Talk:Hamlet chicken processing plant fire

Ahh, so reading the Reference Desk pays off!

Nice work! 68.39.174.238 19:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the reference desk guys were really helpful. Oh, and thanks! Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart - Receive My EviLove 19:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Number of owners?

Do we know how many owners were sentenced? --Fang Aili ^talk 21:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The lack of that detail was really bugging me as I wrote it, but unfortunatly I could find nothing. Will give it one last try, though. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart - Receive My EviLove 21:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Good job on the article! --Fang Aili ^talk 21:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! By the way, I re-attempted a Google search with other terms, much better results. Watch this page if you like, a lot of expnsion work will be done to it. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart - Receive My EviLove 21:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

Good work. Meets the standards and makes GA. Should go through a full peer review and then be recommended for FA. Mocko13 20:46, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

The lead paragraph should be expanded. It's too small. (Ghostexorcist 20:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC))

Repeated sentence

In the Background section, the sentence "The plant had been hit by fires before Imperial took over as well, although these, too, were non-fatal.[1]" appears twice. However, its not clear if it was intended to describe the Hamlet plant or the other named facility (and I haven't poured over the references). --Parradoxx 20:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I have clarified the sentance. The intended meaning was the Hamlet plant. Thanks, Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Some comments

Really good and interesting article.

• Redlinks: There are several redlinks that can be removed, e.g. 'Essential Criminology', 'business lobby' and 'Walk in freezer' (why not 'walk-in freezer'?)
• What is up with the capitalisation of certain references in the list?
• Ref number 4 seems to have a broken/misformated PDF link.
• The company allways had a poor safety record = The company always had a poor safety record
• The See also could be limited to articles with more striking similarities to this one, as opposed to just fires with fatalities.

--rxnd ( t | € | c ) 14:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

A second thought, the lack of sprinklers are mentioned repeatedly. Would they have been suitable in a factory with industrial deep fat frying facilities? --rxnd ( t | € | c ) 14:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Reading this sentence a second time, it does not make complete sense: The line was rated to 3,000 psi, while normal operating pressure never fluctuated higher than 1,500 psi. When the line was brought up to normal operating pressure, the line separated from this end connector. So the line was faulty, or was it the DIY connector? --rxnd ( t | € | c ) 14:26, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Response

Here is my response to the comments above:

• Redlink removal: redlinks have been trimmed down.
• Reference capitalisation: I don't quite understand the problem. I had a quick look over the references, and saw nothing obviously wrong.
• Broken PDF link: fixed.
• Size of see also: it only includes fire where workers were trapped behind locked/inopenable fire exits. While I would like to cut it down, I can't think of any more limiting criteria.
• Sprinklers: Dunno if nescescary at the frying section of the facility, but they probably were elsewhere. I have eddited the article so it simply mentions they weren't there; it no longer blames the rapid spread on their nonexistance.
• Connector seperation: The official report is deliberatly strongly suggestive of the fact that the seperation was due to the DIY modification. This line therefore needs rewritten for clarity; do you have any suggestions for how it should read?

Regards, Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Redlinks good, as for the references I was thinking of "FIRE VIOLATIONS KILL TWENTY-FIVE IN CHICKEN PLANT" and the other one (15) with all capitals. See also - good. Sprinklers a matter for expert input. Sentence suggestion: "However, when the line with a customized connector was brought up to normal operating pressure..." --rxnd ( t | € | c ) 02:56, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that is how the cited sources typed it - although, come to think of it, I should really sort them out and convert them into "normal" text. the sentance suggestion works well; I shall implement it in the article. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Image Fix Request

• Hiya! I just finished fixing the photos. The proper syntax for images is: [[Image:Source.ext|thumb|right|250px|Caption]] ^SyBer_WoLff 15:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks; I shall bear that in mind in future. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

"Worst disaster"

Surely this sentence is a pretty obvious exaggeration:

The fire remains the worst disaster ever to strike North Carolina.

I mean, the Civil War, natural disasters... I think it needs to be reworded.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

How about a change to:

Excluding wars, the fire remains the worst man-made disaster ever to strike North Carolina.?

