Talk:Suburban Express

Speedy deletion

This page does not differ substantially from that of other transportation companies on wikipedia (greyhound, amtrak, et al) in its format and current | eventual content. So just take a step back and keep your mouse under control. Thanks.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.212.129.139 (talk • contribs) 19:45, November 23, 2008

Reality Check

This article has been dramatically transformed by a small number of users acting in concert, some with admitted COI's. The story of Suburban Express is about a 19 year old student taking on Greyhound and winning, despite commerce commission investigations lauched by Greyhound, predatory pricing by Greyhound, etc. The company has a novel business model and has survived and thrived for 30 years.

They recently took some heat for defending themselves against flames by some bloggers, and for initiating collections suits against customers for things like reversed credit card charges, people paying for one ticket but printing and using two, people riding with non-refundable/non-exchangeable tickets on wrong dates -- and sometimes displacing passengers with valid tickets, etc.

As the article stands today, it no longer contains any of the interesting history (legal battles, battles with competitors, etc.), discussion of similar companies that have come and gone at other universities, discussion of competition, etc. Rather, it has been transformed into a shrine for the bloggers who have harrassed the company for the past month.

I strongly suggest that someone who is not a party to this stupidity should step in and fix this mess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.143.19.23 (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

POV Problems with Lawsuit Details

Court trials substantially concern whose facts are truer and more important, so highlighting factual matters from trials is an inherently POV activity.

• (broad and avoiding POV) Many of these lawsuits target passengers for alleged violations of Suburban Express' terms of service
• (cherry-picked and POV) including failing to pay penalty fares of $100 for presenting invalid or misdated tickets, or for canceling payment for buses that did not show up

Newsy sources love to punch up articles with vivid examples, but here it has BLP and POV problems. In a similar way, too much is turning on teeny little parts of the blogosphere as if they were significant:

• (broad and avoiding POV) 125 Lawsuits were filed in 2013
• (cherry picked POV) a Reddit moderator accused Suburban Express of using Sockpuppet
• (cherry picked POV) This incident was called an example of the Streisand Effect in Boing Boing and Ars Technica.

Its a big world of facts and fights. Individual "accuseds" and "called examples" are by their nature POV and importing them into an encyclopedia injects POV needlessly (and against best practice). KevinCuddeback (talk) 02:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussing the Streisand effect is not cherry-picked POV. It is notable and encyclopedic by dint of the fact that it has been discussed in multiple reliable sources, of which both Ars Technica and Boing Boing are. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:58, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, there are no BLP problems with this article. This article is not about a living person, it is about a corporation. Corporations are not people in the Wikipedia world, and they are not entitled to protection under that policy. The mere mention of the founder's name in the article does not attach BLP to article content. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:01, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

And to clarify this statement: of course BLP applies to anything about a living person in any article. But I fail to see anything in this article that violates BLP. There are negative statements about the corporation and its actions, certainly, but those are not covered by BLP. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

"including failing to pay penalty fares of $100 for presenting invalid or misdated tickets, or for canceling payment for buses that did not show up" accurately sums up what the news sources say the lawsuits were about. These are the alleged violations of the terms of service which the sources discuss. Read the sources, and then come back and tell us if you think the lawsuit paragraph is cherry-picked. It's probably the only reason Suburban Express is notable enough to have a Wikipedia entry. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:58, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Controversy

