Template:Did you know nominations/Blackwall Rock
- 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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:58, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
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Blackwall Rock
- ... that the Blackwall Rock, a hazardous shoal in the River Thames in London, was variously reported to be as short as 40 feet (12 m) or as long as 600 feet (180 m)? "between [the City Canal] and the entrance of the East India docks [is] a large mass of silicious pudding-stone [...] its length being about 40, and breadth 30 feet" (Rees, p.13); "I found the real present dimensions to be upwards of six-hundred feet long..." (Edington, p.50)
Created by MIDI (talk). Self-nominated at 16:44, 4 January 2020 (UTC).
Hi MIDI, review follows: article created 4 January; article exceeds minimum length; article is well written and cited inline throughout to reliable sources; I couldn't access all of the cited book pages on Google Books but didn't notice any overly close paraphrasing from the ones I checked (though most are out of copyright anyway); hook is interesting enough for me and mentioned in the article, the cited source backs up the dimensional discrepancy; a QPQ has been completed. Whilst I have given this a tick and the hook is good to go I found it interesting that it was removed in the early 19th century and that convicts were proposed to be used (particularly as " the resulting explosion might blow the caisson "to atoms, and probably be the death of some of the poor men""), happy to look at alternative hooks based on these too - Dumelow (talk) 10:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
- You know what, when I added that bit I thought it'd be good for DYK, then clearly forgot about it! Proposed alt below, happy for it to be reworded appropriately (and would certainly prefer something like this over the original hook!). MIDI (talk) 14:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
ALT1: "... that a surveyor suggested using prison labour to remove the Blackwall Rock obstruction in the Thames, despite knowing that it would likely kill some of the labourers?"
Thanks MIDI, I like the ALT but for some reason can't view the right page on Google Books. Happy to AGF and tick this - Dumelow (talk) 17:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
- I'll need to propose an alt, it appears. I checked the Google Books source and it's a bit of WP:SYN to link the fact the surveyor proposed prison labour AND that the labourers may be killed. He did say both things, but didn't necessarily suggest that prison labourers would die (and I think the hook has a certain implication that prison labourers may be expendable). Just writing an alt now. MIDI (talk) 08:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- ALT2: "... that one surveyor's proposal for removing the Blackwall Rock obstruction in the Thames involved using explosives he knew would likely kill some of the labourers?"
- Happy to tweak the above on the knowledge that technically it wasn't the explosive that would have killed the labourers, rather the explosive force would have broken up the caisson. Source for the above ALT is Edington p.55, "...drill holes of [...] twenty-four inches, to put in a charge capable of raising many a ton of regular stone [...] the consequence might be, that it would fly like the bursting of a large piece of ordnance, and be subject to blow the casson to atoms, and probably be the death of some of the poor men." MIDI (talk) 08:55, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- I'll need to propose an alt, it appears. I checked the Google Books source and it's a bit of WP:SYN to link the fact the surveyor proposed prison labour AND that the labourers may be killed. He did say both things, but didn't necessarily suggest that prison labourers would die (and I think the hook has a certain implication that prison labourers may be expendable). Just writing an alt now. MIDI (talk) 08:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
- You know what, when I added that bit I thought it'd be good for DYK, then clearly forgot about it! Proposed alt below, happy for it to be reworded appropriately (and would certainly prefer something like this over the original hook!). MIDI (talk) 14:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
