Talk:Ultra (personal rapid transit)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Clarification required

Is the cost for the guideway only? If so, how much are the pods? And how many are required? Just zis Guy you know? 11:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

What sentence are you talking about? This one: "total cost of the system - vehicle, infrastructure and control systems - is between £3million and £5million per km of track" gives a total system cost/mile of track. Pods? Haha, you've been hanging around UniModal too much. Fresheneesz 20:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Right, so it does not make clear how many pods, which (as we find in PRT) is a crucial factor in determining system capacity. So at the very leats we need to know the estimated capacity. Also, if it's optimised for a ensely populated area, why is it being deployed to link a car park (a sparsely populated area) with an airline terminal (a single endpoint). I'd say that sentence should go. Just zis Guy you know? 22:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

As it says here: "The current generation system will work best in a densely populated area with a typical radius of operation up to 5km.". As for why its being put in a car park, i'm guessing they don't have support for a full on city development yet, what do you think?

Personally I think the way the system is optimized is an interesting and useful thing to note on this page - *especially* given that they're building at a car park. Fresheneesz 23:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

As I understand PRT design, they've done extensive analysis and simulation on the dynamics of a PRT network, and from that they can estimate an optimal number of vehicles per length of guideway. Too many vehicles would be wasteful, too few vehicles would cause the guideway to be underutilized. So, in that sense, it could make sense to estimate total costs per-guideway length, because the total length of guideway implies an estimate of the number of vehicles required.

Consider a light rail example: if you have a 10 mile bidirectional light rail line, with minimum separation of 2 miles between trains, then you would need no more than about 10 trains (5 each way). The same sort of estimations can be made for PRT, though they'd obviously be more complicated than the light rail case due to the fact that PRT is a network, not a simple line. A Transportation Enthusiast 02:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As for the quote "...densely populated area... up to 5km" quote, this is not in conflict with the airport installation. Just because ULTra is appropriate for Heathrow does not mean it cannot be appropriate for other types of applications, i.e more dense. I think the line should stay, but I'd have no problem with qualifying it with something like "the company claims..." or "Even though the only application currently planned is at Heathrow Airport, the company claims...". But there's no justification for completely removing it. A Transportation Enthusiast 02:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As usual we have a conflict between the manufacturer's claims and reality. They claim it is optimised for an urban enviuronment, but (a) it has not been tested in such an environment and (b) it is not being implemented in such an environment. SO I think the claim should come out. The aspiration to be an urban mode is amply covered in the main PRT article. This is about a system with one test track, and one order, for a car park. An interesting enough system, which I will most likely use from time to time unless they price it ridiculously (which, given BAA's track record, they will). Oh, and we still don't say how many pods there will be at LHR or what the forecast carrying capacity will be. Just zis Guy you know? 13:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The claim is made by the company, this much is verifiable. What is also verifiable is that there is no existing prototype or planned implementation with which to verify the claim. Instead of arbitrarily removing the claim, why can't it be made with qualification? I thought Wikipedia was supposed to state only that which is verifiable, without a further requirement that what is being stated is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

1. The word you are looking for is "vehicles". They are not called "pods".
2. There will be 18 vehicles, as per this press release here.
3. Some very simple math reveals the carrying capacity (given 18 vehicles) to be in the neighborhood of 500-600 people per hour per direction. However, as I haven't seen this stated explicitely by either ATS or BAA, it doesn't need to be in the article at this time.
4. There is no "conflict between the manufacturer's claims and realities". That is a logical fallacy. Technologies can be optimized for situations in which they are not applied, and technologies can be applied in situations for which they are not optimized. Motorbusses, for example, are for travelling between a great number of locations -- yet they are often employed to shuttle people between two fixed points, ie an airport terminal and a car park. Does this then imply a "conflict between the manufacturer's claims and realities"? No, it does not. In the case of ULTra, they did not optimize it for this precise application, but they are happy to be paid to apply it in this way nonetheless. No "conflict" there whatsoever.

Skybum 15:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The system may or may not work best with a 5 mile radius, however the company has *designed* the system for that. It is very useful information to know. For example, when I think of PRT I think "replace roads with guidways, and cars with small vehicals". Obviously ULTra is not optimized (or "meant for") longer trips and larger radiuses like the road system. It is a very important number to have in the article. Fresheneesz 22:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

So, we are willing to state without reservation that it is optimised for an application quite unlike the test or first comercial application? Seems like a bad idea. As to including what is verifiable rather than what is provably true, it has to be verifiable from a reliable source. The manufacturer are not a reliable source in this context, because it is a marketing claim which has not been substantiated elsewhere. Oh, and the word I was looking for was pods, since that seems to be the usually used term. Vehicle is generic and includes everythign from a bicyle to a B52. Just zis Guy you know? 22:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

And pods can be anything from plants to machines - whats your point. Also, you're misinterpreting the issue of the "optimization". The manufacturor is the best person to tell you what they *tried* to build the system for. I really get the feeling you simply don't read our comments JzG. Fresheneesz 23:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, for Pete's sake, JzG. You're still playing your same old game, simply because we are talking about a design and not an existing product. WE KNOW THAT IT IS A DESIGN. THERE IS NO QUESTION ABOUT THAT. Everywhere else on Wikipedia, it is absolutely permissible and desirable to make positive statements about the intent of a design. For example, the Windows Vista article states that "Microsoft's primary stated goal with Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system." It's perfectly okay to say this, even though Vista, of course, doesn't exist as a public product any more than ULTra does, and -- who knows? -- it's actual security, once it's released into the wild, might be terrible. Wikipedia should not suppress the fact that Vista's designers claim they are attempting to optimize security, simply because this is "a marketing claim" or that it is a claim which might not ultimately work out.

That being said, the sentence you blanked did have some problems. It read: "The current design is optimized for a densely populated area with a system radius of about 5 km, serving a small number of destinations." This is problematic, but only because it seems to be making a positive statement about the actual optimization of the design (which is a no-no), as opposed to the intended optimization of the design (which is an important and valid point to include in the article). The sentence can be fixed by re-wording it as follows: "Designers say that the technology is optimized for a densely populated area with a system radius of about 5 km, serving a small number of destinations." I am therefore putting this text back into the article.

JzG, you are neither an idiot nor a newbie. You know perfectly well how to make genuine improvements to an article, improving the language where it is either too strong or too vague. Yet you prefer to delete content without adequate discussion, or demand sources which you have, often as not, previously deleted yourself. It is becoming baldly obvious that, rather than trying to improve the quality of the information here, you are simply trying to suppress it, based on whatever flimsy pretext you can think of. Please try to improve your behavior. Skybum 01:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am playing the "same old game" of requiring that we do not include unsupportable hypothesis. As usual in respect of PRT, that sentence is claiming it to be designed for an application where it has neither been trialled nor ordered. Leave it to the link to PRT to say what is the intent of PRT proponents - this is about a system in an airpoirt car-park, and should be about just that. Actually I can hardly wait - it is local to me (about 25 minutes away). Just zis Guy you know? 10:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JzG wrote: "So, we are willing to state without reservation that it is optimised for an application quite unlike the test or first comercial application?" No! We are willing to state without reservation that the company claims the design is optimised for an application quite unlike the test or first comercial application. It wasn't originally written that way, and you are correct that the original wording was not appropriately qualified. But as Skybum says above, the point is completely valid if properly qualified. A Transportation Enthusiast 01:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a marketing claim. Leave it to the company's website to make their marketing claims. Why not document the actual applications, rather than the ones the salesmen would like to have one day? What precisely is the problem with this? Just zis Guy you know? 10:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

JzG, you are being overly touchy about this. It was properly qualified as "Designers say...". In any event, I've re-worded and re-inserted the line from a different source. I found a paper by Lowson that discusses at length the ULTra system and its intended target: cities less than 1 million in population, or as a feeder network in larger systems. Unfortunately the paper is in MS Word format; if someone can find a PDF or HTML source, please change the link. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not overly touchy to require substantial proof before repeating that marketing claims which are in excess of any provable fact (remember, not only is this system iuntested in such an application, no comparable system has ever been deployed in such a way). And the paper is (again) direct from the makers- lowson identifies as being from ATS. Has nobody not connected with them actually validated this claim? Just zis Guy you know? 14:49, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Lowson is a respected expert on PRT, with several published research papers on the topic. He also happens to associated with ATS, which is why the line is qualified. But his involvement with ATS does not disqualify all the work he's done on the PRT, or the fact that his expertise lends considerable weight to the claim of applicability in mid-sized cities.

