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)

This article is missing the important elements of the early history. There were ILL CC inquiries...ok...how did that turn out? That question was answered in an earlier version, but the answer has been deleted from the current version. I am a little curious as to why CorporateM has gone crazy on this article. He's acting like someone with a COI. I notice that he works in PR. That is not usually a positive when it comes to Wikipedia. Could he be working for a competitor of this company? One of the people who were sued? Could he be the guy who was threatened with a suit? His behavior is not consistent with someone without a COI. What about Almostgrad? This person is dominating the talk discussion below. Why does he devote so much energy to trying to get others to make edits which are unflattering to the company? 2602:306:C561:A599:21F:5BFF:FEBF:E186 (talk) 00:50, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

To the IP - This is the first and the last time I shall be saying this, so please better understand this carefully - You can try all you want but you will NOT get away with vandalising or any of your other activities here. Not on Wikipedia. If you want to help, fine. But you better don't try any attempts to make this, or any article here worse. All of the editors here, except you have been acting in good faith, and per Wikipedia guidelines. I once again strongly recommend you edit ONLY from the TheNightChicagooDied account, and try adding useful edits, rather than attacking people. Continuing the attacks here will not work. Not on Wikipedia. Please try and be constructive if you actually want even a minor change to the article. Or you can continue the way you are, and worsen your own situation. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 03:40, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey TheOriginalSoni - I don't appreciate your unsupported accusations. Thenightchicagodied (talk) 14:15, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

This article and the talk associated with it is a shameful display of everything that is wrong with Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C561:A599:21F:5BFF:FEBF:E186 (talk) 04:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I think this article and the talk associated with it is a shameful display of everything that is wrong with Dennis Toeppen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.55.176.186 (talk) 21:44, 29 July 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)

The goal here is not to sum up the news but to write an encyclopedia See: WP:ENC.

I find only a new source that says "In October 2010, Martin purchased a one-way ticket — from Champaign-Urbana to Northbrook — for her teenage daughter, who was visiting the university. She used a credit card to buy the ticket for $26.45 on the Suburban Express website, according to court documents. But the bus never showed up, so subsequently her credit card company reversed the charge to her card because no services were provided." This is a single case. What news source says this is a pattern?

Suburban Express has been notable enough to have its own Wikipedia entry since at least 2009 (when the issue was decided by a vote) and probably before. At this stage of its life, Any non-POV/COI editor would say the most notable thing about it is being a busy passenger service that set legal precedents (back when transportation was being deregulated) and serves (let's estimate) 40,000 people per year and perhaps a million over time.

And here's where we get back to cherry-picking. Given a number of passengers between 20,000 to 50,000 per year, how can it be that even 125 lawsuits (0.6% or 0.3% of tickets) is notable? Heck, the incidence of mental illness in most populations is 2%, and we don't say in articles about Urbana-Champaign that "4600 of locals are probably mentally ill" (or quote higher or lower numbers as if they'd be interesting).KevinCuddeback (talk) 21:12, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

If you think that Suburban Express is more notable for the reasons you've stated, you're free to find reliable sources which discuss those aspects of the company, and to weave them into the article with the appropriate weight. The sources we have so far deal mostly with Suburban Express' legal actions and the ensuing social media kerfuffle. If the articles we've found so far are unrepresentative of what all reliable sources say on the company, then please contribute some sources to balance them out. We indeed do not want to write this entry like a news article, but in cases where the subject of an article is best known for a particular event, that event gets most of the weight. There is a real danger of skewing articles about well-known subjects towards recent events, and Wikipedia strives to avoid this. For example, the entry about Oklahoma shouldn't spend half of its space talking about tornadoes, even though if you read the news right now, most of the sources on Oklahoma will talk about tornadoes. However, if you look at all sources on Oklahoma, you'll find that they spend most of their space dealing with other aspects of the state. That doesn't appear to be the case with Suburban Express, so WP:NOTNEWS doesn't imply that we should de-emphasize the more recent sources. - Thucydides411 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:33, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

You correctly note there is a real danger of skewing articles toward recent events. Recent edits seem a runaway example of this: a collection of non-notable things bus drivers say and a bunch of small-claims cases are the ordinary background noise of (American) life. Not encyclopedic.KevinCuddeback (talk) 15:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest, strongly as it happens, that there's clearly some media coverage of the legal actions. This probably makes it notable - and the issue may grow (or may well disappear after a couple of days). It's almost certainly got undue weight in the article at present, but a shortish section on the issue and it's handling by the company is probably fair to include at this stage. As with all current events, however, it needs to be kept in check - todays newspapers are tomorrows chip wrappers etc... You may well be right about the number of small claims cases btw - it's whether or not these generate the level of coverage that these ones have which is, perhaps, more of an issue. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:05, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Kevin, I don't think you fully understood what I wrote above. WP:NOTNEWS does not mean that an article should not reflect all available reliable sources. If a subject is notable primarily for recent events, those events get most of the weight. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:35, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

