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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Woodleigh MRT station/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 28 March 2022 [1].

Woodleigh MRT station

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Nominator(s): ZKang123 (talk) 05:15, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My 4th FAC. This article is about another Singapore metro station which had a rather brief yet interesting history, since it was mothballed for quite a long time even after it was completed. I hope for a quick and successful review.--ZKang123 (talk) 05:15, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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Source review - pass

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Spot checks:

  • "On 18 April 2017, Woodleigh station was closed for about three hours after a suspicious substance was found in various areas in the station. At 1:49 pm, SBS Transit announced that all trains would skip Woodleigh station due to a "security incident", though the station reopened at 4:20 pm after police established the substance to be baking flour" - all checks out. It would be good to know what happened to the people who were arrested here, given they seem to have been guilty of being really dumb rather than anything sinister - e.g. where they convicted?
  • "Woodleigh station will also serve the developing Bidadari public housing estate" - checks out, but can something more specific than 'developing' be added here given the source is from 2019? (e.g. when is the development expected to be complete?)
  • "The station is next to the site of a future bus interchange, part of an integrated commercial and residential development that will be the estate's town centre" - checks out
  • "The platforms are wheelchair-accessible. A tactile system, consisting of tiles with rounded or elongated raised studs," - I can't see where this station is specifically referred to in the source. If this is true of all stations on the line, please tweak the text to reflect this.
  • " Dedicated routes connect the station entrances to the platforms" - seems unclear?
  • "The artist intended her work to be a "snapshot" of Singapore's urban life" - not supported by the sources, which do not attribute this to the artist.
  • No close paraphrasing, and good use appears to have been made of the available sources, all of which are reliable and suitable. I'm a bit surprised that there are no non-government published books on the Singapore MRT that can be consulted here though? Nick-D (talk) 01:35, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, there aren't other official sources on the station design. The LTA usually makes publications related to our transport network.--10:30, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
      • No-one has ever written a book or website that meets WP:RS on this topic, despite the huge number of such works in other countries? Nick-D (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        First off, it's not really a significant station. There is SGTrains and Land Transport Guru but these are user-based fancruft blogs which cannot be used (and also doesn't add much). ZKang123 (talk) 12:13, 28 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        Update 22 Mar 22: @Nick-D
        Ok I did try to search up for more independent sources, but most were just passing mentions, and nothing much that really adds to the article. Again, Woodleigh is not that of a significant station that would warrant much attention outside of Singapore.
        I did try to contact DPA Architects (the architectural firm behind the station) for further details, but so far they have not replied. ZKang123 (talk) 07:57, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Serial support

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Comments Support by Gerald Waldo Luis

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Comin' from Discord. Images look good, but the infobox image needs an alt text. Prose comments TBD. GeraldWL 06:14, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just came back to this art.! Saw the alt text, so Image pass. Now onto the article.
Resolved comments from GeraldWL 18:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
* Link Upper Serangoon Road
  • "Station entrance pictured in April 2011 prior to its opening"-- add comma between "2011" and "prior"
  • On the other hand at "The contract for the station's construction, and 2.5 km (1.6 mi) of bored tunnels, was awarded to a joint venture", I dont think the commas are needed.
  • "In January 2011, The Straits Times"-- "In January 2011, Christopher Tan The Straits Times"
  • "the newspaper"-- "Tan"
  • "Woodleigh station serves the North East line (NEL), part of the Mass Rapid Transit network]]"
  • "between the Potong Pasir and Serangoon stations"-- remove Serangoon link here as duplicate.
  • "the station is operated by SBS Transit, in lieu of the default SMRT Corporation"
  • "Woodleigh station will also serve the developing Bidadari"-- link Bidadari, Singapore
  • "The station is designated as a Civil Defence (CD) shelter"-- link to the CD article.
  • Link zinc
  • Link plastic film for "polymer film"
Did all the above changes. ZKang123 (talk) 05:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Mike Christie

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I've copyedited; please revert if I've screwed anything up.

