Talk:SS Princess Sophia

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Alaska Mid‑importance

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Ships

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Vancouver Low‑importance

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A fact from SS Princess Sophia appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 December 2008, and was viewed approximately 5,815 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that at least 343 persons on the SS Princess Sophia (pictured) died in 1918 when the ship was grounded near Juneau, Alaska, the captain decided not to evacuate, and the ship sank?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/December.

Wikipedia

Assistance[edit]

I am sure I saw on TV recently that the captain refused assistance when offered, can anyone confirm?

Help was unavailable to the Sophia due to the harsh conditions weather conditions. Several fishing boats from the area tried to reach the ship as it lay on the reef but were unable to get close enough to offload passengers without risking their own vessels.

Order[edit]

Is it just me, or is this article very weirdly ordered as far as headings go? It has a "Last Voyage" section, then after "Stranded on the reef", it jumps to a section on similar wrecks, and then after the similar wrecks section, it continues with "Decision not to evacuate," which would probably be better placed under "Last Voyage," along with a number of the following headers. -archanamiya · talk 20:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

the similar wrecks section relates to the decision not to evacuate the vessel.Mtsmallwood (talk) 21:35, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Victims[edit]

Incidentally, there were other notable victims besides Walter Harper. I seem to recall there was a section to this effect which has since been removed. I hope this isn't yet another example of the warped mindset of some autistic teenager, believing that "notability" means strictly delineating what can or can't be mentioned on Wikipedia. RadioKAOS – Talk toT me, Billy 01:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To expand upon this, it most certainly is a case of undue weight to only mention Walter Harper just because there are plenty of editors on here who are willing to write about him. Amongst the voluminous body of work of R. N. DeArmond, he wrote of John Fraser "Jack" Pugh. Pugh was the collector of customs for the territory, which was an important position in Alaska in those days. Something I came across recently but have managed to forget the details of stated that many of the passengers were notables of the day. In particular, included were a number of prominent citizens of Interior Alaska (including, but hardly limited to, Walter Harper), who wound up on this particular sailing due to a combination of delays and difficulties in arranging transportation south, though once again I didn't pay that much attention as to the details of why. Heinie Snider wrote of the last sailing and wreck in the 1960s and stated more or less the same thing. He wrote in particular of his friendship with Cornelia Templeton Hatcher a half century earlier. She had a ticket for this sailing, but was convinced by friends to remain in Skagway overnight and take another boat, an occurrence she chalked up to providence after the fact. Snider further stated that she wasn't the only passenger who decided not to sail at the last minute. All of this recalls another dimension of undue weight (or, if you're not that generous, POV pushing). The gap which exists between reliably sourced information in general, and that subset of reliably sourced information which can be found on the web, has evidently enabled many to just piss all over the notion that notability doesn't degrade. I've come across multiple recent examples of an apparent belief that what was notable a decade or so ago is not notable in 2014. Give some thought as to how much more blatant that attitude must be in the case of this event which occurred nearly a century ago. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 14:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]