Talk:Arthur O. Austin

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 23:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that Arthur O. Austin built the most powerful outdoor high-voltage laboratory in the world? Source: Popular Mechanics "Mr. Austin is chief engineer of the Ohio Insulator Company and consulting engineer for the Ohio Brass Company. He is using the most powerful outdoor high-voltage laboratory in the world at Barberton, Ohio, for the experiments."
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/GLaDOS

Created by RoySmith (talk). Self-nominated at 00:35, 21 November 2022 (UTC).

• Hi RoySmith, review follows: article moved to mainspace 20 November and exceeds minimum length; article is well written and cited inline throughout to reliable sources; I didn't pick up on any overly close paraphrasing from the sources; hook is interesting, mentioned in the article and checks out to sources cited (that he built the lab is elsewhere in the article; a QPQ has been carried out. Can't see any issues here - Dumelow (talk) 11:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
• Thank you to DigitalIceAge for finding a good image. @Dumelow: Adding this as a possible alternative hook -- RoySmith (talk) 15:33, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Austin in 1933

ALT1: ... that Arthur O. Austin (pictured) built the most powerful outdoor high-voltage laboratory in the world?

Thanks RoySmith, image looks OK to me. Not an expert on the ins and outs of the copyright law in this instance but the licensing looks to be correct - Dumelow (talk) 15:44, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

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:Arthur O. Austin/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Kj cheetham (talk · contribs) 14:42, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Starting review. This is my first ever GAN review, so apologies if I'm a bit slow or make any mistakes with procedure. -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

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As an initial read, article seems to be in good condition. I’ve already made a couple of minor edits myself, though not to the prose.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   All fine.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   References seem reliable and there are sufficient inline citations. I've spot-checked various facts quotes, and all okay, except couldn't see a mention of Anna–Dean Farm in [1]. Also in "Personal life", the sentence “Austin was born on December 28, 1879, in Stockton, California, to Oswin and Mary Hamman Austin” seems to be mostly taken from [2], so may benefit rewording it a bit. The article says "As of 2022 it is once again an independent company known as Austin Insulators Inc.", but is this confirmed? As https://www.austin-insulators.com/radio/history.html appears to have not bee updated since 2002, and may have since closed/been bought out/etc.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Seems fine.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Seems fine.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   All fine.

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   All fine. Images all have captions, are relavent, and are public domain or CC BY 2.0.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Additional optional comments:

• In the “High-voltage laboratory” section: Should “iron core” be hyphenated?
• Is it clear enough what “over-exciting” means?

Discussion

RoySmith, please see above my initial set of feedback. It's only really criteria 2 to respond to. Good work overall. I do want to also go through it again myself another day before completing the review. -Kj cheetham (talk) 15:33, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the Anna-Dean Farm, it's on page 3, "In 1926, Austin purchased several hundred acres of land in then Coventry Township, a portion of the expansive Anna Dean Farm established by Barberton town founder Ohio C. Barber." There's also a photo caption, "A. O. Austin’s outdoor laboratory at the Anna Dean Farm in Barberton."

As for “Austin was born on December 28, 1879, in Stockton, California, to Oswin and Mary Hamman Austin”, this seems like one of those things that there's just not many ways to say without being awkward. "On December 29, 1879, Mary Hamman Austin gave her husband, Oswin, a baby son. The blessed event occurred in Stockton, California". Nahhhh.

Regarding if Austin Insulators Inc is still in business, Bloomberg has a current entry for them. And MacRAE's Bluebook (who I'll admit I've never heard of, but appears to be a directory of industrial supply companies) has what appears to be a current entry for them. And just for fun, Google Maps shows them right next door to a Tim Hortons :-) Granted, none of those are WP:RS, but I don't see any reason to think they're not still around just because their low-budget website hasn't been updated in a bunch of years.

Hyphenating iron core? No clue, I've asked at WT:GOCE.

Over excitation: I've added a link that I hope will explain the term. RoySmith (talk) 00:05, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

RoySmith Regarding the farm, it seems what's currently ref 1 does indeed say that, but ref 2 at the end of that sentance in the article doesn't. So I've just taken the liberty of fixing that myself. I agree with you regarding the other points, and looking over things again I don't have anything further to add, so I feel this is a pass. -Kj cheetham (talk) 16:10, 6 August 2023 (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.

Best known for...

As this was featured today, I've been looking through it and its sources, which are quite interesting. So, thanks to RoySmith for putting all this together.

But what bothers me still is the claim that the subject is "best known for inventing the Austin ring transformer". The phrase "best known for" is a weasel with an element of peacock, IMO. So, I looked closely at this and am not convinced. My impression is that the subject's main business was high voltage insulators for power lines and that the radio mast stuff was a sideline. The source for the claim is Radio World which says

Austin’s best-known invention is that special air-core transformer used for supplying lighting current to AM radio towers without shunting RF energy feeding to the radiator to ground. The device is properly known as the “Austin Ring Transformer,” but is usually just rendered as the “ring” or “lighting” transformer, omitting its inventor’s name.

That source also indicates that the subject is obscure rather than well-known. Now Radio World is naturally focussed on radio technology and so that's the context for their claim. Other sources seem to take a different view. For example, the IEEE bio doesn't even mention the ring transformer and instead highlights his invention of cap-and-pin insulators and his experiments on aircraft lightning strikes. And another source has a different "best known for":

Austin was best known for his work with Ohio Brass Company, as well as for being the second and longest owner of the Barber Mansion in Barberton, Ohio.

So, I reckon that the claim needs rephrasing and rebalancing.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I copy edited it and agree with you. Sometimes just stating facts is a better way to go. --Malerooster (talk) 13:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)ps. I made the change before reading this. --Malerooster (talk) 13:34, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 September 2024

Change the 2nd paragraph under "Personal life" to:

Austin married Eleanor Briggs on December 28, 1907, in New York City. In 1919, Eleanor was killed in an accident on Massachusetts's Mohawk Trail, the highway connecting New York's Tri-Cities (Albany-Schenectady-Troy) with Boston. In a strange coincidence, Austin, in the high-tension-tower parts business, drove into a sagging guy wire of such a tower which was obscured by fog in the mountains. Both were caught and ejected from their car, with Eleanor's neck broken but her husband receiving only minor injuries.

Two years later, Austin married Eleanor's sister Augusta in Los Gatos, California; the couple had two daughters, Barbara and Martha. Austin had a brother, Edward, who worked on building Ohio Brass's manufacturing facility in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

editors notes: 1. For persons unfamiliar with western Massachusetts, "Mohawk Trail" is not recognized as the name of an ordinary highway.

2. Although they were traveling in an automobile, it wasn't a common "automobile accident" as the term is understood. 71.230.16.111 (talk) 02:16, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

References

• Whether to include all the gory details of the accident in the article was discussed during the FAC and it was decided to leave it out, so I'm going to decline to do this. RoySmith (talk) 07:52, 24 September 2024 (UTC)