Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bal maiden/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Ian Rose 10:03, 15 March 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Bal maiden

Featured article candidates/Bal maiden/archive1

Nominator(s): Mogism (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I think it says everything about bal maidens (female manual labourers in the mines of south-west Britain) that any general reader could reasonably want to know. A peer review didn't get any responses, but I wasn't really surprised by that as everyone I'm aware of with in interest in the topic had already looked at it by that point. As mentioned at the peer review, this relies very heavily on Lynne Mayers but that's purely because her series is so definitive, it's unlikely anyone will ever write another significant work on the topic. None of this material is disputed or controversial, so there's not an "only giving one point of view" problem. Mogism (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Smalljim

A great piece of work in a topic that I'm interested in, so I have a few suggestions...

Firstly, although I don't have the 2008 edition of Mayers' book, I do have a copy of the Hypatia Trust 1st edition which is A4 sized with 246 pages. The pagination is evidently different, but does Mayers mention any significant changes in the 2nd ed.?

The correct term for what the article calls a metal mine or metal mining throughout is metalliferous, as used by Mayers herself.

Lead photo

"Bal maidens in traditional protective clothing, 1890" — Are they not wearing their clean white aprons which were exchanged for rough hessian ones for work? There's a similar-looking photo on p.48 of Mayers 1st ed. showing "two Dolcoath balmaidens, wearing their best aprons [...] One has her work apron over her arm".

Mechanisation and the 18th century copper boom

"In 1678 Clement Clerke introduced the coal-powered reverberatory furnace, allowing metal to be separated from fine grains of ore which had previously been discarded as waste, greatly increasing the quantity of metal extractable from ore.[35]" — I think this gives the wrong impression both regarding the date and the fate of the "fines" (the older method of smelting tin was the blowing house). Mayers herself seems confused here (at least in the 1st ed.) Since this isn't central to the article, I think something simpler like "The introduction of the coal-powered reverberatory furnace greatly improved the yield" would be better.

Working conditions

"Other contemporary observers noted that bal maidens were generally good natured and well behaved,[118] and often devoutly religious,[117] but it is well-documented that bal maidens typically took great pride in their own appearance and clothing.[119]" — should that really be a "but" in there?

Notes

Note b. should mention that that first reference is to "ball maidens" [sic]. Out of interest the text (as reported the next day by another newspaper) was apparently as follows:

The disasters which occur from the want of a Breakwater at Padstow prove the expediency of such an erection, by means of which the brig Isabella lately wrecked near that port and her valuable cargo would in all probability have been preserved. The country-people in that neighbourhood have been for some time busily employed in securing articles which belonged to the cargo of this vessel. On Wednesday evening a box of figs was discovered on Saint Miniver Common by a party of females on the look-out for concealed plunder; who were attacked by some ball maidens returning from a mine. After a sharp contest of two hours, victory declared in favour of the ball maidens who bore away the prize.
— Royal Cornwall Gazette, Saturday 6 Feb 1819, page 2. (via British Newspaper Archive)

Not just "rough in speech", eh!

Note d. "Streaming was the original means of collecting ore which had eroded from mineral deposits and settled on stream and river beds, by separating the heavy metal from the lighter surrounding mud and gravel." — metal should read ore here, but even with that change this still isn't correct, something like "Streaming involved the collection of ore-bearing pebbles from alluvial deposits in river and stream beds where they had accumulated after being eroded from the ore-bearing lodes." would be more accurate. (That's wrong too - I'll come back on this)

Hope this helps, may have some more later. —SMALL JIM 18:52, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From the preface to the second edition, the most significant changes from the original Hypatia work are "to extend the geographic scope to include Dartmoor and the Teign and Exe valleys; a more extensive use of the 1952 scrapbook compiled by the Troon Women's Institute; use of the "Day and Night Book" of two captains from Dolcoath in 1822-23; a much fuller treatment of 19th century tin streaming; a change to bal maiden rather than balmaiden as a more authentic usage". (Translation for readers unfamiliar with UK geography: 1st ed only covers Cornwall but 2nd ed covers the whole southwest.)
I agree, but "metal mine" is repeated so often, for obvious reasons, that I'm reluctant to use the term "metalliferous". I know it's technically the correct term, but there's no risk of "metal mine" misleading readers into thinking a mine was made of metal, as opposed to extracting metals. If people think it's a problem I can change it, obviously.
Impossible to say, as the photo isn't high enough quality to tell if the aprons are work aprons that haven't yet got dirty, or clean aprons that they're going to take off as soon as the photographer has finished. I think it would be very confusing to readers to have a long explanation in the caption, since the aprons would have looked the same in either case.
Agree and have removed. I think it's worth mentioning the introduction of the furnaces, as it explains why the industry suddenly became efficient enough for large-scale operations to start, but there's no need to go into technical details.
I think the "but" is appropriate in the context of "were they spendthrifts who blew all their spare cash on fancy clothes?". In devoutly Methodist 19th century Cornwall, "devoutly religious" and "pride in their own appearance" would have been considered incompatible.
Agreed, added.
Simplified further to "by collecting ore-bearing pebbles from river and stream beds" - again, readers don't need the technical details.

