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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 13.112.65.233 (talk) at 15:59, 23 February 2017 (→‎Inadequate lead: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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GM article

There is an table showing the number of vehicles sold in each of several countries with the US first and China second. But I think there should also be a table showing the number of vehicles manufactured in each country and the countries should be ranked. This might also be done by brand (Buick, Chevy, GMC, and Cadillac) for each country.

HRL laboratories

Why is there no mention that GM owns hrl laboratories?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.19.248.47 (talk) 00:55, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Buick picture in the Bankruptcy section

Data Aficionado, does it really make sense to include the Buick in the bankruptcy section? It seems like a bit of OR or material that isn't really encyclopedic. Basically it just seems odd to me to cite that car while the bankruptcy paragraphs say nothing about the post bankruptcy product. Is this really the best way to incorporate such information? Springee (talk) 04:36, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there Springee - please see below:

a) Not OR, since the post Chapter 11 revival of Buick and other GM products has been covered and mentioned extensively in the automotive press. The LaCrosse and Enclave are often given as examples when GM's revival is mentioned.

b) My thinking is that the photo of a car ties the history of GM back to the product. GM is a car company and it's history defined by its cars.

Data Aficionado (talk) 01:30, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Data Aficionado, I guess OR might be a bit strong but the way the article's comments are being used vs the figure and it's caption seems weak to me. I understand that a number of GM car reviews shortly after the company was restructured talked about the strong product in the pipeline. It just seems like the picture and caption here are not well integrated with the section text. I also kind of get what you mean with B but I don't think that the picture and text succeed in what you are trying to do. Basically I can't think of any policy or guideline issue with your addition but I feel like it, editorially speaking, just kind of hangs there. Is there a citation we could add to the main text that would better integrate the picture and the article text? It also could be used as a stronger citation for the caption perhaps. Springee (talk) 03:16, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Scope of article, GM starting in 1908 or GM starting in 2009?

