Talk:14th Street (Manhattan)

Proposed merge with 14th Street busway

Since this discussion has gone on for six weeks with four supports and one oppose, I'm going to boldly close this now and merge the articles. epicgenius (talk) 16:47, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Not a notable subject on its own, and highly duplicative; the busway is discussed at 14th Street (Manhattan), M14 (New York City bus) and/or 14th Street Tunnel shutdown. Not only is this not a separated busway, but also this is simply a daytime conversion of an existing street. What little wasn't already in any of these article, is the content about being inspired by King Street busway in Toronto, and the tidbit about the lawyer Arthur Schwartz who filed the lawsuits. epicgenius (talk) 18:11, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

(Edit: For clarification, 14th Street busway is to be merged into 14th Street (Manhattan). epicgenius (talk) 18:12, 14 September 2019 (UTC))

• I am inclined to support a merge, given the current content and the nature of the topic as an alteration rather than a new construction. Right now, there isn't much content unique to this article, and many sources are speculations or points of view. However, the sources may be sufficient to demonstrate notability if they do not duplicate content and there is WP:LASTING coverage free of significant bias; in that case, I wouldn't oppose keeping or recreating this article. ComplexRational (talk) 19:25, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
• Why would we merge what are two separate articles on two separate topics?
• As Epicgenius points out, "the busway is discussed at 14th Street (Manhattan), M14 (New York City bus) and/or 14th Street Tunnel shutdown."

  When we have multiple related topics, each of which has a standalone article, and we decide to merge one of those articles into one of the other related articles there are always negative consequences:

1. Since the topics are distinct, are merely related, some of the material that could be covered, or is already covered, at the merged article, is going to be off-topic at the article it is merged into.
2. When someone is reading M14 (New York City bus) or 14th Street Tunnel shutdown, and they click on the wikilink to 14th Street busway, isn't a grave disservice, an annoying distraction, to send them a subsection of another article? Why in the name of heck would we abuse our readers, like that?
3. The wikipedias use the Wikimedia Foundation software suite, which does not fully support wikilinks to the subsections of other articles. The WMF software only fully supports wikilinks between separate articles.
   1. One of the most important features that make reading the wikipedia superior to reading ordinary pages on the world wide web is that our links don't break. When a webmaster decides a particular webpage deserves a different name, they break all the incoming third party links to that page. Readers who follow a link to a page that has been moved get a 404 error. Our wikilinks don't do that. Moving a page leaves a redirect to the new name. Clever robots quietly keep those redirects up to date. However, when the target of a wikilink is a subsection of another article, not a mere standalone article, then that link can break. An innocent third party may make a good faith edit to the subsection title, and the link breaks.
   2. Our watchlists contain links to full articles. If an article is merged into a subsection of another article, we can't watchlist just that section of the other article. If we watchlist the article where what we were really interested was merged into we subject ourselves to all kinds of watchlist hits triggered by changes to the other parts of the article.
   3. The "what links here" article can be highly useful, when articles are small, and focused, and haven't been stuffed full of multiple topics. When a reader follows a bunch of links, searching for something specific, and doesn't find it, clicking on the "what links here" button can be a good choice. It is possible that the information they are searching for is in one of those articles. And the utility of this is eroded when the linked articles discuss multiple topics.
   4. An artifact of how links to subsections within articles work is that they require two clicks of the back button to return to the reader's original place. This is confusing, and unfortunate as it is apt
   5. Old fashioned paper documents were linear. They had to be linear, going from start to finish, due to the physical nature of the paper they were written on. Electronic documents, like the wikipedia, are liberated from this linearity. Those composing them, and the readers reading them, are free, should be free, to traverse multiple paths through the tree of human knowledge.

      When it makes sense to give the reader a choice of following two different paths in their search for knowledge, a wikilink is a far more powerful mechanism for them to do so. A wikilink should have just enough surrounding context for them to have an idea of what they will find if they click on that wikilink. At the other end of the wikilink they should find a good lead paragraph, that gives them a good idea of what the rest of the article contains. If they decide that article isn't useful to them, all they have to do is click on the back button.

      But, when we shoehorn multiple topics into a single article, going to the part of the large article that talks about multiple topics requires scrolling, or using the browser's find function. This is time-consuming, and potentially distracting. And, when the reader wants to return where they came from? It is not a convenient click of the back button. It requires more distracting scrolling of use of the browser's find function. Our primitive browsers can only search for one thing. If I have to use my find button for navigation I have to discard whatever I was already searching for. I hate that.

