Talk:A. Smith Bowman Distillery

Promotional edits

Until the inclusion of a paragraph about brands sold by the Sazerac Company (which does not own the building described here), this was a topic about a building. The company which used to own the building does not appear to have been notable in itself - but adding the off-topic paragraph is not an improvement TEDickey (talk) 22:54, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I think I understand where you're coming from now. I was quite perplexed when you first asserted that the products made by the distillery are off-topic information. But now I see that you think the article should be about a particular building rather than being also about the distillery business, which is an enterprise that moved from one location to another and continues to operate in some form today. I suppose either potential scope would be reasonable. However, it's worth noting that ever since your very first edit that created this article as a three-sentence stub, the article has actually had the other (broader) scope, at least to some degree. The first version of the article said that "In 1988, it relocated ..." In that sentence, "it" is the subject of the article, and obviously, "it" is the business – not the building. And that sentence has remained in the article ever since. So I think that your assertion that the article has just been about a particular building is actually incorrect. In any case, I think you should now be able to see how, to someone more focused on the whiskey business than on historic buildings, I might get that impression (whether you really intended it from that phrasing or not). The article has also included explicit information about Sazerac and the current distillery products for, I believe, about four years – without any prior expression of a desire to restrict the scope that I have noticed.

I'm a bit miffed that you seem to be characterizing some of my own recent edits as promotional in regard to the Sazerac Company. On the contrary, I have been consistently working against promotional edits about that company for some time, as you can see, for example, at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Multiple bourbon related articles.

If the scope of the article is limited to the building, perhaps its title should be changed to WP:Disambiguate it relative to the distillery that continues to operate by the same name. It is not clear to me that an empty building (or a small condo building) is the WP:PRIMARY topic for the term "A. Smith Bowman Distillery", when there is a notable business that is currently using that name at a different location.

—BarrelProof (talk) 18:38, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

If you look at the change history, the "it was" sentence was added by an anonymous editor who was promoting Sazerac in multiple topics. In reviewing your comments, I had the impression that you were aware of that editor, though apparently not the same individual TEDickey (talk) 09:14, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there was some promotional editing (some of which I reverted myself), but don't think the current content version is promotional. Regarding the scope, your own first version said "The A. Smith Bowman Distillery was founded in 1935 by Abram Smith Bowman and his sons, Smith and DeLong. It was originally based on the Bowman family's Sunset Hills Farm in Fairfax County, Virginia, in what later became the planned community of Reston. In 1988, it relocated to Spotsylvania County, near Fredericksburg, into the former FMC Corp. cellophane plant." Clearly, "it" in those sentences is the business, which is now part of Sazerac.

Anyhow, I think I've made my case. You're the primary author of this article. If you still think its scope should be restricted to the building (and no one else comments here), I'll respect that and we can remove the bulk of the information about the operation of the business after it left that building. But then I think we should also rename the article – e.g., to append the word "building". —BarrelProof (talk) 16:54, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

The current sectioning is an improvement; beyond that, establishing third-party sources for the various statements is my main concern. By the way, the building isn't on the "corner", but a block or two away from Sunset Hills. If you look at a satellite view, it is actually on the corner of Old Reston Avenue and American Dream Way. TEDickey (talk) 00:54, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

That's funny. At the bottom of page 6 and on page 7 of the National Register nomination PDF, it says it's on that corner and that the main façade faces Sunset Hills road. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The American-Dream-Way street is likely either more recent than that, or more recent than when the application was prepared. (Without some research, I'm uncertain when Fannie Mae moved in). TEDickey (talk) 09:27, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

List of brands

I don't see a reliable source for the topic's list of brands. this page gives a list, but there are no useful links to help establish the information in this topic TEDickey (talk) 09:12, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I just added a few, and plan to look for more. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good. TEDickey (talk) 00:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The street address: 1865 versus 1875

It is true that the national register nomination shows the address as 1875 Old Reston Avenue. However, I checked what the IP editor said today in an WP:Edit summary, and I was able to verify that if you go to the Fairfax County site and do a property search for every address with the street name "Old Reston", the entry for MAP #: 0174 01 0005B seems like the correct place, and its address is listed as 1865. As there are very few addresses on that road, I suspect that anyone looking for either of those addresses would find the correct building. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:05, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

On google maps, 1875 is at the intersection south of the building (an intersection with a road which did not exist at the time of the nomination), while 1865 is just slightly north of the building. As usual, reliable source is needed to resolve the difference (tax records for instance). Googling on the two addresses found only a half-dozen hits in each case, and the IP-editor's change comment did not provide enough detail to verify the suggested change. TEDickey (talk) 12:19, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Copy-paste error in link corrected above. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:59, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on A. Smith Bowman Distillery. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151129081702/http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/planning/reportofactivities19952004.pdf to http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/planning/reportofactivities19952004.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:54, 23 June 2017 (UTC)