Talk:New York City Subway/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Arsenikk ^(talk) 07:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the article falls short of the good article criteria. The main issue is the lack of proper referencing; in average perhaps half the article is not referenced at the moment. There are a number of other issues as well:

• The length of the lead is not in proportion to the length of the article. Long article are expected to have long leads.
• Y The sentence "It is one of the four systems, with PATH, parts of the Chicago 'L', and PATCO to offer service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year." is vague and directly untrue. For instance, the Copenhagen Metro also has 24-hour services, and the lead fails to mention that the four systems in question are the four in the US.
• The lead does not summarize the article, and the second paragraph tends to focus on trivialities and almost talks more about other systems than the one in question.
• The article is very long. While the exact length of the article can be discussed, I have a hard time seeing this length as acceptable.
• With that being said, there is a lot of inefficient writing, where a lot of words are being used to say very little. An example of this is the section "lines and routes".
• Y There should not be an overview section. The lead is to function as the overview, while the body is to contain information in relevant sections.
• Y Placing "New York City Subway nomenclature" as a {{main}} under routes and lines is wrong.
• The sentence 'Many rapid transit systems run relatively static routings, so that a train "line" is more or less synonymous with a train "route".' is very vague, as it is not clear to the reader what a route and line mean, as they are often used interchangeably in rail terminology. Here, the third paragraph should be first.
• Y Don't place {{main}} at the end of sections.
• Avoid single-sentence and other short paragraphs.
• Images are placed so they 'sandwich" each other (place directly beside each other on the right and the left sides).
• The article has maintenance and {{cn}} tags.
• Quoting the regulations (regarding photography) is a waste of space. Try to say things in as few words as possible (but of course as many as necessary).

This is an incomplete list of issues, but shows a good starting place. The article is in need of a very thorough copyedit, a partial restructuring of information and a full referencing before being suitable as a good article. Arsenikk ^(talk) 07:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Fixed "New York City Subway nomenclature as a {{main}}" and "Don't place {{main}} at the end of sections." Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

"The sentence "It is one of the four systems, with PATH, parts of the Chicago 'L', and PATCO to offer service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year." is vague and directly untrue. For instance, the Copenhagen Metro also has 24-hour services, and the lead fails to mention that the four systems in question are the four in the US." was already fixed. Philroc (talk) 21:29, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Fixed "There should not be an overview section. The lead is to function as the overview, while the body is to contain information in relevant sections.". I cut all of the "Overview" section, deleted the section, and then put that into the lead as the second paragraph, instead of the old second paragraph, which mainly focused of trivial facts, like Arsenikk said. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philroc (talk • contribs) 23:52, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments on GA issues

Whilst I might take issue with one or two of Arsenikk's points, on the whole I agree that the article is nowhere near close to being GA.

The problem, which infects many of the rail and subway articles, is that it is written mostly by railfans, who tend to throw in a lot of details that would quickly lose the average reader. The article is like a basement that hasn't been cleaned in many years, with a huge accumulation of material in no particular order. It is also poorly sourced, containing many statements that are likely true, but that one would be hard pressed to "prove" if asked by a skeptical reviewer.

Getting the article up to GA quality would be a very big job, given the complexity of the subject. Marc Shepherd (talk) 23:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Without disagreeing at all with Marc Shehperd, I would almost suggest writing this article from scratch if GA or FA was wanted. With so few references as it has (particularly in the history section), it would be necessary to find everything in a source. Somewhat more time-consuming, but essentially what I do when bringing existing "cluttered" articles up to GA. Arsenikk ^(talk) 10:33, 11 November 2010 (UTC)