Talk:Grand Trunk Railway/Draft

With all due respect, this article is not ready for approval.

Russell Jones asked me to take a look at this article which he just nominated for approval and I have done so. With all due respect, I do not think this article is ready for approval.

This article was written in early 2007, and since then, a very few revisions/additions were made in early 2008. I have no quarrel with the content of the article. However, during the 2 years since it was created, it has not been formatted to be consistent with how CZ articles are meant to be formatted:

1. It contains a "See also" section (which is a Wikipedia-ism). The contents of that section should be moved to the "Related Articles" subpage.
2. It contains an "External links" section (another Wikipedia-ism). The contents of that section should be moved to the "External Articles" subpage.
3. The only contents of the current "Related Articles" subpage are articles collected by a robot. Those robot-harvested articles (plus the articles from 1. above and plus others) need to be sorted into the required format of "Parent topics" (such as History), "Subtopics" (such as Railway history and Canada, history) and "Other related topics".
4. It strikes me that some of the sources listed in the "Bibliography" subpage (especially the one listed as a Primary Source) should be used in the main article page as in-text references in the <ref></ref> format. The article currently does not have even one in-text reference.
5. The current article consists of one large section. I would like to see it split into an introduction (lede) and at least 2 more sections.

I realize that all of the above listed items are rather trivial, but they do need to be fixed. I could very easily fix items 1., 2., and 3. above and I am quite willing to do so if Joe Quick (our Approvals manager), Hayford Pierce and/or Matt Innis would say that my doing so would not disqualify me from adding my name to the approval nomination. After all, fixing 1., 2., and 3.would be simple formatting copy edits.

As for 4. and 5. above, I think those should be done by someone who is more of a historian than I am. Milton Beychok 22:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It does not in any way disqualify you from participating in the approval process, Milt. It would disqualify you from being the only editor to oversee approval if you were to make content changes, but Russell has not made content changes so he could approve it himself without you. I consider the single-editor method of approval to cover cases like this where there is a single un-involved editor and an author-editor.

Of course, if someone else wants to take care of Milt's concerns, that's great too! --Joe (Approvals Manager) 22:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Joe, and I will go ahead and fix the first 3 items above. Milton Beychok 22:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Milt. I took this about as far as I could content-wise (see below, too). It was RJ's project and it looked pretty complete to me, so I thought, let's fly this up the flag pole and see what others think... Thanks for pointing out the formatting issues. I can do. And, Joe, I did think about going solo on the approval, but I've been called out before for doing that after making revisions. Russell D. Jones 00:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I am less troubled than Milton by the lack of in-text references here, since that is fairly common in historical writing. As I read over the article, nothing in particular really stood out as demanding substantiation and there are no direct quotes requiring accreditation, so I would recommend we leave it as is for the first approval. Russell has done a nice job polishing this one up and I am going to join him in recommending it for approval. It would be nice if we had someone from engineering to take on the issues there, but we don't seem to have anyone at this point. Perhaps the discussion on this page will be enough to red-flag the matter for future revisions; that doesn't seem to me to be a sufficient reason not to approve it at this point. It is a modest entry that colors within the lines. If there were engineering issues that leapt off the page (like crossing Lake Michigan lengthwise!) it might be a different story, so if anyone with an engineering background sees anything like that, speak up. Otherwise, it looks to me to be good to go. ...said Roger Lohmann (talk)

Okay, I've polished it up again and think Milt and I have met all of his criticisms. I've updated the Metadata. Russell D. Jones 01:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The article now looks and is in fact much better. I am quite satisfied with it now and I will sign on as one of nominators. Milton Beychok 03:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Content question

This article appears to deal completely with the business aspects of creating and running the railroad. Were there any engineering challenges to be solved in its implementation or operation? Transportation-related articles have been assigned to Engineering because there usually are some technical issues. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I really don't know that much about GT, GTW, or GTP, to answer this question. There was the Pacific extension, but by the time GT did that the transcontinentals had worked out the problems of traversing the Rockies. Russell D. Jones 00:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

style edits

Reading over the article quickly, the flow of the text struck me as very jumpy and somewhat crude. I've made some adjustments, which I think will help, but I would encourage others to look it over with an eye for stylistic elements. --Joe Quick 21:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

date for approval - confirmation needed

I'm a dumb old Kop who spent 25 years of his life in a European-style dating country (which I like, actually). I just want to make certain -- is this article to be approved on August 9th or September 8th? I think that Editors ought to use the standard American spelling out things, such as August 9, 2009, rather than just a bunch of numbers run together. And yes, I do realize that the metadata baloney for Editors is probably just as onerous and unintuitive as it is for Constables.... Hayford Peirce 23:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

