Talk:School bus yellow

A fact from School bus yellow appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 28 February 2005. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that school bus yellow is a specific shade of yellow formally adopted as the standard color for school buses in the United States in 1939, following a conference funded by the Rockefeller Foundation?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2005/February.

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Archived discussions

Archive 1

Dubious source, circular support

I have removed the following text: The color was chosen because it attracts attention and is noticed quickly in peripheral vision, faster than any other color. Scientists describe this as follows: "Lateral peripheral vision for detecting yellows is 1.24 times greater than for red." This text was added on 5 February 2013, with this as a ref. The ref is problematic—it is a blog, first of all, and it appears to be a commercial one. That alone probably makes it unreliable as a source (per WP:BLOGS). Even worse, it offers no support for the claim about what "scientists" say. Which scientists, in what research conducted and published when and where? Were these scientists, if they exist, talking about yellow emitted light (as from a traffic signal) or yellow reflected light (as from a bus painted yellow)? Under what conditions? Versus what collection of other colors? As measured how? In what kinds of observers? How strong was the conclusion? We have no way of knowing any of this, and it all matters. It seems very unlikely that any real scientist would come out and say "Any yellow is exactly 1.24 times easier to see in peripheral vision than any red, by any human, without exception, in all circumstances, period, end of the discussion; we've answered that question completely and no further research is needed" -- that isn't how legitimate scientists really describe their work.

Unfortunately, because the text was in the article for so long, searching for a solid source results in a flood of sites and pages just parrotting it, verbatim, probably after reading it here on Wikipedia. That makes the claim very difficult to verify reliably.

If reliable sources can be found for the claim, it could be put back in if reliable sources link any such peripheral-vision advantage (if it exists) to the requirement that school buses be painted School Bus Yellow. Without that link it would be synthesis, which isn't allowed.173.180.13.37 (talk) 22:20, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]