Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Staten Island Railway/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 07:23, 20 May 2018.

Staten Island Railway

 * Nominator(s): Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 00:07, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

This article is about the only rapid transit line on Staten Island. The railway first opened in 1860 to serve the residents of the island. In the 1880s two additional lines were built and the original line was extended to a new terminal at St. George. Since then the two additional branches closed, leaving the original line. Before I started editing the page–unbeknownst to me–it was completely copied out of a book by an abusive user. I did research in the New York Times archives, through books that I own, and through books and documents that could be viewed on Hathitrust or Google Books. I nominated the article to be a Good Article, and it passed. The review was not thorough enough, and statements were copyrighted. I fixed the issues and it was kept as a good article. Because the history section became so long, it got split off into a separate article, History of the Staten Island Railway. Since then I have worked on providing better sources, more accurate information, and additional information. I look forward to hearing everyone's comments in my first Featured Article nomination. Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 00:07, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello, and welcome to FAC. Unfortunately at the moment I feel I have to oppose this nomination, as it has significant issues with referencing. I'm noticing quite a number of self-published sources in the reference list, including some Google Docs links that no longer exist. Referencing format is also generally quite inconsistent. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:44, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * First of all, the Google Docs links do work. This is work conducted by years of research by the foremost Staten Island Railway historian. I don't consider this to be a "SPS." What other SPSs are you referring to? I took time to remove some. Also, I don't know what inconsistencies you are referring to.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 09:59, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've just clicked on the link in FN12, and the page I arrive at states "Sorry, the file you have requested does not exist. Make sure that you have the correct URL and the file exists." Do you have any sources to support that these links meet the requirements outlined at WP:SPS? What about eg. "Gary Owen Land"? Nycsubway.org? As to formatting, similar sources should look similar - compare for example FNs 22 and 108, 102 and 114, 95 and 103, etc. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:42, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I removed the article links for the SPSs and standardized the other sources. I will get back to you on Ed Bommer's work.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 21:39, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Per WP:SPS, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."

The acknowledgement in this book, which is cited in the article, shows that Ed Bommer, who wrote the sources, is an expert in the field. While he has no published a book himself, his research has been used in books. I hope this is sufficient as an explanation. Once again, thank you for your willingness to comment on my nomination.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 21:47, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * What do you think of my response?--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 22:51, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Personally I am not convinced, but I am open to seeing what other reviewers may think. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:46, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've opened a discussion at Talk:Staten Island Railway to address this collateral matter. Mackensen (talk) 01:46, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This nycsubway.org article seems to be a republication of a 1925 article from a railway journal. epicgenius (talk) 16:15, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I found the journal link and substituted it.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 21:39, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Coord note -- I'm afraid this nom has stalled so I'll be archiving it shortly. Aside from highlighting the instruction that nominators whose FAC has been archived must wait a minimum of two weeks before re-nominating the same or any other article, I'd ask that the sourcing be reconsidered per Nikki's comments, and also suggest that you consider the FAC mentoring scheme. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:22, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 07:23, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.