Car free article in wikipedia

[AStomper]

The wikipedia car free article is one of the most poorly written articles that I've read. I'm horrible at that stuff or I'd fix it myself. Does anyone in here have the skills to fix it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car-free_movement

[Platy]

The wikipedia car free article is one of the most poorly written articles that I've read. I'm horrible at that stuff or I'd fix it myself. Does anyone in here have the skills to fix it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car-free_movement
If you're interested in contributing to wikis, the first step to take is to click the "discussion" and "history" buttons at the top of the article. Every article has a talk page where you can read discussions about the article, and a history page where you can see how it's been updated over time. That's how you can get a sense of who are the contributors and what's on their minds. If you aren't confident about making a change to the article itself, you could at least add to the article talk page to express your concerns or make suggestions.

You can always add a reference or two to the article. Or, on the talk page, you can add an opinion about whether the article should be preserved or deleted. Just click the edit button and see what's already there. You can preview the edited page, and nothing is committed to wikipedia until you actually save the edit. You can practice and back out at any time.

The article is about the "Car-Free Movement". I can't personally say much about it because I'm not a participant in or an observer of any such movement.

[The Historian]

The wikipedia car free article is one of the most poorly written articles that I've read. I'm horrible at that stuff or I'd fix it myself. Does anyone in here have the skills to fix it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car-free_movement

It's wikipedia. It's supposed to be horrible.

[Teme]

We should make it unhorrible. That has happened to many articles already. We should make sure that it is neutral, has proper references, maybe even good images for utility cycles etc. Car free lifestyle is worth of good articles.

[Dahon.Steve]

I didn't think the article was against the car-free movement but only lacked information.

[hockeyteeth]

Yeah, that was bad. I quickly edited the intro, haha:

The car-free movement is composed largely of people who believe that the automobile (and especially private car ownership) has an overall negative impact on people and the planet. However, many people are also car-free by less pretentious motives, including: necessity (legal or financial), environmental concern, frugality, etc.

[Cosmoline]

By definition, the vast bulk of the world population is and has always been car free. A powerful minority is in temporary possession of some autos.

[gerv]

Actually, there's a lot of good material in the article. But I think it was written by my sociology professor...

Car-lite - Either a person or place that is not completely carfree, but uses or allows for a variety of alternative transport modes in addition to the car. On a small scale, this is exemplified by the living street or Woonerf, now widespread in Northern Europe. In the United States and Canada, the term transit-oriented development is applied to some "car-lite" districts. The New Urbanists are a group of Canadian and US architects, developers and planners who promote and build environments that are somewhat car-lite, expressly stating that the automobile must be accommodated. One increasingly popular tool for cutting back on the number of cars in any place is carsharing, by which in a well run scheme anywhere from 5 to 20 cars can be replaced by a single shared vehicle.

[gerv]

I added this forum as a reference (but then thought I should have linked to this thread... but that would have been mean-spirited :p)

(...Then I thought that this forum might degenerate into an endless panic about DIY bike trailers and general utility cycling projects :( )

[Platy]

Yeah, that was bad. I quickly edited the intro, haha:
The history shows some edits today, looks like they may have resulted from this discussion. There's still a lot of room for improvement on that article. Thanks for pointing it out, Astomper.

[Roody]

Also, check the Utility Cycling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_cycling) article in Wikipedia. It's pretty good, but also needs some work.

[Roody]

Yeah, that was bad. I quickly edited the intro, haha:

Originally Posted by lame-ass wiki article The car-free movement is composed largely of people who believe that the automobile (and especially private car ownership) has an overall negative impact on people and the planet. However, many people are also car-free by less pretentious motives, including: necessity (legal or financial), environmental concern, frugality, etc.



Your edit attempted to correct one misconception, but your use of the word "pretentious" also expresses an opinion. To make the article better, it should be fact-based rather than opinion-based.

[Roody]

If people start a flame war, Wikipedia will close the article to edits. So be careful.

[AStomper]

I didn't think about flaming, I just looked at it a year ago and thought "Carless, that if Fooking impossible, and why do they have some third world country in there, it does not pertain to me. Since then I've gone car lite and seen that it is possible.
I think it should have a section on individuals going car free in an automotive society.

[Roody]

I didn't think about flaming, I just looked at it a year ago and thought "Carless, that if Fooking impossible, and why do they have some third world country in there, it does not pertain to me. Since then I've gone car lite and seen that it is possible.
I think it should have a section on individuals going car free in an automotive society.


:) I know you were not talking about flaming. I was referring to another post when I wrote that. (Strangely, that post has been deleted, but you can still read it as quoted in my reply to it. :D)

I think that fixing the article is a great idea. But the goal of Wikipedia is to have an encyclopedia-style article, so they'll crack down if people start adding what they call "original research" (opinion).