Talk:Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts

Article issues
Let me break down each footnote from this revision of the article with a rationale on why it was tagged as it was. The numbers here correspond to the reference list in that version of the article.


 * 1) This is a user generated source because it is a discussion forum from the subject of the article. It would be better if SABRE had an "about us" page with the group's history to back this up. (Yes, you can cite yourself for that.)
 * 2) See number 1.
 * 3) Wikipedia articles should not be used as sources for other Wikipedia articles. This is for the same reason we don't allow blogs or discussion forum post: the content is user generated.
 * 4) See number 3.
 * 5) See number 3.
 * 6) This is a blog, which is also a self-published source and not allowed.
 * 7) This does not back the claim made, i.e. SABRE is mentioned as a list entry only in the context that SABRE has a list of other entries. Further, two sources do not establlish "popular", so the article really needs a source that states that term explicitly, or uses a synonym for "popular" in its text.
 * 8) See number 3.
 * 9) See number 3.
 * 10) Surely, if this claim were true, there would be a non-SABRE source to verify it. SABRE's website should only be used a a source about itself, not other organizations.
 * 11) and subsequent. The claim: "[the] society has been increasingly recognised as a definitive source of British and Irish road knowledge by professional organisations" is not supported by any of these links. I looked through them all, and none used the word "definitive" or remotely synonymous with "definitive" in their text. Using CBRD to support a claim of that nature is just as bad as citing SABRE directly.

In short, this article needs to be overhauled. SABRE, as a group, is borderline notable. Yes, it has a few press mentions, but that might not be enough. There is a lot of puffery and inflated opinions here. You need direct sources to establish popularity, or being a "definitive source"

Hi.

Thanks for the feedback - I have very little experience with Wikipedia and decided to be bold. It would also be absurd for me to try and claim neutrality on the article.

Let's take these issues one at a time.

1 (and 2). We have such a page here. However, I assumed this wouldn't be possible as a citation - are you saying it is?

3 - 5. Okay. The point I was trying to make here is to establish that articles on SABRE qualify as a "reliable source" for other articles elsewhere.

6. Fair enough. Happy to remove "popular" from the description as it sounds like a weasel word anyway.

7. The rationale behind this was to demonstrate that OpenStreetMap (a larger and more notable organisation) have taken interest in what we're doing. What would you suggest?

8 - 9. You say "See 3." but these are not articles on Wikipedia. Can you clarify your position?

10. Part of the problem with citations here is that the feedback and support from the NLS has occured via private emails and post. I can quote conversations I have had with the curator staff at the NLS, but (to play devil's advocate), how would you know I haven't made them up? What could you suggest in this instance?

11. The idea here was to include some of the newspaper and media references we've been getting in the past. I couldn't think of a suitable sentence in the article to link them together, so I used something vague to hang together. Again, in this context we've had emails from the Highways Agency talking to clients, saying "I haven't a clue - ask SABRE", but as above, how would you verify the authenticity of these?

17. Please note that the reference here is _not_ CBRD itself (which happens to be the placeholder), but rather the BBC (who produced the video in that link). Possibly a direct link to the video itself might be more suitable?

Thanks for taking the time out to review this and hopefully we can move forward.

--Ritchie333 (talk) 11:34, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the article has issues, but that flood of tags was really just gratuitous.
 * Establishing SABRE as a reliable source for other articles is not really something we ought to do here - "reliable source" isn't boolean so it's best to deal with it where it's being cited, or failing that, at the reliable sources noticeboard. If somebody wants to update Cat with a claim that cats can play pianos, thanks to a youtube video, they really ought to discuss it at Talk:Cat, not by tweaking the article on Youtube.
 * Third-party sources would be really valuable. Independent sources are used for two separate roles - first, as an anchor for to build content, and second, to demonstrate that SABRE is really notable enough to have its own encyclopædia article (just an entry in a listing doesn't count for the latter, otherwise we'd have articles for everyone in the phonebook)
 * I asked for a little help over at the UK roads project - surely some of those folk will be familiar with SABRE and might want to help fix some issues...
 * Have fun; bobrayner (talk) 13:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Bob. Small world ;-)
 * This is the sort of thing I mean when I talked about 'third party sources via email'

from	[name]@nls.uk to	 date	Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 8:40 AM subject	RE: 1922-23 Ministry of Transport Road Maps of Scotland