But notability is not something that is transient. At present we don't really know if the legal cases - let alone the social media issues - will be stories that run for the next three months or will be dead as stories by the end of the week. It depends on what happens - and that's where there are fairly large recentism issues associated with the article as it currently stands. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:25, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I hope that as this article develops, more than 1 sentence is devoted to the Fare War & ICC cases and fewer than 3 paragraphs are devoted to a grab bag of 2013 controversies.KevinCuddeback (talk) 17:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

• I would like to address the issues raised by KevinCuddeback:

1. KevinCuddeback said: "Suburban Express has been notable enough to have its own Wikipedia entry since at least 2009".
     This Wikipedia entry was created by the company itself - The user who first created the Suburban Express page, Fairmont-m19[1], was concluded to be a sockpuppet account making bad-faith edits as long back as 2008. The article was nominated for deletion twice, but somehow survived because they put together a page with irrelevant references and links to various bus company websites.
     The owner's website[2] contains a link to the 7 March 2013 version[3] of the "Suburban Express Wikipedia entry before it was vandalized by sad, lonely bloggers". If you see the references in that version, you will notice that there is only one reference which talks about Suburban Express in any significant detail (Daily Herald, 1985)[4] - it talks about the fare war, which does not make the company inherently notable - it is a common enough business practice.
      • Thank you for the link to the article. No Daily Herald archives online yet? Read it again without the modern POV that a Fare War is a common practice. There are some anachronisms that were notable then (like considering it "dirty" to give coupons to your competitor's customers) and the UIUC (and everyone's) general sense that one provider, Greyhound, is enough, that show how very notable the rule-breakers of the deregulation era were. KevinCuddeback (talk) 18:13, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
     The rest of the news articles provide padding for the reference section - the only reference to Suburban Express in the Daily Herald (2005) article[5] is one sentence - "Students at University of Illinois and Eastern Illinois University have an option to use Suburban Express, a company that provides rides from Champaign and Charleston to the suburbs every weekend." The third news article (The News-Gazette, 2003)[6], about British Airways' Concorde shutting down services is completely irrelevant - Suburban Express is mentioned in only this sentence - "Toeppen, 39, who owns Suburban Express bus company, talked about his hobby of riding last runs of various kinds of transportation in a July 31 story in the News-Gazette".
     People on Wikipedia assume good faith - if no one is challenging the article, and the person who wants to keep the article provides some references, they take it at face value and don't dig up obscure offline references and verify their contents. Since the company provided some references, including some bogus ones, the result of the deletion proposal was "no consensus" the first time and a "weak keep" the second time.
2. Serving a large number of customers does not make a company notable. Peoria Charter is a much larger and older company in this area, but does not have a Wikipedia entry.
3. Regarding your comparison of lawsuits with mental illness, I don't really understand the analogy. If 2% of the residents of Champaign-Urbana suffer from mental illness, and that is the rate of mental illness in the rest of the country, then this is obviously not something notable about Champaign-Urbana. But if a company has pending lawsuits against 125 customers and its competitor Peoria Charter Coach Company has no pending lawsuits against its customers[7], then this is a significant/notable detail. AlmostGrad (talk) 02:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

So if Peoria Charter has a below average number of lawsuits, that doesn't make them notable, why should an above-average number be notable for Suburban Express? We don't know what the "right"/"normal"/non-notable number of lawsuits is, but I doubt that we're anywhere far from the norm, and so whipping what still amount to a bunch of "stuff we heard" together in a paragraph isn't going to be notable a year from now--and so isn't notable now.KevinCuddeback (talk) 15:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Kevin, in Wikipedia, notability is decided on the basis of what sources consider notable. Do you have any sources you'd like to present which cover some other aspect of Suburban Express? -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:39, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem seems to be mistaking accessibility for notability. Low-quality "sources" like Yelp and Reddit (cited in the second lead paragraph!) are electronically available, but sources from the 1980s, like the Illinois Commerce Commission filings and verdicts, are not. I would hope, however that the awareness of this disparity would temper people's desire to have Yelp reviews write the ledeKevinCuddeback (talk) 16:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

No one is disputing the Illinois Commerce Commission filings and verdicts since these have been reported in a secondary source (Daily Herald, 1985). ICC filings would be primary sources and not acceptable as references here anyway. No one is using Reddit and Yelp as sources either; they are writing about what is taking place on Reddit and Yelp on the basis of what secondary sources have reported. AlmostGrad (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Then will you (AlmostGrad) also withdraw your contention that a 1980s Fare War was not notable? now that you understand that the newspaper coverage from the 1980s should be accorded a sort of "multiplier" as a proxy for two Illiois Commerce Commission cases brought by Greyhound against Suburban Express. As another proxy for notability, two ICC fights probably took more legal hours to resolve than 125 small claims would. KevinCuddeback (talk) 20:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Kevin, you're mistaken; Yelp and Reddit are not cited as sources in the article. There are secondary sources which talk about what happened on Yelp and Reddit, but the latter two are not cited. Again, since you seem certain that Suburban Express is notable for events before 2013 (particularly the "fare wars" in the 1980s), please post the references you are relying on. Without any sort of references, there's really nowhere we can go with this discussion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:09, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

