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The Rio Grande 223 article has had several extensive edits with unsourced claims and marginally related tangents via User:DTParker1000 over the last few months. This included using an outdated restoration report by John Bush implying the locomotive's current restoration status in a August 2023 revision [1], an extensive off topic tangent written in a non-encyclopedic tone of voice about the history of the Rio Grande added in January 2024 along with an unsourced claim about the styles of restoration Ogden City is considering for the locomotive [2].

This article requires protected status to prevent future edits from veering off topic and into speculation about the locomotive's potential restoration. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 23:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Xboxtravis7992: You need to make this request at WP:RFPP. Fork99 (talk) 00:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I will look there and at some other templates to see if I can find how to best resolve the issue. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 03:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further information, I have begun digging through past articles and I found this example Rio Grande 268 which does not confirm to quality standard guidelines. It seems much of the text here was the source of self-plagiarized fluff words that the author copied into the Rio Grande 223 article as well as D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle. I am trying to clean up the older articles to the best of my ability, but Rio Grande 268 requires clean up from the foundation up due to it's quality issues. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with Xboxtravis7992 in his characterization of my recent posts on Wikipedia articles "Rio Grande 223," "D&RG Narrow Gauge Trestle" and "Rio Grande 268."

His charges against me are baseless and are nonsense.

Below is a recent exchange between the two of us. Judge for yourself which one of us makes more sense.

He sent me the three messages below:

February 2024[edit]

Please do not introduce incorrect information into articles, as you did to Rio Grande 223. Your edits do not appear to be constructive and have been reverted. If you believe the information you added was correct, please cite references or sources or discuss the changes on the article's talk page before making them again. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.

Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 03:33, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop. If you continue to vandalize pages by deliberately introducing incorrect information, as you did at D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle, you may be blocked from editing. Text self-plagiarized from text in Rio Grande 223 article with arbitrary tangent about railroad's general history

--Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at Rio Grande 268. Same self-plagiarized text of fluff words from Rio Grande 223 and D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle articles previously mentioned

--Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:08, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This was my response to him:

You accuse me of "deliberately introducing incorrect information" and "vandalizing" Wikipedia. That charge is complete nonsense.

You state that if I believe the information I added was correct I should "cite references or sources." Yet, that is precisely what I did. I included citations for every single paragraph that I wrote.

You apparently think that my sources are incorrect, but you offer nothing to refute them.

Instead of offering ANYTHING to contradict ANY of the 11 sources I cited, you simply deleted the entire seven paragraphs that I wrote on the "Rio Grande 223" article (and you made the same sweeping deletion on the D&RG Narrow Gauge Trestle article).

Your actions are completely unreasonable and without any scholarly basis. DTParker1000 (talk) 04:36, 17

He then sent me this:

February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removed paragraphs were self-plagiarism of text in Rio Grande 268 article, with noticeable errors in citation quality, generalization, broad claims and weasel words. In addition removed images in the Rio Grande 223 article included copyrighted Otto Perry photos owned by the Denver Public Library collection, and further copyrighted material has been noted as having been uploaded from the Otto Perry collection to other pages. For further discussion please discuss with fellow WikiProject Trains editors at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains under the Administrator Request: Protected Status for Rio Grande 223 tab. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 04:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This was my response:

Your removed my text because of "self-plagiarism?" There is no such thing as "self-plagiarism." I'll buy you a dictionary if you like. Plagiarism is taking and using the work of another and passing it off as one's own.

In other words, you are removing my text because I failed to give credit to myself for writing it.

Sheesh. What nonsense.

You accuse me of making "noticeable errors in citation quality, generalization, broad claims and weasel words." Yet, you offer no examples whatsoever.

Speaking of broad claims and generalizations...

I, on the other hand, provided citations for everything I wrote. Perhaps you could learn from that.

Now, you go on to start deleting pictures I provided claiming copyright infringement. If the photo is old enough, it CAN'T be copyrighted. Just because it is posted someplace and with the word "copyright" attached to it doesn't make it valid. This is made clear on the Wikimedia Commons pages. DTParker1000 (talk) 05:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

If anyone should be blocked from changing these articles it is Xboxtravis7992, not me.

