Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Motorcycle racing/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Discussion about this WikiProject

I have started a discussion about this WikiProject at WP:MOTOR. Please contribute to the discussion. DH85868993 (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Merging

As per the decission reached here, I'm merging the two wikiprojects, the content of WikiProject Grand Prix motorcycle racing has been archived and the page redirected, but I need an admin to merge the talk pages. Chris Ssk _talk 01:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I archived the WikiProject Grand Prix motorcycle racing talk page. Please start new discussions in this page Chris Ssk _talk 02:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Infobox MotoGP rider

I may be showing my old fogey status, but it appears to me that the "nickname" line in the MotoGP rider infobox template seems out of place. Wikipedia articles are supposed to mirror actual encyclopedia articles, and the nickname line strikes me as something you would see in a fan magazine. If a nickname is a major part of a racer's public personna, such as Muhammad Ali's "The Greatest", then it should be listed in the main body of the article. Again, maybe I'm being a grumpy old man.Orsoni (talk) 07:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Some nicknames are unnecessary, like having 'Dovi' as a nickname for Dovizioso, but Rossi's "the doctor" or Biaggi's the "Roman Emperor" are part of their persona. From a quick look I had in some related wikiprojects, they don't have nicknames in the infobox so we could remove it too. Chris Ssk _talk 09:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and remove it from the infoboxes Chris Ssk _talk 23:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

While on the subject of Infoboxes, I've noticed the Superbike rider's infobox contains no information on what years a competitor was active. Do we need a "Former Superbike rider" infobox, or just alter the current one?Orsoni (talk) 07:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

If you look at the {{infobox motorcycle rider}} I made it can be used for former Superbike, Supersport, as well as 125, 250 and MotoGP riders. It cant be used on its own or along with other infoboxes. I made it thinking of riders that raced in multiple championships. ie. James Toseland with only the {{Infobox MotoGP rider}} at his page there is no mention of his superbike wins and championships.

Also in the subject of Infoboxes. I dont like that all GP achievements are mixed together. ie. Andrea_Dovizioso, MotoGP record: 99 starts 9 wins when actually his record is 3 starts 0 wins and the rest are in lower classes. I think it could be something like this Héctor Barberá. Chris Ssk _talk 10:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, all Grand Prix races are equally important, since a 125 victory is a world championship round against the best riders in the world in that class. Barbera's 125 wins should be recognized along with his 250 victory. But you make a good point that there should be some way to differentiate them. However, we run the risk of making info boxes with too much information, when their stated purpose is to give the reader a quick synopsis of the subject.Orsoni (talk) 12:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Motorcycle World Champions templates

I'm not convinced about having the 1949 World Champions in their own column in the Motorcycle World Champion templates (e.g. {{125 cc Motorcycle World Champions}}. I understand why they're arranged like that (i.e. so that each column is a decade), but I think it would look better to just have each column start with the "9" year, similar to the way in which each column in {{Formula One World Constructors' Champions}} starts with the "8" year. Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 10:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I Agree 1949 should be on the top left

You obviously don't have OCD because that will drive me insane. I feel it will look sloppy with mixed decades in each column. I don't like the organization of the F1 template at all. I like the columns, just not the mixed decades. Again, OCD. ♫ Bitch and Complain Sooner ♫ (talk) 16:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we could add code to the template so it rearranges the layout depending on whether the user is a member of Category:Wikipedians with OCD :-) But seriously, I'm not really fussed either way. DH85868993 (talk) 02:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Martin Finnegan

Someone has started an article on Martin Finnegan, the Irish rider who was killed last week. I've tidied it up a bit, but it could use the attention of someone who knows something about motorbikes!-- Diniz(talk) 21:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Phase One Endurance

Hey, i've started making this page and i have a lot of knowledge on the subject but a lack of skill on Wikipedia.

Any help making it a better page would be great. There are no good pags for Endurance team pages on wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shredder46 (talk • contribs) 06:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Shredder46, I came across the Phase One Endurance page the other day and made a few edits on it. I removed the History section because it was WP:COPYVIO from [1]. The picture you uploaded was also copyrighted. For legal reasons, borrowing copyrighted images or text and putting it in Wikipedia is not allowed. You must either write your own text or copy text from other websites with a GFDL-compatible license. Same goes for images. You can either upload your own work or images with licensing acceptable for Wikipedia use. Reading WP:YFA would be a good place to start for help on creating Wikipedia articles.