That should be fine, right? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be more appropriate to describe it as "the worst work-related disaster ever to strike North Carolina" or something that specifies the disaster a bit more. Ranking a workplace accident, even if it very tragic, notable and resulting in great loss of life, second only to the Civil War seems a bit... well... melodramatic.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

After some consideration, I've decided to go with your above suggestion (although I changed work-related to workplace). Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I stuck with work-related. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

The article quotes its reference to call this the second-worst US industrial disaster of the 20th century. The reference ins incorrect: the Texas City disaster of 1947 was far worse than the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.-Arch dude 14:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The article misquotes another source to expand worst NC "industrial disaster" to worst "peacetime human-made disaster." This is incorrect. The 1925 Coal Glen mining disaster was worse. I corrected the article. -Arch dude 23:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Requested page move

Over on the FAC page there has been a suggestion to move this page against guidlines to Hamlet chicken processing plant fire per WP:IAR. The given reason is:

"If there is no other "Hamlet chicken processing plant fire" to disambiguate it from (heh) then clearly, the "1991" is just padding. The title strikes me as being the result of an overindulgence in guidelines rather than intuitive naming."

I am personally neutral to the rename; if no-one objects here, I shall perform the move and the redirect fixing. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

After thinking the issue over for a time, I decided not to go ahead for the reason that we should stick to the WP:DM standard naming convention, except for incredibly famous disasters, such as the Bhopal disaster. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It still looks pretty odd, Sandman. Following guidelines just because they're guidelines just doesn't make sense, and the "1991" looks slightly silly when there's no other Hamlet chicken processing plant fires to disambiguate from.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed the see also-section. There are five links to disasters of the exact same sort as this one, and none of them have the year it occurred in the title; I'm moving the article.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, suit yourself. I don't have the energy or the heart to argue the toss over this one any more. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:44, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Order of items in "See also"

Is there any particular order to the items in the "See also" section? It's not ordered alphabetically or by number of deaths. It also doesn't appear to be ordered by similarity to the Hamlet chicken processing plant fire or even by notability of the fire in question (the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is generally considered the prototypical factory fire that spurred worker fire safety regulations). —RP88 19:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I have re-arranged them into chronological order. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments at the FAC

I added some comments towards the end of the FAC, just before the article got promoted. Is it possible for those issues to be addressed briefly here? Carcharoth 02:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure, will see to it. I would have gotten it done shortly after the end of FAC, but I was experiencing tech problems and couldn't access Wikipedia - the article's promotion was a nice surprise upon my return! Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 07:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

0,9 metres

Maybe a small thing, but I think it sounds a lot more logical to state that the distance between the memorial monuments is "50 feet (46 metres)" rather than "50 feet (0,9 metres)". Surely you would like to know the distance between the monuments in metres, not how many metres one foot is? or am I missing something here? I got a "do your experimenting in the sandbox"-template on my userpage for this.../ Marxmax 22:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That not only seems reasonable, but is, I believe, how it's supposed to be done. Maybe you should contact the guy who reverted you and ask him/her to come along down here and explain; it was probably just a misunderstanding on their part. I'm going to reinstate your edit - for the time being, at least. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Spoken version added

I have added a spoken version of this article; see the link at the top of this page. Hassocks5489 22:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Char grilled chicken breasts

From the last paragraph of Emergency Response:

For the purposes of the investigation, Fuller was asked to evaluate the emergency response. He told investigators that he felt there were "more than adequate numbers of personnel and equipment given the layout of the incident site".[2] And the char grilled chicken breasts are still being sold to this day.

Can someone explain the last sentence to me? --The Dark Side 01:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Throughout this article, the unqualified term "dollar" and the $ symbol refer to the United States dollar.

