Talk:Great Boston Fire of 1872

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kellyg320.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Need article
The Great Fire was a big event in Boston history. A few books have been written about it and there are lots of Google hits. So there should be an article about it.

Yes, that's why it's linked to. Go ahead and write it. - Nunh-huh 04:03, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Oliver Wendell Holmes
Which Oliver Wendell Holmes watched the fire? Bill52270 15:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Removed Paragraph
I removed the following paragraph: "'Mutual aid fire department from Stafford County (Engine 9 B-Watch) was credited for stopping the blaze. In the past Engine 9 has been known to have problems with their pumper. In fact, the pumper would probably best fit this time period since it was almost useless (it had problems such as engine not running correctly, not pumping right). During the fireground operations, the engine did break down and had to be hooked up to horses and be moved from fire to fire on each street. In turn, they needed to call on a special type of apperatus for help. This would be Quint 12 (C-Watch). Using the county's out dated radio system they called back in time and special request Quint 12 for assistance. In turn, the real heroes were Quint 12 (C-Watch). All in all, both crews truly did an excellent job.'"

The reference to Stafford County (not Massachusetts) and use of radio suggests that this paragraph is here by mistake.. . . . Jim. . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 18:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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Use of Wet Blankets at Old South Meeting House
I have to throw a wet blanket on the idea that a citizens' brigade used wet blankets to help save the Old South Meeting House from the fire. I've removed that reference. There are numerous secondary sources from much later that state this, but I can find no contemporary references of the effort to save Old South that mention the use of wet blankets. There are accounts of using wet wool blankets to help save Hovey's Store a few blocks away on Summer Street. I suspect that this is where the story of their use on Old South originated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brooklinehistory (talk • contribs) 12:54, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Editing/converting to prose
Hi fellow editors! I'm working on editing this page to reorganize it, add citations and more detailed information, and "convert to prose" as the banner suggests. I welcome any comments/suggestions/additional edits. Thanks! Kellyg320 (talk) 18:33, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 25 July 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. No consensus after much extended discussion. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 22:01, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Great Boston Fire of 1872 → Great Boston fire of 1872 – All of the other Boston Fire Department articles do not capitalize the "F" in "fire". Jax 0677 (talk) 15:20, 25 July 2021 (UTC) — Relisted. 2pou (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Support for consistency Sahaib3005 (talk) 15:50, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * The Boston Fire Department article is inconsistent (as of now). The section headings use initial caps but the links use lower case. For that matter, it can't decide if it's the Hotel Vendome fire or the Vendome Hotel Fire. 85.67.32.244 (talk) 18:50, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Jax, just to be clear, my understanding of your rationale is that you want to be consistent with the other fire articles linked from that article, namely Great Boston fire of 1760, Cocoanut Grove fire, Hotel Vendome fire, and 2014 Boston Brownstone fire. But please correct me if I'm misunderstanding. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. It also seems that it would be consistent with fire articles more broadly, e.g. those in Category:Building fires in the United States. If the subject was consistently capitalized in a large majority of reliable sources (cf. WP:NCCAPS/MOS:CAPS), I would say it should stay at the current title. But ngrams suggest it's more borderline. The capitalized version is definitely more popular in very recent sources, but the lowercase version leads in the 20th century and earlier. Also, standard caveat about ngrams applies (that capitalized version will be overrepresented because it's not only counting running text, but also titles, chapter headings, etc.). So all that is to say, Support. Colin M (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Suggest 1872 Great Boston fire or 1872 Boston fire to make it consistent with most articles about historical events.--DreamLinker (talk) 17:21, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Epithets should always be capitalized. Boston fire of 1872 or 1872 Boston fire would be fine as an WP:NDESC, but once you add "Great" to it, it becomes a proper name. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:50, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose, a proper name per King of Hearts and the uppercasing of the refernces. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:42, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose This is a proper name. Other "Great Fire" articles also capitalize "fire" (e.g. Great Fire of London, Great Fire of New York, Great New York City Fire of 1845, etc. ) Walrasiad (talk) 11:08, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This is not universally true. Great Boston fire of 1760 was already mentioned, but there's also Great fire of Meireki, Great fire of Hamburg, 1866 great fire of Portland, Maine, and Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead (among others). Colin M (talk) 19:00, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I would disagree with those, and would like to see them moved to either "Great X Fire" or "X fire". -- King of ♥ ♦<b style="color:black"> ♣</b><b style="color:black"> ♠</b> 02:05, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Could you elaborate on the policy basis of your argument? It seems like you're offering your own personal prescriptive rule for which terms ought to be capitalized ("epithets should always be capitalized"). But MOS:CAPS uses a descriptive standard, capitalizing "words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources". If you think all great fires meet this criterion, it would be helpful if you could cite some evidence. Colin M (talk) 02:45, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I've looked up "Great Fire of Meireki" on Google News, and every single source capitalizes it this way. I see a little bit of discrepancy on regular Google, but many of those are Wikipedia mirrors. -- <b style="color:red">King of ♥</b><b style="color:red"> ♦</b><b style="color:black"> ♣</b><b style="color:black"> ♠</b> 03:57, 29 August 2021 (UTC)