Talk:Railpage Australia

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This article was nominated for deletion on 20 May 2006. The result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Railpage Australia was Withdrawn.

This article was nominated for deletion on 26 February 2007. The result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Railpage Australia (2) was keep.

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Archives /Archive 1

1 Changes once edit protection is removed
2 Cleanup proposals
3 Relevance of site administrators past history (including criminal history)
4 Notable Railpage members
5 "Biggest"
6 Railpage Userbox?
7 Archive

[edit] Changes once edit protection is removed

Please add to this list changes that should be made to the article once edit protection is removed. Please only add changes that have been agreed or that you expect will be uncontentious. Otherwise, they should be discussed separately first. If you disagree with items on this list, please remove them from this list but start a discussion on them elsewhere on this page (otherwise they will likely be added back in). Philip J. Rayment 02:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

~~Fix the date discrepancy (once resolved;~~ Change the reference to "January 1994" to read "January 1995" (see The Web Service above).
Add http://www.railpage.org.au/new.html as a reference.
Remove from category '2007 disestablishments'
Remove link from bottom of page to Articles for Deletion

I have made these changes, except for putting in the reference (second bullet) Philip J. Rayment 02:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup proposals

Assuming the article survives the deletion proposal, I propose the following changes (in addition to others discussed on this page) once the article is unlocked.

Remove all the level 2 headings. The article is subdivided too much.
Remove the content under the following headings: RP2.1, Shaft, Servers, and Internet Capacity. There may be the odd bit of information that can be kept from these, but on the whole I think the content of these sections is unencyclopedic irrelevant detail.

This is just a broad outline. Some of the other content could possibly be trimmed down also.

Philip J. Rayment 10:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Lacking any disagreement, I have cleaned up the article as per my suggestions above. Philip J. Rayment 02:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Proper citation needed to support the claims ("first 100 Australian web pages" & "It is considered by many in the enthusiast scene to be a sort of "hub" for Australian railways"), in intro.

Please provide as per wiki guidlines WP:CITE.

Please remember the three revert rule - WP:3RR

Tezza1 12:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless it's not obvious why you're doing it, all you needed to do was to stick {{fact}} tags in the article. You don't need to repeat it here. This section was started so that proposed edits could be discussed while the article was locked. Now that it has been unlocked, uncontentious edits like this one can be made directly to the article. Philip J. Rayment 14:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

As per above.

In June 1994 there were 2738 web sites in the world.[1]
In January 1995 there were 71,000 domains and 4,852,000 hosts in the world.[2]
Of these, there were 1763 domains (2.4%) and 161166 hosts (3.3%) in Australia.[3]
As a proportion of total world web sites, this means somewhere between 65 and 90 web sites in Australia around the time Raillpage started.

Thin Arthur 12:38, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the bit about it being a sort of "hub" for Australian railways, I was going to say that I don't think it needs a citation so much as a total rewording. However, on further consideration, I don't think that the article will suffer from its total removal, so I will take it out. A more encyclopedic, and referenced, comment about its popularity/importance can always be added later if one is found. Philip J. Rayment 14:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I added a bit of a reword and provided some sources to back it up.RPWebslave 03:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed these figures. Although I am assuming good faith, the wording could be seen as an attack on those other sites or the links could even be seen as WP:WPSPAM by others. Needs independent sources. Thin Arthur 04:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the reasoning in that. Those sources are independant of Railpage, and are reported factually with links. The reference did not pass judgement on the other sites, so I feel that it was encyclopaedic. Statistical comparison is the only source you can use for that type of thing. RPWebslave 05:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've put new wording in that mentions the size, in more encyclopedic terms (I hope), but I haven't included the references because they were merely links to the other sites, not to the membership sizes. I gather that one has to be a member to access the membership numbers, and I'm not sure if there is a Wikipedia policy covering such restricted links, but if we could have links to the memberships numbers, that should go in the footnote reference, not merely the numbers with links to the sites. Philip J. Rayment 13:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The links I included for the most part went to the page with the applicable statistics on them.203.28.90.133 14:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Not so. The links were:

And there was no link to the Railpage statistics. Philip J. Rayment 01:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Remember WP:COI!!!! recent citing of satisitics is from secondary resources. Seems some people WP:COI want to "fill" this article again after weak delete.

