Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of West Midlands railway stations

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted 20:11, 3 February 2008.

List of West Midlands railway stations edit

(Self-nom) This list follows a similar pattern to List of London Underground stations, which is already featured. As it stands, the list is fully referenced, and noteworthy points are covered in a 'Notes' section. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 19:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support as nom. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 19:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the tables next to images are scrolling right off my screen - an impressive feat at 1600x1200. Could something be done to remedy that? Also, I don't think we need an alphabetical TOC after every letter, especially when each letter (except B, S, and W, and those still aren't very long) is relatively short. We definitely don't need it after every footer section. --Golbez (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a look at the TOCs now.

Done - TOCs are now after every 4 or 5 sections, and removed from footer sections. Not sure about the scrolling issue - it's fine on my screen (IE, 1024x768), however I'll have a look on my home PC tonight/tomorrow. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 18:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved stuff from TRM

Oppose for now. While this is a good start I have a number of issues...
- I have scrolling issues too, I'm only 1024 wide but using Safari on a Mac.
- The lead could do with expansion. And some specific issues:
  - I would use "in the county of West Midlands", wikilinking county, and explaining precisely where in the world West Midlands is (for non UK readers benefit). Y Done
  - Consider wikilinking station as well. It's got to be clear what you're talking about for all readers. Y Done
  - Expand PTE the first time before just using it. I know it's linked but it's jargon. Y Done
- Not sure about how you've implemented references. What's wrong with using the usual <ref>{{Cite web | url = ...}}</ref>? Much easier to maintain and the reference list is obtained using {{reflist}}. As it stands the reference list looks peculiar and not in-line with most Wikipedia articles. In fact, they don't actually work for me as references (i.e. I click on number [9] and I get taken to the top of the references section rather than the reference in question. Also there's no link back from the reference to its place in the article...) Y references changed. Notes remain hand-coded to force them into a separate section.
- Date ranges in tables should be separated with en-dash, so 2004–05 and 2005–06. Y Done
- Can you explain what Zone means in this context? I get it on the Tube, maybe the same here? Needs explanation. Y Done
- Also usage could be explained. This would help expand the lead as it's not simply a list of stations, it's a list with zones, operators, usage statistics etc as well. Y Done
- Looks odd when no photo available as the tables don't line up with previous or subsequent sections. Perhaps consider placing images on the right hand side of the article. Y Done - (with thanks to Orlady, who cured me of banging my head against a wall trying to figure out why the images wouldn't go where I wanted them too!)

Glad to be able to help! For future reference, the trick was removing the width="100%" setting from the table format. --Orlady (talk) 18:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- What's the significance of the coloured squares? Y Done - removed squares.
- Why all the external links? Trim down completely since you have all those references. Y Done - removed all bar two which are not referenced, but are relevant.
Hope they help, please do get in touch if you need further explanation or comment. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Oh, and isn't Category:Railway stations in England a super-category of Category:Railway stations in the West Midlands? You probably don't need them both.. Y removed cat:england.The Rambling Man (talk) 18:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, Rambling Man - I'll get to work on addressing those now. I think the photos are the source of the scrolling issue - I need to look using my computer at home and see what has gone wrong, as on my work PC they are displayed where they should be, on the left hand side of the page, above each section. I think most of the other issues should be sorted pretty easily this evening. The coloured squares signify the colours used across railway related articles to distinguish between train operators, such as on railway staion articles etc - perhaps they over-complicate things. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 19:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Meant to add about the ref system - I think you are right - the problem I had was that by putting a ref in the section header, it was produced with a different number in every section. <ref name=...> solves this but leads to abc etc being displayed in the ref section. I was toying with changing to this system anyway as it's much easier than mine :-) TicketMan - Talk - contribs 19:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'd definitely go for the <ref name=...> option, and use the {{Cite web}} template too. It does make life a lot easier! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed a fair chunk of points raised. Working on table layout, and need to finish converting my dodgy ref syntax :-D TicketMan - Talk - contribs 22:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing, now you've got a neat sortable table you should re-wikilink everything possible on every line since, in theory, the table contents could appear in any order so linking only the first instance doesn't work... The Rambling Man (talk) 16:20, 26 January 2008 (UTC) Y Done[reply]

Comment - I've 'hidden' what I wrote above, but have just a couple more comments to attend to before I feel happy supporting, once resolved I'll tuck them into the hiding template!
- "Their logo and publicity materials can be found at stations and on trains, buses and trams around the region" - is this really relevant? Y removed
- "a Government body" - link Government to the relevant body. Y done
- Reduce the width of the usage columns by adding a break between "users" and the date range. Then you can expand the served by column out. Plus do it for the year opened column too. It'll help balance the column widths. Y done
- I made a slight change to the footnotes, removing the bullets, you could use the syntax if you don't want an indent at all, I just felt that the bullets were ugly. Plus I made the notes smaller (per normal footnotes sections I think), hope you don't mind! Real close to support now, and congrats on your constructive responses to my many comments! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:30, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dealt with the above - only thing is, regarding the footnote size, not sure what you changed, but in my browser the notes section is still normal size, whilst references and everything else below has shrunk! Apart from that you're right - it does look better without the bullets. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 20:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okeydokes, in my (superb) browser (Safari), it looks close to top notch now. The notes and stuff look fine. Can you just double check Zone vs zone, consistency being the key... The Rambling Man (talk) 20:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

done[reply]

