Talk:West Gate Tunnel

Clean up page

This page needs to be cleaned up to look like the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge article.

Some sections are repeated (e.g. Environment Effects Statement) and do not have a neutral point of view.

Breworks (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Have tidied up page by grouping different criticism sections together. --Breworks (talk) 07:13, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree the article needs work to clean it up and I'm in the process of doing just that. There is undue weight given to criticism, some of which is quite random. The section "Submissions on the Environment Effects Statement" contains information that were not submissions at all, but seem to be general gripes. I will clean up the section on the background and route, and add a section on the business case, which will contain the indicative tolls. The EES section will be expanded but restricted to information actually contained in the project's EES. New sections will cover the contaminated soils issue, the Millers Rd/Williamstown Rd Corridor Study and the Auditor-General's study of market-led proposals which specifically examined this project. I am still mulling over how to handle the "Criticisms" section. The working draft is in my sandbox if you're interested. BlackCab (TALK) 05:24, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it probably has too much detail (in both versions) about more trivial things - it's one of these situations where what was probably a reasonable breakdown of content six months ago has been well and truly superseded by events: between the contaminated soil issue, massive Transurban dispute and cost blowouts, eleven sizable paragraphs on the EES starts to seem a bit overboard on the minor stuff. We need much more on the former and the latter to be written a lot more concisely. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:03, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, you're unclear on what is the former and the latter. More on what, less on what? BlackCab (TALK) 08:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I have expanded and cleaned up the article with additional and improved references. There are some images to add, which I'll do soon. BlackCab (TALK) 07:39, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

To be explicitly clear, we need more material like "the contaminated soil issue, massive Transurban dispute and cost blowouts" and less of the eleven sizable paragraphs on the EES. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:06, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

The neutrality tag was added by an IP user in January 2019.[1] There has been no discussion of POV issues since that date. I have given the article a substantial rewrite and cleaned up the criticisms section, which was quite unfocused. Are we safe to remove that tag now? BlackCab (TALK) 09:27, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

There's still colossal weighting issues with trivial stuff having sprawling sections and key negative stuff having small sections. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:15, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

The article is certainly more comprehensive than it was, which is not a problem in itself. Wikipedia's policy on undue weight says: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Media coverage shows that the West Gate Tunnel is a controversial project and the article covers the points that have attracted controversy. Can you identify the "sprawling sections" of trivia and the "key negative stuff" you feel breaches the neutrality policy? BlackCab (TALK) 22:22, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

You're being deliberately obtuse at this point. I'm clearly telling you that they are not, in fact, in proportion, and pretending I didn't say what I clearly just said is not going to make the issue go away. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:29, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I actually wasn't being obtuse, and I wasn't pretending to ignore you; I didn't notice your answer in the section above, where you wrote: "We need more material like 'the contaminated soil issue, massive Transurban dispute and cost blowouts' and less of the eleven sizable paragraphs on the EES." So yes, you are quite clear. But the contaminated soil issue is adequately covered. I can certainly add material on the increased cost, but the EES is critical to the project's approval in explaining both its proponents' viewpoint on the need for it and also their assertion that it has no overall negative environmental outcome. Removing that and replacing it with more words about the criticisms simply upends the balance I believe it has. BlackCab (TALK) 22:39, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

The proponents' viewpoints on the need for it doesn't need to be discussed through the prism of the EES (its relevance is broader than that), and eleven paragraphs of arguing about the environmental outcomes and one paragraph about the contaminated soil issue that's thrown the whole project into chaos and has received vastly more media coverage and interest in reliable sources is about as undue weight as you could possibly get on this issue. What you most want to get out about this issue != a balanced treatment of it. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:21, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

The proponents' viewpoints on a $6 billion project do need to be presented, and sections on the business case and EES are the place to do it. There is no "prism": those processes were precisely where they articulated their justification for the project. A concise summary of their arguments preserved in a Wikipedia article will be a valuable resource once the tunnel is in operation and we're all being choked. More information might be added on the contaminated soil (though that may be straying into excessive detail), but your comments seem to be pointing towards a wish to have this article framed as a narrative focusing on the "chaos" and "blowouts". That's as far from an NPOV as it's possible to be. BlackCab (TALK) 23:42, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

"A concise summary of their arguments preserved in a Wikipedia article will be a valuable resource once the tunnel is in operation and we're all being choked." And that approach to the article, right there, is the problem. The Drover's Wife (talk) 23:54, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

