Talk:School bus/Archive 2

Headings

I have fixed all the headings, so that all countries are major headings, and all of the current headings pertaining to the United States are subsections. The former setup did not really comply with Wikipedia standards. Georgewuzheer (talk) 17:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Too Much about USA?

I am a little confused about the statement on this article suggesting that it doesn't have world wide apeal, because quite fankly, school buses don't. I work in the industry and am a very active memember of the industry in my home state. I don't wish to sound like the percieved typical self centered american, but school buses in the iconic sense is an American (and in all fairness, a Canadian) form of transportation. We have worked long and hard to build and design a vehicle that is specific to the task of moving children to and from schools and field trips safely. We have a safety record that is second to none in North America.

Regarding the rest of the world: You're just not tring that hard. Just because a vehicle is at any piticular moment hauling school kids, that does not make it a school bus. I recieve news about school buses from around the world (just type in "school bus" at http://news.yahoo.com to see what I mean) and not once have I read an article about disaster on a "school bus" from another country that wasn't more then your average motor coach, transit bus, or mini-van. School buses are simply not like other buses, they weren't deisgned to be. This would be the same as discussing England's red double decker buses along the same lines as a Greyhound here in the States.

I believe the best way to handle this article is to make it about the iconic yellow school bus with flashing lights that exists in North America. Other countries choose not to use this style of bus, and that's ok, but let's not confuse it with "just any bus." Tjcport (talk) 04:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It is going to be a little hard to expand on school buses "abroad", since it's something that has been done in isolation in North America. However, I did combine the UK/Australia school bus sections into a single "School Buses Outside North America" section. I did this as although NA school bus information will be more common, there will be incentive for people to add more information or even whole countries (just by adding a sub-section for a different country). Eventually, I should even try to add a sub-section for Canada as well. (SteveCof00 (talk) 22:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC))

A few days ago, I removed the hatnote about the article being too US-centric. Bidgee re-added the hatnote, saying that 85% of the article is about US school buses. While that may be true, I would venture that the vast majority of school buses in the world are in the US... and the school bus was, after all, a US invention. The other countries that use yellow school buses are mentioned adequately in the article, in my opinion. If some other countries are not mentioned well enough, perhaps that is because this is the English language Wikipedia and editors from those other countries are unable to add information about their school buses.

Regardless, I think the hatnote is unnecessary, and to be perfectly honest, I'm much more concerned about the amount of original research in the article... I think that Wikipedians who are interested in school buses ought to spend their energy trying to fix that problem before worrying about making sure that the entire world is adequately represented in the article. —BMRR (talk) 16:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I just added photos of three non-American school buses to the top of the article. A bonus is that they fit perfectly in the white space next to the table of contents. Hopefully this will help to give the article a better world view. —BMRR (talk) 19:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

This is right out of the introduction...this is why I feel that there is more that is being contributed towards American school buses than towards others. It's not that people are necessarily biased towards one side or another, but because for the most part, there IS only one side. In other parts of the world, school buses that carry students aren't all that different from any other buses, so it is challenging to write a well-written article about school buses outside North America.

"In North America, however, the school bus is a specific type of government regulated vehicle distinct from other buses. Canada and the United States have specially built and equipped school buses, which by law are finished in school bus yellow, and equipped with various forms of warning and safety devices used only by them."

SteveCof00 (talk) 10:09, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I just made a change that might help...I just split the introductory paragraph (which was a bit long anyways) into two parts. The first half now stands alone to define school buses, and the second half is a side-by-side comparison of North American school buses vs. the rest of the world (and why North American school buses are distinct from their counterparts). SteveCof00 (talk) 05:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

SteveCof00, I like the change you made to the intro paragraph. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C16:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Major Cleanup Finished

I moved many of the sections around so the page makes a lot more sense to read. I moved the safety information out of the history section into a section of its own to be developed and re-organized the history section as a result. I combined the sections of school buses outside North America for better flow (fewer major sections in total if more countries get added in the future). (SteveCof00 (talk) 22:51, 25 April 2009 (UTC))

Merger complete

Per the consensus reached on both talk pages, the article "Short bus" has been merged into "School bus." —BMRR (talk) 02:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I had an interesting idea; much of the content from the article moved here is already duplicated in the explanation of a Type A and Type B school bus. The rest of the content seems to go into what these buses are used for

"Although such smaller models of school buses are also used for magnet school programs, often transporting exceptionally talented and gifted students, and for many other special purposes where the volume of riders is low, short buses have become associated in some urban slang usage with riders who have mental disabilities.[6]"

Additionally, in the safety section, it could be mentioned how small buses have been replacing 15-passenger vans for transportation purposes (I'm sure there are many places this can be referenced). This has not been explored yet. SteveCof00 (talk) 10:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

School Buses Outside North America

I want to thank whoever added the Hong Kong section to this major section of the article, which continues to grow slowly. The "nanny van" article is well-written and it should stay free-standing, as it is much longer than the other 2 countries' information. In the long run, the article might need an introduction to go with the link. SteveCof00 (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Always glad to help. :-) Hoping we can get rid of that USA-centric hatnote eventually... —BMRR (talk) 22:55, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Although I miss having the 2 European buses next to the table of contents (just to fill in the dead space next to it), I think the article (through editing and the addition of content) has become balanced enough to merit keeping the hatnote off for good. Although it has been explained ad nauseum why there is so much American content here, that has been justified, and even then, there is less of a slant anyways. SteveCof00 (talk) 10:35, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

As the Hong Kong section was a little short, I added another sentence or two based on the article to have it say the same kind of things as the other two sub-sections (at least closer to the Australian subsection). SteveCof00 (talk) 22:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the Finland addition; I designed this section to be be easily expandable for different countries to be added at any time. SteveCof00 (talk) 09:47, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Changing "Pollution" Heading name?