No probs then - probably just my rubbish work computer - IE 5.5 - remember that? :-D Changed Zone in footnote to zone - NWM website is consistently zone so no reason to capitalize, except in the table heading. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 20:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC) Edit - thought I'd changed it - I was beaten to it :-D[reply]

Checked and triple checked for spelling, grammar and punctuation. Pretty sure it's all spot on now (ready to be proven wrong...) TicketMan - Talk - contribs 21:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proven myself wrong - whilst checking references found 3 dead links. Repaired, and managed to add 2 notes (about Dudley Prt and Sutton Coldfield. TicketMan - Talk - contribs 22:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support, though involved as editor. I've cleared up and simplified the rest of the ref tags, merging some and using <ref name=...>. This removed 30K from the page size! I'm not sure if it's necessary to provide identical refs in every table header, but I've left them in for the time being. The notes ([a], [b], [c] etc) are still manually coded, but I can't see a way to avoid that. Tivedshambo (talk) 00:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have dealt with the hand coded notes - all are now 'proper' refs, with thanks to User:Pomte at the WP:Village Pump technical page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TicketMan (talk • contribs) 18:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose for now, due to one objection and several quibbles:

Objection: I can't find any explanation of the use of the abbreviation "m" in the heading Station users (m). I normally expect "m" to mean "metres." That clearly isn't the case here, and I've worked out that it is the number of users in millions, but it needs to be clearly explained in the article. (List of London Underground stations has the same issue.)

Quibble: Defined or not, millions seems a poor choice of a unit for the numbers in this article. Only one station has more than 1 million users (some have less than 100 thousand, so the values in the table are almost all decimals less than 1. Many users will be confused when 27000 is represented as 0.027.

Quibble: If millions is retained as the unit, can the abbreviation be something other than the confusing "m"? (Surely I am not the only one who sees "metre" there. For me, "M" would be a better choice, as it indicates "mega" -- or one million -- in the SI system.)

Quibble: The spacing of the table is very annoying. I suggest (1) removing all the width parameters from the table formatting and (2) removing the {{clear}} that separates the images from the tables. That will eliminate extra space within the tables and force the images to display alongside the tables -- far more appealing to the eye.

--Orlady (talk) 01:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: the {{clear}} tag was added to prevent display problems with Firefox - I'm reluctant to try to put the pictures alongside the table as this will be too compact for smaller browsers. I agree there's no particular need for fixed width colums, so I'll clear that up, and I'll try to do something about the millions. Tivedshambo (talk) 09:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My concerns have been resolved. Removing "oppose". --Orlady (talk) 16:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - It now looks like everything worth fixing has been fixed. --Orlady (talk) 18:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I've hidden the resolved issues, this is in a much better state now, well done on all your hard work! The Rambling Man (talk) 08:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I am really stunned to see how much better this list got during the nomination. Great job!--Crzy cheetah 09:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments

Looks good. I took the liberty of amending a wikilink.
Slight problem with "It includes all railway stations in the West Midlands that are currently open". Pedantically, depending on what time of day you visit the page, it may not be true. You clearly mean that the list excludes stations that are not defunct; I'm not sure how you can amend the copy, but suggest that it would be worth fixing. Y Done - changed for now - trying to think of a better term to use.
The same organisation seems to have three names, mentioned in two different paragraphs, one of them (Centro) not explained. --Dweller (talk) 11:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC) Y Clarified Centro/NWM/WMPTE, also introduced WMPTA to set context.[reply]

Both good points - I'll have a think about this one, and see what I can come up with. --TicketMan - Talk - contribs 15:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have addressed both points made by Dweller. Have explained Centro, and also added a footnote explaining their parent body, WMPTA. I've also added an extra column detailing the metropolitan borough each station is in, as noted on the article's talk page. --TicketMan - Talk - contribs 18:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, better, esp on the defunct stations, which you've handled elegantly. I'm still slightly chary over the explanation of Centro's names, esp. the need to deal with it in two different paragraphs. I know it's dull and obscure corporate stuff, but surely there's a simple way to present the information without losing comprehensiveness? (by the way, this isn't an oppose - see below) --Dweller (talk) 10:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've sorted this admirably. <pun alert> That's the ticket.</pun alert> --Dweller (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Groan :-D --TicketMan - Talk - contribs 17:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Significant improvement since I first looked at it, now seems to satisfy the FL criteria admirably. Just a couple of points.

Entries in the Zone column might look better centred rather than left-aligned.
You've linked every standalone year, both in the Year opened column and in the notes. The MoS says that year articles should be linked to "only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic". Not convinced that's the case here. Struway2 (talk) 10:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Both issues have been addressed by User:Tivedshambo --TicketMan - Talk - contribs 17:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support issues resolved, excellent work. Struway2 (talk) 18:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~~my currently unresolved issue above isn't sufficient for me to withhold support from this~~ FL quality list article. --Dweller (talk) 10:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support, my how it's changed since my first comment above. --Golbez (talk) 15:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support great improvements with the single table & sorting columns. May be a link to Commons needs adding for other photos but apart from that looks great. Keith D (talk) 19:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. {{Commonscat}} added. Tivedshambo (talk) 21:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.