Talk:Tradeston Flour Mills explosion

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Tradeston Flour Mills explosion/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) 13:40, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I'll get to this in the next few days. Ealdgyth (talk) 13:40, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

• Lead:
  • There really is only one paragraph of lead here - the second paragraph is really "Background" and should be sectioned off as such. We need a summary per WP:LEDE and because it summarizes the lead, we won't need citations in it.
  • "consisted of a five storey grain store on King Street (now Kingston Street), another grain store that occupied most of a four storey building on Clyde Place, and a four-storey grain mill " stick with either "five storey" or "four-storey" here... one or the other
• Explosion:
  • Can we know how many of the employees of the nearby businesses were killed and wounded?
  • I think we should probably list the total killed and injured here as well as in the lead. As I mentioned above about the lead - the lead needs to summarize the body - so the body should repeat information in the lead
  • It isn't usual to repeat citations such as you've done with the second paragraph - there is no need to have the little [1] after each successive paragraph. Instead you can just put the one citation at the phrase "facing onto Commerce Street collapsed into the street," and it will be considered to cover all the sentences prior to it in the paragraph. This isn't required for GA status - but the usual practice is not to do this sort of citation in our GA and FA level articles.
  • "(that was the original terminus of the Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway before Glasgow Central station opened)" this is really not needed here - if you really feel that it's got to be in the article, I suggest an explanatory footnote, but it's distracting in the main body of the article.
  • Links for "Lord Provost" "Master of Works" or "Dean of Guild"
• Investigation:
  • "Professor Macquorn Rankine " professor of what and where?
  • "on 9 August a month to the day" suggest removing "a month to the day" as it's just padding
  • Did the recommendation to move the exhaust boxes out get taken up either in the UK or elsewhere in the world?
• I did a bit of copyediting - please make sure I didn't break anything in the process?
• I randomly googled three phrases and only turned up Wikipedia mirrors. Earwig's tool shows no sign of copyright violation.

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth (talk) 15:22, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

I've had a go at amending the article based on all but one and a bit of the issues you identified.

On the subject of whether other businesses took on the recommendations, I'll need to do some more research. It's been a while and I can't remember off the top of my head.

On the subject of identifying the number of deaths/injuries of people outwith the mill, I've updated the article (I had those notes handy from my original research). I'll need to read through the newspaper articles again to take notes of the specifics of the injured people.

Also I added a table with some basic details about the people who died in this incident. Not sure whether it should stay or go though. Might be a bit much, so I made it default to collapsed. I'd appreciate your opinion.

Thanks for the taking the time to review the article. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:43, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

These all look good. I'm agnostic on the table - it's not something I might have done but it's not horrid either, especially not as a collapsed box, so I'm not going to say it needs to go. Passing this for GA now. Ealdgyth (talk) 13:57, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 18:40, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that dust from grain mills can cause an explosion large enough to destroy whole buildings, as seen in the Tradeston Flour Mills explosion that killed 18 people in Glasgow, Scotland in 1872? Source: "Most of our readers, no doubt, will remember the destruction by fire of a large flour mill near Glasgow on the 9th of July last." "This sudden ignition or flashing of the extremely inflammable dust diffused through the air would produce a very high temperature in the gaseous products of the combustion, and this would necessarily be accompanied by a great and sudden increase in pressure and bulk constituting in fact an explosion." Explosions in Flour Mills - 5 October 1872 - Scientific American

Improved to Good Article status by AlistairMcMillan (talk). Self-nominated at 22:34, 21 May 2022 (UTC).

• New enough GA. Nominator has fewer than 5 nominations and is QPQ-exempt. Hook fact and source checks out, though I'm not sure about wording, AlistairMcMillan. How about... Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 19:42, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

• ALT1: that two millstones striking each other caused the spark that ignited dust and led to the Tradeston Flour Mills explosion that killed 18 people in Glasgow in 1872?

That works for me Sammi. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 12:53, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Just an observation: quite amazingly similar to the Great Mill Disaster (also eighteen deaths) a few years later. Might be worth See Also's. —Kusma (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Since I proposed an ALT1 with a new fact, I can't finish the review—if you wanted, Kusma, you could finish this pretty quickly. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:49, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm slightly unhappy/confused about two things. For one, the hook makes this more definite than the article (which calls this a theory instead of reporting it as fact). However, the sources seem to think this is quite definite, so perhaps the article could state this more forcefully as well. Secondly, "stones becoming highly heated and striking fire" isn't the same as "millstones striking each other caused the spark" (do these stones really spark more easily when they are hot?) How about...

• ALT2 ... that the cause of the 1872 two-stage Tradeston Flour Mills explosion that killed 18 people was that the accidental stoppage of the feed of a pair of millstones led to a fire?

Now I've also proposed a new fact so won't be able to review this one. Back to AlistairMcMillan and Sammi Brie. —Kusma (talk) 22:26, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

• Sourcing is fine, but it's a bit wordy... how about this? If AlistairMcMillan and Kusma like it, I'll approve. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 23:16, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

ALT2a: ... that the 1872 Tradeston Flour Mills explosion that killed 18 people was caused by a fire after the feed of grain to a pair of millstones was halted?

• I'm happy with ALT2a. Thanks. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 16:51, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

  I think it checks out. —Kusma (talk) 17:44, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

  Pinging Sammi Brie, since the two requested responses on ALT2a have been made. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:45, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks, I never got pinged. Approved for ALT2a. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 18:16, 4 June 2022 (UTC)