Talk:Colokan, Kansas

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Colokan, Kansas/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Roc0ast3r (talk · contribs) 01:13, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 21:24, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

I'll read the article and post my thoughts within the next few days. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 21:24, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Roc0ast3r, I've written some notes below. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 07:39, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

• @Thebiguglyalien: Thank you very much for your review. I believe I have addressed all of your comments. As of writing this it is actually my birthday and I'm going to be a bit busy for the next couple days, so if you have any follow-up comments then responses may be delayed, but I'll try to get back as soon as possible if need-be.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

General:

• Note that I made some copyedits myself to avoid bogging down the review.
• Since there's only a single level two heading in the body, it would be an option to remove the History section and bump all of the subheadings up a level. But either way is fine.
  • In my opinion, having it split in subsections (even if there's only one main heading) looks cleaner and is more organized. If need-be though I can replace it.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• This article has a section labeled "Further reading" but it does not function as a WP:FURTHERREADING section. It could be a "See also" section, but the link can probably just be removed.
  • Removed. From my research I couldn't find anything about Colokan that was of major use that hadn't already been used.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Lead:

• I'm debating whether it would be useful to add "from 1886 to 1897" to the first sentence to provide context. Just a thought.
  • I think the phrase "it was founded in 1886" in the second sentence works.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Founding:

• Is there context as to what a "soldiers' colony" is? Or was this a common practice in westward expansion that I'm just not familiar with?
  • Both Sorensen 1967 and Fitzgerald 1988 use the phrase "soldiers' colony". I believe it's basically just a colony set up by soldiers, potentially for soldiers too, during westward expansion. I tried to come up with alternative phrasing that wasn't super clunky but I couldn't think of anything so I just left it as is.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• they had deemed the area as best – This could be reworded to read more naturally, and it would help to say best for what.
  • Reworded.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• a post office for the colony, named Colokan – It's not clear in this case whether Colokan refers to the post office, the colony, or both.
  • Removed.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• What is a circular in this context? It currently links to a disambiguation, so that doesn't help clarify.
  • From Wiktionary: "An advertisement, directive or notice intended for mass circulation." I think flyer and leaflet could also work, but I'm not 100% sure. Also went ahead and removed the link, didn't realize that was a disambiguation.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Growth:

• feeling that it sufficed plans for building their own community – Awkward wording.
  • Reworded.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• What is "Wallace"?
  • I'm pretty sure it's referring to Wallace, Kansas, so I went ahead and specified.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• Is it relevant that the preaching was in S. S. Williamson? This makes it sound like he's significant or that we should already know who he is.
  • Doesn't seem to be. Went ahead and removed it.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• Colokan was known as the "Star of Western Kansas" – Is this something it was called by one person or publication, or was it a general nickname? Either way, this should be clarified.
  • It appears the term originated from the Colokan Graphic themselves. Both Sorensen 1967 and Fitzgerald 1988 repeat the term, so I think it's worth keeping and I went ahead and reworded it and moved it to the sentences about the newspaper itself. Hopefully that's sufficient enough.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Feud with Towner and decline:

• "relocate" and "mortified" seem like WP:SCAREQUOTES. Can they be reworded to avoid this?
  • Removed.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• The sentence starting with In March, the railroad, has seven different parts separated by different punctuation and should be rewritten for ease of reading.
  • Reworded hopefully.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

References:

• Temple 2008 is likely going to be unreliable for Wikipedia's purposes. It's self-published, and the author seems to be more of an amateur historian.
  • Removed as a citation.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• How do we know that the Kanco in GNIS is the same as Colokan? Especially since the one source that might draw a connection, Temple 2008, isn't reliable.
  • I included it because its location on GNIS was very close to the general area that Colokan was located in based on township data. As well, I couldn't find anything that even suggested at the existence of a "Kanco", just other websites who copied GNIS data. The Colokan Graphic never reported on a "Kanco" and the source that GNIS used, "Kansas County Maps 1929", has no information other than its title, making it hard to find exactly where, but even then a quick search of Newspapers.com find no mention of Kanco from 1925 to 1929 (except for a "Kanco Manufacturers" in 1926). There's a potential that there was a town called Kanco, but due to its proximity with Colokan and that there doesn't seem to be any contemporary sources mentioning a Kanco, I figured it's probably referring to Colokan. I'm not sure how far of a stretch that is however, so I could remove the GNIS citation if need-be.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• [4] Fitzgerald 1988, p. 256 – 5 uses – No errors, some of the claims are unsupported where there are multiple references and are presumably supported by their pairs?
  • Appears to be the case.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• [10] Colokan Graphic 1887 – 2 uses – Good.
• [14] Hackemer 2020, p. 72 – 2 uses – Does this support that the Grand Army of the Republic post was founded in Colokan, and not just nearby where it could draw people from Colokan? I'm not familiar enough with the topic to be able to determine this.
  • It simply just says that "a GAR post was organized in 1888." I changed it to say "the Colokan area" to be less specific, hopefully that's not too weird.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• [15] Fitzgerald 1988, p. 258 – 3 uses – Good, but noting that in the edition I checked the three businesses were verified on page 257.
  • Fixed.  RONIN  TALK  10:53, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.