Tezza1 21:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Huh? What do you mean "from secondary resources"? The statistics purported to be from the actual sites concerned. Philip J. Rayment 01:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Purported isn't good enough. There needs to be some independent analysis.Thin Arthur 04:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not WP:COI but may be WP:OR (introduces an analysis, synthesis, explanation, or interpretation of published facts, opinions, or arguments without attributing that analysis, synthesis, explanation, or interpretation to a reliable source who has published the material in relation to the topic of the article). Thin Arthur 06:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Added links to participation of Daniel Bowen, Jim Betts and Adrian Webb. I can't find the page with the transcript of Scott McGregor's live chat.

I agree that purported isn't good enough, which is why there is still a {{fact}} tag on it. I'm not sure what you mean about independent analysis, though, unless you are talking about original research, because surely if we have links to the actual statistics, that should be enough. Philip J. Rayment 06:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Any "interpretation of published facts" requires a reliable source to be cited. Thin Arthur 02:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

And to respond to your next point about Tezza1's motivations, I was thinking the same thing myself. Philip J. Rayment 06:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what Tezza's motivationis. He's obviously anti Railpage but his attempts to discredit the site and supporting removal are actually helping us to improve the article! Thin Arthur 04:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Not at all, I was against the self promotion garbage in the article. The edit war (22/02/07) started when passing mention other rail fan activities of one developer of Railpage was deleted. I did not originally post that material.

Much of the material being put up in the past few days is not encyclopedic material.

The other wiki articles of people cited in the current Railpage article is not encyclopedic. Just because you consider that person noteworthy doesn't mean they should have an article about themselves.

Beware, if supporters of Railpage continue to "fill" this article again with weak statistical information which does not mention the subject of the article and non encyclopedic material, its liable to be nominated for deletion again.

Tezza1 06:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

And you're completely NPOV, aren't you? Maybe you should exclude yourself from any further discussions or edits. Thin Arthur 02:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Tezza1, I agree that you didn't originally post the material on Morgan, but you did reinsert it three times.

I either disagree with the rest of your comments, or don't understand them. I don't, for example, know what you are referring to with "weak statistical information" or "not mention the subject of the article".

Philip J. Rayment 05:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relevance of site administrators past history (including criminal history)

Past history of site administrators (including criminal history of those admins) along with political/religious/sexual persuasions of said administrators is only important and relevant if the site administrators abuse their priviledges of fair and reasonable site control and attempt to force a particular point of view or direction of discussion based on past history (including criminal) and/or on that person's own personal political/religious/sexual persuasions. That has definitely happened on RailPage forums and it's got to stop!

Once that stops, almost all of the complaints of censorship and inappropriateness of people to be site admins evaporates. It doesn't seem to be happening though, and they key contributor to the misappropriation of administrator priviledges seems to be the main site founder himself since the subordinate admins never appear to get pulled into line.

Online forums are meant to be 'transparent' for completely free and unrestricted discussion about any particular topic falling within the scope of a particular forum. The responsibility to ensure transparency applies just as much to site administrators as it does to the actual people posting new threads and posts into existing threads. By the same token, site administrators cannot delete or alter posts or entire threads based on their own personal point of view, or the point of view of anyone else who is in a position to admin forums. That is a failure in the duty of care as an administrator to ensure the rights (particularly the right to free speech without censorship) of everyone contributing to the forums are protected and maintained.