  • Suggest making it clearer at the start of the history section that what Mah Bow Tan announced in 1996 was a new MRT line, the NEL, not just 16 stations. To a local it's probably obvious, but to a Londoner or a New Yorker 16 stations might just be an extension to an existing line.
  • Looking at the North East MRT line article, it seems there are seventeen operational stations, and that only NE2 is reserved, so I would have expected the announcement in 1996 to be of seventeen stations, including Woodleigh, but the article says "Woodleigh station was among the 16...". I see Buangkok was announced but not opened, so that can't be the difference. What am I missing?
  • "the station would only operate once future developments in the area were completed": suggest "the station would begin operating once the area around it was sufficiently developed", since I doubt that "completed" is strictly what the condition was.
  • "The Land Transport Authority and operator SBS Transit carried out feasibility studies for the station's opening": when?
    • Sources state that both continued to access the feasibility even when the station remained closed.--ZKang123 (talk) 01:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, but there was a fifteen year gap and if there's any more information about the timing it would good to add. Does the source say they refreshed the feasibility studies yearly? Every five years? What does "continued" mean? Does it mean that they carried out feasibility studies before the 1996 decision? Or just that they did more than one study afterwards? If the source is not precise about this, I accept we can't be either; what does the source actually say? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:09, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      From [5] (2007): The Woodleigh Station was not opened together with the rest of the North East Line (NEL) stations in 2003 because of the lack of residential developments in the stations immediate vicinity. To-date, there are still limited developments surrounding the area. The LTA is constantly monitoring the pace of developments in the areas surrounding the stations which would in turn affect the ridership for the station. At the same time, the LTA is also working closely with land use agencies to see if developments in the area can be accelerated. And during the announcement of the station's opening: We have been monitoring the developments around the Woodleigh Station for a while now. With more developments coming up and an increase in passenger flow through from the Circle Line, the time is now right to open it.
      Neither the LTA or SBS are really specific about how they access the feasibility. I also tried to search up anything in between, but there's nothing significant.--ZKang123 (talk) 09:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't think we can say "feasibility study" if this is the source. This just says they're keeping an eye on the developments. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Then I just remove the sentence on LTA and SBS doing feasibility studies. ZKang123 (talk) 00:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The opening came after several new developments nearby had been completed": do we have any dates? Can we combine this information with the mention of "new developments in the area" a couple of sentences earlier?
    • Moved the earlier sentence closer with this sentence.--ZKang123 (talk) 01:13, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I read the sources, and I see they're unspecific, but as it stands the paragraph reads clumsily. In January Tan speculates that Woodleigh will open "to serve new developments in the area", and two sentences later we say the opening came "after several new developments nearby had been completed", but we don't connect these two explicitly. I understand that it would be synthesis to assume Tan is referring to exactly the same developments as the later articles, but it is strange to act as though these are independent pieces of information. One option would be just to cut the sentence starting "The opening came...", as it adds very little information. If you don't do that then I think the paragraph needs reworking to make the information flow more naturally. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:09, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Sentence cut as suggested ZKang123 (talk) 09:44, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Train frequencies vary from 2.5 to 5 minutes depending on peak hours": this doesn't make sense. What does "depending on peak hours" mean? Is it no more than 5 minutes at offpeak? Do you mean "Train frequencies vary from 2.5 at peak hours to 5 minutes during off-peak hours"?
  • "the work shows the future generations people's lives in the 2000s": I don't know what this means.
  • "Intending to center her commission around people" is one of those almost meaningless phrases that gets used about public art; I would cut it, or use a direct quote from Ng to show her intentions.
Comments superseded by further comments below
  • "Ng recalled the positive reception she received when giving a photoengraved piece of work to her friend as a farewell gift. This experience prompted her to use photo etching for this work." This is stilted. I would make this "Ng chose to use photo etching for Slow Motion because a friend of hers had been delighted by a photoengraved work Ng had given her", if that is supported by the sources.
  • How can the artwork guide commuters? It's visible in two photos in the article and in neither case is it apparent how it can guide anyone. And given that, what does the next sentence, "The idea of..." mean?
  • I'm not sure we need the details about how Slow Motion was built -- the acetate paper, and the last paragraph. This is a short article and it seems more detail than is needed. Or is April Ng a very significant artist in Singapore, so that this is a significant fact about the station?

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:36, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Generally I think there's some less than fluent phrasing in the article. The "Public artwork" section has several examples; "a specific type of acetate" is vague; "The idea of depicting people in motion fulfilled LTA's request for artists" sounds like an attempt to avoid close paraphrasing; and I left a similar comment above about the sentence about why Ng chose photo-engraving. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:09, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Here are the photos of the relevant pages on the artwork
ZKang123 (talk) 09:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for those photos -- that's very helpful. Some comments on the "Public artwork" section, now that I've read the Tan article:

