Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/Archive 8

Deletion discussion
Articles for deletion/Shepherd Avenue (IND Fulton Street Line) --NE2 02:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Now that the AfD discussion has ended with Keep, I thought I would add some observations. Most AfD nominations fall into two categories. Either the material doesn't belong on Wikipedia at all. Or the article is a content-fork, and the material can very easily be merged into an existing article.

This one was a little different. I agree that Shepherd Avenue article on its own' is barely notable, and conveys very little information beyond its infobox. If I were starting the NYCS project from scratch, I might very well support NE2's suggestion to put all of each line's non-notable local stations into a single article, say, IND Fulton Street Line stations. I haven't really worked out how that would work—which station articles would remain separate, how everything would be linked together. But it's not an unreasonable suggestion, at least in theory.

But we are not starting from scratch. Such a substantial re-organization of the existing content would be highly disruptive. And in the end, we wouldn't have any new content. We would just have a new way of organizing the content we already had. I think we could all learn from the legal concept of "stare decisis" — to stand by things previously decided.

I have also observed that major re-organizations are often not carried through consistently. For instance, an earlier group of editors used the term IRT Eastern Parkway Line for the entire span from Borough Hall to New Lots Avenue. Later on, another group of editors decided to split off the elevated portion of the line into the IRT New Lots Line. But when I returned to Wikipedia after a long absence, I was easily able to find articles that referred to the Eastern Parkway Line in the earlier sense.

There was a similar re-organization of the Culver Line — in this case, merging what had been separate articles (BMT Culver Line and IND Culver Line) into one. But here again, there are many articles that referred to one or the other Culver Line (not to mention the Culver Shuttle) according to their earlier meanings. These articles weren't thoroughly checked and updated.

The purpose of this post is not to re-visit those two decisions, but merely to illustrate that these reorganizations are indeed disruptive. We should be hesitant about proposing significant reorganizations of the material. And those who do so should be willing to carry them out thoroughly. Marc Shepherd 16:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for Template Fix
The template NYCS time 2 is not displaying correctly for some "diamond" services. See Junction Boulevard (IRT Flushing Line) for an example (look in the Infobox). I am not sure what the editor of that template was trying to do. Rather than muck with it myself, I'm hoping either NE2 or Tinlinkin can have a look at it. Marc Shepherd 15:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * There's no bullet for the diamond train service, not only for the <7>, but station articles with the <7> and the <6>. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 23:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe I've fixed it. --NE2 04:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * But why is the diamond bullet not showing for the stations in the infobox as Marc described above? —User: (talk • contribs • email) 17:27, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * As far as I can tell, it is now functioning correctly. Marc Shepherd 17:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think the MTA shows it on signs or even on the map where it's identical (see the Lexington Avenue Line). --NE2 21:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That doesn't mean that the diamond trains don't stop there, regardless where it is shown. If the train says it is a diamond service, then it should be in the infobox. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 22:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Why? If you were looking for the diamond 6, would you skip City Hall-Brooklyn Bridge because the maps and signs don't place any diamond 6 signs there? I would hope not. --NE2 06:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * What about local stations on 7th and Lex, where 2 and 4 trains stop there at late nights? They don't show them there. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 19:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * In looking at photos, I've found that the MTA is inconsistent about this (surprise). I remember some of the Eastern Parkway Line local station entrances showing a service that's late night only. --NE2 21:12, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Grand Army Plaza - the 4 train. Ah...I don't really care. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 22:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I noticed the problem that Marc described before, but my knowledge of the inner workings of NYCS time 2 was limited to the bullets functionality. NE2 fixed the problem of the express service details.


 * But Imdanumber1 describes a different issue. I asked some time ago whether late night bullets (services that stop at stations only at night) should be shown in station articles. I said probably not, but I don't think I got a response. I don't think diamond bullets are necessary, either, but I may be persuaded otherwise. So, should the bullets in station articles reflect what is shown on the subway map? And are there any other issues with bullets in stations? TLK'in 08:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't check everywhere, but I think the Infoboxes correctly show where a service stops only at night. Examples are Rector Street (BMT Broadway Line), which shows the N, and 33rd Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), which shows the 4.


 * I have no idea why the MTA dropped the diamond for some rush-hour variants, while retaining it for others. It doesn't make much sense to me. The only two diamond services remaining are the <6> and <7>. To be absolutely consistent, 6 and 7 in a diamond should appear at the top of the Infoboxes for the stations visited by those services, but fixing it isn't high on my priority list. Marc Shepherd 12:52, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

One issue with removing night-only services is the resulting increase in code complexity. However, we could probably do it with a "night" parameter, that tells it not to show in certain cases, and also apply this to the obscure rush-hour services like the New Lots extensions. However, before doing this, we'd need to define exactly what to not show, somewhere between nights or "obscure" rush hours only and off-peak (G on Queens Boulevard, which we probably would want). --NE2 14:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * My sense is that night-only services are sufficiently important to show. After all, the night hours are something like 25 to 33% of the schedule. The G on Queens Boulevard is scheduled to run even more often than that (evenings, late nights, and all weekend long); I realize that, due to construction, it seldom does so these days.


