Wikipedia:Peer review/Hammersmith & City line/archive1

Hammersmith & City line

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because having worked on this (and the similar Circle line (London Underground), Metropolitan line and District line articles) and I would like feedback before taking one of these articles to GA.

Thanks, Edgepedia (talk) 11:04, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• {{doing}} Ping me on my talk if I haven't posted a review within two days. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 17:26, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
• Apologies for the late reply... lost my previous unsaved tab of comments :| Anyhow, overall I'd say this is an excellent start of an article. The biggest issue I had was with comprehension. As an American, I don't know much about London, and even less about its metropolitan transit, but I felt like I was missing important details in general that would make the article more interesting and more comprehensible.
  • Starting from the lead "The Hammersmith & City line is a London Underground service...", I'm not sure what a "sub-surface network" is beyond the apparent meaning, which leaves me confused as to why it's necessary (wouldn't the London Underground be subsurface by default?) Perhaps you should just start out by saying it's a rail line that's part of London, England's transit system to start with.
  • You've got a lot of links to things I don't really find that useful due to a lack of familiarity, namely fare zones. I've got a nifty gadget which allows me to get popups telling me what each wikilinked item is, but most readers won't have that enabled and thus would have to click away from your article to figure out what it is. Generally, it's a good practice to try and make everything comprehensible without any additional clicks; leave the wikilinks for adding more context beyond what is strictly needed.
    • On the subject of the fare zone elements, a much more useful description would be telling me in runs from west to east London; save the fare zone stuff for later on.

 Done I've tried to explain these terms in the first para, and taken out the fare zones.

• • "The first line built by the Metropolitan Railway (Met) was beneath the New Road using the "cut-and-cover" method between Paddington and King's Cross and in tunnel and cuttings beside Farringdon Road from King's Cross to Smithfield, near the City"— remember that the lead summarizes what's in the article; you shouldn't start the body of the article without explaining what the Met is, and where the heck it is (I assume "City" is London, though it's not made clear and I'm not sure why it's capitalized.)

 Done I've tried putting the City in context. The Metropolitan Railway is the company that built the line and Met is the abbreviation that is used later. Trying to think how to clarify this.

• • Ok, I know something about trains, but casual readers might wonder what all the fuss is about standard/broad gauge trains, and likewise the differences from O stock, etc.

 Doing... I've removed a little of the technical detail and added information that would be of interest to casual reader about the changes in the trains used on the line. Not sure whether to just remove the standard/broad gauge thing; there is some romance in the GWR broad gauge, although these trains only ran for a few years. Edgepedia (talk) 23:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• "Plans" is a bit vague for a heading. Indicating it covers future events might be useful.

 Doing... I don't like Future plans. Thinking of suitable term.

• The geographic map of the line is somewhat less than useful considering it only shows real distance but not with any overlay of the city, etc.

 Doing... I'm thinking of using the central section of File:Greater_London_UK_district_map_(blank).svg; however this is going to have to wait until I return home this weekend. Edgepedia (talk) 17:01, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think moving the services and route before the "stock" and "future plans" sections. It seems to make more logical sense to discuss the "present" before the future.

 Done

• More granular stuff forthcoming.

Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:46, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, very helpful getting another perspective. I'm currently on a business trip (in Texas - hence the {{busy}} on my talk page), so it may be a few days before I get to make changes to the article. I'll work on a printout to start with. Edgepedia (talk) 12:06, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I wikilinked sub-surface network, because on the LU, "sub-surface" has a distinct meaning - it's those lines which are not tube lines. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I also wikilinked City. Regarding capitalisation of "City": in the London area, the term "City", when used alone, refers to the City of London, as distinct from the City of Westminster; it's capitalised because it's a proper name. The City of London has a defined meaning: when the conurbation is meant, the general term "London" is used. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:15, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The city is described in the Metropolitan Railway article as the capital's/London's financial heart, and this easily be added to the article. It probably also needs to go in the lead to explain the line's name.

We also need to explain the sub-surface railway; not sure if these needs to go in lead. Edgepedia (talk) 23:23, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Progress above. Edgepedia (talk) 13:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Postscript

I was annoyed that a bot archived this review while I was travelling. I have removed references to broad and standard gauge; this is more relevant to the Great Western Railway#The "gauge war" and there is no room in this article to explain GWR's broad gauge railway,how this was incompatible with the rest of the railway's built etc..., I have renamed plans Upgrade programme and I constructed a new map showing the route of the line superimposed on London's boroughs. Thanks for the comments, I guess if anyone has any further comment they can use the talk page.