Template:Did you know nominations/Mother Brook
- 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 Yoninah (talk) 23:13, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
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Mother Brook
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... that Mother Brook in Dedham, Massachusetts was the first man-made waterway in the United States?
5x expanded by Briancua (talk). Self nominated at 02:57, 23 March 2015 (UTC).
Expanded 5x within seven days of this nomination. Every paragraph has inline citations. Content of the hook is backed within the article with an inline citation to a reliable source. Checks for copyvio reveals no problems. The only problem is that it appears the nominator needs to perform a QPQ review (see criteria #5 at WP:WIADYK). Per results from QPQ Check, the nominator has five DYK credits. NORTH AMERICA1000 05:54, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
- The hook is an extraordinary claim for which I'd really like to see something more than 1920s newspaper stories. EEng (talk) 09:57, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
- Fair point. I grew up knowing this, so I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about sourcing it. I reworked the sentence in the lede (as it was somewhat redundant, and added several new sources for the claim. --Briancua (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
- I'm afraid you're going to think me a big meanie, but the problem is that this kind of local history is exactly the sort of thing that gets repeated over and over and ceases to provoke serious examination whether it's really true or not. Only one of the sources provided comes even close to being an RS for a "first in the US" claim, and that's the Globe -- behind a paywall so I don't know what it says, but unless it cites a scholarly history in a position to speak with authority, I don't think we can accept it either. In addition, one of the sources says, not that it's the first canal in the US, but the first water-power canal in the US, and of course that's different. I'm afraid we really need a comprehensive history on the subject to go with the hook as currently stated. You might get away with something like, "According to local lore..." but that always sounds lame.
- So consider this hook instead, which I really think is more catchy:
- ALT1 ... that the digging of Mother Brook made Boston an island accessible only by crossing water?
- EEng (talk) 04:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think you are a meanie, and I do appreciate your wanting to make sure a DYK is well sourced. I am slightly confused by your comment, however. Of course it is a water powered canal. What other types of canals are there that don't have water running through them? Surely you don't think people will be confusing this for an ear canal. There are now over 15 sources including history books, websites that can be considered reliable given the context, and newspapers from around the country. I am sorry that some are behind paywalls, but per WP:RS "It is convenient, but by no means necessary" for all editors to have access to it online. I hope that, if nothing else, the sheer weight of all of these will prove to be satisfactory. If not, I'm certain another 15+ could be found. --Briancua (talk) 06:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I'm not getting my point across. All of these sources are local histories dating to 100+ years ago, newspapers, or websites. They should be reliable as to when and why Mother Brook was built, but it's hard to say how they can know that nothing similar was built anywhere else -- this is why "firsts" need to be sourced to e.g. a modern (or at least relatively modern) scholarly study which has surveyed all such efforts. Do you see my point? Adding more and more sources of the same type isn't going to overcome this problem.
- I'm not insisting that the Globe text be free, but I was hoping that if I could see it, it might say something like, "According to Prof. Smith's 1962 study of artificial waterways in America, Mother Brook was the first" etc etc and so on and so forth. Does it? EEng (talk) 12:38, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
- I have added a 2008 source from the "noted Massachusetts historian Dr. Jack Tager, Professor Emeritus from University of Massachusetts, Amherst." Does that work for you? --Briancua (talk) 04:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- Absolutely. You've really hit the nail on the head. I still think the "island" thing is very catchy:
ALT2 ... that the digging of Mother Brook, the first man-made waterway in the United States, turned Boston into an island?
- EEng (talk) 15:51, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- Absolutely. You've really hit the nail on the head. I still think the "island" thing is very catchy:
- I have added a 2008 source from the "noted Massachusetts historian Dr. Jack Tager, Professor Emeritus from University of Massachusetts, Amherst." Does that work for you? --Briancua (talk) 04:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think you are a meanie, and I do appreciate your wanting to make sure a DYK is well sourced. I am slightly confused by your comment, however. Of course it is a water powered canal. What other types of canals are there that don't have water running through them? Surely you don't think people will be confusing this for an ear canal. There are now over 15 sources including history books, websites that can be considered reliable given the context, and newspapers from around the country. I am sorry that some are behind paywalls, but per WP:RS "It is convenient, but by no means necessary" for all editors to have access to it online. I hope that, if nothing else, the sheer weight of all of these will prove to be satisfactory. If not, I'm certain another 15+ could be found. --Briancua (talk) 06:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
- Fair point. I grew up knowing this, so I didn't spend a lot of time worrying about sourcing it. I reworked the sentence in the lede (as it was somewhat redundant, and added several new sources for the claim. --Briancua (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
- I have performed a DYK check at Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 1988. --BrianCUA (talk) 16:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
Need a reviewer to volunteer. EEng (talk) 10:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Actually, there are Native American canals in Arizona from at least a thousand years before that: [1] [2]. Beyond that, by the time Mother Brook was completed in 1641, settlements had been around for a couple of decades in New Netherland, New Sweden, and Jamestown, Virginia, and for about a century in Florida, Texas, and California. It's hard to believe that none of these settlements had a canal without justification from sources. (For example, this map from 1660 already shows a canal in Lower Manhattan; when was it built?) Per review above, the article itself is good to go, but more thought needs to go into the hook. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 21:21, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
- Uh, oh. We have three choices: see if there's more context to Tager's statement (something like, "This survey only takes account of works built since the arrival of Europeans") that would let us salvage the hook by modifying it appropriately, or go with ALT1, or find a completely different hook. EEng (talk) 00:44, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- There are other good hooks in the article. How about:
- ALT3: ... that Mother Brook has been called the "most audacious attempt of robbery ever recorded in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was the effort made by Dedham ... to actually steal the River Charles"?
- Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 01:31, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- There are other good hooks in the article. How about:
- ALT3 hook needs reviewing. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:47, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
The ALT3 hook has an inline citation to a pay-walled source and is accepted in good faith. It is also in line with the general thrust of the section concerned. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:51, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
