Bus article talk moved here from my main talk page, some sections have been enboldened as constructive comments and relevant to the main articles as a whole.
i find what you have done as an insult,
please undo your vandalism or i will report you to an admin.
thanks
Me Myself and I with the UK Transport Wiki 15:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
← reindentI do find what you seem to be doing a very big step. Yes, fares company addresses and stops might not be appropriate, but I think that routes help the reader to get a feel of the companies operations, after all, they are the most important part. I don't care whether I am wrong, I just strongly believe how you have gone about it is wrong. You seem to think that one discussion at Talk:First Leeds seem appropriate to go and change a hell of a lot of articles. I hadn't seen Talk:First Leeds, so of course - I haven't shown my opinions on the matter, as I presume many other haven't. The first I knew about it was looking at my watchlist today and it breaking my records of most changes in one day. I was not happy! I had no idea that this was going to happen. Perhaps this could have been discussed somewhere else than at Talk:First Leeds before loads of articles that aren't anything to do with First Leeds are changed. Arriva436 talk 17:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
CS 46 18:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
:::I will reiterate what I have said: Yes, fares, stops, addresses etc can go, I don't care and have never put them on there. Route lists as long as they don't have things like "frequencies on a Sunday" etc and aren't too big should be dealt with on an individual basis.
::::I recommend a cool off period, a rethink about what has happened, and then restart a civilised negoitation that involves more parties, to achieve a consensus. Richard has cited policy ( WP:NOT) and so I'm inclined to say that the ball is in Dudleybus's court (so to speak) in terms of justifying why this content should be kept. -- Jza84 | Talk 19:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I started a new post because the one above is long and getting messy. It also seems to be getting heated and out of hand. Can I call a stop to all activity based on all this while it is discussed. There is too much action and no talk/consideration.
This case was brought to my attention, because it was thought administrator intervention was needed before things got onto a much bigger scale than need be.
Richard Harvey, my view on the matter may be of interest to you. Please read it, and take in. Lra drama 22:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Basically, you were never going to get agreement for wholesale changes based on what was a very small discussion at one article, even if it did involve a couple of admins or looked to have solid grounds in policy. I generally agree route info is not notable (with maybe an argument for core routes and major destinations, see Lothian Buses for an excellent example, although even that could be cut down to terminal points), but I haven't bothered removing any precisely because of the lack of prior consensus to do so. Your arguments about advertising don't realy hold for basic route information of this type in my opinion, where is the advantage when there are clearly better and more reliable sources elsewhere?. Fares, contact details and seasonal changes, definitely should be out as temporal cruft, and I do this when I see it. Your mistake in my mind was also to try and apply a general principle across all articles. You are perhaps not aware that even some individual routes, such as Stagecoach Manchester 192, are quite notable [1], [2], [3].
Also, many stub articles may be about notable companies from a variety of online but most likely, offline sources [4], and are just not finished (bus articles don't get an awful amount of exposure with which to develop), however, db'ing is quite a legitimate process so I don't think that was all that bad. I would caution on relying on admins to actually do the background cheking before deletion, remember, they are the brooms, we are the editors, anyone is able to find and add sources, and for such minor articles, five days is not long for someone to notice the tag. When approaching as an edior without knowledge of the subject, I would have used the other {notability tags} first, and then db if they produced no improvement in a reasonable time. But, what was very bad in my view was transferring your attentions to fleet details, which are highly verifiable through many sources, without any prior discussion, merely cross transferring the principle about route info.
Anyway, the basic problem is that there are no specific bus company article guidleines that I am aware of, so acting bold is not necessarily a bad thing but is also going to be widely open to interpretation from the general top level policies. However, a wider discussion should have been attempted to avoid this rather predictable outcome. Wikipedia:WikiProject buses is pretty much dead I believe, but in that light you should at least have opened a discussion either at the Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) or the higher project Wikipedia:WikiProject Transport. I personaly think you were misadvised by the admins at Talk:First Leeds by people who should know better. When editting has got as far as having templates such as Template:Glasgow Buses and Template:West Midlands Buses navbox then being bold clearly wasn't going to be an unnopposed move. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Regarding the bus company articles discussion, does anyone have any ideas as to where this can be discussed properly? I'm sure Richard doesn't want his talk page wasted! As everyone seems to have finished initial ideas, are we ready to decided what to do next? Arriva436 talk 19:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Right, hello, I'm here! I am going to give my opinions on the current problems. I have bolded the start of each point I am making and the word that shows what it is about.
