Talk:San Francisco tech bus protests/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Epicgenius (talk · contribs) 02:33, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

@Spintendo: I will review this article. I'll make some more comments later, but this is from a cursory examination of the article. epicgenius (talk) 02:33, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I look forward to working with you on this nomination! Spintendo      02:43, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
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I will make comments as I go.

Images

• All appropriately licensed, though adding alt text would be preferable.

Infobox

• The "commuter shuttle program" links to another page, even though it is mentioned later in the article. Maybe this link can be changed to an intra-article link to Google bus protests#Commuter shuttle program?
• The list of parties to this conflict is not particularly accessible to those with screen readers, plus the formatting is off (e.g. Yahoo! is spaced much further down from the rest of the tech companies). This could be solved using a plainlist.

Lead

• community based should contain a hyphen since this is a single phrase used as an adjective.
• Some of these references are used only in the lead. I think you can move these references down to the body, as well as some of the details that these sources support. For instance, the commuters driving by themselves would be a good detail to add to the body.
• The lead should contain some details of actions taken during the protests.
• Could the commuter shuttle program be briefly described? One sentence about the program, and how it helped stop the protests, would be essential to the lead.

Background

• pars pro toto means "parts of the whole". I interpreted that to mean that these buses aren't strictly operated by Google, so there are also Facebook buses. However, this article doesn't make that clear, so I was confused at the mention of Apple, Facebook, etc. at first.

Transportation needs

• What is the purpose of including the names of these authors? Are they notable? Generally, if these writers are not notable, or authorities on their respective topics, or mentioned multiple times in the article, the names of authors wouldn't be included in the prose.
• These inadequate links between San Francisco and Silicon Valley workplaces became a leading factor in the initial acceptance in 2008 by Silicon Valley employers of Google buses as viable alternatives for transportation - this is awkwardly worded. How about this: "These inadequate links between San Francisco and Silicon Valley workplaces became a leading factor in Silicon Valley employers' 2008 acceptance of Google buses as viable alternatives for transportation".
• So, did these services actually start in 2008? Or was the concept just thought up by then, and the implementation rolled-out later? If it was the former, you can state that.
• Are there any figures on the ridership of existing systems (e.g. BART, Muni bus/tram) before the buses were implemented?

Gentrification

• namely, gentrification - The comma isn't needed here.
• coupled with the suburban locations of tech companies - There should be two commas around this phrase. otherwise, it's a run-on.
• served to isolate tech workers from other San Francisco residents, in a manner similar to gated communities - On the other hand, the comma wouldn't be needed if you added commas around the above phrase.
• On another note, are there any figures on fares? This would be really good for explaining the gentrification aspect. A bus that charges $6.50 per fare (like the express bus fare in NYC) would be very controversial indeed.
• I like that Rebecca Solnit explains that these are unmarked buses. Are there any other sources for this, especially objective sources? This ref is fine, but by itself it's a criticism piece that's being used to source a factual statement.

Dueling transportation systems

• most notably, the shuttles' usage of existing, public bus stops - Neither comma is needed. Also, I think you can drop "existing" unless the public buses also used new bus stops, since it's implied these public stops already exist.
• usage that the City of San Francisco was not compensated for - does this refer to private buses using public bus stops, or the congestion?

More later. epicgenius (talk) 02:16, 19 February 2018 (UTC)