Template:Did you know nominations/Petroleum County, Montana

Petroleum County, Montana

 * ... that Petroleum County (pictured) in Montana is the seventh least populous county in the United States?

5x expanded by Dr. Blofeld (talk), Nvvchar (talk), Rosiestep (talk). Nominated by Dr. Blofeld (talk) at 10:12, 29 June 2013 (UTC).

Reviewed Template:Did you know nominations/John W. Dwinelle♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  10:19, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing: At present, the article still needs some cleanup, I see no footnote for the statement in article text, "In 2010, the population was 494, making it Montana's least populous county and the 7th least populous in the United States." Thus the hook is inadequately cited. There is also a sea of redlinks - some inevitable as no articles have been created (though some may be able to get a piped link to a broader geographic area?), but several redlinks are due to typos - such as "rattelsnake" [sic] and a misspelling of alfalfa. Also, be sure you have mdy date formats, as this is a USA article. You may want to refer to the places in the county as "communities" or "towns" or "census-designated areas" as well, we don't say "settlements" out here, it isn't the 1800s any more, (or the West Bank) the places have been there a long time and that terminology in this context is a bit archaic, even if technically correct. People in Montana usually call Winnett a small town, (and the rest of it "a wide spot in the road," LOL)  Montanabw (talk) 22:15, 29 June 2013 (UTC) It is long enough, 5x expansion new enough and the hook itself is fine once properly sourced. But the article itself will benefit from a bit more cleanup before prime time. Montanabw (talk) 21:56, 29 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I gave the article a c/e; fixed the mentioned typos and a few others; changed the date format to mdy; replaced archaic terms with modern day ones; and dealt with wls and redlinks. I'll ask one of the other collaborators to address the hook issue. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:39, 29 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Hook is sightly modified as ALT1 and references are fixed to the hook text in the article.-- Nvvchar . 06:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * ALT1 Hook ... that Petroleum County (pictured) is the least populous county in Montana and one of the least populous county in the United States?

Still unsourced, unfortunately. I actually like the original hook if you can source it, AL1 would be better if you said "...one of the least populous counties in ..." but even that is still unsourced. (Can't use a wikilink to source another wikipedia article). You guys have fixed all my other concerns. And I don't doubt the population, I've driven through that country, it's miles and miles of miles and miles. I even know someone from Winnett... May I recommend you look at sources like the obvious one, or an aggregator like this (which has it 9th as of 2009, though surfing the site may reveal more recent stats) or the source material cited at County statistics of the United States Also, [http://www.hcn.org/blogs/range/montana-has-wests-least-populated-counties this fellow discusses some of his methodology. (I wouldn't call it WP:SYNTH if you did a bit of digging that way...) Montanabw (talk) 01:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol question.svg all the soilsinductry refs are throwing harv errors. Pumpkin Sky   talk  23:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * NOTE Can you folks please fix this too?  Montanabw (talk) 01:28, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

PumpkinSky fixed the harv errors for you folks; I didn't know what was needed there, thanks. Montanabw (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Ref 1 a book source) says ”with only 493 residents according to the 2000 census, it remains Montana’s least populated county.”

Reference 2 is of the US Department of Soil Surveys and I presume should be a reliable source. On pages 1 & 2 of the reference it says ”Petroleum County was established on February 22, 1925. As the last county established in Montana, in 1944 it adopted the county manager from of Government still in use today. The 1960 census showed that Petroleum County had one of the lowest populations of a county in the country,655.” I have fixed the reference to the tag in the article. In view of above suggestions I suggest the following ALT2 hook.-- Nvvchar . 14:12, 5 July 2013 (UTC)


 * ALT2 hook... that Petroleum County (pictured) is one of the least populous county in Montana and in the United States?
 * ALT3: ... that Petroleum County (pictured) is the least populous county in Montana and one of the least populous counties in the United States?


 * I'm in a quandary. Basically, there is no question  -- and it is properly sourced (always was) that it's the least populous county in Montana.  I have no concerns there.  But the cool thing for DYK is that it's one of the (probably) 10 least populous counties in the USA, and the 1980 stat is too far removed from the present day to support the claim.  Can you find anywhere (as I did find 2009 stats) for the "one of the least populous counties" claim?  I really, really, really want you to be able to salvage this with a good RS!  (smiles)  If you can't, then we'd just have to go with some variant of "least populous county in Montana" and call it good.  Also, you need to make "county" into :counties" - plural - the second time you say it in both Alt 1 and Alt 2  -- and I prefer Alt 1.    Montanabw (talk) 18:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * According to the 2008 census, it is the ninth least populous county in the United States. Proposed an ALT3 hook. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:53, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

APPROVED ALT3 HOOK. I will just add the census reference to the lead of the article for you folks; the 1980 census is not sufficient but the 2008 one is. If the lead editors prefer sfn formatting, I'll leave that to them. Montanabw (talk) 01:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol question.svg Come on now, there's still a CN tag. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:17, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

APPROVED ALT3 HOOK. That was a tag I added, forgot to pull it when they found the census source. Fixed that, my bad. Montanabw (talk) 20:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)