What's the deal with this notice? Is there any reason people should not assume any mention of dollars would be the USD, its made clear the disaster took place in North Carolina in the first sentence? EditorInTheRye 01:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

It was added per an issue raised at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1991 Hamlet chicken processing plant fire. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 02:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The WP:$ referred to there says this, though: "Fully identify a currency on its first appearance (AU$52); subsequent occurrences are normally given without the country identification (just $88), unless this would be unclear. The exception to this is in articles related to the US and the UK, in which the first occurrence may also be shortened ($34 and £22, respectively), unless this would be unclear." Unless I've missed some other reason, I think it's clearly identified by the fact that it's in North Carolina. EditorInTheRye 02:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Fine by me. I allways thought that seemed a little silly anyway. I daresay the policy has changed since the notice went up. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 02:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia in a nutshell :P Might I also suggest that the completely parenthesized sentence right before the TOC could be moved into a <ref> tag (and the "reference" header changed into "notes and references"), just for the sake if making the prose flow a bit smoother. Great read tho, I love it when really unusual stuff makes FA, granted it's not another pokémon... EditorInTheRye 02:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistent cause of fire in both article and reference

There seems to be an inconsistency within the article regarding the cause of the fire. In addition, Reference[2] is itself inconsistent, which is a contributory factor.

The "Fire" section of the article states that

There were ninety employees in the facility at the time of the fire, which began when a twenty-five foot long deep fat fryer vat apparently spontaneously ignited at around 8:30 AM.[1]

Reference [1] says nothing about the cause of the fire, so "spontaneously ignited" is not supported by the citation.

On the other hand, the "Investigation" section clearly states that the fire began before any spontaneous ignition of the vat:

The fire was caused by failure of a hydraulic line which powered a conveyor belt which supplied the cooker vat. [...]this fluid spattered onto the heating plumbs for the cooker and was immediately vaporized. This vapor then went directly into the flame of the gas-fired cooker. The vapor had a relatively low flashpoint and erupted into a fireball. The ruptured hydraulic line went on to pump a total of fifty to fifty-five US gallons (41–46 imp. gal/189–208 L) of hydraulic fluid into the fire before electrical failure shut it down.[2] A state-of-the-art automatic carbon dioxide fire extinguisher designed to cope with such fires had been installed over the vat after a non-fatal fire in 1983 at the fire department's request. This prevented the oil itself from igniting until the later stages of the fire.[4][8][2]

(This part of the "Investigation" section is roughly consistent with page 7 of Reference [2], although the article changes the word "splattered" to "spattered".)

So, the "Fire" section leads one to believe that the primary cause of the fire was spontaneous ignition, which is inconsistent with the "Investigation" section.

A further problem is that Reference [2] itself is inconsistent in the details of the initial ignition. In its page 4 summary, it says that the origin and cause of the fire was that:

The conveyor to a cooker had hydraulic line repaired which burst when brought up to full pressure. Hydraulic fluid expelled at 800 to 1,500 psi, ignited by heating gas plumes of cooking vat.

But page 7 of Reference [2] states:

The hydraulic line was brought back to operating pressure. Shortly afterward it separated at the repaired connector point. The connector was some four to six feet above floor level with hydraulic fluid being expelled at a pressure of 800 to 1,500 psi. It obviously began to splatter off the concrete floor. Droplets were bouncing back onto the gas heating plumbs for the cooking vat, which turned them into vapor. The vapors then were going directly into the flame. The vapors had a much lower flashpoint than the liquid hydraulic fluid and therefore rapidly ignited. In sum, the pressurization of the hydraulic fluid combined with the heat was causing an atomizing of the fuel which in all probability caused an immediate fireball in and around the failed hydraulic line and the heating plumbs.

Which is it - "heating gas plumes", "gas heating plumbs", or "heating plumbs"? Both Wiktionary and Dictionary.com define the noun "plumbs" as only the plural of the lead weight used for surveying. So right off I don't know what page 7 of Reference[2] means when it says "plumbs". It seems to treat the "plumbs" as physical objects, rather than plumes of gas, as if they were part of the plumbing for the vat.

My recommendations:

• Make "Fire" consistent with "Investigation".
• Find out what "plumbs" are, or else report the reference's ambiguity in the article.

