Talk:Union Carbide/Archives/2013

incomplete
this article seems horribly incomplete for a company that once was a very major player in the plastic/chemical industry. perhaps mention major companies that it supplied and worked with, talk of its aquisition by DOW, even it's minor in the movie "Network."--Gidge 21:42, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Copyright problems
Much of this article is directly cribbed from http://www.unioncarbide.com/history/index.htm --72.70.10.85 11:57, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

NPOV and COPYPASTE
This article is atrocious. I've taken the liberty of adding an NPOV template to the article as a whole and COPYPASE to the history section. I'll try, if I have time to come back and work a bit on the intro at least. Kinema (talk) 04:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Paragraph about office space
This was added a few days ago in an edit by an anon IP:

"In 1960, Union Carbide consolidated its diverse New York City office spaces that had been located in and around 30 East 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan, to a new skyscraper structure at 270 Park Avenue on the site of the former Hotel Marguerie. In March of that year, various divisions and departments of the company began to move, as true pioneers, into the brand new building. Thus began a shakedown period, as employees began to adjust to working in the new space. One immediate structural problem was the 'stone' terrazzo surface on the plaza surrounding the building. When dry, it presented a delightful contrast to the steel and glass building above it. But when it rained, the surface became as slick as the most slippery ice-skating rink that had ever existed anywhere, and many slip and fall pedestrian accidents were recorded. The problem was solved by grinding the surface to a rough finish, a project which took several weeks. The next problem involved the sheer and clear glass doors that gave entry into the lower ground floor of the building from the plaza. They were virtually invisible to the naked eye, and a few broken or bruised noses resulted until the powers that be ordered that eye-level strips be placed on each door. The last major problem weas far less injury-threatening, but it marked just about every new occupant of the building as a Carbide employee as they walked around midtown at lunch or were heading home in the evening. On the ladies, it was a heavy coating of fine green fibers that statically clung to their shoes, ankles and calves. On the men, it was the same for their shoes, trouser cuffs and lower pants legs. The cause: the relatively brittle green-dyed fibers that broke off by foot-treading from the vast acreage of brand-new Dynel-based carpeting that covered most of the interior floors in the new building. It had been woven especially and for the first time into commercial carpeting by the Alexander Smith Carpet Company and had evidently not been fully scuff- and static-tested before installation. The problem was ultimately solved by spraying every square foot of carpeting with an anti-static silicone solution, a handy and very practical application for one of the company's own silicone products."