Firstly, I think that perhaps what has happened was a bit extreme. Citing policies and using a previous discussion at Talk:First Leeds - which is irrelevant to most other articles and which most other editors won't have seen, was not enough to take on the edits which happened. While I wont say that Richard was trying to game the system, I hope Richard will accept me saying it may have been a good idea to check on a couple of articles first. No problem though, as it can be fixed like what I am doing right now.
Secondly, route lists. I do feel these are appropriate in some circumstances on Wikipedia. After all, the routes of a bus company are basically what it does, without them, a bus operator would be pretty useless!! A list showing and linking to the places the operator runs I think is helpful as it shows the sort of services the operator runs, where to, how big a places etc.
How these routes should be presented is another matter, while the current state of the Bluestar (bus company) article is in prose and easily readable, it is the best way of putting it across? Could numbers mixed with words, commas and semi-colons be potentially confusing? Did the small list of routes affect the article too badly? Of course, for operators with lots of routes, listing them in prose would be way too complicated and look and read ridiculously! List format is surely the only way?
There is the point of policies. I partly agree with what Richard has said. Firstly though, I'd like to say that I don't think that any of the information violates WP:ADVERT. As Lra drama has said, why would an operator want to put any information on Wikipedia. A list of routes, as I have said above, illustrates where the operators runs. It would be of no use to anyone trying to plan a trip or route, bus companies have websites for that. These websites also have loads of other info, including fares.
The other policy that has been cited is WP:NOT (Wikipedia is not a directory). This is in two parts. As I have already said twice and will say again, I think that routes help shows the operations of a bus company, rather than needlessly listing information that can be seen elsewhere. However (and this is where things change), some of the other information is violating the policy.
Which moves onto the forth point of fares. As I have said before, I some of the other details are definitely going to far. Complex and masses of details on fares and tickets are definitely not needed on Wikipedia, is can be found on bus company publicity. This I think should be deleted. I do think there are some exception though, perhaps York park and ride to give details of specially unusual fares, but normal bus companies no. Examples of First Manchester and other FirstGroup companies showed well how much unneeded information there was.
Other information is similar to this. Addresses, which can be seen on some London Buses subcontractors' articles are like a directory, and I have been removing some of. Stops and routes are also the same.
Then there is the issue of route articles. Some of these are incredibly well written, like the London ones. However the Glasgow and West Midlands ones are not very good if I'm honest. The example Richard has given of National Express West Midlands routes 340 and 341, A2Z Travel route 341E and Central Connect Diamond route 342 made me laugh. What a stupid article name. The history section is riddled with mistakes, and then the editor has singed it. It's not a talk page!! I found this older version of National Express West Midlands route 997. Not quite sure what it's about. Any of the articles that are particularly bad then I don't really see a reason to keep them. Articles on route lists I think are acceptable, but some of them now have "Forthcoming changes" sections, a bit OTT.