Zonavar 11:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

errr... Craig? Online forums (Including yours? Railzone_australia) are - I'm assuming for the most part - privately owned and run. Essentially, all the members are having a discussion on the owners server, are you suggesting that somebody doesn't have to right to control affairs on their own property? Certainly, an owner may listen to suggestions from visitors, but at all times they retain the absolute right to handle their own affairs however they see fit. You mentions the terms "Rights", "Responsibilities", and "Duty of Care". These are all terms you would find in legislation, such as the OWH&S act. What act or legislation has Railpage breached, that you would be required to force corrective action? Johnmc 14:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm kind of hoping that somebody doing a psych or sociology degree (or whatever discipline would be appropriate) will come along and analyze all the posts (both on and off wiki)concerning the aus.rail/Railpage relationship. I'll admit to living a sheltered life, but I still find some of the vitriol seen in some of these entries astounding. It's kind of like Israel/Palestine online, where each side is the True Believers, with Death to the Infidels for the opposition! I'll ask the question. How can a bunch of people with a common interest despise each other so much? Johnmc 14:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anybody chanting "Death to the aus.rail infidels" or similar. The vitriol all seems to be one way. 72.55.140.16 03:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. There is no right to free speech in Australia. And Johnmc is right - these sites a privately owned, not a public utility. 149.135.109.55 01:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting that Craig (Zonavar) created a similar page about his own site a few days ago. In particular the last paragraph seems to be a direct attack on Railpage and his comments above seem to support this. It is ironic that he came here to be critical of this article but his own article fails exactly the same WP:NPOV, WP:NOT, WP:CITE and WP:VERIFY criteria being used to try to get this one deleted. It is likely that Railpage has a much stronger notability claim than Railzone. 72.55.140.16 02:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I rest my case. The Railzone article has already been deleted under CSD:A7 (Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content). 72.55.140.16 02:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Better yet, Craig has also blanked the notification of deletion and suggestion of spamming from his talk page. How can someone who comes here talking about transparency believe his own hype when this is his way of doing things. Thankfully people here seem to take his above comments with the obligatory grain of salt they deserve.

131.170.90.3 03:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, it was deleted twice! 72.55.140.16 05:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Johnmc remember this "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -Voltaire You should heed that advice.

[edit] Notable Railpage members

A possible addition to the page after cleanup is listing some Railpage members who meet WP:N in their own right. Daniel Bowen is one. Scott McGregor (television presenter) is another ~~and doesn't have an article about him but probably should~~. Is ABC radio presenter Kel Richards a member? Thin Arthur 00:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Does Maikha Ly count? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.101.53.88 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

Anybody who meets WP:N would count. Thin Arthur 02:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Railpage Australia article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. Thin Arthur 04:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Only people who have been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, distinct and independent of the subject should be listed as notable members. Thin Arthur 10:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't edit mention of Craig Dewick, please read Wikipedia:Notability/Historical/Arguments as a guide. If he fails then the rest should go as well. In New South Wales Craig is well known amongst Rail Fans, Rail Employees, Union Officals and Senior Management, his Railzone forum had its beginings with a BBS in 1993 http://lios.apana.org.au/~craigd/ppt_faq/faq1.html. Tezza1 11:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, the site does not ever state or imply that Dewick is notable. If you think he or his website is notable, please start a separate article on it. Alternately, if you really really want him included, you'll need to provide reliable secondary sources, and convince the majority of editors of this article. Please remember WP:3RR, WP:COI, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:NOT, and please remember to discuss nicely. Have a nice day. 203.28.90.133 11:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone or something has to be notable to have a Wikipedia article. But do they have to be notable in the Wikipedia sense to be mentioned in an article? The section of this article mentioning Craig Dewick is showing how Railpage is more than the average forum by mentioning some of the "notable" (not necessarily in the Wikipedia sense) people who use it. Craig Dewick being a union official just might give him sufficient notability for a mention, particularly if he posts as a union official (although I noticed that Tezza1 didn't include him in that wording, so I don't know if he does). I'm not convinced that he should come out, although I'm open to being convinced. Philip J. Rayment 12:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Craig did start an article on his site (and mostly about himself). It was deleted by Wiki admin for not being notable. Being well known amongst drivers and enthusiasts is not notability. Only people who have been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, distinct and independent of the subject should be listed as notable members. Daniel Bowen, Scott McGregor, Jim Betts and Adrian Webb all meet this requirement. Craig does not, hence does not meet notability requirements. Wikipedia admin has already found that he is not notable. If you believe otherwise, then present the reliable secondary sources to support notability. Until then it should stay out of the article.

