User talk:Pi.1415926535/Archive 19

This is an archive of past discussion threads on User talk:Pi.1415926535, from October 2022 (the end of [[User talk:Pi.1415926535/Archive 18|Archive 18) to March 2023. Please don't modify it. If you wish to revive a discussion, please start a new section on my main talk page and link to the discussion here.

Combined Lincoln Service and Missouri River Runner

I didn't quite know who to address this with, so I thought I'd ask you since we interacted before. One of the Lincoln Service trips has combined with one of the Missouri River Runner trips. Amtrak appears to have made this permanent for at least the near future (see here) but it is unclear when (and possibly why) they did this. In any case, how do you think we should address this in the articles of the two trains? ChessEric (talk · contribs) 14:54, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@ChessEric I would just add a sentence like In [date], Amtrak began through-routing one round trip of the Missouri River Runner and Lincoln Service, creating a Kansas City–Chicago round trip to each article, and cite it to that page (plus any source that mentions when it began.) Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:52, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 11:30, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Your user page

I'd like to start by saying I hope this isn't an incorrect use of your talk page. When I loaded your user page, I was presented with all of your good article circles rendering over the first paragraph. This might be a bug with MS Edge, but I thought you might like to know. סשס Grimmchild. He/him, probably 11:24, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Grimmchild Thanks for the reminder! I've been meaning to fix that issue (it's not just Edge) for a while now. For now I've moved them into a subsection of my user page. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Removal of station layout template from WMATA articles

Hi, I saw your earlier cleanup edits on the articles for the new Silver Line stations (e.g. Ashburn) in Virginia. I am just curious as to your rationale for removing the {{WMATA Silver west platform layout}} template from the pages. I realize that it may have been a bit repetitive given that some of the info was mentioned in the prose and the stations only serve one line, but almost all, if not all, of the Washington Metro station articles use the station layout template to convey that information. I think it also is just a more visually appealing way to present the info than textually in the prose. Would you have any objections if those were readded for consistency and readability? PlanetJuice (talk • contribs) 04:32, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

@PlanetJuice Thanks for reaching out. There's a longstanding consensus not to include station diagrams for simple stations such as these. The most recent RFC is here; while there were a variety of opinions, I think the general consensus is clear. The diagrams have significant downsides (they're an accessibility nightmare, and they take up a lot of room), so my rule of thumb is that the layout diagrams are only worthwhile if they provide additional clarity for the prose or clarify unusual service patterns. For these stations, the layout diagrams don't add any information that's not already covered by prose and the services template in the infobox. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that. I was not aware of the RfCs regarding this, but I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I figured there was probably a reason but wasn't sure whether it was one of personal preference or established consensus. PlanetJuice (talk • contribs) 11:38, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Ethan Allen Express

The article Ethan Allen Express you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Ethan Allen Express for comments about the article, and Talk:Ethan Allen Express/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Sammi Brie -- Sammi Brie (talk) 06:04, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

SF Muni Metro "connections"

A lot of the Muni Metro lines list the line's Owl bus and early morning bus as "connections." For example most of the L Taraval stations list connections to the L Bus and L Owl routes. The way I see it -- they're not connections, I can't ride the train and transfer to one of those buses, they're replacement routes for when the routes aren't operating. I'd like to eliminate those connections. Thoughts? -- RickyCourtney (talk) 22:55, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

@RickyCourtney That's a good question; I'm not wedded to having them there. My thought when adding them in was that "connections" should include all routes that stop at the location, regardless of time of day. (To take it to an extreme, an Amtrak/intercity bus station might have several intercity bus providers that only stop hours apart from Amtrak.) There's also not a perfect 1:1 correlation between the daytime and Owl lines - the L Owl serves stops along the Embarcadero that the L doesn't, and the 91 Owl covers portions of several Muni Metro routes. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:23, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

@RickyCourtney I definitely don't think it's necessary to discuss the overnight buses in the article prose. That seems like overkill/travel directions to me. Having them as connections (where they're liked to the service information in the route article) is as much as we could need. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:51, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

So, no go on those changes? It seemed like a pretty good solution. Thoughts on including descriptions of the connecting routes? I'm trying to model a little of what was done on the Link light rail pages which are either GA or FA status. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 00:57, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

@RickyCourtney Yeah, I don't think they're worth including. The Link articles are too detailed in my opinion - the service information just duplicates what's already in the article about the line, while the bus route descriptions require an undue amount of maintenance. Even for a major bus terminal, I prefer just saying "the station is the main transfer point for local bus routes that serve Neighborhood, as well as express routes to Small Town" then listing the route numbers.

I think Amory Street station and Babcock Street station (which I got to GA) are better models for surface light rail stops like on Muni Metro. If we have a station layout paragraph/section (which I'd support adding to the Muni Metro station articles), then a sentence at the end like "The stop is also served by the route 66 bus, plus the L Owl and L Bus that provide overnight service on the L Taraval route" would be fine. (That can just be cited to the system map, rather than the individual bus route.) The idea should be that the articles require only minimal edits when service changes occur; otherwise, they'll inevitably get outdated over time.

@Mackensen I agree; that's probably a discussion for WikiProject Trains. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:15, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I think there's a much broader question of whether/how Wikipedia should discuss night routes/replacement services. I've tended to ignore them on Swiss articles. Mackensen (talk) 01:12, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Shipyard Railway

The article Shipyard Railway you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Shipyard Railway for comments about the article, and Talk:Shipyard Railway/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Marshelec -- Marshelec (talk) 03:44, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Muni Metro line maps

Hey! I was looking to spruce up the Muni Metro maps to prepare for the upcoming launch of the Central Subway. There are currently two formats. There's the narrow format with BART in red as seen on Template:S Shuttle and there's the wide format with the F Market and the BART shown as on Template:L Taraval. Thoughts on which would be a better format to standardize on? RickyCourtney (talk) 23:14, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@RickyCourtney Thanks for taking that on - I did some cleanup for the initial opening, but RDTs aren't my specialty. The narrow format is definitely better - it provides the visual distinction for BART and avoids the clutter. Cheers, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:18, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Two years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:51, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting all my edits

Good job making people not want to contribute. Mattl (talk) 23:45, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@Mattl I don't like reverting edits, and I'm sorry that you're frustrated. There was only enough prose in those sections to support one image without formatting issues, and the existing construction images added more than images of station signs. Additionally, three of your photos were of station signs with copyrighted artwork or photographs; because the US does not have freedom of panorama for artistic works, those photos cannot be hosted on Commons. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Continued "new pages"

The user Scope Creep continues to abuse their page reviewer power targeting articles I have written. Can you re-review? I have to take this issue up elsewhere as well, it seems, unfortunately. ɱ (talk) 19:30, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ɱ That sure seems like misuse of the NPP right - my understanding is that mass unreviewing like that would only be appropriate for undoing obvious abuse. Certainly it is inappropriate to unreview pages created/edited my someone you are in an unrelated dispute with. @MB: Could you take a look at Special:Log/Scope creep? I'd appreciate your opinion on the matter.

Ɱ, I will remind you though - please don't use bare urls for citations. That's especially true with the sources you are using that require a CPL library card to login. When I click on the link, I just get a login screen; it's not like a paywalled source where the paywall page typically displays the information about the source. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:42, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ɱ, I think you misunderstand the purpose of Autopatrol. It is used to bypass the New Pages queue for the benefit of reducing the number of articles needing to be reviewed. Adding AP articles to the queue should not be seen as any big deal - any editor should accept their new articles going through the standard review process. Autopatrol exists entirely to reduce the workload of NPP, so if an NPPer thinks any set of articles should be given a review, that only adds work to NPP and should not be anyone else's concern. Admins no longer have AP by default, and some NPPers even think it should be eliminated and all new articles be reviewed. We recently changed the Page Curation tool to make it easier to find and review AP articles so we could do more spot-checking of them. If an editor has AP, then their articles should not have any fundamental issues with notability and easily be accepted. If a significant percentage do, then that editor shouldn't be AP. I don't see any abuse here at all, especially if Scopecreep is leaving it to a "third-party" to review the articles, which seems to be the case. MB 02:03, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

