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?
  •  A:Link changed to subsection lower in the article
• 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.
  •  A: I'm not sure if I got the formatting correct. Check again and let me know if its still not viewable
    • OK, I formatted it a bit more. I replaced the line breaks with a plainlist. epicgenius (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Lead

• community based should contain a hyphen since this is a single phrase used as an adjective.
  •  A:hypen added
• 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.
  •  A: Im not sure which references should be moved and which statements could remain, so I moved what was in the lead to a lower paragraph and rewrote the lead without references, using information already cited elsewhere.
• The lead should contain some details of actions taken during the protests.
  •  A:Rewrote a brief synopsis of the protests
    • OK, but now the lead is missing the dates on which the protests ended. epicgenius (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
• 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.
  •  A:Briefly described

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.
  •  A: Latin term returned to the lead section as the second sentence.

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.
  •  A: Author's names removed
• 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".
  •  A: Rephrase implemented
• 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.
  •  A: Started in 2005 with perhaps one company, then slowly, additional companies starting using them. By 2008 they were well established and visible every day on streets in SF. From 2008 till 2013 they operated without mass opprobrium (which, just like the shuttles themselves, first started with one or two groups, then slowly grew to become a large concerted group of many many activist groups working singularly or together in opposition.) Media focus came in 2013-2014. Changed sentence to say leading factor in Silicon Valley employers' 2008 acceptance implementation of Google buses
    • It seems like the services became widely used by 2008. I couldn't find any mention of this in the reference, though. epicgenius (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
• Are there any figures on the ridership of existing systems (e.g. BART, Muni bus/tram) before the buses were implemented?
  •  A: Approx 80,000 people commute in and out of SF each morning on the transports shown below, for 2010 and 2015. (AM only)

Transportation Usage Per Person
AM Travel Only - Not PM
SF Bay Area

System	2010	2015
BART	9,828	13,738
Caltrain	1,892	2,936
Muni Metro	6,408	8,550
Muni Streetcar	499	780
Muni Bus	11,397	11,745
CSP (Google buses)	N/A Unknown	9,800
SamTrans	350	382
Personal car	24,898	23,159
Bicycle/Walk	9,065	10,543

Notes

References

• Thanks. I was thinking maybe the Google Buses' ridership can be compared to the mass transit figures. It looks like BART usage went up a lot, and Muni Metro went up less. If there are any pre-2008 figures, this would show even more of a contrast. epicgenius (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Gentrification

• namely, gentrification - The comma isn't needed here.
  •  A:Removed
• coupled with the suburban locations of tech companies - There should be two commas around this phrase. otherwise, it's a run-on.
  •  A:Added
• 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.
  •  A:Check the commas here, I reworded a bit and added some.
    • I meant something like this, which reads more smoothly.
• 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.
  •  A:Regarding Google buses, riders of the Google buses do not pay for their use of the shuttles. This is considered to be provided by their employers for them without cost. The company pays the city of San Francisco a fee, $7.31 per stop, regardless of who gets off or gets on. The city considers this to be payment for use of the stop. Regarding city buses, the average citizen who rides the city bus must pay to use the city bus. Their fee is $2.75 for a regular fare one way. Regular citizens are not allowed to ride on the Google buses, if they attempt to board, which they did during the protests, they are barred from entry. Only employees of the tech companies providing the shuttles are allowed to travel using the Google buses. During one of the protests, an activist group tried passing out what they called "Gmuni" passes. They said that these passes would allow regular people to ride the Google buses for free. But of course the passes didnt work, and they werent allowed on board. The Gmuni program was an April Fools Day themed protest. Video footage of it is in the External links section.
    • That's interesting. I've never heard of a pay-per-stop funding format. Were there any figures for per-stop payments before this? If not, then thay's fine. epicgenius (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
• 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.
  •  A: 2nd reference describing the buses as "unmarked" appended to the text under Solnit's blockquote

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.
  •  A:Removed extra commas and existing
• usage that the City of San Francisco was not compensated for - does this refer to private buses using public bus stops, or the congestion?
  •  A:Both, in that the delays and congestion which resulted from the uncoordinated ballet of buses which affected the city buses' timeliness were not alleviated by monetary compensation when the protests first began. The city had to rely only on the monies it collected from people riding their buses, which was 2.00 per person per stop. The Commuter Shuttle Program now allows the city to collect upwards of almost $8.00 per stop from the Google buses, and the buses are coordinated and the streets they use are well defined, so there are never incidents where Google buses are somewhere on a certain street at a certain time when they shouldn't be. And the drivers are bonded and trained similar to city bus drivers. Spintendo      12:57, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
    • OK, so I guess you can clarify this in a new sentence, similar to this: "The City of San Francisco was not compensated for the Google buses' usage of public bus stops, nor for the congestion that resulted when city buses tried to use these stops at the same time." This isn't the best wording, but that's what I can discern from the article and what you told me. epicgenius (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

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

New additions:

Lead

• groups goals - "group's" should have an apostrophe.
• bestowed legitimacy upon - this seems subjectively worded, I'd just say "gave legitimacy to".

Background

• I think you can clarify that the general public couldn't get onto the Google/Facebook/etc buses.

Protests - Direct action

• December 9, 2013 - Just to be grammatically correct, in American English, if a "Month Day, Year" date appears in the middle of the sentence, there are commas after the year. For example, The protests started on December 9, 2013, when activists from a group called Heart of the City blocked and entered a double-decker bus used by Google.
• in San Francisco's Mission District, at 24th Street and Valencia Street - I'd switch around "at 24th Street and Valencia Street" and "in San Francisco's Mission District". The intersection is mentioned later in the article, so it should be mentioned first just so readers don't get the impression that it was a generic intersection in the Mission District.
• Ref 20, "Seattle Gets Its Own Tech Bus Protest", refers to Seattle protests. So the protests extended not only to Oakland but also to other cities as far away as Seattle. This should be mentioned in the text.
• In isolated incidents across the bay in Oakland - you can remove "across the bay" since this exact phrase appeared within the same paragraph, making this redundant.
• a protester broke a window of one bus and slashed the tire of another. - This sounds like it's the same protester, but these are clearly different protesters. I'd suggest replacing "a protester" with "protesters", even if only one protester did each action, since there were two protesters here.
• loaudspeaker - is a typo.
• The April Fool's blockage seemed to have occurred before a key vote on a plan to charge these tech companies to use the bus stops. I think this can be mentioned, either here or in the "Resolution" section.

Police response

• de–escalate - This seems more like a place where a hyphen, rather than an endash, is used - simply because the hyphen is used in the middle of single words, as is the case here.
• other, more appropriate means - What are examples of these "more appropriate means"?

More later. epicgenius (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)