I was thinking about renaming the "Pollution" section name to something more like "School Buses and the Environment", since I feel that it is a more neutrally-toned name and it also would invite more development into this section (alternative fuels and such). Eventually, this could branch out into an article of its own.

SteveCof00 (talk) 03:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The article title is already School bus, so we needn't repeat that phrase in section headers and subheadings. I've changed the section name — you're right that this section is in serious need of development. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C03:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, I just decided to shorten the name of the "school bus safety" section in a similar manner. These sections are next to each other and needed similar titles (by the time someone scrolled down to this point, it would be understood they were reading about school buses).

SteveCof00 (talk) 22:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Shortening the article?

Does anyone have any thoughts about what could be done to shorten the article overall?

I have some thoughts:

• The safety section is long enough to stand on its own in its own article (although it probably is in desperate need of improvement)
• The lists of manufacturers is probably something that could be turned into a list page with a link (although it might be able to stay)
• The history section probably needs some referencing to back it up so we don't get hatnotes all over the place (but it should stay where it is)
• The stuff about retired school buses probably needs cleanup.

SteveCof00 (talk) 23:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think there might come a time in the not-so-distant future when the article may need to be shortened, but I would be careful about doing it right now. I think if you were to take some of the existing sections of the article and move them to their own separate articles, you would risk having those articles speedily deleted for either not being notable on their own, or for not having references, or it would be suggested that they be merged back into the main school bus article. My personal opinion is that our #1 priority right now should be to find references for this article; it is extremely underreferenced and is bursting at the seams with original research (and much of that original research may be valid, but it's still a no-no). We need to remember that any editor can come along at any time and remove things that are unreferenced. The only way to prevent that from happening is to provide references. —BMRR (talk) 00:03, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Big cleanup

I've gone thru and consolidated all the North American information under the L2 "North America" heading, with appropriately hierarchical subsections. Unnecessarily-long section headings have been shortened and images have been distributed to relevant sections. Duplicate and redundant assertions have been deleted, as have the most dubious, longest-unsupported ones. I'm still not comfortable with the big, flow-disrupting gallery showing examples of types A, B, C, and D; it seems to me a single thumb would be ample illustration of each type. One of the functions of Wikimedia Commons is to allow easy access to comprehensive galleries; we needn't try and cram this article with more images than necessary. I like to see the restored and vintage buses, too, but can we maybe look at paring down the image count and offloading some of the gallery activity to Wikimedia Commons which is set up for that purpose? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C00:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate the amount of effort you have put into reorganizing the article. In regards to images: no offense, but I think the images of various non-USA buses that had previously been at the top of the page looked a lot neater and cleaner than having them boxing in both sides of the "outside of North America" section. I understand the logic of moving the non-USA buses to the non-USA section, but it just looks kind of messy. Maybe you could play with it a bit more and see if there's a way to make that section look a little bit cleaner.

If anything, I'd get rid of the final gallery at the bottom of the page... especially considering that some of those images are already displayed in the body of the article. No need to display them twice. —BMRR (talk) 01:15, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Good suggestions. Have another look, what do you think now? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C02:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Looking good! I also now realize that the way the images appear in relation to the text is heavily dependent on the size/resolution of the reader's computer screen. My screen's resolution is 1280x1024, but I don't usually display my browser window at full screen size; I generally keep it at a size that is comparable to a 1024x768 screen, since many web sites are optimized for that size. When I maximized my browser window to fill up the entire 1280x1024 screen, the images looked a lot neater and lot less bunched-up.

Anyway, I went ahead and culled some unnecessary images from the article... specifically, the duplicates in the final gallery section, as well as a few images that seemed to be placed at random and weren't relevant to the sections where they were located. It's good to have visual examples of the different types of school buses and to show how school buses have evolved over time, but we don't want this article to turn into a repository for school bus photos; that's what School Bus Central is for. ;-) —BMRR (talk) 02:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Oops...I made my round of changes referred to in my "take another look" comment, hit "Save", commented here, then went out for dinner. When I got home, I found your reply on here and an edit conflict on the article page, so you wouldn't've seen my proposed changes. Try another look now; I tried my best to combine your edits with mine, but I may inadvertently have reinstated some images you deleted. My main changes here are the deletion of the end gallery and moving the Type A-B-C-D thumbs to their relevant paragraphs. Yes, screen resolution and individual viewer Wikipedia preferences have a huge effect on how thumbs display, which is why we generally don't force thumb size. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C04:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

All photos should be relevant to each section. If you want to display images for a country which doesn't have a section then create a section. With the gallery it should be moved to Commons were it can be listed by country (Just a thought). Some sections of the article could have they own article such as School buses in North America/United States ect. Bidgee (talk) 02:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It's definitely best for photos to be relevant to their sections, but here again, sometimes it's not possible to make photo location accord strictly with directly relevant text, because image display depends on screen resolution, browser, browser window width, and the reader's Wikipedia configuration settings. You're right the gallery needed to go away; it's gone. I'm not sure it's a good idea to have a separate article for School buses in North America. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C04:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm still getting used to the new format of the article; it does seem to take a bit longer to get around and requires more scrolling. I do have a couple of suggestions as far as format goes:

• The set of photos that was next to the table of contents could stand to be reinstated (at least until we have suitable information about those Russian and Polish school buses) both in terms of looks and for point-of-view balance.
• The "safety regulation" and "environmental compatiblity" sections probably need to be changed back into major sections (they were that way before, and it worked well)
• Thanks for merging some of the history sections together (no information is lost this way, but it reads MUCH easier).
• Although the big gallery at the bottom was ungainly and needed to be deleted, there are places for galleries elsewhere in the article; the one with the examples for the types of school buses worked well. The bus manufacturers list might be another appropriate list to put a SMALL gallery.

SteveCof00 (talk) 10:34, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment I also notice that the tag at the top of the article stating that this article only represents a North American view on the topic was reinstated. After User:SteveCof00 made the edits to the article bringing it more inline and the outside North America view was put in its own heading, the tag disappeared and it was determined that the conditions were met for its removal (see the article's own edit history; the removal is mentioned in an edit summary for this edit seen here:[1]). Why, then, was the tag reinstated? You must consider that generally speaking, school buses (the vehicle devoted just for the purpose) is largely a North American vehicle as it is known today; most other countries largely don't use dedicated vehicles to transport schoolchildren and those that do, are in a minority - and even then the vehicle largely wasn't built originally as a school bus. Reinstating that tag was poor judgment. Srosenow 98 (talk) 11:02, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

If you scroll up to the section of the talk page with the headline "Too Much USA" and look for my comment that begins with "A few days ago..." I think that will answer your question as to why the tag was removed, and why it subsequently reappeared. I could have re-removed it, but I didn't want to get into an edit war. —BMRR (talk) 15:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

SteveCof00, thanks for your comments. I rather strongly disagree that the Safety and Environmental compatibility text ought to be anything but L3 subheads under the North America L2 heading, for this text deals entirely with the evolution of North American school bus safety regulation — which, as Srosenow 98 accurately reminds us, is because the school bus per se is almost entirely a North American phenomenon. The same applies to a somewhat lesser degree for the pollution-related material: There's one assertion that's generally true in most any first-world market with reasonably up-to-date vehicle emission control standards, and that is that one school bus carrying many students creates less pollution than many passenger cars carrying one or two students each. But the rest of the material is, again, specific to North America. That's why these sections belong as subheads under North America.

I agree with Srosenow 98 and BMRR that the "globalize" hatnote can go away. We have an entire L2 heading for Outside North America, which contains a growing amount of material.

I think the one-at-a-time presentation of the Type A, B, C, and D thumbs is better, for they're right next to their descriptive paragraphs, but I'm not militant on the point. It sounds like you prefer a gallery of Type A-B-C-D buses after all four types are described in text. Can we discuss this? Why is the gallery better? If we do wind up going back that direction, do we really need multiple Type D images in it? Unless one scrutinises such buses carefully for the location of engine cooling air intakes and such, there are no substantial visual differences among front-, mid-, and rear-engine Type-D buses.

I've worked with it a bit, and I retract my opinion about the gallery presentation for examples, as the current method seems to be working ok. Instead of having 3 photos, I just took some of the blank space and explained it in words. SteveCof00 (talk) 10:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

As for the bus manufacturer list, this is already present twice in the article. We've got it spelt out in the text, and we've got it as a hidtab at the bottom. Do we need it a third time in gallery form…? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C17:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

• If I recall correctly, I was the one who added examples of front engine, mid engine, and rear engine Type D buses to the Bus Types gallery, but I have no objection to using just one Type D photo to represent the whole class.

• In regards to the manufacturers, I think it would probably be best to confine galleries of the manufacturers' products to the manufacturers' individual articles, rather than having a catch-all gallery here, which would end up being very large and unwieldy, I think. Most of the manufacturers' articles already contain galleries of past and present products (and if they don't, such galleries can certainly be added).

• I don't really have an opinion for or against the usage of thumbs vs. a gallery in the Bus Types section. The gallery seemed to display better on my screen than the thumbs did, but I suppose that alone doesn't make a compelling case for one or the other. ;-) (I wish there was some way to make images line up perfectly with corresponding paragraphs, regardless of the viewer's screen size and regardless of the size of the paragraph; if there is, I haven't been able to figure out how to do it.)