Wdfarmer 02:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll echo that last part. In the lead there are wikilinks to common words like "prison" and "sentence", and yet in the meat of the article we are left in the dark as to what "plumbs" are. Plumbing? Plumes? Mr Stephen 08:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

A Google search reveals nothing. My neighbor the plumber has never heard of it. Based on the description, I'd have to speculate that it's a poorly-referenced industry term for a piping-related piece as part of a larger piece of machinery, in this case referring to part of the propane burner assembly. In order for these "gas heating plumbs" to be hot enough to instantly vaporize hydraulic fluid, they would have to be either part of the nozzle itself or otherwise in very close proximity to the flame. It obviously deals with piping in some manner, hence the term, but flammable gas line is always insulated against heat (for obvious reasons). Maybe a gas distributor manifold type device or a coupling? Ugh...I hate speculation. Somebody should really call up the licensing board and ask them... Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 12:10, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Having once lived in North Carolina for more than ten years, I'm well acquainted with the peculiar local pronunciation of many words (e.g. "Blount Street" is pronounced "Blunt Street"). A mixup from "plumes" to "plums" to "plumbs" is certainly possible. Although it's purely conjecture on my part, I'd suggest the following scenario occurred during the writing of Reference [2]:

* "onto the gas heating plumbs" was incorrectly written on Page 7 of Reference [2], instead of "into the heating gas plumes";

* the same "gas heating plumbs" was put into the Page 2 summary;

* A document review changed "gas heating plumbs" to "heating gas plumes" on the highly visible Page 2, but missed the original writing on Page 7.

Wdfarmer 13:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I assume by "Page 7" you mean p7 of the pdf, which is marked up as "Page 5" of the report. If we assume that "plumb" means "flame", then the second paragraph of p7/Page 5 doesn't really make sense. I read it as meaning the oil hit "plumbs", vaporized, then was set on fire by the gas flames. If the plumbs are the flames, then what is the point of "The vapors then were going directly into the flame"? Why not just say that the oil sprayed into the gas heating flames and ignited?

Yes, my Page 7 = p7 of the pdf.
And I agree, if "plumb" = "plumes" = flames, then "The vapors then were going directly into the flame" doesn't make sense (because the vapors would already be in the flame) unless that sentence is taken as a dramatic recapitulation of something you never want to happen.
The company that prepared the report, TriData, still exists in Arlington, VA; want to ask them what their 16-year-old document meant? Wdfarmer 19:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps these plumbs are vanes on a heat exchanger? They would be hot, and close to the flames. Mr Stephen 14:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

In principle, I don't mind asking the authors. But Blood Red Sandman who added the text six months ago is around, so I'll drop him a note first. Mr Stephen 19:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Responding to that note... I'm sorry, I can't help you. I just wrote what it said in the reference. I was hopeful that it was something I should have known but didn't, but consistently forgot to look it up to make sure. When the issue wasn't raised at FAC, while everything else was nit-picked to shreds, I kinda guessed I was right. Obviously not, though. I'd ask the authors myself, but it's not particularly practicle from here in the UK. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah well. I'll try an online search for gas burner terminology when I get chance, but "plumb" is a particularly awkward word to sift out. It looks like Jack Yates is our man, possibly this guy or this guy. Mr Stephen 08:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Good find. I'd say those two links are the same person, since the first link cites Jack for service to the IAAI, including a past Presidency, and the second lists him as a VP of the IAAI.Wdfarmer 09:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused now, and i think perhaps plumbs in part refers to piping that needed plumbing, presumably a quote from the company personnel that installed or repaired the infamous hydrolic parts. However i think plumbs is also used for what you call welds with welding, so soldered connections of pipes, in this case.77.251.179.188 15:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Observation

What i get when comparing the 2 pictures around the fire section, is that the general neccesity for fire doors results from the roof construction not being build fire resistant.77.251.179.188 17:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Was the plant owner "Imperial Food Products Company", not "Imperial Foods"?

The article names the plant owner many times as "Imperial Foods" or "Imperial", and once as "Imperial Foods Products inc.". Reference [2] also calls it "Imperial Foods".

The New York Times, in references [7] and [9], names the owner as "Imperial Food Products"; in Reference [17] the Times uses the name "Imperial Food Products Inc.".