Hi, I was keen to let you know too that on 7 May in Perth, we are organising a seminar on "Routes across the Map - Cartography, Travel and Transport". There are further details about this at:

http://www.nls.uk/collections/maps/subject-info/forum

I don't know if you'd be happy to publicise this to SABRE members, if appropriate? Also, during the lunch break, we are inviting relevant groups and societies to have a stand or publicise themselves, and I wondered if you or anyone else from SABRE might be interested in doing this too? No worries at all if not - I realise its a long way to travel - but I'll leave the idea with you, and very happy to discuss further.

Best wishes, [name] National Library of Scotland
 * --Ritchie333 (talk) 14:38, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

We still have several issues at work in the current revision of the article.
 * The discussion forum links should not be used for sources for the previous names. The fact that the group has used other names is probably irrelevant to the article anyway, and none of the secondary sources mention the old names. If redirects aren't created under those names, they shouldn't be in bold, and if secondary sources don't reference them, the old names may not be worth mentioning at all. If they're retained, they need to be sourced to something that isn't a discussion forum. SABRE webpages and other publications can be used to source information about itself, but it should not be used to source anything else.
 * Wikipedia articles can't be used as sources for other Wikipedia articles. Even so, the "external links" section, by definition, is not a "source" for the article, but a "see also" for content external to en.wikipedia.org hosted online. "Further reading" is for non-online content external to en.wikipedia.org in a "see also" capacity that's not used as a source.
 * The OSM discussion forum links suffer the same problem as the SABRE discussion forum links: lack of editorial control over the content by the hosting organization. The fact that OSM, like Wikipedia, is based on user-generated content like any wiki, also makes it run afoul of reliable source guidelines because the hosting organization doesn't exercise editorial control over the content. About the only way to get that information properly sourced would be if a secondary source picks up on the collaboration, or maybe if a SABRE "about us" page listed it. Careful though, because too many SABRE sources will work against establishing notability.
 * Sorry, but I don't think that email counts, because it still fails verification, i.e. we can't verify private communications not published elsewhere, and I don't know that posting the content of it here works for verification purposes. The email could be fake, and without the names, we can't ask the originator to verify its authenticity. Do I think it's fake? No, not really, but being verifiable is more of a binary yes or no proposition than an opinion. Either the source is verifiable, as in an independent reader of the article can in theory obtain their own copy of the source and verify the information, claims and assertions of the articles against it, or not. It doesn't matter if I have to pay to subscribe to a newspaper's archives, or even travel to a library in Europe from my home in the US to do it, can I ultimately get my own copy of the source? Unpublished personal correspondence wouldn't exactly count.

That leaves me ready to delete the second and third paragraphs of the article in their entirety for lack of verifiability against reliable sources. That leaves a one-sentence introduction and a one-sentence body. The last paragraph is cited to seven sources, and any time that something needs more than three footnotes to back up, I question the validity of the statement. Now, I'm sure that using at least four of those sources (Rees Jeffreys Road Fund, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and Total Vauxhall magazine) that paragraph could be expanded in a bit greater detail.

The next question will be: "Is that enough to display 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject' as required by the general notability guideline or is it "trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources" that fails the more specific notability guideline for organizations? I'm on the fence, but an article on this subject has been deleted once already, and I'm not seeing enough here to justify preventing a speedy deletion under A7 "Unremarkable company or organization" or G4 "Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion" because it the current article has not been changed to address the issues that led to the first deletion (notability).