It's an uncited minor incident, not vital to the history of the company, and it sort of overwhelmed the rest of the article so I'm putting it here until somebody can figure out whether it should be re-integrated somehow. Dreamyshade (talk) 22:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Article needs a History section
This article also needs a "history" section for the origin and formation of the company. What mergers eventually created it, ect. From an another article it was mentioned that Webb Hayes & others founded National Carbon which was the forerunner for Union Carbide... If that helps give a starting point for the company... Also, I don't know if it is mentioned in the article, but generally the only reason why companies merge and are wholly bought is because of major litigations such as Bhopal (i.e. Compaq and HP, etc.) where they can't afford to continue on their own merits... (The only other reason is when someone is retiring without heirs or wants out of the business for a myriad number of reasons)... I am sure there is research on the condition of the company when Dow Chemical bought them... Stevenmitchell (talk) 03:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. I was looking for information on Prest-O-Lite, and the redirect dumped me into this cesspool of an article, where I found no mention of Prest-O-Lite whatsoever.  Yeah, UC was involved in the Bhopal disaster, but in the big picture that has to be just a small part of the company story, yet it dominates the article from the lead-in section on.  One would get the impression that the company was founded and run for decades with sole aim of creating a disaster halfway around the world.  The article so severely biased that it can't be taken seriously.  On the Wikipedia scale of article quality, it rates as "garbage".&mdash;QuicksilverT @ 01:59, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Superfluous tags
Look at, oh, say, Rural electrification. Ponder...why would Union Carbide be promoting carbide lights if electric lights were already universal in 1922? They are hardly universal *today* in some parts of the world. The area I grew up in didn't get electricity till after WWII. Is it really worth having a spectacularly ******* tag for this very peripheral observation in an image caption? Really? --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:00, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't change policy. See WP:V and WP:NOTBLUE. See a similar issue at hydraulic fracturing. elle vécut heureuse à jamais  (be free) 19:08, 6 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It shouldn't be hard to find a citation for this, if true. My initial googling is only turning up sources that say residential electric lighting was common by the early 1900s. One source is suggesting that the period between 1870-1920 was a battle between electric and gas lighting, with electric eventually winning out . This is also a good read that seems to contradict the narrative in the article. That's why we always get sources. causa sui (talk) 21:10, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A few more good reads:    . causa sui (talk) 21:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Until every other line allegedly declaiming a factual statement in the Wikipedia has at least 3 gold-standard citations, I will continue to protest the absurdity of this tag. It's utter nonsense to pretend you need a citation for the sky being blue. Common sense may not be a Wikipedia guideline or pillar, but we should not make irrationality a core principle either. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:37, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you even read the references Mr W? elle vécut heureuse  à jamais  (be free) 18:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * causa's references only establish that electric lighting was well on its way to replacing gas but there is no support there for a claim of universal adoption. Please read this section and the references there. Electric lighting was indeed "common" by the 1920s in cities, even in mid-sized towns, but was by no means universal in the US in rural areas. To believe otherwise one must also believe that the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 (yes, nineteen thirty six) was just a sham. Elle, if you want to improve things, why don't you copy the reference from that article to here, instead of just dropping tags? There are also some links over there that need to be updated and turned into refs. Jeh (talk) 21:42, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Jeh, thanks for mentioning the REA. I copied a citation from the Wiki article.  Although potentially superflous, it should satisfy any reasonable person. Sandcherry (talk) 22:15, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * See WP:CITE: "[The Verifiability policy] requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space. However, editors are strongly advised to provide citations for all information added to Wikipedia; any detail risks being unexpectedly challenged or even eventually removed." Historical statements about adoption of electric lighting are not analogous to "the sky is blue" and need referencing. It would be much easier to supply citations than to argue about this and it's always better to err on the side of over-referencing than under-referencing. causa sui (talk) 22:45, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Apparently the reference was not satisfactory. I must say that I found elle's comment "doesn't discuss Union Carbide's role" baffling, as there was never a claim than UC had a role in limiting the adoption of electricity.; the second sentence in the caption merely explains why UC was advertising carbide (gas) lighting in 1922.  I will agree though that the reference was a little weak on the intended point, so I changed to a different one, also cribbed from the RE article. Jeh (talk) 06:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Beg pardon, but it seems to me that if you interpret WP:CITE without discretion or common sense, then this sort of thing is exactly analagous to "the sky is blue", and both absolutely must be referenced! And before you say "nobody would challenge 'the sky is blue'," allow me to mention that we had an editor in Talk:Sun who insisted that the sun has no color and does not emit light... The "need" for references in this case is particularly weak as nothing in the article really depended on the disputed sentence. Sorry but I do not think that dotting these particular i's and crossing these particular t's was anybody's best use of the time they have to spend on Wikipedia. The time spent demanding the refs, and then defending the demand, even less so. Jeh (talk) 09:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The editor (La goutte de pluie) who started this merry-go-round has been indefinitely blocked for other reasons. Although the need for a reference in this case is very questionable IMHO, Jeh's addition should satisfy any reasonable person (my favorite phrase) and prevent this specific issue from arising in the future.  Time to move on... Sandcherry (talk) 00:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "Reasonable" people don't write on-line encyclopedias. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:38, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Asbestos mine paragraph
I have added a very short paragraph on the Union Carbide mining operation. I plan on adding some additional citations here in a moment. Thank you for your patience, fellow wikipedians.Gofigure41 03:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gofigure41 (talk • contribs)