Talk:Redhouse Yacht Club

Discussion

Discussion of References Proposed to be Deleted:

(1) "SHOOTING THE BREEZE" with Tim Stirk says: "THERE WILL be no organised sailing this week on the Border, as all attention will be focused on the 23rd Coca-Cola Eastern Cape inter-schools sailing championship in Port Elizabeth, hosted by Redhouse Yacht Club." I included this because the mention in this manner demsonstrates that (a) the Redhouse Club is hosting an event which is prestigious enough to receive all the attention in the area, and (b) the Club is "noticed" by independent journals which is among the criteria which WP standards define as Notability. --Kevin Murray 18:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

(2) "Redhouse River Mile set for mid-February" says: " This historic annual event, first staged in 1924, will again be held from the Redhouse Yacht Club ... While the first Redhouse Mile attracted 48 participants, the 2003 event is expected to attract nearly 1 000 entrants." This defiantely speaks to notablility by demonstrating that the Redhouse Club hosts what is considered to be a historic event. Moreover, a 1000 boat regatta is a huge event which in and of itself may be notable for an article at WP.

(3) Both of the articles mentioned above are from online reprints of articles from recognized South African newspapers, at the official sites fort he newspapers. How much more independent and non-trivial could the soureces be?

(4) In and of themselves neither reference above is sufficient to demonstrate notablility, but in concert, three sources certainly make an arguable if not compelling case for inclusion.

--Kevin Murray 23:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Further Information

I have written to the 2005 Commodore of the Club asking whether he has additional independent source materials. --Kevin Murray 23:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Change of Content

User: Bridgeplayer has suggested that the article in its present form is unencyclopedic. I tend to agree that there is too much detail. What is important and what is chatter? --Kevin Murray 23:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The following is the proposed trimmed article as suggested by Bridgeplayer

I think the proposed trimmed article is too short, as the trimmed data contained too much support for notability.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 13:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed trimmed article

The Redhouse Yacht Club (RYC), established in 1904, is situated at Redhouse on the Zwartkops River in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, a fifteen-minute drive from Port Elizabeth.

Activities

The members of the Redhouse Yacht Club are primarily dinghy sailors though a wide variety of boats are sailed and raced at the club. The largest fleets consist of Lasers, Mirrors and Optimists.

Although sailing continues for all twelve months of the year, which is made possible by the Port Elizabeth climate, there is a regular sailing season. During this sailing season, races are organised with an average of two races per week. There are also several larger events throughout the season, including class championships.

History

On the 24th of October 1904, 16 gentlemen met at the Zwartkops Rowing Club in the little village of Redhouse, under the chairmanship of Mr. R.P. Jones, to inaugurate a sailing club at Redhouse.

The first ever race under the Club colours featured three boats, respectively five, three and two tonnes in weight. By comparison, modern day Lasers and Optimist racing yachts are governed by a minimum weight of 55 and 35 kilograms.

The 50th Anniversary of the Club in 1954 was celebrated by the staging of a National Regatta at RYC.

The Centenary Regatta took place on the 23-24 October 2004.

External links

• Official site

Discussion Part 2

References versus Notes

Jeff, In this case I've no problem with putting the notes under references. Sometimes there are more bona fide sources than are practical to include in footnotes, so I divide into two sections Notes and Bibliography, where I think that the formeer should be includedin the latter, but this is sometimes misperceived as redundant. Yesterday there was a glitch in the notes not appearing so I put in a biblio, but then found the glitch in the notes (ommitted "/" in the last note). No worries! --Kevin Murray 13:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that, I fixed it too, but my edit conflicted with yours.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 13:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Reverted drastic deletions and changes by Bridgeplayer

BP has shown hostility to this article including trying to delete it, and hamper the AfD. Again he is taking out large sections of text which was included as part of a combined effort by several editors during AfD. Can not respect his changes without having a discssion here first, or contact one of the primary editors user:JeffGent or --Kevin Murray 08:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)Kevin Murray.

Don't be ridiculous - I have removed a small amount of incidental wordage. I have restructured the article under headings, it now meets WP:MOS and added cats. Any objective view would see this. If there is any sourced material that has been wrongly removed please point it out and I'll restore it. Other than that please explain:

• Why meeting WP:MOS is wrong.
• Why restructuring under headings is wrong.
• Why putting events in a chronologial order is wrong.
• Why adding relevant cats is wrong.

