Talk:L (New York City Subway service)

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[edit] "Trivia" box

I don't like having that floating box of trivia information hanging around; it interferes with the formatting and layout of the page. All its information could easily be integrated into the article itself. Larry V (talk | e-mail) 23:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the box on the right displaying the info? Yea, I agree, and if is changed, should the pages on other NYC subway lines have that type of info as well? Herenthere (Talk) 23:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Merge

Should this article be merged here? Angrymansr (talk) 19:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I have long believed that these two articles should be merged. I may have even brought it up a long time ago, but I was pretty loudly shot down, so the subject was dropped. By the same logic, IRT Flushing Line and 7 (New York City Subway service) should also be merged. Marc Shepherd (talk) 21:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why not. The L uses this line alone, so for the most part, it is a singular entity. Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 01:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think they should be merged, because every other line in the system (except Flushing and shuttles) has multiple services. There is nothing stopping the MTA from creating an 8 service for the Flushing line or a K service for the Canarsie line. If that were to happen, then they would have to be unmerged again. Acps110 (talk) 19:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
That argument goes away if BMT Canarsie Line and BMT Canarsie Line are the surviving articles (as I believe they should be). They would be analogous to Franklin Avenue Shuttle and 42nd Street Shuttle, the other cases in the subway system where the line and the service are one and the same. 'L' and '7' are just labels, and the situation wouldn't change if they were re-labeled 'K' and '8'.
The argument for merger is even more compelling with 7/Flushing line, because no other service that makes sense is physically possible. The Canarsie Line does have a dormant connection to the Jamaica line, but it hasn't been used in revenue service for 40 years, and no such service is likely in the foreseeable future. Marc Shepherd (talk) 20:28, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
There hasn't been any other train on there since 1968, what makes us think they will be adding one any time soon? 50 years from now when the L is still the only train on the line, are we going to have this same discussion? I don't see the added value in having to go to another page to read about the only train running on this line. Not merging because we might have to re-merge at some point in the unknown future just sounds like lazy editing. Angrymansr (talk) 16:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
No, the articles should not be merged. The system has lines and the system has services. We are looking for an exception here based on a point in time. The L service is currently the only service on the Canarsie Line; this may change in the future based on a number of scenarios. More to the point, in the past we actually have two lines involved in the Canarsie service, the Canarsie Line and the 14th Street-Eastern Line. The former has had services from Canal Street, from 14th Street in Manhattan and from 6th Avenue Manhattan as exceptions. Only one of these services has ever been the L. The 14th Street Line has had service to Atlantic Avenue, to Canarsie and to Liberty Avenue. We can use our efforts for better purpose than to scrounge for useless mergers. -- Cecropia (talk) 04:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah instead of looking for ways to improve wikipedia, let's demean peoples efforts instead. Good Job! Angrymansr (talk) 15:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I gave my reasons why these should remain separate. I apologize for the implied insult to any one particular person, but we have had numerous proposals which amount to creating exceptions to general styles of presentation for the dubious advantage of merging articles that have a reasonable rationale for being separate. -- Cecropia (talk) 21:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
On a substantive issue, please also consider that Wikipedia is used for historical research. Merging articles with different perspectives of time creates unnecessary confusion when you merge an article with an encyclopedic approach (what is the history) with one where an almanac approach (what is the status now) is more significant. -- Cecropia (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I wholly agree with Cecropia on this. For the former discussion, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/Archive 2#Various duplications. Larry V (talk | e-mail) 07:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Right, Larry V and Cecropia. We do not merge lines with services. They are not the same thing.The Legendary Ranger (talk) 14:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the talk page cited, the only two against there, are 2 of the 3 here who are against here. So how was it decided exactly? Seems more pride of ownership than concensus. Maybe we need a wider (unbiased) audience to look a little deeper at this. Angrymansr (talk) 18:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Acknowledging that the consistent style has been to separate lines and services in NYC's complex system, please explain the compelling advantage to the encyclopedia and to a researcher or visitor of merging this particular article. What is the gain of breaking the separation observed everywhere else? -- Cecropia (talk) 19:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Pride of ownership has nothing to do with it. In the previous discussion, no real suggestion was made for action; a mere observation was made. In any case, consensus is not required to maintain the status quo; it is needed to make changes. If someone suggests a major change, he doesn't get carte blanche to do as he pleases, while others come to an agreement to stop him. Larry V (talk | e-mail) 00:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a merge. When the service and the line are identical, there's not necessarily a reason to split (and duplicate) the information; an analogous situation with highways is Interstate 495 and the Long Island Expressway. On the other hand, the L and Canarsie Line do have different histories, but even then they are pretty closely linked. --NE2 20:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The line and the service are two different entities, and should be kept that way. Merging may make matters worse, and the line and the service don't have the same things contrary to popular belief. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs) 22:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)