The late Graeme Breydon could be included as a notable member. He was often quoted in the mainstream media on railway heritage issues and there was considerable media coverage of his death. Thin Arthur 00:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Endorse. Not notable unless independent sources supporting notability can be cited. The Null Device 01:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thin Arthur: I agree about Graeme Breydon. However, you are not correct about Craig Dewick. It is correct that an admin decided that Craig Dewick failed to meet the notability requirement. However, notability is a requirement in order to have an article about him. You are applying a particular test of notability that is designed for articles about the subject, to a different circumstance. That requirement does not apply in this circumstance.

Now, as editors, we could choose to make that a requirement for this section of this article, but that is not something that we have (yet) done. I'm arguing against doing so.

Philip J. Rayment 04:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

If reliable, independent secondary and non-self-published sources can be cited showing he is known outside the industry then I would agree to inclusion. There are other union reps/activists (not just from the rail industry) who are members. Do all of them need to be included just because they are known by their work colleages? The general requirement for "List of notable people" lists or articles is they already have an article or would be notable enough to have an article about them if somebody decided to create one. For example List of notable people diagnosed with dyslexia or the notable members of the Melbourne Club. Thin Arthur 05:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the key point here is whether they have both established their notability on the site, as well as established a level of public notability on the outside. In my view, Dewick has not established his notability on the site in the first instance, let alone established a level of public notability. 203.28.90.133 05:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't thought it that way but I see your point. He only has 51 posts. Thin Arthur 06:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

This is becoming silly, one side puts in their version facts, the other side disagrees and deletes, and next we have a Balkan style edit war.

Who the hell cares who reads Railpage? the fact that "notable" people read it is NOT encyclopedic. Whats next? Do we add "notable" readers to the Melbourne AGE or Herald SUN? Do we add "notable" callers to talkback radio station articles?

Please administrators, DELETE this recent rubbish and LOCK the article as it was after it was unlocked. Alternatively Delete it (you missed your chance last time). THERE will never be ANY agreement!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.8.82.138 (talk • contribs) 01:44, 12 March 2007.

Okay, as for the notability of one Craig Dewick amongst Railfans in NSW, I did the following quick search.

1. Column 8, Sydney Morning Herald[4], November 27 2002, Craig and his website get a mention.[5]

This article doesn't mention PPT or Railzone. In fact Railzone didn't exist until 2004.

Domain ID:D104600549-LROR

Domain Name:RAILZONE.ORG

Created On:05-Jul-2004 22:38:11 UTC

In any case it's only a passing reference and not an article about the site. Thin Arthur 23:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

2. Historic Electric Tracton, mentioned in links page, as "The famous (infamous??) Craig Dewick established what was probably the very first NSW Railway bulletin board service waaaaaay back in 1991" [6]

Again it's only a passing reference and a link, not an independent article about the site. Thin Arthur 23:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

3. Australian Model Railway Magazine, wrote an article titled "Rail on the Internet", AMRM Issue 196, February 1996. [7] & [8]

He had one article published. So what? Even on that one page [9] I can see two other Railpage members (John Dennis and Michael Dix) with more published articles in just that one magazine. If published articles were a relevant criteria, I can think of many more people ahead of Craig in the queue. Peter Clark for a start. Thin Arthur 23:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

4. He gets a mention on Neetys website, another well know Sydney (female) rail gunzel. [10]

Links alone are not sufficient. See WP:V. Thin Arthur 23:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

There are people here that are claiming there has been an administrator decision that he is not notable, I thought that was with regards to his Railzone article, not the person. Maybe we should go to arbritation? Please discuss disputers.

The article was more about him than the site. Thin Arthur 23:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I could go on, but I now have to have dinner.

