Talk:TGV/2005 archive

I've moved this back to TGV, following the principle of using the most commonly-used name. -- Tarquin

A disambiguation page?

Should it be a disambiguation page - because TGV can also mean Transposition of the great vessels - 80.141.7.56 20:42, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am currently working on that...should I wait for votes? I have the disambig written and the TGV article ready to linked to the disambig as well. Was planning to moved this article to "Train à grande vitesse", put the disambig at TGV and put the medical TGV article at "Transposition of the Great Vessels" bcatt 20:27, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

No. I'll bet 99% of the folks coming to this article want the train article. If necessary, create a disambiguation line at the top of this article or a TGV (disambiguation) page, but don't change this article to a dab page.

Atlant 21:15, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

My only difficulty with that is giving a transportation article priority over a medical article...obviously other transportation articles can link directly to this one as well as other heart-related articles can link directly to the other...if someone is searching for TGV, I think the chances are pretty even between which one they are searching for. bcatt 21:21, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Well, let's apply the Google test:

• "TGV Train" -> 637,000 hits (98.6%)
• "TGV transposition" -> 8,450 hits (1.3%)

Again, I'd suggest putting a dab line in this article, but leaving this as the train article.

Atlant 11:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Google does return more hits for the train than for transposition. The google test article cautions against using the test as a definitive decision-making tool:

• "It should be stressed that none of these applications is conclusive evidence, but simply a first-pass heuristic or rule of thumb."
• the article cautions against results that are "inflated by promotional techniques", or are from "sources that are only of local interest."
• "When using Google to test for importance or existence, bear in mind that this will be biased in favor of modern subjects of interest to people from developed countries with Internet access, so it should be used with some judgment."
• "Further judgment: the Google test checks popular usage, not correctness."
• "Also, some topics may not be on the Web because of low Internet use in certain areas and cultures of the world."
• "The Google test has always been and very likely always will remain an imperfect tool used to produce a general gauge of notability. It is not and should never be considered definitive."
• "Major factors which may affect Google hit count include subjects from countries where the internet is not prevalent or topics which are of a historical nature but have not yet been well documented on the internet."
• "Also note that the number of hits that Google reports is...an estimate, not an exact figure."
• "As of 2000, the percentage of the World Wide Web indexed by select search engines was as follows: Google: 20%...Users may want to try a few different search engines before making a decision on a subject's notability."

That said, I would like to point out that the vast majority of hits produced for the train article are based in Europe, and that all of the hits pertain only to Europeans of a social class allowing them to travel, those in other parts of the world of a social class allowing them to travel to Europe, and those interested in transportation technology. In contrast, Transposition is a global concern, as it may occur in any part of the world, to any person regardless of social class or location, and the subject is of interest to a larger group, including (but not limited to): medical and nursing students, medical specialists, doctors and nurses, parents and family members of children with this or related CHD's, grown children with this or related CHD's, and laymen with an interest in these topics.

Also, it is no surprise that the train system is more highly documented than transposition for a number of reasons, including:

• Each different locale serviced by the train is likely to have a local site quoting schedules, fares and stations, as well as to promote tourism to that area; whereas the majority of information on transposition will be located on medical sites, of which there are fewer as each is intended to provide information to a much larger demographic...as such, many new contributions will be added to existing information because transposition does not change based on locale.

• The more capitalistic a topic is, the more sites that will be created on it...articles and sites on transposition are not intended to generate income, and therefore contributors will be more likely to collaborate with existing sources rather than creating individual sites about it.

• A very large percentage of search engine results are purchased...companies selling travel to wealthier social classes do purchase results, whereas colleges, universities, hospitals and medical agencies normally do not.

• Perhaps most importantly, the train system is highly documented because it is something created by man, it was highly documented before it came into existance...in fact, it had to be well documented in order for it to come into existance in the first place. Transposition, on the other hand, is not something created and planned out by mankind, it is something that is nature-created and still in the process of being discovered by mankind.

The guidelines on naming conventions include the following:

• "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things."
• "Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously-named title as though that title had no other meanings."
• "Avoid the use of acronyms in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronym and is widely known and used in that form"

TGV is an acronym who's meaning depends on the context in which it is used, it is therefore ambiguous and conflicts with other meanings when one attempts to attribute it exclusively to a single meaning. I agree that out of simplicity, people may be more likely to search TGV when looking for the train system, but the same is true for those looking for transposition information. Perhaps, you would find it suitable to move this article to "Train à grande vitesse (TGV)", but "TGV" is no more a suitable name for this article than it is a suitable name for the transposition article (I say this even though I consider transposition to be of higher encyclopedic value than a train system, as it is more pertinent to the basic aspects of human life).

