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Template:Did you know nominations/William Thwaites (engineer)

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Round symbols for illustrating comments about the DYK nomination The following is an archived discussion of William Thwaites (engineer)'s DYK nomination. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page; such as this archived nomination"s (talk) page, the nominated article's (talk) page, or the Did you knowDYK comment symbol (talk) page. Unless there is consensus to re-open the archived discussion here. No further edits should be made to this page. See the talk page guidelines for (more) information.

The result was: promoted by Allen3 talk 12:18, 30 April 2013 (UTC).

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William Thwaites (engineer) edit

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  • ... that while credit has been given to British engineer James Mansergh, the Australian William Thwaites was really the father of the Melbourne sewerage system?

Created by Garyvines (talk). Self nominated at 04:54, 2 April 2013 (UTC).

  • It's new enough and long enough. The issue here is twofold: one, nowhere in any of the sources does it say Thwaites is the "father" of the Melbourne sewage system; and two, the source used for the hook says "While James Mansergh is commonly regarded as the architect of Melbourne's sewerage system, Thwaites deserves credit both for its design and construction." To me, it's misleading to make it appear as though Thwaites is the sole mastermind behind the sewage system when James Masergh clearly had as much of a role in it. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
  • More recent research than the ADB propose that Mansergh drew strongly from Thwaites earlier report, and then when Thwaites was appointed engineer on the scheme, he convinced the Board of Works to change aspects of Mansergh's proposal to be even closer to his own (I have added this to the article) - see for example Dingle & Rasmusse - Vital Connections, and more recently La Nauze, 'Engineer to Marvellous Melbourne' Mansergh's credit seems to have come from the collonial cringe. How about we change the tag line to DYK ALT1: ... that while credit has been given to British engineer James Mansergh, the Australian William Thwaites was really the father of the Melbourne sewerage system? Garyvines (talk) 22:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I will also have to decline this. The sources do not state this; just that Thwaites "deserves credit." That's different from being the father, which makes it appear as if Thwaites was solely responsible. The rest of the article checks out, doesn't suffer from paraphrasing issues and it seems long enough. But we need a hook without the word "father." —♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 09:57, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
  • point taken. Thwaites full role was in redesigning Mansergh's scheme to be technically achievable and affordable, and then designing the details, and supervising all aspects of its implementation. Therefore a more appropriate hook might be:...DYK ALT2:... that Australian William Thwaites was responsible for the creation of Melbourne's sewerage system, despite credit having been given to British engineer James Mansergh?Garyvines (talk) 12:17, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
  • That's too close to the "father" hook. How about "ALT3: ... that despite credit for the creation of Melbourne's sewerage system has been given to British engineer James Mansergh, Australian William Thwaites was also responsible?"
Besides the hook, we also require a QPQ.—♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 12:47, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
  • The problem with ALT4 is that it is too long. By the way: if you have never rated another DYK before, I'd suggest reading other DYK nominations and see what other people say. Then pick one DYK nomination on a topic you're comfortable with, and start rating. Common sense will do the rest for you.—♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 13:16, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I still prefer my own ALT3, but I'll let a new reviewer decide. —♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 15:41, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
  • The original hook and ALT1 have the problems previously identified by Amberrock. ALT2 is better, but is not clearly supported. ALT3 is dull -- it misses the more interesting aspects of the article, and it's not clearly supported by the article. (The article indicates that Thwaites was the principal designer.) ALT4 and ALT5 aren't supported by the article, which doesn't mention the issue of blockages. A hook that I would find interesting, and that I believe is supported by the sources (but not by the article in its current state) would be:
  • ALT6: ... that, although a British engineer is generally credited with design of Melbourne's sewerage system, historians a recent biography attributes the project's success to the Australian William Thwaites?
Regardless of the hook, the article is poorly sourced. For example, the reference indicated by footnote 3 supports only the tiniest bit of content in the paragraph for which it is the only source cited, and the section entitled "Melbourne sewerage system" was supported only by a footnote to a parliamentary report that couldn't possibly support the entire paragraph. I looked at the online sources, determined where some of the information came from, and added some more footnotes. However, I'd like for the article creator to go back and make sure that the article's footnotes indicate where the content came from. --Orlady (talk) 18:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Thankyou for your edits and suggestions for the William Thwaites Article. I have added the point about "embarrassing blockages" from ALT 5, and its source, had another look at the referencing, and added some additional citations. This might be enough to make my ALT5 supportable, but I am happy with your ALT6.Garyvines (talk) 01:41, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Progress has been made, particularly