Wikipedia:Peer review/Taiwan High Speed Rail/archive1

Taiwan High Speed Rail

This peer review discussion has been closed.
During the road of the article to its recently awarded GA status, two reviewers suggested that it could become a FAC with a little polishing. The article is currently thoroughly sourced; copyedited according to MoS guidelines for layout, linking, citation formats, conversions, capitalisation and some other grammar issues; and the wording of some sections has been pored over in minute detail. Please help identify what still needs work before a FAC nomination. Thanks, Rontombontom (talk) 22:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Rfewer

• The "Construction" section needs more information, otherwise it should be combined with the "Project Organization" section above it. This article also needs an updated Tickets and Fares chart from 2011. --Rfewer (talk) 22:56, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

  "Construction" is a second-level section that includes two long third-level sub-sections. What's short is the general part before the sub-sections. I noted during the GA review that this short intro part doesn't belong into either sub-sections, and we couldn't find more general info to expand it so far; but will try again. I note that another editor working on the article plans to expand the single sentence on station construction in the "Civil works" subsection, which may ultimately become a third third-level sub-section under Construction.

  I'm not sure what you mean by "Tickets and fares": that section includes no chart, only a table, which is up to date (the same ticket prices are still valid). If you mean the chart in the "Frequency" section, later today I'll update it with the current timetable (valid from December 1, 2010) and an additional quarter or two on the time axis. --Rontombontom (talk) 07:28, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

  I got an idea what to expand the general part of the "Construction" section with: some words on the subdivision of contracts, which can also act as a bridge to the two subsections. Done.

  Checking the current timetable, I see neither ticket prices nor train frequencies changed (and it went under my radar because there was no connected press release). I have now updated the timetable reference and the table subtitles. --Rontombontom (talk) 12:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth

Finetooth comments: This looks very good. The prose is generally excellent; the article seems comprehensive; the images look good, and I see no problem with the image licenses. There are no dabs or dead urls. The article is well-sourced. I made a small number of punctuation changes, and I have a short list of specific suggestions related to minor prose issues and the Manual of Style.

• "It is approximately 345 km (214 mi) long" - As a general rule, primary units are spelled out and secondary units are abbreviated, as in MOS:CONVERSIONS. However, it may be that in a technical article such as this one that this is a matter of editor choice. The article is internally consistent in using abbreviations for both throughout. I only mention this as a possible low-level style issue, in case you are not already aware of it.

  Yes, this was an editorial decision I took at one time. I'm aware of the recommendation to use the spelled out form on first occurrence. If it would have been km/h and km only, I would have left it. However, with the many different units used in the Construction section, I felt that the back and forth between abbrevations and spelled out forms (and the extra length of the spelled out forms) would mess up the text real bad. In addition, in the English-language technical publications I read, with SI units (which are the primary units here) it is more common to use the symbols in prose anyway. If there are reviewers who object to it I won't insist, I just spelled out my rationale. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

  Your rationale makes sense, and I'm fine with it. Along the same lines, I had noticed your choice of % as opposed to "percent" or "per cent" throughout the article. For technical articles, MOS:PERCENT makes an exception to the general rule. Finetooth (talk) 18:09, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

• "The project had a total cost of US$18 billion and is one of the largest privately-managed and funded transport schemes to date." - I wonder if "privately-managed and funded transport schemes" includes airlines? Does it include transport schemes in other countries? Does it include all transport schemes throughout history? Perhaps just ending the sentence after "US$18billion" would be best.

  No, yes, yes, I think; but will look into that. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

  After looking into it:

  • The source actually says "largest privately managed and funded BOT Project in the world at the time and perhaps even today". I remembered that I saw this but didn't want to define "BOT" in the lede.
  • The source is THSRC's own about page, not independent or editorially reviewed. So I sought alternative reliable sourcing. Unfortunately most just ascribed the claim to THSRC. One source already used in the article made a slightly different claim, now the article reflects that. (If I find something better, I change it again.)
  • I'm pretty sure that THSRC is, in fact, the largest-ever privately financed transport scheme involving infrastructure: airport projects bigger than THSR (Al Maktoum International Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Kansai International Airport) were all government-funded, toll roads are in the single-digit billions, and the (admittedly incomplete) List of world's most expensive transport infrastructure contains no privately-funded projects that exceed it either. Of course, adding this to the article would be WP:OR, but maybe a source can be found. --Rontombontom (talk) 08:28, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• "forty thousand passengers a day in the first few months to over a hundred thousand" - Generally numbers bigger than nine appear as digits; i.e., 40,000 and 100,000 unless they start sentences.

  Done. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

• "The present Chairman of the Board and CEO of the company is Dr. Chin-der Ou (歐晉德)." - "Dr." and other academic titles are rarely used in Wikipedia articles. The Manual of Style suggests using a brief description instead of a title; in this case, I would suggest "Chin-der Ou (歐晉德), a civil engineer". Also, I'd lower-case "chairman of the board" and spell out and well as abbreviate "chief executive officer (CEO)".

  I felt spelling out CEO takes up too much space, so wikilinked instead, and adopted the other proposed changes. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

History

• I'd recommend making the two subheads more telegraphic; i.e., "Origins" and "Organization". It's clear that these words refer to the project.

