Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways/Archive 11

Linkspam?

User:TrainMan250 is adding a link to the "Campaign against the New Beeching Report" to dozens of articles. Does anyone have any opinions as to whether this link should be allowed to stand or whether I should dust off that "rollback-batch" button? — iridescent 15:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

My observation is that he is simply updating a link that already existed. Olana North (talk) 17:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, in which case a mass rollback would be useless. However, I'm not convinced about the validity of the external link per WP:EL: it's appearing on articles (Gomshall railway station, for instance) which appear to have no direct relevance to the campaign site. --RFBailey (talk) 17:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

But in the case of Gomshall railway station, the link has been added new. There might be a case for adding this as a link from the north of England stations and line affected, but the connection with a very small station in leafy Surrey is not apparent. (Hence = Linkspam) Even for relevant stations, it could be tricky making it fit within WP:EL guidelines unless it has played a major role in the campaign mentioned. EdJogg (talk) 18:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, the link is relevant to the stations at Reddish South, Ardwick and Denton, but to no other stations. It may be that there is content of other stations buried within the "CANBER" website, but in this case surely the link should be to a specific article or post? ColourSarge (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops! I was so busy taking out these links (see WP:ELNO - links should be relevant to the pages; not a mass spamming) that I didn't notice this discussion! Hey, be bold, that's what I say! Geof Sheppard (talk) 15:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Banner

Would it be good if the project had its own banner instead of doing {{TrainsWikiProject|class=start|importance=low|UK=yes|UK-importance=low}}? Simply south (talk) 18:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

{{doing}}

Yeh will get on it now!

BG7 19:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done

Called with {{UKT}} and looks like Template:UKT.

There are various parameters beyond the norm: all can be found at Template:UKT/doc however, the main are:

{{UKT

|class=

|importance=

|ibox=

|map=

|stats=

|photo=

|nested=

}}

so we could have something like:

Comments please!

BG7 19:35, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems like unnecessary extra work to me. Perhaps instead we should modify the {{TrainsWikiProject}} template to emphasise the UK component, rather than introducing a whole new template that would need adding to thousands of articles? A modification to the TWP template would be implemented automatically. --RFBailey (talk) 19:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that would be possible, as a) it's sysop only, and b) it's VERY complicated, and also would need changes to all the other sub temps in it.

AWB will do the job nicely, i'm up for doing it very soon!

The problem with the main temp is that importance ratings aren't handled to well!

Finally, if people bring up the too many banners argument, then we just nest it. It makes it smaller than the TWP temp that way!

Thanks,

BG7 19:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Funny you should bring this up today as I'm finally getting back to updating the TWP to try to fix a couple bugs that have been spotted (non-article pages still showing the importance rating needed and now the unref param isn't adding articles to the unref category). With what I had tried not working, I was about ready to start a complete rewrite to make it more modular for subproject specifications. Slambo (Speak) 20:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

BG7, perhaps instead we should specify what we want the banner to do, and have Slambo (or someone else who understands the "intricacies of template syntax") include that as part of the re-coding of {{TrainsWikiProject}}. I'm not convinced have a separate banner is needed, especially as all UK Railways-tagged articles would also be TWP-tagged. --RFBailey (talk) 20:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I have heard that one before. There is another discussion on this page about article assessment, and someone was intendeding to run a "bot" (or similar) to automatically go through all of the articles that are tagged "UK=yes" and include a basic "UK-importance" tage, so make some inroads into the large number of articles that have "none" as the rating. I have yet to see any progress on this, an yet here we are suggesting that we introduce a "UK" banner to all the UK articles. It is not as simple as just adding a UK banner tag, it must be remembered that the "UK" related tags in the existing TWP banner would need to be "deleted" lest we end up with everything being stated twice over. For these reasons I declare total scepticism about the plans, and would ask the question "Do we not have better things to do?". Olana North (talk) 07:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

If you remember certain editors were against using a bot (to set the UK importance to the same as the WPT importance) because it might give the wrong answer and in their view no answer was better than the wrong answer. Funny how they don't seem to have contributed themselves. However, articles are being assessed manually, as can be seen here Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/UK Railways articles by quality log. If the new template is adopted then all this hard work has gone to waste.Pyrotec (talk) 07:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A very good point is made by Pyrotec. As one of the editors that has been working on this, I would be very annoyed to find that my time had been wasted. In fact, if this were to happen, then I would have to restrict my contributions on the basis that the "leaders" of this project have "led us astray" and have failed to provide sound leadership. As I also patrol a large number of pages for vandalism, I hope this message is not lost. Olana North (talk) 10:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I am on my soapbox, I also think that we need something a little more "21st century" as the picture in any new banner. An HST is a little behind the times. By the way, diesel trains are also becoming a little too un-environmentally friendly, and electric trains and further electrification is being pushed higher up the agenda. So if this banner is to be progressed, then perhaps a modern electric train might be more in keeping. Olana North (talk) 07:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