in improving the referencing, but I'm afraid we still aren't there. The ALT5 hook is still not in the text (the text does not speak to "design flaws", but rather describes "modification on Mansergh's scheme, reducing the size of the main sewer pipes to prevent potential for embarrassing blockages, constructing a single pumping station at Spotswood and single sewage treatment farm at Werribee." Furthermore, I did not find most of the facts in that sentence in the source cited. Although the cited source doesn't support the article, the cited source does support the ALT5 hook, but I find that the wording of the ALT5 hook is very close to the wording of the source, which would be a copyvio problem. As for ALT6, it still isn't supported by the article, as the article does not indicate that historians attribute the project's success to Thwaites. To support that statement, the article would need to quote or paraphrase relevant statements by specific named historians, and it would need to identify them as historians (based on source saying they are historians). I'm not familiar with the article topic; if my words aren't correct (for example, if the sources aren't historians), then different wording may be needed. The point is that the hook fact(s) must be in the article, and the article must support the hook fact(s) with citations to reliable sources. --Orlady (talk) 04:42, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I have added a quote from Thwaite's biographer La Nauze, (the Australian Heritage Magazine article is a summary of the thesis of La Nauze's biography of Thwaites) and referenced his book for the other changes to the scheme. A slight rewording of ALT5 could include the quote (also in the article now) ALT7:... that William Thwaites modified James Mansergh's designs for Melbourne's sewerage system, which "... removed a design fault in Mansergh's scheme that would have led to embarrassing blockages"? Your ALT6 would also stand up now that the historian is attributed.Garyvines (talk) 05:20, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • [EC] It's past my bedtime, so I can't do additional review now. However, further to the comments on ALT5, I don't know that any of us can actually explain what "embarrassing blockages" are. I understand sewer blockages and I know they lead to backups and overflows, so I guess that "embarrassing" is a euphemism for smelly and messy. However, DYK hooks should not repeat wording used in sources when we don't understand what the words mean in the context of their use. --Orlady (talk) 05:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Sounds Like ALT6 is best fit then as the historian is attributed in the article. Otherwise ALT5/ALT7 could be reworded to paraphrase the original quote thus:
  • Sorry, but a reader who doesn't know who Thwaites and Mansergh were -- and may not know that the Melbourne sewer system was a significant sanitary engineering feat of the 1890s-1900s -- is going to read that and ask: "So what?" It focuses too much on a detail. ALT7 has the same problem. --Orlady (talk) 01:27, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
  • After determining that La Nauze (the author to whom the article attributes the notion that Thwaites was mainly responsible for the project success) is not a historian (apparently he's a senior engineer, which in this case makes him a better authority, but is a fact that's harder to get into a hook), I have revised the article and ALT6 to identify the biographer as the source of this notion. I believe that ALT6 is in the article and is supported by the cited sources, but since I wrote the hook, someone else will need to review it.
Additionally, I am puzzled by the statement (in the article) that Thwaites reduced the size of the main sewer pipes in order to prevent those "embarrassing blockages". Intuitively, one would expect more blockages to occur in smaller-diameter pipes, not the other way around. Are you sure this is what the print biography says? If it's true that smaller pipes reduced the possibility of blockages (perhaps by increasing flow velocity?), does the source explain why this was the case? --Orlady (talk) 01:27, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes it seems counterintuitive - the problem was that the larger pipes proposed by Mansergh would not have sufficient flow or velocity to wash out the solids and sediments, and so would block up and require manual cleaning, especially in the early years of the system when there were few toilets and other connections to the system and not much effluent funning through it. Thwaites worked out that an oviod sewer half the diameter would be self cleaning in the early stages , and at capacity would still operate three quarters capacity, compared to Mansergh's half full pipes. I have edited the article to explain this, but was trying not to put too much technical detail in as it was a biography rather than history of sewers.Garyvines (talk) 05:13, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining. I like your addition to the article. Describing his accomplishments makes a richer article than does a mere recitation of dates, job titles, and similar details. --Orlady (talk) 04:51, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Still needs a new reviewer. --Orlady (talk) 04:51, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Well, I like the revised ALT6, and I like the state of this article overall. However, its grandest and most important claim ("Thwaites' greatest achievement was in the design and supervision of the construction of Melbourne's underground sewerage scheme.") remains uncited. —♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 13:57, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I've edited that part of the article and added a citation to substantiate the statement. --Orlady (talk) 22:37, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • thanks for this - anything else I need to do?Garyvines (talk) 00:23, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
ALT6 and the article in general are good to go! —♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 11:22, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
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