For now anyway, they are my opinion. As I have shown with the reasons above, I can summarise with route lists yes, but fares, addresses, stops and routes unless particularly notable, no. If anyone hasn't fallen asleep yet, then thanks!! Arriva436 talk 14:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Route No | Start | End | UK Transport Wiki |
---|---|---|---|
341 | Walsall St Pauls bus station | Willenhall | Route Details: |
341E | Walsall St Pauls bus station | New Invention | Route Details: |
As discussion in a low traffic venue triggered the first issue, prior to starting to comment, I'm moving this discussion from this sub-page of User talk:Richard Harvey to a sub-page of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Transport, with spam notices to Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject buses (dead?) and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London Transport. I presume nobody will have any objection. MickMacNee ( talk) 15:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
From some editor activities at Arriva Southend Ltd, I have noticed a further aspect of the recording of trivia beyond things like minor route changes, that is the specific recording of fixtures and fittings details about individual buses. I definitely think this is far too trivial, and will trim the article. I think general details such as branding for routes and major fleet movements/refurbishments are worthy of note, but not down to individual dated details for buses. I have directed the editors here for information. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Opening up another issue I just noticed, is the use of copyright images in the illustration of specific route branding, such as at Arriva Southend Ltd and Ensignbus (versions as of looking [5] [6]. While I don't absolutely hate it stylistically, and it is arguably usefull for identification, on past experience I know for a fact this is going to fall foul of the minimal fair use movement. So, this is an FYI without actually doing anything about it. I am not currently aware of any other fair use image use of this sort, so if anyone knows I suggest fessing up here for full disclosure. These images have a tag on that means that eventually a fair use bod will eventually examine them. Trust me, I know. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
In my experience, they will be gone after as 'decoration', whatever the resolution. It would take a tremendous effort to argue they are essential images to convey meaning. But then again, I guess that is the point of branding. Maybe it is defendable just on that point, I don't honestly know, but I know what the anti fair use crowd are like. MickMacNee ( talk) 18:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
A month has now gone since the last contribution to this discussion. A lot has been talked about, a number of topics interestingly discussed, even some that weren't even in the original discussion!! Many users have contributed - all giving their important views.
Are we now ready for some kind of conclusion on the matter? It has been around two months since the first edits on the matter happened. Can we get around to editing some of the articles? I would like perhaps to reintroduce some of the route details back to the articles. As I have said (lots and lots!) above, all I want to keep is small-scale minimal route details, I have no intention of filling articles with tons of unneeded rubbish.
Any other ideas? Arriva436 talk 17:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
To apply the issues raised in this page uniformaly across UK operator articles, and to make other improvements, a new quality drive is now in progress. See WP:UKBQDRIVE for details. MickMacNee ( talk) 18:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Bus article talk moved here from my main talk page, some sections have been enboldened as constructive comments and relevant to the main articles as a whole.
i find what you have done as an insult,
please undo your vandalism or i will report you to an admin.
thanks
Me Myself and I with the UK Transport Wiki 15:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
← reindentI do find what you seem to be doing a very big step. Yes, fares company addresses and stops might not be appropriate, but I think that routes help the reader to get a feel of the companies operations, after all, they are the most important part. I don't care whether I am wrong, I just strongly believe how you have gone about it is wrong. You seem to think that one discussion at Talk:First Leeds seem appropriate to go and change a hell of a lot of articles. I hadn't seen Talk:First Leeds, so of course - I haven't shown my opinions on the matter, as I presume many other haven't. The first I knew about it was looking at my watchlist today and it breaking my records of most changes in one day. I was not happy! I had no idea that this was going to happen. Perhaps this could have been discussed somewhere else than at Talk:First Leeds before loads of articles that aren't anything to do with First Leeds are changed. Arriva436 talk 17:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
CS 46 18:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
:::I will reiterate what I have said: Yes, fares, stops, addresses etc can go, I don't care and have never put them on there. Route lists as long as they don't have things like "frequencies on a Sunday" etc and aren't too big should be dealt with on an individual basis.
::::I recommend a cool off period, a rethink about what has happened, and then restart a civilised negoitation that involves more parties, to achieve a consensus. Richard has cited policy ( WP:NOT) and so I'm inclined to say that the ball is in Dudleybus's court (so to speak) in terms of justifying why this content should be kept. -- Jza84 | Talk 19:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I started a new post because the one above is long and getting messy. It also seems to be getting heated and out of hand. Can I call a stop to all activity based on all this while it is discussed. There is too much action and no talk/consideration.
This case was brought to my attention, because it was thought administrator intervention was needed before things got onto a much bigger scale than need be.
