Talk:SS Edmund Fitzgerald

SS designation

Abbreviations of ship nationality or fundamental design like SS and MV are a convention not a rule for civilian shipping. The Edmund Fitzgerald was steam driven at launch but had been converted to diesel in 1971. Hence no longer an SS but if anything an MV. The registered name is Edmund Fitzgerald, with no prefix. The article correctly uses Edmund Fitzgerald in most places. The SS is incorrect and not part of any formal designation of the vessel. It should be removed from the title and the few other places it occurs in the article. 60.241.90.2 (talk) 04:11, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

The way the article reads the 1971 conversion was to oil fired boilers, ie still stream turbine driven, not diesel. Not that that has bearing on the use or not of "SS"..Gjxj (talk) 20:34, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Lakes Huron and Erie "Missing" (not colored in blue) in interactive map of wreck location

The interactive map of the wreck location is quite confusing because Lakes Huron and Erie are not colored blue, they look like land. Since the ship was bound for the Detroit area, this is especially confusing because it looks like the ship would have had to go hundreds of miles over land to get to Detroit. Gruhl~enwiki (talk) 13:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

You're right, that is a terrible map. North8000 (talk) 14:41, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

It's a long-standing issue with how Wikipedia processes the OpenStreetMap tiles. At certain zoom levels, the tiles for Lake Huron disappear, only to reappear at other zoom levels. They're working on a solution. Imzadi 1979 → 18:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

largest ship on the Great Lakes?

Bringing discussion from WP:ERRORS here. The lead of the article currently says that "When launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have sunk there", which is uncited. The body text has citations for the claims that the Edmund Fitzgerald is "among the largest and best-known vessels lost on the Great Lakes" and that when she was launched she was the "longest ship on the Great Lakes". Neither of these seem sufficient to support the lead claims - "among the largest" is a significantly weaker claim than "the largest", and it's not clear to me that "longest" and "largest" are equivalent; I would expect "largest ship" without qualification to refer to tonnage rather than length. Should the lead be changed to reflect what the body says, or are these stronger claims supportable – and if so, can a citation supporting them be added? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I found a few sources that might support the "largest to have sunk" claim (eg. [1]), but as you say, it's not clear what "largest" means in this context. I think it's best to steer clear of superlatives unless we're certain about them. The "longest at the time of launch" claim is fully substantiated and verifiable, so that's fine. I support changing "largest" to "longest" in the lead, and removing "remains the largest to have sunk there". Sojourner in the earth (talk) 16:31, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm neutral on that change. I do think that the most common meaning for "largest" on ship would be length. I also think that all of those statements are accurate, although sourcing is what matters here. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:46, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Clarification, references and ambiguity

This article was written without clear clarification, ex. " a distance it could have traveled in an hour"; what does that even mean? The entire lake or the 17 miles? Also almost no references or proper geographic references in some places. Jcqpoier (talk) 14:04, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

???On the first part of your post, what you quoted is not even in the article, and the most similar quote is well explained. The second part is too vague to respond to, but noting that the article referencing did pass the very tough review in that area during FA review. North8000 (talk) 16:23, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Did Sault Tribe back an expedition?

The sentence "The Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians backed the expedition by co-signing a loan in the amount of $250,000" uses this as a source. I looked at the source. It does not mention the loan. I may delete that sentence if no one can find a source for it. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:46, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it's good to delete it. North8000 (talk) 02:32, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Suggest that instead of "deleting it", you make a revision, identifying the four organizations that sponsored the dive (according to this page. Probably worth verifying the rest of that paragraph, though. Risker (talk) 02:37, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Or change it to the information that's on the page that you provided and change the target of the ref to that page. North8000 (talk) 03:36, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Updated version of last radio transmission

I wonder about the provenance of the additional portion of the last radio transmission. The 1978 NTSB report states that the last transmission was "We are holding our own." Sources as recent as 2020 do not give any more than that, yet some more recent sources are giving the last transmission as "We are holding our own, going along like an old shoe." Does anyone have any insight as to the change? Imzadi 1979 → 05:17, 16 November 2023 (UTC)