If you plan on contributing in motorcycle racing related articles perhaps you would like to add your name to the project's member list. You can also use {{User WikiProject Motorcycle racing}} on your userpage.

Also remember to sign your post on talk pages by adding ~~~~ at the end. Chris Ssk _talk 13:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

2010 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season

Keke Ruehle has created today a page about the 2010 Road Racing World Championship, but no useful information is present on the article, and the speculated race schedule is just a copy of this year's schedule. I propose to delete (or maybe even better speedy delete) it, what do you think about this? Asendoh (talk) 18:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

speedy delete the page has nothing to offer from an encyclopedic point of view Chris Ssk _talk 20:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I nominated it for speedy deletion, I hope I've done it right since I'm not familiar with the whole process. Asendoh (talk) 15:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion on merge of Repsol Honda into HRC

Hello all. A discussion has started on whether or not to merge the Repsol Honda article into the Honda Racing Corporation article. Please see discussion and leave feedback if you can because we are looking for some. Thanks! Roguegeek (talk) 22:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Formula TT

I have written an article called Formula TT. I took most of it from the German article de:TT Formula, and most of the rest from a French site that has the statistics for the races and is listed as a reference in the German article. Perhaps someone with more expertise than I would like to look through it and fix any mistakes I have made, put the project template on the talk page and link it into any other articles that it has some relevance. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Referencing and categorisation of race report articles

I've noticed that the new Motogp site has added a section about past results: since the vast majority of all articles (in fact all but some 2008 article) are unreferenced, please add references to them which point to the site.

About categorisation: it's a bit confusing for all race report articles, so I propose to use at least to add [[Category:MotoGP race reports]] and [[Category:xxxx in Grand Prix morotcycle racing|Country Grand Prix]] to all of them. Asendoh (talk) 18:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Jamie Hamilton (motorcycle racer)

I helped get the article restored in an AFD review. Would you help wikify and expand the article? Royalbroil 13:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Motorcyclists naming conventions

Can we get a concensus on motorcyclists naming convention? There are currently articles using many different naming styles including; motorcycle racer, motorcyclist, motocross, motocross rider, speedway rider.

I'd like to nominate "motorcyclist" since the average Wikipedia reader would have no idea what the difference is between the different branches of motorcycle competition. "Motorcyclist" would also cover non-competitors such as stunt riders, team owners, world travellers etc.Orsoni (talk) 04:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Lorenzo Zanetti at AfD

The newly created article Lorenzo Zanetti is being considered for deletion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 05:35, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing! I just replied. Asendoh (talk) 11:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added some referenced career stats and an infobox to the article. Readro (talk) 12:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

List of motorsport terminology

Per this discussion at Wikiproject Motorsport I recently created the page List of motorsport terminology. Designed primarily to combat jargon, feel free to drop by and add common motorsport terms (this is going to be a big list). Apterygial 05:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Le Mans merger proposal

I'm not a member of this project but I should inform you that I've proposed a merger of the Bugatti Circuit article and the Circuit de la Sarthe article. This may be discussed here.Mustang6172 (talk) 04:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Racing record

I'd like to propose that we use the Racing record career summary table that is currently used for car racing drivers (particularly F1 drivers) on the articles for motorcycle racers. This would be particularly useful for riders who have raced in multiple different series (MotoGP, Superbikes, AMA etc) as it is a way we can include all of their racing statistics in a single table. The only problem is that we may find it difficult to find all of these statistics online. I know that there is a site that has a database for virtually every car racer's statistics, but I'm not sure whether there is anywhere that has the stats for motorcycle racers. Do you think this is worth pursuing? Christophee (talk) 13:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

There is the {{infobox motorcycle rider}} for former Superbike and Supersport riders. I think if we try to combine this one with the {{Infobox Former Grand Prix motorcycle rider}}, we may have a confusing array of information. I think we should keep the two infoboxes seperate, but if someone can design an infobox that combines the two categories in an easy to read format, we can go forward.Orsoni (talk) 12:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

