Template:Did you know nominations/Great Wheal Fortune
- The following discussion 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 Orlady (talk) 22:45, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Great Wheal Fortune[edit]
- ... that a lone miner is said to have extracted two sacks of wolfram each day from the waste tips of the disused Great Wheal Fortune mine in Cornwall?
- Reviewed: Vauxhall Fields, Monmouth
Created/expanded by Jowaninpensans (talk), Zangar (talk). Nominated by Zangar (talk) at 18:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
long enough, new enough, nuetral, citations, no fair use, BUT 
Why does the lead say "spoil tips" when the article says "waste tips"? I think they should agree.--Ishtar456 (talk) 01:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- All set.
Landfall Publications is not a reputable scientific publisher, and extraction of tungsten from ore is a complex technological process. Thus the article must be clarified for its use of the word wolfram. Say, "a lone miner is said to have worked the burrows (waste tips) and taken two sacks of wolfram daily to Camborne for sale" is dubious at best. Materialscientist (talk) 08:32, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- I think that we have established that the word 'wolfram' is used as a synonym for wolframite (see links here [1], [2]) and I have redirected the internal link accordingly in both article and hook. Mikenorton (talk) 16:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- This went to the main page (I promoted it after reviewing the above discussion and the article itself), but spent only 39 minutes there before Materialscientist pulled it as "dubious". I'm restoring it to the noms page for further discussion. IMO, the hook that was promoted was fine. It stated that the miner "is said to have" removed two sacks per day (no claim that the story is actually true, only that "it is said"); it included the word "wolfram", linked to wolframite (the mineral name for the principal ore mineral of tungsten), since this is the material he is said to have extracted; and it described the source as "waste tips", which is synonymous with the various other terms used here. Nothing whatsoever dubious about the hook. Indeed, it may be factually true that a minor did this, as it is not uncommon for valuable ore to be present in ancient mine wastes. --Orlady (talk) 00:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
- That was exactly my take on it which it why I accepted it. I am mortified to find out it was pulled from the main page. I was really trying to help to alleviate the backlog. I'm not going to review any more. I tried. --Ishtar456 (talk) 02:50, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
- Considering it seems a lot of people agree with you (it reached the main page, after all), I wouldn't do anything drastic just yet. Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that nearly any reader would associate wolfram with tungsten, not with wolframite (this is easy to show by any google/google book search, or just by a quick study revealing that tungsten is actually called wolfram in many languages). The links by Mikenorton are exceptions, and the article/hook must avoid ambiguity, which may not be covered up by "said to have". If you believe the source did mean wolframite, please say so in the article, with a brief note (perhaps not even in the main text, but as a footnote) that the source said "wolfram", but wolfram was sometimes used for wolframite in those years and likely did mean wolframite in the context. The question remains, was it indeed wolframite and we can trust the source, or its author simply had no clue what was removed? Materialscientist (talk) 08:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
- This is the English Wikipedia, and I believe it can be presumed that the only English speakers who recognize the name "wolfram" are those with a scientific background.
- However, upon reflection I'm a but uncomfortable with equating "wolfram" with "wolframite," since there are some other tungsten ore minerals besides wolframite. Ideally in this instance, "wolfram" could link to tungsten ore, but that page is unfortunately a disambiguation page that links to the individual minerals that can be ores of tungsten. That's wrong, since an ore is generally not just the target mineral, but typically also includes gangue minerals. I guess I need to convert tungsten ore into a short article, so it can be linked.
- As for how much we can trust the source, it seems to me that the article and hook treat the source as a piece of local lore, not necessarily historical fact, much less scientific fact. In that context, there's no harm in providing a logical interpretation as to what "wolfram" means. Since it is not possible to imagine that a lone miner could have extracted tungsten metal from the material he pulled out of the waste pile (that is, he did not process the ore himself), it's entirely reasonable to equate "wolfram" with "tungsten ore".
- Further to the trustworthiness of the source, I think it is entirely credible that a miner was able to find tungsten ore minerals in the waste pile. When this mine was active, there was little or no industrial use of tungsten, so it is likely that the tungsten minerals were relegated to the waste piles, making possible for a person to pick through the pile later to pull out the tungsten ore. --Orlady (talk) 04:20, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
- I converted tungsten ore to a minimal stub and retargeted "wolfram" to point to it. --Orlady (talk) 04:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
- The hook was promoted again and appeared on the 5th where it received at least 5,000 views. Mikenorton (talk) 14:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC)