Talk:Elcor, Minnesota

Suggestion

I think that the article would read better if the History section were placed first. BTW, great article! Gandydancer (talk) 17:01, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I was wrong. It's unusual, but it's better like it is.  :) Gandydancer (talk) 12:49, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Gandydancer! I have made some revisions to the article after submitting it for peer review. Please feel free to have a second look and let me know your thoughts.

DrGregMN (talk) 01:27, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Greg, have you considered having a copy editor go through your article? You write very well, but in my experience copy editors have a gift for improving an article. I know a good one that I have used if you want a name. Gandydancer (talk) 12:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Please, Gandydancer! Have them look at the page, or if you wish to give me their User name I can contact them directly. The comments I received from peer review was that this article was ready for direct nomination to Good Article status. I am still waiting for GA status review, but it was suggested that I try for Featured Article status in the future. I am working to bring the article to that level, so any suggestions/feedback would be welcome! DrGregMN (talk) 22:33, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I use user:Wukai and he's truly magical. Gandydancer (talk) 21:17, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

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GA Review

The following discussion 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.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:Elcor, Minnesota/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Codyorb (talk · contribs) 22:15, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Commencing GAR for Elcor, Minnesota. I'll begin later today. Codyorb (talk) 22:15, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Exceptionally composed. Quite interesting and informative.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   Excellent use of reliable sources. I would suggest narrowing them down from 3-5 per sentence to 1-3, although it's not necessary.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Comprehensively written, incorporating facts well.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   No bias detectable.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   No recent edit disputes found.

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   NOTE: See comment by Finnusertop below.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Overall, a very well written article. I would suggest even putting it up for FAR; it meets the criteria well.

• Comment: The Guild of Copy Editors has completed a copy-edit on this article. The prose should be in good shape. Feel free to ping me with any questions about the prose. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:41, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: @DrGregMN and Codyorb: I don't think criterion 6 should have been passed. File:Don H. Bacon.jpg has an obviously bogus fair use rationale. This is not "his/her biographical article" and the image is not used at the top. This default rationale supplied by the image upload wizard should be replaced by one that reflect actual use of the image for it to pass WP:NFCC#10c. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:11, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks @Finnusertop:. Didn't catch that first. Changing the status to On Hold. Sorry for the interuption everyone. Codyorb (talk) 16:45, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello, @Codyorb and Finnusertop: I have changed the rationale for the image File:Don H. Bacon.jpg to more accurately reflect it's actual use. Hopefully this will suffice. DrGregMN (talk) 00:56, 16 October 2017 (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.

Congrats on the GA and soon to be FA

What a good job you have done with this article. IMO we are it -- if our generation doesn't record certain historical information it will be lost forever. Bit by bit it just crumbles to the point that it is impossible to put back together to pass on to our children. Looking forward to your next project! Gandydancer (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

No longer a ghost town...

Elcor is no longer a ghost town. By definition, a ghost town is a town that has been abandoned, but has a significant remaining structures. All structures of the town have been demolished and removed. The entire area of the town is now part of a larger surface mining operation. The article even states that the last remaining structure (a smokestack) was torn town in the 1970's. As such, the article should state that it is a former ghost town. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 01:23, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I don’t disagree with you. When the article was originally brought to GA status, I had the caveat in the text “...or more properly, an extinct town...” This was removed during the FA review process. I would rather reinstate this text than call it a “former” ghost town, which is a bit misleading. However, this would negate the criticisms of the FA reviewers. DrGregMN (talk) 01:47, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree that your description is more precise. A "former" ghost town could be one whose buildings are now gone or one whose structures are again inhabited. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 03:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Doc IMO you should bring this up with the reviewers as they are quite wrong on this one. Gandydancer (talk) 16:05, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Gandydancer I already tried to replace the text in article today, and someone reverted the edit. I put it back. We'll see what happens. DrGregMN (talk) 21:34, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I have now fixed it with text which simply explains that the land where Elcor once stood has now been turned into a strip mine. "Today, where the houses, streets, school, and skating rink of Elcor stood a generation ago, a strip mine still operates." (See reference 3 in the main article). The change obviates any need for reference to ghost town or extinct town which, in Elcor's case, would just be a clumsy fix.--Everlong Day (talk) 22:36, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Everlong Day! I have reverted your edit. I am familiar with the article you referenced on zenithcity.com (and formerly on substreet.org). It was written by a free-lance journalist, Dan Turner. It is an unreliable source, and this Featured Article specifically refutes the information contained in those articles. To wit:

• The name Elcor was not adopted in the hope of being awarded a post office, the name was adopted after a post office had already been awarded.
• The Elba and Corsica mines were not closed in 1921 because demand for the ore had dropped: the Elba mine closed after its mineral resources had been exhausted in 1926, and the Corsica mine closed ahead of the Great Depression in 1929.
• The Corsica mine was covered to an open pit (strip) mine before the Great Depression, and not in 1955 "with the community in the way". Elcor remained a ghost town for many years after the Corsica mine (a high-grade ore mine) was closed in 1954, after which Elcor was abandoned. The Iron Range Historical Society has many photos. The Laurentian mine (a taconite mine, entirely different from the Corsica mine) began with the stripping of the overburden from Elcor's former location in 1993. In fact, the city of McKinley, Minnesota currently gets its water supply from the old Corsica mine pit (http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/water/swp/swa/swainfo/surfwaterFile/1690033.pdf). To suggest Elcor was never once a ghost town is not accurate.

Further errata:

• Elcor was not spelled "Elcore". This was a misspelling of the depot on the part of the Duluth and Iron Range Railway.
• The mining property where Elcor was located was never, ever owned by the Oliver Iron Mining Company!
• Elcor never had a hotel.

Dan Turner's research is suspect at best, schlocky at worst, and has no place being cited in this article. The former citizens of Elcor deserve better. DrGregMN (talk) 23:47, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with your reversion, but not because I disagree with your assessment of the resource. The question you have to ask is how much actual physical evidence is left to show that Elcor was once there. That it was once there, does not make it a ghost town, otherwise every piece of land where, at some time in the past there had been a settlement, could be categorised in this way. A Ghost town is a place where there is still significant evidence that there once was settlement there; the town has just been deserted. Normally, this does not include ancient cities like Pompeii. There is none of that left for Elcor. It is no longer a ghost town.--Everlong Day (talk) 09:17, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Good discussions, albeit without consensus, as to how ghost towns and extinct settlements should be defined can be found here and here. Since this talk page is only in reference to this community, the discussion as to what generally defines a ghost town or extinct settlement should be redirected to these pages. DrGregMN (talk) 01:39, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Islands

Maybe links to Elba, Corsica and Minorca would be in order? Although I'm not quite sure how to work that into the article. I guess someone might demand some proof that the mining company actually named their works after Mediterranean islands. Pity. --BjKa (talk) 09:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually, there are Wikilinks to Elba, Corsica, Minorca and Malta in the article. Bacon named many mines after Mediterranean islands, including these, and this information is cited from the source Vein of Iron: The Pickands-Mather Story, page 44. Click the link in the sources section and you can read it for yourself.

I am also going to be reverting your edit with regard to the four board fences at Elcor. One has only to look at the photograph to see what the four board fence looks like, so I question the need for clarification. If you are looking for the dimensions of the boards or the type of lumber used, sorry, none of the sources contain this information. DrGregMN (talk) 12:11, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

General store vs mercantile

[moved from User:Talk]

I have already had similar issues with User:BD2412 who wanted to replace the spelling of Minorca to Menorca per RM outcome. I advised him that the street as platted and one of the mines as named by Don H. Bacon was spelled Minorca at that time in history. His response was to unlink Minorca since he felt there was no reason supported by any source in the article to link to the Island of "Menorca" (he was wrong). My response to him is essentially the same to you, that you have to look at things in the historical context of the article. The store was called the Elcor Mercantile; the store in the adjacent city of Gilbert was the Saari, Campbell and Kraker Mercantile. Not stated in the article, but in many of the references sourced, residents of Elcor would gather at the "Merc" (proper noun). I have difficulty believing even a casual reader of the article cannot make the connection. Revisionist history has no place on Wikipedia. I'll let it stand for now; don't be surprised if I edit it later. DrGregMN (talk) 15:40, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@DrGregMN: I agree with you about Minorca vs Menorca, and by the same token all proper names containing the word "Mercantile" should not be changed to "General Store". However, a common noun is not a proper name. It is usual to explain difficult words on first use, and to favour simple words to obscure synonyms. I edited the article because I read the front page blurb and genuinely had no idea what "mercantile" meant in the context. I clicked through to the article and found the same text in the lede. I read down and when I got to the relevant section I was able to work out from the context that it meant a general store. I think that is more effort than it needs to be. I don't think my rewording obscures the historical context, and I don't see how explaining what an old-fashioned word means is "revisionist". jnestorius^(talk) 17:39, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I rather like the way it now reads with (general store) added. Gandydancer (talk) 20:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@Jnestorius: Your point is well taken. I did make some changes in prose which I think the copyeditors would appreciate. First, I Wiki-linked general store in the introductory paragraph. Highlighted in blue, any reader is going to know immediately that the town had a general store. I removed the quotations and parenthesis from your previous edit and capitalized Mercantile, giving it the proper noun status it deserves, and immediately in the following paragraph, explained that "the Finnish hall was converted to a general store, the Elcor Mercantile". I know it's not exactly what you had. It's a compromise, and I think it reads better. Chime in Gandydancer, my mentor. You, too Jonesey95. DrGregMN (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

OK by me jnestorius^(talk) 21:56, 18 March 2018 (UTC)