You're missing the context that this was done in the middle of a dispute with Ɱ, meaning it was not a good-faith action but an attempt at retaliation, for which scope has been warned by an admin. Some of these articles were years old. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:10, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) TAOT is correct. The unreviewing of Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad Station, in particular, was improper. There was no reason why a page with encyclopedic content since 2016 needed to be sent back to the New Pages Feed. I can't find anything in Wikipedia:New pages patrol that would justify such an action, unless the guideline now allows us to unreview any articles with any problems whatsoever. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:43, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pi.1415926535: - there are three articles still unreviewed. About a half dozen editors have witnessed and agree this was a power abuse. Regardless of that fact, can you review Hotel Revival, W. Byron Ireland, and Please Don't Tell. ɱ (talk) 16:26, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad Station

Hi @Pi.1415926535: How goes it. Thanks for posting the bareurl tag to the Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad Station article, which resulted in so much extra work to update the article. I posted these articles onto the NPP, incorrectly I think, due to the originating editor removing the bareurl tag, which so obviously needed fixed. Can you please check some of the new articles, to ensure they have been updated. scope_creep^Talk 14:48, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

NPP is a user right that comes with responsibilities and basic expectations of acting in good faith. If you are unable to avoid unreviewing numerous articles worked on by an editor you have an unrelated conflict with - articles that are years old, and in some cases created by other editors - then it would be best if you resigned the NPP right to avoid future conflicts. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:56, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Medford/Tufts station

The article Medford/Tufts station you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Medford/Tufts station for comments about the article, and Talk:Medford/Tufts station/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Aria1561 -- Aria1561 (talk) 05:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

DYK for Ethan Allen Express

On 26 December 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Ethan Allen Express, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Amtrak called the Vermont Rail System the worst host railroad in the country in 2010 due to delays on the Ethan Allen Express? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ethan Allen Express. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Ethan Allen Express), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

-- RoySmith (talk) 00:02, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

DYK for Shipyard Railway

On 29 December 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Shipyard Railway, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that management of the Richmond Shipyards "went out of its way to propagandize against" the Shipyard Railway that was built to serve it? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Shipyard Railway. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Shipyard Railway), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

-- RoySmith (talk) 00:03, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Lake Geneva station

The article Lake Geneva station you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Lake Geneva station for comments about the article, and Talk:Lake Geneva station/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of LunaEatsTuna -- LunaEatsTuna (talk) 22:00, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts)

The article Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts) for comments about the article, and Talk:Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts)/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of LunaEatsTuna -- LunaEatsTuna (talk) 00:42, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Union Station (Burlington, Vermont)

The article Union Station (Burlington, Vermont) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Union Station (Burlington, Vermont) for comments about the article, and Talk:Union Station (Burlington, Vermont)/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Grk1011 -- Grk1011 (talk) 16:02, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Cross Street station (MBTA)

The article Cross Street station (MBTA) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Cross Street station (MBTA) for comments about the article, and Talk:Cross Street station (MBTA)/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of LunaEatsTuna -- LunaEatsTuna (talk) 19:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Winchester Highlands station

The article Winchester Highlands station you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Winchester Highlands station for comments about the article, and Talk:Winchester Highlands station/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of LunaEatsTuna -- LunaEatsTuna (talk) 06:42, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Some new photos