After reviewing the recent edit war, I've removed the "controversy" section for now as mostly unsupported by reliable sourcing. All material must be explicitly supported through reliable secondary sources that explicitly state what is contained in the article. Court records are primary sources, and outside of very narrow situations, are not usable on Wikipedia, as selected extracts are vulnerable to cherry-picking and selective interpretation. Opinion columns are likewise not admissible. The only reliable source presented was the Daily Illini news article, which did not include all the material presented in the controversy section. It appears that feelings are running high and that a social media campaign is underway. Wikipedia may not be used as a vehicle for disparagement, nor is it appropriate to whitewash negative coverage that is supported by multiple reliable sources. Please use this talkpage to work out an appropriate, sourced consensus. I have no opinion on the merits of the controversy section, only about the edit-war and the poor sourcing. The article has been semi-protected for a day: if edit-warring breaks out again, it may be protected for a longer term. I suggest all participants review WP:V, WP:RS, and keep an eye on WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTNEWS. Acroterion (talk) 01:59, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I've also removed an accusation from this page that violated the biographies of living persons policy, which applies throughout Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not to be used as a means of shaming people, regardless of how reprehensible their alleged actions might be. Acroterion (talk) 02:08, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Acroterion's applications of Wikipedia's policies. It is worth taking a pause to (re-)familiarize oneself to all the policies linked above. If you stripped away the POV, court-sourced, newsy, and titillating stuff from the controversy section, as of this writing you'd be basically left nothing. And nothing seems like the right choice until we can come up with a notable, source-based, neutral core narrative around staff-passenger interaction KevinCuddeback (talk) 03:01, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Strong agree. Wikipedia is not the correct forum for urination contests. That's what blogs are for. 5/5/13 update: users corporatem and negatedvoid seem to be systematically stripping useful content (see pre 4/2013 versions) and adding blog-like heresay to the article. I strongly recommend that this page be restored to its pre-social media campaign state.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Thenightchicagodied (talk • contribs) 06:12, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Its clear that as of this writing, we're still struggling to present the "lawsuits" issue in an NPOV way. I have to believe that whatever Suburban Expresses' policies are, they can't be happening just to be "mean", but must have some some larger customer-service and business-efficiency "balance" that, so far, those presenting the issue have been unable to show KevinCuddeback (talk) 15:03, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Writing the section on the lawsuits in a balanced way is difficult. Above all, however, what we write should be guided by the sources we have on the subject. When I wrote the section on Suburban Express' lawsuits, I tried to write it in a fair way, and to use only reliable sources - i.e. no blogs, user posts on Reddit, or the like. If you think the article is currently unbalanced or unfair, could you be more specific, and could you post additional sources you think we should be using in the article? -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:13, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I object to the claim that I have been adding "blog-like heresay" to the article. I've really added almost nothing. I have removed some content, but it was in the aim of removing unverifiable, miscited sources. For example, this citation had literally nothing to do with the text. Or this citation was clearly self-published/questionable (I checked with some help desk helpers before making that change). Looking over CorporateM's edit, it seems to be he was trying to resolve the COI banner that has been on this page since 2008. I think that his new text sounds much neutral. Which information that has been removed do you think was useful and should stay? I'd love to participate in gathering sources and adding more useful content via this Talk page.NegatedVoid (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, have a look at Special:Contributions/Thenightchicagodied. Are you related to Suburban Express? You seem to be sligning unfounded accusations around. I am not a blogger[1]. You called a Legoktm and Thucydides411 (both users with hundreds of edits) Sock Puppets[2]. NegatedVoid (talk) 14:53, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

NegatedVoid is indeed a blogger with very strong conflict of interest. See http://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/1d3qqc/my_correspondence_with_suburban_expresss_lawyer/. Discussion above fails to address years-old interesting content added by DualFreq and recently stripped and repeatedly removed by above users who feign no conflict of interest. Thenightchicagodied (talk) 17:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)thenightchicagodied

I haven't denied my Conflict of Interest. That is why I haven't edited this article substantially, and have discussed my changes on here with others. Which of my edits do you contest? As I said, I would participate in a discussion to add any appropriate content. NegatedVoid (talk) 18:04, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I am a new user and cannot edit the currently protected Suburban Express Wikipedia page, nor do I wish to since I have a Conflict of Interest with Suburban Express from the UIUC subreddit. However, I want to provide the following list of published articles so that a neutral person can edit/rewrite the material on the Suburban Express Wikipedia page, and add in these references.

Many favorable edits were done from the IP address 99.147.29.158 which can be traced to Suburban Express.

I am a new user so I'm not very sure how to sign this entry, I hope this is good enough.

