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A "Watford Central"?

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I've just removed the following text:

Although it is the terminus of the branch, it was not planned as such, with an extension to the town centre (Watford Central station) envisaged but never constructed. The original Watford Central station building was in Watford High Street, opposite the junction with Clarendon Road, and has known many guises. In the 1950s this was the Grange Furniture Store and the original underground station canopy was still in evidence. A theme bar, the Moon Under Water, now occupies the site. For many years, a bus service ran from Watford station to the High Street.

Now I was brought up in the 1950s on in Watford and knew the High Street at the end very well into the 60s and 70s, and there was no "original underground station canopy" there (for a start no station = no canpopy!) and the putative alignment from the Met station would have been through Cassiobury Park, which would never have happened either. I can't find anything online to substantiate even a part of this text, so removed it to here for the moment. --AlisonW (talk) 01:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I shall restore the text which AlisonW removed, as there is a perfectly good reference and photograph of the lost station in London's Lost Railways [1] .--91.106.13.251 (talk) 14:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Making references more useful and informative

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This recent edit fixes a number of issues:

  • Convert bare references to use {{cite}} template to make them more informative and to avoid {{linkrot}}.
  • Add |archiveurl= and |archivedate= to all web references in case the original referenced material ceases to be available.
  • Remove redundant accessdate information.

<ref name="">{{cite web | url= | title= | last= | first= | work= | publisher= | date= | archiveurl= | archivedate= | deadurl=no }}</ref>

  • References that include the article title, author, publication name, publisher and publication date are much more useful to readers than a bare URL. The {{cite}} template provides a simple way to add that extra information.
  • Replace web with news for newspaper references.
  • Add |format=PDF or |format=DOC after the |url= parameter where appropriate.
  • Archiving the referenced web content also preserves a separate copy just in case the original URL stops working.
  • Adding archive data to references through the |archiveurl= and |archivedate= parameters is further aided by the fact that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine now supports on-demand archiving of content.
  • Once the original publication date and/or archivedate have been recorded, the accessdate is irrelevant and should be removed.

Similar work is needed on the majority of rail and tube station pages, but there is just too much of it for one person to tackle in a reasonable timeframe.

Any volunteers? -- ­­­­79.67.255.56 (talk) 10:01, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello 79.67.255.56. I do sporadically improve links with the cite tag but it is quite a job. This article seems in pretty good shape in this respect - was there a particularly problematic article which needs attention or is this just a general request? Cnbrb (talk) 15:46, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The majority of rail and tube station pages have incomplete references and very few link to archive copies. A small number of people tackling several pages each day, several days per week, could have the vast majority of these in good order within a month or two. Using the {{cite}} template is fairly simple. Linking to archive copies of referenced material is quick and easy now that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine supports on-demand archiving. I'll attempt to fix a few more of these pages. -- 79.67.255.56 (talk) 16:07, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Should accessdates be removed? They can help pinpoint when text was added to an article. Does the archivedate also enable that? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 15:57, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The accessdate may give a clue about when a reference was added, but I think the original publication date is far more important. Finding out when a particular piece of text was added is easily achieved using the WikiBlame tool that is linked from the 'history' page of every article. That search will also reveal who added the text and what else was changed within that particular edit. -- 79.67.255.56 (talk) 16:07, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to do the odd bit, 79.67.255.56, but please remember this is just a voluntary effort. It's great that some people have the time to tackle several pages each day, several days per week, but it's a small number of people because most people have a day job, not for lack of enthusiasm. The cite tag is great, but TBH I find looking up archiveURLs a real chore - not that I don't understand the value of this, but manually copying a URL into the Waybackmachine and then waiting and waiting for it to work.... if anyone can recommend a smart tool for doing this I'd gladly try it out. Also, just a suggestion, but you may get more support by posting requests for help somewhere like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains than on a random article talk page. Cnbrb (talk) 23:42, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I just picked that figure at random. Having looked at a few histories I see some people doing several hours of editing almost every day, and others just a few times per year. Any amount is of help, there's always something to do. One thing that speeds things up is that some references are repeated on multiple pages, e.g. a link to the specific Heritage List entry. Once one page has been fixed, the code for that reference can be reused elsewhere simply by editing the page ID and page title before pasting the reference in. I have started a text file with a few code snippets in. The Wayback Machine is now much quicker. For the last few months it has supported on-demand indexing. Pages can be archived in minutes rather than it taking months. I usually prepend http://web.archive.org/web/*/ to the original URL of interest and request that, bypassing the web form. Thanks for the tip about Project pages. I had no idea such a thing existed. I'll take a look. -- 79.67.255.56 (talk) 09:44, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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