• Epicgenius argues for a merge because "this is simply a daytime conversion of an existing street". This is not an argument for a merge. It is an argument for renaming the 14th street busway article to something else, maybe 14th street project to restrict non-transit vehicles.
• Someone from NYC might assume that anyone interested in 14th street would be interested in the busway, and, anyone interested in the busway, might be interested in 14th street... But, no offense, this would be a narrow-minded assumption. A reader might be interested in the general idea of whether restricting cars proves a net benefit to a city. The Toronto pilot project also stirred controversy. However, in spite of what some narrow interests claimed, it proved phenomenonally successful. NYC considering emulating the Toronto project demonstrates that the general idea is notable. It is quite likely that other cities will emulate Toronto, and that Toronto will implement the idea on other busy transit routes.
• It is a grave disservice to our readers to force them to go articles on individual streets to read about projects about improving commuter throughput through restricting non-transit vehicles. A reader who is interested in the transit project is likely to have no interest in 14th street, or Toronto's King Street, or whatever third or fourth street follows this kind of vehicle restriction plan.
• When a topic is worthy of a wikilink, and is supported by sufficient references, it is almost certainly worthy of a standalone article.
• Let's not try to unnecessarily control and inconvenience readers interested in the vehicle restriction proposal, by forcing them to read distracting and irrelevant material about 14th street itself. If they are reading about the busway, and want to read about the street, the wikilink is right there for them to do that. Geo Swan (talk) 21:25, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
  1. @Geo Swan: Holy wall of text. OK, let's consider your argument that these are two separate topics. No, they aren't. This is literally just putting signs on the road and saying that this a bus lane. A topic like 14th Street bus lanes would be quickly deleted because of how non-notable this sounds, yet that's exactly what the busway is.
  2. Also, readers who want to read about the 14th Street busway, don't want "distracting and irrelevant material about 14th street itself". I don't see any reason that the material about the street (or even the shutdown as a whole) is "distracting and irrelevant material". In fact, your argument shows me quite the opposite. The material about the shutdown and about 14th Street itself is key context to understanding why the busway is there.
  3. No, it isn't a "grave disservice" to send readers to a subsection of another article. I don't understand what this even means. However, what I'm proposing is that the busway doesn't have any lasting notability. Therefore, it doesn't matter one way or the other if they gain the information that they need. Are we going to make articles about every single vehicle restriction on every street in the world? I don't think so. Not every set of vehicle restrictions is notable. But what makes this busway particularly not-notable, is that it only makes sense in the context of the shutdown. Other busways have articles because they are separate, permanent structures such as El Monte Busway. If this busway went away tomorrow I don't think it would pass WP:N.
  4. I skimmed through your comment about how the "Wikimedia Foundation software suite [...] does not fully support wikilinks to the subsections of other articles". That's not really relevant to this article, and that is why we have anchors.
  5. Finally, this still doesn't address the notability aspect of the article. The majority of your comment is composed of arguments for convenience. These don't answer the question of why this one particular busway is notable enough to stand out from the main article, as opposed to a page about 14th Street bus lanes. epicgenius (talk) 21:44, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
     • I am going to number your points, to make it easier to respond to them. Geo Swan (talk) 21:54, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
     1. We are supposed to follow WP:VER and WP:RS. Wikipedia contributors, like you and I, are not supposed to be the arbitrators of what is or isn't notable. Rather, our decisions as to what is or isn't a notable topic is supposed to rely on what RS have written about the topic. My personal opinion as to whether the proposal to restrict non-transit vehicles is notable, or your personal opinion, shouldn't be what we pay attention to. What we should pay attention to is how RS write about the proposal. When you write something like "...yet that's exactly what the busway is." it sounds like you are editorializing. It sounds like you want the wikipedia's content to reflect your personal opinion as to what "the busway is". If the RS coverage merely reported the bald facts of the proposal, without linking to other topics; like the inspiration of the earlier Toronto project, without linking to triggers, like the requirement to suspend or restrict the L train; without linking to Schwartz's opposition, without analyzing Schwartz's opposition, they I would agree with you.

        But the topic is not, in your phrase, "literally just putting signs on the road". If RS thought that, they wouldn't tell their readers about the successful Toronto project they think inspired the project; RS wouldn't tell readers about the L train trigger; RS wouldn't tell their readers about Schwartz's opposition.

     2. I am going to ask you to do us all a favour. I don't engage in discussions to get my way, at any cost. I make a real effort to understand whatever counterarguments the other guy(s) made. I am going to encourage you to try to do likewise. You write "I don't see any reason that the material about the street (or even the shutdown as a whole) is "distracting and irrelevant material". Material about the street, its history, etc, is completely irrelevant to a reader only interested in the vehicle restrictions plans, on streets with busy transit routes; the Toronto's King streetcar; NYC's 14th street bus, etc. I don't know how to explain this more clearly. So, please try harder to understand this, don't just blow it off.
     3. You wrote: "I don't understand what this even means..." As above, please try to understand the other guy's counterarguments...

        If you click on a link that indicates you will be sent one place, it is jarring to be sent somewhere else. Years ago I started an article on the phrase "There is a sucker born every minute". The article was nominated for deletion. Most of the delete crowd argued that anything noteworthy about the phrase belonged in the PT Barnum article. Most of the delete crowd were unwilling to acknowledge (1) PT Barnum never used the phrase; (2) many writers who used the phrase never even mentioned Barnum. So, redirection to PT Barnum would be highly confusing. So, it would have been jarring for someone who didn't grow up in the Anglosphere, who learned English as a second language, who clicked on the link to the phrase expecting to have it explained, to be sent to an article on some guy who owned a famous circus. It would be very understandable for them to tell their friends the wikipedia was broken, that clicking on a link sent them somewhere random. Similarly, when someone clicks on a link about the traffic restriction proposal, to instead be sent to an article on the actual street? It is jarring.

