Talk:Biketown

edits to remove bias, correct historic record

I've edited the article because bias was demonstrated by use of the words "disastrous" & "failure" to describe "The Yellow Bike Project". The Yellow Bike Project was the nation's first bike sharing program. It has been copied in other Cities and inspired the development of the multiple bike-share programs including BIKESHARE.

In fact, evidence exists to support the theory that The Yellow Bike project inspired development of the open source code known as "the wiki". Portland, Oregon Tech' Entrepreneur, Ward Cunningham, a Yellow Bike Project supporter (he created the original Yellow Bike Project website). The wiki became instrumental in the creation of Wikipedia.

One can argue that The Yellow Bike Project inspired not just development of Wikipedia, but Airbnb, Uber, et al.

To label The Yellow Bike Project "disastrous" or "a failure" is not merely inaccurate & negative bias, it ignores the fact that a shared sense of civic pride, community, whimsy & recycling innovation resulted at no cost to the public. No personal injuries or damage to private or public property was attributed to The Yellow Bike Project. In fact, the gag Portlanders played on capitalism still brings smiles to many Portlanders. That's all Tom O'keefe said he expected would result. Others had different ideas. Stephenmgunther (talk) 02:10, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

The word "disastrous" was part of The Oregonian's headline and the word "failure" is used in the same article to describe the ultimate fate of the project. The rest of your post is off-topic. This article is about the modern city-backed bikeshare, and the mention of Yellow Bike is only used as a little, tiny piece of context (and thus should be summarized here and expanded upon in the Yellow Bike article). SounderBruce 03:15, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Further, it's self-promotional, not from a neutral point of view, and relies on original research. I'd love it if you found reliable sources that expand on the Yellow Bike Project, but it probably belongs on Cycling in Portland, Oregon, aside from a brief mention here.

In any case, stop re-adding the information; it constitutes edit warring. tedder (talk) 03:59, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

@Stephenmgunther:: We truly appreciate your motivation and desire to make this article accurate. All of us old hands have been there at some point. However, for a lasting and stable article, the content must reflect Wikipedia's Five Pillars. The most important of these (in this instance) is verifiable and reliable sourcing. There is a maxim (which comes from Wikipedia's founder, Jimmy Wales) that no information is better than unsourced information.

The Oregonian is usually considered a reliable source for Oregon topics. Unless they have printed a retraction, their use of objectionable words like failure and disastrous adequately supports the article to contain them. Another important Wikipedia pillar is neutrality. If you know of a reliable source which says the Yellow Bike Project was successful, that would be a great addition. It does not necessarily mean removal of the negative is appropriate, but adding the positive provides balance. We publish all significant views and let the reader decide what is true. —EncMstr (talk) 16:40, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Not sure if this is worth including in the article, but I heard someone refer to the system as Bike-y-Town (rhymes with Nike). However, this source confirms that the system's name is pronounced Bike-Town, not Bike-y-Town. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:52, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

I think it is, using John H. Couch as another similar example. And yes, I was told the same pronunciation- it isn't "bikey", or at least they don't want it to be. tedder (talk) 23:41, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Expansion

• https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/biketown-service-area-expansion-2022/283-846f194c-3d12-4cd9-bd87-20b1b9ab7e08
• https://www.wweek.com/bikes/2022/01/10/portland-expands-biketown-service-area-to-include-st-johns-and-outer-east-portland/
• https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/biketown-expands-further-into-north-east-portland/

---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)