Talk:ABF Freight System

Afd

Seems like this should be nominated. Basically the article reads like an extended advertisement for the service offered by this company. -204.42.24.217 06:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with an AFD. while there are some advertisement aspects, a majority of this article is informational.. I'll see where I think it can be tweaked to fix it up... —Cliffb 01:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Partial source for the new stuff

At least the last section of the stuff that Hatbird is trying to replace the page with is lifted from [1]. - TexasAndroid 20:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Please use the info from Hatbird where appropriate, while remaining NPOV of course. Hatbird is confirming identity via email, which will make the actual posted text available, again if properly sourced and NPOV. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 22:01 12 December 2006 (GMT).

Unless wikimedia gets a letter from ABF granting the right to use their annual report we cannot copy content from their annual report. It doesn't matter who Hatbird is, unless he works for ABF in a position that can grant copyright permission. Its doubtful if narrative from a corporation's annual report would ever qualify as NPOV... —Cliffb 22:17, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all three statements. However we can quote if fair use. I can confirm Hatbird is who he says, within reason. I doubt that using more than fair use amount of text will be useful, but if it is we can cross that bridge. Also, given that Hatbird represents ABF he has released the text of his contributions under GFDL. I'm sure he undestands the issues, though and it would be cool if the article can be improved. Rich Farmbrough, 22:56 12 December 2006 (GMT).

I've been in email contact with Hatbird as well, and am similarly convinced that he is indeed an authorized representative of the company. That said, I have been coaching him on how things should be done around here, rather than the way he tried to get things done at first. As an official rep he does have the authority to include material directly from ABF, but has also been made aware that any such material he includes, he is releasing under the GFDL, and that he needs to be aware of what that entails. I've also warned him that, while it is not forbidden for an article's subject to edit the article, that there is a long track record of such situations ending badly.

OTOH, I am encouraged by his edits since yesterday. He appears to have taken the suggestions from me and others to heart, and is working at things much, much more slowly. And as his bias towards ABF are known, it should help keep things out in the open if/when more conflicts arise. He has been coached to take things slow, to make small changes that will, over time, build towards a better article. This will let all the rest of us digest his changes and object on small issues, rather than having to make blanket objections to massive changes. And he has been coached to come directly here to this talk page if he does get reverted, rather than getting into more edit warring. We shall see how things are handled when he is next reverted. (And to Hatbird directly, it's inevitible that you will be reverted at some point. Everyone gets reverted.)

Anyway, at this point I am cautiously optomistic that this may end up being an exception to the normal problems with subjects editing articles. But only time will tell. - TexasAndroid 15:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Given recent edits and amplifications, would it not be appropriate to now remove the tags at the top of the article regarding the lack of credible sources and alleged advertising? Hatbird 16:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

At a minimum you have done a great job with the sourcing. I'll go ahead and remove that tag. I'm not a great judge of advertising tone, so I'll leave that one for someone else to make a judgement about. - TexasAndroid 17:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia style

Dear ABF Freight editors,

Wikipedia is encyclopedia and has a style that differs from other styles of writing: of scientific papers, of advertising, of inctruction manuals, of news reports, etc. Please refer to "what wikipedia is not" and wikipedia's manual of style. Since the latter is fairly large, a better start would probably be to take a look at another article about a similar business.

Meaning no disrespect to your business, which is of course is very useful, certain things are just not done in wikipedia. `'mikkanarxi 22:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

United States Moving Companies

Consider removing this box. All the companies listed here, with the exception of ABF, are household goods carriers (HHG). ABF is a transporter of general commodites. Federal regulations that apply to HHG companies don't apply to carriers of general commodites. Therefore, it's misleading to group them here. If the box was added in an attempt to highlight competitors/alternatives to ABF and/or U-Pack Moving, then it misses the mark. Hatbird 20:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The Nav boxes like that are to allow easy navigation between similar items, in this case moving companies. If the nav box is removed from this page, then ABF should also be removed from the template that generates the nav box. That all said, what you say makes sense, but IMHO this is something that really needs another opinion or two before it is implemented. - TexasAndroid 21:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

While ABF is not a "moving company" in the traditional sense, U-Pack is, indeed, a moving service. The best fix would be to separate U-Pack as a stand-alone entry and then include the Nav box of moving entities. A Nav box could then be added to the ABF entry with similar items such as FedEx Freight, Roadway, Yellow Transportion, etc. Hatbird 21:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

A little digging through article histories gives us an answer about where this came from. It was indeed U-Pack that had this nav-box template, back when they were separate articles. Then U-Pack, along with the template got merged into the ABF article, then finally a few days ago the label on the template got updated to read ABF instead of U-Pack. So that tells us how things got the way that they are, but not really where to go forward from here. - TexasAndroid 22:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Centrx's distorted view of "advertising"

Here's the deal. I'm an agent of ABF and Centrx thinks that nothing I write about ABF can be in a NPOV. Yet I doubt that anyone else reading this article would agree. (Check Centrx's talk page to see a sad history of pompous editing and an abuse of the role of administor.) Please. Someone correct this error and remove that banner. And if I'm wrong, if this article does indeed read like an advertisement, then in the interest of fairness to all users of Wikipedia, please place this same banner above virtually all articles that discuss a public company -- the vast majority of which possess neither the clarity nor the support of references displayed here. Please help to right this wrong. Hatbird 14:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

How could you be wrong if the person who added the banner has so sad a history of pompous editing and administrator abuse? —Centrx→talk • 21:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Pardon my attack on your integrity. It was reactionary, ill-advised, and unwarranted. I apologize and hereby request your guidance on matters of "blatant advertising." Please, indicate where deletions and/or revisions should be made. Thank you. And again, I sincerely apologize. Hatbird 02:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Upack

Upack redirects here. Executable compression however, refers to Upack as a software compression utility. This should be corrected in one of the articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.86.142.7 (talk) 14:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Disassociating ABF and ArcBest

ArcBest is the parent company of ABF but this article conflated the two, mixing information about both within the article text and the infobox. I'm in the process of creating a new article for ArcBest (which IMO is now notable on its own). I the meantime, I have added history based on ArcBest's website but I will be shortly replacing that source as the only source for that information with better sources. DatraxMada (talk) 18:38, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I've created a new article about ArcBest (ABF's parent company) and have removed details from this article that only pertained to ArcBest. In that I've also updated this article with additional info/sources uncovered while creating ArcBest. There are still several items that could use expansion that I'm not currently finding great sources for:

1. The relationship between ABF, ABF Moving, and U-Pack. It seems that U-Pack started as an ABF subsidiary but eventually became a direct ArcBest subsidiary at some point. I've not found a lot of reliable info around that or the operations of U-Pack.

2. The early history (especially pre-1956) is very muddy. ArcBest's site gives the original company that became what is now ABF Freight System, Inc. as "OK Transport" but I've not found anywhere else that seems to back that up.

3. I primarily focused on clearing up the confusion around ArcBest/ABF so far but that means I don't have a lot on ABF itself after 1985 except for a few snippets of info. They're now a pretty major carrier so I would be surprised if there was nothing notable about them during the past 35 years.

I would much appreciate anyone who can contribute to those areas (or, of course, to the rest of the content). Even if you want to just throw some sources here that I can loop back to at some point that would be great. DatraxMada (talk) 16:07, 1 November 2021 (UTC)