Your further qualification that no such system exists yet is fine. In the future, I would suggest that, rather than removing claims entirely as you've traditionally done, perhaps you should qualify them with your concerns so that the point and counterpoint are preserved, and then we can debate over the exact wording. Simply removing verifiable claims en masse just provokes hostility. A Transportation Enthusiast 15:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I might also add, referencing some recent debates:

• Has nobody not connected with Microsoft actually validated Windows Vista?
• Has nobody not connected with Sir Richard Branson actually validated Virgin Galactic?
• Has nobody not connected with Sony actually validated Blu-Ray?

A Transportation Enthusiast 15:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

*Yes, we have tested the beta extensively and are currently doanloading beta 2.

*Irrelevant, the article makes the status quite plain - if you think there are ctill claims which cannot be supported feel free tpo remove them

*No idea, ask Stephen, that's more his field than mine.

None of this is particularly relevant though. I don't want to bloat articles out with endless they say, but... commentaries. Just zis Guy you know? 15:56, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

• Microsoft Vista: "Yes, we have tested the beta extensively and are currently doanloading beta 2." - this says nothing about its compatibility with the wide range of hardware in the PC world, not to mention its stability and security. Yet there are company claims about Vista throughout the article.
• Virgin Galactic: "Irrelevant, the article makes the status quite plain..." - So, for Virgin Galactic, it's OK to make speculative claims as long as they are qualified by a statement about the current status of the project. Yet for PRT pages, you regularly remove claims even if they are properly qualified. Do you see the disconnect here?

Why do we allow claims from Microsoft (the company who gave us Windows Millenium Edition) but not from ULTra, even if they are heavily qualified? A Transportation Enthusiast 16:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, gee, maybe it's something to do with Microsoft having more money than many governments and a beta programme which is open to scrutiny from zillions of geeks the world over, allowing their claims to be tested? But really, you can't possibly be suggesting that there is a real-world parallel between microsoft and a university spinoff company which has just secured its first order. Branson has started several companies and made a lot of money - how many companies have these Ultra guys started? Rougly one? Where's the track record? Also, if you don't like the Virgin article, you can fixit. Incidentally, we are running Vista on beta Pentium 5 chips in white boxes direct from Intel in our labs. Just zis Guy you know? 22:47, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Two points in response:

1. Maybe I'm more skeptical of claims from Microsoft, because of their long history of delivering less than they promised. Wasn't their OS supposed to be secure from threats something like 8 years ago? Just last week I got 8 critical updates in one shot. Did you ever stop to think that it is up to the reader to decide if (s)he trusts the word of the company that is making the claim? What you are doing, JzG, is making a judgement for all of us: namely, that claims from Microsoft can be trusted, while claims from ATS are to be suppressed as unreliable. Do you not see how the simple act of making that decision introduces your own POV into the articles in question?
2. I never said I don't like the Virgin article, or the Microsoft Vista article, or any other article that has been brought up in this debate. If you don't like those articles, then you can go and try to change them. I've presented those examples as proof that claims are OK when presented correctly, not as examples of articles that need to be changed. The point is, those articles present company claims that are unproven, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as the claims are properly qualified. A Transportation Enthusiast 23:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point. What Microsoft says is reported because they are big enough, and it is public enough, that they will be held up to ridicule if they lie. I remember the ever-slipping Windows 93 94 95 deadlines as well as anyone - so do Microsoft. Vista is "real" in as much as beta software ever is, outside companies have had it for a while and tested it with a lot of hardware. We should be cautious what we say about it, but it is certainly a tangible product and will, to a very high degree of certainty, end up on millions of desktops in very short order. When they say it's designed to replace all their enterprise class operating systems, you can be pretty sure that many enterprises will have large-scale rollouts of Vista, and some enterprises have already tested it in large scale lab installations. By contrast, ULTra is supposedly designed for an application for which this company has no track record, and indeed there is no extant PRT system which meets these criteria. Microsoft already have XP and Server 2003, Vista is probably tagged NT 6.0 - it's certainly not a version 1.0 product like the Heathrow ULTra system will be. You brought up various parallels, I don't think they address the problem. And the fact that article A says something questionable does not mean that article B can do the same. Just zis Guy you know? 13:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Part two

You guys. This is freaking ridiculous. No long arguments, this ends right here - find a consensus. The company says that they designed the system to be optimized at a radius of 5 miles - NOT 100 miles, NOT 500 feet, NOT in farmland. Do you get it JzG. Instead of insisting on annoying the shit out of everyone, PLEASE try suggesting a method of including the information that will make you feel comfortable. I, ATE, and Skybum all think its relevant information. We are willing to accommodate, but I for one think you are being ridiculous to ask us to remove the information. Its not a marketing push, its not a publicity stunt. Its plain and simple a qulifier of the way the system is built.

I dislike the 1 million population thing, as population has absolutely nothing to do with anything - despite whatever source. Density and size are what matter, as the company says. Can people please just say hear here if they think we should put the company's outragious marketing scam claim about their hypothetical 5 mile radius back up? For god's sake.. Fresheneesz 07:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Either version is fine with me. A Transportation Enthusiast 13:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and thank you, Freshenessz. This has absolutely got to stop; it's ridiculous. Skybum 14:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok I decided to put in both statements:

"The company says that the design works best as system with a 5 mile radius in a densly populated area. Designers say that the technology can handle cities with populations of less than 1 million - for larger cities, it could be used as a network link to larger mass transit systems,"

The first statement is the companies claim that the system is not really meant for far distances, and isn't meant for small populations (like the countryside). The second statement is a qualifier of capacity, that the system isn't meant to handle *too many* people. I should probably more priminantly mark tha the company's claim is a "claim". Does this look any better JzG? Fresheneesz 21:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Still has the same old problem. Designers say that, but nobody's actually tried it. All we have is a small instalation in a car park> I'd say it's best to see how well it works there before we start arm-waving about cities of a million population; if it falls flat in this trial I think we can safely say it's dead in the water. Better to wait. Just zis Guy you know? 21:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Look, the problem is that you just don't like what the designers say. Fair enough, but that's purely your POV. This article is about ULTra, and in that context, it is absolutely NPOV to report what the designers do, verifiably and factually, say. Stop complaining about it. Skybum 21:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this is plain and simple a semantic issue. JzG you're talking about technically physically optimized - me, ATE, and skybum are saying that the company tried to design their system for a 5 mile radius. Just like desktop computer are built for personal use, some may also be not too bad for server use - while others wouldn't ever even be considered.

Is there a wording that you would be comfortable with to reflect that the company designed the system for a 5 mi radius, but that the actual optimal radius of the system may deviate from the companies efforts? Fresheneesz 21:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Skybum, I neither like it nor dislike it, I simply find it lacking a provable basis for statement in an encyclopaedia. Fresheneesz, try the current wording. Just zis Guy you know? 22:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks perfect, good job. Fresheneesz 22:43, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Part three

Earlier, JzG said, "They claim it is optimised for an urban enviuronment, but (a) it has not been tested in such an environment and (b) it is not being implemented in such an environment. SO I think the claim should come out. The aspiration to be an urban mode is amply covered in the main PRT article."

I disagree with that position and I can find numerous article upon article that fails this and/or the other 5 JzG rules.

First, I think PRT in general was developed as primarily an urban transport, but that should not mean that all PRT designs are optimized so. The PRT concept may lend itself nicely to other forms of transport, like a parking lot circulator system. Other transport systems do this also, like buses, which routinely operate as parking lot circulators. In my opinion, the ULTra design actually appears to be more optimized for small-area, short-haul uses because of its slow speed restrictions. That translates into small, densely populated, urban environments for general public transit needs, and as a parking lot circulator for airports and places like Disneyland, or for large office and college campuses. Other PRT designs like UniModal, with its claims of high-speeds are probably more optimal for longer-haul, wide area service, and would probably be ill-suited for airport parking lot duty. So, to make the claim that the main PRT article "amply" covers the spectrum of PRT aspirations is flat out wrong and does a disservice to everyone who might like to learn more about the various proposals.

