Talk:Cycling in China/GA1

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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Nominator: Generalissima (talk · contribs) 16:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 18:02, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Adding this to my reviewing queue because I like the topic. Review to follow in a few days. —Kusma (talk) 18:02, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Content and prose review

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

• Will comment on lead section later.
• History: might be better to say "the Shanghai Xinbao newspaper" or to drop the definite article.
  • Fixed. - G
• Why is the Feiren bicycle more notable that the company producing it? (I found more ads for Feima bikes).
  • Fixed, good point. - G
• these formed the core of China's domestic bicycle after the war missing a word ("production"?)
  • Fixed. - G
• Proliferation: I don't believe the link to cun (unit) is appropriate here; the old unit was obsolete by the time. Also, 24, 26, 28 (Imperial) inches are normal bicycle sizes where I come from, and a modern cun is 1.3 inches, Chinese people are not very tall and I don't believe they ride 31+ inch bicycles.
  • Fair enough! - G
• 2 months wages should it be months'?
  • Yep, fixed. - G
    • But months' not month's ?? —Kusma (talk)

      • selftrout: yeah oops

• In reference the proliferation to the proliferation?
  • Fixed. - G
• "three rounds" (三转) hm, isn't it more something like the "three things that rotate"?
  • A lot of sources say specifically "three rounds and a sound", though one says "three turns", which I think makes more sense; I'll change it to that - G
• Infrastructure and use: the section is very much written in some (unspecified) present; is there something to say about how the infrastructure was back in 自行车王国 days? (Presumably it was also terrible, but the lack of cars made for a much better experience?)
  • There really isn't much about that, beyond Beijing having bike lanes; all discussions of cycling infrastructure focus on its evolution from the early 2000s onward. :( - G
• The carrier tricycles could use some dates on the statements (I would expect that their use is declining)
  • Fair point! - G
• Bike-sharing systems: I find it confusing that China's dockless bicycle systems are generally privatized with little-to-no involvement by governments but many major cities continue to maintain their own government-sponsored bike-sharing systems. If there are both private and public systems coexisting, maybe "generally" is not the right word.
  • Fair point - fixed.
• Despite the dominance of apps, many major cities continue to maintain their own government-sponsored bike-sharing systems are you saying that the government-sponsored systems do not use apps? What means of payment and unlocking do they use instead?
  • I think some of them don't use apps actually, but I meant the private firms; fixed. - G
• local governments established regulations limiting the number of shared bikes this contradicts the earlier little-to-no involvement by governments and urban planning committees
  • Good point - added an initially there. - G
• There was some fun news about bike sharing in China last year: [1], where 100000 people rode from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng at night to get soup dumplings. This made it into news worldwide and certainly clarifies that people still use bikes in China :)
  • Added this! - G
• Cycle sport: I am confused that there is no mention of the world's major road cycling competitions here, the Grand Tours, where Ji Cheng (cyclist) was the first Chinese in each of the three (and came last in the 2014 Tour de France, generating some news coverage). Almost all of the competition section seems to concentrate on track cycling.
• Lead: I think the coverage is OK. I'm not a big fan of verbatim repeating sentences from the body such as While 40% of Shanghai workers commuted via bicycle in 2000, only 18.1% did so by 2010.

First pass done! Source checks etc. to follow tomorrow-ish. —Kusma (talk) 23:26, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Source spotchecks

Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1268494852.

• 8/9: ok
• 18: ok
• 20: ok. I like the Deng quote at the beginning of p. 2 but it is cited to... Wikipedia :(
• 21b: looks ok
• 25: source to text ok, but I don't fully understand how curated this "Molab" thing is (it isn't a proper journal despite the DOI).
  • It's a Max Planck Institute project, and from what I understand those are fairly highly regarded as far as open-access-focused research institutes go. -G
    • The MPIs are great, but they also publish (mostly uncurated) preprint series. I agree that this Molab thing is probably better and is useable as a source, but I couldn't find out proper editorial information in the 20 seconds I spent on it, so I flagged this up. —Kusma (talk) 07:14, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
• 40: ok
• 44: Olympedia is probably just about OK

Spot checks clear. Lots of articles in the bibliography (about 10) are not used and could be removed/moved to "further reading"/moved to the talk page as {{refideas}}.

General comments and GA criteria

• Prose is mostly fine and I am happy with the changes mentioned above.
• Layout and lead section are satisfactory.
• The ref layout passes the threshold for GA (but could be neater, for example the Guardian article could mention the Guardian).
• Sourcing is fine.
• One broadness question: there seems not much (if anything) about the cultural perception of China as Kingdom of Bicycles or the 1980s era Western stereotypes of streets full of bicycles with people wearing almost uniform clothes. Is there anything about this or at least about the word "Kingdom of Bicycles" / 自行车（的）王国 ?
  • Very annoyingly, there is not discussion of this at all! I just see mention after mention of the term Kingdom of Bicycles offhand, and when sterotypes are brought up its perspectives on bicycles in China. I'm unsure what to think there. - G
• There is a fairly strong focus on Shanghai/Beijing/cities and not rural areas, but that seems to reflect the sources.
• No major concern about the images. I would suggest to mention the date in more of the captions (especially the school children as it is not totally obvious at first sight what decade this is from), but I won't insist.

Done reviewing! @Generalissima, over to you. —Kusma (talk) 17:51, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

• @Kusma: Responded and got to what I could! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:28, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Happy with changes, promoting. —Kusma (talk) 22:56, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

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.