Talk:Clapham Junction rail crash

message: Although this Accident was a rather major incident on British Railways, the Wikipedia Article of which is rather lacking in the details given by Hidden's Report. Now, I don't know why this is, but would it be okay if I could add a lot of the Detail in MY OWN WORDS to the Article, although the only source I have IS the Report? --5.66.251.219 (talk) 00:52, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be okay, yes;  Hidden is a single source, but authoritative. Equally you might get pushback if users don't think the level of detail you add is warranted. So, deep breath & go for it. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

text: I'm doubtful. We had a 13,000 character article - about 2.5 screens of text on my machine. You added 19,000 (unreferenced) characters producing on my machine a 7-screen article. First: if you add text that others are doubtful of, doing so without references will always weigh against you in their judgement. Second, you are, I think, trying to add just too much detail. I do not question the accuracy of your work, nor that an article containing the detail you included may be of more interest, to some readers, than our existing article. However I find it more probable that the laborious detail of your addition will be too much information for many readers, and so unwelcome. The balance between added detail and decreased utility is subjective, clearly. It's beyond me to point, right now, to any yardsticks by which the relative level of detail on your version can be judged except to suggest that you go and read and think about many other comparible articles - e.g. on train or plane crashes - and then consider whether your article fits the profile of the articles you've read. You might also ask: why exactly does the wikipedia reader need this level of detail? My practice in writing articles is to use as few words as possible, or, to convey as much information as I can in as few words as I can get away with. It's clear to me that fairly long passages introduced in your version could be collapsed into a very few words, or omitted altogether, with little damage to the article. That, for me, is a clear signal of too much information. All of this is not to say that profound improvements cannot be made in this article, and I don't wish to discourage you from trying again. So long as you know that the critical bar can be quite high (and probably unfair, capricious, etc) then go for it. I do, though, very firmly advise that your chances of success increase to the extent that your additions mirror 'good' practice seen elsewhere on wikipedia: so looking to featured and good articles as models will be helpful. Good luck. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:54, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Hidden Report 

message: Following a change to the lede bold text by an IP user, which I reverted,  suggested discussing a possible title change. Here are some options:
* Clapham Junction rail crash - current title
* Clapham Junction railway accident - as used in the title of the official report
* Clapham Junction train crash - recently put forward by IP user
Pages returned by Google search for each option:
* ~ rail crash: 494,000
* ~ railway accident: 374,000
* ~ train crash: 474,000
Clapham Junction is not disputed (yet).
rail/railway/train may bear on the scope of the article. The memorable event was a crash involving three 'trains', whereas the causes and outcomes involved the broader 'railway' infrastructure of hardware and processes. Is there a useful distinction between 'rail' and 'railway', or are they synonyms?
crash/accident again, the more specific 'crash' specifies the memorable event, while 'accident' is a far broader term.
Alternative titles, other suggestions, and discussion welcome. I'm not trying to start a poll. -- Verbarson  talkedits 10:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title change