Later in the same thread, JzG said, "It's a marketing claim. Leave it to the company's website to make their marketing claims. Why not document the actual applications, rather than the ones the salesmen would like to have one day? What precisely is the problem with this?"

To this I would like to see JzG hold to the same standard every marketing claim made in every article relating to a Microsoft product, Virgin product or service, NASA proposal, and even this claim in the Wikipedia article, "[Wikipedia is] an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language." Unless by "quality", they actually mean "volume of content", this is pure marketing fluff, or the utopian fantasy of the designer. The reality just doesn't jive with the theory, so it must be sticken. --JJLatWiki 18:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Man-years

Do you think 50 man-years should be changed to something like 440,000 man-hours? Man-years to me sounds awkward. Fresheneesz 20:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

50 man-years is more like 100,000 hours. 50 weeks/year (two weeks vacation) times 40 hours/week, not counting unpaid overtime, etc. What units does the original source use? pstudier 22:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that man-years were counted by working days. this source uses man years. But I wouldn't think it makes sense to count man-years based on working hours, since obviously men aren't working every hour of the day. But, i'm not an expert on human resource statistics. If we can figure out what "man-years" means, I think we should change it to the more familiar and less ambiguous "man-hours", but if we can't.. I guess we should just keep "man-years". Fresheneesz 23:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

From [1], The similar "man-year" concept is used on very large projects. It is the amount of work performed by an average worker during one year. Obviously, the number of hours worked by an individual during a year varies greatly according to cultural norm(s) and economics, but a business man-year for management purposes seems to hover around 2000 man-hours. Since the conversion is ambiguous, I think that we should leave it as man-years. Or perhaps person-years? pstudier 23:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I emailed the company about it. When I get an answer I'll correct it into man-hours. Btw, the source you cite is a wikipedia-copy page of man-hour. Fresheneesz 01:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I've heard the term man-years, and I think it's acceptable here, especially if that's the units that were reported in the sources. A Transportation Enthusiast 02:45, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is the ambiguity tho, and the fact that even tho you may have heard of it, maybe other people haven't. For example, I assumed that there are 365 man-year in a man-hour, and 24 man-hours in a man-day - but apparently this isn't so. Fresheneesz 08:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Man-years is standard terminology in large projects. I'd leave it. It doesn't really directly scale anyway. Just zis Guy you know? 13:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

How about if we Wikify it by pointing to the man-hour article (which has a section on man-years)?

Personally, I couldn't care less if its standard or not - I only care if I understand it. An abiguous standard is as or more useless than if we measured the amount of human work in Joules. Fresheneesz 22:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

What is ambiguous about man-years? One man, one year. Seems simple enough. If in doubt, link to the article on man hour wich describes the concept consisely. Just zis Guy you know? 23:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

How bout you read the other comments JzG - i'm not going to paraphrase.

I got this email from martin lowson:

"Probably our estimate of man years in not sufficiently accurate for the precise definition to make much difference.

However sine we have had a team of around 50 equivalent full time people (including all subcontractors) and also a good size BAA team working on the project for the past year I am sure that the total investment, whatever the definition, is now well over 100 man years"

It is clear that he is using Pstudier's interpretation of a man-year. Comments on changing it to man-hours? Fresheneesz 23:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Fresheneesz, I'm quite familiar with the terms "man-hour", "man-month", and "man-year". Just because you aren't familiar with these terms doesn't mean they are ambiguous. In fact, I think in this case man-years is the more appropriate term, because it is appropriately vague. In other words, man-hours implies a more precise measurement, whereas man-year indicates that it's more of an informal estimate. Man years are certainly not sufficient for a company audit, but they are sufficient to give a general indication of the level of effort that has gone into the system. I say keep it man years. A Transportation Enthusiast 01:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Seconded -- keep it as man-years. It's a unit of measurement that I've frequently seen with regards to large engineering projects (dams, airplanes, operating systems, et cetera), so it seems like the right unit to use here. Skybum 02:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I can't argue against a clear consensus - my only concern is that the readers of this article might mistake 50 man-years to mean 400'000 man hours - not 100'000. Fresheneesz 06:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that a man year is the time a man works in a year. Stephen B Streater 20:35, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems confusing to have different deffinitions of a year for something like a light-year, vs a man-year. Fresheneesz 11:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Prepare to be very confused then. Better add in man year ;-) Stephen B Streater 11:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. Stephen B Streater 12:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

awful. Fresheneesz 12:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV and undue weight

Guys: I did some research, and you need to know that JzG has a critically flawed understanding of what NPOV is about. (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt by attributing it to ignorance rather than malice). He is correct in stating that articles must reflect the "majority viewpoint," and that even where facts concerning "minority viewpoints" are attributable and verifiable, it can skew the POV of an article by including them, thus giving the minority viewpoint "undue weight". This much is absolutely true.

However he is absolutely incorrect in applying that to this situation. The issue of "weight" only comes up when a minority viewpoint on a given topic attempts to dominate that topic. For example, if verifiable Space elevator facts cluttered up the Reusable launch vehicle article, then that would be a problem of undue weight, because space elevators are a distinctly niche topic, outside of the mainstream, and are completely irrelevant to contemporary space launch. However, that does not mean that the space elevator article itself must be truncated and minimized to reflect this fact, because virtually any and all facts about space elevator design -- but pro and con -- are appropriate for that specific topic. (Remember that "wiki is not paper," and we are under no injunction to conserve bandwidth).

Even topics which I (and the majority) consider to be absolutely false and invalid get this treatment. For example, Creationism and Flat earth have substantial and detailed articles. It would be giving them too much weight if they were more than a footnote in the Evolution and Geomorphology articles, but within their own articles, anything that is on-topic goes.

Similarly, if ULTra facts were to dominate the Personal rapid transit article, or PRT facts were to dominate the Transport article, then that would be a case of the "undue weight" problem that JzG talks about. But within their own articles, that is absolutely not the case. JzG needs to stop misrepresenting this rule, and we need to stop giving him any credence when he does so. Skybum 14:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

What needs to stop is people attacking me for trying to keep these articles to policy. Large amounts of speculative detail have been removed from PRT and UniModal, but there appears to be a massive battle being fought to include speculative data. What we include, should be verifiable from reliable secondary sources, per policy. The assertion that PRT is suitable for a wide-scale implementation is a minority point of view; if it were a majority point of view this would surely be evident by now in the shape of wide-scale implementations, or arguments in the mainstream engineering press in favour of PRT. It's a minorityu point of view because it is asserted by proponents but is not backed up by real world data - it's never been tried.

Creationism has a big article because there are millions of Americans who believe in it; how many US states have laws requiring PRT? I can document several places where the schools are required to rteach creationism. And PRT has a large and very detailed article, which spends most of its time discussing a scale of operation which (as it makes clear) has never been tried. This article says that ULTra is the world's first actual PRT implementation. Is it, as the makers would love to see, an urban system covering about 5km? Not as such: it's in a car park. Wikipedia is not paper, but neither is it on a deadline - we can afford to wait and see if PRT becomes a significant mode. If it does, we can talk about it in detail citing facts verifiable from multiple reliable sources. Right now it's mostly a dream, and has been throughout virtually all its history. Monorails have achieved more installations than PRT, and a lot of them are in theme parks. Just zis Guy you know? 15:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Cabintaxi was approved by the German government for city-wide installation. Yet you still call it a dream. Never been tried? Neither has Windows Vista. Neither has Blu-Ray. Neither has the Airbus A380. JzG, your POV causes you to hold PRT to a different standard. A Transportation Enthusiast 15:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Just remind me again, where was the full implementation? Which cities have a Cabintaxi system? How many miles of production Cabintaxi guideway are there in operation? Oh, wait, I remember now - the answer is "none", isn't it? So, a dream then. Just zis Guy you know? 21:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

So, until a Space Elevator has been built and is operating commercially, we can't write about any of the design principles therein? Bollocks. JzG, you absolutely are holding PRT to a different standard than everything else on Wikipedia. Knock it off. Skybum 21:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