We have one great source for Suburban Express, and many covering airlines that show that "fare wars" were radically-new in the 1980s, as common carriers in the USA (mostly airlines) actually started putting into practice their right compete on price in a post-deregulation world. To us, a fare war is a pocket calculator, everyday and forgettable. To those who lived through the first, it was shockingly new (the word "war" gives some sense of this...and fares had previously been set in Washington or Springfield to protect carriers). See also the "controversial" Frank Lorenzo and how most of what he's famous for was still unfolding in the mid 1980s, despite de-regulation having come in the late 1970s. Then see this Daily Herald (Sunday Herald) article (from Toeppen's website...but its all that's accessible)[8] Today, we don't get articles like this because fare competition is an everyday thing, but in 1985 it was highly disorienting (the quotes from all concerned have an almost-comical "how could this happen?" quality to them) and it merited a half-page article with photos. KevinCuddeback (talk) 15:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

You cannot allude to deregulation and fare wars that airline companies engaged in in the 1980s and claim that the same applies to Suburban Express. This would, as Thucydides411 pointed out, constitute synthesis/original research - see WP:ORIGINALSYN. If you can find sources that support what you say, and that say explicitly that it applies to Suburban Express, then this discussion can proceed further.

For the sake of argument, suppose we consider only one print source about the controversy - the Chicago Tribune (and only for the sake of this argument, because to discount the other sources is not fair - the other sources add additional weight to the controversy section - see WP:BALANCE). According to this list of newspapers by circulation, Chicago Tribune has the 9th largest readership in the nation, while Daily Herald is 78th on that list. The readership of Chicago Tribune is 4 times that of Daily Herald.

If you look at the current state of the article, the Early History subsection has ~100 words. The 2013 Controversy subsection has < 400 words. Thus, the History section is already skewed towards the early history and the early history is overrepresented compared to the recent controversy, given that the recent news was published in a much more widely-read and well-known newspaper, and that is before even considering the other 27 sources including nationally and internationally-read ones like Boing Boing and Ars Technica.

The terms you use, such as "radically-new", "shockingly new", "almost-comical" and "highly disorienting" are your interpretations of the article and probably fall under WP:ORIGINALSYN. AlmostGrad (talk) 22:21, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm not intending to put them into the article, only trying to convey that an NPOV reading of the past includes being able to see the notability in things they found notable (and not dismiss them as commonplace because they are commonplace today)KevinCuddeback (talk) 02:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

What old sources do you have to support early weight for sources? Early history is not required for NPOV. Pushing early history, when reliable sources and sources used for notability, do not weight the early history as important is WP:NPOV pushing. If you have sources that suggest early history should be given additional weight compared to the recent ones, then please share them.... Otherwise, you are trying to manipulate policy to your own end. --LauraHale (talk) 06:32, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

To recap: The article has a newsy/recency bias partly caused when editors dismiss the past because it has few sources (none that Google up) and dismiss a great source--a balanced (Greyhound vs UIUC vs students vs Suburban Express) half-page article with photo in the Herald[9]-- because fare wars and winning the right to compete from the Illinois Commerce Commission seem commonplace to them (see AlmostGrad's point #4 in the Issues on Refs and Notablity section, above). I hope, at least, that all can now see how insufficient it is to say the company was non-notable before 2013 and only notable now for events in 2013 (POV contentions which you will find in these talk pages). KevinCuddeback (talk) 20:19, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

If a source on fare wars does not mention Suburban Express, it probably doesn't belong here, because its inclusion would be synthesis. That leaves us with only have one source on Suburban Express' role in the fare wars. That's in comparison to about two dozen articles on Suburban Express' recent legal actions. If you present more articles on Suburban Express and the fare wars, that will shift the balance of sources. Remember, the sources do not have to be online, and they do not have to be recent. You're free to find newspaper articles, books or academic articles from the 1980s. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

This is not a numbers game, particularly as concerns the present vs the past. A numbers game is just going to worse the recency bias--the present makes its news in an echo-chamber of sources unconstrained by the physical need to put ink on paper, and you can't count each electronic echo as another thoughtful vote for notability. Old school newspapers (like our fare war source) actually did a good job of sifting and weighing and providing context (and giving a better sense of what a notable and non-notable level of litigation and bigoted bus drivers might be).KevinCuddeback (talk) 02:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia works on the basis of sources. If you want the article to deal with the early history of Suburban Express more than it currently does, your time would be better spent going out and finding sources than in continuing to argue. Until you or someone else find a couple sources on Suburban Express' early history, that part of the article doesn't need any more weight. If the early history is notable, then there will be sources out there. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Arguably there's already too much on the early history as well. This is, don't forget, a fairly small company. If we can find more stuff then, fine, add it - but I would imagine that, aside from bus spotters, there's probably not all that much more to find.

