Talk:Quabbin Reservoir

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Lakes
 Quabbin Reservoir is part of WikiProject Lakes, a WikiProject which aims to systematically improve lake-related articles using the tools on the Project page. You are welcome and encouraged to edit the article attached to this page and to join the project.
WikiProject Lakes
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
This article has been marked as needing immediate attention.
Flag of Massachusetts
Massachusetts Portal
Quabbin Reservoir is part of WikiProject Massachusetts, an effort to create, expand, and improve Massachusetts-related articles to a feature-quality standard. For more information on this project or to get involved see the WikiProject Massachusetts project page.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale.
This article is part of WikiProject Protected Areas, a WikiProject related to national parks and other protected areas worldwide. It may include the protected area infobox.

For those who would like to learn more of the apalling tragedy of the local population of Quabbin I advise to visit this site and listen to the documentary. [ Jerzy·t 17:42, 2005 July 19 (UTC) notes that an anon recommends (accompanied by PoV now struck thru, that does not aid improving the article) an apparent radio program (whose lk i've wiki-fmt'd) which i presume is the same as the major source of my edits: ] Haunting the Quabbin: Inside Out

By the way, learning the history of Quabbin may help to understnan the sentiments and feeling of the Gush Katiff settlers in Israel.

Not everyone will be appalled, so you may not want to let that opinion discourage you from listening to it. --Jerzy·t 17:42, 2005 July 19 (UTC)

I'd like to see clearer references, and a map. --zandperl 21:41, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Anon contribution: original research?

The following several paragraphs were added by an anon. It reads like a grade-school essay, and I suspect may constitute original research:

Florence May Avery who lived in Prescott remembers in 1938 only 8 or 9 students were left in her class. On April 29, 1938 they were told to bring home all their books it was the end of the school year and the nthe schoolhouse was teared down while the kids were still there and they watched as their school was knocked down.
Every building or home was knocked down that was not being used. As people who went to visit before the towns were flooded they saw that not even a tree nor a bush could be seen.
2500 people lived in the four towns they were not angry they were mostly heartbroken there towns there homes had been knocked down and flooded there houses that they had lived in all there lives had been knocked down and flooded. Some people think that this was not right in fact some of them took the story to Sureme Court but lost the case when that failed Connecticut sued and too lost the case. The construction began in 1936all buildings on the shoreline were razed and the grass was clear cut and burned any flammable material was taken and burned nearby. Some submerged roads can be seen from overhead. In 1946 the resevoir was filled and began supplying water.
Legend has it people were still living in the town when it was flooded. It took seven years for the valley to flood. Who knowws what is legend or not or what really happened to some of the people but the people sure were upset and heartbroken and definetily do not think thatr is fair to have their homes knocked down.
One thing that people do not tell is that all the land that was clear is not being used as part of the resevoir it is known as Dana Mass. It was cleared of people and buildings but it was leveled and used for a watershed to keep pollution out of the drinking water. One thing that is not allowed is that you cannot drive on the roads with the exception of once a year when the old residents of dana is allowed to drive on the roads to come together and looked at where they once lived and balonged to and their lost homes
People say that when the water in the resevoir is low enough you can see an old church steeple but are those just stories or can you really see some of the remains of the old towns. So is Swift ARiver Valley Massachussets' own Atlantis or is it just something of the past one thing is certain though you should never take advantage of your own town because it could one day be flooded into a ghost town and into anything and you won't be able to do a thing.

Moved here by 121a0012 23:38, 8 January 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Foo

June 20, '06: Added on some information regarding the current use of the lands around the Quabbin, as well as some geographical information. Also, took out most of the dead links, leaving the original text intact. Used information from the book listed in the references section, Michael Tougias' Quabbin: A History and Explorer's Guide, for help. (Also did similar fixes with the articles regarding the four towns.) -TC

"Red links" are not "dead"; they simply represent articles which have not been written yet. There was nothing wrong with them as they stood. 121a0012 03:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mapping

Also, there is a site which sells maps of the area from 1873, does anyone know how to obtain images to use for a former version of the area? -TC

[edit] Star article?

I don't understand why this excellent, scientific article does not have a star on it. It might be a feature article also.Dave 01:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subsections

One does not decide sections by the number of paragraphs in it, nor as far as I know, is that a Wikipedia policy. The idea is that one section is a consistent topic. If that topic has related but distinct phases then it gets divided into subtopics. A topic might be one sentence or half the article. There is a space limitation and also a policy of readability. So, if it can be split into topics, it should be for readability.Dave 21 November 2006 (UTC)

