Talk:Gutta Percha Company

Gutta Percha Company has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: September 18, 2019. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Gutta Percha Company appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 February 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the Gutta Percha Company, whose main product was submarine telegraph cable, started out making bottle stoppers? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2019/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gutta Percha Company.

According to

@

WP:BRD. SpinningSpark 23:06, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

Oh, good gracious, you have to be kidding, User:Spinningspark. That is an absurd interpretation of a sliver of the MOS. I'm sorry, but I made the original correction - eliminating a senseless redirect - and must stand by it. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 23:10, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I came here first to address this issue at talk - but returning to correct the page I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no "sea of blue". There is a link to what gutta-percha is - natural rubber - with a comma and three words in between. I'm sorry, but you are completely off base here. Hope we meet on more constructive matters down the road. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 23:14, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't see your constructive intermediate change when posting the above. Crisis averted. Two hyperlinks a comma and three words apart. Plus it reads better. Glad we could work this out. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This review is

transcluded from Talk:Gutta Percha Company/GA1

. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 14:42, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• " natural rubber gutta-percha. Unlike other natural rubbers" I guess it's to avoid the
  WP:SEAOFBLUE
  but it does look odd to link "natural rubber" on the second occasion, particularly when it's so swiftly after the first instance.
  • Partly for SEAOFBLUE and partly because "the natural rubber gutta-percha" is a noun phrase that works as a singgle unit. Having contiguous links would be very non-obvious to the reader who might not find gutta-percha at all. A solution might be to pipe the whole phrase. SpinningSpark 06:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Is there a reference for "Nothing else like it was available to manufacturing until well into the twentieth century when synthetic plastics were developed."?
  • There are a few that could be used in the William Montgomerie article. Arrighi, p. 7 says that gutta-percha was replaced from 1930 onwards (but doesn't say what with) and Baker, p. 91 says it was replaced in 1930 with the newly-invented polyethylene. I did have an online source that explicitly said all that plus that there was nothing better until polyethylene, but right now I'm racking my brains to remember which article I put it in. I'll come back to this one. SpinningSpark 06:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The page I couldn't find yesterday is this, but I will cite with this book. Although the book doesn't explicitly say "nothing better until..." it's pretty much implied, plus it has more detailed dates of the history. SpinningSpark 09:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "and it rapidly became their main product. It had a near monopoly on the product" bit clunky, consider merge.
  • Done SpinningSpark 09:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "The world's first ocean crossing cable linked Dover to Calais in 1851. " this seems to be missing something.
  • Changed to The world's first international telegraph connection under the sea, a link from Dover to Calais in 1851, used a cable made by the company. Any better? SpinningSpark 10:15, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "Except for a few early cables, submarine cables" repeat of cable is jarring.
  • Changed to Except for a few early ones... SpinningSpark 10:15, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Is that statement referenced anywhere?
  • Huurdeman p. 129, and Bright (more directly) p. 11. Pretty sure Haigh said it as well, but I've taken that book back to the library now. SpinningSpark 10:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "products soon greatly expanded" -> was soon (the range didn't do it autonomously...)
  • Done. SpinningSpark 10:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• I think if you link terms like soda water, you ought to consider linking reasonably technical terms like "extrude".
  • Done SpinningSpark 10:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "for a 2-mile length" - convert for metric readers.
  • Done SpinningSpark 12:01, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "Submarine Telegraph Company wished" would add comma before wished here.
  • Done SpinningSpark 10:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "off Folkstone from " Folkestone has two e's.
  • Done SpinningSpark 11:37, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "for 25 nautical miles of " convert again.
  • Done SpinningSpark 12:01, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "Undeterred, a new order was..." who was undeterred here?
  • Changed to Undeterred, the company placed a new order in 1850... SpinningSpark 11:37, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• " Siemens and Halske" seems to use the ampersand.
  • Done SpinningSpark 11:37, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• " 1,300 nautical miles of" convert.
  • Done SpinningSpark 12:01, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm not sure how much the first two paras of the last section (Gutta-percha quality) relate directly to this company, they seem to be talking about the material itself with nothing directly relating to Gutta Percha Company.
  • I would argue that this is about the quality of the product of the company, not of gutta-percha in general. It is mostly sourced to Charles Bright who was chief engineer to the
    Magnetic Telegraph Company, and later in charge of the transatlantic cable project of the Atlantic Telegraph Company. He represents a major customer of the Gutta Percha Company and is talking about the quality of their gutta-percha. SpinningSpark 11:21, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    • That's not clear from the details there right now. The first two paras of that section appear to be completely unrelated. Perhaps you could state somewhere there what you've said, that these two paras relate explicitly to the gutta-percha produced by the Gutta Percha Company. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:45, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've added some introductory text along those lines. If that's not good enough then I really don't have a solution. The material surely belongs on Wikipedia and I would be happy to move it to a more directly related page like Gutta-percha insulated cable, but that page doesn't currently exist. SpinningSpark 15:27, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Why is Willoughby Smith a "see also" for this company article?
  • He was the chief engineer of the company and later of Telcon after the merge. He wrote a book on submarine telegraphy. SpinningSpark 10:59, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's all, not too many comments, but I am concerned a little bit over that generalist material on gutta-percha which doesn't seem directly relevant here. I'll put the nomination on hold. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:59, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anything else outstanding besides the quality section? SpinningSpark 15:27, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know yet, I haven't a chance to review the article following your updates. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 16:01, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the updates are satisfactory and the article now passes the GA criteria easily. Good work. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:11, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]