I will be happy to discuss this further if needed. Please advise me if I should be doing so in some other forum. Thanks so much for your attention to this matter. I appreciate it. DTParker1000 (talk) 05:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks but please be aware that most people are not going to read a wall of text. There is no reason to copy/paste comments from somewhere else to here. It would be much better to focus on one issue and explain why your edits were justified. That would allow others to give opinions on that one proposed edit. After that, another issue could be considered, etc. Johnuniq (talk) 05:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To give a clearer view of why I stated those as issues and to clarify my actions:

Self plagiarism:

Duplicate publication

When recycling your own work can get you into trouble

US Copyright date information:

Public domain in the United States

Information Library of Congress

Otto Perry was roughly 35 years old at the time of current US Copyright expiration for works prior to 1929. His photos from then until his death in 1970, including the majority of his photographs of the Rio Grande narrow gauge photos in the 1940's fall under copyright protection. Without a rights release from the right holders of Perry's work (be that his living estate or the Denver Public Library archives) we can assume that even as "old photos" they are still under Copyright protection unless Otto Perry failed to extend copyright protection prior to 1989 when the laws changed to their current 95 year term length. Wikipedia has operated under the assumption Otto Perry photographs are under copyright in the past as seen in this template. I have noted similar usages of photos from the Friends of the Cumbres and Toltec archives and the Colorado Railroad Museum archives uploaded and used by this user which flirt with copyright expiration risks.

Broad Claims and Citation Errors

To use some sample text from the Rio Grande 268 article to highlight my concerns:

1. "Engine 268 was part of this order, the largest order of narrow-gauge engines ever made." The Baldwin 10-12-D orders from France for use in World War 1 outpace the orders from the D&RG by a wide margin. Without further research claiming "the largest order ever" is to broad of a scope without further research.
2. "Now farming became profitable. Now ranching became profitable. Now mining became profitable." While the railroad was certainly successful in opening the economy of the west, this argument is again to broad to constrain to the history of specific engines. Furthermore the existence of the Union Pacific, Central Pacific, Denver South Park & Pacific, Utah Northern, Santa Fe, and other railroads within the market served by the Rio Grande make the claim that the Rio Grande itself played a critical role in opening the region too broad to claim. The repetition of statements doesn't follow encyclopedic writing style and are an example of weasel text.
3. "In the 1880s, the Denver & Rio Grande was expanding rapidly. It was hastily constructing a main line to Ogden, Utah." The Denver & Rio Grande terminated in Grand Junction, Colorado and the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway continued construction westward as a separate company based in the Utah Territory. After William Palmer was expulsed from the D&RG, he retained control over the Utah based D&RGW.Ry transforming it into the Rio Grande Western a standard gauge line that met the Colorado Midland in Grand Junction. The two companies would not be a unified D&RG again until the 1900's at which point the only remaining Rio Grande owned narrow gauge in Utah would have been the Little Cottonwood Canyon line. Stating the D&RG was building to Ogden, although it and the D&RGW.Ry briefly shared the same corporate roots, lacked specificity as to the accurate history of the Rio Grande's expansion westward.
4. "The railroad dramatically transformed Utah and Colorado." Again too broad of a statement. This can just as easily be applied to the Central Pacific, Union Pacific or Kansas Pacific Railroad. It has little bearing on the history of the locomotive itself.
5. "There are well over a thousand steam engines still in existence in the United States (on display in parks, museums and in operation).The vast majority of these were built in the 20th century." Weasel text that is irrelevant to the subject of the article. There are over millions of people in the United States, however when writing an article on a pop cultural figure we wouldn't start off by pointing out how many other people live here; what bearing does this statistic have on the actual locomotive's history? Why does it matter that 268 is a 19th Century engine instead of a 20th Century one beyond sentimentality? Why was the same text used for two other engines that the Rio Grande classified as the same class, especially considering their grouping together as a class is a result of later power schemes on the Rio Grande and as built a Grant 2-8-0 such as 223 would be considered a different machine than the Baldwin 2-8-0's such as 264? It is comparable to saying a 1960's Mustang and a 1960's Camaro are the same car just because they both have V-8 Engines and are "mid-century Muscle Cars."

Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 06:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I know I am digging up this dead horse again, but looking at the changes to Rio Grande 268 and I don't feel like the added citations fix the core issues. A few of my concerns (from the latest February 20th revision):

1. At least two citations (#15 and #33) are to Wikipedia itself and not first or third party sources.
2. Citation #22 is to User:DTParker1000's own post on another website.
3. Multiple citations rely on the same author, Jerry Day's articles in The Prospector, which make me concerned that even when accurate third party sources are being used they are extremely limited to one perspective.
4. The citations notably from Robert Athearn, Lucius Beebe & Charles Clegg, and Gilbert Lathrop don't allay my complaints of weasel words and fluff text since that might as well be the holy trinity of railroad fluff text in my personal opinion (not to mention the many complaints elsewhere regarding Beebe & Clegg's sloppy research suggesting they make poor sources to use in general). Regardless, the tone of Athearn, Beebe & Clegg and Lathrop while often making for a good story fail to imitate the encyclopedic voice of Wikipedia and support the fluff text used in the article.

Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 15:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Xboxtravis7992 is wrong. My response to his accusations is below:

1. I have no idea what he is talking about on his "Item #1." The citations he lists are not to "Wikipedia itself" as he claims.

Citation #15 was to the book "A Ticket to Ride the Narrow Gauge," by Herbert Danneman.

Citation #33 was to the book "High Road to Promontory," by George Kraus.

The section I submitted on the engine's historic significance was only 7 paragraphs long, yet it had 42 citations! Every one of them was to a book or a published article. None of them were to "Wikipedia itself" as xboxtravis7992 maintains.

2. Citation #22 was to the book "Rebel in the Rockies," by Robert G. Athearn. I presume what xboxtravis7992 is referring to is actually Citation #34, which was to an article I wrote entitled "The Significance of the Railroad," in the Ridgway Railroad Museum Newsletter. Just because I wrote the article doesn't mean that it is not factual, as xboxtravis7992 implies. This citation, by the way, was only one of three citations for the sentence in question. The other two were Athearns' book mentioned above, and Kraus's book, also mentioned above.

By the way, the sentence in question simply stated that railroad freight rates were lower than the cost of transport by wagon or on the back of a mule. This fact is so obvious as to belie the need for ANY citations. But regardless, instead of attempting to dispute the fact, xboxtravis7992 attacks the source.

3. Jerry B. Day is the highly respected author of three different articles on C-16 engines (D&RG 223 is a C-16 engine). I read recently that he is now in the process of writing a book on the subject. Again, xboxtravis7992 does not dispute the text, he simply attempts to attack the source.

4. Speaking of "fluff"... This is another example of xboxtravis7992 offering no refutation of the facts in the text, but merely making ad hominem attacks on the authors - in this case four of them. Sheesh.

When I was in school, we were taught that in a debate, it is fair to attack the opponent's facts or logic, but not to make personal attacks.

I stand by my text and citations. Xboxtravis7992, for reasons best known to himself, is displaying a pattern of finding any imaginable excuse to reduce or eliminate the section in this article on the historical significance of D&RG 223. This is the THIRD time he has done this.

The first time he did this, he disputed a couple of facts, and claimed that the historical significance section was inadequately sourced (even though it had sources cited for every single paragraph). Using this pretext, he then ELIMINATED the entire section.

I resubmitted it, and modified some of the text and doubled the number of sources.

Then, he ELIMINATED the entire section again, claiming it was "extraneous." He replaced the section on the historical significance of the engine with a section going into exceedingly meticulous detail on the mechanical history of the engine and its movements. Speaking of "extraneous" information... He included nothing on its historical significance.

I strongly disagree with the editorial philosophy displayed by xboxtravis7992. If we were to apply his definition of "extraneous," then the Wikipedia article on the Cotton Gin should be limited to the mechanical history of the relic, and not include a section on its historical significance.

Similarly, if we apply the editorial philosophy of xboxtravis7992, then the Wikipedia article on the Titanic should only be history of the ship itself, and not include information on its historical significance.

He wants the article on D&RG 223 to go on for page after page on the mechanical aspects and movements of the engine, but can't stomach 7 short paragraphs on the engine's historical significance?

And, then he accuses ME of being "unencyclopedic?" Sheesh.

This is nonsense.

Now, he accuses my section on the historical significance of D&RG 223 as being "fluff" and he attacks my citations. This is also nonsense. He is simply finding any excuse he can to eviscerate the section on the engine's historical significance.