Furthermore, the emphatic defence of maintaining an acronym as the article name seems more an act of ego than of concern for clarity. A person searching for TGV may be looking either for the medical term OR the transportation term...the purpose of a disambiguation page is to refine a search...TGV is a vague search that calls for clarification...why not let the searcher choose where they want to go? Why create the possibility of discouraging people who may be looking for information on an important subject that actually needs to have more people researching it?

I would also like to point out that the current vote is 2:1 (66.6%) in favour of disambiguating "TGV".

Let them choose.

bcatt 22:30, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that the train system has only been in existance since the 1980's, whereas transposition was initially described in 1797, and was in existance even long before then. bcatt 22:37, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's also important to point out here that the Google test is intended more for the purpose of deciding whether a topic warrants encyclopedic inclusion, if an article is a copyright infringement, or which is the most popular term applied to a single subject...not for determining which encyclopedic topic is more popular than another. So that kind of makes the Google test a moot point altogether. I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else has any input and if not, I'll proceed with this. bcatt 14:58, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

The naming conventions guide says "Avoid the use of acronyms in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronym and is widely known and used in that form". In the case of the railway system, the term is almost exclusively known by its acronym. The acronym itself is the trademark used by SNCF in all branding. Train à grande vitesse is merely the French for high speed train, and does not necessarily refer to the TGV. In France, the Japanese Shinkansen would also be known as a train à grande vitesse. This article is primarily about the TGV system, not about high speed trains in general, such as those in Japan. On the French Wikipedia, this distinction is clear: the article at train à grande vitesse is about high-speed trains in general, with a disambiguation line at the top stating: "Pour les TGV, trains à grande vitesse de la SNCF, voir l'article TGV" (For TGVs, the high-speed trains of the French national railway company SNCF, see the article TGV). Indeed, under TGV in both the New Oxford English and Oxford American English Dictionaries, the definition is "a French high-speed electric passenger train", with only the origin stated as the abbreviation of train à grande vitesse. There is no mention of Transposition of the Great Vessels at TGV nor at Transposition.

This also deals with the issue of using "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." TGV is not the name of the heart condition; TGV is the name of the train system, even though it has its origins in an acronym. TGV is the only name of the French high speed rail system.

Using the much-maligned Google test again, Transposition of the Great Vessels and Transposition of the Great Arteries yield ~182,000 results and ~184,000 results respectively. Thus it is likely that about half of the people looking for it will not have searched for Transposition of the Great Vessels, let alone the acronym, but rather Transposition of the Great Arteries.

In the transposition case, it remains to be seen that it is more widely known as TGV, or even TGA, for Transposition of the Great Arteries, to which Transposition of the Great Vessels is a redirect. There is no mention of transposition at TGA. Would readers outside the medical profession know it by its acronym? Is it not also known simply as transposition? Is the acronym not merely for convenience when writing up a patient's medical notes, to save writing the full name, or when used in conversation between cardiac specialists?

Naming conventions state that "article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize". I would suggest that the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize the French high-speed railway system by the name by TGV, and would more likely understand TGV to refer to the railway system than to the medical condition. I don't suspect that many people (myself included, before this issue arose) would even know what Transposition of the Great Vessels was.

While Transposition of the Great Vessels may be of interest to a wider cross-section of people than the railway system, that is not to say that it is of interest to more English-speaking people, and that they would know it as TGV. It has an incidence of only about 40 in 100,000, making it relatively rare (from about.com) and therefore the number of people unrelated to the medical profession looking for an English article on it is not actually that high, especially looking for it under its acronym. As for laypeople with an interest in the topic, it could also be said that the railway has more than a few laypeople who are interested in it. I would suggest that most Europeans who are served by the TGV and its derivatives have the means to travel.