Now, while I'm at it, how many Yelp reviews does the negative rating refer to btw? And is there any form of secondary source to back the claims of negative ratings up from? And is it, actually, in any way notable? Which brings us back to a need for some balance in this article... Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:40, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

The Yelp reviews can be found here. There are 60+ reviews, but Yelp shows around a dozen of the reviews and filters the rest (the filtered ones are at the bottom of the page and can be read by typing the captcha). The material in the article is as much about the negative Yelp reviews themselves (which contain information about harsh Terms Of Service, how the reviewers were treated by the company, etc.) as about the company's practice of hunting down people who wrote the negative reviews and harassing them and banning them for life - this is described, for example, in this Daily Dot article. AlmostGrad (talk) 18:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, we're dangerously close to synthesis territory in some ways with some of that you know. Some of the factual stuff is good to use - but I'm really not sure about sticking this in the lead as direct references to specific web services. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:08, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

How is this synthesis? The article talks about what was said on Yelp on the basis of what secondary sources wrote about them. Please explain how this is synthesis on the part of Wikipedia editors. Secondary sources can synthesize, that is their job, to interpret and do original research and report their findings. In the past, people were interviewed or they called up a news agency to report something and what they said was published. Now, the opinions people state in Yelp reviews are being published. AlmostGrad (talk) 19:23, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say it was synthesis, I said it was getting *close* to synthesis *in some ways* - i.e. by pulling together too much from places such as Reddit to create something else - and certainly by placing an emphasis on particular points being raised by some commentators. There are sources pointing out negative reviews, sure. There are then some sources pointing at the specific substance of negative reviews - we seem to be choosing to stick with those specific points rather than simply stating that there are a number of negative reviews - as more sources (and, possibly, more reliable sources) do. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

This is a perfect example of "news sources" obviously containing inaccurate information. It seems unlikely that the company would sue people for "buses that didn't show up". 174.159.78.41 (talk) 09:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

You're not reading the text carefully. They were suing because people cancelled payments: did not abide by their commitment to pay even for buses that did not show up, which was apparently part of the TOS under which the tickets were sold at the prices for which they were sold (you were gambling, in other words, when you bought the ticket). --Orange Mike | Talk 21:16, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

MiguelNaranja - If you look at a comment which LauraHale has hidden/deleted, you'll see that company disputes an important element of the Tribune story - namely, the claim by a passenger that she was sued after reversing a charge as a means of obtaining a refund for a bus which did not show up. Apparently the bus did show up and customer used chargeback as a means of getting around non-refundability of ticket. That's how I read it, anyhow. 2602:306:C561:A599:21F:5BFF:FEBF:E186 (talk) 00:55, 26 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[10]. You called a Legoktm and Thucydides411 (both users with hundreds of edits) Sock Puppets[11]. 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[12] 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[13], 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)

Doxing and Impersonation

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[14] in which he posted the lawsuit threat[15] 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[16] 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[17] 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[18] 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[19]), 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)

Issues on Refs and Notablity

• 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.
      • While fare (and capacity) wars are common today (and not notable to contemporary readers), A 1980s fare war was a BIG deal. Fare wars were illegal in intERstate commerce until 1978/79 and were (effectively) illegal in intRAstate Illinois in the 1980s (which was why Greyhound had a right to bring actions against competitors at the IllinoisCC to put competitors out of business). Actually being a competitor at all was a huge deal see Southwest Airlines Early History (It took 2 US Supreme Court cases to prove the right of Southwest to fly *intRA* Texas routes...and it stayed there until 1979 deregulated intERstate flights). So a fare war was bigger news than can be conveyed today, and is notable now because it was highly notable then (because Greyhound thought it should be/was illegal. KevinCuddeback (talk)
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[20] 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)

"The problem is that the argument doesn't apply in this case." - By that logic, one third of the article would be dedicated to lawsuits and two thirds to the twenty years preceeding lawsuits. 174.159.78.41 (talk) 09:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Fresh Perspective

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[21]. 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)

Agreed - traditional media much more likely to contain verified information than random blogs. Newspaper reporters are professional writers, bloggers not necessarily so. 174.159.78.41 (talk) 09:00, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

It may well be reliable and it may even have more readers. I'm not suggesting we don't use it; I am suggesting that we use the traditional sources as the starting point - we can point at them and they will tend to be considered the sorts of sources which wikipedia can rely upon - reliable, third party, independent from the subject(s) etc... I'm sure that specialist web writers have insight that is useful in this case - although, as above, I would query whether that insight is rather too specialist at times - the big deal here, the notability even, is that the company issued a bunch of law suits that have been generally described as unwise. Yes, there's an internet side to this - but that's not actually the real notability (as much as all us Wiki geeks here would like it to be).

