User talk:IJBall/Archive 1

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Citations in List of tram ... systems
I recently noticed that you appear to be under the impression that citations added inline next to the article/name in the List of tram and light rail transit systems automatically apply to the entire line in the table, but that's not the case. Via my watchlist, I was aware that you'd been adding citations – mainly for North America – but I had not been checking the details. Every single year-of-opening and length figure needs its own specific inline citation. If the ones you've added also support the year-of-opening and length figures, then you can simply reuse the same citations 2 or 3 times within that line of the table. But Wikipedia's policies for references and verifiability require that every item has its own inline citation, because those different items (for a single city) may well come from different sources, at different points in time, and readers need to be able to tell. In the case of the length figures, especially – the recent addition of which was a major change to this longstanding article, which I still don't support – those figures will keep changing in the future for most systems, so not only do they need an inline citation for the stated length figure, but the citation needs to be clearly dated (at least an access date, if no published date is given at the source). That's the only way someone looking over the table can see, for example, that the length figure for system X is from a recent source, but the ones for systems Y and Z are from an article/source published (or accessed) 5 years ago and therefore may be out of date. Having inline citations for every item in the table will make the table look less neat, but accuracy is much more important than neatness.

However, it's already been two months since the major expansion of scope of this list (by adding year and length figures), and I've noticed that almost all of the non-North American systems still cite no sources. As a courtesy, I'm letting you know that I intend to delete the "stations" and "length" columns entirely for all but North America very soon, on that basis. I won't do that for North America initially, if you go back through the refs you've added and, if they support the stated stations and length figures, repeat those citations inline within those columns (so that readers of the list will be able to tell which figures are sourced and also will able to replace that source later if they update one of the figures). However, with my deletion of those columns for non-North American systems, it might be better to simply work that info. for N. America into List of rail transit systems in the United States, since the vast majority of tram and light rail systems in North America are also listed in that article (since there are relatively very few tram/LRT systems in Canada and Mexico). The "year" column is also new, but I'll leave that alone, because that is stable for every system, not needing updating in the future. The statistical columns, by contrast, will require regular monitoring by someone (who's going to do it?) for years and years into the future, for updating as needed, to try to keep the list accurate, reflecting system expansions or contractions. Most likely, no one is going to do that, and the list will gradually become more and more out of date in the statistics columns. But at the very least, the statistics columns need their own inline citations, and citations that are formatted to clearly identify the source (not just page title, but whose page; personal/individual fan pages fail WP:RS) and the date, so as to allow editors to judge each source for accuracy and whether it is relatively recent. I appreciate your trying to improve Wikipedia, and I hope my stance doesn't discourage you from editing, but Wikipedia has way too many editors who add lots and lots of content without giving enough consideration (or, often, any consideration) to the quality of their contributions – under WP's guidelines for referencing and sources. I haven't studied your editing enough to conclude that you are one of those, but I'll just say please avoid becoming one of those. SJ Morg (talk) 11:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Now that the North American portion is fully cited (as much as possible), I'm going to start a 'Talk' page topic on 'spinning off' that list into its own Wiki page - that was my original intent all along: get citations for those stats so I can just wholesale spin off the North American table to its own page before columns of data start getting deleted.
 * If there's no objection, then I'll spin off the North American table into its own page in a week or two.
 * As for adding the citations to every stat, that was my longer term goal - my initial goal was just to get the stats attached to a system. I had planned to go back later and add them across the various rows (and I'll likely still do that before I 'spin off' the North American portion of the table...), so you don't need to do that yourself if you don't want to.
 * So, again - please don't to anything to the North American portion until I get a chance to spin it off. I'll also suggest not changing the European table yet, as that has enough references already that it might get to the point where it has enough references to support its stats too. Ditto Oceania (maybe we can get Liam Davies to dig up sources for the other two Oceania systems...). In fact, it might be a good idea to not change anything until you've established that there's consensus (WP:Consensus) for it... --IJBall (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I noticed you've been working hard on the North American portion, and I was not planning to delete columns from it. I have no objection to its being spun off as a separate list. As to consensus before deleting: This major change to this article – adding hundreds of dates and statistics to a simple list that previously contained no dates and statistics – is still only 2-3 months old, and I don't believe that removing such info. from an article that is several years old, when unsourced, calls for consensus before carrying out. The European section is still about 99.7% unreferenced; and except for China (and North America), most other areas are also unreferenced. Besides, consensus among whom?  You and Mattximus appear to be the only two editors who have worked on adding those columns; it's not as though several editors have invested time in them.  SJ Morg (talk) 09:57, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's cool, SJ. You were right about sourcing all of the stats (that's how it's done on the List of United States rapid transit systems by ridership page, and I intend to do the same for the List of United States light rail systems by ridership when I get the chance (though the table on that page could use its own set of revisions, as I've mentioned on its Talk page...). Basically, my focus is on the North American section, because that's the only one I can do. (I might have taken a stab at Europe too, if I knew more languages, but I don't, so it's probably pretty hopeless...) Once North America is done... well Mattximus is correct - that table probably doesn't need it's own separate Wiki page: it's just that that table should be integrated into some of the other pages, especially Light rail in North America‎ and Light rail in the United States pages. That will be my next project, once I've finished North American table in the List of tram and light rail transit systems. And, who knows - maybe doing that section correctly will inspire others to source the other continent tables... --IJBall (talk) 16:36, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Date reformatting
Hello IJBall, thank you for your edits Helsinki Metro article. I've reverted the reformatting of dates because of WP:ENGVAR, such changes should not be made, and by making them inconsistencies were introduced. Please check, and then follow the date formatting that is already in use; the allowed formats are described in WP:MOSDATE. In most (non-US centric articles), this is likely to be the international format. Once again, thank you for your edits and getting involved. —Sladen (talk) 07:32, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

List of Light Rail systems
Hey there, I thought I'd reply on your talk page regarding the List of Light Rail systems as it doesn't seem appropriate at Talk:List of tram and light rail transit systems. The content was split - incorrectly - out of the page Interurban on 1 October 2013, this content was then placed into List of Light Rail systems. All I did was put the content back where it came from and redirect the page List of Light Rail systems to List of tram and light rail transit systems. What is your problem with that? And how would you have done it? Liamdavies (talk) 16:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Liam, I didn't read that article all the way through, but in perusing it seemed like the focus was on historical interurban systems rather than on current LRT systems. On that page's Talk page, I had proposed that the page be retitled as either "List of interurban systems" (as the focus was very definitely on interurbans, over LRTs) or possibly even "History of interurban systems". Now, I didn't know about the splitting out of the Interurban article part of the story, and if the content was placed back in that article, then that is also a perfectly good solution. But, from my glancing over at the List of Light Rail systems before, it looked to me that it wasn't that that page should be "merged" with the Tram & Light rail list, but that it should just have been retitled. However, if it's been put back in the Interurban article where it belongs, then that's all for the good. Problem solved. I'll go ahead and delete that topic from the Tram & Light rail list page. Thanks! --IJBall (talk) 16:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * No problem. It just seemed too 'good' to be a fresh 57k article, so I dug around a bit and found the whole 'Interurban' article cached elsewhere, from there it pieced together. I agree the content was unsuitable for anything light rail related, far to historical in nature, but figured the easiest/simplest thing was to put it back. Liamdavies (talk) 16:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Light rail in Sydney
Hey, what they mean by that line is that the vehicles operate in street, rather than on a dedicated railway ROW. It's for a very short section, and to my knowledge, is not shared with other motor vehicles. If you classify that as tram, then pretty much all the French and USA light rail systems would also be tram/streetcar. Liamdavies (talk) 08:44, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Liam, nah - if the street-running isn't shared with cars, then it's not "tram" - San Diego's Trolley has a section like that: in the road, but in exclusive lanes not shared with cars. It just wasn't clear from the Sydney reference whether the street-running was in shared traffic or not. --IJBall (talk) 14:05, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * No problems, I didn't think that's what you meant, but thought I'd clarify. I think the line between lightrail and tram is so blurred it's often hard to distinguish. In Australia we have a slightly more rigid usage (traditionally speaking, light rail is all the rage now ), for example the Melbourne light rails are both former railway lines, but the dedicated median running with in a wide plantation is still considered tram. I find the situation in New Orleans to be a case in point, if built pretty much how it is but now, I have little doubt it would be considered light rail, but as it's a legacy system it's streetcar.