That got me a little confused too. It wasn't immediately clear which date writing system was being used. I went off to look for another example that would be obvious so I could interpret this one. What did I find? Benjamin Franklin, which was approved on April 4th! Ugh... :-) Then I found some others that Russell nominated with less ambiguous dates, using month first. So, Hayford, we'll see you tomorrow, right? ;-) --Joe Quick 02:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I dunno if you will or you won't. Unless the Editor who put in this date for approval *clearly* spells out to me which date should be applied, I won't do it. See y'all on September 8th maybe...? Hayford Peirce 06:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

How about August 9, 2009. I have enough trouble with my time zone.... The instructions for filling out the metadata on approval say to use a bunch of numbers. I prefer a real date format. Can we just change the approval instructions or do we have to go through the Ed Council for changing policies like this? Sorry for the confusion. Russell D. Jones 16:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

If the instructions to the Editors are as murky and unclear as the ones to the Constables were before I personally rewrote them, then they're probably horrible. Subject to being banned from CZ for giving you my opinion, I would say that any Editor involved in the approval process OUGHT to use the format of August 17, 2009, rather than anything else at all. Yes, I WILL approve an article that is dated 2009-31-08 or 2009-08-31, because at least in *that* case it's clear which is the day and which is the month. But if an article up for approval is dated 2009-11-12 I'm just not gonna do it. So PLEASE write out the name of the month! Thanks! Hayford Peirce 17:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm changing the instructions then. Jones 19:22, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I simply don't understand this approval process and unless it's clarified I won't do it today

At the top of the Talk page and the Main article page is a green box that says Russell has nominated for approval a version of this article dated August 5th, at 03:13 Universal time. That is to say, 4 days before today's date. They have been *many* edits since that date. Yet when I click on the link mentioned above, *nothing apparently happens*. The text that I see on the screen remains the same. So where are the edits over the last 4 days? Moreover, when I visit the History page, I can't find *any* version specifically timed 03:13 on the 5th. There are a number on edits on the 5th, but none showing that specific time.

So how can I approve an article dated the 5th of August if I can't see any difference between it and the present article of the 9th of August? If approved, I would be approving the version of the 9th of August.

Please let me know and I'll see if I can understand what you're saying. If I understand it, and it makes sense, I'll approve the article. If I don't understand it, or it seems to contradict what I think are the rules from making approvals, I won't.... Hayford Peirce 21:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Hayford, the version is the current version. The date is a different field and hasn't been updated. It's a problem in how users (me) fill out the metadata. Russell D. Jones 00:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, all you need now is to have Roger and Milton to agree to the changes that were made since they reviewed it on August 4 and 5 respectively. All they need to do is make a statement here on the talk page and we can proceed. D. Matt Innis 00:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

In other words, Russell, all we need is the version that all three editors agreed to. You can see that the last version that Roger saw was the August 4th version, but Milton was not happy with that version, so we didn't have three editors. Milton is happy with the version of August 5, but Roger hasn't seen the changes. Now there have been other changes, so we don't know that Milton agrees to those changes. So our current status is that you are the only one agreeing to the version that is in the template as of now. All you need is to get Roger and Milton to agree to the new changes and you are finished. Until then, we can't lock the article. D. Matt Innis 02:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Milton is happy with it. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 15:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Great, and I see that the changes that he (Milton and Approvals Manager) made since saying that he was still happy on your talk page are all considered copy edits, which don't require the other editors to review. So, we have two editors endorsing the version in the template. One more needed. D. Matt Innis 17:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Just got an email from Roger saying he'll be back to look it over soon. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 13:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Joe. Jones 18:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I just opened a new email from Roger saying that he supports the draft. In his words, "... I've gone through the Grand Trunk Railway entry again, and I'm ready for it to go ahead to approved status. I assume Milt and Russ are already on board, so it can go ahead." Let's do it! --Joe (Approvals Manager) 17:54, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Righto.Hayford Peirce 18:07, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all. Russell D. Jones 20:30, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, you properly trained us. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:51, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

APPROVED Version 1.0

Discussion for Version 1.0 stopped here. Please continue further discussion under this break.

Some specific details noted on the Draft may need re-approving?

I see that James made some changes that involve dates and ownership issues. Just want to let everyone know that a quick re-approval is easier now than waiting till everyone has left the premises! D. Matt Innis 01:35, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Matt, I am willing to re-approve it. Do I just do it on the metadata sheet as was done for the original approval? Milton Beychok 17:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Roger says he's in. I asked him to add his name to the metadata template. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 14:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've changed the date to tomorrow, September 2, since we have all the original editors on board. There doesn't seem to be any reason to prolong it. D. Matt Innis 17:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Great! Looks like we're ready to go. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 15:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)