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Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Mail chute/1

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Mail chute

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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.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Consensus is that the article should be delisted. Epicgenius (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Having a look at the Mail chute article as it stands, it doesn't appear to be at a GA level. Some issues I notice:

  • The article does not broadly cover all aspects of this topic as demonstrated by the singular "History" section being the entirety of the article.
  • Heavy reliance on old, regional newspaper articles rather than more modern works - there are six references to Rochester paper Democrat and Chronicle. This in itself is not bad but for a GA you would hope that more up to date sources or scholarship have been consulted. This also probably leads to some strange anachronisms like "modern mailrooms" - which are not really modern now and are probably disappearing.
  • Small mistakes like the Art Deco Mailboxes source not being properly cited - one of the authors is missed off.
  • Awkward phrasing eg "London's Savoy Hotel featured the first installation of a Cutler chute in England when it was expanded in 1904." (What was expanded? London, the hotel, the chute?) and "Cutler was acquired by the Florence Corporation, a manufacturer of mailboxes in 2000, and this..." (what occurred in 2000? The acquisition or the manufacturing of mailboxes?).

I'm not a GA expert at all (just put up my first article for review) but this doesn't seem at the right standard. I realise some content has been removed recently which may have effected the article. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:36, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Vladimir.copic, I have a lot to say here as prologue. This is not a typical article to come to GAR, but it could be the shape of things to come.
I don't know how aware you are of the situation surrounding Doug Coldwell, but it has been quite complicated. He has a lot of GAs that are substandard (and a lot of GAs—234 in all!), and copyvio questions have come into play as well. The community has just enacted a topic ban barring new GA nominations and DYK nominations from him, and it is quite split as to whether a full block is merited (see ANI).
I reviewed six of Doug's GANs since 2021 and, after extensive work (including me digging up sourcing), passed two of them: Mail chute and Shelby Gem Factory. (Yes, I failed four of his pages—only for some to be renominated and even passed by other reviewers.) Because of the copyvio question (which has spawned a very, very large CCI case), I have taken it upon me to rewrite these two articles with new and existing references to mitigate copyvio and try and keep the pages at GA status. It is very possible that a flood of Coldwell GAs will have to come to GAR. I just did Mail chute today, and the gem factory is next to get this treatment. The rewrite, at least, brings the page back to the point of not having the CV issues which could be present in hundreds of titles.
I am committed to doing what I can to keep this page (and Shelby Gem) at GA standard, even though it is far outside my realm of expertise. I invite the GAR nominator to read some of the prior revisions to understand what the page looked like when passed (it had "Original design and usage / Current use / Popular culture" as sections), material Coldwell added immediately after approval, removal of cruft by subsequent editors, etc.
I have corrected the citation issue (which was in the original citation written by Coldwell) and the "mailboxes in 2000" issue (a typo on my part). I believe the Savoy "it" is clear enough. I am not familiar enough with the literature in this field to find books that discuss the topic at length. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:10, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I've only really just become aware of the issues regarding Doug. I was just looking around at other GA noms to give me idea on what can be done to improve my own and ended up looking through Doug's noms/GAs. Didn't mean to contribute to a pile-on. The article as it stands really doesn't look GA. Interested to see what other editors think. Vladimir.copic (talk) 04:29, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Vladimir.copic, I currently have 40 GAs (linked from my user page) with another 50 pages pretty much completed and being nominated in batches to reduce the pressure on GAN, but they're almost all in my primary topic area of U.S. broadcasting. That's where my heavy use of newspapers comes from; in the articles I work with, a barrage of newspaper citations can be positively transformative to a page. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:34, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Points:
    • The nominator's second bullet is really the problem with so, so many of Doug Coldwell's articles. Old local newspapers have to be used with great caution at best even for local events, and they're very close impossible to consider reliable for national events and issues. Then when you consider that Cutler had been the mayor of Rochester, so almost certainly had considerable local influence, then DUH, it's no surprise that a local Rochester paper ran numerous stories agitating for the Post Office to loosen its regulations on chutes and telling horror stories about the unfairness of the status quo. I'm sorry, but this shows a complete inability to judge the appropriateness of sources.
    • The writing is often wretched e.g. The firm's grip on the technology was so firm that
    • Worst of all, after the first two sentences the article says absolutely nothing at all about, well, about mail chutes -- it's a long, torturous history of the Cutler company. That history certainly be addressed -- briefly -- but if you can't say anything at all about the nominal subject of the article, then there's no point in having an article.
I'm afraid this is just another example of this particular editor picking a topic (which definitely deserves to have an article), searching a newspaper archive, and stuffing every random fact in that pops up, no matter how discursive or incoherent -- and with no regard for source reliability. EEng 05:01, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your final point. After reading the article, I'm still not really sure what a mail chute is or how it works. Vladimir.copic (talk) 05:16, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Luckily there are pictures. EEng 05:23, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The topic seems to be devoted to the Cutler company and has a heavy USA (in particular New York) focus. Article could be easily adapted to become an article about the company instead and a new stubish article placed here. I would also expect a GA on mail tubes to at least mention the use of Pneumatic tubes for delivering mail, hopefully talking about competition and how they worked together. Or perhaps just that they are for different things... Gusfriend (talk) 07:23, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also, tortured prose such as updated its voluntary codes to bar new installations. Plus letters and mail are collected for distribution from within high-rise buildings, such as offices and hotels. makes me wonder about the differences between letters and mail and doesn't really get across that it is just about being able to post letters for collection from the Post Office rather than being sorted on site by building employees.Gusfriend (talk) 07:31, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Gusfriend I'm trying to improve the prose, so these comments are very much appreciated and have been taken into account.
  • Pneumatic tubes were not mentioned in the original and work on a different basis—I have added a "see also", though.
  • The "voluntary codes" was actually in response to someone else's comment reading through the page.
I've also restored a Design section, but I can't find much material discussing design. There's an Atlas Obscura piece, but I don't know if it's an RS. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 19:48, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Pneumatic systems would be something to list under "See also", but certainly not to be treated directly in this article -- that would be like having a combined article on bicycles and automobiles. BTW the article completely omits to say the true motivation for these thingamajibs: there was about a 70-year period during which mail was both collected, and delivered, several times per day in major cities, and this was also the time (hard for young people today to imagine) when mail was almost the exclusive means of business communication. Thus getting a letter "in the mail" this second, versus waiting until the end of the day when Joanie from the typing pool could take the day's outgoing letters to the corner mailbox on her way home, was critically important. EEng 20:55, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's a great point... The only item I can see in the sources is from the Crain's New York Business one (which I found and added).