In reply to Olana North - any picture used needs to try to portray that railways articles cover both historic and modern. Electric power denotes the modernness certainly, but we also need to demonstrate the historic aspect. With that in mind, would a picture or either a Class 76/77 or one of the North Eastern Railways steeplecab electric locomotives fit the bill? Mjroots (talk) 08:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I have struck out my earlier comment. You are quite right, the UK railways articles cover historic and modern traction, not to mention stations etc. My view was too prejudiced to my own interest. Olana North (talk) 10:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose, Strongly -- I trust Slambo to look after the project banners, and I see absolutely no need to go faffing about adding more and more, just so there's an extra UK-specific one. When we have a full complement of UK-rail featured articles, then maybe editors can think about wasting their time on futile changes like this. For me, my ToDo list will already stretch into next year and beyond, without seeing several hundred more pointless page changes in my watchlist. EdJogg (talk) 13:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

after edit conflict

To comment:

1. The current ratings would not be lost - just transferred. I have set up the temp to cat into the same area.
2. Why should we settle for a small box in the main banner? Why not incorporate the rest of the TWP into ours for UK article? We should be more prominent on UK Articles!
3. Image - it was just a quick one, I have a project logo in mind.
4. Importance tagging - how could a bot possibly tag for importance? Bots know nothing! I am prepared to go through every unassessed article using AWB and importance tag them.
5. Once again, time has not been wasted - the current taggings will just be transferred into a more prominent banner, making us as a project stand out more.
6. Finally, if changes to the TWP can make the project more prominent, I would support it. However, at the moment, I don't see how or why a banner for a project that appears to have a large US focus should be displayed prominently on "our" articles: this is by no means a dig to the fabulous Slambo or anyone else who has worked hard with the TWP and project, but more a comment that we should be making ourselves prominent. We shouldn't seperate or distance ourselves from them by any means, as their input is valuable. We just shouldn't rely on things that don't advertise our project very well, which the current TWP doesnt: a small one-liner with an image saying that it's in our scope!

Rant over, but I think the project would be making a mistake if we didn't try and make ourselves more prominent. Otherwise, what's the point, if we just are a mirror of Trains and don't have our own 'identity'.

Oh and finally (really!) I think we should at least adopt our own banner for "english" FAs, GAs and As, as they are our best articles that we should show off!

BG7 13:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

BG7 please be aware of WP:OWN, and then perhaps re-consider some of your statements. Olana North (talk) 14:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

How was any of that a WP:OWN violation? All is suggestions, I have not claimed to own anything. Has WP become soooooo bueracratic that we are not even allowed Free Speech anymore, or to air our comments. Someone said we should have a banner. I accepted and created it. In future I will not. I will not help. If I can help, I won't. Everyone be aware that I have neither the time or the knowledge to help contributing to articles, but I have the odd 5 minutes to operate a program and tag things, create banners etc. So can we stop saying that people are wasting their time?!?! I am not wasting mine, I am using it to do others a favour, rather than adding speculation or untrue info to articles, or damaging already good articles by making Good Faith but unconstructive edits.

I am leaving the project.

BG7 14:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

The point is that WP:OWN applies to WikiProjects, as well as individuals, so talking about "our" articles is a bit problematic: the articles don't belong to the WikiProject. What people are saying is that adding an extra project tag to talk pages of articles would create quite a lot of work, or require someone to program a bot, or to sit there tediously watching a massive AWB run, after which we wouldn't really be in a situation much different to what we already have.