AlmostGrad (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I notice that AlmostGrad was a frequent poster as AlmostGrad100 in the reddit threads about suburban express. Wikipedia is not a place for you to bring your online pissing match. Take it elsewhere. The company history which has now been deleted, no doubt by blog activists, is interesting and unique. No amount of press over a single issue justifies destroying the interesting article which DualFreq wrote. Here is an article which is missing from the list above Popehat: Suburban Express Took the First Bus to Streisand Effect end Thenightchicagodied (talk) 02:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)thenightchicagodied

The current "Competition" section is just an advertisement of the company by its own representatives - how is the reference "Champaign man takes one of the last Concorde trips" relevant? How does a list of self-compiled "trivia" on its own website count as a reliable source? The trivia website is not a reliable resource for the ridership estimate either. The "Competition" section should be removed. AlmostGrad (talk) 03:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Collapsing Sockpuppet attempts to force their position. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 13:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

AlmostGrad - I would ask you, have you read the source article? Author DualFreq apparently did read it. Unless you have read the article, it is not appropriate for you to comment on its contents. Eyeteststar (talk) Agreed Thenightchicagodied (talk) 05:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)thenightchicagodied Competition section appears to be an attempt at balance by original author. Including competitors would hardly be in the interest of the company. There seems to a concerted effort by serveral users to replace encylopedic content with POV, news and heresay. Blog references are customarily unacceptable. Try to reference conventional media, as it tends to be much more reliable.Thenightchicagodied (talk) 05:07, 14 May 2013 (UTC)thenightchicagodied I respectfully disagree. The above user have been consistently removing sourced sections on Lawsuits about the company. News sources are considered reliable for Wikipedia, and you are welcome to remove any part of it that is unsourced. But please desist from removing an important section of the article. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 05:23, 14 May 2013 (UTC) thenightchicagodied is a representative of the company who is again removing sourced content that reflects unfavorably upon their business. This archived sockpuppet investigation page[3] is relevant. AlmostGrad (talk) 05:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC) Pardon, but AlmostGrad stated that s/he has a COI (above, unsigned). Adding properly-sourced content consistent with Wiki principles is fine. Wholesale destruction of stable, older content and replacement with trash is not. I suggest contributing to an article on the streisand effect, first amendment, etc. Eyeteststar (talk) 05:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)eyeteststar I have never denied I have a COI. I have a COI with Suburban Express stemming from my interactions with them on the UIUC subreddit. However, I have only used sourced material in my edits, and I have edited only after CorporateM gave permission to COI authors to edit the page based on the "Links related to Controversy" section. There is no reason to trust older edits just because they are old. The user who first created the Suburban Express page, Fairmont-m19[4], was concluded to be a sockpuppet account making bad-faith edits as long back as 2008. AlmostGrad (talk) 06:04, 14 May 2013 (UTC) The content deposited by Fairmont seems to have been entirely replaced by the user DualFreq. Am I missing something? Also, I'm not an expert on Wiki stuff, but wouldn't someone related to the company be in a good position to know about its history? It seems to me as if the edits going on here are rather destructive. Joshuabcohen (talk) 06:12, 14 May 2013 (UTC)joshuabcohen

found something cool on their website--an old poster. their name wasn't always suburban express — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.119.47.171 (talk) 06:38, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

User NegatedVoid has a COI yet has posted numerous self-promoting edits to article. NegatedVoid is the blogger who the section added by NegatedVoid refers to. Self-promoting section added by NegatedVoid fails to contribute to article in any sort of productive way. Perhaps NegatedVoid should write an article on himself, since he finds himself so fascinating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.150.246.227 (talk) 14:01, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The AlmostGrad Section

This section is primarily being pushed along by AlmostGrad, so let's give her credit for her work, eh?

In the "Lawsuits" section, I had added doxing and impersonation of forum members on reddit as additional reasons for the moderator to delete comments originating from Suburban Express. TheOriginalSoni suggested that I write about this on the talk page and let a non-COI author edit that part of the article. Accordingly, I have deleted the part about doxing and impersonation, and am leaving it to a non-COI editor to modify it. This is how I had written it:

"In April 2013, persons related to Suburban Express posted favorable comments about their company on Reddit using sockpuppet accounts, and doxed, impersonated, and insulted members of the forum who criticized them. The forum moderator deleted the comments and posted a note on the forum's frontpage warning readers about Suburban Express' legal tactics."

Evidence for doxing claim: Excerpt from the Daily Illini article "Suburban Express lawsuits reach 125 this year; conversation continues on Reddit":

"As a part of his job, Finnicum said he has had to remove over a dozen posts that either revealed personal information or spammed the thread since April 19."