My challenge to editors who are not members of SABRE is to fix the article to address the verification, reliable sources and notability concerns, or be prepared to see it deleted at any time under A7 or G4 CSD or sent back to AfD. SABRE members have a conflict of interest, and they really shouldn't be editing the article at all.  Imzadi 1979  →   21:17, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Re Points 3,4 and 5
 * The trick here is to reformat the references in the relevant articles in accordance with the proper Wikipedia standard and then to link the "publisher" field back to this article. This will also boost the count of the number of articles that link back here. Martinvl (talk) 10:03, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have updated the relevant articles in WIkipedia and removed the links in this article. The references now point to the SABRE site, but priovide a Wikilink to this article in the publisher field. Martinvl (talk) 17:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That wasn't the issue, and in fact, that made things worse, Martinvl. External links, by definition, are not references, so they don't need that extra formatting (and an accessdate is definitely not needed). The problem isn't the number of articles that wikilink to this article, it's the content in this article. I have removed all of the improper sources now. The last sentence still does not need five citation footnotes. I suggest that some actual content based on those sources is added to the article, or this four-sentence paragraph may be merged into Roadgeek, or outright deleted. The jargon section was completely unneeded to understand the topic, which is the group. There was no context for that in the article because we haven't even fully established that the group is notable and worthy of coverage in Wikipedia. Being linked from another notable group's webpage does not impart notability here. We need significant coverage of the group in independent secondary sources.  So far, we have two newspaper articles and a magazine article. The other two groups (RJRF and RCHS) each have the same one-sentence description of the group, which doesn't do a whole lot, and it doesn't even back up the claim that they use SABRE as a "source of information" by their professional organizations. Sorry, still more work to be done here.  Imzadi 1979   →   18:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Name Citations
I don't get it. How can the SABRE website be an unreliable source on its own name? NotJohnny (talk) 17:14, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A discussion forum is not a reliable source, as it's not fully under the control of the hosting organization. We don't allow user comments to news stories to be used as sources, and we should not use discussions in a forum, even a SABRE forum, to be used. In this case, a history or "about us" page detailing the name changes would be appropriate. Why? SABRE's webmaster, under the direction of the group, would be responsible for the content hosted on non-forum pages. In other words, SABRE exercises editorial control over that content in ways they don't and can't on discussion forum postings.  Imzadi 1979  →   20:44, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I should point out that in this specific instances, the posts were made by the then Site Manager, though I appreciate it's impossible to tell that unless you're a long time user. Since we have an "About Us" page anyway, this point is somewhat moot. --Ritchie333 (talk) 20:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * SABRE does have an "About" page - I have linked to that. Martinvl (talk) 09:55, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

some further thoughts as I've tried to rewrite
^^Sadly not - if they had an exhibition or material that had somewhere "Contributors: SABRE" or even an article showing that SABRE had put some of the NLS maps online.

Another thing a wikipedia article doesn't do is repeat the "About us" and "history" of a website. Somehow you have to paraphrase it. On that subject: on the old SABRE site, there's a mention of BBC Look East January 2001. Might be useful to get the exact date however, Brad mentioned that the website was never mentioned in the piece.

Another thing is there is no obvious sign from either website that CBRD, SABRE, Pathetic Motorways etc are all part of the same community. Some kind of unified branding might help that. Otherwise all SABRE is is a Society with a website, and you can make no claim on the content of other sites.

The Society has a constitution, fair enough, but is this registered at Companies house? E.g. Industrial and provident society. Otherwise it's the internal rules of your website community, nothing more. Get a reference and you can at least demonstrate that it's a valid organisation. Of course that would also give you some more prominence, and allow you to forge formal links with NLS, Cambridge (who exactly?) and Highways Agency.Davoloid (talk) 21:11, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You really don't want to take a tin opener to that particular can of worms, but in brief summary the "Constitution" was set up by a (now banned) member who was very big on formal rules, regulations and notability, and alienated himself from pretty much everybody else in doing so. Hence none of the major players in SABRE have any particular interest in it.


 * The NLS is probably the best opportunity for a formal link, and I can try to get that sorted out as and when I have time (plus ca change). --Ritchie333 (talk) 13:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Roadgeeking
A came across this article Roadgeek which mentions SABRE. I wonder if the best approach allround might be to expand this paragraph to include those Telegraph and Indpendent articles inline. E.g.

