Talk:16–25 Railcard/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Ironholds (talk) 06:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'll go through section-by-section, pointing out (initial) problems which need to be fixed before this can go ahead. Mostly it's referencing.

History

• "In the 1960s and 1970s, many new universities were opened in Britain, while car ownership was relatively low, especially among young people. Furthermore, internal flights were not as cheap or prevalent as they are now. Most students either hitched or took a long distance coach. The National Union of Students had a very large travel company at the time with charter flights all over the world. They wanted to expand their operations domestically and so went to various regional sales managers of British Railways to develop special fares for holders of NUS cards. These were usually an allocated number of seats on specified weekend trains but they were very successful and Paul Connellan, who was the Travel Company General Manager, went to the British Railways Board with a proposal to allow a general discount based on the NUS card. The railways management, led by Alan Chamberlain, were reluctant to offer a discount based just on such cards particularly as some colleges and universities were not members of the NUS. A compromise was agreed where a special card would be sold but only through student travel offices." - unreferenced.
• "it was valid until a specific date—30 June 1974—rather than for a specific length of time. Only second class tickets could be bought, and all types of ticket were subject to a minimum fare below which no further discount would be given. The maximum discount was 50%. A booklet containing ten "Student Travel Request Forms" was supplied with the card; one had to be filled in and presented at the ticket office when booking a ticket." - unreferenced.
• "Online booking of Railcards has also been made available since then, which includes the option of a three-year railcard for £65." - unreferenced, and external links within prose are bad.

Ticket types and discounts

• "As of 2 January 2008, for people using public transport in London, the discount can be loaded on to an Oyster Card at any London Underground ticket office, providing the 34% discount off the cost of a One Day Travelcard and the Oyster automatic daily cap. From 2010 discounted paper tickets have been suspended in the Transport for London zoned area[citation needed]. An Oyster card loaded with the railcard can be used to obtain 34% reduction on Off Peak single National Rail fares in the area or the Off Peak Cap rate." - unreferenced.

Remainder

"Price and minimum fare" and "Tickets issued with a Railcard" are completely unreferenced (and, again, contain inline external links)

• "RBS operate the sames initiative, also offering 16-25 railcards to existing customers after being contacted by UCAS.

The bank Railcards are used in the same way as standard, paid-for Railcards: the same range of tickets is available at the same discounts, and subject to the same terms and conditions." = unreferenced.

• The little templated railcard thing at the bottom needs to go actually at the bottom (below references et al).

• I'll be able to give a more specific review of prose and the like when this lot fixed, but until then it certainly can't pass GAN. Thanks, Ironholds (talk) 06:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, I've alerted the article writer User:Hassocks5489 . It may be a few days though as it is Christmas!♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:31, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay; can I ask why you nominated it if you weren't involved in the writing? Ironholds (talk) 12:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I nominate some of his articles every now and then. St Margaret's Church, Ifield for instance.. Usually though I nominate articles which require very little work to promote them..♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:25, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, in the future, could you try to stick to that rule? This article really isn't appropriate as a GAN. Ironholds (talk) 13:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your review so far Ironholds. I have spent some time today seeking online sources for a number of unsourced statements which have crept in since I last looked at this article, some considerable time ago. Unfortunately, I have been completely unsuccessful so far. Having taken a close interest in this super-niche field of interest for more than 20 years, I can say that Railcard-related news will appear, if anywhere, in one or more of three places: the Newsrail Express, a rail industry "latest news" publication; railway magazines (for large changes/news stories); and the National Rail News section of the monthly Transport Ticket Society Journal. As regards the latter, I have written this column myself since 2002, and checking the annual Indexes confirms my thought that Railcard-related news has been thin on the ground in that time. I can get access to back issues of the main railway magazines and Newsrail Express, but not for at least a month (realistically, probably longer than that). So unfortunately, without online sources to tide me over until I can seek out published stuff, I will struggle to provide suitable references for the above and for other parts I have identified where the referencing is substandard or the URL is no longer accurate. A disappointing outcome, as I had hoped that the article might just be in need of a bit of a tidy-up and a few reference tweaks, but never mind. Hopefully in 2011 I may be able to get access to some relevant material, overhaul the article (I can see there are a few prose issues as well) and present it again-although as you say, such a niche-interest topic is difficult to align to Good Article criteria. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 20:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I should add that the same applies to Senior Railcard, which has also been nominated and for which I have also failed to turn up any more sources beyond those already used in the article. Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 21:29, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, its probably best to withdraw both the articles then. Sorry about that.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:44, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay; I'll quickfail both based on this discussion. In the future, however, I encourage all parties to nominate (appropriate) articles at GAN, and feel free to leave me a talkpage message directly asking for a review - that's probably faster than waiting around. Regards, Ironholds (talk) 01:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, regards.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:12, 27 December 2010 (UTC)