(Personally, I'm sceptical about the whole article-tagging business anyway, and never really look at such tags: the "importance" and "quality" criteria are subjective and open to opinion.) --RFBailey (talk) 18:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A view was expressed above to get (firstly) all the articles rated by UK class, and that has been done; and (2) rate by UK importance and that is half-done. Now the goal posts are being moved and the latest idea is to change the tag, which could waste all the effort done to date on assessing UK importance (but some don't think so). The effort has also resulted in more articles being tagged WPTrains and also UK trains. The "importance" and "quality" criteria, as you say, are subjective and open to opinion, up to B-class; but they are also open to challenge. If you if care to check Olana North, for example, has changed some of my assessments and I have changed assessments that Olana North has made; but I suspect that we would agree on the vast majority that we have both reviewed. You and I also appear to hold diametrically opposite views, so I would not be too surprised at your point of view. Having done several thousand assessments over the last few months mostly on WPT-tagged articles (and some editors have done similar numbers or even more) I see the value of such assessments. I probably don't look at tags unless I'm tagging; I can assess an article's quality without looking for a tag, importance is possibly not so easy (well to me). I have also contributed in a modest way on helping some articles, that I have an interest in, gaining GA status; some others I sometimes work with are way past the 20,000 mark, but I have other things to do with my time. If you cannot distinguish the difference between say a stub and a GA-assessment article, or see any difference in their value, what are you doing in wikipedia? Management is about measurement, if we "offer" to manage a group of articles within our areas of interest, it can be useful to assess articles by class and importance. We can then target areas that are deficient: some people might target unreferenced articles, others articles without maps (route diagrams), others concentrate on improving stubs, or getting B-class class articles up to GA-class articles, etc; and others only do what is local to them. For those that chose not to target local articles, flagging provides a means of priorising articles; and allows other to decry the value of other people's efforts.Pyrotec (talk) 20:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

In themselves, the article ratings are of little use. However, as part of a managed system, they can be used to guide editors towards the most important articles and those that need the most work. Within a project framework they can guide like-minded individuals to collaborate on improving articles. We are still in the first stage, assesing the articles. I look forward to the second stage where project members will make a combined assault on the articles most needing attention. Without this follow-up work, the effort of tagging will be largely wasted. EdJogg (talk) 23:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to belittle the efforts of those who have been carrying out the tagging. EdJogg is right: if the tags are actually used to target improvements, then they are useful. Perhaps we should be having a discussion on what we should be targetting, rather than on a superfluous second round of tagging, which merely would duplicate earlier efforts. Any suggestions? --RFBailey (talk) 01:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)Firstly, we need to get all UK railways assessed for UK importance. Once that is done, the priority should be improving top importance stubs, top importance start class articles, high importance stubs, high importance start class articles and so on. As has been said before, the importance grading allows prioritising of articles for attention - but articles need to be assessed first. Mjroots (talk) 08:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh boy, have we got a long way to go. Out of curiosity I checked the ratings for the following articles, which, by any grading scales should be amongst the most important that we could be looking after. (All are tagged by Trains and UKTrains projects, other projects also noted):

1. GWR 'B-Class', Importance: Trains-High UKRail-High Projects: Bristol
2. LMS 'Start-class', Importance: Unrated!!!! Projects: Scotland, Transport in Scotland, UK Waterways
3. LNER 'B-Class', Importance: Trains-Mid UKRail-Mid Projects: Transport in Scotland
4. SR 'Start-class', Importance: Trains-Low UKRail-Mid Projects: London Transport, London, Kent, Surrey, Sussex
5. BR 'B-Class', Importance: Trains-Mid UKRail-High Projects: London Transport, Transport in Scotland

I would argue that all five should be at least 'High' and probably 'Top', if only to distinguish them from other (currently) high-importance articles such as 'Doncaster Works', the 'British Rail Class 67', and (astonishingly) 'Sandite' (!!!) For Trains I would argue that they are borderline High/Mid (ie on a global scale). I will re-visit these shortly to rationalilse this, especially the LMS page!! If nothing else, they should have equal importance, both nationally and globally.

What this does highlight is the inconsistency within WP as a whole. If the project is successfully coordinating anything then these five articles should be GA or greater before anything else is tackled. It cannot be for lack of reference material. I find it faintly absurd that we can have the SR Merchant Navy locos as a Main Page Featured Article yet Southern Railway is barely Start-class, despite being tagged by six different projects. (And before you say anything, I collaborated on the MN article page. I am just using it for comparison.)

Maybe the problem with these is that the topics are just too big. I know from current re-ordering work at 'Steam engine', and previous thoughts about 'Train' and 'Rail transport' (the destination for both 'Railway' and 'Railroad' redirects) that the article scope is so vast it can be difficult to know what should be included and (especially) in what order. Incidentally, all three of these articles have been identified as 'essential' by the WP1.0 team, yet none currently exceeds B-Class.