 * I'm still looking for a cite for Adelaide, but it's proving rather elusive, the closest I can do is find old stats pre-expansion, and add the two extensions to that, but am unsure how close to WP:SYNTH that is. I've measured it with Google Earth, and 15km is right, so I think we can leave it for the time being, but we are going to need a cite sooner than later. Any particular area of research you'd like me to undertake? I'm off uni until the start of next year so have some time free. Liamdavies (talk) 14:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Good question! I was working on references for the European tram systems most recently, but got bogged down in the German systems (which I still have to straighten out...) when I sort of suspended that project while I got busy at work. So if you want to try to dig up references for any of the European systems (esp. those below Germany), that would be greatly appreciated!!
 * On my end, I need to dig up a reference on 'Premetros' for someone else on Wiki, so if you happen to run across something good on that topic, please let me know! ;)  --IJBall (talk) 14:56, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Rapid transit ridership list-USA
This has been discussed a couple times before, but I thought I'd bring it up again, since there never seems to be any change. The lack of light rail on the List of United States rapid transit systems by ridership page is confusing. For cities like Boston, Philadelphia and LA, by excluding the light rail figures, we're not showing the system's proper ridership. They work together in a united rapid transit system. We know not all light rail is the same, but light rail tied to a heavy rail system, and independent light rail systems with exclusive right-of-way, should be included IMO. Aside from the locomotive used, these function the same as heavy rail. I know your preference is to keep these out entirely, but either we move your list to "List of United States heavy rail systems by ridership" or we keep the page name and add in light rail systems. As it currently stands, we're not presenting the information properly.--Comayagua99 (talk) 05:44, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * A couple of points. The first is that the information for the "combined" ridership figures can be made available - the best place to do it is at each of the systems' Wiki pages (i.e. the combined 'heavy rail' and 'light rail' ridership for Boston, L.A., etc. can (and should) be presented at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Metro Rail (Los Angeles County) pages, etc.). Second, I'm not totally adverse to including the combined figures even at the Rapid Transit Ridership pages, but if we're going to do that the best way would be as a 'Note' (i.e. with a "ref group=note" code) to the Rapid transit ridership figure - that way the table is "pure" in using the "heavy rail" ridership figures (which is how the figures are actually presented by APTA, and how the pages are categorized via the page's title) as intended, but the information that you might want to get out there is still included (just in the form of a 'Note'). --IJBall (talk) 06:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Would it be a good/acceptable idea to put another column in the table that contains either a total PT or total RT figure? This would keep the list 'pure' while giving the wider context of the PT network that a system operates in. Liamdavies (talk) 13:33, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd oppose adding another column (pretty much all of the Ridership page tables are already over-"squished" with info as it is...). And the pages are very clear what info they're presenting (e.g. 'rapid transit' vs. 'light rail' riderships). Another solution might be a new Ridership table page (for "Total rail transit ridership"?...), but then the issue becomes do you include commuter rail figures too, or not, and if not, what would the title of such a page be?...
 * The fact is, there are just a few heavy rail-light rail 'mixed' systems like this, and I'm of the opinion that we should mostly leave the existing Ridership pages as they are now, rather than try and cater to the few exceptional systems that are out there... --IJBall (talk) 16:59, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That makes sense, your original suggestion of a note would probably be the cleanest option then. Liamdavies (talk) 17:53, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not just about systems that combine heavy rail and light rail, but also the systems that are light rail (those with exclusive right-of-way) that function the same as heavy rail. This is a list of rapid transit systems, not just heavy rail, therefore, they should be included. If we want to keep a list that is purely heavy rail, then I believe we should change the title to "heavy rail". Rapid transit includes the above mentioned light rail systems, and currently, our list does not, which is where I believe we're not properly presenting the information.--Comayagua99 (talk) 20:32, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Best to make that case over at the List of United States rapid transit systems by ridership Talk page, then. FTR, I'll oppose including Light rail systems over there, but I'll be much more supportive of a potential name change (to clarify the page's true focus), provided consensus can be reached on the Talk page for a better title for that page... --IJBall (talk) 21:08, 10 December 2013 (UTC)