Wikipedia:Peer review/Passenger vehicles in the United States/archive1

After spending a lot of time researching, writing and creating tables I think this article has evolved into not only one of the best referenced articles but also into a very comprehesive article dealing with a complex topic. I would really appreciate your comments and suggestion on how to get this article to FA status. Regards, Signature ^brendel 23:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am actually responsible for some small changes in the article, so perhaps I am not really the right person to do a peer review, but I would like to remark on a few very important issues that, IMHO, should be resolved in order for this article to become GA and perhaps eventually FA. Please also note that it is against the rules to have article both up for PR and as a GA nominee. PR is effectively a way of preparing an article for either GA or FA nomination. OK, here I go:

The article does not READ well, unfortunately. It contains a lot of properly referenced information, but going through it isn't enjoyable, to say the least.
The introductory section is not a good summary of the article's content, and does not give a good overview or introduction to the subject. Please see WP:LEAD for more details. Moreover, it is written in a tone that can be seen as rather improper to non-US readers, even though the statements contained there are properly referenced.
The "Statistics" section is an example of "narrative statistics", one of my personal pet peeves. Statistics do not read well as parts of the narrative, depsite some of Wikipedia's editors fetishisation of narrative as such over lists and tables. Moreover, a few raw numbers do not provide much information to a person not very knowledgeable about the subject. A temporal approach (illustrating changes over the years) and/or comparative approach (comapring with numbers for other countries) would be much more advisable.
The "Vehicle and population ratios since 1960" table is an example of what should not be done with the data - the table is lenghty and not very informative. A link to a source providing the same data is enough, while a chart displaying the changes over time would be much more informative, as well as a discussion of e.g. the apparent cycle in the growth of passenger vehicles numbers.
Further on this section - in general, there is far too little, or anything, said about the causes and implications of the cited statistics. Statistics are not interesting in itself, generally speaking, they are only good illustrations of discussed phenomena. So, I would rather read about some phenomena regarding passenger vehicles in the Unites States, than raw statistics as prose.
The manufacturing section lacks historic perspective, as well as the discussion of its role and place in the American economy and current issues concerning the sector.
The lists of brands within this section are pretty strange, for example the Chrysler Group is separated from the Mercedes Group, but on the other hand Ford's entry contains brands not sold in the US. The following "Other marques sold in the US" subsection actually lists "other manufacturers with manufacturing operations in United States", as the caption reads, so the title is misleading. And then again there are brands listed which are not applied to vehicles made in the US. Manufacturing is one thing, sales and marketing is the other, and I guess the latter could have its own section. Listing all brands sold in the US is a sisyphean and pointless task, however (just to warn editors who have seen the Mexican equivalent of this article)
ast but not least, or perhaps most importantly, quite many aspects and important issues are not discussed at all, like passenger vehicle transport safety, or how and why passenger vehicle mtransport and car ownership became more popular in the United States than it is in other developed countries, where e.g. mass transit and railways are more popular, the history and cultural influence of the automobile in the United States etc.

My general feeling is that this is a really too complex and broad topic, and this article, although a very good effort concerning the massive amount of references, as well as the fact that it was created almost single-handedly by one editor, is not even close to cover it in full. This might not be encouraging, but it seems that this article might be one of the toughest to bring to GA or FA standards, and would probably require creating numerous sub-articles, quite a lot of research and probably contirbutions from many users knowledgeable about different aspects of it. I also have quite many minor remarks, but I guess they are secondary to the really important issues listed above. Bravada, talk - 17:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Bravada. Let me see if I understand you correctly- your main points are: The text is to boring and too statistical, the article does not cover the text in its entire complexity. (I guess the article, Household income in the United States would be torture for you ;-)) Okay here are my intended improvements:

Rewrite Introduction
Add topic sentences outlining the meaning of integrated statistics

Otherwise, you're right this article covers a broad subject and eventually should have sub-article, which would then be listed at the beginning of each section. Unfortunately we are not at that point yet, and with me being the only editor on this article and subject that might take a w-h-i-l-e. You can see this format taking shape in the "Big Three" section. As to the tables they are informative so I will keep them, while shortening some of them. They let the reader make is own conlusions independent of the text and provide unadulterated information, as I like to call it. Also, I'm a statistics buff, I can't help it and for this article is enjoyable so I will need some other editors to help with the wording. I didn't know about that rule- that's why I have editor like you remind me, eh ;-) Thank you, Signature ^brendel 17:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gerd, I am afraid my points might have got lost in my blabber, so let me reformulate them:

You have embarked on a very tough and demanding task starting this article. I believe it is not going to take just a while to develop it into an absolutely complete article, it might actually take months or even over a year, and it obviously needs more than one editor to be completed within a reasonable timeframe. I am sorry I don't contribute much, I am not THAT knowledgeable about this subject.
On the other hand, it is OK as is now, properly referenced and without any major issues that have to be addressed urgently. The longer it will exist, the more people will come to visit it and some of them will start contributing, forming a suitable editor base.
The problem is that some articles are obviously far easier to develop to GA or FA standards. This is one of the toughest, given that it covers a broad subject with many aspects, while not being the focal point of interest of many Wikipedians as of now.
As concerns statistics, I really love them and actually think that most articles are pretty pointless without some good statistical references and numbers quoted (I just realized some of "my" articles are pretty rubbish with regard to that). The thing is that statistics themselves are far better "absorbable" as charts etc. and not as prose - reading a sentence going from one number to another you might lost the plot and not acquire much information altogether, as it is hard to concentrate on the data. This is perhaps not that apparent for the editor, who knows the subject well, but as a less "intellectual" person, and I believe such people also use Wikipedia extensively, I don't find it easy to deal with that.
Bottom line is - statistics are great, keep them and develop them, just make them easy to understand for the common man :D

Bravada, talk - 19:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that was clearer. You are right this article is nowhere near complete, it covers a HUGHE subject, much like the article for American culture and as you said "it is not going to take just a while to develop it into an absolutely complete article, it might actually take months or even over a year, and it obviously needs more than one editor to be completed within a reasonable timeframe." Other than that I do get your point regarding the statistics and will try in include topic sentences that outline what the statistics are supposed to represent. Thanks for taking the time to throuoghly reviewing this article. Regards, Signature ^brendel 19:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]