Richard Harvey, my view on the matter may be of interest to you. Please read it, and take in. Lra drama 22:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Basically, you were never going to get agreement for wholesale changes based on what was a very small discussion at one article, even if it did involve a couple of admins or looked to have solid grounds in policy. I generally agree route info is not notable (with maybe an argument for core routes and major destinations, see Lothian Buses for an excellent example, although even that could be cut down to terminal points), but I haven't bothered removing any precisely because of the lack of prior consensus to do so. Your arguments about advertising don't realy hold for basic route information of this type in my opinion, where is the advantage when there are clearly better and more reliable sources elsewhere?. Fares, contact details and seasonal changes, definitely should be out as temporal cruft, and I do this when I see it. Your mistake in my mind was also to try and apply a general principle across all articles. You are perhaps not aware that even some individual routes, such as Stagecoach Manchester 192, are quite notable [1], [2], [3].
Also, many stub articles may be about notable companies from a variety of online but most likely, offline sources [4], and are just not finished (bus articles don't get an awful amount of exposure with which to develop), however, db'ing is quite a legitimate process so I don't think that was all that bad. I would caution on relying on admins to actually do the background cheking before deletion, remember, they are the brooms, we are the editors, anyone is able to find and add sources, and for such minor articles, five days is not long for someone to notice the tag. When approaching as an edior without knowledge of the subject, I would have used the other {notability tags} first, and then db if they produced no improvement in a reasonable time. But, what was very bad in my view was transferring your attentions to fleet details, which are highly verifiable through many sources, without any prior discussion, merely cross transferring the principle about route info.
Anyway, the basic problem is that there are no specific bus company article guidleines that I am aware of, so acting bold is not necessarily a bad thing but is also going to be widely open to interpretation from the general top level policies. However, a wider discussion should have been attempted to avoid this rather predictable outcome. Wikipedia:WikiProject buses is pretty much dead I believe, but in that light you should at least have opened a discussion either at the Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) or the higher project Wikipedia:WikiProject Transport. I personaly think you were misadvised by the admins at Talk:First Leeds by people who should know better. When editting has got as far as having templates such as Template:Glasgow Buses and Template:West Midlands Buses navbox then being bold clearly wasn't going to be an unnopposed move. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Regarding the bus company articles discussion, does anyone have any ideas as to where this can be discussed properly? I'm sure Richard doesn't want his talk page wasted! As everyone seems to have finished initial ideas, are we ready to decided what to do next? Arriva436 talk 19:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Right, hello, I'm here! I am going to give my opinions on the current problems. I have bolded the start of each point I am making and the word that shows what it is about.
Firstly, I think that perhaps what has happened was a bit extreme. Citing policies and using a previous discussion at Talk:First Leeds - which is irrelevant to most other articles and which most other editors won't have seen, was not enough to take on the edits which happened. While I wont say that Richard was trying to game the system, I hope Richard will accept me saying it may have been a good idea to check on a couple of articles first. No problem though, as it can be fixed like what I am doing right now.
Secondly, route lists. I do feel these are appropriate in some circumstances on Wikipedia. After all, the routes of a bus company are basically what it does, without them, a bus operator would be pretty useless!! A list showing and linking to the places the operator runs I think is helpful as it shows the sort of services the operator runs, where to, how big a places etc.
How these routes should be presented is another matter, while the current state of the Bluestar (bus company) article is in prose and easily readable, it is the best way of putting it across? Could numbers mixed with words, commas and semi-colons be potentially confusing? Did the small list of routes affect the article too badly? Of course, for operators with lots of routes, listing them in prose would be way too complicated and look and read ridiculously! List format is surely the only way?
There is the point of policies. I partly agree with what Richard has said. Firstly though, I'd like to say that I don't think that any of the information violates WP:ADVERT. As Lra drama has said, why would an operator want to put any information on Wikipedia. A list of routes, as I have said above, illustrates where the operators runs. It would be of no use to anyone trying to plan a trip or route, bus companies have websites for that. These websites also have loads of other info, including fares.
The other policy that has been cited is WP:NOT (Wikipedia is not a directory). This is in two parts. As I have already said twice and will say again, I think that routes help shows the operations of a bus company, rather than needlessly listing information that can be seen elsewhere. However (and this is where things change), some of the other information is violating the policy.
