User:Supernutorcrazy/sgWiki Buses Improvements FAQ
I (Supernutorcrazy) had come across lots of criticism regarding the new format, mostly in layout and informations presentation, hence I am creating this to inform all editors how it will be moving forward, and seek your understanding and considerations.
1. Defination of Wikipedia
Many editors in sgWiki Buses are bus enthusiasts. But Wikipedia is not an excel tracking sheet. According to Britannica, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge Dictionary, Wiki is an online encyclopaedia where visitors are allowed to make changes, contributions, or corrections. If we are going to go even deeper, encyclopaedia refers to a large collection of information about one or many subjects.
The idea of having deployments listing, bus advertisements, and other parts is considered information, but how can we expand this to the public? I hope editors could put a moment of pause, to think about how the public will see, and perceive of information. Is the information encyclopaedic for them? Therefore, I had started this improvement and re-organisation of pages.
2. sgWiki Buses Advertisement
After analysing past editing patterns by many editors, there are two groups of editors, with the first group is just chasing after buses and edits their changes in bus advertisement, and the other is doing the duty of both bus deployment and advertisement, mainly in deployment cases.
The downfall of sgWiki Buses can be attributed to the following reason, even without me being involved in the past (before this re-organisation). The duty roaster and fleet deployment are not even tallying up, let alone accurate. Even some editors had noticed the change in bus fleet and deployment for a period of time, and yet no editors bother to edit it, with the former groups now stand a huge percentage, due to them being young. As a result, there are huge gaps in inaccuracy. The only information that is mainly accurate is the advertisement page, which heavily defeats the purposes as stated in Point 1 (definition of Wikipedia).
This brings me to the second point - advertisement columns. I had initially removed it thinking that it was a hinderance, and least importance of all, due to it being functioning as an Excel tracking list. After some suggestions from editors, the whole advertisements columns had been consolidate into a single page - Advertisements on Buses. I hope this makes it easier for the groups of editors to just refer to a single page rather than bookmarking so many.
3. sgWiki Buses Deployment by Model
The new format merges the former deployment page with the existing current deployment page. This aims to simplify the majorities of the new editors who didn’t update the former deployment when editing the change in deployment. The new format enables them to edit it in one go, without switching over to the other pages, and acts as a reminder to edit both columns (being side by side).
The new format also reintegrates by combining all buses into a single running order, regardless of operators, and including the livery of all buses. It was taken into accounts that some models have a large fleet count and hence each table is limited to list only 100 buses, and a sorting function had been implemented.
Editors had come to feedback on long table cell spanning across multiple rows and columns, and works had been made to improve on such criticism, such as the new format for livery, which try to mimic as close to the actual bus livery at the registration plate column.
The feedback regarding Colour-Blindness by editors was also been brought out and hence the reverting of using background colour to images was implemented to denote operators.
There are stills areas for improvement, in terms of mobile view, where users had to scroll long for certain information as browsers on mobile devices have a non-user friendly search function, unlike when viewing on Laptops or Desktop devices. For this, I would like to seek bus enthusiasts’ understanding, and their ideas for solutions to such problem. Please do not hesitate to experiment with new concepts and ideas while preserving existing information.
4. sgWiki Buses Deployment by Service
The new sgWiki Deployment by Service will be split into multiple pages, with each pages denotes a full service or supplementary service, which sgWiki Rails (Trains) can be integrated to form a one stop information, rather than a standalone page. This can also be further expanded to the planning area, tourist attractions and many more in the future.
Each bus service page will include first/last bus timing, nearby amenities or attractions, and also history about such service, to provide a one stop comprehensive page. A navigation bottom is implemented for quick access based on categories.
It had also come into my attention that buses on a particular duty slot (based on days and timings) may be operated by a particular model or capacity type buses, regardless of operators, or even perm buses. This will be implemented into the new service page, so editors are free to experiment how to present such information.
Editors had also highlighted that this mimics many other websites like Land Transport Guru, Bus Interchange.net and many more. With the breakdown of bus deployments in sgWiki Buses, and the detailed first/last stop for each calling bus stop, I hoped that sgWiki Buses will be even more informative than those sites out there.
During the ongoing changes, it may feel troublesome to having to click twice to access the respective pages from Bus Deployments by Service, and editors are making and efforts to shift it to this page for direct access once all services in the old pages had been spilt out and converted.
4.1. New Deployment Table
Let’s take a look at the new table format and the old format.
New Format
| Depot | Fleet Size | Fleet | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woodlands Depot (WLDEP) | 13 | 3 Single Deckers | 9 Double Deckers | 1 Articulated |
|
SMB1405U SMB1487H |
SG6035Z SG6115B SG6141A SG6143U |
SMB8016M | ||
Old Format
| Direction 1 | Looping at | Depot | Number of buses | Operator | Bus Package |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woodlands Interchange | Woodlands Centre Road | Woodlands Depot (WLDEP) | 13 |  |
Woodlands |
| Fleet |
|---|
|
SMB1405U SMB1487H SG6035Z SG6115B SG6141A SG6143U SG5435J SG5504T SG5505R SG5517G SG5539T SG5583P SMB8016M |
The first table had been removed due to it being integrated with the infobox (on the top right-hand corner of the page), with a change in how information is being displayed, regarding the second table (old format).
The new fleet count at the top highlights the total fleet size based on the capacity type (Mini Bus/Single Decker/Double Decker/Articulated) from the overall fleet size, and not based on the perm bus count. This reduces the needs for counting individual buses and tallying it up.
The removal of counting based on the bus model, and the corresponding batches, was done in consideration for consistency with deployment from services with no perm fleet. This counting also enables those services with no perm fleet to have an accurate number of single decker, double decker, or articulated to be displayed for details such as majority high-capacity, for the public rather than leaving it to chance from a single statement such as “Any Single & Double Decker buses“.
In addition, some editors will only bother to update the fleet count by model, and not the breakdown of batches, which led to the inaccuracy of such pages, hence the removal of batches, but still preserving the model and the listing.
Some bus enthusiasts had highlighted the hassle of counting buses based on model and batches (and even in the old format is also in single line and in numerical order), I would like to seek their understandings and solutions in solving such a problem.
5. sgWiki Buses History Page (Service Changes/Route)
Feedback had been given by users regarding the history pages in moving towards the new service page, and would like to reverting back to original, and bus enthusiasts are having a keen eyes on how such defunct service will be shifted (or purged), with many of them anticipating of it being purged away.
There is currently no concrete idea from me on how such defunct services history pages will turn out in the future, and I do agree that a re-organisation will definitively take place. But I would like to assure all that there is no plan to purge or delete those pages and information until the conversion (re-organisation) of such information had taken place.
Regarding existing services, there may be a plan for a new chronological history page to be created to document all service changes, even for existing services. Editors are free to propose and experiment in such re-organisation.