Talk:Police box

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Police box was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: January 23, 2007

Police box was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: January 25, 2007

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Contents 1 assessment 2 New Kiosks 3 G. Mackenzie Trench 4 "bristling with new technology" 5 GA failing 5.1 GA review by Johntex 6 Caption for image of Earl's Court box 7 Proposed merger of Koban (police box) into Police box

[edit] assessment

Needs references, otherwise a neat article, scraping into B for the images and for making alot out of the topic.--SGGH 16:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Removed reference to BBC copyright. I don't see how you can copyright a shape.

Roadrunner 06:16, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In the UK, you can register a design under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. The TARDIS and the Police Box design are registered trademarks of the BBC. See http://dwas.drwho.org/news/20021023-tardis - I've corrected the article accordingly. --khaosworks 08:08, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The paragraph that begins "In Britain, police call boxes first began appearing in the 1880s" is very confused. It switches from talking about Britain to the US, describes a telephone on a pole and then says what is 'inside' it (including a table). It might be an idea if someone who know what was meant rearranged the paragraph. DJ Clayworth 15:07, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There are still several police boxes left in Edinburgh (I only know this because I live there). They are mainly left untouched, with a few being converted into coffee bars (High Street and Rose Street are two examples). There's a very informative website, kiosk-korner.co.uk, that's worth a look.

[edit] New Kiosks

These are for the public to contact the police as opposed to the police using them for information, right? Jachra 05:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] G. Mackenzie Trench

This legal brief concerning the BBC vs. Metropolitan Police lawsuit refers to the designer of the blue London police box as "Gilbert MacKenzie Trench". This academic paper on the history of police boxes calls him "George McKenzie Trench". This site calls him "G. Mackenzie-Trench", and this one says "G McKenzie-Trench". Does anyone know what the man's name actually was? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The Times always refers to him as "Mr G. Mackenzie Trench" in several articles published between 1929 and 1936 — reports of a murder in 1964 at a police building named after him refer to "Mackenzie Trench House", so it seems there's an 'a' and no hyphen, according to The Times anyway. That doesn't help you with the first name much admittedly. Angmering 07:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah — the Dictionary of Scottish Architects lists him as Gilbert Mackenzie Trench, so it looks like the University of Strathclyde lecturer got it wrong. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "bristling with new technology"

The caption for the Earl's Court police box image says that it's "bristling with new technology". It looks as if it's a quote, but I can't figure out where it's from. Is it from some press release or newspaper story from when it was built in 1997? Does anyone know? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 11:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA failing

This is still a little way from GA, the main stickler here is sourcing, it's written fairly well and useful ect. ect., but the whole lead is unsourced and there are numerous paragraphs with no refs at all. Work on sourcing before you send it back for a second go

†he Bread ³⁰⁰⁰ 08:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought that the lead section was meant to be a summary of the article, with citations provided in the main article text. The fact that information was cited in the lead section was a complaint in this featured article review, where the reviewer said, "The lead section is meant to be a summary of the article. All info there should also be in the body of the article and inline cited there, not in the lead section." Is that inaccurate? If so, it would be good if you could correct the reviewer (LuciferMorgan (talk · contribs)), so that he stops giving misleading criticisms. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

P.S. After a bit of research, I see that this was a subject of debate at Wikipedia:Lead section a few months back; based on the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Lead section, the consensus seems to be that lead sections should be cited just like the rest of the article. I stand corrected. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there - this is something I've also wondered about for a little while - would you easily be able to provide a link to the discussion? Cheers SeanMack 11:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It starts here and continues in the following sections. The discussion isn't definitive, but to my eye it leans towards citations in the lead section. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

About the GA nomination — I've added more citations, and re-submitted the article. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review by Johntex

I am reviewing the article for GA and placing comments here as I go along. Please feel free to address any of these as I go. Johntex\^talk 15:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