Interesting, though: the wiki page for Ars Technica states very clearly that it's owned by the same parent company (Advance Publications) as Reddit. I don't consider this a smoking gun in any respect, although there is clearly a very real need to consider any potential NPOV issues associated with sources relating to the article we have here. None of the print media sources we have appear to be associated with Advance as far as I can tell. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:40, 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.

I think we'd need a few more details to use those sources as they are, although they would appear useful and it's always going to be helpful to have printed sources from the pre-internet era. In particular I'd want to know what type of paper they were in - we get local free papers here which essentially print adverts for companies in place of stories. That wouldn't appear to be so much of an issue for one of the sources, it may be for the other. Balance is a slightly bigger issue and one that's very clearly relevant to the page just now. I'd be interested to hear other opinions on whether these sources are considered to be reliable, third party sources independent of the subject - I appreciate they're stored on a website linked to the company and balance wrt selection of sources needs to be considered, but as sources they would appear to provide some quite useful information on the history of the company. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

One of them is already cited in the article, actually. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:23, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah - OK, I see one of them certainly. Not sure about the other, but I've barely looked. Blue Square Thing (talk) 15:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing a priori that makes traditional newspapers more reliable than internet news sources. For example, the Paxton Record, a traditional news outlet, probably carries a lot less weight than Ars Technica, a news website. This is because one is a local paper with low readership and circulation, while the other is a national news source with high readership. What matters is whether a given publication has editorial controls, whether it is an advocacy organization, and what sort of steps the source takes to verify its information. See Wikipedia:RS for a more detailed discussion of what a reliable source is.

In this light, blogs are not considered reliable because they are self-published, not because they are online. A self-published newsletter which is distributed in print is unreliable for the exact same reason as a blog is unreliable. Ars Technica is not a blog, but rather a widely read online news source with editorial controls, which is why we can consider it a reliable source. The Suburban Express representatives on this talk page have been disparaging the online sources we use in the article as "blogs," while insisting that we use self-published material from the Suburban Express website. This just shows a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's reliable sources policies. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:07, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

In terms of the specific use of Ars Technica there's probably little argument that it has some weight. My argument is tending towards the relative over emphasis on the online element of the article itself - rather than the legal cases which certainly have wider documentation and, I think we can be more certain about the POV status. Some of the other online sources are a *little* more dubious in my opinion - and, as I say, there's a fair element of "he said that she said that he said" running through the article in it's current state - mainly regarding the online mess that seems to have revolved around the company recently. There seems to be an element of op-ed running through some of them as well.

I can believe the Paxton Record is a local paper source - I'm thousands of kilometres away fwiw so ta for that. Having said that, the Daily Illini (I may have that name wrong...) is, I believe, a student newspaper essentially?

I would still strongly argue that sourcing starts from what we know is reliable. And that we give the article the weight it deserves - for example, I would argue that the second paragraph in the lead needs to emphasise the law suits rather than negative comments on specific websites - perhaps replacing that with a more generalist comment about negative online opinions or something. That way we get some balance rather than emphasising opinions expressed on social media sites. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Many of the quotes and the "he said, she said" I included because the quote itself was repeated in multiple sources and the tit-for-tat seems like the appropriate tone in this particular case. I see the issue differently. The problem is not that the sources are unreliable or advocacy-oriented; the issue is that the sources are covering internet-gossip and drama, which is not necessarily aligned with our editorial mission. Readers will presume the gossip is accurate, even if we describe it as gossip. It is also unlikely for the media to ever cover anything else about this particular organization, leading to a ONEEVENT issue.

However, I also realize the article is relatively unimportant and is already of better quality than most. It's locked now anyway, so... What is needed I think when it is unlocked is a bit of trimming to remove the gossipy parts and stick to the facts. CorporateM (Talk) 18:26, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I reckon that'd be a pretty good starting point, yeah. The second parag in the lead needs rewriting as well as a priority I would say. Potential to use a sandbox to do this perhaps? Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:01, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