     4. Anchors? Anchors suck. First, how many places where there is a wikilink to a subsection of an article don't use anchors? Second how many contributors actually know how to use them; know what happens when they make what they think are innocuous changes; are apt to delete what they don't understand...; Third - you have ignored the point I made that proper wikilinks, article-to-article wikilinks, don't break.

        A dozen years or so ago, when I was less experienced, and things were looser around here, I tried something, that the WMF software was capable of doing, but was a bad idea. I didn't realize it was a bad idea. I transcluded some article fragments in a bunch of articles that had repeated passages; repeated passages that included an image. One was nominated for deletion, then a second one. The arguments for deletion were lame. I offered my arguments for keep. I thought the closing administrator should have closed the discussion as no consensus. When it was closed as delete, I had some questions for the closer, suggesting if he had a reason for deletion, not mentioned by anyone else, he should have voiced his opinion, and let someone else close the discussion. This admin was patient, explained his reasoning more fully. He convinced me I was wrong.

        There was a guideline that recommended how to use transclusion, that I had not complied with, that those who had voiced delete had also not been aware of.

        But I realized there was an even stronger reason to not use transclusion that way. The reason was that my use of transclusion had confused other contributors. When they looked at these articles they saw passages they wanted to edit, but when they clicked on edit, they couldn't find those passages in the editor. Of course they couldn't find them, as those passage had been transcluded from somewhere else. People use templates, without really understanding that the templates are being transcluded. They didn't understand that material could be transcluded from other namespaces than the template name space.

        So, I should not have transcluded text and images that didn't comply with our rules for templates, because practically no one who wanted to edit the transcluded text would know how to do so.

        The same applies to anchors. Practically no one knows how to use them. As I wrote above, most instances of wikilinking to a subsection heading don't use anchors. I think this is a very strong reason to deprecate their usage, in article space.

     5. You write that I "don't answer the question of why this one particular busway is notable enough to stand out from the main article..."

        Yeah, well I think I have explained this, multiple times already. Short version - it is notable because multiple RS have written about this topic, and how this topic is linked to multiple other topics. Haven't some of the RS linked the proposal to other topics, without explicitly talking about the buslanes? Geo Swan (talk) 20:42, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

  Well, OK. I don't think I'm as much invested in a merge of this article as you are against it. I respect your opinion as much as anyone else's but feel that the RS's don't justify the standalone notability of the bus lanes. Of course you are free to disagree, but let's see how other people feel about this merge proposal. epicgenius (talk) 00:22, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support merge into this article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:36, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support merge, if the proposed merge direction was meant the other way. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:35, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Michael Bednarek and Beyond My Ken, neither one of you offered a reason for your merge opinions. I encourage you to do so. When people don't explain their reasoning how are the rest of us to trust they haven't inadvertently succumbed to one of the WP:Arguments to avoid, like WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Geo Swan (talk) 00:31, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
    • I understood the discussion above to argue for a merge of this article into the busway article. That's not what's shown in the notification at the busway article, and it doesn't make any sense given the notability tag there. The heading here is ambiguous, "Merge with 14th Street busway", so I clarified my position in pointing out that the direction of the merge should occur in line with the notification at the busway article. If I misunderstood the discussion here, my qualification is moot. If not, it stands. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:41, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
      • Yes, Michael Bednarek, thanks, I understood you meant you thought 14th Street busway should be merged into 14th Street (Manhattan).

        However, you didn't offer an actual reason for why you support merge. And you didn't address any of my counter-arguments. Short version -- multiple topics are related to the topic of the busway. All of those topics should be wikilinked to a standalone article on the busway -- not to a subsection of one of the articles on topics related to the busway. Geo Swan (talk) 02:02, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

        • My reason is the most obvious one, the busway is not nearly notable enough for its own article, and the busway is obviously a component part of 14th Street. It just makes more sense than having two articles. It is, in fact, completely ridiculous to have two separate articles.
          I suggest that Geo Swan stop WP:BLUDGEONing this discussion with walls of text. This issue isn't rocket science, and comments about the proposed merge don't require complex ideation: either one agrees with the merge (into this article} or one doesn't. Don't write a damn thesis about it.Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:14, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support merge if the proposed merge were in the opposite direction, but only because the proposed busway is a component of 14th Street. Mainly because if I'm reading this correctly, the busway is not supposed to exist west of 9th Avenue or east of 3rd Avenue. Additionally, I believe the section on the busway should be well-defined with it's own chatper/section, as opposed to the redirect of the Oakdale Merge to New York State Route 27 in the past. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 17:57, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
  • @DanTD and Michael Bednarek: Yes, 14th Street busway is to be merged into 14th Street (Manhattan) under this proposal. I plan to create a subsection for the busway if this merge goes through. epicgenius (talk) 18:12, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.