@Stockst:, I saw your recent redirects in this article. Am I correct in thinking you would like this article to be about post 2009 GM Company only? I think we should keep this article about GM the organization rather than just the post 2009 legal entity. From most points of view GM is still GM. Yes, legally the company is new but as an operating organization (the buildings, the products, the people etc) it's still the same company. I don't think someone looking for say information about the parent company of the Corvette would expect to find it under MLC. I would suggest that search terms like General Motors, General Motors Corporation and General Motors Company all point to this article. If I'm confusing your intent I apologize and please let me know. Springee (talk) 01:56, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your message Springee. This article (General Motors) is problematic due its many ambiguous and incorrect statements. The first sentence of the article suggests that the article is about General Motors Company, but there is a lot of article content relating to the corporation (General Motors Corporation, now Motors Liquidation Company) which existed pre-2009.
If people want to know about the company that existed prior to 2009, it shouldn't be that difficult for them to click on the link to the Motors Liquidation Company article which is in the hatnote at the top of the article.
You used Corvette as an example, but I'm not sure how this is relevant? Corvette is a car model made by Chevrolet, and there are separate articles for both Corvette and Chevrolet. Stockst (talk) 11:44, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You also said that "as an operating organization (the buildings, the products, the people etc) it's still the same company", which isn't really true. As part of General Motors Corporation's bankruptcy, it sold brands Hummer, Saturn and Saab. It also ended the Pontiac brand.
Furthermore, General Motors Company funded itself with far less debt than General Motors Corporation. This is all on top of the fact that General Motors Company is a different company to General Motors Corporation. Stockst (talk) 18:20, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think most readers who want to know about say the Ralph Nader controversy would search for "Liquidation Motors Company". Your concern regarding the article stating it is about GM Company and also covering GM Corporation is correct. I think a better way to solve this would be to simply change the lead to indicate that General Motors refers to both. I would reserve the LMC article for only material specific to the bankruptcy. If nothing else we would use the common name for the company that was only in it's last few years legally known as LMC. Anyway, I would suggest getting some other opinions before making a large scale change. Springee (talk) 01:38, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with allowing the General Motors article to cover General Motors Corporation (in addition to General Motors Company) is that you then have two articles covering the same topic - because Motors Liquidation Company is already an article about the entity formerly known as General Motors Corporation. Stockst (talk) 08:58, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Ralph Nader, readers would be better served by looking at the articles Ralph Nader or Unsafe at Any Speed. I don't see how the bankruptcy of General Motors Corporation changes this. Stockst (talk) 09:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's easy enough to deal with. We make the scope of this article 'GM' from 1908 to current. We make the scope of LMC just the bankruptcy related material. With the change you are proposing how would you handle the references to GM in say articles about the Corvette and Lumina? Would you say the former was developed by LMC and currently sold by GM company? The Lumina article would say it was made by the Chevrolet division of LMC? Wikipedia says we should use common name when possible. In this case we should use put both companies, as they are a single continuous operation under one name. I think you are going for a complex solution to a minor problem. Given the importance of this article to the Automotive project this is a change that would need buy in from others. Springee (talk) 12:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Looking in the talk page archives it appears that previous editors basically addressed this topic. A RfC was conducted asking about merging the GM Company article into the GM Corporate article. The response was unanamous for merging "old" and "new" GM articles. [[1]] Springee (talk) 18:53, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're misrepresenting the nature of that merge discussion. It was a discussion about merging an article called General Motors Company LLC into General Motors. Stockst (talk) 19:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This article, which is currently about "GM Company" dates back to 2004 and at the time of the RfC was clearly about GM Corp. At the time a new article about GM Company had been created. The unanimous consensus was the corp and company articles should be merged. What you are proposing is to undo that merge. That would require significant discussion and buy in to revert the earlier decision. Springee (talk) 00:00, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Springee, you stated "What you are proposing is to undo that merge." I don't recall ever making such a proposal. Could you please elaborate on this? Stockst (talk) 00:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Stockst: you seem fixated that the MLC article and the GM article should strictly reflect their respective legal entities, and the result is a mess. I'd argue that the vast majority of readers would expect an article titled General Motors to talk about a car manufacturer, regardless of the legal handover between old and new GM – while they would expect Motors Liquidation Company to talk about a company liquidator that deals with bankruptcy issues. The MLC article after your today's edits is utterly confusing; I've reverted it per WP:BRD; such a wide-ranging rewriting and re-scoping needs a solid consensus before proceeding. --Deeday-UK (talk) 00:05, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deeday-UK, you stated that "The MLC article after your today's edits is utterly confusing". In what way is it confusing? If anything, I think I've reduced/removed confusion by explaining the company's history. As just one example, in its current state (after your reversion), the opening sentence states "Motors Liquidation Company (formerly General Motors Corporation) was the company left to settle past liability claims from Chapter 11 reorganization of American car manufacturer General Motors". In that sentence, "General Motors" refers to General Motors Corporation. However, the article currently links to General Motors, which suggests incorrectly that General Motors Company went bankrupt in 2009. Furthermore, the clause "Motors Liquidation Company (formerly General Motors Corporation) was the company left to settle past liability claims from Chapter 11 reorganization of" implies that Motors Liquidation Company is a different company to "General Motors" when in fact Motors Liquidation Company and General Motors Corporation are the same company.
I also disagree with your assertion that I have "rewritten" and "re-scoped" the article. All I did was provide additional information about the subject. I kept nearly all of the previous content. I could understand your word choice if I had deleted substantial content, or if I had written about a topic other than Motors Liquidation Company, but that is obviously not the case. Could you explain why you've used the labels "rewritten" and "rescoped" when all I've done is added additional content? Stockst (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Stockst, by all means add all those corrections and clarifications to the MLC article, but please don't make it look like an article about a car manufacturer. MLC was conceived to manage the bankruptcy process, not to build cars – even if legally is the same entity founded in 1908. Example of possible opening line that addresses your points: When American car manufacturer General Motors went bankrupt in 2009, a decision was made to change its name from General Motors Corporation to Motors Liquidation Company, with a view of settling all liability claims and sell most of the assets to a "new GM", called General Motors Company. - or something like that. --Deeday-UK (talk) 01:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, why not merge Motors Liquidation Company into General Motors Chapter 11 reorganization? That would avoid all this confusion and duplication. --Deeday-UK (talk) 02:02, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In 2009 editors decided that all three legal companies known commonly as General Motors would be covered in a common article. They didn't think it was a good idea to create a new GM Company article and keep this article (this one being GM Corp at the time). What you are doing is taking the LMC article and expanding it to cover the full history of the old GM Corp. So the LMC article is where we might find that Roger Smith created Saturn. By adding all that material, basically the GM history material you recently added to the LMC article, you are making it redundant here and presumably would remove it in the future. At that point we would have two GM articles, the LMC covering 100 years and the current 2009 and onward article. That is an effective reversal of the article merger. I agree with Deeday-UK, w can fix much of what is wrong without such a radical change. Springee (talk) 12:06, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Springee, I've opened a discussion for a merger that would solve the issue of duplication between the MLC and GM articles. Feel free to comment there. Deeday-UK (talk) 13:08, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing

The article has 21 (twenty-one) dead links in citations.

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13.112.65.233 (talk) 19:53, 9 February 2017 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]

Perhaps our randomly concerned IP editor could try fixing the old links rather than simply dumping tags into the article. Springee (talk) 21:53, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Inadequate lead

The lead inadequately summarizes the article.

The lead should identify the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight...The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents...The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic...Like in the body of the article itself, the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources. - WP:LEAD

According to the policy on due weight, emphasis given to material should reflect its relative importance to the subject, according to published reliable sources. This is true for both the lead and the body of the article. If there is a difference in emphasis between the two, editors should seek to resolve the discrepancy. - MS:INTRO

Currently the article is 119,268 bytes long. Most of the article is not summarized in the lead. The following sections and subsections are not summarized in the lead: 

3 Corporate governance
    3.1 Financial results
5 Motorsports
6 Research and development
7 Small car sales
8 Environmental initiatives
    8.1 Hybrid electric vehicles
    8.2 All-electric vehicles
    8.3 Battery packs for electric vehicles
    8.4 Hydrogen initiative
    8.5 Flexible-fuel vehicles
9 Philanthropy
    10.1 Discontinued brands
    10.2 Former subsidiaries
    10.3 Current affiliates
    10.4 Former affiliates
    10.5 Spin-offs
11 Controversies
    11.1 Ralph Nader and the Corvair
    11.2 Defective ignition system investigation

The lead summarizes all of the article. If a section is sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion in the body then a summary in the lead is due. 13.112.65.233 (talk) 15:59, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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