  Hm. Maybe a better word than "project" could be found, but in both cases, it is meant to differentiate between the construction and the BOT franchising phases. That is: if I'd rename the section "Origins", it could be assumed to include everything before any earth was moved, that is the contents of the Project organisation section, too. Similarly, "Organisation" could be taken to mean the division of construction lots. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

  On second thought: what about "Origins" followed by "Main contractors"? --Rontombontom (talk) 07:37, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

  I like "Origins" because the section really does go back to, well, not the beginning of time but at least the 1970s. "Main contractors", I agree, is better than my "Organization", which is vague. Would "Contract negotiations" be any better? Finetooth (talk) 18:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

  "Contract negotiations" would again not distinguish the different levels of contracting (BOT franchise, core system supply, construction lots). On second thought, "Main contractors" doesn't feel broad enough. But after some searching, I found the term "project structure", which is used as a general term, of which BOT is a type. I'm going with that. --Rontombontom (talk) 20:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Origins of the project

• "Taiwan's rapid economic growth led to a saturation of its western transport corridor" - Would it be helpful to add here when that growth occurred? Many readers will know little about Taiwan's history.

  The problem is that it's not specified in the source, either, so I can't enter it without WP:OR. The first time reference is the 1970s for the start of the studies. However, the wikilink already went to Taiwan Miracle, it was just too indefinite, being only on "economic growth", I changed that. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

• "The study found that a high-speed rail line is the solution to traffic problems in the corridor with the highest transit volume, lowest land use, highest energy savings and lowest pollution." - The matching verb form here would be "would be" rather than "is". Also, there's a logical confusion created by tacking the "with" phrase to "corridor", which it seems to modify, when it is actually meant to modify "solution". Suggestion: "The study found that a high-speed rail line would solve the corridor's traffic problems by providing the highest transit volume, lowest land use, highest energy savings, and lowest pollution."

  Hm... your version excludes the implied comparison with other solutions, I think. I tried another version. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Civil works

• "251 km (156 mi) or 73% of the line runs on viaducts" - Sentences in Wikipedia article don't start with digits, per the Manual of Style. Often it's easier to re-arrange the sentence than to write out a long conversion like this one. Maybe something like "Of the line's total length, 251 kilometres (156 mi) or 73% of the line runs on viaducts"?

  There is a similar sentence on tunnels, which headed the length with "About"; I chose to put that here too, the number being given only in whole kilometres. --Rontombontom (talk) 00:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Track

• "The line was electrified with the 25 kV, 60 Hz system." - Should these terms be spelled out and linked to something?

  I'm not sure how I could spell it out, but wikilinked electrified and the specific system, also in the infobox. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Design and implementation

• "leading to concerns on TRA's part that capacity will be limited during the construction period" - "Would be" rather than "will be"?

  Done. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• "Rail unions said that this arrangement will result in a reduction" - "Would" rather than "will"?

  Done. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• "deeming them routine problems that have already been dealt with" - "Had" rather than "have".

  Done. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Rolling stock

• "to avoid slip on powered bogies" - Link bogie?

  Done. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Ridership

• "Original estimates foresaw an initial daily ridership of 180,000, which would grow to 400,000 by 2036." - Maybe "which were projected to grow" rather than "which would grow"?

  Heh. Many months ago, on this spot or another, there was an objection to the use of "projected" and it was removed :-) But, I realise that the sentence is incoherent (the initial daily ridership doesn't grow just is), so there is a rephrase now. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Stations

• "The Shalun Line for Tainan opened on January 2, 2011;[151] the Liujia Line for Hsinchu is set to open in August 2011." - Would it be helpful to add the lengths of the branch lines to this sentence?

  I don't think that that's directly relevant, because it's not THSR infrastructure, and at least the trains using the Shalun Line travel a longer distance on existing tracks. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:39, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

  I now realised that the text could be misunderstood to mean that the Liujia and Shalun lines are branches of THSR, so I edited it to spell out that they are branches of TRA's Western Line. --Rontombontom (talk) 20:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

References

• Newspaper names like Taipei Times and "The China Post" should appear in italics.

  Done. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• Publishers and web-site names are often not the same. I would say that the publisher for citation 24, for example, is Net Resources International rather than railway-technology.com.

  Moved website names to work parameter, added publishers for that and China Knowledge@Wharton and TV Fodder. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

• Citation 26 should indicate that the source document is in German.

  That was a bad dead link update -- changed the URL to link to the English version. --Rontombontom (talk) 23:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I think I'm  Done with all your suggestions — and thanks, they were really helpful. --Rontombontom (talk) 17:16, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Shreyans1989

• Some information about the previous methods transportation in the region could be useful. As in, what is the High Speed Rail replacing or what need is it trying to fill?--Shreyans1989 (talk) 17:50, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

  I think the last paragraph of the Ridership section addresses just that. However, in the "Origins of the project" section, I now made the three transport modes that were implicitly included in the "western transport corridor" explicit (they are explicit in the source). --Rontombontom (talk) 23:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)