The bad press associated with the name of "Imperial Foods" is claimed by one company to be the reason it changed its name:

In September 1991, a fatal industrial accident at Imperial Food Products Company in Hamlet, North Carolina, a company totally unrelated and unknown to Imperial Foods, Inc., created a public furor, much of which was directed at Imperial Foods, Inc. due to the similarity in name and business. Tragically, a three month, thirty thousand dollar, publicity campaign to correct this problem was not totally successful. The hard earned, irrefutable image of Imperial Foods, Inc. was tarnished beyond repair resulting in the decision to change the company's name to SunBurst Foods, Inc. on January 22, 1992. Although unfortunate and unpleasant, this appears to have been a prudent decision.[1]

Can anyone definitively verify the name of the Hamlet plant owner? If so, the article needs to be changed, and the inaccuracy of Reference [2] needs to be noted. Wdfarmer 04:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Articles in the Raleigh News & Observer the day after the fire (9/4/1991) identify the company as Imperial Food Products, sometimes with Inc. as well (the incorporated was often dropped). In some articles, it was shortened to "Imperial" after the initial reference. This trend was also apparent in other newspapers. I cannot unfortunately give links as these articles are from subscription archive databases.

Morell, Ricki and David Perlmutt. "Fireball Kills 25 Plant Workers; Hamlet Blaze Called One of State's Worst." The Charlotte Observer. 4 Sept. 1991, page 1A. (Imperial Food Products then Imperial)

Broadwell, Charles. "25 Killed in Hamlet Fire." The Fayetteville Observer. 4 Sept. 1991, page ?. (Imperial Food Products Inc., then Imperial Food Products).

Rives, Julie. "Fire at Hamlet chicken-processing plant kills 25; 49 injured as doors bar safety routes." The News & Observer. 4 Sept. 1991, page A1. (Imperial Food Products, then Imperial Food).

–Pakman044 21:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Safety grants

With my home computer, I was only able to read this article when the wide image in Hamlet chicken processing plant fire#Recommendations was set at 555px. I used Preview mode to read it. Otherwise, I had to scroll left and right to read the lines. However, with the wide image template, 555px looks stupid on the computer I'm now using. The following code produces a frame the right size for the picture and it might work on my home computer too: [[Image:Imperial_foods_-_aerial.jpg|555px|thumb|center|A view of the plant taken from a ladder across the street, showing a collapsed section of roof directly above the origin of the fire.]] Anyway, the article was a sad story, and if the fire was because they couldn't afford to make the plant safer, it seems to me the government could pay a businesses to improve worker safety. The government manufactures the money and can therefore afford to help out. -- Chuck Marean 16:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Hm. I've changed how the wide image works some.. Perhaps it will address the issue you encountered. --Gmaxwell 08:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

595px in Wiki is OK for I.E. 5 & 7. When more than that, the page is too wide using I.E. 5. I wonder if zooming in would work. -- --Chuck Marean 23:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

A view of the plant taken from a ladder across the street, showing a collapsed section of roof directly above the origin of the fire. Larger view.

--Chuck Marean 04:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Racism

This issue is never explained in the article. Brutannica 06:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

"Parrot Fever" line

I cleaned up the reference to "parrot fever", aka psittacosis. As it stood, it implied that the disease was somehow merely a type of pneumonia contracted as result of overexposure to cold. It is, of course, actually transmitted via physical contact with infected birds, their feces and secretions, and their carcasses (infected chicken carcasses in this case). Since a tainted carcass would already be fully infectious when it reached the plant, and the raw carcasses (in various stages of processing) were being continuously handled by the workers, the refrigerated conditions were unlikely to have had any definitive effect, either positive or negative, on the likelihood of contracting the disease. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 03:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggested wording changes

The latter dispute, concerning a memorial service organized by the city, resulted in two separate, near-identical monuments being erected. suggested rewrite: A dispute concerning a memorial service organized by the city resulted in two separate, near-identical monuments being erected. (rationale: "latter dispute" doesn't really have an antecedent, as the previous sentence speaks of accusations of racism rather than disputes; and doesn't have two so that "latter" would be used to distinguish from "former")

The fire was North Carolina's worst industrial disaster,[4] and the third worst American industrial disaster... suggested rewrite: The fire was North Carolina's worst industrial disaster,[4] and the third worst in American history... (rationale: repeating "industrial disaster" sounds awkward to my ear)

Just my 2 cents, don't really want to mess with a good thing :^) Gr8white (talk) 00:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Not terribly neutral?