All of which is wholly irrelevant to discussions of ULTra's design, which is not speculative, because that is, factually and verifiably, its current, contemporary, design. If there is some large body of criticism specifically of ULTra -- such that it constitutes the "majority viewpoint" on ULTra -- then you should include that criticism in this article. It would be on-topic, and welcomed by me. But the fact is that this (and PRT as a whole) is a niche topic: the "majority" has no awareness of it whatsoever. That does not in any way imply that Wikipedia should not cover it; there are millions of niche-topic articles here; that's practically the entire point of Wikipedia. We cannot engage in speculation, of course, but we can certainly document it -- that's why articles like Project Orion and Space elevator and Solar sail and Asteroid mining and Artificial intelligence exist, all of which are appropriate to document. So is this. Now stop trying to censor it. Skybum 15:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I dunno if this disucssion is very neccessary. We've had it before, and I think we should all know now that NPOV dictates majority view inside individual articles, not separate articles. Anyways, JzG has been trying to argue that some of the information here is actually biased, and not verifiable. In many cases I disagree with his allegations, but I haven't seen him argue undue weight in a while now. Fresheneesz 20:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, what I'm saying is that the manufacturer's claims for what applications this system is "optimised" for are at odds with the test installation and the only application it's been bought for, unsupportable from other comparable systems (of which there are none), and therefore must be treated with scepticism. They are marketing claims, and this is not supposed be a sales brochure. I'd like to see some discussion of these claims in the technical journals. As an engineering application that's rather what I'd expect in terms of reliable sources, rather than endless quotes from the promoter's website. Surely it's been discussed in the civil engineering press? Just zis Guy you know? 21:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

The lack of a test installation is one piece of evidence, for which you have provided an adequate qualification. However, another piece of evidence is the claim made by the company. Presented as a qualified claim, it is completely verifiable, as verifiable as any claim made by any company who has a product that has not yet reached the market. That's what we've been saying over and over here. Instead of removing verifiable claims why can't you just qualify them? Furthermore, your notion that the claim is "at odds" with the test installation is logically incorrect. The fact that the test installation does not demonstrate the claim does not mean the claim is false. A Transportation Enthusiast 15:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It is not, however, independently verifiable. It is as (un)verifiable as any other claim made by a company whose sole product has not got to market and who have no track record. You've yet to provide any comparable examples - Microsoft is definitely not comparable, and Branson has a long track record, including an airline. The claim is indeed at odds with both the test and the first commercial installations, neither of them bears the remotest resemblance to a 5km urban area. And frankly I have no idea why you are still arguing, since the current version, which includes the claim as qualified, seems to be acceptable. Just zis Guy you know? 13:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Just want to say...

... that as irritated at JzG as I am right now, his last edit was a fair one. If he can keep up that kind of editing without engaging in so much grandstanding on the talk pages, I wouldn't mind keeping him around. Skybum 21:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

What you need to understand is that I am doing my very best to explain my thinking; many other editors would simply revert, or insert a single pithy comment - or edit-warred. We have much more talk than edit war in these articles, and that is entirely right, and they are better for it. Plenty of admins would simply have locked the articles down. If people (including me, I never claimed to be perfect) spent more time trying to understand each other and less time trying to read motives into each other's words then I think we'd have less trouble. As to grandstanding, I would remind you to remain WP:CIVIL. With thousands of main space articles on my watchlist and all teir associated talk I do have better things to do than argufy; I only engage in debate where I think the result is worth it to the encyclopaedia. Thus far, for the most part, it has been, although the PRT article is once again starting to creep. Just zis Guy you know? 22:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

One thing I keep forgetting is that maybe half of all arguments are due to semantics - although I speak only from experience. Besides, on wikipedia, basically the only thing we're arguing about is wording - so we should try to be very clear and carful that we fully understand exactly what our opponents are arguing before we counter it. Fresheneesz 22:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

JzG, I agree, we need to understand each other more. But that means you need to trust us, that we are not just a bunch of PRT fanatics pushing POV here -- that's the Avidor view, and like most of Avidor's views, it's basically a grossly exaggerated caricature. Sure, there is enthusiasm for PRT in what we write, because it's a technology that interests us. Does that mean we have an agenda? No, no agenda other than trying to present a comprehensive, neutral picture of PRT.

Perhaps some our edits may look like blatant promotion to you, and, admittedly, sometimes their tone may be slightly more promotional than is appropriate. It doesn't mean the edits don't have any merit at all; in most cases, when you qualify the points we are completely in agreement with what you write (as in this case). But when you mass-revert without comment (you've done it several times, even recently), it just causes frustration, and it leads us to distrust your motives. It's a vicious cycle.

So let's start from a position of trust, and assume that we're all after the same thing here: a rock solid set of articles on a very promising technology that has yet to find a place in a very tight marketplace. If we work together on it, our respective POVs will balance in a positive way and improve the articles, rather than just cause talk page wars. A Transportation Enthusiast 23:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It's always good to work together. The talk pages are also a good place to test out wording that might be controversial. Stephen B Streater 07:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, the trust thing is a two-way street. I came to this from outside as a neutral third party, remember - it is very important to remember that the average of enthusiastic and sceptical is not neutral (the neutral version of an article on a pseudoscience, for example, is not somewhere between scepticism and promotion, it's scepticism). Neutral is the average between promotion and detraction - halfway between ATE/Fresheneesz etc. and Avidor. Stephen's view is probably the closest to the properly Wikipedian middle ground here. As is acknowledged above, these articles have a history of - how should we put this? - somwehat uncritical editing. Enthusiasm is good, but neutrality is better. As to whether this is a "promising" technology or not, I have no idea. That sounds like begign the question to me. Were monorails promising? They were all the rage a few dacades back but are not being built in any numbers. Automated guidance of private cars is far more likely to take off than PRT, in my view, because in the end public transport, even on your own, is seen as less desirable by users (and society, guided by extensive advertising spend by auto makers) than private transport. This is, of course, a philosophical argument with no place in the articles. In the articles we talk about what has happened, not what might happen one day. Just zis Guy you know? 08:56, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

No, you are wrong, JzG. Neutral is not halfway between us and Avidor, because our positions are based in verifiable science, and Avidor's positions are conspiracy theories with absolutely no verifiable basis. You continue to miss the point that, in this case, the skepticism itself is pseudoscience. We've provided research papers, scientific evidence, regulatory endorsement, working prototypes. Balance that against the Avidor position, which is based on nothing but paranoid speculation. How can you continue to claim that our positions are equidistant from center? That, I believe, is the fundamental basis of the problems we've had here. JzG, start looking at the verifiable fact, and stop assuming we're just anti-Avidors. Either that, or try to find hard evidence of Avidor's theories. A Transportation Enthusiast 15:31, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

You are of course entitled to your own view about the neutrality of your own view, just bear in mind that it may not be WP:NPOV :-) I return to the central theme: PRT is presented as an urban transport solution. There is no such installation, and no proof it would work as such. The only installations which exist are trials. One apparently proved to be unworkable as conceived so was changed to something else (according to your definitions). One apparently fell through because the necessary subsidies were not in place (not a good sign for a solution being sold in the US!). Another is being implemented in a car park. So, as it stands, it's an interesting but plainly minor technology which has yet to find a proven workable application. Avidor's position is, as I understand it, that such schemes should not be used as stalking horses against proven technologies. That is a perfectly reasonable proposition. Of course he states it in the language of satire and polemic, because he is a satirist and polemicist. As long as the article says, in effect, that this might be interesting but thus far it's all theory, there should be no major problem. UniMOdal is a somewhat different case, in that it is a hypothetical commercial product being pitched quite hard. We are not here to facilitate that. ULTra is different again: somebody has at least ordered it. Time will tell if it works - not technically, I'm sure the pods will move, but practically, whether the wait times will be as short as forecast, whether there will be public acceptance, that kind of thing. It's local to me, I will most likely see it one day. As a fully paid-up geek I will be in the queue to have a go. Just zis Guy you know? 15:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

My view is based in scientific fact (German regulatory approval!!). Avidor's views are political and unverifiable, and in many cases blatantly untrue (fraud? hoax?). You are being ridiculous in saying they are equal, and we will continue to have these endless debates until you start seeing things for what they really are, despite your obvious affection for Avidor.

