Wikipedia:Peer review/Ford Taurus/archive3

Ford Taurus

Previous peer reviews, Wikipedia:Peer review/Ford Taurus/archive2, Wikipedia:Peer review/Ford Taurus/archive1

I have recently done a lot of work on this article, with what I have done bordering upon a complete rewrite, and I believe that it is now more close than ever to featured status. Thus, I would like to hear any suggestions, to see if I can improve this article any further. Karrmann 05:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent article. I attended a talk at an art school by a former Taurus designer, who brought along a sample copy of the Ford "Human Factors Design Guide." This document had criteria to be used to evaluate designs, for example, controls should have distinctive shapes so as to be operable by touch without looking, and seats should provide for a variety of shifting positions on long trips. As a long time Taurus owner, I believe these principles contributed to the positive public response of the Taurus during its heyday. I would love to be able to find a copy of this document online. I'd also like to see some comments about reliability history and repair costs of the Taurus lines, since a big part of the ascendancy of Japanese sedans in the marketplace has been their reputation for better build quality than American cars. Finally, I'd like to see some mention of how the automotive press has responded to the renaming of the 500 as the new Taurus. I wonder if the professional reviewers have been as skeptical as I have about the very significant difference between the 500 and what I think of as the philosophy and patterns that went into the best aspects of the Taurus. VisitorTalk 05:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

4u1e's comments

Very informative article, with a good, logical top level structure and plentiful references.
Introduction of terms: There's quite a lot here that probably won't make sense to readers who are neither North American nor interested in cars in general. For example, from the lead: 'Fairmont-based' - Is Fairmont a place, or a car, or what? I know it's linked, but for something like that I don't need to know much detail about it, just that it's another Ford model. Actually in that case, is it even worth mentioning that the LTD is based on the Fairmont? We're only talking about the car the Taurus replaced, so perhaps it's not worth mentioning the Fairmont at all? Suggest finding a non-North American ~~victim~~ guinea pig who has no interest in cars to read through the whole article and point out the terms that make no sense to them. These can then be introduced at their first appearance (i.e. "North American automobile manufacturer, General Motors").
Can you specify in the lead where the car was/is sold? I see that it was later sold in the Asian/Pacific market, for example, but from the lead one might think it was a US -only model.
From the lead: 'Milestone design' - in the US or worldwide?
Is the balance of the lead right? The model has existed for 20 years, but the longest part of the lead considers the death of the model name and its recent resurrection. Should there be more material on its history in the lead?
Redundancy. For example: "even prompting Honda..." in the lead could be simply "prompting Honda..." and "development started as early as 1981" could be "development started in 1981". See Tony's useful guide on this topic and see if it can be applied throughout the article. A longer example is the first para of 'Fifth generation', I reckon you could cut the length of that para by about half without losing any content. Much of the second para then repeats the same information. Have a go at chopping it down a bit!
"with Ford selling nearly 7.5 million examples during its 20 years of production—a longer bestselling run than the original Ford Model T" I know this statement is referenced, but I'm not quite convinced by it:

- What is meant by bestselling run? I guess in the US, rather than worldwide? Overall or in its market segment? And does it mean length of time as the bestseller, or just a bestseller (i.e in the top 10 for sales)?

- The Taurus's bestselling run (i.e. as the bestseller) was from 1992 to 1996 (five years, inclusive), in the US. Again, in what market segment?

- I find it hard to believe that the Model T wasn't the bestselling model in the US for longer than five years: "[In 1914] Ford produced more cars than all other automakers combined. The Model T was a great commercial success, and by the time Henry made his 10 millionth car, 9 out of 10 of all cars in the entire world were Fords" (from Ford Model T). A quick google didn't throw up more exact evidence one way or the other, so strictly speaking I'm arguing from personal incredulity here.