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. The Daily Illini (04/19/2013): Suburban Express lawsuits lead to controversy on social media
2. The Daily Illini (Editorial) (04/24/2013): Suburban Express mishandles student allegations
3. Paxton Record (04/25/2013): Bus company suing UI students for violating 'terms and conditions'
4. The Daily Illini (04/25/2013): Public addresses Illinois Student Senate regarding influx of student-aimed Suburban Express lawsuits
5. The Daily Illini (Opinion Column) (04/25/2013): Suburban Express causes its own problems
6. The Daily Illini (Letter to the Editor) (04/25/2013): UI should defend international students, disallow Suburban Express services
7. Ars Technica (04/26/2013): Express to Internet Hate: Bus company threatens redditor with lawsuit
8. The News Gazette (04/26/2013): Bus firm's lawsuits criticized
9. The Daily Illini (04/26/2013): Suburban Express lawsuits reach 125 this year; conversation continues on Reddit
10. BoingBoing (04/27/2013): Suburban Express bus-line sends bullying, cowardly legal threat to Reddit, discovers Streisand Effect
11. Popehat (04/28/2013): Suburban Express Took The First Bus To The Streisand Effect. Have They Disembarked In Time?
12. Techdirt (04/29/2013): Bus Company Threatens Redditor With Lawsuit, Meets Ken White, Runs Away
13. The Daily Dot (04/29/2013): Bus Company Threatens to Sue Redditor Over Bad Press
14. Paxton Record (04/29/2013): After backlash, bus firm pledges to dismiss all suits
15. The News Gazette (04/30/2013): Bus company promises to drop Ford lawsuits
16. Chicago Tribune (05/01/2013): Bus company's lawsuits anger students, parents
17. The News Gazette (05/01/2013): Bus lawsuits dismissed in Ford County
18. Paxton Record (05/01/2013): Suburban Express lawsuits dropped
19. The Daily Illini (05/01/2013): Suburban Express drops lawsuits and updates terms and conditions
20. WCIA 3 News (05/01/2013): Bus company drops civil suits against students
21. Ars Technica (05/02/2013): Nonstop to schadenfreude: Suburban Express’ u-turn on reddit lawsuit
22. The Daily Illini (05/02/2013): UIUC Subreddit hits front page, Streisand effect leads to increased attention for Suburban Express lawsuits
23. Kankakee Daily Journal (05/02/2013): Bus company drops lawsuits in Ford County against college student riders
24. The Daily Illini (Editorial) (05/02/2013): University administrators absent in Suburban Express incidences
25. Pieuvre.ca (05/02/2013): Le pouvoir des masses numériques, pour le meilleur et pour le pire
26. American Bar Association Journal (05/03/2013): Cheap bus ticket included a trip to small-claims court for unwary students
27. Slashdot (05/04/2013): Redditors (and Popehat) Versus a Bus Company
28. Ars Technica (05/13/2013): Troll road: Bus company posts “dirt” on complaining passenger
29. Techdirt (05/17/2013): Suburban Express Goes Double Or Nothing On Their Aggressive Behavior
30. Ars Technica (06/19/2013): Bus company that threatened redditor with lawsuit tries to reopen suits
31. Techdirt (06/24/2013): Suburban Express Wants Round 3: Re-Files Against Customers
32. Paxton Record (06/25/2013): Suburban Express wants to refile some of its cases
33. Ars Technica (06/25/2013): Bus co. owner threatens redditor yet again, records users’ IP addresses
34. The News Gazette (06/26/2013): Bus company wants to reinstate some lawsuits
35. Uproxx (06/26/2013): Meet Suburban Express, The Bus Line Fighting A War With Reddit Over Negative Comments
36. The Daily Illini (06/27/2013): Suburban Express lawsuits not gone for good
37. WCIA 3 News (06/27/2013): Bus co. owner may refile lawsuits
38. Popehat (07/29/2013): The Popehat Signal: Suburban Express Doubles Down On Attacks On Critics
39. Paxton Record (07/30/2013): Judge grants motion to allow Suburban Express cases to be refiled
40. News Gazette (07/30/2013): Judge allows bus company to refile some claims against passengers
41. WCIA 3 News (07/30/2013): Bus owner in court
42. Techdirt (07/31/2013): The Popehat Signal Goes Out Against Suburban Express

1. PDF's, apparently of the lawsuits being reinstated: Lawsuit PDF's— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.67.249.1 (talk) 04:43, 30 July 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)

Please note that Darkassin has a COI in that she was active in Reddit discussions about lawsuits, etc., consistently taking positions against Suburban Express. 108.119.159.153 (talk) 09:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm convinced that Darkassin DOES have a COI here. Simply holding a position does not constitute a COI, remember: "Beliefs and desires alone do not constitute a conflict of interest" (that's straight from the Wikipedia policy on COI.) As far as I can tell, Darkassin is not engaged in the legal matters (I am willing to be corrected if I am wrong; that WOULD constitute a COI in this case), and simply having stated a belief on a website such as Reddit does not, as far as I am aware, constitute a COI. Cam94509 (talk) 23:18, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry, she hasn't added anything lately.184.215.242.242 (talk) 09:56, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I have specifically stepped away from editing this article due to said potential COI, limiting my interaction to direct references to me as a user on the talk pages. I will note that my edit was very minor, largely limited to phrasing, and that I actually recommended a third-party reevaluation of the claim that the page violated neutral POV by being too favorable to the company. DarkAsSin (talk) 19:00, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

To the Editors From Suburban Express

(the previous heading of this section made no sense. this section does not contain communication from suburban express to wiki authors. it is just chit-chat among authors.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wildwestend (talk • contribs) 4:15 am, Today (UTC+2)