I currently can't find any published (in a news source) evidence for the impersonation claim, though Suburban Express' representative(s) impersonated me and the UIUC subreddit moderator on reddit, among many other people. AlmostGrad (talk) 19:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

College papers can be used sometimes, but in this case I think we have better available sources. Additionally, it would be more on-target to say "Finnicum claimed" than to state it as a fact, based on the quoted material. I think this is a case of looking for a source to support the content you would like to add, rather than writing in a way that is representative of the totality of available source material. CorporateM (Talk) 20:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I have googled around and I can find no evidence to substantiate the claim that suburban express used "sockpuppet accounts" to post to reddit. When I look at reddit, I do see repeated claims by user Almostgrad100 that certain users were Suburban Express, on the basis that the comments posted by that user were positive. Almostgrad100's unsupported claims, however, do not constitute proof. Also, please note that user Acroterion removed owner name from article. Suggest you refer to his/her comments above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.150.246.227 (talk) 22:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done This is true. The source only says that a Reddit moderator speculated astroturfing was taking place. CorporateM (Talk) 03:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The sockpuppetry was concluded in the same way as you conclude it here on Wikipedia - from behavior. It is impossible to obtain incontrovertible proof unless you have a court subpoena that orders the reddit admins to release the IPs. It was not just me, many other people on the UIUC subreddit believed the same. In the reddit post[5] in which he posted the lawsuit threat[6] he received from Suburban Express' lawyers, the moderator responds to the lawyer's claim "You further claim to know that some and/or all of the posts which are negative about Suburban Express are being made by someone at Suburban Express, however, I doubt that you have any actual proof of your thoughts." with:

"I will assume that you meant 'postive' instead of 'negative' since surely SubEx wouldn't be insulting itself.

I don't have any proof. However, I have a strong personal belief and many of the users agree with me. There probably is such proof, however, which would only come to light if this proceeds to litigation - a counter-claim of harassment would reveal the IP logs during discovery. You can ask your client if that would be a good thing, or a bad thing, for him."

I understand that such behavior-based evidence of sockpuppetry might be good enough for your own moderation on Wikipedia but not good enough if it is on other sites like reddit to make it a credible Wikipedia-level source, but I wanted to address this anyway since yet another Suburban Express account/representative[7] has brought this up.

I have some questions regarding Verifiability. The two secondary sources on which the Early History and Competition sections are based are not accessible online (the Daily Herald and Russell's Guide references), and the third reference is a self-published document[8] on the company's own webpage. As per the articles/sections on offline sources and self-published sources, shouldn't material based on such sources which is controversial and challenged be removed? Without direct access to the articles, it cannot be verified if the content in the history and competition sections is indeed an accurate reflection of what the sources say, or is a favorably-interpreted, exaggerated, cherry-picked version of it.

AlmostGrad (talk) 07:03, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello,

Please note that there is nothing stopping anyone from citing any sources that are not available online. Editors are free to cite offline sources, as long as they provide enough details so anyone with an access to a decent library can find and verify those sources.

Also, Primary Sources, while discouraged, can be allowed for indisputable non-controversial facts.

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 13:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. I think if you search your soul on that one, you will find that you are grasping at any rationale that can be found to make the company look worse... CorporateM (Talk) 13:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

CorporateM, just curious here, but have you gone through those offline sources, and verified them? I just want to be sure they're in order, and not exaggerated in any way. I think that section should be trimmed a little bit for balancing of the entire article overall. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 13:15, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

No, I haven't seen the source. CorporateM (Talk) 13:51, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Could you try and look at them, and see if anything needs to be altered? According to the IP below, they can be viewed at the owner's website though I prefer you check it through a more neutral source. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest you refer to acroterion's comment above: "I've also removed an accusation from this page that violated the biographies of living persons policy, which applies throughout Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not to be used as a means of shaming people, regardless of how reprehensible their alleged actions might be. " The current article is violative of this policy. Also, I'd suggest blocking AlmostGrad from editing, as s/he has a clear conflict of interest (Personal attack removed) [Personal attack removed by TheOriginalSoni (talk)]]. Finally, pdfs of two Daily Herald articles can be found at toeppen.com. The older one is indeed an interesting read, as an earlier author (dualfreq) mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.113.146.206 (talk) 14:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• The current article, in my opinion is not "shaming" anyone. That appears to be simply your opinion. Also, we are not blocking anyone for using our best practise of revealing COI and editing openly, as well as to refer to the talk page before aking the edit.