1. "This was in the day..." - that phrase does not seem very encyclopedic to me. What era are we talking about here? 1920s? 1820s? 1400s?
2. I don't think the article takes a world-wide view. The Lead mentions British police boxes but no police boxes outside of the UK. If they are limited to the UK the article should say so. Reading further, I see that the first police boxes were in the US, but most of the history is about the UK boxes. What happened to the US boxes - when did they disappear? Were they blue? If they are found in other countries (commonwealth countries perhaps?) then it should say so, otherwise it should say they were restricted to the UK and US.
3. "Today the image of the blue police box is widely associated with the science fiction television programme Doctor Who, in which the protagonist's time machine, the TARDIS, is stuck in the shape of a police box." - I'm concerned this is not directly supported by the reference. The reference is specific to one judge's ruling in one trademark case. The judge seems to be saying that the TARDIS usage is more familar to modern people than the police use, but that does not mean that either are "widely associated" in the public mind.
4. Since TARDIS is linked in the article, no need to also link it in see also
5. "The first police telephone was installed in Albany, New York in 1877, one year after Alexander Graham Bell invented the device." That makes it sound like he invented the police telephone - did he? Or did he just invent the telephone.
6. "the Met" - should introduce this abbreviation at first mention
7. There are still unsourced blocks of text, including
   1. "However, at present, only the Great Western Road and Buchanan St boxes have been transformed to dispense beverages, and restrictions are enforced by the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust to prevent the exterior of the boxes from being modified beyond the trademarked design. The Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust now manage 11 of the UK's last "Gilbert Mackenzie Trench" Police Signal Boxes on behalf of a private collector."
   2. "The telephone ceased to function in April 2000 when London's telephone numbers were changed, but the box remained despite the fact that funding for its upkeep and maintenance had long since dried up. In March 2005, the Metropolitan Police resumed funding the refurbishment and maintenance of the box."
8. Optional - a photo of Glasgow's new chrome design "police box" inttroduced in 2005 would be splendid.
9. "...restrictions are enforced by the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust to prevent the exterior of the boxes from being modified beyond the trademarked design." Further down, it says the police never took out a trademark. Is the Civil Defence & Emergency Service Preservation Trust actually enforcing the BBC trademark?
10. In general, I'm concerned that the article may be too short to give good coverage of this topic. They are so publically visible I suspect much more has been said about them. For instance, the article does not say anything about their effectiveness. The article talks about funds for upkeep, but never mentions how much has been or is being spent. As noted above, there is no mention of police boxes outside of the UK and US.

For these reasons, I am going to fail the article for now. I do this without prejudice to you resubmitting when you think you are ready. It is a very useful article as it stands, just not quite up to GA standards in my opinion. Please keep up the good work. Johntex\^talk 15:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Caption for image of Earl's Court box

A while back, 90.240.102.48 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) added "1950s style" to the caption of the image of the Earl's Court police box. I removed it, because I thought that it was misleading, since the box isn't exactly 1950s style (most notably because of the CCTV camera on the top). As you can see in the page history and on our respective user talk pages, we've had a little disagreement about it. It's a pretty minor point, but we should try to reach a solution that's acceptable to everybody. (If anyone else reading this is interested, please chime in — other opinions are welcome.)

I felt that "1950s style" was misleading because of the CCTV. (I'm also not clear on how the design is more 1950s than it is 1940s or 1930s — it's basically the Mackenzie Trench design, with a few alterations.) 90.x feels that "modern" alone is misleading. How would it be if we changed the caption to something completely neutral, such as "A police box outside Earl's Court tube station in London." The article contains details of the construction and maintainance of that box, and I've been dubious of the "bristling with new technology" bit for a while now (see above). Would a simpler caption be an acceptable compromise? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd go with the simpler one — "1950s style" is certainly misleading and shouldn't be used for that particular image, anyway. Angmering 11:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I dunt understand. No-one makes police boxes anymore, so you have to say what style it's been constructed in otherwise the implication would be that it is in a modern style. I got '1950s' from somewhere else in the article, and from what I can garner from pages referenced in the article it's probably incorrect - it could range anywhere from 1930s to 1960s - but there should still be some contextual comment on the style. --90.240.102.48 14:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

How about "A police box outside Earl's Court tube station in London, built in 1997 and based on the 1929 Mackenzie Trench design"? That indicates that the design isn't really modern, although the box is. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --90.240.102.48 20:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. This gets rid of the problematic "bristling with new technology" bit as well. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

(I'm not entirely comfortable with it, as obviously I'm of the opinion that the box is a novelty built by the Met on a whim, and you are of the opinion it is a real police box built with the intention of functioning as such, and your suggestion's tone reflects that - but it'll do.) --90.240.102.48 20:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have no opinion about the Met's intentions in building that police box in 1997, and I'm not quite sure how the caption's tone suggests anything about their intentions. But it's not a big deal. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The page that mentioned "bristling" has now gone offline, and from what I saw thanks to the Internet Archive, it wasn't even properly quoted. It's probably best to get rid of it. --90.240.102.48 14:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger of Koban (police box) into Police box