• Thanks for removing the globalize hatnote. I noticed this morning that the consensus on this talk page was that the hatnote was no longer necessary. If other editors feel differently, I hope they'll discuss it here before re-adding the hatnote... and more importantly, if they feel the article doesn't contain enough info about non-North American buses, I hope they'll do something about it and add some info! Surely that would be a more effective remedy than a hatnote (which, as far as I can tell, had been there since 2007 and still hadn't prompted anyone to actually fix the situation). —BMRR (talk) 17:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Small cleanup

We're making very good progress on this article. SteveCof00, let's talk about the changes we've both been making to the section headings. I changed your School bus yellow: standardization in the name of safety subhead title back to School bus yellow. To me, a nine-word subhead title seems quite excessive. It makes the TOC width problematic without giving any real benefit in return. Section and subhead titles need only convey the main concept of the section content, they don't need to summarise the entire section. A reader who wants to know why school buses in America are yellow, and how they came to be that way, will look at the TOC. S/he'll click "School bus yellow" and within a few sentences will have most of the answer to the question. I do like your word "restoration" under "decommissioning", but it's better as a replacement, not a supplement, for my word "modification". What do you think?

I've also taken a whack at cleaning up the top paragraph under Safety regulation, which contained a fair amount of OR and guesswork. We still need some substantial consolidation work; the notion of "danger zones" and mirrors is presented multiple times in several subsections. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C16:17, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

As far as the heading goes for the "school bus yellow" section, I am understanding your rationale behind that and accept it. With the "decommisioning" section heading name, I am suggesting re-wording it to "retired school buses" or "retirement of school buses" or something similar; "retired" seems to be the most commonly used term for what happens to a school bus at the end of its useful service life. To answer your question, "Restoration and Conversion" works very well as a section header. SteveCof00 (talk) 03:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Safety, safety, safety...this is the part of the article that arguably has needed the most cleanup. I don't think the section heading "danger zones" has any real negative connotations to the name, as I've even heard the term used when referring to the blind spots of both buses and large trucks. I will leave it as-is, however. The material regarding drawstrings and clothes and doors is pretty significant and should be left in. SteveCof00 (talk) 03:22, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

My main objection to "Danger zones" was the scare quotes surrounding it. Who calls them "danger zones"? Anyone in particular? Scare quotes are on my zap it now list, right below the phrase "It should be noted that…". ;-) Anyhow, no, I agree with you that "danger zone" doesn't really have any connotative problem, but "blind spot" or "blind zone" is more specifically descriptive of the particular kind of danger involved, don't you think? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C06:14, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Calling it a "blind zone" or "blind spot" wouldn't technically be an accurate call to begin with. It's widely published and is commonplace amongst not only the industry but amongst school bus drivers and school bus operators (that being districts and contractors), and even the media, that the term for any blind spot, and potential safety hazard location outside the school bus is a "Danger zone." A look into any advertisement or article in the thirty-plus year history of School Bus Fleet magazine will prove that. Also, it's referred to the "Danger Zone" in Washington State's CDL driver's guide.Srosenow 98 (talk) 10:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The actual name I did a little digging and I found a reference and diagram that actually uses these terms to describe blind spots. In the Illinois School Bus Driver Training Cirriculum(used as a reference in the school bus crossing arm article), pages 41-43 (on the bottom of the page) on the pdf article talk about this. Although each state has various requirements, the way school buses are designed means this is an issue regardless of what state a driver is in. SteveCof00 (talk) 09:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

We're getting there...

I think we've been making good progress over the past few days, and I'd like to thank all of you for the time and effort you've been putting into this article. There is still a great deal of work to be done, but if we keep chipping away at it, the article is going to be in good shape in the not-so-distant future. Kudos! —BMRR (talk) 17:27, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I have an interesting idea for a change to the page. Right now, the "school busing for racial purposes" section seems to be somewhat orphaned. Half of the "short bus" article that was moved here tells about what they are used for (somewhat specialized uses), and the rest is otherwise completely duplicated.

What I am suggesting is that a "Specialized Uses" (or something similar) section be created and the uses for short buses could be one part of it, and the busing for racial purposes could be another. That way, neither sub-section is quite so alone. SteveCof00 (talk) 03:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I won't say I had a better idea, but it might've been slightly bolder: I deleted the "school busing for racial purposes" section altogether. Links are a feature, not an impediment; we have a very comprehensive desegregation busing article, so there's no need to summarise or rehash that material in this article. Instead, I've put two relevant links and a terminology explanation right up in the first few sentences of the North America L2 head.

I also moved the first-bus-ever info to the lead, from which I deleted some muddled, not very relevant, not very clear stuff that didn't say anything about school buses per se. Whatchya think? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C06:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