  • "the work is intended to show the future generations what life was like in the 2000s". This phrasing makes it sound as if this is the primary intention of the work. The source is Ng saying that "in twenty to thirty years time, people will look at our clothes...and think, 'That's what people looked like around 2000'". This is just a comment by Ng about how the art will be perceived, not a statement of her main intention.
  • "Ng chose to use photo etching for Slow Motion; this was due to the positive reception she received when giving her friend a photoengraved piece of work as a farewell gift". Suggest ""Ng had previously used photo etching to make pictures of friends of hers as farewell gifts for them; her friends had loved them, and she decided to use the technique again for Slow Motion" which makes it clearer it was multiple people, and that the images were of her friends themselves, and I think reads more smoothly.
  • "After amassing photos of pedestrians, workers at the station and LTA staff, Ng arranged the photos in such a way that the movement and direction of pedestrians guide commuters either to the platforms or out of the station. The idea of depicting people in motion fulfilled LTA's request for artists to incorporate the practical wayfinding aspect in their work." I don't see in the source that she took photos of pedestrians; it says "the team working on Woodleigh station, LTA's staff as well as her family and friends". I also don't think we can say she succeeded in her artistic goal; we have to talk about intent. Suggest: "Ng used photos that showed the diversity of Singapore's culture, representing people of all races and ages. She took the photos herself, using LTA staff and the Woodleigh station construction crew as subjects, along with photos of her friends and her husband and son. The LTA wanted the Art-in-Transit works to have a "wayfinding" element to help guide commuters towards the platforms or out of the station, and Ng attempted to achieve this by making sure that some of the photos were of people moving in the approriate direction." I think you need the cite for this (whether you use my wording or not) to span two pages as the paragraph in the source crosses a page boundary.
  • "Zinc was chosen as the figures could be reproduced better on the plates and also reflects the architectural materials used for the station". Suggest "Ng chose zinc instead of copper because the photos she took reproduced better in zinc. The choice of zinc fit in well with the station's design, which used zinc in the roof materials." There's no implication in the source that the fact that zinc fit in with the station's architectural design was a factor in Ng's choice.
  • "The plates were degreased before a layer of polymer film was laminated on the plates. Under ultraviolet light, the film was exposed to the enlarged copies of the photos, and the plates reproduced the images." This technical information seems out of place to me; this is information about how photo etching works in general. We wouldn't talk about how oil painting works if she had worked in oils. What I think we can do is talk about this elements of her work that were specific to this installation -- the humidity issue, for example, which I see you've cut. You originally had "Due to Singapore's humidity, the polymer films kept sticking to the plates, which made them difficult to adjust; her colleagues and experts in Edinburgh suggested spraying the film and plates with water, which worked" I think we should cut the two sentence you have now, and replace them with something that focuses on the humidity issue, giving enough technical information to understand it but no more. Suggest "Singapore's high humidity caused problems with the photo engraving process; to create the images, a polymer film had to be applied to the zinc plates, and the humidity caused the film to stick to the plates immediately, so that it could not be adjusted. Ng was able to resolve the problem by spraying the film and plates with water before applying the film." It's tempting to mention that she got this advice from Edinburgh but I think it requires yet more explanation that takes us too far off topic.

That's everything I have. I'm going to collapse the comments about this section I made above because they're no longer relevant. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:58, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • For the first point, then I removed that comment since that's not her main intention.
  • Alright reworded as per you suggested. Though I prefer maintaining formality and wrote "the gifts were well-received" instead of "her friends had loved them".
  • Fixed accordingly.
  • Fixed accordingly.
  • Fixed accordingly.
ZKang123 (talk) 01:03, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support and a note for the coords: the wording for the last paragraph is almost entirely mine; in a long article I wouldn't bother to point this out, but it's ten to fifteen percent of this article. I don't think that prevents me from supporting, but I want to be transparent about it just in case. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:51, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from KN2731

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For transparency, I was asked at WP:Discord to look at this. I don't really have much to add with the extensive prose reviews above. ~ KN2731 {talk · contribs} 08:01, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Youngberg Terrace and Avon Park aren't mentioned anywhere outside the lead.
  • Why's April Ng linked? Potentially notable?
  • "Woodleigh was not planned" ... "It was originally planned" – repetitive, replace one with "intended" or similar
  • "parliament session" – capitalise P since it's referring specifically to the Parliament of Singapore; for generic use "parliamentary session" is more appropriate
  • "The station is next to the site of a future integrated commercial and residential development Woodleigh Residences part of the estate's future town centre, which will include a future bus interchange" – sentence structure seems a little odd. Try adding a comma before and a dash after Woodleigh Residences?
Fixed per suggested. ZKang123 (talk) 09:32, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support on prose. Comprehensiveness and structure seem ok but I haven't checked closely. ~ KN2731 {talk · contribs} 09:40, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Query to FAC coords

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@FAC coordinators: Am I allowed to nominate another page for FAC? This nomination has 4 prose supports, as well as an image and source review. ZKang123 (talk) 00:41, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:40, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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