Furthermore, show me where I've objected to a reasonable qualification to an unproven assertion. Go ahead and search the histories, you will not find one. The only times I've objected are when you remove a point entirely because it doesn't meet your definition of reality, or neutrality, or "balance". A Transportation Enthusiast 16:03, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Theres no largescale instalations, there is however smallscale instatallations, years of testing and theorizing, and the techology is draws off of is mostly tried and true. Avidor thinks this is some sort of marketing scam, while we see merit in it. By themselves they could be equal stances from center - but Avidor has proved that he does nottake science at face value. Ther merit is in the argument - and Avidor had plenty of low blowing and frankly crazy argumentative techniques. I reaaaaaly dunwanna be compared to that guy. Fresheneesz 18:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Ultra is a lot more concrete than Unimodal, which has a pretty good article now. The advantage of Ultra is that a steady stream of reports should cover every aspect of the project allowing anything controversial to be verified over time. Is there a list of outstanding points somewhere? Stephen B Streater 20:04, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Stephen: do you agree with JzG, that Avidor and I are equidistant from the "center" position on PRT? If so, on what do you base this assertion? I only ask because JzG seems to base a lot of his edits on this assertion (that he's "balancing" the two positions), and on the fact that you supposedly agree with him. If you do, I'd like to know why, because I don't recall any of us saying anything nearly as extreme as "PRT is a fraud and a hoax", or that PRT scientists and proponents are "fanatics" and "wackos" who are trying to kill transit at the behest of the highway industry. A Transportation Enthusiast 20:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I arrived as Avidor was leaving, so I don't know how you compare. I think if someone makes POV edits mixed in with a good edit, JzG sometimes just reverts the whole lot. If you have a particular edit of yours you think is valid, I'll give my opinion on it and am happy to improve it through discussion. I am working on only a handful of articles at a time, so have the luxury of being able to sometimes winkle out, from amongst the assumptions, some of the hidden valuable nuggets of verifiable truth. Stephen B Streater 20:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Stephen, you should be a lawyer. :-). In any event, sounds to me like it is only JzG who has made the definitive judgement that we're just two equivalently opposed sides of the argument. And frankly, I'm insulted by the insinuation, because I'm a scientist and I don't like being compared to someone who deals almost exclusively in propaganda. A Transportation Enthusiast 21:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that these guys and Avidor would disagree on principle. Avidor is a champion of sustainable transport and a big fan of traditional trolleys; PRT was used as a stalking horse to oppose reinstatement of trolley lines in his town. See Roadkill Bill for a bit of background. They see Avidor as a vehement opponent of PRT, but that's not really the case, he's a supporter of a competing (and well-proven) system. I'm afraid German regulatory approval for something which was never built in the world does not cut much ice with me, but you know this. As to whether the pro-PRT camp have said anything extreme - well, I'd say some of the claims which have been excised over the past onths have been pretty extreme. Just zis Guy you know? 21:10, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Bollocks. Absolute Bollocks. I challenge you to find one piece of verifiable evidence on the stalking horse stuff. It's all flat-earth level conspiracy theory. JzG, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Avidor is a vehement opponent of PRT, I can't even believe you would say otherwise. I'm beginning to think you are as much of a POV pusher as Avidor was. You continue to vigorously support a pseudo-skeptic while dismissing real science!

Go ahead, JzG, find me one Avidor claim that is one tenth as verifiable as German regulatory approval, something you freely dismiss just a few words after publicly endorsing Avidor's ridiculous claims.

BTW, how about I propose a new theory: cyclists push light rail as part of their conspiracy against highway development! Obviously I don't need any more proof than the fact that you and Avidor are cyclists who also happen to support rail! Avidor doesn't need to provide evidence, why should I? I'll just draw some cartoons, put up a web site, and write op-ed pieces for every newspaper considering rail. That's enough evidence for you, right JzG? Unbelievable what passes for true skepticism around here. A Transportation Enthusiast 00:18, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Also BTW, does anyone remember back when JzG actually proposed adding a cartoon about a terrorist attack on PRT to the skepticism section? He actually called it "light-hearted"! A terrorist attack on a transit system -- lighthearted! This just goes to show just how distorted his POV is, and how deep his affection for Avidor is. Obviously, his views haven't changed after all this time. Nothing like a closed minded, arrogant, trigger-happy admin. Let pseudo-skepticism reign. A Transportation Enthusiast 00:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see this cartoon on the article though. Perhaps there was a discussion and consensus not to have it. Anyway, let's start looking at ULTra a bit at a time. A good place to start is the most verifiable and NPOV fact not yet here. What is that? Stephen B Streater 06:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The cartoon is not there (in the PRT article) because the Usual Suspects refused to allow it - and, contrary to the assertions above, I do not railroad things through. I quite liked it, it showed the opposition in a way that was quite lighthearted (and therefore unlikely to be over-emphasized), but others resent even the implication that a terrorist might abuse the system. That does not mean the criticism does not exist, or that it is not well-founded - with no working system anywhere in the world, it is very hard to prove or disprove the merit of any such concern. I would remind people that terrorist attacks on public transport are very much a reality, as witness the London attacks of July 2005; that has not stopped the buses or the tube from running. People work round it.

ATE's amusing conspiracy theory won't fly, I'm afraid - cyclists are generally in support of anything that reduces motor traffic. I support rail in the sense of using it and finding that it works well for me, but I use it for cross-country, not urban transport. My chosen urban transport is a Brompton. Avidor's problem with PRT was, as I understand it, its use as a stalking horse to undermine public transport, not with its existence as public transport. I have no opinion either way on that, probably because nobody has even proposed urban PRT in the UK (we are, however, building tram and light rail systems).

As to scepticism being "pseudoscience", I would remind ATE again that a system which was never built with regulatory approval is essentially indistinguishable from one which was never built without it - it's what's on the ground that counts, in Wikipedia at least. ULTra is the first public PRT system, and it does not bear much resemblance to the article on personal rapid transit. Whatever proponents may assert regarding its suitability as an urban mode, the concept is untested in that context, and we would be failing badly if we did not make that clear. And ATE, you are right: I am nothing like a closed minded, arrogant, trigger-happy admin, else you and Skybum would be blocked, UniModal would be deleted as speedy G4 and we would not be having this conversation. Now, can we discuss content instead of imputing motives to each other? Just zis Guy you know? 11:13, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I have a Brompton too :-)

As for preventing the terrorist attack shown in the cartoon, here are two solutions: (1) insist on ID to buy tickets (these could be top up charge cards, for example); (2) Don't allow unattended baggage (cars know if you try and drive off with a passenger without a seatbelt on).

I also noticed that the PRT described in its article is much more visionary than ULTra, but reality has to start catching up with the future somewhere. I'd put my money on ULTra first. Stephen B Streater 12:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I've received a warning on personal attacks. Apparently I can be told I'm no different than Avidor, who has called all PRT proponents wackos and con artists -- being compared to him is not considered an attack. Not to mention that JzG defended Avidor's attacks back then, but now he decides that my words deserve a warning. Whatever.

Anyway, it's clear that I will get nowhere (except banned) on the talk pages. I'm going to work exclusively on the articles from now on, starting with citations on the PRT page. It's time that the (pseudo-) skepticism is given the same verifiablility treatment as the science.

To Fresheneesz, Skybum, JJLatWiki, PStudier, and any others who seem to have taken a reasonable position on this technology: I'm going to start aggressively re-adding the verifiable content that JzG removed. There's not a lot of it, but it's important. If JzG starts to edit war, I'd appreciate help from all of you if you think the changes have merit. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

A few points. First, nobody said you were like anybody, only that the neutral position will lie between yours and Avidor's, and that both of you argue from a pre-existing position at opposite extremes of enthusiasm for this technology. Second, the warning was because you made a personal attack. Please don't. Third, I hope I need not remind you that scepticism is the default position for an encyclopaedia especially in the case of a technology which has never been implemented as described, and yes I will keep coming back to that inconvenient but undeniable truth. Every claim must be stated against the basis of what has actually happened and been described in reliable secondary sources. Use of primary sources such as manufacturers and designers is a poor second to use of reliable, trusted, neutral secondary sources; this is policy. Fourth, the assertion that only those who agree with you are "reasonable" is known locally as MPOV and is pretty much the exact opposite of WP:NPOV.

You are taking the whole thing entirely too personally. Participating in Talk pages, in robust debate, emphatically does not mean you'll get blocked (I never have been even before I was an admin), but insults will get you blocked (not by me) and you need to know this. As I have suggested before, why not edit some of the other articles on transportation topics? Otherwise you risk being seen as an obsessive fan of this technology, which will weaken the authority of any statement you make on it. Just zis Guy you know? 14:52, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue these points anymore. The evidence is all there, and it proves your repeated bad behavior around here. I've done nothing wrong. But I'm sure other admins will ignore the evidence, because you have a good reputation and reputation supercedes quality of argument. Furthermore, non-admins will not contradict you because they want to become admins.