Bridgeplayer 17:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• A problem with headings is that they can be overly restrictive. For example you now have information of swimming, berthing etc. under a header "sailing". To add another category would make the article choppy.
• Chronology is desirable, but in some cases the relationship among the topics might be more important. Some of the history section could be equally relevant to the information about the club's sailing program (e.g., national regattas). It's a fine line with no right answer.
• To me telling us where the club is located is less important than the reason for notability. So I would prefer reordering the sentences in the introductory paragraph, but this is subjective. Removing the word “notability” is good, but it seems to help during the AfD when editors are doing drive-by voting.
• I think that a reader with limited knowledge of sail boats would benefit from a description of why Lasers have dominated. I agree with the prior text as being a bit over the top, but I didn't feel strongly enough to remove another editors contribution. As the Laser is a class in the Olympics, there might be some way to tie that in, but I was reluctant to get too far off point.
• You removed the statement about the diverse nature of the past fleets. It's not a huge loss, but it sure wasn't unsupportable. That comment allowed the removal of a large list of craft, without losing the flavor of the diversity.
• Knowing of the sensitivity to your past involvement in deleting references and text during an AfD which you proposed, coming here to make large changes without prior discussion seems ill advised. I'll assume good faith that your intentions are for a better WP, but your comments seem to belie a sense of superiority about your POV of how an article should be structured. Guidelines are suggestions; there are many forms of style in use at WP.
• If you feel that I have been unfairly harsh in my description of you actions, please feel free to seek the intervention you suggested at my talk page-- perhaps we might both learn something. However, as it stands I perceive your actions throughout this process to be at minimum unconventional. Yes, you can support individual actions out of context with the rest, but taken as a whole there seems to be an agenda here.

--Kevin Murray 18:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I Have met your points as follows:

• Sailing amended to activities.
• National regattas also added to Activities.
• Lead para reordered to put notability before location.
• Laser as Olympic class added.
• Diverse fleet restored.
• Two typos corrected.
• Some better structuring.
• Nothing removed.

HTH Bridgeplayer 19:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: [1] I think that it boils down to a difference in style, but all the orphan sentences make the article look incomplete and choppy, I know that there is no perfect answer, and I appreciate your cooperation. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 19:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed; I have reduced the number of orphans, waifs and strays! Bridgeplayer 20:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

While were at it

I've been meaning to get back here to do a fix. Nelson Mandella Bay (NMB) is a term that describes the greater metropolitan area around Port Elizabeth, but is not a geographic feature. The Bay is propperly called Algoa Bay, so my statement that the river is a tributary to NMB is inaccurate. So we probably want to work in the explanation wihtout overly dwelling on it in the intro. See below:

Nelson Mandela Bay, an excellent value-for-money-family-fun-in-the-sun-holiday destination, named after Nelson Mandela - humanitarian, freedom fighter and world icon of peace - is located 763 km east of Cape Town, is regarded as the "official" gateway to the scenic Eastern Cape Province and the world renowned Garden Route and is sometimes referred to (by the people who know her best) as the "friendly city" or the "water sport capital of Africa"

Nelson Mandela Bay, home to Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage and Despatch is the only metropolitan area that was allowed by the former president to bear his name. By adopting his name, the metro strives to align itself with the "spirit of freedom" eminent in the life and life-long philosophy of this great man.

The estimated population of Nelson Mandela Bay comprises over 1, 5 million, making it South Africa's fifth largest city in terms of population and the second largest in terms of area.

Situated on the shores of the Indian Ocean, overlooking Algoa Bay, this bustling seaport city flaunts an atmosphere of relaxed year-round fun and excitement. Warm, dry Summers and mild Winter temperatures entice water sport lovers to Algoa Bay throughout the year. The breathtaking seashore boasts a perfect combination of warm water, protected beaches and invigorating sea breezes. Here you will find some of the world's best sailing venues, first-rate scuba diving with colourful coral species, beautiful reefs and shipwrecks, near perfect conditions for wind-surfing, angling, snorkelling, kite-surfing, fly-fishing and canoeing. --Kevin Murray 20:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll leave it with you to do this, I've got some othr tasks to do. Bridgeplayer 20:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Redundancy

• "The Redhouse Yacht Club (RYC) is a yacht club." Is the name unclear? --Kevin Murray 20:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

No, but there needs to be a structure to dab yacht club without linking words in the title. Bridgeplayer 20:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Also fixed the Bay. Bridgeplayer 20:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that good writing should take precedence over good wiki --Kevin Murray 21:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Grammar & Style

As written: The Redhouse Yacht Club (RYC) is amongst the oldest yacht clubs in South Africa,[1] a location for large dinghy races, and with a training program which has recently produced international champion sailors.

I would suggest: The Redhouse Yacht Club (RYC), which is among the oldest yacht clubs in South Africa,[1] hosts large dinghy races, and offers a training program that has recently produced international champion sailors.

• I don't like "offers" that much. "Amongst" sounds wrong to my ear, but that may be a cultural issue.
• Also we may want to link to dinghy, but to dinghy racing or dinghy sailing since dinghy is pertinent to the utility craft.
• changed which to that to avoid over whiching

--Kevin Murray 21:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I made a change of "that" to "which" in the first sentence. Amongst is fine, it just sounds funny in California. All else looks fine. --Kevin Murray 22:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)