The difficulty for the project, I guess, is getting this band of volunteers to collaborate on these 'big' topics, when we are all quite happy working on the little articles.

EdJogg (talk) 13:05, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, those have all been marked as Top importance for UK. Which brings us nicely to the pre-grouping companies. Are these to benifit from a blanket importance (High?) or a blanket minimum importance of mid? Or is it a case of each assessed individually? Mjroots (talk) 15:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a slightly larger task... Having just looked at List of railway companies involved in the 1923 grouping, some of whom are still redlinks(!), it seems to me that the major constituent companies should be 'High', with the rest on 'Mid'. The distinction is easy, since the major constituents are all listed in {{Bigfour}}. This is working on the basis that all these railway articles should be parents for (and hence linked from) a relatively large number of child articles. Whether all constituent companies should be 'mid', however, is probably open to debate -- I would probably go by route mileage as a starting point, since there are bound to be a few tiny companies that warrant only low importance.

(PS -- I wasn't planning to change any more pages myself! - hint, hint :o) )

EdJogg (talk) 17:46, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Note that my changes regarding the 'Big Four' do not align with the criteria laid down at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways/Assessment which suggests that 'Top' is reserved for topics listed under {{Train topics}}. However, the topics in that template are 'Top' on a GLOBAL scale, so this restriction would mean that UK articles have one less available importance rating. (So I stand by my changes, and wait for the flack!)

EdJogg (talk) 18:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

"Global" in this WikiProject means the UK, therefore the Big Four and British Rail should be Top importance articles. I fully agree with the changes made. Mjroots (talk) 20:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

What started out as a discussion on a new Template seems to have morphed into a discussion on assessment ratings. Can we please get back to the original point. Olana North (talk) 12:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

(outdent again) IMHO I think that although it would be a nice idea to have our own banner, the discussion has highlighted that there are more pressing concerns to address. The ratings for BR and the Big Four in particular concerns me - these really should be among our "Rolls Royce" articles. So a new banner is a nice idea, but we should make sure we have great articles to stick the banner on first. ColourSarge (talk) 20:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I was out of town for the weekend at the NMRA's Midwest Region convention and couldn't get a reliable net connection at the hotel, so I'm just catching up on the conversation now.

One idea that I toyed with a while back was to have the associated projects' parameters display a separate banner if they are enabled, even though the parameters are used by the TWP banner. That would mean that {{TrainsWikiProject|UK=yes}} could show the TWP banner and below it could show a UK-specific banner. We originally settled on the current scheme to avoid cluttering talk pages with too many banners (which was the reason that {{WikiProjectBanners}}, {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and the small=yes options were developed). Since there's such a vocal group pushing to reduce the number of banners on an article's talk page, it seems more prudent to keep things together.

The notable exceptions are associated projects whose scope includes articles that are outside the scope of TWP. For example, the WPRT and NYPT projects' scopes include a large number of articles that are within TWP's scope, but they also include articles on road transport systems that are not within TWP's scope. For these projects a separate banner enables them to tag articles separately without needlessly including them in the TWP categories. It seems less likely to me that articles within UKRRAIL's scope wouldn't also be within TWP's scope, so a unified banner still makes the most sense to me. I'm not strictly opposing a UKRRAIL banner, but I see it as less of a pressing need at this point because of the two projects' scopes. Slambo (Speak) 13:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Doh! I should know the proper shortcut by now. B-) Slambo (Speak) 10:56, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

NA-Assessment of Redirect pages

I had a quick look at Category:NA-importance UK Railways articles earlier and discovered that the majority of the articles are redirects, or rather, they would be redirects if they hadn't been broken. For redirect pages it is essential that the project banner is placed beneath the redirect line, or the redirect will not work. I have fixed Talk:Penmanshiel Tunnel collapse, which you can now see in italics in the category, which confirms that it is a redirect. I haven't had time to tackle the others yet, so I dropped a note here to show what was needed.

EdJogg (talk) 18:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done last night! BG7 13:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you :o) Might be worth a comment on the UKRail assessment page to avoid the problem in the future. EdJogg (talk) 00:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

No worries mate! From some of the comments raised in the above discussion, the whole page needs re-vamping - i'll tackle it in a few days.

Thanks,

BG7 08:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the talk pages should redirect to the article, more they should redirect to the article's talk page, which i will fix now. Simply south (talk) 08:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Woops, sorry! DOn't worry i'll fix with AWB.

