Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Motorcycling

Translation request

I am at the moment requesting a translation for the All Japan Road Race Championship which would be an interest for people interested in Japanese riders the request is listed currently on top of that page. Feel free to make any further edits if possible. Willirennen 15:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Weight definitions

Does anybody have a good handle on dry weight versus wet weight versus curb weight? The wet weight article needs to be written. Thanks! -- Brianhe 06:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Quickly created wet weight, but upon reflection it probably should be shifted to wikitionary Pickle 13:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there is a problem. As currently defined, wet weight and curb weight appear identical to me: standard equipment+oil+fuel+coolant. However, the curb weight article says they are not the same. -- Brianhe 09:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

For RV machines -

• Dry Weight is the empty weight of the vehicle or trailer. Dry weight may or may not include the weight of appliances, slide outs, etc.
• Wet Weight is the weight of the vehicle with fuel, oil, and coolant onboard. Wet weight should, but may not, include the weight of the LPG (propane or butane) in the tanks, and fresh water. (Water weight is 8.34 lbs./U.S. Gallon so a 100 Gallons weighs 834 lb..)(A motorhome site said "without options")
• Curb weight, or Net Weight should be the weight of the unit as it is sitting on the lot, without the personal load you will be adding. http://www.rversonline.org/ArtWtandBal.html

I assume the difference between wet and curb on a motorcycle would be minor. Seasalt 10:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Category for deletion

Are you aware that the :Category:Motorcyclists (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) and :Category:Fictional motorcyclists (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) are up for deletion and it looks like the deletion will happen unless there is a big swing against it? No one from this group seems to have put in their 2 cents worth (except me as of now). Check it out here and please contribute if you agree this is a useful category to keep. There is no point in having it deleted and then recreating it again only to have it up for deletion again. ww2censor 04:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Dumb me, I did not have this page on my watchlist so I missed the chance to vote. The CFD debate just ended with the decision to remove the category. Brianhe 17:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Save MotoCzysz

MotoCzysz has been proposed for deletion. This sounds like an opportunity for our project to not just oppose the deletion, but address the editorial concerns about the article by expanding and improving it and introducing more links to it. -- Brianhe 17:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

its a bit beyond me on a superficial look, how can we help (as i see no list of what particularly is wrong or any place to vote yay or ney)...... Pickle 02:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

As it says in the deletion tag "The article may be deleted if this message remains in place for five days. This template was added 2007-02-18; five days from then is 2007-02-23." and the rest of the tag says "You may remove this message if you improve the article, or if you otherwise object to deletion of the article for any reason. To avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, it should not be replaced." So if you improve anything in the article about this company or bike, you could add it to the article but I don't know anything about it so cannot help you. Cheers ww2censor 03:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add MotoCzysz to List of motorcycle manufacturers but I'm not sure it's kosher since they're not actually producing bikes for market yet. Any opinions on this? Or anybody have knowledge of when they will actually go into production for Superbike homologation? - Brianhe 18:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I have added the {{future}} tag to the topic page and hope that will delay any deletion prospects but I doubt you should add it to the List of motorcycle manufacturers yet. ww2censor 19:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Motorcycle Userboxes

motorcycle userboxes created and added to index here User:Rfrisbie/Userboxes/Automotive, did not mention on project page, not sure if needed? mr_uu 09:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

some of this sutff will be useful to our members;

Code	Result
{{User:Mr_uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Austria}}	User:Mr uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Austria
{{User:Mr_uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Britain}}	User:Mr uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Britain
{{User:Mr_uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Germany}}	User:Mr uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Germany
{{User:Mr_uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Italy}}	User:Mr uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Italy
{{User:Mr_uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Japan}}	User:Mr uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Japan
{{User:Mr_uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Russian}}	User:Mr uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle Russian
{{User:Mr_uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle USA}}	User:Mr uu/Userboxes/Motorcycle USA

we've also got two sets of user boxes for project membership and the banner

This user is a member of
WikiProject Motorcycling.

This user is a participant in WikiProject Motorcycling.

Valid External Links?

Nposs has removed all of the External Links from the Suzuki Bandit Series article. He has explained his reasons on the Talk:Suzuki Bandit Series page.

At first glance, the links that were removed would seem to be in violations of policy. However, having been through a number of model-specific articles, I know that similar external links are being used extensively in motorcycling articles. So, this becomes, in my opinion at least, a much larger issue for WikiProject Motorcycling than just the links in the Bandit article.

My quandry is that there is very little motorcycle model-specific information available in traditional sources. No one publishes a magazine or journal dedicated to the Bandit, for example. Motorcycle magazines will give good coverage to a model when it is first introduced, but after that it usually gets no more than the occassionaly paragraph. Manufacturers in general publish nothing but advertising copy. For example, even Honda's Heritage webpages are devoid of anything but complimentary facts, for motorcycles that haven't been available for sale for decades. And some which have well-know "issues."

Webforums and mailing lists are, in my experience, the best source available for information about a specific motorcycle model. Yet the ocean of information available in those venues is never translated to a more formal format, be it magazine, journal, book or even a FAQ. The search function of webforums frequently takes the place of informational webpages or FAQs. If someone wants detailed information on a motorcycle, an appropriate webforum or mailing list is simply the best place to get that information. And sometimes the only place to get that information.

