Wikipedia:Peer review/Eurostar/archive1

Eurostar

 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2009.
 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.

I have chosen to list this article for Peer Review. This is due to significant improvements that have been made in recent months, but direction is now lacking, and thus ways to improve. Originally referencing was considered an issue, but obviously references are no longer the constraint keeping things down, having been effectively dealt with. But more must be done, new ideas and improvements voiced so they can be enacted. I'll do what I can to make this a strong page, and continue to make it stronger, however I need input on how to do so, or at least people's thoughts on the stage of the article. Anybody care to chip in on how to furthern this page?Kyteto (talk) 21:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: I'm short on editing time for the next few days, and I'll have to review this in stages. For starters, here are some suggestions about the images.

Images
 * MOS:IMAGES says in part, "Images should be inside the section they belong to (after the heading and after any links to other articles), and not above the heading." The existing article probably has more images than the text can accommodate without violating this guideline. Many images in the existing layout overlap sections.


 * The same set of guidelines also says, "Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other." The image and the map in the "Frequency" section create a text sandwich, and the bumping of the table and the last image in the "Current fleet" section bump against one another to create a kind of no-text zone.


 * The same guidelines also say, "Do not place left-aligned images directly below a subsection-level heading (=== or lower), as this sometimes disconnects the heading from the text that follows it. This can often be avoided by shifting left-aligned images down a paragraph or two." Quite a few images such as the one to the left of "Fleet updates" violate this guideline.


 * The guidelines say, "It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text." This applies to other directional images such as trains traveling into or out of the page. For this reason, an image like IMAGE:ICE 3 Oberhaider-Wald-Tunnel.jpg is usually placed on the right, whereas IMAGE:LGV Interconnexion Est - Chennevières-lès-Louvres - 4.jpg would go on the left. Finetooth (talk) 15:53, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

More Finetooth comments: This is most interesting and informative. In addition to my concerns about the layout, I have a few suggestions about issues related to prose and to the Manual of Style.


 * In the infobox, the "Franchising" text says, "Not subject to franchising European Union states joint operation". To an outsider, this doesn't quite make sense. Does it mean "not subject to franchising because it is a European Union states joint operation"? Would it be more clear simply to say, "not subject to franchising"?

Lead
 * A sentence begins, "The service is operated by the commonly synonymous eighteen-carriage Class 373 trains... ". I'm not sure what "commonly synonymous" means.

General
 * WP:MOSQUOTE says in part, "A long quote (more than four lines, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of number of lines) is formatted as a block quotation, which Wikimedia's software will indent from both margins." The quotation in "Awards and accolades" is too short for a block quote and should be embedded in the text with normal quotation marks. The longer quote in "New destinations" should be a blockquote".


 * WP:MOS says in part, "Do not use lists if a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs." For this reason, I'd suggest turning all of the bulleted lists in the article into straight prose.

Conception and planning
 * Shouldn't "cross-Channel" be "cross-channel"? It would be capitalised in English Channel, I agree, but why in cross-channel? Ditto for Tunnel (tunnel) when it stands alone rather than as part of the formal name, Channel Tunnel.
 * "Ideas for such a tunnel underneath the English Channel had been first mooted as early as 1802... " - "suggested" rather than "mooted"?
 * "with the first serious attempt in 1881, which was abandoned due to a hostile press seeing the tunnel as compromising Britain's natural defences". "With" isn't a very good connector here. I'd suggest making a separate sentence out of this: "The first serious push to dig a tunnel was abandoned in 1881 because a hostile press believed the project would compromise Britain's natural defences."
 * "Having been operating high-speed TGV services since 1981, and with construction of a new high-speed line between Paris and the Channel Tunnel, LGV Nord, under way, TGV technology was chosen as the base for the trains." - Logic? I think this sentence means something like "High-speed TGV services had been in operation since 1981. Since construction of a new high-speed line, LGV Nord, was under way between Paris and the Channel Tunnel, the project group chose TGV technology as the base for the trains." I'd suggest a copyedit to look for and repair sentences like this one.

Regional Eurostar and Nightstar
 * '"Seven shorter NoL Eurostar trains for these Regional Eurostar services were built, but with predicted journey times of almost nine hours for Glasgow to Paris, the growth of low-cost air travel during the 1990s made the plans commercially unviable; although both government policy and the privatisation of British Rail has been suggested as reasons for the failure as well." - A copyedit would probably catch and fix run-on sentences like this one.

Accidents and incidents
 * Wikilink bogie?

''Minor incidents"
 * " In October 1994 there were teething problems relating to the start of operations." - "Teething problems"?

Although this is not a complete line-by-line review, I hope these few suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 22:19, 22 July 2009 (UTC)