If you have any specific changes to suggest, feel free to do so. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thucydides411 has a COI and should refrain from editing this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.147.28.115 (talk) 17:41, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't. You should refrain from making things up. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:14, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

suburban express employee posting here. 5 or 21 citations in the current article relate to the last month in a wikipedia entry for a company that has been in business for 30 years. Is this an encyclopedia or a tabloid? this article has been hijacked by a small number of angry nutjobs who are clearly outliers.

meant to say "5 of 21", of course.

Please let us know what facts/information are missing. CorporateM (Talk) 21:06, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I think he means to say that we must have more sources on the events of last month. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 22:54, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

What? That doesn't make any sense. Anyhow, we at suburban express find it very bizarre that references to other similar companies have been removed. See http://www.toeppen.com/daily-herald-uiowa-se.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.147.28.115 (talk) 23:17, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

This sarcastic comment by the Theoriginalsoni: "I think he means to say that we must have more sources on the events of last month." coupled with his very insistent reeinsertion of recent events/POV leads me to question his objectivity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.150.246.227 (talk) 23:55, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• I checked the Daily Herald reference provided on the owner's website (I think the reference in the article should contain a link to the scanned pdf copy) and there does not appear to be any misrepresentation of the material. However, I think the details are reproduced in excruciating detail in this Wikipedia article - these details are not relevant or noteworthy by Wikipedia standards, especially after 30 years. The "Early History" and "Competition" sections span a total of 5 paragraphs, with 4 paragraphs exclusively citing this single reference (in contrast, 27 articles about the recent events have been condensed into 2 paragraphs/6 sentences). I suggest these two sections be merged into a single section, "History", with the following content:

In 1983, Dennis Toeppen, then a student of the University of Illinois, started Suburban Express as a "virtual" bus company that did not own any buses or facilities but instead contracted buses from other carriers. A fare war ensued between Greyhound and Suburban Express, with both sides substantially reducing ticket prices. Suburban Express survived two Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) investigations initiated by Greyhound, and its ticket sales caught up with Greyhound by 1985.

I have concerns about this claim:

In 1989, Greyhound pulled out of the Champaign-to-Suburbs market altogether.

The reference for this is the inaccessible source "Russell's Guide September 1999 - GLI Schedule 397 removed from publication" (what does "removed from publication" mean anyway?). Greyhound certainly operates from Champaign now and has been operating for several years, and the above statement is somewhat misleading and makes it look (at least to me) like Greyhound completely pulled out of the Champaign market forever and has never been back (Greyhound still goes to downtown Chicago/Union Station).

I also have concerns about this claim:

As of 2003, annual ridership was approximately 55,000 passengers.

because the reference (http://www.suburbanexpress.com/bulletpoints.html) is a self-published "trivia" list on the company's own website.

I am convinced that Dual_Freq who the Suburban Express representative here frequently refers to and demands that the article be reverted back to his version is related to the company, since that user first added[9] the Daily Herald reference. I don't think anyone unrelated to the company would have ready access to a newspaper clipping from a suburban newspaper from 1985, let alone find it and cite it. Dual_Freq started editing within 3 hours after the article was created by Fairmont-m19 (who was soon reported as and concluded to be a sockpuppet[10]), and after that, within 5 hours he was able to find an obscure news article from 1985 which is not readily available online. AlmostGrad (talk) 18:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Wrong, AlmostGrad! Suburban Express, here. We initially created the page and it was deleted. DualFreq stepped in and wrote a thorough and interesting article, based primaryily on http://www.toeppen.com/daily-herald-fare-wars-toeppen.pdf and http://www.toeppen.com/daily-herald-uiowa-se.pdf. As for Theoriginalsoni, his most recent action, deleting most of the non-controversial content, calls into question his motivations and maturity. Both articles are available at Newspaperarchive.com. Have you searched there, Almostgrad, or are we supposed to just accept your recurring unsupported claims. Finally, Almostgrad, we have send you an email or two, and our customer service guy called you and left a voice mail, yet you haven't responded. Please give us a call when you have a chance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.147.29.153 (talk) 02:08, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Almostgrad - I didn't realize that whole giant mess above was from you... As for Russell's Guide...do you know how to use google? If not, try searching for "russell's guide" on ebay. Russell's "Official Bus Guide" is, or more accurately, was, the bible of all bus schedules in the United States. If a bus company stopped advertising a schedule in Russelll's Guide, it means the schedule ceased to exist. GLI schedule 397 was the university of Illinois campus service, which ran from Wright Street to: Markham, Forest Park, Northlake, Elk Grove, Cumberland CTA, Dempster Skokie Swift Station, and Northbrook. Later, it was modified to include Oakbrook and Woodfield malls. But they dropped it in 1989 because Suburban Express decimated their ridership. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.147.29.153 (talk) 02:14, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

