Talk:Lake freighter

message: I don't have a problem with the name of this page.  Furthermore, I found the article to be informative.  However this page contains info that is not relevant to its title. Starting under the "Museum ships and boats" section:
The section titled "Manistee" describes a museum ship kept in Manistee, called City of Milwaukee, that is not a freighter but a railroad car ferry.  I understand that under an extremely liberal definition one could argue that rail cars can be considered freight here (or at least rail cars carry freight and are carried by the car ferry making a car ferry a freighter by transitivity).  However I do not believe that this fits with the overall tone of the article nor with what is normally considered a freighter--let alone lake freighter --in general.  
The section titled "Manitoulin Island" contains info regarding an automobile ferry called SS Norisle.  Again, while this ship was designed to carry objects--specifically cars and people--I do not believe these objects would be considered freight and nor would this vessel be considered a lake freighter.
The sections titled "Muskegon" and "Saugatuck" describe passenger vessels named SS Keewatin and Milwaukee Clipper respectively.  These vessels did not even carry freight.
The section titled "Sault Ste. Marie, ON" contains info on some sort of hybrid vessel called MS Norgoma that was designed for both freight and passengers.  I do not believe this fits in the article either.
There are also several entries in the "Failed Museum Attempts" and "Possible future museum potential" sections such as the Lansdowne, a paddlewheel steam railroad ferry, the Normac, a fire tug converted into passenger/packet steamer, and the SS Norisle again that do not really fit into the scope of this article.  In addition the title "Possible future museum potential" seems needlessly wordy.  Perhaps a title like "Potential museum ships" would be better.
I think the above information is good information and deserves inclusion somewhere in wikipedia, just not here.  It should either be moved to a new page or pages or to existing relevant pages.  If no one objects please do so, or I will do so in the next month or two.76.188.183.123 (talk) 16:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name, part 2 

message: Moving the Edmund Fitzgerald down the page in favour of starting the page with the John B. Aird is a little problematic given that the Aird has a wheelhouse-aft configuration.  While a number of larger vessels have been built in recent years with the wheelhouse aft, the classic laker design puts the wheelhouse forward.  If another free (not fair use) image of a wheelhouse-forward laker can be found and uploaded, it might be a good candidate for the top of the article... but arguably, that shot of the Edmund Fitzgerald is the iconic image of the laker. Susan Davis 06:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Photos

message: For whoever keeps adding the Niagara to the museum section: The Niagara that currently resides in Erie is a reproduction of a frigate that was used in the War of 1812, not a lake frieghter.
:You are confusing the Brig Niagara with the SS Niagara which is owned by the Steamship Niagara Museum, Inc.. I can't tell whether the ship is actually open as a museum though. Rmhermen 04:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The SS Niagara was retired as a sand dredge in 1985. Efforts to turn her into a museum failed and she was scrapped in 1997. See http://digin.bgsu.edu/vsl_sch.htm for more info. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cason (talk • contribs) 20:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While the future tense of the page does allow that it may still exist, I agree there is no reason to list it as a museum here. Rmhermen 21:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Museums

message: A question: Do lake freighters return empty after unloading or take other goods and/or materials back to the source of loading?
Answer: Yes. Both scenarios occur. The more independent the shipping company is from a particular industry, the more it gets cargoes where it can find them. For example, a boat may bring a cargo of iron ore from Two Harbors to Cleveland and return with a cargo of coal. Or it may proceed empty ("light") from Cleveland to Erie and load coal there. If a boat's ownership is closely tied to the steel industry, it may take a cargo of coal back to Minnesota if one is available, but may return empty so the cargo more important for its owners keeps moving with the least amount of delay. Some boats haul one cargo exclusively, others alternate between two or three, and others see a wide variety of cargoes and ports. RDavS 23:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Often empty - there aren't many huge bulk loads that need to head up north compared to the number that come down from the mines to the mills and plants. Rmhermen 00:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  schedule 

message: Why shouldn't this article list all the lake freighters still afloat?  There are only 120 or so.  Geo Swan (talk) 04:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think creating a separate list-article List of lake freighters or List of current lake freighters would be warranted.  This article is nice as it is, though it could certainly refer to a list of all examples.  There are many pairs of articles in wikipedia of that nature (one article about a type of something, one list-article of many or all examples of that type). doncram (talk) 16:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I would lean towards creating one list for all lake freighters first, not just current lakers.  One source for that list-article would be "Historical Collections of the Great Lakes / Great Lakes Vessels Online Index / University Libraries / Bowling Green State University" at http://ul.bgsu.edu/cgi-bin/xvsl2.cgi which is a source in a DYK article from today (Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company) that mentions the first unloading laker, Wyandotte. doncram (talk) 16:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why? 