There are several elements that I was surprised to see here. For example, one worker has stated that much of the chicken meat was rotten,[6] and that the reason it was processed into chicken nuggets was to disguise the foul taste. I'm not sure how the quality of the food pertains to the fire; above and beyond that, the citation is for a fringe publication that appears to be dedicated to advocating healing cancer via diet, etc. The same goes for the references to chicken-borne and RSI disorders -- if a fire occurred in a secretarial services company, would there be reference to RSI disorders there? I've read many articles on disasters on Wikipedia -- this is the only one that chooses to explicitly blame survivors' alcoholism on the disaster: others have become addicted to their medications or to alcohol.

There are not-so-subtle allegations of racism on the part of the mayor: Many of the workers and their families wanted Jesse Jackson to speak in the city's memorial effort. But Mayor Abbie Covington did not want him involved and was backed up by many other local authority figures -- the citation link is dead (both original and archive.org) and Google turns up nothing but Wikipedia content when searching for "abbie covington" "jesse jackson".

It just sounds to me as if a significant amount of material was derived from an attorney's arguments for the plaintiffs (and this isn't helped by the presence of the text They had originally hired John Coale, an attorney who had worked on the Bhopal disaster, but he could not legally practice in North Carolina.) The tone is certainly less objective than other disaster articles that I've read.

Mark7-2 (talk) 09:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here . Maximum and careful attention was done to avoid any wrongly tagging any categories , but mistakes may happen... If you have concerns , please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 20:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

• (1) In-house only

• (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
• (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
• (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.

• (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

• (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

• (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

• (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
• (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
• (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

• (4) Typos and misunderstood coding

• (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
• (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
• (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

• (5) Edit-mode clutter

• (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

• (6) Limited application

• (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
• (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. I'm seeking feedback about this proposal to remove it from the main text (using a script) in about a week's time on a trial basis. The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text in the prevailing format for the article, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. BTW, anyone has the right to object, and my aim is not to argue against people on the issue. Tony (talk) 13:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Featured article status.

I happened to be passing by this article and noticed all of the problems it has with references. According to the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria I believe this article is not meeting the following: 1a, 1b, 1c, and to a lesser extent 2c. There are dead links to sources and sources not supporting the text they're citing. I attempted to start cleaning up but there are fundamental errors in comprehension of the sources and a lot of information in the sources aren't in the article. Hate to be the bad guy but I'm going to list this article at Wikipedia:Featured article review if no effort to fix the problems isn't underway within 21 days. Brad (talk) 03:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Edits

Removed some odd wording, extra "Howevers" and "Buts" and one item which was of exceedingly tangential relevance or so. Also used simpler wording where possible - average WP reader does not read at 12th grade level. Collect (talk) 11:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

overview of wording

I think the article needs some rewrite, with attention to sentence transition.

For example,

A federal investigation was launched, which resulted in the owners receiving a 20-year prison sentence. The company received the highest fine in the history of North Carolina.[3] As a result, the state passed several worker safety laws.

That makes it sound as if laws were passed due to the prison sentence and high fine, rather than due to the fire.

If i get a chance, i'll spend some time on the article soon. Richard Myers (talk) 07:22, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

References

The article says "Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon wrote a song about this incident called "Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster".[citation needed] It is included in their album Prairie Home Invasion.".

There is a link to Prairie Home Invasion. Surely that's enough and no more citation is needed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.98.37 (talk) 19:25, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

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Misc related material

• Worker's march
• Calvin White's retirement

-Indy beetle (talk) 22:26, 8 March 2022 (UTC)