As xboxtravis7992 himself admits, he is "digging up this dead horse" again. Yes, he is. And, he is wrong to do so.

I disagree with his editorial policy. I have cited multiple sources, and they are written by respected authors. Xboxtravis7992 doesn't even bother to challenge the accuracy of the text. He just accuses it of being "fluff." I strongly disagree with this accusation, and would appreciate it if a panel of other Wikipedia editors could review this series of malicious edits by xboxtravis7992 and put a stop to it.

Thank you. DTParker1000 (talk) 05:28, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Xboxtravis7992 @DTParker1000: No one is going to read this huge mountain of text, as was already pointed out above. Just be straight forward about the dispute.

This is probably the wrong venue to complain about a significant content dispute, I would suggest you go to WP:Dispute resolution first and carefully read the instructions for either asking for a third opinion, mediation, OR if urgent and blatant policy violations/editor conduct are in question, then go to WP:ANI (Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents) directly.

If this goes to ANI, please read the instructions there before making a editor conduct complaint against another editor. I would also suggest reading a few closed/settled archived discussions to see how ANI discussions usually work.

Also, note that WP:Assume good faith is one of Wikipedia's guidelines in regards to editor conduct. Fork99 (talk) 07:59, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I will consider moving it to Dispute Resolution. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 13:39, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has still be going on and off, and I admit escalating it here in hindsight was probably no the best way to handle my concerns with the DRGW 223 article.

However, I am wondering if any neutral members of WikiProjectTrains would be willing to join in on Talk:Rio Grande 223. I have ideas on an approach to the article, but I feel like neutral voices will be needed from outside observers to help find consensus. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 18:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are missing pages in the Keikyu retired rolling stock. These missing pages being the Keikyu 230, 400, and 500 Series. I also have concerns that the Keikyu website and the Keikyū Main Line websites aren't merged, since they are very similar. ThisUsernameThatIsNowTaken (talk) 16:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Keikyu article covers the company, and the Keikyu Main Line article covers the railway line. They should not be merged.

Not to mention that if you want an article created, be bold and start it yourself. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 18:24, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Iarnród Éireann#Requested move 16 March 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. JuniperChill (talk) 11:48, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pages East Broad Top Railroad Mikado locomotives, East Broad Top 12 and East Broad Top 16 all carry significant WP:OVERLAP in their subjects. Would it make sense to merge the two individual locomotive articles into the larger article on the 6 EBT Mikados? I don't know if there is enough unique in the 12 and 16 articles to justify such overlap between pages. Xboxtravis7992 (talk) 16:24, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just disambiguated a few links to dab Seongnam station. On any other topic, this would have been a simple matter of replacing the links by piped links to Seongnam station (Incheon), taking a minute or two with DisamAssist or ten minutes manually. However, railway stations have to be special and different. They use arcane templates such as ((stn)) and ((Adjacent stations)), which require the editor to unravel a complex web of templates and modules before they can attempt any sort of fix or improvement. Despite my longstanding interest in railways and many years' experience of disambiguation, templates and modules, I spent well over an hour disentangling these links and am still not sure I got everything right. I could have spent that time much more profitably fixing a hundred legible and transparent wikilinks on any non-rail topic. Although I am sure that everyone involved has acted in good faith, the casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that the system was designed to make the articles as difficult as possible for anyone other than their owners to edit. I have never dared to replace the templates by legible links deliberately, and when I once did so accidentally (using a now-defunct tool which didn't show diffs clearly) the changes met with a hostile reception. I know you will never change your ways, but I do want you to understand that this project is unique in making its articles so inaccessible, and causes major problems to generalist editors, most of whom will just give up. Certes (talk) 11:21, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll just say for my part that I still have User:Certes/Reports/Ambiguous rail links watchlisted and that I check it every morning, though apparently a few hours after you do. Mackensen (talk) 11:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. regarding Great Train eXpress, I need some expert opinion on whether this is now considered as part of the Seoul subway system or not. This article is confusing, as it says the operator will be Seoul Metro which runs the traditional metro lines in Seoul and that GTX-A runs entirely in tunnel. So it is subway or not. Should it be featured in Seoul Metropolitan Subway article, or not? Thanks a lot. Xia ^{talk to me} 14:37, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]