Talk:Tramway Museum, St Kilda

Why oh why?

Broad16, I'm amazed at the number of edits you have initiated today. Many of them are trivial; others are unhelpful; a few are useful. Just my view, of course.

Some of your edits seem to be completely arbitrary. For example: I cannot understand why you would remove from the table of interstate trams the states in which Ballarat, Melbourne and Sydney are. You have also changed "Ran in the city of" to "Network", a term I had avoided because Ballarat's tramways, wonderful though they were, were hardly a network. You similarly deleted "Melbourne's" before "Hawthorn Tramways Trust 31". Further, you deleted "(later General Motors Holden)" from "Built in Adelaide by Holden's Body Builders (later General Motors Holden)". Again: deleting "Melbourne's" from "Formerly Melbourne's Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust". Much of what you have inserted is superfluous detail, for example the museum being opened "by Leader of the Opposition Steele Hall on 22 July 1967". Who wants to know this detail, 50 years on? Further, your reference was incomplete for people who don't know about Electric Traction.

And of course you changed the nomenclature, including in your unpunctuated caption for the first photo. The MTT invariably referred to its trams as "Type ..." (e.g "Type H"). I realise the norm among tramway enthusiasts has become "... Type", matching the word order of other Australian tramway systems such as W2 Class. There may be little wrong with that for informal use but an encyclopaedia is obliged to follow the practice of the entity that owned the system rather than current trends. Would you therefore at least reverse those edits, please?

Your final act of – let's say unhelpfulness – was to delete the entire gallery that covered all the museum's collection (other than Ballarat 34), nine of which I had garnered, with some effort, from photographers because images covered by CC BY 4.0 or similar were not available. You state as a reason, "delete, per WP:NOTAGALLERY, a link is provided to the commons gallery, this is just a replication of all 17 images". I don't understand a word of that; I think you have misinterpreted WP:NOTAGALLERY". What link to what Commons gallery?

I perceive your mindset is of someone writing for a fan magazine. Encyclopaedia articles are written for non-specialised audiences, though, at summary level. That's why I refer to "new trams" not "Flexity", give the year not full date (anyone wanting to get into that details can go to the Tram Museum St Kilda website, and don't bother with who opened it 52 years ago; and so on.

I really have to wonder why you feel the urge to flail around with these edits (albeit a few of them, e.g. the links, have been helpful) when you could have put the same energy into actually writing an article. In fact the Tramway Museum, St Kilda article is a case in point: it was some years out of date and inconsistent. Why didn't you upgrade it? Your contribution will be far more valuable than your current activity.SCHolar44 (talk) 08:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for attempting to resolve by discussion rather than just by blanket reversing. Everybody's edits to an extent are arbitrary. I added things you wouldn't have, you added things that I wouldn't have and another editor will probably one day add something that neither of us would have. I have numbered each point as it will be easier to refer to each one going forward.

1) "Ran in the city of" was linking to high level articles on cities with little or no mention of their tram networks, by changing to "Network" and repointing to the relevant Trams in X city is far more relevant. I see you have agreed with my logic on the links, just not the heading, I'm fine with the change you have made.

2) That Holden's Body Builders body builders later became Holden General Motors Holden is superfluous. That happened long after the tram was built. All that is needed is for it to be linked to confirm that it was the same Holden.

3) Electric Traction was added as a link to the article Transit Australia which explains the magazine's prior naming history and has a link to its official website. The link has article title, publication name, edition and page number. What more does it need to be complete?

4) The tram articles are named H type Adelaide tram etc. Yes there are a couple of formats that are used interchangeably; H type, H-type, Type H, H class etc, but can see no reason to add piped links. For what its worth, the Tramway Museum website uses the H type format.

5) A selection of images, around the prose is fine and encouraged. WP:GALLERY states: "A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the below paragraphs or moved to Wikimedia Commons." So as unhelpful as you may have found the deletion of the gallery, it was just bringing the article in line with policy.

This is the commons gallery, a link with the commons symbol can be found at the bottom right corner of the article below the References. Is there really a need to illustrate every exhibit? Taking NSW Rail Museum, as the largest railway museum in Australia, as an example, it has a commons gallery of over 40 images, it would be of no value to add all of these as a gallery.

6) I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but your last paragraph could be interpreted as 'this is my article, go play elsewhere', or trying to take ownership of an article. Would advise against it. Broad16 (talk) 03:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Deleting the gallery: justified by WP:NOTGALLERY or not?

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Background: Scholar44 summarised reinstatement of the gallery as follows: "... restored previously deleted gallery, mindful of the gallery of the Sydney Tramway Museum, which contains 18 photos which I believe add to the useful coverage of this type of article." Broad16, in deleting the gallery, said in the summary: "delete, still contravenes WP:NOTAGALLERY as discussed on the talk page".

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Broad16, the criteria at WP:NOTGALLERY (i.e. under the heading "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files") don't justify your deletion of the gallery.

The inclusion of a gallery of the tram exhibits at the Tramway Museum St Kilda doesn't go anywhere near transgressing the criteria. The policy refers to Wikipedia articles being "not merely collections of ... photographs or media files with no accompanying text. They recommend "If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context, or consider adding it to Wikimedia Commons".

The photos in the gallery are links to Wikimedia Commons. They are comparable to the images of exhibits on the Sydney Tramway Museum page. They have accompanying text and are preceded by context-setting text. They do not go beyond providing encyclopaedic context. Their captions provide factual information that isn't present in their display in Commons.

Please do not revert a third time, as I intend to invite other interested editors to contribute their views. Pending conclusion of discussion, the article should stand, with the gallery included, so that others can more readily assess it and contribute. Cheers, Simon – SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬  at 03:32, 25 May 2024 (UTC)