Talk:Metropolitan main line/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: LunaEatsTuna (talk · contribs) 17:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I am surprised this has been hanging since October! Will get to this within the day (UTC-wise).  𓃦 LunaEatsTuna  (💬) 17:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Fail—Based on the questionable reliability of chicago-l.org. The reason for a fail rather than bringing this up as a concern in a review is because this source is used for 14 of 30 of the citations that appear in this article—rising to 22 of 42 counting reuses of the same sources—so this appears to be a major concern for me. Once the issue is addressed than you can renominate the article and ping me as I wish to review this article fully.

Now, onto why I am concerned with the reliability of chicago-l.org, a website written solely by one Graham Garfield. My first concern is that the article has an over-reliance on this website. As WP:RS puts it: "The more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication," and I feel as though the likelihood of Garfield making a mistake is honestly quite high. Of course, no source is perfect, even print sources, but seeing as half of all sources used in this article are cited to a single individual largely increases the likelihood of errors. Additionally, the articles you have cited on chicago-l.org cite no sources themselves.

Secondly, in order for him to be considered reliable per WP:RS, he would have to be an "author who [is] regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject." However, I do not believe that I could establish this. Indeed, he has in fact held several positions in the CTA during his career, and, as you have mentioned elsewhere, could have access to internal CTA documents.

However this does not necessarily contribute to his reliance on the CTA's history itself—he simply does not have the credentials for it. Especially with his website being unassociated with the CTA, it would appear that his history expertise seems to be more of a hobby. I say this because anyone can make a website. As an example, if a builder of twenty years was to publish his own articles on a website he created, that would not make said website a useable source for building-related material on Wikipedia. Garfield would need some sort of experience; yet, he has not held any positions in the CTA like "historian" (etc.) nor does he have any education in research nor history signalling to his experience. Additionally, I could not find any works written by him that have had editorial oversight, and there are no RS publications that refer to him as an authoritative source for CTA history. The only mentions I could find of this are either self-applied titles, interviews—in which the person being interviewed can say pretty much whatever they want—and blogs (which are not reliable sources).

All I could find for him regarding his experience with CTA history (outside of it being a hobby/him being an amateur historian) was a source stating he has held lectures on transit history and conducted public tours at the Chicago Architecture Foundation and the Chicago History Museum. However, the source did not state where he held said lecture(s) (this concerns me particularly because anyone can conduct a lecture), and just being a tour guide would certainly not make him an authoritative expert.

tl;dr is that Graham Garfield has no credentials (education in history or research, career in transit history for CTA, published works, evidence for knowledge being reliable etc) and it looks like his website is more of a hobby rather than an authoritative source. Just working at CTA does not equate to him being an expert in the CTA's history itself.

Regardless, if chicago-l.org is proven to be RS I would still not be content with over half of the article's citations being to a single source. Surely the information could have appeared elsewhere, such as in books or news articles?

If you wish to refute those points or have sources that contradict what I have said here then please message me on my talk page so we can work this out. Thanks,  𓃦 LunaEatsTuna  (💬) 01:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)