Wikipedia has become the equivalent of an exclusive social club, where you kiss butt to get in, and once you're in, you support each other implicitly with a wink and a nod. I guess it's inevitable, when something like Wikipedia gets as big as it is, but it's a little distressing...

And you can say whatever you want about MPOV, but my position is backed in verifiable fact, not yours/Avidor's. Show me evidence otherwise. A Transportation Enthusiast 16:05, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you guys need to cool it. We don't need an edit war, and adding info to this page isn't pressing - we can take our time. And why don't we? How bout we have a clear consensus before re-adding things. If they were removed, they were removed for a reason - and we can discuss those reasons as a group. Fresheneesz 03:09, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

You know, I've tried to engage JzG in reasoned debate multiple times. And each time he ignored my points and mass-reverted my changes. I'm tired of trying to keep him happy. I think it's time we put away the kid gloves and start being bold with our edits. There is plenty of uncited criticism in the PRT article -- JzG (or someone else) needs to properly cite them with reliable sources or they need to be removed. And we also need to re-add the verifiable content that JzG arbitrarily removed in the past. I've begun both of these tasks on the PRT article.

I am doing nothing wrong here. I'm following guidelines (my brief name calling incident notwithstanding) and I'm making every attempt to make sure what I add is fully cited. I'm also using the {fact} template instead of removing uncited content entirely, in an attempt to give others a chance to provide reliable sources. Despite this, JzG has already accused me of "disrupting Wikipedia to make a point" -- yet another example of an admin assuming my goals are destructive. For JzG, WP:FAITH is apparently optional. A Transportation Enthusiast 04:28, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's a verifiable fact for you: no public PRT system yet exists, anywhere in the world. Here's another: this, the first to actually be built, is in a car par, not an urban setting. And here's another: Wikipedia is not on a deadline and is not intended to cover breaking news or current events. So, we wait and see what happens in the real world and can be documented from reliable secondary sources such as engineering journals, and then we write it up. That is what we are supposed to do. Deate is debate, changing the article without coming to some kind of agreement is not debate. As Stephen has said, if your arguments are not accepted, bring better arguments. It's not that I'm not listening it's just that you keep saying the same things. Just zis Guy you know? 22:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's another verifiable fact for you: no commercially successful Space elevator yet exists, anywhere in the world. In that respect, the Space elevator is much like Personal Rapid Transit. However, unlike PRT, the basic technology to build a space elevator does not exist, the fundamental science is highly contentious, no working full-scale prototypes have been built, no governments have certified a space elevator for operations, hundreds of millions of dollars have not been invested in space elevator R&D, and no commercial space elevator installations are currently on order from the BAA. All quite unlike PRT. Now, here's another verifiable fact for you: there is quite a nice article about Space elevators on Wikipedia, which somehow fails to mention every few sentences that "this does not actually exist," because apparently its authors and editors trust its readers to understand the meaning of words like "design," "proposed," "hypothetical," "prototype," "future," and so forth. Here's another verifiable fact: not only does this Space elevator article exist on Wikipedia, but it has been been a featured article -- so apparently it is okay after all for Wikipedia to discuss ideas that are not physically manifested, widespread, and producing revenue (as long as it doesn't imply otherwise, which this and other PRT articles do not). Which brings us to another verifiable fact: several of us have pointed out to you, on dozens of occasions, this and other examples of the fundamental disconnect between your assertions about Wikipedia policy and precedent, and Wikipedia's actual policies and precedents. And here's still another verifiable fact: each and every time we have done so, you have either hand-waved it away with statements like (and I'm paraphrasing here, but not inaccurately) "just because those articles have problems doesn't mean that this one has to," or "it's okay for a company to make speculative claims if they have lots of money," or responded with snide comments like litanies of "verifiable facts" that are irrelevant when one is talking about a design, or simply failed to respond at all. All of which is unacceptable. One can't argue one's way through a brick wall by using "better arguments". Skybum 23:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This is a very good example of why "the subject of this article doesn't exist except as ideas in our heads" is NOT a good reason to surpress information in any way shape or form. JzG, you repeatedly mention this painfully obvious fact, but its a rhetorical technique that has used up its usefulness. The article asserts that PRT in its imagined form doesn't exist yet, and that ULTra is only a test. Everyone knows this, or will know it if they read the article. Its simply a non-issue, and frankly its sort of odd that you keep bringing it up - as it seems to add nothing to the discussion but opposition. There is no reason to stall giving people useful and interesting information. Fresheneesz 08:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

The phrase "suppressing information" is a red rag for me; it is used in Wikipedia almost exclusively by those pushing a POV against strong policy objections. Last seen by me in the case of the "neanderthal theory of autism", which proposes that autism is the result of past interbreeding with neanderthals, and on the Flight 77 article where we "supporessed" the theory that it was actually a missile fired at the Pentagon (which is discussed in the 9/11 conspiracy theories article). Just so you know. You are portraying this as a one-man cabal opposing the insertion of marvellous revelations regarding this wonderful mode of transport which would be really widespread if only people were not so blinkered; I see it somewhat differently. It's had forty years to get established, during which time it has made as close to zero impact as makes no difference. The reasons for this are nuerous, and they are not going away any time soon. Why on earth should we include specuilation by people promoting a commercial product with no track record whatsoever?

To address the space elevator concept: it's a notable fictional construct, which appears in many science fiction books. If you want to extend PRT to include robot taxis that, too, would be a notable fictional concept and could be documented as such (plenty of references for those). This is not being portrayed as a fictional construct, it's being portrayed as a commercial reality. As such, we should document the things which have been demonstrated in the real world, rather than what the salesmen say. Just zis Guy you know? 08:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

What the salesmen say? Are you referring to the scientists who have researched PRT for decades? You are sounding like Avidor again, who claims that every piece of knowledge about PRT comes from salesmen. By the way, you keep alluding to POV pushing, but I've seen no hard evidence of it from any of us. Do you have specifics, or are you just relying on your gut feeling? A Transportation Enthusiast 13:53, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

You need to re-read the space elevator article, because you seem to have a serious misunderstanding of it. It isn't presented as a "fictional construct" notable only for the fact that it "appears in many science fiction books". It is presented as a serious engineering concept (which has, tangentially, been featured in science fiction). If that doesn't float your boat, try the Fusion power article, which is yet another serious discussion of an engineering concept that is generally less developed than PRT. I can point to many, many, many more, if you'd like. Contrary to your claims, these things are within the purview of Wikipedia. Skybum 20:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and as for your jibe about the "suppressing information" "red flag": are you suggesting that all claims of censorship are intrinsically self-nullifying, simply because there are demonstrably crackpots who also claim censorship? Skybum 20:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

By salesmen, I mean people selling the concept. They can be scientists or not. I know scientists who are salesmen - most of the salesmen in my firm are scientists of one sort or another, often with PhDs. I am still waiting for the citations from peer-reviewed scientific and engineering journals.

For the purposes of Wikipedia Talk pages, censorship may be defined as that content which one party demands is included and another says is contrary to policy. This is not about "censorship" it's a discussion about what goes in or out of an article on a largely hypothetical concept. Do try to keep yur feet on the ground here. Just zis Guy you know? 20:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, right, I think I remember reading Einstein sold used cars on his day off... A Transportation Enthusiast 23:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Fact: the word "salesman" to many people has bad connotations, and isn't the best word to describe researchers who claim good results, or good possibilities. I believe the point of my argument is that "there is no PRT" is shit for argument, and its sorta getting tiring hearing it. Noone wants a rehash of arguments, so quit rehashing the things that create those arguments - like bad wording and bad arguments. Fresheneesz 10:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've just found Wikinfo. Stephen B Streater 15:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

So you're saying there is such a thing as urban PRT? Where can I see it? You say it's science not salesmanship? Which engineering journals can I read it in? These are simple questions. As Stephen says, you can put what you like in Wikinfo, this is the place for neutral encyclopaedic articles, that is the place for enthusiastic write-ups. Just zis Guy you know? 16:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You have precisely one argument in this debate, and you insist on using it whenever all your other atttempts at justifying your viewpoint are invalidated. It's quite tiring. A Transportation Enthusiast 16:38, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Stephen did not say anything about wikiinfo actualy JzG, except that he found it - don't put words in other people's mouths. Your question "Where can I see it?" is irrelevant to the discussion, or to anything. Engineering journals are not the only place science is done.