I have undone the change. The comment made sense as there were edits made by and that continue to be made by the company. The conversation on the talk page has made quite clear the company is most notable in independent media coverage for the controversies. Thus, the "balance" the company affiliated editors want is not supported by reliable sources. The comment 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) 4:26 am, Today (UTC+2)

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)

Refactoring

Hi. Whoever removed content and rewrote my words, please do not do so. Refactoring comments is not acceptable, no matter what position you hold. If the business involved here thinks they are being unjustly treated, you can get in touch with me as a journalist through the e-mail me feature. I write for ]Wikinews, which feeds out to Wikinews. Otherwise, remember that people really, really, really dislike their words being changed to make it appear like they said something they did not. --LauraHale (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Streisand Effect

I think the Streisand Effect is central to notability and should be mentioned in the article. It is explicitly mentioned in references 1, 2, 3, 4, 15, 19, 25, 26, and 27 listed in the Links related to Controversy section. I propose that the following sentence or some variant thereof be added to the article:

This incident has been called an example of the Streisand Effect by some, including Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing, Sean Gallagher of Ars Technica, and Ken White of Popehat.

The proposed sentence is not supported by the given sources; Gallagher never calls the incident an example of the Streisand effect but only cites White. Whether Doctorow does so is debatable; Doctorow's article only mentions the term in the headline without elaborating. Huon (talk) 01:13, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Huon, I hope this version is okay: "This incident has been called an example of the Streisand Effect by Ken White of Popehat." (with inline citations to the sources which have said this)

(I added the above with slight other variations of the text so that the sentence meshed properly with the surrounding text, and also corrected factual errors (the Reddit moderator was never sued, but the current version says he was sued and the lawsuit was withdrawn), but CorporateM has reverted my edit.) -- AlmostGrad (talk) 05:24, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm okay with that version: A third-party source reports White's use of the term. Huon (talk) 13:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Some of the comments in the current article are absolutely central to the story. The comment from a student about a racist bus driver is what started the whole thing and we definitely needed to spell out the Reddit comment ("and this") in order for readers to understand the sequence of events. I don't feel the same way about the lawyer calling it the Streisand effect. I don't feel this adds to the article or helps the reader understand the incident. There are also a lot of comments by the company owner in their defense that are verifiable, but we don't need to include everything that can be verified. Just the most important facts and the sequence of events. CorporateM (Talk) 00:54, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The latest Ars Technica story includes the Streisand effect in its summary of past events. I think the manner in which it is included suggests it is important enough to include. The article could still use a different headline for "2013 controversy" and expansion on the controversy in the lead. CorporateM (Talk) 12:45, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

FOIA Requests

On May 13th, the President of Suburban Express issued the University of Illinois a Freedom of Information Act request to seek information on the keywords "Suburban Express" as well as the students related to the 2013 controversy (Reddit moderator and student who stood up for the international student) as seen here:

http://www.foia.uillinois.edu/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=1298362

https://uofi.box.com/s/i11b7kiszsipen9jhwq1

Should this be added as it pertains to the 2013 controversy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Illini1234 (talk • contribs) 08:15, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The way it currently is, any mention of the same will be constituting WP:Synthesis, and is hence not allowed. Furthermore, this will be a primary source, making it highly unreliable. If any sources mention this request, then it might be considered for inclusion. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 08:19, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

As a heads up, I've changed the details which were added here. There are things which seem to be being linked to the company but where, for example, "alleged to have been" is used in the Ars Tech article. We'd struggle to justify those things I think - there simply isn't enough (yet) to show that they are so. The same is true over the reasons for the FOI request - someone saying that it's in order to "get" personal information in order to do something or other is, as in the article, opinion rather than fact. The fact is that an FOI request was filed in order to access communications. That's actually about all we can say if we're going to present it as fact. I think. And when we start to get into presenting more opinions we need to take care.

I'm not saying this is the right way to say this by the way. I'm sure it can be improved. But, although rumour, opinion and innuendo are the absolutely best thing, we really do need to stick to facts when it's a BLP issue. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:32, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Suburban Express guy has come to Reddit and admitted all the things that were reported as "alleged" in the article. AlmostGrad (talk) 18:23, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I read the link - I'm probably just being thick, but where does that happen in the png linked to? Mind you, that's by the by really - we need a reliable, third party source, especially as we're in clear BLP territory. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

In the second comment from the bottom. If the Ars technica article reports it, not sure why you are deciding it's not okay to write it here and are deciding it is a BLP violation. That way any negative press coverage about anyone would be a BLP violation. The author of the article has looked at the primary sources and decided to write that, it has gone through an editorial review process, and then if you decide it isn't good enough for you, it is synthesis/original research. AlmostGrad (talk) 20:40, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

The Ars Tech article says some very, very specific things - for example, using the words "alleged to have been" rather than saying it was whoever it was supposed to be. I suggest you read *exactly* what the article actually says and then what our article says and what was there previously.