No, you misunderstand me. I'm talking about the Racing record section you get on F1 drivers' articles like this one: Jenson Button#Racing record. I was thinking we could adapt the table for use on motorcycle racers' articles. Christophee (talk) 00:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, I follow you now. In the case of Button, the information seems redundant, as categories such as poles, fastest laps, wins, etc, are already covered in the results table. However, I see your point that a summary would be useful for motorcycle racers who have competed in several different series. As you've said reference material is hard to come by. I see the WSB official site has recently changed, and only statistics back to the year 2000, are covered.Orsoni (talk) 07:39, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I've just added a new Racing record section to the Michel Fabrizio article. The reason it has a sub-heading is that I'm going to add a MotoGP results table very shortly. What do you think? Christophee (talk) 01:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Christophee, the original reason why alot of the infobox templates were deleted and replaced as so that there was a dropdown section that had career stats in it. Now the drop down on these tables dont work for some reason and thus you have rightly put in a box below with career stats. All i would say is if we can get this dropdown table to finally work then the stats should be moved into that because of the more compact nature of the article. Xrateddan (talk) 09:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox TT rider

I notice that when populating Template:Infobox TT rider, the convention seems to be to set the "TTs contested" parameter to the number of TT meetings a rider has contested. I'm wondering whether it might make more sense to set it to the number of individual TT races the rider has contested. Because otherwise you get situations such as Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostini where "TT wins" is more than "TTs contested", which I think the casual observer might find a bit confusing. Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 12:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of different template boxes being incorporated for TT competitors, there are also many that do not have this information. The situation is now better with the Grand Prix Template:Infobox Former Grand Prix motorcycle rider which cover the post-war period. I have noted that Ray Amm has both of these boxes which replaced the original Infobox. It can be difficult to understand as the TT riders that competed during the period 1920-1939 would require a slightly different template Infobox compared to the Grand Prix box or perhaps another template for TT riders from 1977 onwards. Perhaps a standard can be agreed to which Infobox should be used. Agljones (talk) 10:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Further confusing things is the fact that from 1949 to 1976, the TT was considered the British round of the FIA Grand Prix series, so the TT results infobox replicates the Grand Prix results. Dedicated fans may know this, but the casual reader may not. I agree with Agljones. For simplicity's sake and to prevent confusion for readers, the results from 1949 to 1976 should be listed as Grand Prix victories, and pre-1949 as well as post-1976 results could have seperate infoboxes. It's a bit untidy, but we should strive to present the articles for the non-motorcycling public.Orsoni (talk) 12:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Fiddy

An article that you have been involved in editing, Fiddy, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fiddy. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Dbratland (talk) 04:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Superbike Riders infobox

The current template for Superbike racers: Template:Infobox Superbike rider, makes no mention of his active years as is done in the Formula One drivers template. I think this information would be useful for former Superbike riders (Davide Tardozzi, Fred Merkel, etc). Can we get a concensus on adding this information to the template?Orsoni (talk) 07:59, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thumbs up from me. Asendoh (talk) 19:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

GAN backlog reduction - Sports and recreation

As you may know, we currently have 400 good article nominations, with a large number of them being in the sports and recreation section. As such, the waiting time for this is especially long, much longer than it should be. As a result of this, I am asking each sports-related WikiProject to review two or three of these nominations. If this is abided by, then the backlog should be cleared quite quickly. Some projects nominate a lot but don't review, or vice-versa, and following this should help to provide a balance and make the waiting time much smaller so that our articles can actually get reviewed! Wizardman 23:39, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Previous FIM World Championship Points Schemes

The Grand Prix motorcycle racing pages lists the current MotoGP world championship scheme. There has been a number of point schemes since 1949 which includes (1949), (1950-1968), (1969-87) and a further scheme from (1988- ?). Perhaps if a contributor has some further information it could be included on the Grand Prix motorcycle racing page ?? Is there a reason why in the Chronology section there is no information for the period 1950-1972? Agljones (talk) 15:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I tried to find the point systems used in the past and make a separate page like this one, but I couldn't find anything before the 70s. If you have them, go ahead and put them in. Asendoh (talk) 21:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Here is the point system as per MotoCourse:

1949 point system.

Position	1	2	3	4	5	Fastest lap
Points	10	8	7	6	5	1

Points system from 1950 to 1968.