• Some issues I want to point out:

1. The BBB reference shows up only as "[1]" in the References section. I think it was better off as an external link in the infobox. At the very least the reference should be expanded so that it doesn't appear as only "[1]".
2. I think mention of the University ticket center and its actions is unnecessary in the lead - too much detail in just the second sentence.
3. Greyhound pulling out of the Champaign-Chicago suburbs is no longer mentioned in the article, so the Russell's Guide reference should be removed. As the Suburban Express representative explained above, Greyhound stopped advertising that route in the publication, and that meant that they no longer operated on that route. The lack of information about something is being used as a source. This is an interpretation of a primary source that is not obvious to anyone not intimately familiar with the bus business (it was not obvious to me at least; I thought "removed from publication" meant that Russell's Guide itself had gone out of print or something). Unless there is an additional reference that backs up the claim that lack of advertisement in Russell's Guide implies that operations have stopped on that route, this reference has no place in this article. Even in the case that a supporting reference could be found, that would probably count as original research.
4. I think there should be a dedicated "Controversy" section. There are 28 articles about the controversy, and the controversy is the company's only claim to notability. The fare war, though some might find it interesting, does not make it Wikipedia-level notable since it was published in only one source (Daily Herald). A fare war is a pretty common business tactic that many businesses employ; a company engaging in a fare war and winning it does not make the company notable. As per WP:WEIGHT, I think the controversy deserves its own section, because the controversy is the only reason that this company even deserves a Wikipedia article.
5. Mentioning the founder/owner's name does not make the article violate BLP. Most company pages on Wikipedia have the names of their company founder, owner, CEO, etc. in the infobox and in the article.
6. The Jeremy Leval incident deserves some mention; it was widely covered in the news articles, and there was a new article[11] in Techdirt about this just two days back.
7. The mention of Streisand Effect should not be removed. It is central to notability. AlmostGrad (talk) 20:02, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

You're hilarious, AlmostGrad. By your bizarre logic, Greyhound is still operating campus->suburbs service because disappearance of the schedule from their schedule listing does not prove that they discontinued service. Thanks for a good laugh! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.147.28.115 (talk) 20:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello,

We currently note that in the article, there are only 2 sources (One of whom we dont see - If you could help us locate and access that, it would be great) not speaking against Suburban Express, as opposed to 5 sources doing so [I am not sure if there are any other sources speaking against the company that are not included though]. So in the view of balancing the entire article, I believe the lawsuits section should be increased, and the two others history sections be reduced, unless more sources are available speaking about the company in a non-negative light.

Which is why I ask you to put list all the sources you can locate about your company on this talk page (similar to how those criticising the company have done) so that all of us can look into those sources, and add them appropriately to make the full article balanced. Please note that unless we have more sources, the article cannot be balanced in the state it currently is.

Thank you, and hoping for a reply, TheOriginalSoni (talk) 03:45, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with TheOriginalSoni. The legal problems oapparently are the company's main claim to notability and have generated more third-party coverage than everything else combined; per WP:WEIGHT we should cover the lawsuit in correspondingly great detail. Thus I have reverted back to TheOriginalSoni's version. Huon (talk) 19:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I was operating under the assumption that additional sources exist, but have been unable to find them in a quick search. I did some copy-editing/re-writing, but this seems fine for a large portion of the article to focus on what they are best known for. Though it irks me a bit, because the press has different interests than us and would be less likely to cover some of the boring historical aspects we might take an interest in.

I believe the argument made by the company editor that we would want to have some reasonable balance over-time is sound, in that regardless of sourcing, we wouldn't want the entire article to focus on a three-month period over a 30-year history. The problem is that the argument doesn't apply in this case. While the press coverage may be recent, they describe lawsuits taking place over ten years. CorporateM (Talk) 22:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

An Adult Arrives On-Scene

I've come to this article as a completely uninvolved editor - I happened to pick it up on the Bus wikiproject (for street cred reasons I should point out that I don't generally read the Bus wikiproject; it's a long story...). With regard to the list of 7 points above first - in general I agree with them, numbers 2, 4, 5 and 7 in particular. Number 1 is a gimme.

The question of reliable, third party references and the potential undue weight - and, frankly, undue detail - in the controversy section is of some concern though. My gut feeling is that there's far too much detail here - we're an encyclopaedia. If we use references and summarise then people can follow up and get the detail. As it is, it does feel like a bit of a "he said, she said that he said" debate. I would suggest some of the detail at least can go. There are, clearly, good quality third party, uninvolved references for **some** of the content. I would urge, in particular, that the Chicago Tribune, News Gazette and Paxton Record are considered to be the most likely to be uninvolved sources. It would be difficult to argue that these don't have weight - the Tribune in particular. The internet tech sources are probably reasonable, but it's fair to say that there's an element of potential POV that could creep into those (in general terms) - the traditional sources, given the obvious controversy over this article, are probably a better place to start.

Deal with the (potentially) undue detail and then some of the other issues can be dealt with afterwards. I might take a go at editing this later; I'll see - I have no desire to get dragged into an edit war over this article. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:01, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

The thing is that the Streisand Effect took place mainly through the internet - otherwise it wouldn't go beyond Chicago Tribune and hence beyond the state of Illinois. Print sources generally don't report much on internet happenings. For example, they are unlikely to report things like users getting harassed for posting negative reviews of the company on Yelp, or people being harassed on Reddit, or these people being forced to delete their unflattering reviews. Nor will they report on facts like Suburban Express posting dirt about a passenger on its website[12]. This is just not the kind of news that makes it to print sources, however, in this internet era these are important and newsworthy all the same, because people are equally affected by these things - the bullying and intimidation is real. In fact the internet news articles might be even more important these days because a lot of people get their news from the internet these days rather than reading the print version of a newspaper. So I don't think it is fair to discount well-known and respected internet publications when they are reporting something that happened largely on the internet. AlmostGrad (talk) 07:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know - that Tribune article does a pretty good job at *summarising* the issues associated with the company, including mentioning, iirc, some of the online stuff. To be honest, a huge proportion of the population *don't* use Yelp or Reddit. You might, maybe I do (as it happens I don't), but we're internet people - otherwise why would we be discussing the weight to place on a pretty obscure wiki page. The majority of the population don't really.

From a reliability and *balance* point of view I think the traditional sources absolutely have to be the *starting point* for a summary of the issues (and I'm not saying don't include some of the internet stuff as well - just don't start with it). As I've said above, we already have arguably far too much detail anyway - the big deal here is really the law suit and it's implications. The article needs to end up dealing with this properly; at present it's really not got great quality written all over it. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:38, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Ars Technica is at least as reliable and useful a source as any major newspaper. It is a respected technology news website with significant editorial controls and without any reputation for significant sensationalism. It's quite possible that Ars has more readers than the Chicago Tribune at this point, quite frankly. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:42, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Welcome, Blue Square Thing. Here are two print media articles to aid you in editing the history section: http://www.toeppen.com/daily-herald-fare-wars-toeppen.pdf, http://www.toeppen.com/daily-herald-uiowa-se.pdf, and here's a version of the page before the kiddies decided to use the article as a means of making themselves feel important http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Suburban_Express&oldid=542659074. Best wishes.

