Talk:Fox Chase Rapid Transit Line

Essay-like clean-up needed

I've tagged with article with {{essay-like}} because I feel that it reads like an essay rather than an encyclopedia article. The sections are divided up like chapters in a book rather than appropriate sections for an encyclopedia. There are also some slight NPOV issues (not as bad as SEPTA Regional Rail), which I didn't feel the need to tag, but still needs to be fixed. The "history" section is one of the shortest sections, when basically the history-related information is located throughout the entire article in all sections. There's tons of history info, but it's lacking information such as a brief description of the rail line or a list of stations. This should have its own section and not be spread throughout the prose. Basically, there is a lot of clean up necessary that I will be working on and other editors should feel free to help out. I think this article can get to GA-status with a little bit of work. –Dream out loud (talk) 03:46, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I restored the article to its state before the edits were made. It needs some cleanup but your final edits were extreme and made it look choppy and uneven.

"I've tagged with article with {{essay-like}} because I feel that it reads like an essay rather than an encyclopedia article." Agreed. It needs some cleaning. Your edits were too excessive.

"The sections are divided up like chapters in a book rather than appropriate sections for an encyclopedia." Simple fix. Sections will be renamed but not removed.

"There are also some slight NPOV issues (not as bad as SEPTA Regional Rail), which I didn't feel the need to tag, but still needs to be fixed." Agreed. Clean up is needed.

"The "history" section is one of the shortest sections, when basically the history-related information is located throughout the entire article in all sections. There's tons of history info, but it's lacking information such as a brief description of the rail line or a list of stations. This should have its own section and not be spread throughout the prose." I understand your point, but the goal of this article's is to explain why SEPTA chose to run this line like a rapid transit operation.

It might behove you to reach out to Oknezvad and myself before making excessive edits. We both possess extensive knowledge on SEPTA's operations and some of the agency's absurdities. Though your edits mean well and will improve the article, please discuss first. The article after your edits looked tattered and very poorly written. This does not mean your writing skills are poor but rather the edits robbed it of its purpose.Oanabay04 (talk) 18:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The article is trash and other words that violate WP:CIVILity. Almost every single R8 Newtown article is trash. (Walnut Hill is by far the worst, then Huntingdon Valley.) Dream out loud is not the only user who has had a problem with this for a long time. The article needs an axing. I question the copyright status of many of these photos spread out the R8 articles. The articles are very lopsided to restoration of service, block quotes are out of hand (especially in Walnut Hill). I wouldn't call yourself an expert, because an expert doesn't produce this. I would prefer if a new person ripped the article apart and did the job himself. Dream out loud's edits were perfectly fair.Mitch32^{(Can someone turn on the damn air conditioning?)} 18:30, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

First of all, the goal of this article is NOT "to explain why SEPTA chose to run this line like a rapid transit operation". Maybe that was your goal, Oanabay04, but that doesn't qualify as an encyclopedia article. There's a big difference between an essay and an encyclopedia article. Essays "state your particular feelings about a topic" (WP:NOTESSAY) and you're not supposed to write an article with a "thesis" in mind. An encyclopedia article (among many things) "[a]cknowledges and explores all aspects of the subject" (WP:TPA). Writing an article about a topic and focusing on one particular aspect of it is an essay because you are not of describing the topic and giving an overview of it. The easiest way to put this would be to ask yourself, if an ordinary user who had never heard of the "Fox Chase Rapid Transit Line" read this article, would it provide enough background for them to understand what it is? Probably not. Your "goal" for this article would be like if you were to write an article about a movie and only talk about why it failed at the box office, without mentioning things like what the movie is about or who starred in it. Secondly, with all that aside, a lot of the language in there (and MANY other SEPTA-related articles) contains non-NPOV text and/or weasel words. For example, look at the difference between these two sentences:

• In a surprise move, SEPTA also terminated its contract with Conrail...
• SEPTA also terminated its contract with Conrail...

The context is the same and the meaning does not change. Who says that the move was a "surprise"? That's would be using weasel words. Did SEPTA say "we surprised Conrail by ending their contracts" or is it just a "surprise" in your opinion? Maybe another user wouldn't find that surprising. By using that language, you're almost telling the reader what to think, which is not adhering to NPOV. Now here's another example:

• SEPTA quickly added lights and crossing gates after the accident.
• SEPTA added lights and crossing gates four days after the accident.