"One of the biggest Roadgeek commnunities(quote paper) is SABRE, formed in 1999 (quote about page) and with 2000 members. SABRE has expanded from an enthusiasts' forum, to an extensive network of websites and authoritive articles on UK and Irish roads and their Histories.  The communities articles are referred to by Wikipedia and other transport sites, and have some innovative web applications.  For example a recent project, in conjunction with the National Library of Scotland, Ordnance Survey and Openstreetmap, allowed old road maps to be overlaid and compared with current and more recent maps."

Davoloid (talk) 21:11, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I've thought about that too, that the best course of action may be to admit that SABRE as a group unto itself doesn't have sufficient notability to warrant its own article, but it would be notable, minus puffery, to mention in roadgeek. Ditch the previous names as irrelevant and redirect the current full name into that specific paragraph of the roadgeek article. (We can add an anchor if SABRE doesn't get a subheading there, allowing the redirect to target the specific paragraph.) Look, as anyone around Wikipedia would probably agree, I'm primarily an editor dealing with roads and highways in the US, specifically Michigan. (I've successfully sent eight articles through FAC and even sent road-related portals to FPoC. My signature here is styled to look like a road sign even.) I'm sympathetic to covering the organization somehow, but we have to do it right and within the Wikipedia framework. That might mean SABRE doesn't get its own article.  Imzadi 1979  →   21:23, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That sounds about right. It would also give a place where the term TOTSO can be defined. (I have currently added it to the current article under the heading "Jargon"). Martinvl (talk) 17:35, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That term should be in List of road-related terminology, not shoe-horned into this article.  Imzadi 1979  →   19:09, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

SABRE as a source
I know that we're only supposed to discuss improvements to this article, but a point needs to be made here. Let me be perfectly clear on this point: At this time, SABRE should not be used as a source for Wikipedia articles. Why? Roader's Digest is another wiki. We're not allowed to use another wiki as a source in Wikipedia, full stop. It can be included as an external link, but not relied upon for information.

The analogous situation is Michigan Highways and the articles on highways in Michigan. Chris Bessert's website has been cited in the Detroit Free Press, the Traverse City Record-Eagle and the Grand Rapids Press. When I've asked librarians at the Library of Michigan or the Grand Rapids Public Library for research assistance in locating a source, I get replies along the lines of, "have you see the Michigan Highways website?" Even the Michigan Department of Transportation, the government agency that maintains the highway system here in the state, has directed me there for information. None of that matters because the website is still self-published. You won't find a Featured, A-Class or Good article using his website as a source. Each Michigan highway article does include it as an external link, along with other pertinent websites.

Regarding SABRE, and its wiki in particular, the situation is the same. There is no editorial oversight to the content displayed on the Roader's Digest wiki, just as there isn't an editor or research department fact-checking Mr. Bessert's writings. Both sites are still self-published. Until it can be firmly established that they are the product of "an expert in his field", the exceptions to allow an SPS used as a source does not apply.  Imzadi 1979  →   18:41, 18 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I suggest you remove every single page where information purely lifted from SABRE'S wiki or the forums is deleted as they have no reliable source, and any page which cites SABRE be correctly tagged with citation needed. Thankyou. --Jonbarrow (talk) 15:19, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Notability
There are a few (read three) press sources in the article that mention the group. The Total Vauxhall article doesn't say a whole lot. That leaves two newspaper articles to do the bulk of establishing the notability of the group. The Independent has only this to say about the group: "Among the larger groups is Sabre (Society for All British Road Enthusiasts), which boasts 400 members. Entries on the group's online forum yesterday included discussions on whether the Highways Agency issues fictitious road numbers for use in television dramas and proof that the A14 is a 'real motorway'."That leaves the bulk of the notability issue to be satisfied by The Telegraph article about the group that dates back to 2005. That's hardly a ringing endorsement for notability by having a single, substantial newspaper profile with a few brief mentions elsewhere.

