Talk:Metropolitan main line

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 09:08, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

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The Metropolitan main line in 1895

• ... that the Metropolitan main line (pictured) was the first electrified revenue rapid transit in the United States? Source: Borzo p. 43 "This made the Met the country's first permanent electrified elevated transit line
  • ALT1: ... that the first electrified revenue rapid transit in the United States (pictured in 1895) was replaced by the arguable first intra-expressway rapid transit in the world? Source: Borzo p. 43 (see original hook) and "Many publicity materials for the Congress Line issued by the city and the CTA, as well as media stories and industry journals of the time, trumpeted the project as the first time a mass transit rail line had been put in the median of an expressway. ... Whether this is accurate or not is somewhat subjective, and may largely rest on semantics of the specific wording used. The most direct rival for pioneering this concept is probably Cahuenga Pass Parkway in Los Angeles, a 3-mile long six-lane freeway that ran through the Cahuenga Pass between Hollywood and Studio City. Opening in 1940, the Cahuenga Parkway featured Pacific Electric Railway "Red Car" tracks in its median. One could argue that the PE Red Car was an interurban, not rapid transit; or that, while a multi-lane limited-access grade-separated roadway, the Cahuenga Pass route was a parkway, not an expressway."
  • ALT2: ... that the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad modified a station on its main line (pictured) to have a casket elevator for funeral trains? Source: "Funeral car 802 receives a casket at the Laflin St. station, one of only two equipped with a casket elevator."
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Utroba Cave
  • Comment: Although strictly byte-wise the expansion isn't 5x, according to the DYKcheck tool it began the 5x readable-prose size expansion quite a few edits after I started on it. I'm interested in using the picture; not only is it striking and historically valuable, but this would be only the second in my years-long career of having a DYK hook have an image. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:31, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

5x expanded by John M Wolfson (talk). Self-nominated at 21:31, 19 February 2022 (UTC).

Interesting historic line, on fine sources, sufficient expansion even according to the tool, offline sources accepted AGF, no copyvio obvious. I prefer the original hook, and support having it with the licensed image. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:57, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

ALT0 to T:DYK/P7 without image

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GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Metropolitan main line/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: LunaEatsTuna (talk · contribs) 17:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I am surprised this has been hanging since October! Will get to this within the day (UTC-wise). 𓃦LunaEatsTuna (💬) 17:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

• Fail—Based on the questionable reliability of chicago-l.org. The reason for a fail rather than bringing this up as a concern in a review is because this source is used for 14 of 30 of the citations that appear in this article—rising to 22 of 42 counting reuses of the same sources—so this appears to be a major concern for me. Once the issue is addressed than you can renominate the article and ping me as I wish to review this article fully.

Now, onto why I am concerned with the reliability of chicago-l.org, a website written solely by one Graham Garfield. My first concern is that the article has an over-reliance on this website. As WP:RS puts it: "The more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication," and I feel as though the likelihood of Garfield making a mistake is honestly quite high. Of course, no source is perfect, even print sources, but seeing as half of all sources used in this article are cited to a single individual largely increases the likelihood of errors. Additionally, the articles you have cited on chicago-l.org cite no sources themselves.

Secondly, in order for him to be considered reliable per WP:RS, he would have to be an "author who [is] regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject." However, I do not believe that I could establish this. Indeed, he has in fact held several positions in the CTA during his career, and, as you have mentioned elsewhere, could have access to internal CTA documents.

However this does not necessarily contribute to his reliance on the CTA's history itself—he simply does not have the credentials for it. Especially with his website being unassociated with the CTA, it would appear that his history expertise seems to be more of a hobby. I say this because anyone can make a website. As an example, if a builder of twenty years was to publish his own articles on a website he created, that would not make said website a useable source for building-related material on Wikipedia. Garfield would need some sort of experience; yet, he has not held any positions in the CTA like "historian" (etc.) nor does he have any education in research nor history signalling to his experience. Additionally, I could not find any works written by him that have had editorial oversight, and there are no RS publications that refer to him as an authoritative source for CTA history. The only mentions I could find of this are either self-applied titles, interviews—in which the person being interviewed can say pretty much whatever they want—and blogs (which are not reliable sources).

All I could find for him regarding his experience with CTA history (outside of it being a hobby/him being an amateur historian) was a source stating he has held lectures on transit history and conducted public tours at the Chicago Architecture Foundation and the Chicago History Museum. However, the source did not state where he held said lecture(s) (this concerns me particularly because anyone can conduct a lecture), and just being a tour guide would certainly not make him an authoritative expert.

tl;dr is that Graham Garfield has no credentials (education in history or research, career in transit history for CTA, published works, evidence for knowledge being reliable etc) and it looks like his website is more of a hobby rather than an authoritative source. Just working at CTA does not equate to him being an expert in the CTA's history itself.

Regardless, if chicago-l.org is proven to be RS I would still not be content with over half of the article's citations being to a single source. Surely the information could have appeared elsewhere, such as in books or news articles?

If you wish to refute those points or have sources that contradict what I have said here then please message me on my talk page so we can work this out. Thanks, 𓃦LunaEatsTuna (💬) 01:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.