While this may not necessarily be an NPOV-violation, it sure does use weasel words. Any user reading this will be asking themselves, how "quickly" did they add the lights and crossing gates? Was it a month later? A week? Two days? A couple hours? A few minutes? Readers should not have to guess at what the content means. If you don't know, then just remove the adjective to let readers know that lights and gates were (at some point) later installed. I could go on here all day, but hopefully you get my point. I don't want to sit here and make the point that your reverts were vandalism. But the tags do need to be replaced if the issues aren't going to be dealt with right away. The reason I tagged the article in the first place was to bring issues like that to the attention of editors so they could be taken care of. These aren't just my personal opinions. These are official guidelines and policies. –Dream out loud (talk) 21:37, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree. When I started the articles for the former R8 stations, they were stubs about closed railroad stations. Now, they're diabtribes about the Pennypack Trail, the people who live by the trail, and the state of SEPTA generally, all of which violates WP:COATRACK, WP:NPOV, and WP:SPS, among others. This Augean stable needs to be cleansed. --Coemgenus (talk) 21:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I've sat aside for a while now and watched these articles become metaphorical trash dumpsters. And when I go to the trouble of taking the metaphorical bulldozer: fixing things and making less than desirable edit summaries, I'm getting treated like a second-class citizen. As an admin, I can tell there are problems with all of these articles and the numerous violations of MOS, fair use rationale issues (most of which have been fixed). It's easy as someone experienced enough to read how lopsided these articles are, as Dream out loud pointed out. I love writing about closed stations and restoration of service, and whenever I write Hampton (NJT station), I definitely don't ever plan on lopsiding the article to just NJ Transit's $155 million price tag for restoration. None of these articles barely give a consideration of the predecessor railroads and are all about how SEPTA has failed at running the R8 normally for the last 28 years. I feel however, berating me over two edit summaries that are less than desirable and dealing with the matter at hand does not help me. These articles suck, simple as that. Someone needed to do something, and I broke the metaphorical ice.Mitch32^{(Can someone turn on the damn air conditioning?)} 22:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad to see there are other editors who are seeing these articles the way I do (although calling them "trash dumpsters" might be a little extreme). Philadelphia area transport-related articles are subpar in general. For those that aren't filled with weasel words or NPOV issues, they're filled with original research and/or are completely unreferenced (among other issues). I honestly don't know of one single Philadelphia area transport-related article that is well-written or even meets B-class criteria. It's really unacceptable, I mean even the German Wikipedia has their 30th Street Station article at FA-class! I'll admit I'm partially to blame. I did a lot of uncited and original research edits years ago, but that was back when I didn't know any better and people didn't make such a big deal about citing information. But since then, I've removed a lot of my original research, and gone back and properly cited information I once added, such as Susquehanna–Dauphin (SEPTA station), probably one of the best Philly area transport-related articles there are (which isn't saying much at all).

I think the big picture here is the real issue, and this discussion should probably be moved from this talk page to somewhere where it can get more feedback. Not until I recently started tagging articles and doing cleanups did any of this get attention. It's long overdue. I don't exactly know the reason really. Maybe there should be a taskforce created to help out or maybe even a whole WikiProject. Other cities have their own transport-related WikiProjects, so why not Philly? As for now, I think we should have a goal to have at least one single Philly transport article reach GA-class, which can help bring awareness to the subject matter at hand and also be used as a guide to show others an good example of what an article should be. –Dream out loud (talk) 23:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Coming from the fact that I've worked my ass off in research for NJ Transit (resulting in about six GAs (the only NYCPT ones) and several Bs and Cs), it is easily possible to turn something into a good model. There are two articles in particular I've been eyeing to work on myself, Cheltenham (SEPTA station) and West Trenton (SEPTA station). Marcus Hook is also a consideration. All we need is collaboration.Mitch32^{(Can someone turn on the damn air conditioning?)} 00:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Doing some minor research (enough to get some clear info), I do support Cheltenham (SEPTA station) being the collaboration target. The 1993 station burning was arson, but at the same time, according to the Philly Inquirer, they wanted to demolish the 1893 station anyway and replace it with a trailer.Mitch32^{(Can someone turn on the damn air conditioning?)} 07:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Dream out loud (talk) I have been re-reading your rational argument, particularly the essay vs encylopedia take as well as the use of weasel words and realize I'm also partially to blame for some of the original research edits and non-NPOV text inclusions. These do need to be cleaned up. However, I also believe that some of the edits made are extreme and done more as an overreaction to an article that needs some work vs. one that just needs some excess fat trimmed (again, which I am guilty of). Mitch32^{(Can someone turn on the damn air conditioning?)}, if you cannot understand why "I'm getting treated like a second-class citizen", you need only to read such comments as "The article is trash and other words that violate WP:CIVILity" and "These articles suck, simple as that", then you have no place editing on a forum that is supposed to be a group effort. Regardless if you are an "admin" and "experienced", your actions are childish, juvenile, and only further expose your shortcomings. Calm down and we can all work together on improving these articles, as Dream out loud (talk) is doing to much greater effect.Oanabay04 (talk) 20:33, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Article status

I'm investigating this article for copyright violations as part of Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Oanabay04. A complete investigation won't be possible until I can consult Dale Woodland's article, which won't be possible for a few days. What I've found so far is that some material was copied wholesale from the old PA-TEC page (see [1]). More disturbing, and this relates directly to the discussion above, is that most of the ostensibly cited material isn't in the cited sources. It looks as though Oanabay04 (talk · contribs) sprinkled in cites for his essay, but the text here goes much further than the referenced material permits. Much of the material duplicates content elsewhere (really, how many different ways will Wikipedia tell the Newton story?), and it all needs to be rewritten for tone and sourcing even if it turns out to not be a copyright violation. My inclination would be to delete and redirect to Fox Chase Line, where there's already a section discussing this short-lived experiment. Mackensen (talk) 13:40, 7 September 2015 (UTC)