message: I rather doubt a accounting error sent her to the scrapyard. Upper Lakes Shipping has stated that they tried to find a community or organization that would preserve her, but was unsuccessful. The accounting error sounds like nonsense that has never been mentioned at sites like Boatnerd.com or ULS employees. I'm going to edit it out until you can cite a source for this claim.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.71.220.47 (talk) 02:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seaway Queen 

message: Material removed from page (not lakers). All of these (and more) seem to have already been moved to List of Great Lakes museum and historic ships. Preserved here in case any were missed. Rmhermen (talk) 20:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Trim museum ships

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The second paragraph on this page is in poor shape. There are several problems with its first sentence (highlighted in bold):
"Lakers carry bulk cargoes of materials such as limestone, iron ore, grain, coal, or salt from the mines and fields to the populous industrial areas down the lakes." 
The two bolded clauses have the same issue - which mines and fields, and which industrial areas are we talking about? The use of the word "the" here is wrong without having previously identified which areas are being discussed. I don't know have the requisite knowledge to fix this myself, but an example of how this could be improved is (changes in bold): "Lakers carry bulk cargoes such as limestone, iron ore, grain, coal, or salt from the mines and fields surrounding Lake Superior to the various populous industrial areas of the lower great lakes (e.g. City1, City, City3, etc...)."  
The final edit doesn't have to look anything like this, of course, but this hopefully serves to illustrate the issue and a possible solution. If we don't want to indicate which specific fields, mines, and industrial areas are being referred to in this sentence, then the edit could be just to remove one or two occurrences of "the" as follows (this example removes only one "the" but also makes some other changes):
"Lakers carry bulk cargoes such as limestone, iron ore, grain, coal, or salt from mines and fields surrounding the upper lakes to the populous industrial areas of the lower lakes."
Note in both examples I gave that "of materials" has been removed; it's needlessly wordy and pluralizing "cargoes" and "materials" is wrong. Also, changing the "or" between "coal" and "salt" to an "and" may be appropriate.
There are similar problems throughout. E.g., the second sentence's staring "The 63 commercial ports...". I assume this is referring to the "populous industrial areas" of the first sentence. But using "the" here without already knowing which "63 populous areas" are being discussed is wrong.
Thanks in advance to anyone with the knowledge to make this edit properly. I'd have made an "edit request", but apparently there is supposed to be a talk page topic before edit requests are made (I'm new to this, but that's what the help topic on edit requests said).Loss Mentality (talk) 15:38, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not start editing it?   Start with a little bit at a time. North8000 (talk) 17:44, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second Paragraph Unclear/Poor Grammar 

message: Lake freighter#List of 1000-footers on the lakes. There is NO need for references, or sources, because most vessels have their own article which is properly sourced. Peter Horn User talk 01:44, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not officially correct, not that I'm concerned about it. The fact that it is verified in a linked article is plenty good for me. North8000 (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  No need for references, vessel articles properly sourced 

message: The large copy and pasted list of "all"(?) lake freighters seems like it is partially duplicating the "List of 1000-footers on the lakes" that is already in this article and some of the tonnage info conflicts between the lists. The list appears to have been wholesale copied from Lake Carriers Association which displays a copyright at the bottom of the page. This list of lake freighters includes SS Badger, which is a passenger and vehicle ferry and not a bulk carrier. Do you consider the 60 foot Ojibway as a bulk carrier / lake freighter? Some of these are ships owned by companies that are in the Lake Carriers Association, but they are not lake freighters. Having a list titled "All" also invites additions of smaller and smaller craft that no one would normally consider a lake freighter. In addition to the questionable items I just listed, we also don't know if any are omitted because they are not in this association. I think the list of 1000+ footers is enough for this article to limit the list to a reasonably maintainable size. Certainly, the non-bulk carriers need to be removed and I suggest sending the rest to List of lake freighters or some similar titled list article. -- Dual Freq (talk) 21:13, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the thorough description of your rationale.    I'm convinced. IMO you should proceed to delete or modify.  Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:33, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of lake freighters