Talk:San Francisco Municipal Railway

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the San Francisco Municipal Railway article.
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Good article San Francisco Municipal Railway was a nominee for good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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[edit] Failed "good article" nomination

Per the quick-fail criteria of the GA process, any article that contains cleanup banners (such as those in the intro and History sections) must be failed immediately, and does not require an in-depth review. Please remedy any issues brought up by such banners, and remove them before choosing to renominate. You may also wish to read in detail about what is a Good Article, in order to assess the article's readiness for renomination. If you feel this decision was in error, you may seek a reassessment. Thank you for your work so far, VanTucky talk 21:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, now that the article has been scrubbed, does anyone have a say in re-nominating this article for Good Article? —BoL 04:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Answered in below thread. —Kurykh 04:03, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article status

Right now, I think the article is pretty good. The only major edits needed is the expansion of the History section to include the history of Muni between World War II (when Muni acquired the Market Street Railway) and the 1970s (construction of the Muni Metro). After that, I think most of the concerns would be stylistic issues and copyediting. —Kurykh 04:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

So we going to nom this for a good article? —BoL 04:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Sure. If it passes, good. If it fails, then try peer review. —Kurykh 04:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
They call that something else on Uncyclopedia...and I think we need to archive this talk page. Any thoughts? —BoL 04:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Sweet. —BoL 04:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
It still has cleanup banners tho.Blarf (talk) 20:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Where? —Kurykh 23:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
History section. Blarf (talk) 23:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
That's not a cleanup banner. —Kurykh 23:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vehicle & Stats sections

IMO the fleet info of the stats section should be removed and the vehicle section brought back. The stats section seems more like it should simply contain route info and "trivia", as about half of that falls outside the scope of the fleet article. Thoughts? Blarf (talk) 21:58, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

No, information about the vehicle fleet counts as a statistic. But I did change the template from a "main article" one to a "see also" one and added the Muni line article to it. Thoughts? —Kurykh 22:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Good enough. —BoL 06:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
The issue that I see is that there are stats all over the article, and the stats in the "stats" section fall into two distinct categories.Blarf (talk) 20:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Which one, foamer and non-general-interest? Because I was thinking of removing them on New Years day. —BoL 22:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Sure. Sorta. There's enough general info about the fleet to appeal/inform the general population, IMO. Thus, random route stats belong in a section of their own, and a brief summary of the fleet article should be in its own section. Blarf (talk) 23:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
They already do... —BoL 21:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some thoughts for improving the article

While the article is certainly comprehensive, here are two thoughts.

First, a persistent reaction I have is an "non-encyclopedic tone." Without trolling through a lot of WP policies and guidelines, too much of the article reads like a travel brochure or advice to tourists, rather than an encyclopedia. Here are some examples:

"if one asks a driver for directions to the trolley when one really wants a cable car, one may receive the wrong directions."
Non-encyclopedic tone. Suggestion- simply delete, it's duplicative of the preceding sentence.
"One could reasonably argue that the cable cars are also a 'heritage railway.'"
Non-encyclopedic tone and original research. Suggestion: delete unless you have a reliable published source making this argument, in which case, quote and cite the source.
"Note that these routes are not standard express routes ..."
Non-encyclopedic tone. Suggestion: How about simply, "These are not standard express routes ..."
"Two interesting intersections of note:"
Non-encyclopedic tone. Suggestion: delete.

That's the idea. Any place that sounds like a personal comment, observation or aside from the writer to the reader I suggest be deleted or edited. You might want to look around WP's policies and guidelines on style for more suggestions.

Second, there is too much detail for an encyclopedia reader here - too much of the detail sounds like it's addressed to a local user of the system. A rule of thumb I've heard used is "What would a reader in Berlin or Bangkok be interested in knowing about this topic." For example, the whole "Special service" section could be condensed significantly.

If I were reviewing the article for GA status, I would hold or fail the article until these issues were addressed - however, rather than have another "failed" banner on this page, I making these suggestions here! There's a lot of good work that has been put into this article, but these two issues really should be taken up before GA status could be awarded. NorCalHistory (talk) 15:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

That's actually true, it's like if Muni wrote the spam page themselves, and they are under a lot of controversy right now. But, yeah, i'll get to removing them eventually. —BoL 02:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA failed

This article has a long way to go, I'm afraid.

  • Lead needs to be expanded
  • Title - Articles should be known by their common names. You use one name for the article title, and refer to it by another "common name" in the main body. Please fix this.
  • Please prosify the list in the first section
  • Overview section. The overview is traditionally the lead. Also the overview is unsourced.
  • Logo needs spefici FU rationale
  • Logo, routenames, name section needs references otherwise it will appear like OR.
  • Sourcing problems abound throughout the article

Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)