With regard to the screenshots, I have no idea who the user in question is. Do you? For certain? Can we prove it? That's exactly why this is a pretty huge BLP issue. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:10, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Addition of old material by IP without discussion on talk page

Material which was deleted from the older, ad-like/promotional version of the article after discussion and consensus on the talk page has been added back by an IP. Please take note and fix this. Including your usernames so that you see this entry - CorporateM, Huon, TheOriginalSoni, Blue Square Thing, KevinCuddeback, NorthBySouthBaranof, LauraHale, Thucydides411, Orangemike.

Also, I'd like to point out the following:

1. The current reference #4 (The News-Gazette, 2003)[22], about British Airways' Concorde shutting down services is an irrelevant reference and has nothing to do with the subject of this article.
2. I am not sure if reference #5 (Russell's Guide September 1999 - GLI Schedule 397 removed from publication) is a proper reference - it is a bus guide which is not archived in libraries and old issues are not available readily, and also the manner in which it is used seems like original research to me - alleged removal of publication of a certain route is interpreted as the bus service having stopped.
3. Reference #6 is a self-published document on the company's own webpage making claims about ridership figures.

These have all been discussed earlier on this page and were taken into account in the development of latest version of the article before the IP reverted back parts of the article, I'm just reiterating these points again. -- AlmostGrad (talk) 20:37, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I've asked OrangeMike to change the article to semi-protected. I'm not sure how the page got unprotected so quickly after a history of astroturfing, but hopefully we can fix that.

I think the problem with this article is WP:ONEEVENT, however the manner we normally respond to ONEEVENT issues with BLPs is to delete the article, and I don't see an AfD being successful here, so I'm unsure if there's a better way to handle it. CorporateM (Talk) 21:38, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Deletion Discussion

I stated, "This is really a mess guys. It does not belong on wikipedi." For some reason a user named TheOriginalSoni deleted my comment. Why, specifically, does TheOriginalSoni feel it is appropriate to remove my contribution to the talk page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.89.223.115 (talk) 15:01, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't *know* of course, but it was possibly a mistake to delete both the section and the AfD note. Twinkle does have a habit of encouraging deletion of consecutive edits by the same user when it's employed - and Twinkle was used to edit in that case. Certainly the AfD notice needed to be removed; I would suggest the actual comment probably should not have been. But that's only my 2 euros. Blue Square Thing (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 26 June 2013

"subreddit" should be wiki-linked to Reddit since it's Reddit jargon and there's no prior link to Reddit. 99.8.184.43 (talk) 05:57, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done with this edit. Thank you. Begoon ^talk 07:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

New Threats to Reddit Moderator

Given that Suburban Express has once again threatened the Reddit Moderator (as seen here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/bus-co-owner-threatens-redditor-yet-again-records-users-ip-addresses/), should we add this to the Wiki? Here is some more information as well: http://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/1h25xd/more_legal_threats_from_suburban_express_letter/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Illini1234 (talk • contribs) 15:59, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Corporate HQ

Where is the corporate HQ

• http://www.ilsos.gov/corporatellc/CorporateLlcController
  • The fields Entity Type File Number Corporation/LLC Name -> CORP OLD 56962972 SUBURBAN EXPRESS, LTD. -- Lead to Agent Patrick T. Fitzgerald, 306 W CHURCH ST, CHAMPAIGN, 61820 and President DENNIS E TOEPPEN 313 E GREEN ST CHAMPAIGN 61820 with secretary address being same
• But http://www.suburbanexpress.com/ - http://www.webcitation.org/6IAseYoIM - says "PO Box 4048 Lisle, IL 60532"

So which is it? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 07:57, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The address: 313 E Green St. no longer exists. The actual building was destroyed over a year ago. This address is false. Illini1234 (talk) 03:42, 23 July 2013 (UTC)Illini1234

An important clue can be found above, "OLD". When I look them up on the ILSOS corp/llc search, the name is Suburban Express INC not LTD. 99.67.249.1 (talk) 15:14, 28 July 2013 (UTC)99.67.249.1 (talk) 04:45, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't have an answer for the HQ location, but based on this information perhaps the lead sentence should be changed to Suburban Express Inc. HtownCat (talk) 19:34, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Addition of material by a user without discussion on the talk page

User:Verdict78 has added material to this semi-protected article without discussion on the talk page. The version before their edits was arrived at by consensus reached on this talk page. They have used non-reliable sources, like a page on the company's own website (reference #9, "Lex Safety"). Please revert their edits. Attn. CorporateM, Orangemike, Illini1234, WhisperToMe, Gulugawa. AlmostGrad (talk) 05:43, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

History Section

I'm attempting to improve the history section. I've just added some information regarding the companies rivalry with Lincolnland Express that was covered in the Daily Illini. Verdict78 (talk) 14:03, 15 August 2013 (UTC)