In summary, I don't think that enough people expect Transposition of the Great Arteries when they go to TGV for it to merit a disambiguation page to differentiate it from the TGV railway system. I have, however, added a disambiguation line at the top of the TGV article for the few who do. Willkm 23:56, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Agree with Willkm. Schutz 09:03, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

TVG may be the nameof the train system, but that doesn't discount the fact that the train system's name is an acronym, and being an acronym which is also used as the name of a medical condition (I know you said that Transposition of the Great Vessels is not the name of the defect, but since you do not know about Transposition, I don't know where you come to this conclusion...if that is not it's name, what is?). I concede to your illumination of the fact that TGV is the name of the particular train system, whereas train à grande vitesse is a general term...what, then, prevents the article from being moved to TGV (train), or TGV (transport), or whatever you find most suitable? That is what the naming conventions outline as being the proper procedure. Again, I must point out that article naming is not about a popularity contest, it is about being encyclopedic. Please be kind enough to do away with the acts of ego, it is more than clear that TGV should be a disambiguation page, as TGV is also commonly used by anyone (not just the cardiology community) who engages in discussion or research of Transposition. It still stands that TGV is an ambiguous name that has other meanings and therefore should be properly used as a disambiguation with the different uses being designated to their respective differentiating articles. bcatt 23:32, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Is a disambiguation line, in your opinion, sufficient? Now that the articles Transposition of the great arteries and Transposition of the great vessels have had a bit of a shuffle around, I have changed it to a more suitable one. Thank you for the clarifications of the meaning of Transposition of the great vessels. Willkm 23:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Notes for what needs updating

* TGV Thalys PBA (Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam), Réseau-derived
* TGV Thalys PBKA (Paris-Brussels-Köln-Amsterdam), Duplex-derived
* Paris Sud-Est is 270 km/h
* Eurostar is 320 km/h (only used to 300 km/h)
* Duplex is 320 km/h (only used to 300 km/h)
* LGV Noord Europe (LN3) is Paris-Fretin/Lille-Calais
* Belgian LGV (L1) is Lille/Fretin-Brussels
* LN4 is LGV Rhône-Alps
* LN5 is LGV Méditerranée
* LN6 is LGV Est
* Thalys runs to The Netherlands, rather than Holland
* LGV Interconnexion West and South of Paris, linking LN3, LN1 and LN2

Centrifugal/Centripetal force

I get the impression from the centrifugal force and centripetal force articles that the force felt by the passengers is the latter - could this be checked and cleared up? Willkm 09:01, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

It is the former. I know it is a bit tricky, but the article centrifugal force get it right by saying that This "force" is actually inertia, since it is felt because your body (or any other object going around) "naturally wants" to go straight. Schutz 00:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Featured Article?

Perhaps with a bit of work this could be put up for featured article status? Any comments? Willkm 21:54, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

• In addition to the photos, it would be nice to have a map of the TGV network. Easy to find on the web, but probably harder to find one that is free. Schutz 14:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

It could be featured quality with a little more work. A system map would definitely help. I've left additional comments on the Peer Review page, and I'm going through it with copyedits right now, then I'll research through my own references to see what else I can add. slambo 16:22, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I might be able to help with the map (see my user page for examples), but how would we define what to show - all the 'TGV' routes operated using TGV trains, or only the portions where they're actually running on high-speed lines? David Arthur 23:57, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Both maybe ? For example, use plain lines for high-speed lines, and dashed lines for the rest of the routes. Schutz 07:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, different colored lines could be used, such as on Image:Ireland Western Rail Corridor.png where green is the line that is the subject of the Western Rail Corridor and red is connecting lines, or on Image:DME and ICE route map.JPG which uses four colors to indicate different ownership/construction of lines. slambo 12:20, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I followed the Commons link at the end of the article and found the map there. The country names are in German, so we sould probably upload a translated version, but there's a first draft at least. slambo 21:13, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

If you want to make up a map, most of the details are here and although it hasn't been updated since 2001, it's still pretty much up to date (although the first section of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link has now been built. Willkm 23:56, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Something else that needs to be expanded before we nominate this for featured status is the new Criticisms section. There have got to be more objections than those that were voiced earlier this week in Milan. slambo 20:43, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a section on TGV accidents is missing? There is a list on the French version and on TGVweb.

I'll take a look and see how much I can translate and add to it this weekend. slambo 11:57, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Done. Willkm 21:09, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

OCC ?

The article mentions the term OCC in section LGV Signalling; this is obviously the TGV control center, but I could not find any exact reference or acronyn meaning; does anyone know the details ? Schutz 07:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to User:Willkm for getting rid of this acronym. Schutz 11:52, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

No problem. Need to spot these things before going for FA! Willkm 17:10, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Accidents

I would like to suggest adding the following paragraph, but I'm not sure where it can fit.

In more than two decades of high-speed operation, the TGV has not recorded a single fatality due to accidents. There have been several accidents, including three high-speed derailments at or above 270 km/h (168 mph), but no wagons ever overturned. This is credited in part to the stiffness that the articulated design lends to the train. The only fatalities were recorded on 31 December 1983, when the terrorist organization of Carlos the Jackal placed a bomb on board of a TGV train, killing two.

Source: http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/wrecks.html

Ze miguel 13:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I have added the text in the section on criticisms, which I have renamed to a more general Problems and criticisms. It is still not perfect, but at least it should get the ball rolling. Schutz 12:30, 24 November 2005 (UTC).

Thanks Schutz. -- Ze miguel 13:58, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I've expanded the accidents section and split it again (think it's big enough now for its own section). Mainly tranlated from French version, but with a little detail from TGVweb. TGVweb is already in the references section - think that's probably enough Willkm 20:00, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Ze Miguel: I think the points in the beginning of the introductory paragraph to the Accidents section need to be spelled out a bit: I'm not sure it's clear enough from "two decades of high-speed operation" that the next phrase refers only to high-speed operation (e.g. it could mean: the TGV has been running at high-speed for two decades, but no TGV passenger has ever been killed due to accidents (which they have, from TGVweb)). That makes the next bit about level crossings seem a bit of a contradiction if the first bit is misunderstood. About the second bit (There have, however, been several people killed by collisions with TGVs on lignes classiques at level crossings) - this sort of implies that the only fatalities have been in level crossing accidents, but (also from TGVweb) a passenger and a guard have been killed trying to board a moving train (the guard's door is allowed to be open when the train starts). What do you reckon? I think it's probably better if we spell it out a bit more for the avoidance of doubt. Willkm 21:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Willkm: I had wrongly assumed that the passenger referred to was a passenger of the truck which was hit by the TGV. So you're right, the distinction needs to be made between high-speed and standard lines. Sorry about that, I'll revert my edit to your previous version. -- Ze miguel 22:23, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Cool, no probs. :) Willkm 20:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Featured Article (2) ?

There has been quite a lot of work on the article recently, including a peer-review, and after having just reread it thoroughly and correcting a few little things (bypassed all redirects, in particular) I am thinking that we could maybe propose it as featured article now, as already suggested above.

If you disagree, please use this section as a todo-list for tasks that remain to be done -- otherwise, I'll submit it as a featured article candidate. Of course, I am not the person who did the most work here, so if e.g. someone like Willkm would like to submit it himself, I would be happy to oblige. Schutz 00:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

That sounds like a very good idea. I would be very happy if you were to submit it. I'm sure the close scrutiny it will get on the FAC list should iron out any major problems. Willkm 20:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Almost ready. Looking back at my peer review comments, it looks like those have been taken care of, but the page is 47 kilobytes now. There will be some who object on this basis. We could easily split the infrastructure information out into a separate article and include a summary here, and we could probably do that for other aspects of the article as well (perhaps the Rolling stock section next?). I just took a read through the lead section again and removed the excess commas and reordered a few phrases so it reads better (at least I think so B-) ). I'll try to read through the rest of it again tonight. Slambo (Speak) 21:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I for some reason don't like the idea of a separate infrastructure article - not sure why though :). Perhaps because the infrastructure section just doesn't seem suitable for an article in its own right, or that this one wouldn't be complete without it, as it is now. It's not *that* much too big, and I think it's probably better to keep all of the information here in one place. It does look long though, not broken up by a picture... I don't think I have any of my own which are suitable. Willkm 21:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

What if I submit it, and honestly say "the article may be slightly too long, if you think we should reduce it, we are ready to do it" ? If that is the only problem mentioned, it'll be easy to fix (although I'm sure other reviewer will find good comments that noone has mentioned so far). I'll wait until tomorrow anyway. Schutz 22:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Or maybe something along the lines of: "The article may slightly too long, but it is a complete guide. Some sections could be moved elsewhere and summarized if necessary, though." As I say, I prefer it whole :) Willkm 22:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Done ! Schutz 00:35, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Done, TGV is now a featured article. Congratulations everyone for the good work ! Schutz 23:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Wahey! Now for the front page. Willkm 00:18, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Wahey again! Willkm 00:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)