But clogs always have been a problem. Long ago they were usually fixed quickly because mail was so important and delivered as many as 12 times a day in some cities before World War II. When the Postal Service cut back to one daily delivery in 1950, "the populace was not happy about it," said Nancy Pope, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum.

@EEng, I'd add it, but that doesn't make the logical link from "cutbacks in delivery" to "decline in chutes". Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 21:17, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Atlas Obscura is mainly user generated so most likely the piece is not reliable. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:15, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously it's not. I'm sorry, it just can't be said too often: Doug Coldwell seems to think that anything in print, or on the net, is fair game. He sucks it all in like a vacuum cleaner, then chews it up into slurry of phrases and clauses which swallows and then regurgitates into an article. After waiting for this mess of vomitus to congeal, he nominates it for GA. EEng 08:52, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There appears to be OR issues too. The sentence The merged company continued to defend its portfolio of patents; in 1910, the Cutler Mail Chute Company won a patent infringement lawsuit against the United States Mail Chute Equipment Company. (emphasis mine) is sourced to this newspaper clipping [1]. The source does not directly support the italicised assertion but describes a standalone event that has been woven into the article to create a narrative.
Likewise Concurrently with the growth of the company within the United States, it was also selling systems internationally. London's Savoy Hotel featured the first installation of a Cutler chute in England when it was expanded in 1904. is sourced to this newspaper article [2]. The article, about the Savoy Hotel, only briefly mentions the mail chute and doesn't talk about growth in the US or international sales. I guess these are not the only two examples. Vladimir.copic (talk) 04:49, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate this, Vladimir.copic. I'm just trying desperately to keep this page on the rails. I just feel...unappreciated for trying to save a Coldwell page. That's all. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 07:18, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The word quixotic comes to mind. EEng 08:52, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I genuinely appreciate your efforts to improve this article but, on a fundamental level, this article is not GA. It will take a significant work to bring it up to GA. To keep it listed would not reflect well on the project or serve as a good example for other articles. Vladimir.copic (talk) 11:10, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also noticed that there is a Scientific American article if someone has access.
Also a couple of articles about people being (historically) hurt in mail chutes at postal facilities in Australia:
which means that at least in Australia the context of mail chutes historically included sorting facilities, post offices, etc. and not just the vertical in building stuff.
Building a "skyscraper" in Sydney in 1911 with mail chutes in it, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15221265, but even better is this PDF, https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_716905/early_brisbane_skyscrapers.pdf which talks about the use of mail chutes in Brisbane (and a little in Sydney) as skyscrapers were built over 1911-1939.
I hope that that helps. Gusfriend (talk) 08:04, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, that PDF on early Brisbane skyscrapers is unavailable to me, @Gusfriend. Could you send it directly to me? You can send an email or also find me in WP:DISCORD. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 20:33, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I figured it out this morning, the system doesn't allow deep linking (which is why I added the via option in the citation for the article below). If you click on the link and then type "Early Brisbane Skyscrapers" in the search at the top of the page then you can click on the file to download it after showing that you aren't a robot.
East, John W. (2018). "Upwardly Mobile in a Branch-Office City: An Architectural History of the Early Skyscrapers of Brisbane 1911-1939" (PDF) (Report). Brisbane, Australia. Retrieved 15 September 2022 – via espace.library.uq.edu.au.
Gusfriend (talk) 09:50, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's a great read but not terribly useful for the article. Thanks for suggesting it, though. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 19:08, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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