BG7 09:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Laxey Browside Tramway

Has been AfD'd. Mjroots (talk) 04:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Anglesey's railways

I've been beavering away on the Anglesey Central Railway for a while, and also recently on the Red Wharf Bay branch line. Most of the information that I've found has already been put into the articles, but there is some more stuff to be put in the ACR article about the recent history of the line. There will be some maps to add when I draw them, and I have some images that are old enough to be public domain, but have yet to be scanned.

The trouble is, I've been staring at these pages for so long that I'm getting bogged down, and losing objectivity. Could some other editors cast an eye over these, and perhaps make some suggestions as to what needs doing?

Thanks, Ansbaradigeidfran (talk) 10:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

05/06 Usage Information

Reviving this section as it was a live topic....

User:Ansbaradigeidfran has added 0506 usage stats for all stations listed under Wales, and I have done the WCML currently from Euston to Stafford, including loops and some branches.

Is anybody working on any other areas so we can co-ordinate efforts and avoid duplication of effort? ColourSarge (talk) 17:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to start on the South West region soon 86.147.230.89 (talk) 08:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC) (also known as Ansbaradigeidfran (talk) when I remember to sign in!)South West region is done. Many stations had been updated already. Ansbaradigeidfran (talk) 16:34, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

South East is done now. I'm going to attack the London area next, but not for a short while! Ansbaradigeidfran (talk) 11:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Good stuff, we seem to be making some progress...I've had a few days off doing stats as I've been beavering away on the LMS artile re-write in my sandbox, but I'm taking a break while I wait for comments (thanks for your re-write of that sentence in the intro by the way, it does read better). My next usage stats push will be to continue up the WCML from Stafford, and to include the following "branches"; Liverpool, Manchester, Blackpool, Windermere, North Wales Coast, Cumbrian Coast. Then I think I'll stop for a stiff drink. :o) ColourSarge (talk) 21:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

North Wales Coast is already done, seeing as it's in Wales ;) My approach has been to go through each region alphabetically: I found that I got through them quite quickly that way.

Enjoy that drink! Ansbaradigeidfran (talk) 14:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

If you do London and you see me with the edit summary "usage", please note that i am currently taccling LU usage and not this. Simply south (talk) 15:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Liskeard railway station

This article has recently been tagged as being a "Class B" article, yet I see no evidence of a review being carried out. Has the correct process been followed in assessing the quality of this article? Olana North (talk) 07:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It's now been reassessed as Start class, which i'd say was a fair assessment at first glance. Mjroots (talk) 11:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it should not have been assessed as B class; and that Start class is appropriate.Pyrotec (talk) 19:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Assessment examples

While nosing around {{Grading scheme}} I noticed that the template supports choosing the example articles. Wouldn't it make more sense for us to have railway articles as examples at WP:Rail/A? Ansbaradigeidfran (talk) 18:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

If we are tying to be consistent across wikipedia then it is not necessary to have railway articles - (1) its just a case of copying across the wikipedia examples from the grading scheme; and (2) by clicking on this link Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways/Assessment it is possible to access all UK railway rated articles by class and importance.

However I can see the attraction of railway examples; but examples of each class would, I suggest, have to be chosen by consensus. If you look at UK rail-rated GA-class articles for example, there are 33 of them: five are railways or railway lines; a similar number are stations, the rest are nearly all locos, plus a bridge or two and an author or two. So what do we choose for a GA class example - one of each type or just one example; same question for all the other classes? You also need to bear in mind that the rules have been tightened up on in-line citations on articles of Start-class and higher; so an "old"-rated article might not be as acceptable as a "newly" rated article. Without wishing to stir up problems Ffestiniog Railway was GA rated in December 2005, but it might struggle on in-line citations if it were reassessed today. However, I'm not requesting any such reassessment.Pyrotec (talk) 17:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

What you mention about the rating of the Ffestiniog Railway is interesting, and worrisome. As someone that has done a lot of work assessing the "importance" of articles over the last few months, it concerns me that the ratings may also be flawed. What it suggests is that the rating and/or importance of an article may need to be time limited. In other words there should be a defined time limit for the rating of articles. This means that they lose their rating and fall back to a "normal" level if they do not get re-assessed within that time frame. This will ensure that all articles (especially those with FA/A/GA ratings get reviewed in the light of changes to the assessment criteria. Olana North (talk) 19:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but this is about Class, not Importance. I think that Importance is far more subjective than Class.Pyrotec (talk) 17:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