- If that's true, however, the 'bestselling run' referred to above couldn't literally mean the length of time for which the car was the bestseller in the US

- It also couldn't refer to the total numbers sold, since that's 15 million Model Ts, against 7.5 million Taurus

- So does it really mean simply the length of time for which the car was sold in large numbers? The Taurus was sold for 20 years (longer now) against 19 years for the Model T. However, the Model T was essentially the same car for its 19 year run, where several different models were given the Taurus name over the 20 year period, so that's not really a direct comparison. And if this is what is meant, it's not terribly notable, either. Looking at List_of_bestselling_vehicle_nameplates, I can see over 30 other mass production (i.e. bestselling) cars with longer production runs, several of which are Fords and several of which are for the North American market.

If my argument above is right, I suggest the statement is removed as not being very notable. It could be replaced with a more precise statement regarding the model's position compared to other North American Ford models (i.e. something like 'has the third (?) longest production run of any North American Ford model')

"Most Tauruses were built either in Chicago, Illinois (until April 23, 2004, at which time the plant was retooled to build the Five Hundred) or in Ford's Hapeville Plant in Atlanta, Georgia." This sentence appears towards the end of the final para of the lead, which is otherwise all about the ending and revival of the Taurus name. Should it be moved to another part of the lead?
The thoughts behind the writing are generally clear, but I'm finding quite a lot of cases where the wording is strictly ambiguous or incorrect. For example, from the first few sections:

-"the Ford Fusion, a midsize car closer in size to the Taurus". Closer in size to the original Taurus (described as a midsize vehicle) or the 2006 Taurus, a full size vehicle? Suggest this is clarified.

-From 'Development': "Originally, Ford, as well as General Motors, had its engineers, as well as the exterior and interior designers work separately without any input from each other.". Strictly speaking this says that the engineers worked separately from each other, which I guess is probably not correct! Should it be: "Ford, like General Motors, had its engineers, exterior designers and interior designers work in separate teams, with no input from each other."? Also, I'm not too keen on "Originally" here. Does it mean at the origins of Ford? Or at the origins of the Taurus? I guess it is neither and so should probably go or be replaced by a more precise statement on when this practice was in place.

-"As a result, many American cars at the time had their interiors seem "mismatched"". Again, strictly this says that only the interiors were mismatched (with what?), whereas presumably it means that the interior and exterior designs of the cars were mismatched? Suggest "As a result, many American cars of that time had interior and exterior designs that did not match." Does this point also relate to the engineering of the car? If not, is the inclusion of 'engineers' in the sentence from the previous point relevant?

-"The premiere for the Taurus was a resounding one". This can be re-written more simply as "The Taurus' premiere was resounding", which should presumably actually be "The Taurus' premiere was a resounding success"? (Which might in itself be considered peacock-y).

I'm not going to try and pick out all similar instances - you should be able to spot them youself if you read through the article very carefully (perhaps aloud?), considering whether each sentence is completely unambiguous and means exactly what you want it to. I suggest you also find a good copyeditor and get them to go through the article, with an especial eye to precision and clarity of phrasing. If you don't know any good copyeditors, you could either try the League of Copyditors (but they tend to be incredibly busy) or otherwise find someone on Wikipedia whose writing you find particularly clear and ask if they can help you. I also suggest finding someone who does not have an interest in cars, because this will help with the point made earlier about use of 'jargon'.