I took the day off from work and grabbed some photos of P&W and Seaview Railroad operations. In particular, there were some MBTA coaches parked near the end of track at Quonset that may be of interest to you, I think they're the MBB coaches [1] [2]. You always seem to remember categories I forget even exist, so I did the best I could and you're of course welcome to add more categories to the uploads. I'll be uploading a few more of the highlights on top of what I've uploaded so far today. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:17, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Trainsandotherthings I'll take a look. As a side note, I recommend taking train photos in landscape orientation rather than portrait orientation. Landscape orientation fits better in articles and infoboxes, while portrait orientation captures a lot of extraneous sky and foreground. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I probably won't get another chance to get photos for a while, but I'll keep that in mind. On Commons, it looks like a few new categories need creating for 2023, I'll try and handle that myself. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:27, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Union Station (Burlington, Vermont)

On 24 January 2023, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Union Station (Burlington, Vermont), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Burlington Union Station is home to winged monkeys? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Union Station (Burlington, Vermont). You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Union Station (Burlington, Vermont)), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 12:03, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: User:Arandompersonlol/sandbox/politics

Hello Pi.1415926535. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of User:Arandompersonlol/sandbox/politics, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: the owner has made edits outside of userspace. Thank you. Salvio ^giuliano 11:38, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Salvio giuliano: Thanks for letting me know - I forgot that U5 only applies to non-contributors. However, I do think this still qualifies for speedy deletion under G3, since this is fake/fictional history that will never be used in an article Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:50, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

When I declined your U5, I actually debated whether I could speedy the page as a hoax under G3, but I ended up concluding that criterion doesn't apply either, as they are quite open about the fact that they are playing "with some "alternate history politics" and, so, they are not trying to deceive anyone. Don't misunderstand me, I totally agree that page does not belong on Wikipedia, as a violation of WP:FAKEARTICLE and WP:NOTWEBHOST, but I think that the correct process is WP:MFD here. Salvio ^giuliano 07:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Merryhill Schools

I see this page was prodded and de-prodded back in 2006, so you should probably nominate for deletion. There's never been anything approaching reliable sourcing on the page or (in a reasonable BEFORE). It's a strange page; good eyes for spotting it. BusterD (talk) 00:26, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@BusterD: Thanks for letting me know - I missed that previous prod. I've nominated it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Merryhill Schools. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:26, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Kenmore Square

Thanks for your message on the image on Kenmore Square. If you look over MOS:IMGSIZE, the use of an upright=1.1 image (which is a 10 percent expansion) is entirely permissible and warranted provided it enhances the image. But I looked back at the page and believe it is slightly oversized at that level and reduced it to 1.0. Hope this satisfies your concern. Thanks! Keystone18 (talk) 16:30, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

CSD G13

Hello, Pi.1415926535,

Please review WP:G13 so you better understand the very limited circumstances when CSD G13 applies to a User page. We have probably tens of thousands (hundred of thousands?) of rarely edited old User pages that are not eligible for speedy deletion under the G13, at least not until the criteria is changed to apply to them. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

@Liz: Thanks for letting me know - I'll be more careful from now on. I come across these abandoned spammy drafts rather often when deleting spam from Commons. Should I tag the drafts for deletion at all, or just ignore them? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 06:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Need help with possible plagiarism, also map coordinates

Hello Pi.1415926535. When updating the article on the MIT-affiliated kinetic artist Wen-Ying Tsai, I noticed that much of the text seems to be copied verbatim. I pointed this out in the Talkpage Talk:Wen-Ying Tsai, but nobody has responded so far. I need help investigating whether the article text in question is copied from the Tsai Foundation website or vice versa (either with or without permission). I am not sure what to do next, and would appreciate you taking the lead on this, while showing me how to deal with such issues in the future.

I've also been updating the article MIT Museum, and noticed that the map still shows the coordinates of its former location near Central Square, rather than its new Kendall Square location. Can you fix this, or still better, show me how to do this in the future? I need to develop better facility at extracting the coordinates from a map, in a form suitable to cut-and paste into the correct places.