 * From the beginning, I've always thought that the "obscure" services (2 & 5 to New Lots, E to 179th) shouldn't be shown, as they amount to no more then 3 or 4 trains per rush hour, aren't shown on the main part of the Map, and aren't frequent enough that any rider would depend on them. Marc Shepherd 15:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If the night or special (very few trips) services should remain to be shown, I'd suggest they should be enclosed in parentheses, as with the following for a local 4th Avenue Line station:




 * Again, it would require coding work to accomplish this. And I don't anticipate to work on this until towards the end of this month. TLK'in 11:14, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I have added diamond bullets to the station articles, and I didn't see any problems. My coding relies on whether parameter "dicon" is called in NYCS time 2. TLK'in 11:32, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good...thanks! Marc Shepherd 13:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Help for congestion pricing
I apologize if this is not strictly about public transportation, but I suppose some folks here would have some knowledge about this subject, and it is a timely subject as well. I recently created New York congestion pricing, and I would like some help in expanding and updating it. Since this is the public transportation domain, the least I hope for is if anybody can add info on how the regional transit systems play into the congestion pricing issue. Thanks. TLK'in 13:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't really see any more to be added at this point. Obviously, there will be more to say after the next legislative session. Marc Shepherd 15:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Rollsign template, continued
This is a continuation from a past discussion, now in the archives. As I stated before, I believe that the best solution to replace the letters in the squares that states the services in a circle is to make images of the bullets in a circle. A user made some images of the 1967-1979 bullets (example), but they are in PNG format. I'd be willing to create them in SVG format using Inkscape. I found images of the 1967-1979 bullets here, and the 1979-present bullets are located here.

Another idea I have is to put the images of the bullets in a gallery underneath the history section. I will see what I can do with the train article by fixing up the history section and images. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 23:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * (Previous discussion: /Archive 7#Rollsign template) But still, what would be the value of those bullets? There are other ways to illustrate the same thing, and be more descriptive, informative, and valuable at the same time. Former logos/icons may be nice to look at, but they must have encyclopedic value. I have seen former logos of TV stations deleted because they were mostly decorative to the articles and were also under fair use.


 * I think at least one subway map from the 1967-1979 period included bullets in its cover. A fair-use image of that would be a better illustration of the bullets. Also, if you are able to find photographs (with permission) that illustrate the bullets, on trains or signage, that's also of better value than the bullets. So I'd say, make the illustrations at your own initiative, but there are better ways to showcase those bullets. (And as much as I'd like to help, don't ask me to find these photos. I've never uploaded images to Wikipedia, and also good illustrative images are sometimes hard to find.) The same analogy would go for the rollsigns (text on black background). TLK'in 07:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * In my view, the "reconstructed" bullets should all be deleted (whether they say "in a circle" or not). None of them are of encyclopedic value. I would only include actual historical images, and then, only when relevant and not overdone. I don't think you need to have 5 or 6 of them in one article, as is now the case in some places. Marc Shepherd 12:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The table at New York City Subway nomenclature is probably good for showing which colors they used, but I agree about the ones in service articles. --NE2 16:00, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I will still see what I can do to revamp the articles. Numerous problems need to be fixed – proseline, pictures and references – which can be handled. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 22:09, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I did what I could. See User:Imdanumber1/Sandbox. I added sub sections and added a gallery to put irrelevant images in. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 23:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Your version is a significant improvement. As far as the prose goes, my only critique is that the paragraph on the post-9/11 service changes is too long, in relation to the rest of the content. There is still one "synthetic" service bullet, which I would get rid of, but the proposed revision does look a lot better than the current version of the article.


 * If you're keen on fixing the "service bullet" problem, I would focus on just that, and get it done. Revising the prose timelines is a very big job across all of the services, while cleaning up the service bullets can be done relatively quickly. Marc Shepherd 13:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * More stuff to be done is to replace the numerical time code (e.g. (12345)) with the service icon code . But you're right, let's solve the icon trouble first. Then I'd love to proceed on other tasks. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 18:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Metro-North Fare Zones
Does anybody have a list or map of fare zones for all the Metro-North lines? A lot of them are missing from the infoboxes, and I can't find them on the MTA's website. DanTD 17:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Here you go! Pacific Coast Highway { talk • contribs } 22:23, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, PCH. DanTD 00:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem. [[Image:Face-grin.svg|25px]] Pacific Coast Highway { talk • contribs } 02:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Reconstructed 1 train article
I have finished up revamping info on the 1 train article, which can be seen at User:Imdanumber1/Sandbox. If no objections are made to the new construction by tomorrow, I will copy the data to the main article. I hope it will pass GA status. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 22:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added the revamped content. It looks better than the previous version as I solved all problems at once to prevent clogging up the edit history with useless edits, as it already has. —User: (talk • contribs • email) 21:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)