Have a good day,

Tezza1 08:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort there, Tezza1, but if anything you've swayed me towards not mentioning him. I disagreed with Thin Arthur above about people mentioned there needing to be notable. Instead, I think that they need to be the sort of person who give an indication of Railpage's standing in the community. So mentioning important people, such as government officials or leaders in the community (including important union officials), and well known people such as Scott McGregor are appropriate, but someone who's main claim to fame is mainly in the railfan community doesn't qualify for this purpose (in my opinion, of course). By the way, I agree that the admin decision regarding notability was to do with the Railzone article, not Craig Dewick. Philip J. Rayment 13:47, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Very little difference. The article was titled Railzone but was mostly about him. Thin Arthur 23:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay. As it was deleted, we can't look at it to refresh our memories! Philip J. Rayment 02:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I recall there was also a News Limited article, but can't locate it. So should Scott McGregor be removed? There still has been no proper citation. As for the others, is it notable that they have visited Railpage? Two or three "notable" (Melbourne) individuals cited doesn't give any evidence of Railpage standing in the community around Australia. I think that paragraph should go. I notice that the claim "largest" and other uncited material keeps reappearing.

Tezza1 20:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I know Scott McGregor did the webchat because I watched it. Perhaps RPWebslave can point us to the transcript? Thin Arthur 23:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Tezza1, perhaps the mention of Scott McGregor and Railpage being the largest site should be deleted, if we can't reference them. But are you actually suggesting that either is wrong? And do you think that it will be impossible to find references for them? Scott McGregor's chat, or at least the fact that he did it, should be documented somewhere, so in theory it can be referenced. And the statistics to show how many users (or whatever) Railpage has compared to other sites should also be documented somewhere. It's just a matter of finding where. Both are currently noted as needing references, and I've see such tags remain in other articles for months, so I don't see any need to remove these two things just because we have not yet found the references. Philip J. Rayment 02:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The transcript is located here: http://www.railpage.com.au/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=7. In regards to statistics, these are easily found. Check http://www.railpage.com.au/f.htm for Railpage (see the bottom), http://forums.vicsig.net/ for Vicsig (see bottom), http://forums.railmedia.com.au/ for Railmedia. Most of them have this data in easy reach. That's how I found the statistics I quoted. RPWebslave 02:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Added the link to the Scott McGregor web chat. Again we need to thank Tezza. His attempts to discredit the site and devalue the article are helping make it better. Thin Arthur 02:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Biggest"

Do you think it would be a good idea to use the stats from the above links as citation for the 'biggest' claims? RPWebslave 02:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It might be WP:OR (introduces an analysis, synthesis, explanation, or interpretation of published facts, opinions, or arguments without attributing that ... interpretation to a reliable source who has published the material in relation to the topic of the article). Thin Arthur 03:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I checked a couple of other articles on websites, and they take statistics from the webpage itself. I think the line here would be that it would be appropriate to cite the relevant statistics from RP, as well as similar sites - but the OR part comes about when that data is interpreted here. So with that in mind, I think it's appropriate to give the stats of RP and a couple of similar sites, but not okay to interpret those stats to draw a conclusion that it's the biggest. Agree or disagree? RPWebslave 04:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree but you need to be very careful. I think it's a very fine line and could challenged by the socks. Thin Arthur 05:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Railpage Userbox?

There seem to be several Railpage members that are also Wikipedia editors. Here's an idea for discussion.

This user is a member of
Railpage Australia.

I used the image from the Railfan userbox as an example. With permission of the creator, the Railpage logo could be used instead.

If approved, it could be added to User:UBX and anybody could put {{User:UBX/Railpage}} on their user page.

Thin Arthur 05:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I like it, and I also propose (only partially tongue-in-cheek) the following alternative:

This user identifies themselves as a
Railpage Kiddie.

(Explanation: "Railpage Kiddie" is often used as a Term_of_derision from those who oppose the forum and/or the actions of it and its moderators. Perhaps the opportunity should be given to claim it back?:-) ) Johnmc 07:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea! Gunzel also used to be a term of derision. Thin Arthur 07:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

User "Thin Arthur" please read Wikipedia guidlines WP:ATTACK and WP:5. Tezza1 09:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Tezza1, please see WP:COI and probably WP:MYOB when it eventually exists. The userbox templates attack nobody and are a voluntry opt-in. 203.28.90.133 11:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)