Wikipedia:Peer review/Automated teller machine/archive1

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Automated teller machine[edit]

I got annoyed after reading this article once, so of course I had to fix it.  :-) I'm running out of steam and looking for ideas as to where to go from here.

There are pictures in some of the other language Wikipedias that might be good to add in, but they're not in WikiCommons, and I'm unsure how to cleanly transfer all of the information about an image to the commons.

I'll check back in a couple of days... gotta actually do some real work now.  ;-) PrimroseGuy 18:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Hi,

The article is very comprehensive and really has no content problems. However I have some other comments on it:

  • The lead is too verbose. For example, rather than "an electronic computerized telecommunications device" try "an electronic device".
  • Citations are needed for the history section (see here for information on how) but generally it is pretty good.
  • "The latter is preferable as the time required for a modem to establish the initial connection is much less." should be rephrased. Try something like "Leased lines are preferable to modems because they require less time to establish a connection."
  • Talk about the encryption in the Financial Networks and ATMs (it's already mentioned in the Security > Transactional section.
  • Instead of "In addition, ATMs are moving away from custom circuit boards (some based on the Intel 8086 architecture) and into full-fledged PCs with standard operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Linux." Try something like "Recently, due to heavier computing demands and the falling price of computer-like architectures, ATMs have moved away from custom hardware architectures using microcontrollers and/or application-specific integrated circuits to adopting a hardware architecture that is very similar to a personal computer. So much so that many now use operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Linux.". Unless you have specific source advising otherwise, consider not talking about custom printed circuit boards as they are cheap to make and probably don't accurately reflect the nature of the shift.
  • Explain better what "phantom withdrawals" are or omit that information.
  • "made to dispenser a customer's money" is incorrect (dispenser is a noun).
  • Explain better what the "emergency PIN system" is or omit that information.

Generally, the article feels like it needs to be trimmed/restructured. It is too long and some sections seem to cover material that is closely related to earlier sections (in which case it might be best to combine the two). The article does have a tendency to wander so don't be afraid to omit some smaller details from the article.

Some ideas for trimmming/restructing the article include:

  • Remove Companies involved with ATMs and move links of the most important companies to the See also or External links section.
  • Remove ATM Usage Fees and place the article in the See also section. Maybe make a brief mention of them elsewhere.
  • Remove Relevant Legislation and Standards from "Talking ATM"
  • Combine the ATM Fraud and Security sections

Cedars 03:01, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply] 

Good suggestions from the above two reviews.  Some highlights of how the article has now changed:
  • The lead is too verbose.

The "electronic computerized telecommunications device" is an important part of ATMs (to distinguish them from related devices), but I was able to shorten and simplify thing a bit.

  • Citations are needed for the history section

Done.

  • The latter is preferable...

Good idea. Fixed.

  • Talk about the encryption in Financial Networks and ATMs

It seems to me more appropriate in the section it is in, but I have now mentioned lower layer encryption that can occur.

  • Instead of "In addition, ATMs are moving

Good idea. Fixed.

  • Explain better what "phantom withdrawals" are

Good idea to cut. They're more of an issue of a failure of the Bank's accounting systems... plus the information available doesn't have a worldwide perspective, so pushed to external article and included a link.

  • made to dispenser a customer's money

Fixed.

  • Explain better what the "emergency PIN system"

Good idea. Done.

Generally, the article feels like it needs to be trimmed/restructured. It is too long ..." After this round of tinkering, it seems to be getting bigger.  :-)

  • Remove Companies involved with ATMs and move links of the most important companies to the See also or External links section.

Still looking for a good sample article that I can model the removal of the content from. The information in that section deserves to be pushed out into a List of...

  • Remove ATM Usage Fees and place the article in the See also section.

The main reason I've kept that in is that in previous versions of the article it tended to degenerate into a discussion of why people don't like ATM fees. Unless there's something that's reasonably prominent to draw people away from doing that, I think it could fall back into that trap again.

  • Remove Relevant Legislation and Standards from "Talking ATM"

Actually, this section really can be it's own article now and was of limited geographic scope, so it's cut out

  • Combine the ATM Fraud and Security sections

I think the main problem was that the concepts in those sections really weren't explained well enough to make them distinct. I've tried to flesh them out a bit more to help drive out the meaning.

PrimroseGuy 21:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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