Which moves onto the forth point of fares. As I have said before, I some of the other details are definitely going to far. Complex and masses of details on fares and tickets are definitely not needed on Wikipedia, is can be found on bus company publicity. This I think should be deleted. I do think there are some exception though, perhaps York park and ride to give details of specially unusual fares, but normal bus companies no. Examples of First Manchester and other FirstGroup companies showed well how much unneeded information there was.
Other information is similar to this. Addresses, which can be seen on some London Buses subcontractors' articles are like a directory, and I have been removing some of. Stops and routes are also the same.
Then there is the issue of route articles. Some of these are incredibly well written, like the London ones. However the Glasgow and West Midlands ones are not very good if I'm honest. The example Richard has given of National Express West Midlands routes 340 and 341, A2Z Travel route 341E and Central Connect Diamond route 342 made me laugh. What a stupid article name. The history section is riddled with mistakes, and then the editor has singed it. It's not a talk page!! I found this older version of National Express West Midlands route 997. Not quite sure what it's about. Any of the articles that are particularly bad then I don't really see a reason to keep them. Articles on route lists I think are acceptable, but some of them now have "Forthcoming changes" sections, a bit OTT.
For now anyway, they are my opinion. As I have shown with the reasons above, I can summarise with route lists yes, but fares, addresses, stops and routes unless particularly notable, no. If anyone hasn't fallen asleep yet, then thanks!! Arriva436 talk 14:47, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Route No | Start | End | UK Transport Wiki |
---|---|---|---|
341 | Walsall St Pauls bus station | Willenhall | Route Details: |
341E | Walsall St Pauls bus station | New Invention | Route Details: |
As discussion in a low traffic venue triggered the first issue, prior to starting to comment, I'm moving this discussion from this sub-page of User talk:Richard Harvey to a sub-page of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Transport, with spam notices to Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject buses (dead?) and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London Transport. I presume nobody will have any objection. MickMacNee ( talk) 15:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
From some editor activities at Arriva Southend Ltd, I have noticed a further aspect of the recording of trivia beyond things like minor route changes, that is the specific recording of fixtures and fittings details about individual buses. I definitely think this is far too trivial, and will trim the article. I think general details such as branding for routes and major fleet movements/refurbishments are worthy of note, but not down to individual dated details for buses. I have directed the editors here for information. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Opening up another issue I just noticed, is the use of copyright images in the illustration of specific route branding, such as at Arriva Southend Ltd and Ensignbus (versions as of looking [5] [6]. While I don't absolutely hate it stylistically, and it is arguably usefull for identification, on past experience I know for a fact this is going to fall foul of the minimal fair use movement. So, this is an FYI without actually doing anything about it. I am not currently aware of any other fair use image use of this sort, so if anyone knows I suggest fessing up here for full disclosure. These images have a tag on that means that eventually a fair use bod will eventually examine them. Trust me, I know. MickMacNee ( talk) 14:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
In my experience, they will be gone after as 'decoration', whatever the resolution. It would take a tremendous effort to argue they are essential images to convey meaning. But then again, I guess that is the point of branding. Maybe it is defendable just on that point, I don't honestly know, but I know what the anti fair use crowd are like. MickMacNee ( talk) 18:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
A month has now gone since the last contribution to this discussion. A lot has been talked about, a number of topics interestingly discussed, even some that weren't even in the original discussion!! Many users have contributed - all giving their important views.
Are we now ready for some kind of conclusion on the matter? It has been around two months since the first edits on the matter happened. Can we get around to editing some of the articles? I would like perhaps to reintroduce some of the route details back to the articles. As I have said (lots and lots!) above, all I want to keep is small-scale minimal route details, I have no intention of filling articles with tons of unneeded rubbish.
Any other ideas? Arriva436 talk 17:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
To apply the issues raised in this page uniformaly across UK operator articles, and to make other improvements, a new quality drive is now in progress. See WP:UKBQDRIVE for details. MickMacNee ( talk) 18:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)