As for the non-press reliable sources, there are two. The Rees Jeffery Road Fund has this, and only this, to say about the group: "A forum for ideas and opinions and a hub for information and for understanding of the UK and RoI road network and its history." The Railway and Canal Historical Society says a little more, but not much, with: "A group interested in the history, design, geography and structure of the British and Irish road network; a forum for ideas and opinions and a hub for information for better understanding of the UK and RoI road network and its history. Assuming both are notable, SABRE can't inherit any notability from them.

Now, there's supposed to be a BBC programme that discussed or documented the group, but no one has yet to directly cite it. The old article had one source in it before it was deleted. That article contains a single mention of the group, "Steven Dukes, from the Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts, said: 'Before the M1 there was no real idea of long distance travel. It opened up a way of living we couldn't really have anticipated.'" That qualifies as a "trivial mention" and doesn't help establish notability.

Look, please don't view my efforts as an anti-British attack or an attempt to slander SABRE. I'm an anglophile from way back who can trace ancestry to Yorkshire and Leeds, among other locations. I'm also a big American roadgeek; my signature on here is even meant to look like a road sign and all of my recognized content (FAs, FL, FS, FPortal, GAs, etc) are road-related. If SABRE is truly notable, there will be enough sources to back that up, and the article will get expanded, improved and remain. If it's not notable, I'm suggesting that the paragraph in roadgeek be expanded and cited accordingly. The link can be redirected there. Again though, I caution SABRE members from editing this article because of the inherent conflict of interest that creates. If members can find sources and list them here on the talk page, others will include them in the article, but we need as many independent, secondary sources as we can find to establish notability; links from SABRE itself won't establish that.  Imzadi 1979  →   19:08, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Your last paragraph there basically says the same thing as "I'm not racist because I have black friends" and is completely irrelevant to the matter under discussion. Chavster01 (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

-

Right, I've been busy over the weekend, so I'll have to make this brief, but here's my thoughts.

A direct link to the BBC Appearance is here. As I said above, part of the problem we have with establishing notability is a lot of the (unsolicted but welcome) correspondance we've had with academic and established organisations has been through email or other private discussions. We've never attempted to get them to cite SABRE on their own websites because we've seen no real need to. While we've been pleasantly surprised with the amount of attention and interest we've got from these people, the main ethos of SABRE is really "a bit of serious fun" and attribution by major organisations isn't really part of our goal.

On reflection, having discussed this with a number of people, my conclusion is that the SABRE article doesn't actually say anything of value. "Ooh SABRE, it's a website, it talks about roads, some important-ish people have read it, errr...." We don't get a better pagerank out of it, we have links all over the place anyway, and (this is the real clincher for me), Geograph and the Charles Close Society don't have pages on here. Unless anybody can scream loudly and convince otherwise, I'll delete it myself tonight (which, as author, I believe I can just do without any recourse), provided we have a consensus to keep the mention of SABRE on the Roadgeek page (which I wasn't previously aware of).

About citing SABRE - you are right that anyone can register for an account, change the description of the M23 to "The M23 runs from Central London to Lambland Pear" (this is a real example!) and somebody else could cite it on WP. However, I believe linking to the "Maps" section is different - currently, all the historical maps that we've published online can only be published by a handful of people (in practice it falls to just me), and a couple of facts I have put up (eg: the A4018 road initially running to Avonmouth) can't, I believe, be cited from anywhere else. In this case, the actual secondary source would be the Ordnance Survey - SABRE just happens to be where it's been put online. I would be very reluctant for WP to just copy this image as I've spent far too many hours getting the maps scanned, stitched, and writing the calibration software (which, AFAIK doesn't exist anywhere else, though it does reuse some OpenStreetMap code).

