Talk:Blue John (mineral)

Clean-up of page
I've given the page a basic rewrite using Trevor D. Ford's book. This is a single source, but it must be the best single source available. I had to clarify some of the myths which were on the earlier version of the page such as "large quantities of Blue John were sent to France in the late 18th century" and "two Blue John vases have supposedly been found during excavations at Pompeii." But note that quite a bit more could be added to this article, particularly on the 18th/19th century production and manufacture, and also on how Blue John is worked - which is apparently quite a laborious process. Pasicles (talk) 19:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Update needed
A new vein of Blue John was discovered this week. I haven't the time to integrate it myself, so I'm leaving an source here. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 08:57, 22 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll do it - I already updated Treak Cliff Cavern. Dave.Dunford (talk) 18:43, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed change of article name to Blue John
I propose changing the name of this article to "Blue John" as per Article titles as that is what the mineral is called. Derbyshire Blue John is the name of a book and is a descriptive title because the book is specifically about the mineral found in Derbyshire - nobody calls the mineral found near Castleton "Derbyshire Blue John" and even if they did, the article should be about the mineral in general. There are separate articles about the Blue John Cavern and Treak Cliff Cavern anyway. Richerman   (talk) 01:08, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * "blue john" is already a disambiguation page, so I think it's impractical to use that minimally simple version of the name here. I'd agree with your observations though and would support blue john (Derbyshire), blue john (fluorite) or blue john (mineral) as better than the current name. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:44, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, yes - it should be Blue John (mineral). Blue John (Derbyshire) doesn't really work as it is too specific and the article talks about other types of Blue John. Richerman    (talk) 10:19, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * "Blue John" or "blue john"? WP is really against capitalisation as proper nouns. Is this a strong enough case to justify it?
 * I'm slightly inclined to blue john (Derbyshire) rather than  blue john (mineral). It has a strong association with Derbyshire - I think it's almost unique to that area and the name certainly is.  "As a mineral", then fluorspar would be an obvious base for a name, but fluorspar is pretty broad and it's really under the topics of blue john and derbyshire that we have this notable social and historical combination. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:15, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It would be Blue john as all article names begin with a capital. I always thought it was unique to Derbyshire but it seems it has now been found elsewhere. They also used to say it was fluorspar stained with petroleum but that seems to have gone by the board too.  Richerman    (talk) 14:26, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Blue John (mineral) gets my vote. But please, pretty please, can we keep the capitals? Wikipedia may well have an anti-capitalisation trend but it's truly ill-founded in my opinion. The line between "noun" and "proper noun" is a blurred one (Blue John is a good example). Unfortunately the lower-case-on-everything brigade are too binary-thinking to appreciate any such nuance. [Quote: Oxford Manual of Style, p. 73: "Capitals make a word or words specific in their reference; distinguishing, for instance, between the white house (a house painted white) and the White House (the US president's official residence), or between a Christian scientist (a scientist who is a Christian) and a Christian Scientist (a member of the Church of Christ Scientist)." I know Blue John isn't quite analogous, but much the same considerations apply. In my opinion, WP:BIRDCON, on a related issue, was a philistine move in the same vein (pun not intended), won by limited writers flying (again, pun not intended) in the face of a useful and perfectly legitimate convention.] Dave.Dunford (talk) 21:20, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

'Bull beef' associated mineral
I've seen exhibited a deep-red, veined mineral apparently found in the same Castleton area (possibly the same strata) as Blue John. It is/was said that the source is now worked out, but ornamental items exist in museum and other collections. I'm unable to find a search term what won't produce hundreds of refs to beef cattle, but I know I didn't imagine it. Can any Derbyshire native, mineralogist or museum curator throw any light on this? Chrismorey (talk) 12:45, 13 September 2021 (UTC)