My preferred option is to "improve" it without formally requesting a reassessment - see the GA flag on the article's talk page. Its still Good, as in GA article and it was not a flawed assessment when in was made in December 2005, but the in-line citations are now rather "weak" and need to be improved if it is to avoid a future challenge. See also Inverclyde Line - that was challenged but an Admin upheld the GA status - it does not in my opinion deserved GA status, I'd rate it B-class. The Ffestiniog Railway is far better than the Inverclyde Line, and I'm probably biased towards Transport in Scotland!!!!Pyrotec (talk) 15:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

New franchise

I hope i haven't been too hasty with creating South Central franchise. Simply south (talk) 23:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

East Kent Light Railway

Could an uninvolved editor review the assessment of this article please? Mjroots (talk) 07:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

B-class, UK-importance=Mid (possibly High). With a bit more work would make GA; it might make a GA without much work, it depends who does it. (stub-class for dates :-), so I cleaned it up). There's not many wikilinks after the first two sections; and none afterwords for non-railway words, such as asbestos and weatherboarding. A very good article thought. I'm not familiar with East Kent, so no comments about accuracy; and I've not checked grammar all that carefully, but it looks OK. More pictures would help a GA rating.Pyrotec (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

South Central franchise

Someone has created a page about the South Central franchise. I think it should be deleted, possibly speedy.

Is this right? If so, could someone list it. Btline (talk) 20:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Before you do that, I suggest that you provide a reason, and also ensure that it meets the criteria for speedy deletion. As far as I can see, the article has provide a context (criteria #1), and has some content (criteria #3). It may qualify for deletion for other reasons, but I do not agree that it meets the "speedy" criteria. I also suggest that you place a tag on the talk article, and perhaps initiate a discussion on the talk page. Olana North (talk) 07:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't fail the 'article' criteria 2, 5, or 7 either. As for the General criteria, it does not fail any of these either, so a request for Speedy Deletion would (almost certainly) fail.

I cannot imagine why this article should be deleted. It has been created as a result of information provided by a reliable source, which is more than can be said for many new articles. Admittedly it concerns a future event, but it is reporting the facts concerning an announcement and is no more speculative than the source. With further research you would probably be able to locate further references to corroborate the article.

I can only presume that the proposer did not bother to view the original news report.

EdJogg (talk) 12:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, you have missed the point. I know for a fact that the SCF will be set up. I do not think the article should be there until a confirmed operator with a name has started. Do we normally have articles like this? Should it be listed in the Future TOCs template yet.

Those are the questions I was asking. I know that "technically" the article is notable enough. Btline (talk) 12:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's a rather different ball game! and I do now see your point: this article concerns a franchise, but he related articles concern Operators.

It is an interesting question: should the franchise itself have a separate article, or only when an Operator is allocated. The answer to this, I would suggest, depends on whether a franchise can exist over more than one Operator -- that is, can the same named franchise be operated by more than one Operator during the life of the franchise, or is there a one-to-one link between Operator and Franchise? Is there a list of the franchises somewhere? I think there should be, and it would list the area served, the Operator and the periods when that Operator was awarded the franchise.

Should the 'Future TOCs' template incorporate 'Future Franchises' too?

Sorry, more questions than answers! EdJogg (talk) 12:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I have decided to take some actions and have redone the templates to accommodate this article.

I have also added to the article.

However, we still need to ask whether the article should stay. Btline (talk) 12:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe i did create this a bit early although there is a notable change in June. Maybe this should be stored until the bids. Simply south (talk) 18:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with these operator/franchise articles is that because the franchise system changes pretty much every time a franchise is awarded to a particular operator, in a large number of cases there is a one-to-one correspondence between franchises and operators. Thus for the most part a franchise and operator can be described in a single article. In this case, the franchise in question is only a slight modification of the existing South Central franchise (the franchise held by Govia which trades as "Southern"), with two additional services incorporated into it (Gatwick Express and those on the Redhill-Tonbridge line). So at present it could possibly be described in the Southern article. Once the bidding process starts, and there will be more to say about it, then this could be reconsidered. Also, rather than deleting the article, it ought to be redirected to Southern, as that company already operates the current South Central franchise.

That said, the article that exists now is quite acceptable to be going on with (especially after I've copyedited it..... :) ), even if it does duplicate some existing material. --RFBailey (talk) 19:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)