From what it looks like now, removing the "desegregation busing" section is probably a move for the better. If there's a good article for it, then maybe it can be linked in the "See Also" section and nothing more is needed other than what is said now. The only reason I suggested what I did is because half of the short buses section is already been duplicated and explained away. I just want to avoid merging a bunch of content into an introductory paragraph when there are useful subsections. SteveCof00 (talk) 09:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Since we did away with a lot of the L2 section headings, some of the flow of the article did seem a little lost, but I think I might have found a solution for that. Although it said to use it sparingly, I used the horizontal line to distinguish the sections that were blending in together a bit too much (I think I used it sparingly enough). SteveCof00 (talk) 22:32, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Ack! I see major problems with just about every aspect of this latest edit. It introduced new unsupported assertions, which is opposite the direction we're trying to go for article quality improvement. It introduced horizontal lines which look odd and just really don't belong; we're writing an encyclopædia, not putting together a magazine layout. Subsections are amply demarcated by their titles. It spoiled thumbnail formatting consistent with MOS; we use the "upright" variable on upright thumbs, and we don't force thumb sizes, because that aspect of page layout is handled at the reader's end with his or her own Wiki and browser settings. I don't aim to get in a pissing match, but I really think this was a significant step in the wrong direction. Please discuss? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C05:06, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment I can SteveCof00s point: The article doesn't really "flow" - at the moment it jumps from the origins to the color, then to the growth, then goes back to the industry and so on. Wikipedia does use horizontal lines, on L1 headings, to structure the articles visually. With the new structure, almost all of the article went into a L2 heading, which is a weaker structuring. Also the article has like 4 levels of nesting, which can be somewhat confusing. I'm almost tempted to say to do away with the "North America" L1 heading, move back to the top level and accept that most of the article is on North American buses. Or at least extract some "global" topics from that section that can be put on L1 (e.g. History and Environmental impact?). Just my two cents, though... I would avoid slapping rulers on the L2 headings though, and I'm all in favor of consolidating the references for the assertions first. Averell (talk) 09:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that, and that's why I did what I did with the horizontal lines...the article seems better glancing from the Table of Contents than it does when one actually scrolls down through it. As far as moving certain topics to L1 headings, it would take a lot of revisions to the content, as some of it has been moved around; the history section is not a "global topic anyways (we just got rid of the hatnote regarding a non-global view...). The environmental impact section is not global in nature, but it's not "attached at the hip" to the North American yellow school bus; it would be ok to change its level, but its content is probably not significant enough at this point. SteveCof00 (talk) 11:17, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

New Addition I didn't think my changes quite merited a whole new section, so I posted here. In the industry section, I took the lists and converted them into tables...While it takes up a little more space, this format does take away a lot of the clutter that was starting to form. I also think that it's a good way to add more information once it becomes available (I dont feel bad about simplifying information about existing manufacturers...there is plenty about many of them and some bus models even have their own stubs....some of the defunct companies are very hard to find stuff about!) SteveCof00 (talk) 07:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Reflective conspicuity tape - how to cite?

Okeh, I've run into an interesting citation problem. It's difficult these days to find any buses not equipped with yellow retroreflective conspicuity tape; I had assumed the requirement was added to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 in 1993, at the same time as the red-and-white conspicuity tape requirement for truck trailers. But FMVSS 108, which regulates all lights, reflectors, and conspicuity systems on all vehicles, does not contain any requirement for retroreflective conspicuity tape on school buses. Neither does its Canadian analogue, CMVSS 108. In digging around, I've found this appears to be a state-by-state matter. I've cited Colorado's requirement as an example, and I've done likewise with Illinois' requirement for bustop strobe lights. Better than no refs at all, but I'm not entirely happy with just picking a state at random and using a clunky "Colorado, for example" to work in a ref. But what's the alternative? It would not be practicable to cite the relevant codes from every state, province, and territory. There does not appear to be a central authority giving relevant information along the lines of "forty-seven states require yellow conspicuity tape" or "All states have adopted and codified the yellow conspicuity tape recommendations of the North American School Bus Safety Conference of 1994" or whatever. Anyone got suggestions on how to improve this? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C21:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Good question. I remember seeing the tape being added to school buses in the early to mid '90s, and then more extensively added in the early 2000s. I figured it was either a state or federal mandate, but didn't really give it much thought. If the federal code doesn't say anything about it, I suppose it could just be a widely-adopted state code. Do you have enough time on your hands to check the codes for all 50 states? ;-) —BMRR (talk) 23:10, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

From the looks of it, the reflective tape is a specification that varies from state to state; some have more, some have less. It is very similar with the usage of black paint on the bus (where Maine and Nevada have tons of black paint allowed, but New York and the Carolinas have the mis-named "blackout" spec). SteveCof00 (talk) 03:29, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Safety shuffle, better image & citations needed

I've reworked the safety hierarchy a little bit. We had conspicuity and vision-related material in several sections, so I consolidated it, eliminated the (superfluous, IMO) "since 1977" subhead, and adjusted the hierarchy so the safety-related material is presented in topical groups under the "Safety regulation" L3 header. How do we like this?

Pssssht!…Pssssht!…Pssssht!

I think we need a better image of a bus with its warning lamps and stop arms active. The present image is nice and clear, but it does not appear to show any active lights. Perhaps it was snapped at the instant the bus driver closed the door, cutting power to the lights — it always takes a moment or three for the stop arms to retract after the lights turn off. Best would be an animated loop showing the whole sequence: Driver activates yellow flashers then opens door, which activates red flashers and stop arm(s), then closes door which cuts off warning lights and retracts stop arm(s).

Compare this animated .gif of a headlamp cleaner in operation.

We have some unsupported questionable assertions that have needed citations for two years. Can anyone find some decent support for the statements that most states require the removal, deactivation, or cover-up of "School Bus" legends, stop arms, and special warning lights from retired buses? Or that at least one state prohibits retired buses being painted more than 50% yellow? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C06:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I looked around the Commons and couldn't find any animations or videos of school bus lights...I'm sure there are plenty of videos of them on YouTube (or something similar), but it'd have to be something included as a link and not as an image.

As far as citing materials is going, we might have to work in reverse. The existing materials all came from somewhere; they all have their websites listed on the list...this can show us where to (and where NOT to) look back and see if anything more can be cited.