I've noticed that some articles (such as Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) display two formats of maps in the infobox. I think having both formats available can often be helpful in orienting newcomers to unfamiliar geographical locations. Do you have any thoughts on tradeoffs or comparative strengths and weaknesses of the two formats?

As ever, your help is much appreciated! Reify-tech (talk) 17:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Reify-tech: As far as copyright, this is an interesting case. The Tsai Foundation site had a short blurb with a link to the Wikipedia article in 2014, a year after much of the article was written, so it may actually be copied from Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Copyright problems would be the place to ask to get more eyes on it.

For obtaining coordinates, I use this tool, though it seems to be broken for most users. Alternately, this tool is quite useful - you should be able to just drop the marker at the correct location and then copy the coordinates. Wikipedia:Obtaining geographic coordinates also mentions some other methods. Let me know if you run into any difficulties adding the coordinates to the article.

Infoboxes are valuable real estate. While I do recognize the value of the different map styles, the two different types make that a very long infobox. I tend to prefer the mapframe (interactive map) - it's definitely the more popular and modern style. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

The first map tool you pointed to definitely doesn't work for me; it crashes immediately without displaying anything. I puzzled out how to use the second map tool, and successfully cut and pasted the coords; everything works. Reify-tech (talk) 01:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The interactive map is definitely more powerful, but the older map is better for showing the location at a glance, optionally at 3 different contextual scales. I would guess that lots of casual users never discover/use the interactive map feature, which doesn't give much info at first glance, but must be actively engaged to be useful. Large articles could afford the screen real estate for both, while short articles only have room for one format. Reify-tech (talk) 01:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Library

@EoRdE6, Epicgenius, FFM784, Kew Gardens 613, Mackensen, Mitchazenia, Mjdestroyerofworlds, Mliu92, Oknazevad, Reify-tech, RickyCourtney, SJ Morg, Trainsandotherthings, and Whoop whoop pull up: Pinging all of you since we often overlap in topic areas. I've finally catalogued my collection of print sources, in part to serve as a library for editors I collaborate with. If you ever need information from any of these sources, just let me know and I'll be happy to look for it or scan some pages for you. Cheers, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:19, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Kudos! :-) Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 01:06, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Impressive! Thanks for putting in the effort! -MJ (talk) 05:02, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing! RickyCourtney (talk) 08:00, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Glad to hear it! I have maintained a similar list on my userpage for a while, and you just reminded me I need to update it. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:47, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

@Trainsandotherthings S. Kip Farrington sighting! Mackensen (talk) 21:56, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I consider myself guilted: User:Mackensen/Library. This is an export from Zotero that was minimally cleaned up and organized. Mackensen (talk) 19:24, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! I have some modest overlap with your collection, but you have me far outdistanced in rail-specific titles. As a note to anyone interested, the original Boston in Transit book was out of print, but MIT Press has just today republished a beautiful edition under its imprimatur. Reify-tech (talk) 03:38, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts)

On 11 March 2023, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Lake Street station was originally on Pond Street? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts). You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Lake Street station (Arlington, Massachusetts)), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 12:03, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

File:Richmond RI March 8 1906.jpg

Hey Pi,

I was wondering if you could help me identify the location of this photo [3]. It claims to be in Richmond, RI, and therefore presumably along the Wood River Branch Railroad, but the caption reads "Richmond, Scituate, Rhode Island" and I'm not sure if that means it's actually somewhere in Scituate? The only steam railroad in Scituate was a tiny part of the Pawtuxet Valley Railroad [4], and this doesn't look like a match either. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Trainsandotherthings It's definitely a street railway - the hangers for the overhead lines are a dead giveaway. Searching for other postcards containing both "Richmond" and "Scituate" led me to the discovery that there was a Richmond Village in Scituate (see just below center on this map). Emphasis on was - the village was abandoned for construction of the Scituate Reservoir. The track is the Providence and Danielson Railway, a rural streetcar line that didn't last past 1920. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:56, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Good detective skills, I figured you could find the answer. Well, there's another redlinked railroad that needs an article someday. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:59, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I've collected a fair bit of sourcing while researching my ConnCo draft, since the Connecticut portion was also served by ConnCo Danielson–East Killingly local service. I'll probably stub out the P&D article when I write that section. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Reversions