It's already been mentioned upthread, but I'd like to draw attention to it again - there seems to be a very large "them and us" split between WP UK Roads and SABRE, which is very deep seated particularly on the SABRE side. Steven Jukes (note the spelling!) is, in my opinion, one of the most knowledgable road enthusiasts in the UK, and has unearthed research from archives and correspondence with councils that I can only stand in awe of, but the odds of him contributing to WP (and he could offer a lot) are, frankly, zero. This has resulted in duplicate content (eg: A4018 road versus A4018 on SABRE for one of many examples) with a vague undercurrent of WP UK Roads and SABRE attempting to "out-do" each other. I think out of the two groups the only overlap is Jeni, and, very occasionally, me. My personal opinion is that road articles on WP should be reserved soley for those that the average "man in the street" is aware of. The M1 is okay (most people in the UK are aware of it), the A282 is probably okay (most people know it exists but erroneously think it's the M25), the A4018 probably isn't notable - unless you live in North Bristol and commute regularly on it, it won't mean anything to you (indeed, I notice the article was previously nominated for speedy deletion).

As I said earlier, I don't have the time to do much here, so I'm relying on those that do have the time to help out.

--Ritchie333 (talk) 12:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You can't unilaterally request deletion as the page creator anymore. Too many others have edited the page since you created it, so most admins will deny the request. What we can do, if there's consensus to do so (and I think there probably is) is just blank the page into a redirect to the roadgeek article and call it a day.


 * Re: the point about maps: if SABRE is hosting historical maps, they can be cited directly. For several articles related to Minnesota highways, I've cited old maps published by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and its predecessor agencies. These maps are hosted by "Reflections: The Minnesota Digital Library", but that's not relevant because we aren't citing the library, we're citing a publication of Mn/DOT, etc. We have US Highway articles that cite the 1926 map of the US Highway System that's hosted over on Commons. (Yes, you can cite a reliable source hosted on Commons.)


 * If SABRE has hosted maps that are free of copyright, or freely licensed, like that 1926 (US) Bureau of Public Roads map of the US Highway System at its creation (works of our federal government here are public domain) then we can host them for use in articles. In other words, if an old map has had its copyright expire, any Wikimedian can copy it for use here, no permission from SABRE needed. Same if the map was released into the public domain by its creator as a matter of course, like maps created by the US federal government or some state governments.


 * As for any SABRE vs. UKRD issues, you folks will have to work that out for yourselves. UKRD here is practically dead these days. Jeni hasn't edited since January, and the others have been mostly quiet as well. That's unlike USRD, where we're just about halfway through our 2011 goal to expand 2011 stub articles, we've added 5 or 6 new Featured Articles to our list and maintain monthly updates to Portal:U.S. Roads. (Portal: Roads is on an automated set up that randomly loads new content from set lists each time the page is refreshed; the USRD portal only randomly refreshes the example of state highway markers at the top of the page on each reload.)


 * I'm happy to take care of merging the content in the article here over to Roadgeek and calling it a day if that's what others want.  Imzadi 1979  →   16:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Makes sense to me and I'm happy to rewrite that paragraph. Davoloid (talk) 16:57, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds fine by me.


 * Regarding the copying of copyright expired maps, bear in mind that, unlike the US, UK Government Data, including Ordnance Survey published maps, is (until late 2010) Crown Copyright and it has been already established in several cases, such as the publication of Cassini maps that the copyright of a scan rests with that copyright holder, even if the original map itself is out of copyright. In practice, I would probably release the scans I've done personally under a CC licence similar to OpenStreetMap, but such a scenario hasn't needed to arise yet. --Ritchie333 (talk) 17:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * More cases where copyright laws int he world need to be reformed. In the US, faithful reproductions of 2D public domain works are still PD; no new copyright attaches. Now, if PD works are recombined together into a new form, then yes, like those Cassini Maps, US copyright protection would attach to the new work. I read that link as "we've remixed and remade the old maps" not "we just scanned them so we get copyright". They stated that clearly when they said "[b]ecause we have enhanced, enlarged, combined and re-projected them, the copyright resides with us, and any reproduction or usage not permitted by the terms and conditions of your purchase is prohibited without prior written permission." But if you had scans of the original PD maps, then no, they shouldn't be under any copyright protection at all.  Imzadi 1979  →   18:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

On Roads
What is the book On Roads supposed to be citing?  Imzadi 1979  →   20:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

References from the article
Since I'm about to redirect the article over, I copied the references here for future reference if needed.  Imzadi 1979  →