Megzie113
Welcome
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United Mine Workers of America looks like an article in need of some work, and I'd be happy to see you bring it to Good Article status. That said, the first step would probably be to develop a list of reliable secondary sources about the subject. You could do this by consulting the appropriate bibliographic help pages at the university library and identify some of the best sources on this subject. Order any books in interlibrary loan that you think you need. Second, identify the areas you think should be improved to make this a good article. You might also consult the projects listed on the talk page to see what their requirements are. This would not mean posting a generic question (what are your guidelines), but instead searching the project pages for their published guidelines. Good job identifying a viable topic. Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Welcome!
editHey Megan, welcome to WikiProject Mining, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Cheers.--kelapstick (talk) 23:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
good job for jumping into the project
editgood job, for jumping right in and boldly adding to the United Mine workers. If I could make a couple of suggestions, before you get too far. First, the LEAD paragraphs (usually 3) are fairly short and summarize the article. So you might not want to add too much to the lead, at least not yet. It is also not required to make footnotes in the lead. This particular article needs a history section, and I noticed that much of what you added to the article today relates to the union history. So you might set up a separate "history" section by using == History of the Union ==, which will give you a subheading. Good for you, to get right to work on it. :) Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
Hi - I just wanted to let you know that I reverted your edits to Sixteen Tons. Use of lyrics on Wikipedia has to be within the bounds of fair use, and quoting a copyrighted song's entire lyrics is generally considered to be a copyright violation. Best, Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Talkback
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Message added 16:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
you have comments left on the talk page by another editor. I've also done some manipulation of the article. You might want to take another look, and work on this further. Auntieruth55 (talk) 16:39, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Talkback
edit Message added 23:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Megzie, I'm having problems with using wp right now--it's not letting me post, for some weirdness I have looked at your article and you've got some fundamental issues (although telling you it fails whatever is unhelpful). You've relied a lot upon one source, which is part of the problem.
Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Talkback
edit Message added 00:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
don't worry just yet. I have to figure out how to get into the system, and then I'll help you. First thing to do though, is find some other sources. Did you find an article or a book on the UMW? Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
okay I've turned off all the editing features, so at least I have a box. You need a couple more sources, also there has to be some context, which you probably don't need to write new, but can link to. Have you looked at the other articles on mining? That would be a good start. Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:09, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Suggestions for UMW page
editI'm sorry if I was too hard on the article. I know that it is difficult when you know what you want to say, but the general reader has a hard time understanding because he does not share your background knowledge. Many of my problems understanding the article are because I don't know much about UMW history. Following are some suggestions for the article.
There are may references to United We Stand. I assume that this is a book. If so, a good reference requires more details: city of publication, publisher, and year of publication. For individual citations, page numbers are needed.
Safety and health in the mines: I very much doubt that many miners ever worked in "total darkness" as stated here; they always had some illumination. As for going without seeing sunlight for days at a time, that still happens today during the winter months. I recall going days without sunlight myself during the brief period when I worked as a mine geologist (not in a coal mine), and I assure you that this was not during the 19th century.
Pittsdon strike: I have never been completely in the dark when down in a mine, but I am completely in the dark when it comes to figuring out this paragraph. First of all, where was the strike? Who withdrew from the BCOA? Who halted health insurance payments to retired miners? The UMW feared that this would be another "Massey Strike," but I don't know what the Massey strike is. When you say that the UMW became more involved, I assume that you mean the national UMW as oppsed to the local. How did they get more involved, and what was the outcome?
Decline in the 1970s: The article cites "Sam Church's giving away benefits." but does not state who Sam Church was, what he gave away, when he "gave away" (a rather POV phrase) the benefits, or why.
A discussion of post-WWI era problems comes after the Decline in the 1970s. This section should be in better chronological order.
It would be great to have more quantitative measures under the section on decline in mine unionism. The article states that the UMW represents 42% of all employed miners; is that coal miners or all miners? What percent did they represent in the union's heyday? Plazak (talk) 03:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Events leading up to the Pittston strike
editYou have made a good article from scratch, but there are still a few needed tweaks. I'm afraid that the recent changes have not fixed all the inaccuracies in the section "Events leading up to the strike". First of all, if Dotter really asserts that US demand for coal was falling in the 1980s, that is simply false, as a cursory look at the (far more authoritative) data from this EIA link will show: [1]. According to the EIA statistics, US coal demand actually rose from 703 million short tons in 1980, to 837 million short tons in 1987 (the year of the strike). I see no way to square this with Dotter's supposed falling demand. I certainly hope that Dotter is more accurate in other respects. Furthermore, the use of the EIA reference to justify the comment that the companies may not have been losing money is unwarranted, as the EIA data do not include company profitability. Whether or not the US economy as a whole was in a recession or not does not appear to be germane to the topic at hand. The key point is that, again according to the EIA, bituminous coal prices had declined in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars in the years leading up to the strike (see this link: [2]). According to these EIA statistics, the coal industry was faced with eroding real coal prices, and thus a squeeze in profitability, due to an oversupply of coal, rather than to any fall in demand. Obviously, each company has different costs, and each company would feel the squeeze unequally, so we should not make sweeping generalizations from this about profitability for all coal companies at the time. I know that you're working hard to get all the details right in this fair-sized article. If you have no objection, I'd like to change the lead paragraph in the section. Plazak (talk) 23:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
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