Hello, Pi.14.... Quick question, if i may: Why did you revert my edits to a couple of articles, here and here? I realise you wrote "cite bloat", but i'm not quite understanding, because the addition of archive links to references is, i believe, encouraged, since it secures against link rot, right? And it's not as if the "bloat" causes problems for the reader, as it's all in footnotes. Additionally, while you may not have realised it, your reversions put the two articles back in a tracking category of articles with cite parameters which ought to be corrected (Category:CS1 maint: url-status, specifically), which is where i found them originally. Thanks in advance for any light you can shine for me, so i can improve my general gnoming. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 16:10, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@LindsayH: Thanks for reaching out - always good to hear from a fellow gnome :) There are a few reasons why I object to preemptively adding archive links to all live sources. For one, it's simply unnecessary - User:InternetArchiveBot archives links that actually go dead, and there are better ways to ensure that archived links will be available when that happens. (You can run the archiving as you did and simply self-revert, or save the page on web.archive.org with the option to save outlinks.) Readers may also be confused which version of a link they're supposed to look at (whereas it's more clear for archived dead links). Two, it really is bloat - on Pacific Northwest Corridor, archiving everything added almost 30% to the amount of wikitext, which makes it more difficult to edit the wikitext. Three, it's important to check archive links when they're added. For example, the first cite on Pacific Surfliner is a dynamic search result page (which shouldn't be used as a citation in the first place), and the archived version is simply an empty web page. Even for good sources, there can be issues like the archived version being substantially different from the version that was viewed by an editor. It's much easier to do this check when there's a handful of dead sources, rather than dozens of archived live sources.

Regarding the CS1 errors, I'll fix those shortly. I would recommend simply fixing the errors manually (or with a semi-automated tool if one is available) rather than the very blunt instrument of archiving everything. Cheers, Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:24, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for the reply. Always good to get a different perspective, eh? See you around. Happy days ~ Lindsay^Hello 16:05, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello

I am working on a project for Boston University (each student must edit a wikipedia page/article). I am working on the "Boston University Central Station" article. I noticed that you took all of my text and citations down. I was wondering why? Ismo26 (talk) 00:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

@Ismo26 There were two issues with your edits. Most significantly, collisions of trains and pedestrians or vehicles almost never rise to the level of notability to include in Wikipedia articles. Such incidents are sadly common - in the US alone, there were over 2,000 grade crossing collisions in 2022 alone, with 763 injuries and 278 fatalities. To report all of these on Wikipedia would be undue weight, just as it would be to list every car collision along a street. As a general rule, such collisions are only worth including if

• They include a notable person (such as Ed Ricketts and the Del Monte)
• They involved a large number of injuries or death aboard the train (such as the Valhalla train crash), which is much rarer than pedestrian or motorist injuries/death
• And/or they are independently notable collisions (like the 1995 Fox River Grove bus–train collision, which resulted in substantial changes to safety standards)

The collision you added, while tragic, is a run-of-the-mill event that occurs too often to discuss here. (Especially at the BU stops - about one student per year got hit by the B during my time at BU.)

Second, the style in which you are writing is more appropriate to a news article than an encyclopedia article, and has too much detail for an encyclopedia. Even if this event was significantly notable to include, it would likely not need more than a sentence.

I would recommend choosing a different article for your course assignment, since this is not an article that needs much expansion or improvement. If your interest is particularly about BU and nearby transportation, I would suggest Boston University Bridge, Boston University, Storrow Drive, or Commonwealth Avenue (Boston). If your course instructor does not want you to switch articles, I can write to them to explain. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your response! That makes sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ismo26 (talk • contribs) 01:21, 21 March 2023 (UTC)