Although this is something that currently has a citation, Illinois is far from alone in having strobe lights on their school buses. SteveCof00 (talk) 22:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to show this statistic here (that I am quoting, pardon the text) before putting it in the safety regulation section, as it might take some re-writing to fit it in (although it might fit in the North American Intro too)

Yellow school buses are a great American success story, with a safety record that is unequalled in the transportation industry. Consider these comparisons per 100,000,000 passenger miles:

Passenger Cars 0.94 Deaths Schedules Airlines 0.06 Deaths Passenger Trains 0.04 Deaths School Buses 0.01 Deaths

This is certainly better than just saying that school buses are safer than riding in cars. SteveCof00 (talk) 05:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

School Bus at a bus stop

Suggestion I know it has been suggested that we find a gif of warning lights in action, but I came upon this recently and am suggesting this be a candidate to replace the picture we have representing warning lights. It doesn't show them actually moving, but this offer a better view of what drivers and pedestrians coming upon a bus stop might actually encounter (you do see only one of the red lights on top, because the camera cannot catch them alternating in a still photo) SteveCof00 (talk) 10:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

"Industry" section

In the "industry" section, I made a small change that works out for the better...I let the present-day version stand as an introduction to the section (as the section heading has had NOTHING for the longest time). I gave the section a more relevant name as well. In the "contraction" section, to break things up a bit, I titled each of the paragraphs (admittedly, one is only a couple of sentences). Its format looks much better now. SteveCof00 (talk) 22:48, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I like your organisational improvement, but I don't share your enthusiasm for the additional word in the section title. "Composition" didn't add anything of value. It didn't clarify what the section is about, and I can't think of any other word that would add any substantial value. The section is about the [North American (School bus «Industry»)]. Why do we need another word? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C23:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to put some thought into another title...although simpler is indeed better (*I remember being told earlier about the 9-word title), sometimes it gets over-simplified. SteveCof00 (talk) 10:05, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

OR tag above "Retired", etc.

We also need to re-evaluate the placement of that tag above the "Retirement" heading. As a little bit of clarity, I could be my own reference, but I doubt Wikipedia would allow that sort of nonsense *snicker*.

Reason I say that is that is that for one, it's a pretty well known fact that school buses - once they reach the end of their life cycle within the district or at a contractor operation - do get retired - and subsequently purchased for reuse in some form. It's also a pretty well known fact that most retired school buses get converted to RVs (or bought as cattle herding rigs, hay storage, general storage lockers, etc.). I can point to three locations in Mason County at the moment where there's retired school buses being used as a storage locker, and one location in Thurston County.

It's also a known fact that some individuals actually purchase retired school buses just for the purpose of fully restoring them back to like-new or pristine condition. A case in point (and why I think I wouldn't be able to work as a reference, lol?) is that I'm one of those people. In 1998 I purchased a 1977 Gillig school bus for restoration, and in 2007 I purchased a 1955 Kenworth school bus. As of this writing, I'm in the purpose of buying a 1966 Gillig, and possibly another 1966 and a 1973 Gillig, all for the purpose of restoration. Furthermore, the 1955 Kenworth-Pacific School Coach that's pictured alongside the "Conversion and Restoration subheading? That's my '55 Kenworth I just mentioned above.

Also, several bus museums, one notable one in California and two in New York both feature privately-owned, fully restored school buses on display.Srosenow 98 (talk) 10:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Environmental section addition

I just added some useful information as far as alternative fuels are concerned; this should even shed a little light as to the history of them a little bit. Yes, it might be a little slanted right now having just Blue Bird sites as a source for citations(yes, I used them!!!), but conversely, IC Bus is the lone hybrid school bus manufacturer out there right now...so this is just a beginning and we can build on it some more. SteveCof00 (talk) 04:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I re-wrote the introduction since I thought it needed a little tweaking. I also thought what it said about diesel-fueled buses might have some NPOV issues, so I re-worded it to clean that up. SteveCof00 (talk) 09:43, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"To Do" List for the Article

From what it looks like, the article has been greatly improved over the past few weeks. I just am adding this section for editors to post concerns for what they feel needs to be done with the page as it is now.

In my opinion:

• The safety section still has plenty of issues, although part of it probably stems from that each state has their own regulations for school buses.
• The article is starting to get a bit long (but some parts aren't enough to be article-worthy on their own)
• The article needs a format change, but I'm trying to hold off and wait for the overall content to improve first.

Anyone else have more suggestions on what needs to be done?

SteveCof00 (talk) 09:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Update I just did some cleaning...I made some grammatical changes that were worthwhile, added some information based on articles we have here (on each manufacturer), and I changed a couple of the section headings to something a little better ("origins" just seems too much like an etymological term and "Manufacturing" is the first one that actually works well...finally!) I also changed up the "contraction" section, as part of it was a little clunky; it should be a bit better now (or easier to work on!). SteveCof00 (talk) 11:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Summer editing and tweaking

I went through the article as a whole and fixed up some stuff that was a bit clunky.

• The opening paragraph for the "North American" section needed some changing, so I split it up, and gave the list of statistics their own part so they can thrive on their own without needlessly lengthening the Table Of Contents.

