Talk:Great American Streetcar Scandal

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Great American Streetcar Scandal has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

I deleted the description of the "General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy" as an "urban legend" because it begs the question by placing the arguments in the same categories as fanciful rumors such as women dying of spider nests in their hairdos. Cecropia 01:00, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 NPOV dispute 2 Popular Culture 3 Renaming this article 4 Moved from the article space 5 Weasel words 6 New Form 7 Rising real estate prices?

[edit] NPOV dispute

Why is the neutrality of this article disputed? It seems pretty balanced to me, and a person claiming it is not neutral is supposed to put in here why they think it is not neutral. From NPOV disupute:

"If you add the above code to an article which seems to you to be biased, but there is no prior discussion of the bias, you need to at least leave a note on the article's talk page describing what you consider unacceptable about the article."

Philip J. Rayment 15:52, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Anyone know anything about this: 2. Supreme Court docket No. 186 F2d 562, 1949 dml 14:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Popular Culture

This scandal was referenced in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

[edit] Renaming this article

A proposal has ben put forward to require renaming of all articles that have the phrase "conspiracy theory" in their title, due to what proponents claim is the inherent POV of that phrase. Please see Wikipedia:Conspiracy theory. A vote is occurring at Wikipedia talk:Conspiracy theory. -Willmcw 06:28, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Um ... this article doesn't have "conspiracy theory" in its title. It says "conspiracy." This is accurate in that there was a conviction for conspiracy.

There was a conviction for a conspiracy that didn't involve street car companies. Namely GM forcing it's bus-line subsidiary to buy GM buses. Isn't that the case? 208.181.1.157 19:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

However, a better title would be "U.S. vs. National City Lines," the name of the case with "GM streetcar conspiracy" as a redirect. GM wasn't the only defendant. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:17, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

You are probably right about the title for this article. However the renaming proposal keeps growing. It now includes articles that have the terms "conspiracy claims", "misinformation" and "rumor" in their titles as well. -Willmcw 07:23, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Duh! There is already a stub United States v. National City Lines Inc.. This article should be added to it. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:29, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Woulncha know. I hate it when that happens. A while back I foud a stub, invested consederable effort researching material to expand it, and last week someone merged it into another article that had been there the whole time, under a slightly different capitalization. Do you want to add a merge tag? Cheers, -Willmcw 08:05, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moved from the article space

If National City Lines, Pacific City Lines, and American City Lines, the three major front companies, and their investors couldn’t make big money on buses, why did they tear up and scrap rail lines that they had paid good money for? Because that money was a pittance compared with how much they began making on cars, trucks, tires, gasoline, asphalt, and highway building. And, of course, they also made the buses and the bus tires and the diesel fuel for the buses that they sold to themselves (their bus companies) – and later, claiming intolerable losses, they sold the bus companies to municipalities trying to help their lower income people get around. An internal memo at Mack Truck that surfaced at the conspiracy trial explained it tersely: the “probable loss” for the investors in the bus companies would be “more than justified by the business and gross profit flowing out of this move in years to come” (Ref;jonathan Kwityny, "The Great Transportation Conspiracy," 'This World Magazine, San Francisoco Chronicle,'March 1, 1981, p.19'''''Italic text'Italic text' —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.81.117 (talk • contribs).

This appears to be a "cut-and-paste" job, if someone wants to verify this info and incorporate it into the article text, be my guest.--Lord Kinbote 19:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

Wow, this article is chock-full of weasel words. I can't tell what things it says in the article actually happened. This is a problem. —pfahlstrom 04:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Form

By my direction, this article has been re-molded into a form that completely disregards the allegation that it is a "conspiracy theory," since the terms "conspiracy" and "conspiracy theory" are themselves POV. The current version approaches this whole thing as fact, and I've done my best to keep arguments from both proponents and critics in line with the article's flow while eliminating any potential POV jargon or the back and forth that was evident in the article as it stood when it was under its Conspiracy name.

Others may still feel that this article deserves the name conspiracy. If that emerges as the consensus, fine. But let's have a real chat about this first, undaunted by those in the auto industry and its supporters who would come on here and intentionally plant doubts in our heads by making the format of the article intentionally uncertain, which as we all know is in their interest to do. Kiko 09:19, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we are "planting thoughts in your head". Did you run out of tinfoil or something?--Rotten 19:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Why is the current version crazy? It doesn't really do much to alter the content; it just changes the form to something more straightforward and clearly comprehensible. If you're calling the current revision crazy, you're saying it's crazy to challenge the belief that the streetcar scandal didn't happen, which is itself POV. 24.215.188.44 09:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rising real estate prices?

I don't see the link.

Are you saying rising real estate prices "Forced" transit companies to sell off real estate holdings in order to remain financially viable - a connection I don't understand ... or they sold real estate holdings because it was more profitable than running a transit line - a connection I do understand but BIG DIFFERENCE. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by James D. Rockefeller (talk • contribs) 09:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC).