Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian Transport

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Self published sources

Recently I flagged a couple of cites on East West Bus Company and SmartBus that were from Wongm's Rail Gallery as self published. These were reversed with the editor's rationale being: cannot justify as self published source, as the source is predominantly photos.

WP:SPS states: Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. That is why self-published material such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.

From what I can work out the site's sole contributor, Marcus Wong, is not a published author. The website states he is a train nut amateur photographer. He may be knowledgeable, but cannot find any reference to him work published by reliable, independent publications. Nothing comes up in the National or Victorian State Library catalogues.

Likewise same editor is using a discussion from an internet forum as a cite. I thought this was considered WP:USERGENERATED and thus not permitted.

Was going to take it the reliable sources noticeboard, but thought would see if editors had opinions here first. Fishaharris (talk) 00:00, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Marcus has a wealth of thoroughly labelled imagery but clearly does not meet the standard of an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. His captions really ought not to be used as RS. Triptothecottage (talk) 01:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with everything you have just said. "cannot justify as self published source, as the source is predominantly photos" is a nonsensical statement. Forums are definitely not allowed either. Steelkamp (talk) 01:13, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

The project should have had well established the standard in its original scope and aim, that postings in forums do not constitute anything of any substance. Anybody can say anything without any form of clarification from a independent reliable source. Far too many people post things to social media about transport subjects even here in Western Australia that can not be verified in any way, I am sure that the problem is multiplied in Melbourne as well. JarrahTree 01:48, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Just as an FYI, Marcus Wong (@Wongm) appears to have a Wikipedia account too - nothing much further to add from me about this.

@Marcnut1996: FYI as the editor discussed above. Fork99 (talk) 02:23, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

The citations I have put are for the photos and not the captions. It is also noted that the Wongm's Rail Gallery (which I used) is a different website to his blog (which for obvious reasons is not an acceptable source in Wikipedia). WP:SPS does not mention photos to be unacceptable as sources. Marcnut1996 (talk) 03:26, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

That WP:SPS does not mention photos is irrelevant, the issue is that the website is self published, i.e. it has no editorial control, its no more reliable than a blog or social media post. If the only way that West Bus Company operated a SmartBus route can only be backed up by a photograph and not by a published work, it should be edited out. Fishaharris (talk) 22:51, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I am pretty sure the way you have tagged the SPS is wrong. I think it should be within the ref tags and not outside. It will be best if someone else with more wikipedia experience could help verify if the SPS tag was done correctly or not. Marcnut1996 (talk) 01:30, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Fishaharris: I just checked the guidelines. Could you change all tags from {{sps}} to {{Self-published source}} instead, and put it within the ref tags. The Template:Self-published source tag is more appropriate, read the associated guide. Marcnut1996 (talk) 01:38, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I changed the tags myself anyways. I also removed the {{unreliable sources}} hatnote from Melbourne bus route 901 as only one source is flagged as SPS and the sentence has now been backed up with another source. However, I kept the hatnote for East West Bus Company. Marcnut1996 (talk) 10:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The Wongm cites were only being used to either back up relatively trivial text or text already back up by a more reliable source. Neither is necessary, so have removed from both articles. Wantenline (talk) 10:40, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Victorian infobox station fields

Many of the Victorian railway station infoboxes have the 'Line' field incorrectly populated. This field should be the physical railway line, not the service. The latter goes further down in the 'Services' field. Hence Craigieburn railway station should have the line field populated with North East railway line and not Craigieburn line and Seymour V/Line rail service. Likewise Pakenham railway station should have the line field populated with Gippsland railway line and not Pakenham line and Gippsland V/Line rail service Wantenline (talk) 10:53, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merger of Park Road/Boggo Road station articles

Proposed merger of Park Road railway station, Boggo Road busway station and Boggo Road railway station content and all three redirected to a new article Boggo Road station. Please discuss in Talk:Boggo Road railway station. DigitalPanda (talk) 08:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Citation template (and other templates)

Responding to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian Transport/Archive 2#Replacement of Vicsig links...
@Anothersignalman (and anyone else that wants templates),
I can happily create a citation template for whatever is needed. I have created both simple (eg Stopping All Stations, VR Diagram books) and some more complex (eg Newsrail and Brief History Books) templates.

• Newsrail - automatically swaps publisher between "ARHS Victoria Division" and "Victorian Rail Publishing Inc" depending on year as well as auto getting the volume and number from the month and year.
• Brief History Books - automatically changing title, date, isbn, and even the addition of Daryl Gregory as author from book 4 onwards depending on what volume is selected.

I'd just need the details for what to add to each template.
This isn't limited to just citation templates, I have also made Table Age Calculator (or TAC2 for short) – a useful little thing to add sortable start date, sortable end date, and then give the age to a table without the need to re type the date multiple times (removing the chance of simple little errors). -- ThylacineHunter (talk) 06:57, 3 September 2024 (UTC)