How bout this - lets take a vote, just to find consensus. Who thinks that the "arguement" that "PRT does not exist" or "PRT doesn't have a full-scale development yet" should NOT come out of JzG's mouth, or that we'll just agree to ignore that particular "arguement". Don't feed the trolls, I say. Fresheneesz 08:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll vote to ignore it from this point forward. It's a non-argument. A Transportation Enthusiast 04:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Just curious, JzG: what do you consider to be an engineering journal? Other than Light Rail Now, that is. A Transportation Enthusiast 04:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

m

m is used for metres, but also for millions. And lots of other things listed in the article on m. I think $1M or $1m is pretty unambiguous because of the $ sign. Stephen B Streater 06:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Still looks odd to me. The big M seems less weird just because M isn't used for that much stuff I know of (ie nothing i know of). I also figured that since other dollar numbers have "million", it fit the mold. Fresheneesz 00:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Either will do. Here's a real life example of m (see near end): [2] Stephen B Streater 06:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

:  ) - and they use "bn". hehe is that standard too? Fresheneesz 18:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I hardly use it myself, finding "tn" more useful in everyday life ;-) Stephen B Streater 21:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

For me, these days, it seems like "1/n" is the most useful measurement of all. :-) Skybum 01:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks (more or less)

In response to a request posted at WP:ANI, I have removed some parts of comments and parts of threads that could be viewed as personal attacks (broadly interpreted) directed at a former editor of this article. Since that editor no longer participates, I think it is unfair to him to have other editors talking about him and comparing their conduct to his. Of course, in general I think that discussing the person rather than the content of his or her edits is generally unproductive, but at least the current participants can defend themselves. Thatcher131 02:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I have put them back. Please do not remove arbitrary lines from the history. Personal attacks are not good etiquette - but neither is destroying the conversation threads on this talk page. Please do not do this again on this or other talk pages, as converstaions might be about those very personal attacks (and are on this page). Fresheneesz 19:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see the discussion on WP:ANI. This was a joint request of Just Zis Guy and A Transportation Enthusiast for an outside review following a request from Avidor that personal attacks against him be removed. As I said there, I think it's poor form to make (arguably) negative comments about a user who has chosen to leave, because it forces him to either let the characterizations stand or to return against his wishes to defend himself. Surely you can debate this article without referring to the views or statements of an editor who hasn't contributed in 2 months. Thatcher131 19:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems Avidor has reached archetypal significance, which is why he crops up. I'm generally against rewriting history, but think we can now move forward in a less personalised way. The less people identify with their beliefs, the easier it is to reach consensus. Stephen B Streater 20:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. I am weary of rehashing arguments on Talk which were settled in the article to more or less general satisfaction ages ago. Any minute now people will start climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man or some such foolishness. All the articles seem more or less OK to me at present, and since there's not much happening I don't see much need for faffing with them either. Just zis Guy you know? 20:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

...completely ignoring, as you've repeatedly done, that four other editors completely disagree with your assessment of the articles. A Transportation Enthusiast 20:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevant and wrong anyway. Four is a very small number, and all four appear to be enthusiasts for the technology. I have not ignored this, I hame listened to your arguments and weighed them. Some I have rejected. Your approach has been to repeat the argguments I rejected, rather than bringing better arguments. No doubt it is a travesty that after four decades of agitation there is still no public PRT system in operation, and no prospect of one which fulfills the potential which its proponents agree it has as an urban mode, but Wikipedia is not the place to remedy that. 09:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Four may be a small number, but it's still greater than two. Re-read what you have just read, JzG: "I have listened to your arguments... some I have rejected" -- your language is that of an authority, a judge. You keep ignoring that we have weighed the same evidence and come to a different conclusion, and the "we" is greater than the "I". Or at least it should be. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:46, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

And I and an admin not someone pushing a barrow. Next? Just zis Guy you know? 15:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You are an admin who continues to assume bad faith. A Transportation Enthusiast 21:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

s/assume bad faith/insist on following policy/ Just zis Guy you know? 23:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Which policy is that? The one that says one admin can dictate his POV over the objection of four editors? A Transportation Enthusiast 00:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Thatcher, I didn't mean to sound...authoritative (ye.. i'm not). But I really do think that since lots of the discussion was about the "attacks", the whole discussion might as well be shelved if you remove that content. And maybe that isn't a bad thing. Fresheneesz 10:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Administrators do NOT have any more right than us to judge what is and is not adequate for a page. Most of us here are not newbs to wikipedia and we know how it works. You do not have the privilage to be judge over us. Might I note that admins can push a barrow too. I actually consider it poor ettiquette to bring up your adminship as an argument against us. Tsk tsk. Fresheneesz 18:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I feel that the talk pages should talk about the article, not the people involved in writing it. Editors can refer to each other to make it clear which argument they are talking about eg Stephen's point above was excellent. Mixing article and people reduces clarity: what we add to the article does not depend on who wrote it but on:

• neutral reliable (generally independent) sources for contentious claims
• lower quality sources for slightly surprising claims
• no cites for completely uncontroversial claims (things which everyone knows).

The required standard of verification for challenged facts is higher than for unchallenged ones. People generally write articles with few cites and add the cites to the article later. The underlying assumption is that all facts quoted could, in principle, be supported by cites if challenged. A fact, however true, which cannot be supported by a cite of sufficient quality, loses its right to be here if challenged.

I spoke to a mechanical engineer I know about passive maglev today, and he said: "Why not just use wheels with tyres on a road? Tracks are very expensive." When I question the quoted prices on maglev track, it turns out there are no independent sources verifying the original figures. So do I believe my mechnical engineer's scepticism or some figure quoted here? The ambiguity says trust neither and don't include the quote. Reasonable doubt has increased the verification hurdle beyond the supplier's ability to satisfy using proof by assertion.

I asked my wife about raised PRT tracks in Wimbledon, and she said that no one would ever accept people being able to look in through the windows of their homes (roads here have houses or flats along them). The barriers to this technology may be much simpler than finance and technology, which we have been concentrating on.

The space elevator has had numerous articles and independent assessments - generally the feeling is that it would need not-yet-existing technology, be very expensive to put up, and if it broke big chunks falling to Earth would be quite spectacular. I might have a look at that article to whether it agrees with my general view. Stephen B Streater 19:26, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Which it does. Stephen B Streater 21:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Stephen, I agree with everything you say here, but look at the evidence. The vast majority of verifiable evidence for general PRT supports the technology. There are a very select few skeptical statements about PRT that are verifiable, and even those are vague and subjective. There is of course the NIMBY argument, which is a subjective concern, and that is represented in the article. Furthermore, neither your engineer friend nor your wife is a reliable source. The engineer may not be an expert in maglev, and your wife may have a minority view. And it would be easy to take a poll that gives you the exact result you want. If you don't want PRT, you ask "Do you want this eye-level hunk of metal with noisy vehicles passing your bedroom window?". If you want PRT you ask "Do you want a quite, on-demand, always available transportation system that relieves road congestion?"

And yes, I agree, the content of the article should not depend on who wrote it, but JzG seems to think otherwise. Verifiable facts from presumed barrow pushers need not apply. A Transportation Enthusiast 21:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

A random selection of opinions is one way to see which statements may need verification - particularly if many people try it. When we have all moved on, the article will have to stand on its own. My intention is to work towards a neutral, accurate and self-evidently true account of the subject. It can appear that some people would prefer to include all opinions and leave it to the (non-expert) reader to try and sort the wheat from the chaff. This is not how an encyclopaedia works. Some sources are unreliable (I haven't looked at PRT in particular for this), and including them in the wrong context may make the article less good. As it happens, my personal preference is to include links to important unreliable things with some criticism to guide people. This is not always practical if the critique is too long. If many assumptions are not listed, results can be meaningless or misleading, and hard to criticise accurately. Stephen B Streater 22:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

And all this evades the fundamental and inescapable fact that after more than three decades of investment and promotion there has yet to be a single urban implementation. Would the technology work? More than likely. Would it be economically feasible? Too many unknowns. Your points above are absolutely on the money, as usual: where are the neutral third party sources backing this up? As a start, I want citations from engineering journals. We've surely got far enough for that? Just zis Guy you know? 23:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Irrelevant arguments. On one hand you have verifiable science, on the other hand you have the fact that no public version has yet been built, which proves precisely nothing especially given that full-scale prototypes have carried passengers!. Where is the real skepticism here, JzG? You keep clouding the debate with irrelevant arguments. A Transportation Enthusiast 00:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

There's a Sherlock Holmes story about a dog which didn't bark in the night. Curious. Stephen B Streater 06:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we should focus on the article and not on people - however, I've very concerned with JzG's attitude that since he is an admin, he somehow has better judgment or more weight than the rest of us.

