidents, Category:North End, Boston Greg Kaye 03:26, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, here's my take on this. The operative policy is WP:AT which offers two entirely contradictory rules. The first section Wikipedia:Article titles#Deciding on an article title summarizes this.
The first sentence is Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject. It then goes on to strongly infer (although not state directly) that if and only if it is not clearly established "how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject", we go on to look at the Five Virtues.
But why? As a thought experiment, image a case where the great preponderance of English-language sources refer to an entity as "XYZ", and yet most readers wanting to learn about this entity will not be familiar with that name, will not know to search on that name, and if they do find the article with that title will not have any idea (from just the title) what it's about.
Very unlikely, but it's a thought experiment. Should we still go with "XYZ" as the title? I would say not. So why does WP:AT tell us to?
Two reasons I think. One, it's just a reflexive holdover from our (quite proper) dependence on and valorization of reliable sources for article material. This tends to carry over into a general "reliable sources good" mindset even when it's not appropriate. (For instance, it bedevils discussions on typography (whether or not entities should be given as "Pink" or "P!nk", "Macy's" or "Macy*s" and so forth) where we are jerked around by trying to read the tea leaves of reliable sources, which devolves to trying to follow the majority vote of other publications' stylebooks, rather than using the brains God gave us to try to figure out, and then do, what's best for our readers. (I think that is why it says "reliable" sources when reliability is germane only for statements of fact, not what we should title things; it should say "notable" or "popular" or "widely-read" sources or something, or else "scholarly" or "academic" if they had wanted to roll that way.)
But the real reason is contained in WP:AT itself, where it says "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural." (emphasis added.) To stretch that out and informalize it a bit, the passage could be restated like this: "Remember when we said 'article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources'? Well, we mainly did that because what we really want is the 'most recognizable and most natural' titles, and reliable sources almost by definition provide that. (After all, it's practically impossible to image a case where a clear preponderance of many reliable sources called a place by a certain name, yet most readers did not recognize that name.)" This makes sense, and it explains an important reason why we go by preponderance of sources, I think.
So my reading of WP:AT is that the Five Virtues are the ruling authority for article titles, and that reference to reliable sources is more on the order of reflexive hand waving, in the same sense that "Good night, and God bless you all" is not really a theological statement of belief.
(Even if you don't believe that, in this case you are only going to be able to go with reliable sources if "how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject" is established. To do that, you have to interpret "how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject". Does "English-language sources" refer to all English-language sources with no exception (that would be silly), or to 51% or more of such sources, or some supermajority of such sources (67%, 75%, 90%, whatever), or perhaps just a plurality of such sources (40% or even less if no other single phrase is more common), or what? If you can satisfy yourself that some standard is met and can convince others, AND if you don't buy my argument re valorizing the Five Virtues, then you're all set to look at reliable sources first.)
If you're with me on the Five Virtues being in play, let's move forward. To summarize them, they are:
So then looking at three options that seem to be in play, we have:
They're equally concise. They're maybe equal in consistency (although I would hazard that we tend to title articles like "Ohio train disaster (1903)" rather than "Great train disaster (1903). Naturalness, I dunno -- possibly "Great molasses flood" is the winner here. Precision and Recognizability, though, anything with "Boston" in it is going to have the whip hand.
Consider readers who are flipping through article titles at speed, looking for this subject, based on a vague and half-remembered account. "Boston" is better than "Great" for fixing the subject, IMO. It's almost by definition "great" or there wouldn't be an article on it. Similarly, readers flipping through article titles at speed looking for a different event, a molasses tanker sinking or a water flood somewhere etc. are better served by the "Boston" in the title as a basis for rejecting the article than by "Great", a rather vague term.
Similar logic applies to the reader immediately understanding what the article is about once she does get to it. (Obviously, once the reader reads the first sentence all confusion is cleared up, but the point of titles is for reader not to have to do that to find the article they want.)
So: two of the Five Virtues a draw (maybe), one of them favoring "Great..." (maybe), two of them favoring "Boston...". Q.E.D., for my part it's got to be either Boston molasses disaster (or Boston Molasses Disaster) or Boston molasses flood (or Boston Molasses Flood). On the principle of inertia -- WP:TITLECHANGES which says "Changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed", I'm voting for just keeping the existing title. That's my story and I'm sticken to it. Herostratus ( talk) 13:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Here is a straight breakdown of search results for a number of the names being floated around.-- Labattblueboy ( talk) 10:47, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Title | Google Scholar | Google books | Links | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Boston Molasses Disaster | 15,200 | 17 | 369 | Google:
"Boston Molasses Disaster" -wikipedia Google scholar: "Boston Molasses Disaster" -wikipedia Google books: [4] |
Boston Molasses Flood | 21,900 | 36 | 6,500 | Google:
"Boston Molasses Flood" -wikipedia Google scholar: "Boston Molasses Flood" -wikipedia Google books: [5] |
Great Molasses Flood | 22,000 | 71 | 2,800 | Google:
"Great Molasses Flood" -wikipedia Google scholar: "Great Molasses Flood" -wikipedia Google books: [6] |
Great Boston Molasses Flood | 16,400 | 27 | 6,230 | Google:
"Great Boston Molasses Flood" -wikipedia Google scholar: "Great Boston Molasses Flood" -wikipedia Google books: [7] |
Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 | 12,400 | 23 | 5,740 | Google:
"Boston Molasses Flood of 1919" -wikipedia Google scholar: "Boston Molasses Flood of 1919" -wikipedia Google books: [8] |
Thanks, good work. A graphic rendition of the above, in miniature.
Randy Kryn 12:00 12 April, 2015 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to one external link on
Great Molasses Flood. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 14:59, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
In the passage
does the exclamation point belong? It's unusual to have exclamation points in the middle of sentences. It's not a quotation. Editors are disagreeing about this. Herostratus ( talk) 15:23, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Great Molasses Flood. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 00:55, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi, the temperatures in the sections "Flood" and "Causes" do not match. Which is correct: 40F/4C or 41F/5C? T 85.166.160.249 ( talk) 21:57, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
I added an American-language template to the Talk page for the benefit of some recent (and future?) editors. The event took place in Massachusetts, but feel free to discuss (or change) if there is a good reason. — UncleBubba ( T @ C ) 17:22, 16 September 2020 (UTC)