How do we point someone to such a forum, if we don't allow any external links to those sites? -- Pi3832 21:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it can be hard to follow official External Links policy in many articles so I have not wiped out links to web forums when there are no other sources given. Rather I try to find references online or in printed media and introduce those instead. For example, see my appeal in Talk:Sport touring for non-web forum sources. On the other hand, when an article has plenty of sources and the web forum links are gratuitous I feel free to delete them (Bajaj Pulsar seems to attract these for some reason). I hope this is reasonable and could be the basis for a policy appropriate for articles under our care. --Brianhe 05:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Your concern that the best information about motorcycles can be found in forums and mailing lists is certainly valid. But the question shouldn't be "how can we point people to such a forum?" but rather "how can we improve wikipedia?" Wikipedia is not a directory WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and general linking to a forum poses many problems for verifiability (WP:V) and "no self-published sources" WP:SELFPUB. I don't deny that forums and listservs contain a wealth of detailed information - but there are two issues I see: 1) Is that level of detail appropriate for an encyclopedic article? 2) Do external links or references based on these sources meet standards of reliability and verifiability? Some of these sites may contain specific pages with encyclopedic content that could be deep linked as an external link or reference. (For instance - a history of ... page when another source is unavailable.) So I am not suggesting an indiscriminate ban on these links, but rather hoping for a better strategy than just linking the general forums. Nposs 14:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

(Replying to both Nposs's and Brianhe's comments.) There are two different issues as I see it.

1. References (external links used to verify information)
2. External Links (Links provided as pointers to more information)

The first is not really what I had in mind when I started this discussion. Webforums and the like are not good sources to use as references/cites. Barring any other source, I can see using them as kind of a placeholder until a better reference can be found, but they should definitely be discouraged, as I believe Brianhe is advocating.

I was really more concerned about the second: external links as pointers to more information. There appears to already be an answer to that problem. On the Wikipedia:External links page, it recommends linking to DMOZ. Sure enough, for the article which prompted me to start this discussion, Suzuki Bandit Series, there is a DMOZ page for Suzukis. (It doesn't list Maximum-Suzuki, but that's a problem to fix over at DMOZ, not here.)

So, I propose that external links either need to meet the External Links Guideline or be currently used as a reference for a specific part of the article. For the latter, they should be moved to a References section and eventually replaced with a better source. Comprehensive references or "more-info" pointers should be replaced with an appropriate DMOZ link. --Pi3832 19:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

If you know the articles I tend to watch over, you know I struggle a lot with anonymous posters simply posting forums and fan sites. These are, for the most part, now allowed under the current EL policy and I'm very quick to remove them, especially if there's a dmoz link. When there is no category set in dmoz, I'll usually leave the sites until I can set up one. I believe as soon as a dmoz link exists, forums and other stuff not permitted should be removed immediately. I also think all references should only include reliable sources at all times. No forums. No fan sites. They are not a reliable source. I'm really interested to hear some feedback. Thoughts? Roguegeek (talk) 04:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Wrong info

Jeremy Mcgrath has won 72 main events in the 250cc class. Not 74.

216.226.180.2 19:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Justin216.226.180.2 19:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It says 72 in the article Jeremy McGrath, can you tell us where you found the incorrect information, and even better, what source you have for the correct number? -- Brianhe

Visordown magazine?

I can't find anything about Visordown magazine on the Web, but it is in our to-do list. Can anybody give me a pointer and I'll attempt to write a stub? Note, there is already a Visordown article but it seems to be a web-based British club. Brianhe 04:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Archive needed

This page has gotten quite long and I recommend that we archive messages more than a few months old. Here is a template that can help: {{Archive box}} Brianhe 04:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Done ww2censor 14:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Buell Motorcycle Company

Hello, I'm glad there's a motorcycle WikiProject... I was looking at the Buell article, and it needs some work. If anyone knows about these motorcycles, it would be nice if you could add to the article, and maybe even make an article for each of their models... or just something to add to your project's to do list... - Adolphus79 03:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I bought a copy of The Illustrated Directory of Motorcycles and see there are four pages about Buell. You can view the book contents at amazon.com by using the Search inside this book link just below the cover illustration you can look for Armstrong. Try this link. Maybe there is anything extra there you can use. Cheers ww2censor 03:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

well, I just did a semi-major cleanup on the article, removed some POV, and redundant information... I didn't add any information though... I also made links to each of the models just as Buell Blast, Buell Firebolt, etc... if there's any information in your book that isn't already in the article, please add it, just don't forget to source your info... - Adolphus79 04:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Wiki project on speedway

Myself and another user wish to set up a new project specifically to cover the sport of Motorcycle speedway (the common name for the sport being just speedway). However, as speedway is covered by this project I wanted to ask on here what your thoughts would be on this? The proposal would be for it to be Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycle speedway. We would prefer it to be Wikipedia:WikiProject speedway, but realise that with speedway meaning the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the name of the town in which it is raced in North America this probably is not possible.♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 19:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Will there be a lot of articles covered by this project? If you include everything in Category:Speedway there are probably enough articles to make a case for creating a project so I'd tend to approve of it. By the way I did not see this in the Speedway article, it might be useful to note the distinction between it and flat-track racing in the USA. Brianhe 23:12, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that it should be handled as a "sub project" (if that the right term) of WP Motorcycling. A good example is how WP London Transport, and WP UK railways are all sub projects of WP Trains. Pickle 06:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

AFD nomination for Wolf Pack Motorcycle Club

... is currently underway. Perhaps some folks would like to review and comment? Thanks! Mmoyer 16:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

FZR600

I've added Yamaha FZR600 as it was a request page. I regret that I can't provide any references, but as is noted below, it's very hard to find any sources on the web for a bike that was made between 1989 and 1999. In particular I searched for but could not find references for the 1989 AMA 600cc superbike title having been won by an FZR600. If you can find and correctly reference this, I think we would all be greateful =) (and yeah, I liked my FZR600 even if it was old tech for today's standards). Ibanix 07:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)