• General Grammar Issues...apparently all the 1977 safety rules were written in the wrong tense (oops).

• I was able to re-word a couple of sentences so that a couple of tags for vagueness should no longer be needed.

• As far as format goes, the pictures of buses I added are all from the Commons; I took out the picture that had been there mainly because it was not specifically OF a bus, and I felt the dead space (which had been used before anyways) could be put to better use.

As far as further changes go...I'm about ready to suggest someone delete the seatbelts part of the article and re-write it from scratch with new references and citations, as I don't know what Wikipedia is looking for before untagging this...

SteveCof00 (talk) 10:29, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

August update (so far) One thing I noticed that was kind of awkward was the way the whole manufacturing sub-section has been set up. In the recent past, I changed the really clunky lists into a table format, which is much easier to read and is easier to use for comparison purposes. What happened was the two lists of manufacturers became two tables of manufacturers with a clunky history lesson in the middle. A couple months ago, I did some formatting to make the middle content a bit easier to read, but it still flowed awkward. I think I have fixed it now, though!! I combined the two tables into one, and it doesn't look horribly long. To me, this looks like a big improvement. SteveCof00 (talk) 05:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Some more tweaking I did some minor updates with the format that should help. The "conspicuity" part of the safety section of the article had too many L4 sub-sections, so i re-formatted that (keeping the content, however). I also re-formatted other areas to differentiate them from the paragraphs of text.SteveCof00 (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Redoing the Retirement Section A couple of the sub-sections were only 1-2 sentences, but rather than get rid of them, I thought the whole section itself needed re-organizing after being ignored for a while. I combined all the different usages for retired buses back into 1 list (other than what is written about spare school buses...which is kind of out of place, but starting a section for it means it has no place to go). The safety sub-section here probably needs some changes, as it rambles on about a single bus crash more than anything else. The stuff that is tagged gives actually gives good suggestions as to what needs to be written on (what happens to the yellow paint, the warning lights, typical state rules about that...) SteveCof00 (talk) 03:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Where to categorize this article?

I noticed that this article's talk page was recently added to the WikiProject Schools. I decided to take a look there and to me, it seems like this article doesn't seem like it has much of a home there. Although a school bus does have an education-minded name, it is primarily a vehicle; the education articles here seem to be focused towards the specific school buildings....the article would be a fish out of water there and would be tagged needlessly. Any other opinions?

SteveCof00 (talk) 09:13, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. WikiProject Schools is a project devoted to articles about actual schools, rather than a project devoted to everything related to education. This article doesn't really belong there. It is, however, part of WikiProject Buses, which makes the most sense. —BMRR (talk) 22:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

From the looks of the talk page, it looks like the article was moved off of WikiProject buses. I just hope that enough of the editors from there are able to offer sufficient input to keep improving this article as time goes on. SteveCof00 (talk) 04:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean when you say "moved off" of WikiProject Buses? Do you mean removed from the project? If so, that doesn't appear to be the case, at least from my end... the WPBuses banner is at the top of this talk page. —BMRR (talk) 16:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Whoops, my last post should have said WikiProject Schools instead of WikiProject Buses...I guess I switched words by accident. Whoever responded forgot to sign their post with the 4 tildes (~), however. SteveCof00 (talk) 09:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Still upgrading the article again...

I've spent the weekend going back and forth working on the article and have come up with a "finished product" (as in, I think I can leave it alone for a bit unless someone points out some typos...). Maybe someone else will have a chance to add some content now that the format is improved.

A minor description of the changes I have been making over time:

1. I cut out much of the description of the Carrollton bus collision out of the safety sub-section of the retired bus section mainly for two reasons. First, the content about safety had basically become a rambling discussion about a bus crash, so I wanted the focus on the non-crash related content. Second, as far as the crash was concerned, there is an article written (at length) about the crash already, so deleting said content would take anything away as I planned on leaving a link.

2. I was able to find a manufacturer other than Blue Bird that used alternative-fuel offerings; I even included a reference (Wikipedia loves this...)

3. I formatted the article so that all the photos are on the right side (rather than on both). I did this out of consistency more than anything else (many photos have alt captions to save space too!).

4. The "Conspicuity" subsection, although a technically accurate name for high-visibility, was becoming an intro to a list of subsections of safety devices on school buses. I decided to go with that flow and renamed that section, moving the video cameras sub-section there (I'm trying to cut down on L3-L4 sections if need be).

5. This is more of a request than anything else...the bus manufacturing article seems like a good model for an article that could be tailored to the North American school bus industry. It could elaborate at length with the technical issues that this article cannot really cover anymore.

Suggestions? Comments?

SteveCof00 (talk) 09:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's coming along I've just read some of the edits on the "retired school buses" section and it is a change for the better. Before, it was one of the more awkwardly worded sections, but it is starting to flow much better. While this part of the article is done with a bit of original research, this part probably doesn't depend on research and citations as critically as other parts do.

One small suggestion I want to make, however: Try to keep caption size in photographs as short as possible. Using alt= captions to say the rest of what you want helps shorten captions a lot. SteveCof00 (talk) 08:18, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

School Buses Abroad...

I just saw how someone added another section for Argentina...I like it. This is why I re-formatted the section like this a few months back (so sections for new countries could be added from time to time).