Links related to Controversy

Here is a list of articles about Suburban Express and it's controversies. I'm creating a section for it so others can contribute - please don't delete from it, though. It was started by AlmostGrad and moved to it's own section by NegatedVoid.

1. BoingBoing: Suburban Express bus-line sends bullying, cowardly legal threat to Reddit, discovers Streisand Effect
2. Ars Technica: Express to Internet Hate: Bus company threatens redditor with lawsuit
3. Ars Technica: Nonstop to schadenfreude: Suburban Express’ u-turn on reddit lawsuit
4. Techdirt: Bus Company Threatens Redditor With Lawsuit, Meets Ken White, Runs Away
5. The Daily Dot: Bus Company Threatens to Sue Redditor Over Bad Press
6. American Bar Association Journal: Cheap bus ticket included a trip to small-claims court for unwary students
7. Chicago Tribune: Bus company's lawsuits anger students, parents
8. The News Gazette: Bus firm's lawsuits criticized
9. The News Gazette: Bus company promises to drop Ford lawsuits
10. The News Gazette: Bus lawsuits dismissed in Ford County
11. Paxton Record: Bus company suing UI students for violating 'terms and conditions'
12. Paxton Record: After backlash, bus firm pledges to dismiss all suits
13. Paxton Record: Suburban Express lawsuits dropped
14. Kankakee Daily Journal: Bus company drops lawsuits in Ford County against college student riders
15. Popehat: Suburban Express Took The First Bus To The Streisand Effect. Have They Disembarked In Time?
16. The Daily Illini: Suburban Express lawsuits lead to controversy on social media
17. The Daily Illini: Suburban Express lawsuits reach 125 this year; conversation continues on Reddit
18. The Daily Illini: Suburban Express drops lawsuits and updates terms and conditions
19. The Daily Illini: UIUC Subreddit hits front page, Streisand effect leads to increased attention for Suburban Express lawsuits
20. The Daily Illini: Public addresses Illinois Student Senate regarding influx of student-aimed Suburban Express lawsuits
21. The Daily Illini (Editorial): Suburban Express mishandles student allegations
22. The Daily Illini (Opinion Column): Suburban Express causes its own problems
23. The Daily Illini (Letter to the Editor): UI should defend international students, disallow Suburban Express services
24. The Daily Illini (Editorial): University administrators absent in Suburban Express incidences
25. Slashdot: Redditors (and Popehat) Versus a Bus Company
26. Ars Technica: Troll road: Bus company posts “dirt” on complaining passenger
27. Pieuvre.ca: Le pouvoir des masses numériques, pour le meilleur et pour le pire AlmostGrad (talk) 23:47, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
28. Techdirt: Suburban Express Goes Double Or Nothing On Their Aggressive Behavior AlmostGrad (talk) 22:09, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Based on the available source material, I think the topic needs to be covered in greater depth. For example, multiple, credible sources discuss the lawsuit with Reddit, which currently isn't mentioned in the article at all. Per WP:LEAD, the controversy should be included in the lead, however, per WP:CRITICISM, we shouldn't have a dedicated controversy section. There is enough positive(ish) information in the article for a COI editor to expand on the controversy without creating a coatrack article, so long as it is not done to a distasteful extreme. CorporateM (Talk) 02:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps CorporateM should write an article about SLAPP suits, Freedom of Speech, etc. and use these citations in that article. Refrain from hijacking this article to advocate your position on First Amendment stuff. Thenightchicagodied (talk) 05:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)thenightchicagodied

The article is much improved with the additional detail. The controversy should also be summarized in 1-2 sentences in the Lead if anyone is up for it, as the lead is suppose to summarize the entire article, including controversies. The other thing that is needed is a Services section, detailing their routes, prices, buses, etc. CorporateM (Talk) 12:19, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View

I updated the language in the competitors section last night to be more neutral and less advertise-y. I can't see any other egregious incidents of neutral POV being violated (though the level of detail certainly indicates the original author is somehow connected to the company), but I'd leave it up to someone else to review the notice at the top of the page. DarkAsSin (talk) 15:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

To the Editors From Suburban Express

The <edit> heading </edit> informs the company that they need to provide additional media sources that people can verify that show scope of interest in the company beyond the negative aspects. --LauraHale (talk) 02:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)