Talk:Light rail

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Light rail was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

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Date	Process	Result
April 25, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed

Trains: Rapid transit B‑class High‑importance

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Proposed merge with Fast tram

No distinguishing term - fast trams almost always share the characteristics of light rail transit. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 14:12, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Merge here to light rail, but NOT to light railway, which is still a distinct concept. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:42, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Decided to be bold and do it. The term is not used in English, the article had no sources, and the talk page of the article already had a previous merge discussion that had consensus for a merge some time ago. I'm also removing the other tag here, as it's clearly a snow oppose. oknazevad (talk) 15:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Not hyphenating the compound modifier "light[-]rail" (something), just because "we don't do that"?

Hey, guys, someone is trying to have me believe that there's a supposed "rule" here at the 'Pedia that says that "we don't" hyphenate compound modifiers just because the writers of source material are too punctuationally inept to realize that they should be doing it. But I can't find this supposed "rule," and ask that he or she points it out to me. If there is no actual rule (read: written in any kind of official WP document), then I propose that we restore the proper hyphenations that had already been made to this article, per MOS:HYPHEN RULE 3, since that for sure is part of the Wikipedia rule book. Is that not obvious? We don't have to write something a certain way just because too many source writers aren't educated enough to do so, do we? There's a difference between accepting information from supposedly reliable sources and accepting their grammatical/punctuation flaws, is there not?

The idea of light rail in general and light-rail equipment specifically (See what I did there?) is that the equipment itself isn't light, and neither are many miles of railing in the system, but that the slower speeds and the higher number of stops than heavy-rail service has makes it a light service. So for example: Is a "light rail car" a car on light rails or a light car on rails? NEITHER! It is a light-rail car because it's a car on the light-rail (one word, one modifier, with the hyphen) system! So can you editors make enough sense of that to agree that we should restore the correct edits that convert "light rail __________" into "light-rail ____________" because in those cases "light-rail" is certainly a compound-word modifier of "system," "vehicle," "car," or "service," etc.?

Thanks if so. And for now I'm 97.117.19.208 (talk) 19:12, 25 August 2017 (UTC), but my IP address is very dynamic, so this could change at any time.[reply]

Like a number of other editors a message was left on my talk page by Special:Contributions 97.117.19.208

History of the article:

03:09, 19 August 2017‎ 97.117.37.212(60,791 bytes) (0)‎ . .
11:49, 19 August 2017‎ Oknazevad (60,677 bytes) (-114)‎ . . (Revert incorrect changes. "Light rail" is not hyphenated in any usage.)
10:12, 22 August 2017‎ 174.23.98.59 (60,791 bytes) (+114)‎ . . (Haha, no no no. You don't understand that hyphens are often used to form compound modifiers. For example, from MOS:HYPHEN 3: "a hyphen can help to disambiguate (little-celebrated paintings is not a reference to little paintings)." Rst other edits too.)
14:02, 22 August 2017‎ Oknazevad (60,677 bytes) (-114)‎ . . (Undid revision 796663792 by 174.23.98.59 (talk) If sources don't use it that way, we don't either, even if it's non-standard. Not one source uses the hyphen.)

It seem that an IP editor has used a number of IP addresses (97.117.37.212 cntribtns, 174.23.98.59 cntribtns, and 97.117.19.208 cntribtns) all are from the same place in LA. This is confusing and potentially leads to sock-puppetry. I will not engage in a conversation with the IP user until the editor creates an account, or agrees to edit with just one IP address.

If you are one of the other editors who had a message left on their talk page by the editor using IP addresses please do not respond until that editor creates a user name (or agrees to use just on IP address) as this will reduce the likelihood of confusion. -- PBS (talk) 19:42, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's not sock-puppetry if I am telling you that I have a dynamic IP address--which is the usual way to have consumer internet service, in case you're not already aware--and that it changes when it wants to, so there isn't really "agreeing to use only one IP address." I'll always try to make sure you guys know that my replies are from the same person who posted this discussion. So again, it's not sock-puppetry. All of my addresses are either 75..., 97..., or 174....

97.117.19.208 (talk) 20:49, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The IP is correct, PBS. There will never be a requirement for registration, per the Wikimedia Foundation. Dynamic IPs are just as welcome to edit and discuss as any other user. oknazevad (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The rule is not as strict as you are saying it is. See, for instance, this site: "Rule 10. Many editors do not hyphenate certain well-known expressions. [...] However, other editors prefer hyphenating all compound modifiers, even those with low risk of ambiguity." Both are acceptable. I would never write "ice-cream cone", or "baseball-card collector". Or "light-rail station". With compound nouns like "ice cream" and "light rail", it seems wrong to add a hyphen. Compare with "degree that takes four years" -> "four-year degree". There's no good way to rephrase "light rail station" so that "light" modifies "rail" explicitly. "Station for a rail that is light"? Sounds kinda silly. Just my $0.02. --Fru1tbat (talk) 21:50, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fru1tbat, your "light-rail station" example is flawed in that you thought we were trying to modify "rail." We're not, and that's the whole point: the "light" in "light-rail" is not to modify "rail;" it is "light-rail" acting as one word to modify "station:" a light-rail station.

97.117.19.208 (talk) 22:05, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But "light rail" here is a single two-word noun, much like "ice cream". The analogy of "ice cream cone" is a perfect one; no one writes "ice-cream cone", either, and it would be considered incorrect in all uses. Same thing here. Considering none of the sources used in this article hyphenate the term, even when it's used as a attributive noun, then we shouldn't either. oknazevad (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, "[my] personal grammatical rules" (from your silly summary), okna? What a joke! I don't make up rules and try to apply them to the community. I find the rules that already existed and apply them in the way I understand that they belong.

But who's the supposed "authority" on this? I looked in WP:MOS and didn't find it there. I don't know what other page I'd find it in, so that's why I'm asking you to help me by showing me which rule page it's supposedly on. Shouldn't every supposed "rule" we'd be expected to follow here, other than the most obvious cut-and-dried ones (not misspelling things, etc.)

97.117.19.208 (talk) 00:07, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fully concur with User:Oknazevad and User:Fru1tbat on this one. This is a very basic rule of English hyphenation that most native English language speakers acquire somewhere between the ages of 12 and 18. I understood it intuitively by age 12. (I went on to earn a perfect score on the verbal portion of the SAT I, and I write for a living, so I have a fairly good understanding of what I'm talking about.)

Also, I have been fascinated with transportation public policy from a young age---I read my first EIR in hard copy at a public library around age 13, in the pre-Web days---and after having read hundreds of EIRs and FONSIs over the years, I have never seen any self-respecting transportation professional use the term "light-rail." (If you had to look up EIR or FONSI, then you are way out of your depth on this.) Under Wikipedia:Article titles, we go with the commonly used name, and that's "light rail." --Coolcaesar (talk) 00:40, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have never personally seen hyphenation being used in regards to light rail, but I did check. Going through 10 pages of search results there was not a single use of hyphenation, no governments, trade bodies, media, not a single use except for Orange County who were hyphenating absolutely everything they wrote 'Seventeen-mile', 'Durham-Orange', 'Cost-share', 'half-cent'. WatcherZero (talk) 00:49, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, all right then, guys, I say we celebrate this resolution with a round of ice-cream floats! No, I mean ice cream floats! :-D

97.117.19.208 (talk) 01:16, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]