And your proposal is to remove their assertions, the basis of the project, and replace it with more criticism? You're an experienced Wikipedia editor. Frankly, I'm surprised you're taking this position. This is not a campaign page. BlackCab (TALK) 00:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I have no particular stance on the project. I do, however, read the papers, and the huge amount of stories this year about the cost blowouts due to the contaminated soil issue, the public impasse with the developer that's made it unclear whether it will actually proceed, and the still-unresolved issue of where to dump the soil, which has sparked major protests in numerous places. This is not "criticism" (which would depend on your opinion, which I don't particularly have here), but it is a fundamental part of the story. All of these things are things that should obviously be covered, regardless of your or my stance on them, and covered in the significant detail they've been covered in reliable sources. You're attempting to use this as a campaign page for your pet issue around the environmental impacts - which you explicitly let slip above - and trying to deflect that back at me (I don't actually have an opinion here, so what I would be "campaigning" for apart from comprehensive coverage of recent news?) is not going to work. I kind of assumed it was accidental that we'd wound up with so much trivial dreck on the EES process, but making clear that it was intentional makes it obvious that the tag isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:15, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I actually find it quite comical to be lectured on neutrality by someone who has explicitly stated that "we need" more on the "chaos" and "key negative stuff" but less on how the project was proposed and the approval/delivery process including its EES. I think you need to go back and read WP:CRIT. The expanded article contains more factual information about the process behind the project's proposal and approval and also more about the criticism. It also adds a section about soil contamination, which previously was covered in a single sentence. In expanding the article I was conscious that I was walking a fine line trying to include criticisms without overwhelming it, so it's quite a shock to read your implication that I am somehow suppressing or minimising the project's failings. I will dig up more info on the cost blowouts and also see what more info can be added on the soil contamination aspect. BlackCab (TALK) 01:21, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that you're suppressing or minimising the project's failings so much as overwhelmingly biasing the article in favour of vast trivial coverage of bureaucratic processes that you seem to be personally involved in (or at least have a strong emotional stake in) to advance an agenda while ignoring more recent developments that have been the subject of far, far more coverage in reliable sources that you seem to be less interested in. None of those recent developments are "criticism" as such (of who?) as much as updating the article and returning it to an appropriate weighting of issues. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

You misread my intentions on the "vast trivial coverage of bureaucratic processes", but I can't be bothered explaining why. The risk of focusing too much on soil contamination is introducing recentism—"an inflated or imbalanced focus on recent events. It is writing without an aim toward a long-term, historical view." As I see it, the coverage I have given to that issue is enough for now, given it's unresolved, but per your request, I'll expand it. BlackCab (TALK) 01:50, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Rather, it had WP:RECENTISM problems to begin with, with the eleven detailed paragraphs on the EES, written at the time by a very interested party and long since basically irrelevant to anyone without an axe to grind, which are still not addressed. Incredibly briefly mentioning far more notable parts of the project's history doesn't solve anything. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

As late as January 2020 the article had two sections covering the EES, a random grab-bag of negative aspects focusing on a small part of the project area. For such a controversial project the article should provide fair and balanced coverage of the main issues that were considered and I have now done that as part of my overhaul to fix the article's many shortcomings. Your dismissal of the EES coverage as "basically irrelevant to anyone without an axe to grind" mirrors only your personal view. On the other hand you express intense interest in "the contaminated soil issue, massive Transurban dispute and cost blowouts", which suggests you want the article to emphasise those failings. You seem perplexingly blind to the neutrality issues that causes. BlackCab (TALK) 04:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I have added more material on the contaminated soil, added material on Opposition criticism of the funding deal and the extra cost of the project, and also trimmed content from the EES presentation and submissions. Hopefully this moves the article closer to what you see as a neutral position. BlackCab (TALK) 07:30, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

The fifteen-paragraph EES section still remains entirely sourced to primary sources, which does not argue for its significance if no one else considered this significant enough to discuss in secondary sources. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:52, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. I did locate an Age article reporting on Melbourne City Council's submission to the EES process and I've added that. But Wikipedia's policy on primary sources does not preclude information being used when it relies on primary sources. The policy says "secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability" and that benchmark is clearly met: the article has a preponderance of secondary sources on the topic of the West Gate Tunnel project, almost all of them news reports. The policy states: "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." That is exactly the way those primary sources have been used in this case. I'd argue that coverage of the EES summary and EES submissions can legitimately remain in the article to document the background of the project. The project's EES document library is certainly a primary source, but also an authoritative and reliable one. If you disagree, I'm happy to raise it at a noticeboard, either Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard or Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for outside comment. BlackCab (TALK) 08:32, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that would be a good idea. The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:56, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I have raised the issue at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Official documents for tunnel project as a primary source. I've included the section on the Business Case in my question too — clearly that will be similarly affected. BlackCab (TALK) 12:24, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Numbering scheme

@Zach386x: I would consider restoring the M4 route number with an inline citation to the latest Melway if possible. Per WP:RS Melway is a reliable secondary source; "signage on the ground" is original research. (Although it isn't relevant for evaluating the reliability of sources in policy terms, given Melway's strong relationship with government I would be very surprised if their designation wasn't based on information from DOT). Triptothecottage (talk) 21:12, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@Triptothecottage: Whilst I'm confident as well that Melway would know something and M4 will be the likely designation, this road is still under construction so until the road is opened to public nothing can be confirmed. In addition, official government sources such as the West Gate Tunnel website have images still showing the route as MX - obviously this is a placeholder but as we still have conflicting info and nothing is official, no route number should be given at this stage. Zach386x (talk) 05:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Zach386x: I’m not sure what impact any of that has in Wikipedia policy terms. An artist’s impression is a very borderline primary source, verging on WP:OR; Melway is clearly a reliable secondary source. A “placeholder” in the former vs a concrete designation in the latter is not, IMO, “conflicting info”. Triptothecottage (talk) 22:56, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@Triptothecottage: Whilst I understand your point I recommend you read through the guidelines in the Australian Roads WikiProject, as stated there the only "official" source we can go by is the following Government Website: Statewide Route Numbering Scheme, as it is not updated nearly often enough the accepted method has been to verify signage on the ground (be via GSV or similar or a detailed photo), once the road is opened. As the West Gate Tunnel is still under construction the article should wait until the road is officially opened before a route designation is given. Zach386x (talk) 06:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)