The development methodology. The first para of 'Development' says that for the Taurus Ford "employed a new strategy of teamwork that would prove to be revolutionary", but later in the same para it says that Ford used "a development method similar to that [...] used when developing the Escort". These two statements seem to contradict each other. Was the methodology new for the Taurus or not?
"...and even BMW 5 Series automobiles" My emphasis. Why is the 5-series picked out in this way?
"If the Taurus failed, Ford would not have been able to survive it, and would have had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy." This can't be a fact, because it didn't happen, so is presumably someone's opinion. If so, perhaps it should be attributed to that person, to make it clear where the view comes from.
The Sable appears in the second paragraph of 'First generation' without having been previously introduced. I guess from context that this is a rebadged sister model? Suggest that it is introduced fully earlier in this section, or possibly even in 'Development' if it was a significant consideration in the development of the Taurus. (Update: The mysterious Sable is finally explained in the section on the 'Fifth generation' so perhaps that bit should be moved nearer to the start of the article).
In 'First generation', the second and third paragraphs seem to overlap in content. Would it be better to make the second para about the exterior design, and include all the material about the aerodynamic styling of the car there, and make the third paragraph about the interior styling? Since the point about 'mismatched' interior and exterior styling was made earlier, it would also be nice to have something here about how successfully the interior and exterior of the Taurus were matched.
In 'First generation', the model designations (L, GL, MT-5 etc) are used in a paragraph about engines before they are explained in the following para. Better to move the fifth para to a position before the fourth para? SHO remains unexplained until even later and is never spelt out. What does it stand for?
Should the 'story' nature of the explanation of the origins of the SHO be made clearer? According to the source used it is only "The story that is most widely accepted among SHO owners", rather than a fact.
What is "a set of ground effects"? I would guess that it's what I would call the airdam at the front and the skirts at the side and rear? I'm 100% sure they don't produce any ground effect - the car will rarely be going fast enough, for one thing, and with no underbody shaping what you're really talking about at best is a (small) amount of front lift reduction from the airdam. I would strongly suggest using another term for this. If it really is normal, everyday usage in North America to call such a styling package 'ground effects' then I suppose it could stay, but it doesn't sound very encyclopedic and I feel it's a very misleading term.
First para of 'Second generation'. 'Taurus' is in italics twice in this section, but nowhere else in the article. Suggest the italics are removed - the name appears too often to italicise it consistently.
Minor slip: "The new second generation SHO gets its own distinctive front fascia" should be in past tense.
2nd generation SHO station wagon: It seems obvious that this was only ever a one-off special, with nothing to do with Ford, which makes the statement that "This model never got past prototype form" seem a bit odd. Perhaps that whole sentence could be removed?
Third generation: Did the design team really spend "sleepless nights" on the design, or is this a figure of speech? It's reported as reality, which I suspect is probably a bit misleading. Perhaps give a direct quote instead?
"specially tuned every panel so that it was acoustically pleasing, and so passengers could tell human tones from mechanical tones" I'm not quite sure what this means, can it be clarified?
The Vulcan engine should be wikilinked at its first appearance.
Wikilink Mercury Sable at first appearance (which partly answers my point above!)
Based on those two points, probably do a sweep checking for wikilinking throughout the article.
'Initial discontinuation': The term "foreign sedans" is an interesting one! I guess you actually mean Japanese sedans? Although I think the article as a whole has a fairly North American point of view (as suggested by some specific points above), I guess most readers will understand what is meant by this. Is is right, though? I assume the foreign sedans are built in North America by Japanese owned firms? Are they really foreign, then? Just a thought (from a Brit - our entire car building industry is foreign owned, so I probably have a rather different perspective on it!) In any case, it might be useful to specify which sedans. The Toyota Camry, presumably? Any others? Also, how was the Taurus performing against other domestic sedans? The current wording suggests that it was only 'foreign' cars that were a problem.
The third para of 'Initial discontinuation' gives both sides of the argument about whether Ford should have 'saved' the Taurus or not, but repeats the 'for' argument ("mostly due to the fact that it was believed that the Taurus was just left to die by Ford" and "because some believed that if Ford wanted to save the car, they could have easily done so") . Suggest only one of those is needed, and both could probably be written more neutrally.
"letting the Taurus widdle away". I don't know about the US, but in the UK 'widdle' means 'piss' (as in urine or to urinate). You might want to change the wording!
"After Mulally took position as Ford's CEO" - Who is Mulally? (Update - he's actually introduced in the next paragraph, so probably just shift that introduction to the first para)

Phew: That's a lot of comments! I actually think it's a fundamentally sound article, but it needs some work on the writing, on POV (mildly US centric) and on neutrality in places. Hope that's helpful! Give us a shout if I've been unclear anywhere. Cheers. 4u1e 13:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Final comment (sorry): Some points from previous peer reviews also do not seem to have been addressed. In particular, Pc13's comments about the "design revolution that saw the end of the 'boxy' cars" and the loss of four wheel disc brakes from this review 4u1e 14:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]