As for arguments against PRT: People are inherintly resistant to change. Whether the change be good or bad, theres always a majority of people who don't want it to happen. I'm surprised that asking a mechanical engineer about maglev would end so abruptly with "why not do it the same way we've done it for centuries?". Didn't he have any real insight? Doesn't he have some idea as to why maglev is such a buzz word in the transportation industry? I might as well add the question "why not use an internal combustion engine for PRT?".

Not to be a pest, but (stephen) your wife's assertation that noone wants their windows looks through seems to miss the fact that people have windows at ground level. Also, second-story windows aren't hard to see through at all, even from ground level. I'm just curious as to why you guys think its a valid point? Fresheneesz 18:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The reason the engineer suggested tyres is the same reason that it has been used so widely - it is "better" in some important ways eg cheaper to make. As for windows on the first floor (ie your second floor) - they are generally bedrooms, compared with the more public reception rooms on the ground floor (your first floor), and people don't want other people looking in on their private spaces. Stephen B Streater 18:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

What you claim as "science" is not actually science as such, it's advocacy by enthusiasts who happen to be scientists. There are bits of science in the various proposals, of course, but the proposals themselves are not science. Science is what gets published in the scientific journals: science is peer-reviewed and debated in the letters pages. Science is documenting repeatable experiments, and analysing real-world data, in front of an audience of informed sceptics. I've asked several times for citations from the peer-reviewed science and engineering journals rather than quotes from the websites of individual proponenets, but those editors who display boundless enthusiasm for PRT seem unwilling or unable to provide these citations.

If the case is so compelling, why is there nothing on the ground? The answer to that has to be that there is some fundamental problem that the enthusiasts are not telling us about, or are downplaying, because it's certainly not apparent from their websites, which are our major sources here. This being an encyclopaedia rather than a Myspace, we have a duty to document what is, not what we would like to be, and what is, in this case, looks very much like a technology in search of an application. It may possibly have found one in the airport car park, but even that is still essentially unknown. I don't care how loudly you (collectively) shout and how much you wave your arms, you cannot get away from the fundamental and incontrovertible fact that PRT as described - i.e. as an urban transport mode - does not exist and indeed never has existed, so we have to be very cautious in accepting the assurances of its proponents as to how marvellous it would be if only it did.

So, there are two pressing tasks for the PRT articles. The first is to replace the cites from proponents with some from reliable sources, the other is to do nothing else until something actually changes and is worth documenting. Just zis Guy you know? 18:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's an interesting quote:

About 200 personal rapid transit (PRT) writings have been published since 1964, excluding studies and reports that were not widely disseminated. The busiest period of PRT research and publication occurred between 1971 and 1975, when the U.S. government was actively involved. Government support faded by the end of 1974, but a resurgence in research and development occurred during the 1990s, probably as a result of activity in Chicago, Sweden, and Wales. Despite the continued interest in PRT, and a large number of published studies, a number of issues remain unresolved. These include the lack of government funding (in the U.S.) in PRT research and development, only a minimal amount of study on PRT integration into urban design, the risks associated with PRT investment, bad publicity, some technical problems, and competing interests from well-established transport modes. These problems, while not unsolvable, are formidable. Several researchers have offered suggestions that might lead to scaled-down, passenger-friendly PRT systems in favorable environments. To confirm the potential of these suggestions, research is needed in onboard passenger amenities, reliability- and dependability-enhancing technologies, PRT systems theory, freight transport, network size and density analysis, airport applications, and small system development. The PRT literature, typically favorable toward the concept, might be improved by greater introspection and criticism.[3]

My emphasis at the end. Obviously I emphasised it because it agrees with me :-) But actually I think this is pretty much reflected by the current state of the various articles, give or take the odd paragraph. Just zis Guy you know? 19:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that interesting (and recent) quote. Many facts have proven verifiable, but we've also found the outside articles generally have a positive "this could work" bias. Stephen B Streater 20:13, 2 July 2006 (UTC).

So, JzG, you're saying that the lack of articles critical of PRT proves that your skepticism is justified? I mean, this technology has been out there for 30 years and the best you find for skepticism is an article that says "literature might be improved by greater introspection and criticism"? Why is there so little documented skepticism out there? Could it be, perhaps, that skepticism is unjustified because the science is real and the theories are sound?

And, by the way, one of the reasons you don't see a lot of papers since the 1970s is that the theory was largely established in that decade. Irving's book, while somewhat dated in engineering details, contains pretty much the entire theoretical foundation of PRT. Do you dispute the reliability of Irving's research? And if you do, why hasn't anyone debunked it by now?

I'd be curious to know what you consider unreliable about PRT sources. With the exception of a few well-qualified points on cost and such, most of the assertions in the article are backed up by reliable sources. Which sources are you challenging? Which points are you challenging? I'd be happy to add citations where you feel they are needed. A Transportation Enthusiast 03:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Computers took more than 100 years to become widespread - and they are only now becoming so. So obviously the 50 year old idea of Personal Automated Transport is a failure since its still in the development stages! Am I right or am i "right"? Right.

JzG's obnoxious use of "its not here yet" isn't only wrong now that theres modern working tracks (and very verifiable old working tracks), but it is simply not a useful argument. I'm all for fairness and NPOV and anti-advertising, but to that effect, I don't want anyone biasedly effecting these articles when *they* don't have sources backing them. Fresheneesz 04:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

ULTra from space

For no particular reason, other than I think Google Earth is one of the coolest free programs ever created, I found the ULTra test site on Google Earth and decided to build an overlay from the aerial photo they have on their web site. This has nothing to do with the WP or any discussion therein, but you all might find it interesting. If you have Google Earth, point your browser here: http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=509250 to download the overlay.

After you do, fade the overlay out and wonder how old the satellite image is since it's just an empty lot there. Maybe the ULTra photo is actually Photoshop'd. ;) --JJLatWiki 23:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Very cool! I agree with you on Google Earth. Before I discovered Wikipedia, Google Earth was where I wasted most of my free time. :-D A Transportation Enthusiast 03:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

A Proposed System?

Whoa, this is one of the biggest talk pages I've ever seen.

Anyway, this may have already been talked about, but I think a little clarification might be in order. I'm new to this whole PRT thing, so when I began reading the article I was under the impression that this system was already operational and open to the public. But when I went to the main PRT page, it said ULTra would open in 2008. But I'm having a hard time finding that info on this page.

Would it be all right if we changed the head "ULTra ("Urban Light Transport") is a personal rapid transit system" to "ULTra ("Urban Light Transport") is a proposed personal rapid transit system"? And then perhaps put in the opening date? I know it's probably under construction, but a lot can happen in a couple of years, and politicans can bring public transportation projects like this to a halt(it may be unlikely, but it can happen).

Or am I missing something obvious? Is this page talking about the Test Track and I'm reading it like it's talking about the proposed public system? PerryPlanet 04:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's more complicated than that. ULTra the system is a reality - the design, the engineering, the test track - but there are no public installations yet. ULTra refers to the system, not to any one installation of it. It's like the Airbus A380 - we speak of it as a completed product even though it's not open to the public yet. ATren 16:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I re-read the intro, and you are correct, it's a bit confusing. I've moved some stuff around to make it more clear. Does this work better? ATren 17:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Much better. Thank you. :) PerryPlanet 18:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Monetary Units

Just a quick post for opinions - the costings are in GBP and USD in different paragraphs (specifically the $4M costing). As it is a british system I'd be tempted to stick with GBP, esp as any sources are likely to be quoted in GBP.

I agree, it should be one or the other consistently, and since it's British it should be GBP first and USD in parenthesis. Go ahead and make the change if you want. ATren 14:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)