PS someone's clock is not right here or not on Eastern Standard TimeDave

Suggest you have a look at any of a large number of English-language style guides -- it's not specific to Wikipedia. Excess section headings do not, as a general rule, improve readability; more often, they paper over the fact that the writer (or editor) failed to make any sort of connection between the surrounding paragraphs. This article's description of the history follows (or should follow, at any rate) a conventional narrative structure; an editor of a printed reference work would not feel the need to have more than two subsections. (If one were concerned about "space limitations", one would have even fewer subsections, as section headings waste vertical space and detract from the flow of the exposition without adding any value to compensate.) 121a0012 02:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Methinks he knows what he’s saying. He is a tech writer by trade. He does this for a living and has volunteered quite a bit of his time to clean up some Wikipedia articles. Check out his work on Lyman School for Boys and Mark D. Devlin. Your original work in 2005 of adding some history to Quabbin Reservoir does not go unnoticed. However, much work followed by several others, including some fixing POV and getting rid of the obviousness of a “cut and paste” by changing wording and structure. So, in spite of your excoriation (now that’s a word) of my work, I think that you probably thought you were doing the right thing. However I don’t think it was the right thing and now you have encountered somebody else who shares my thoughts. Also please note that there were several subsections added to existing sections. If you looked at the Contents, you may have noted this and probably would have been less likely to remove somebody else's work. --LymanSchool 18:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, it was looking at the contents that first drew my attention to the subsection bloat. Remember that WP articles are a collaborative effort; as this very edit screen states, "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." What's sauce for the goose is good for the gander, methinks. 121a0012 05:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I looked at the other two articles you mentioned, and they also have far too many sections. I'd be surprised to see more than two or three sections in an article on a subject of comparable importance in another encyclopedia. 121a0012 05:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the changes made by 121a0012. He needs to learn that the article was not his to hack. If he doesn't like the format, then he can discuss it before he changes it, not after. N26825 01:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The article is not "yours to hack", either. I don't believe someone who has made only 14 edits is in a position to complain about another Wikipedian's work. I'm not going to go back and unrevert this, no matter how idiotic the old sectioning may be, since it's a ridiculous thing to get into a revert war about, but I suggest you should have some respect for experience. 121a0012 07:03, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I just stumbled into this and my unbiased opinion is that there are far too many subsections. I'm a huge fan of headings, really, but this is a bit much. Someone who has a vested interest in this article should take some time folding a few together - just a few, and see how it looks. Good luck! Midnightdreary 05:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Goodnough Dike into this article

The article on Goodnough Dike is non-notable and unreferenced (see its talk page for details). Though it could be AFD'd, a better course of action would likely be to merge it here. Thoughts? Mmoyer 00:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it should be mreged. This article needs a rewrite as well. Cacophony 02:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Oppose. These are two separate things. As a matter of fact, Goodnough Dike is not the only dam on this reservoir. Solarapex 09:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose. The article is improving. I noticed someone added a link to a court order about water quality on this (and on the Quabbin Reservoir article) but the court order in fact addresses quality of water actually reaching Boston Area from the Wachusett Reservoir (which is fed by Quabbin)- the water in the Quabbin itself is rated quite good, in fact excellent. I think that link should be removed, but it points to the fact that the water in this large system is piped all the way to Boston (about 70 miles away?) and merging this article among others would confuse controversies that may arise about components of this system. Cuvtixo 19:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Distance to Boston?

I think its very important to point out how far away the reservoir is from Boston and the area it actually serves. Someone has added a link to a court order about water quality, but it is quite confusing because the court order is actually about the quality of the water transported from Wachusett Reservoir, when the water in the Quabbin and from the Quabbin Aqueduct is rated quite high (and I believe always has been). The Quabbin Aqueduct is one of the longest in the world at about 25 miles long, and yet it is less that halfway to Boston. If anyone knows the total distance to Boston, please note it in the article, thank you. Cuvtixo 19:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC) 65 miles check here: http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/annual/waterreport/2004results/2004results_metro.htm under the section entitled "Where does the water come from"

[edit] Neutrality

I have issues with sentences like "When the water level is lower than usual, visitors to the Quabbin have the opportunity to see the remnants of the lives that were shattered by the development of the Quabbin. Cellars and remnants of that the homes and lives destroyed are particularly heartbreaking when viewed from a boat. As you walk some of the old roadways you will suddenly find yourself at the water's edge -- and realize that once these roads were the lifeline to entire towns. Some submerged roads are visible from overhead." It's a bit pushy toward a conclusion about the entire project and exceedingly sentimental. Flowery language like 'remnants of the lives that were shattered' isn't used in the article on the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and it shouldn't be used here. It is inappropriate for any encyclopedic article. 204.69.40.7 15:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I hopefully fixed it enough to get rid of the NPOV tags. Also condensed things a little.--UsaSatsui 23:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Metric System; Pictures

Why do you guys use US units on this Quabin page while metric units are used on lake pages such as this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Champlain

Why not always use metric?

I guess on second thought it doesn't really matter.

Also I have some other pictures of this body of water if you guys want any. I have one that I think shows the clarity of the water very well and I don't mind giving up the copyright.

-Jeff Plotkin Aug 19, 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ratjed (talk • contribs) 04:37:29, August 19, 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Namesakes/Inspiration

I wonder if these two lines have any real importance in this article.
"The towns are the namesakes of housing complexes at nearby Hampshire College. These towns may have been the inspiration for H.P.Lovecraft's supernatural story, The Dunwich Horror."

  • The Dunwich Horror was written in 1928 and published in April, 1929, so I don't think those towns were Lovecraft's inspiration. I don't think that dorms at Hampshire being named for the four towns is really important to this article. It may be to the Hampshire College article.clariosophic 04:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Towns dissolved

Towns are created or incorporated by the legislature and are abolished or dissolved by the legislature. Discontinuation is not the proper legal term. Abolition or dissolution are proper legal terms. clariosophic 21:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I was just coming over here to mention that. It sounds like it's some funny play on words, but it's really the correct legal term for what happened. Jessamyn (talk) 22:00, 3 November 2007 (UTC)