Thanks for taking the time to look at this! Mogism (talk) 22:10, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all that, especially the edition differences - looks like I can refer to the first ed. text without too much trouble.

Metal mine — well, if the reliable sources use the full term... But I'm happy to see what others think.
Aprons — on p.49 of my Meyers it specifically says "The best one ... worn to and from the mine as well as for photographs and special occasions." If not in the caption, a mention of how dirty the hessian aprons got would be useful (we have a brief description from Minnie Andrews, and it's covered in Schwartz's Tin Mines and Miners of Lanner (2001) p. 87 ISBN 1-84114-019-8).
Reverb. furnace — the way it's worded leads one to assume that 1678 was the date it was introduced here, which it wasn't: my Mayers only says "at the beginning of the 18th century".
Pride in appearance — OK, I see what you're getting at, but to me the phrasing in the text doesn't express that clearly; and is that actually what the sources are implying?
Pebbles — no, sorry for the confusion caused by my strike-out. That would have been the very earliest means of collecting ore (before streaming): I'll sleep on this!

—SMALL JIM 00:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, today I've done what I should have done yesterday – I printed out the article and worked through it, pencil in hand. I'm sorry to say that the whole thing ended up covered in adverse comments. Now I'm not an experienced FA reviewer (I didn't even read the instructions about not using semicolon emboldened headings!), nor am I familiar with how the FA criteria are currently being interpreted. I know I can be prone to nitpicking, too, so I think I'd better wait for some other opinions before I consider making further in-depth comment: I don't want to potentially waste your (or my!) time. Using the broad FA criteria, though, I'd say that the section structure is insufficient to support the content – the text often diverges quite widely from the stated section topic. And regarding comprehensiveness, there's no discussion of "clay maidens" or of BMs work in mining for other minerals, to which Mayers (1st ed.) devotes two chapters. I'd like to see, too, more about the disconnect between how the BMs were seen and reported on by (privileged) visitors and the apparent truth revealed by the mine inspections (Mayers' "Myth and Reality" chapter). With apologies, —SMALL JIM 23:20, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Clay maidens" are an intentional omission. This article is "Bal maiden", not "Female manual labourers", and the only thing a chiuna clay quarry has in common with a metalliferous mine is that both involve a hole in the ground.
Regarding other metals, I think anything more than the "bal maidens also worked in lead, zinc, manganese, iron, antimony, wolfram, and uranium mines" which is already in the article would raise WP:UNDUE issues. The 19th century Cornish mining industry was overwhelmingly dominated by tin and copper - to go into detail on arsenic, manganese etc would give these minor industries an undue prominence.
I don't grasp what you're asking for as regards "myth and reality", over and above what's already included in the "Working conditions" section. If you're asking for an "in popular culture" section, I'd vehemently oppose that. Mogism (talk) 12:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

File:Bal_maidens_at_Dolcoath,_1890_(full_length).jpg/File:Miners_and_bal_maidens_at_Dolcoath,_1890.jpg: when/where was this first published?
File:SpallingLge_cropped.jpg: what was the creator's date of death? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:40, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll get back to you on that one - it's widely used so might take a while to work out where it first appeared. If necessary I can certainly make a fair-use justification for this one.
Not certain; the user who uploaded this hasn't edited since 2008. (It was uploaded as part of the original version of this article which was cut-and-pasted with permission from a website; this OTRS ticket refers, but because I don't have OTRS I can't confirm if that relates to the images or just the text.) As James Henderson is such a common name among engineers it's hard to confirm which was the one who wrote and illustrated this paper. It certainly appeared in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1858 so will definitely be PD in the USA, and even if he had been a child prodigy who was publishing long papers in technical journals in his teens, he would have had to have lived well into triple figures for this still to be in copyright in the UK. Mogism (talk) 12:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comments

With no activity here for about a month, this nomination unfortunately seems to have well and truly stalled, so I'll be archiving it shortly. If others have indeed expressed an interest in it, you may wish to leave them neutrally worded notes before you renominate for FAC at a later date.
As a bit of housekeeping, there are Harv errors appearing under Further reading -- since there shouldn't be citations pointing to these entries anyway, a simple way to eliminate the errors is to use the Cite Book template instead of Citation. N.B. You can use this script to check for such errors in future. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 07:10, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.