Anyways, what I wanted to say was: The sentence that was put there is a somewhat confusing...there's not much there, so there's nothing to go on in terms of improving it. SteveCof00 (talk) 09:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

How to organize Outside North America Section?

As editors continue to add countries to this section, it just poses the question of how should the countries be listed. In the past, they were listed in the order in which they were added, but I recently rearranged them alphabetically.

In my opinion, I think it would be a good idea to begin further categorizing subsections by regions/continents (Europe, South America, Asia, etc) if the list starts to get much longer. SteveCof00 (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorting them alphabetically is the best way to go. Avoids any suspicion of one country getting "preferential treatment" over another. —BMRR (talk) 01:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice; I was thinking the same setup works great, at least with the current amount of information in we have here now SteveCof00 (talk) 04:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

External links issue

I was wondering what to do about the external links myself. As far as how they disappeared, I took a look at the history and it turned out that someone had placed a link there for a website selling things; another editor considered it spam (rightfully so?) and took down the whole section.

I took a look at the EL guidelines and it will take a lot more reading to figure out a final answer as the rules seem to with each other in some ways when you look at more and more of today's complex websites. Sticking with industry trade publications is the way to go, according to the guidelines; on the other hand, it's not entirely unusual to see "fansites" as part of the links (although if it also serves as a resource...)SteveCof00 (talk) 20:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, there are some gray areas on the subject of external links. The guidelines are helpful, but some of them are open to interpretation. Even though I'm a big fan of School Bus Central and have found it to be a better resource than most typical fansites, it seems like it probably doesn't meet the EL guidelines, which is why I took it down after I re-added it. On the other hand, anybody doing a Google search for "school buses" will see SBC near the top of the results, so I'm not too worried about people not finding it. ;-) —BMRR (talk) 20:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm a member of School Bus Central myself, but I think it exists primarily as a forum and photo site as opposed to a resource for knowledge (not that there is anything wrong with that!) , which is what the two sites currently listed are. If people are looking for information and they don't look here, they certainly will check search engines as well. SteveCof00 (talk) 10:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion Images

Recently, there was an image added to the page and almost immediately, it was made a candidate for speedy deletion. I've taken a look at it and from what it says, it was an image released into the public domain (wouldn't it be a "free" image, then?). I haven't deleted it just yet, as I wanted to get another opinion as for what to do (if it doesn't need to be deleted, I want to move it, as I think there's a better place in the article for it).

The image in question is the all-white Australian school bus right under the picture of the Canadian school bus next to the table of North American manufacturers. I don't want to rush out and delete something that is OK to use on the page, but I want to take care of the CSD tag soon. As far as finding images to use for articles, I try to use the Commons as much as possible. SteveCof00 (talk) 10:16, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Image was tagged with "no license" but the uploader has since added the PD license so it's no longer needed in the caption and has been removed. Bidgee (talk) 10:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

In that case, I will let it stay, although I am considering moving it to another place in the article (I'm thinking of moving it to the top and letting it take the place of one of the buses that is there, to show that not all are yellow or yellowish). SteveCof00 (talk) 05:15, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Page Vandalism

Recently, it seems like every couple of weeks, there is an unregistered user who likes to change the wording of the page around a bit (to understate things a bit). Outside of reverting edits all the time, is there really anything that can be done? SteveCof00 (talk) 21:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this is a very common problem faced by thousands of Wikipedia articles. I have several articles in my watchlist that get vandalized at least once or twice a day. Usually, the only solution is for a Wikipedia administrator to "protect" the article, which prevents anonymous users from editing it; however, it has been my experience that admins will only do this when an article is being vandalized several times a day, every day. Since the school bus article isn't being vandalized as often as that, having the page protected probably isn't an option. But I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate that it's not being vandalized often enough to warrant article protection! :-) —BMRR (talk) 21:50, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

If the vandalism becomes more frequent (IE: Every day or every few hours) I would recommend requesting temporary semi-protection at Wikipedia:Request for page protection. Bidgee (talk) 22:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

What photos to use up top?

I was going through the history of the article for the past few days and I noticed that there's been a bit of a disagreement of what to put up in the "dead space" next to the Table of Contents. A couple of weeks ago, I changed things up a bit and designed things into a table layout so that pictures can be put next to each other as well as below each other (less dead space). Depending on one's individual web browser settings and Wikipedia preferences, there's room for 4-6 pictures in that space.

Right now, there doesn't seem to be a consensus of what "should" be used there. The all-white bus that I mentioned before in a previous talk section was included because I didn't want to delete it because I want to encourage contribution to the page whenever possible. As far as when replacing pictures goes, the safest route to go is to write in an edit summary that is more than 2-3 words long ("added pic" or "deleted pic" might not work with some, although "see talk page" often works great.) SteveCof00 (talk) 21:58, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Expansion of School Buses Worldwide content

To me, it seemed like some of the sub-sections there were becoming a bit run-on, so I re-grouped the format a bit based on what content subsections had the ability to expand on. I didn't create L4-L5 sub sections at this point, as I'm a fan as having them for as many subsections as possible if doing them at all (to avoid cluttering up the Table of Contents). I hope this creates something to go on in terms of adding and improving content (i see someone put referenced content! :-) That's what we need). SteveCof00 (talk) 21:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)