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6
Points	8	6	4	3	2	1

Points system from 1969 to 1987:

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Points	15	12	10	8	6	5	4	3	2	1

Points system from 1988 to 1992:

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
Points	20	17	15	13	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1

Points system from 1993 onwards:

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
Points	25	20	16	13	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1

Orsoni (talk) 06:23, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I have now created a page List of FIM World Championship points scoring systems based on the equivalent Formula 1 page. The extra point for fastest lap was awarded until 1976(?) Agljones (talk) 22:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Motocourse only mentions the 1 point for fastest lap in the 1949 season. I don't know about the following years. I also forgot to mention the "Best Results" formulas. Here they are as per Motocourse:

500cc ONLY

1949: Best 3 results counted towards the final points tally

1950: Best 4 results counted towards the final points tally

1951-1955: Best 5 results counted towards the final points tally

1956-1960: Best 4 results counted towards the final points tally.

1961: Best 6 results counted towards the final points tally.

1962-1964: Best 5 results counted towards the final points tally.

1965: Best 6 results counted towards the final points tally.

1966: Best 5 results counted towards the final points tally.

1967-1968: Best 6 results counted towards the final points tally.

1969: Best 7 results counted towards the final points tally.

1970-1971: Best 6 results counted towards the final points tally.

1972: Best 7 results counted towards the final points tally.

1973-1975: Best 6 results counted towards the final points tally.

1976: Best 3 results from the first 5 rounds counted, plus best 3 results from final 7 races

1977-1990: All races counted

1991- Best 13 results counted

1992-1998: All races counted

I have no information after 1998, but I think all races have counted since 1992.

If you need the other classes, I can type those out.Orsoni (talk) 12:08, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, the Guinness Motorcycle Sport Fact Book page 14 describes the total number of races to count as;- "the number of championship rounds divided by two, plus one." I think I was looking at Giacomo Agostini results for the late 1960's and I noticed that the Belgium Grand Prix did not have a 350cc championship race(????) Agljones (talk) 15:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Motocourse states that the 1991, 13 race results formula was used, because so many riders of that era were being injured by highsiding accidents that were occuring then. This allowed them to skip a race for injuries.Orsoni (talk) 07:04, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Motocourse 50 years of the Grand Prix ISBN 1-874557-83-7 mentions this on page 148 and again in the tables on page 204 (best 10 results for Sidecars). Agljones (talk) 16:11, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Poles/fastest lap on results tables

I noticed a trend going on: more and more users are putting infos of pole position and fastest lap on the pages, highlighting results with bold and italics respectively (take this as example); those info are also appearing on the Season calendar section for SBK articles (see this) and Grands Prix section for MotoGP articles. I want to reach a consensus on this matter because things are getting out of control.
In my opinon they are not needed at all, they add size to the page without vehicolating a sufficient information: pole positions and fastest lap do not yield any championship points; it's something pertinent to a single race, and thus it should be in the race report articles only. I want to think what other users think though, so we can use a standard set of rules for the time being.
PS: motorcycle racing is NOT F1. So "we need it because F1 has it" is NOT a valid discussion argument in my opinion. Asendoh (talk) 18:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how the extra information is detrimental to the article. If it helps saving a user from having to click on each individual race to find the information, why is that a bad thing? Italics and bolding don't seem to be a distraction. I don't feel too strongly either way, although I'm not enough of a computer geek to know if page size is a serious issue or not.Orsoni (talk) 06:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this does help saving a user from having to click on each individual page. And more, in some of the individual pages, the infromation is not even there. I get all that from the official website. And, I do accept that page size gets greatly increased in MotoGP due to the putting in of three full tables, but I don't understand why you have to revert the Superbike as in that one table stays as one table, and does not greatly increase the page size. 118.101.5.219 (talk) 15:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

First: in my opinion, poles and FLs have ZERO impact on the season summary, I thought it was clear after the 2008 MotoGP discussion. You say articles are missing, then write them, we need more season summaries and race report articles, instead of discussions about the layout. Anyway, I can see bold and italics for the standing tables OR names in the season summary table, NOT both as it would be a duplicate. But I'm waiting for other people's thoughts.

Second: I reported you on the ANI. I'm frankly tired of your disruptive behavior. Asendoh (talk) 19:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

500cc or 500 cc

Just a simple question, which is the correct notation for the categories, 500cc or 500 cc? List of Grand Prix motorcycle racing World champions uses 500 cc, 250 cc, etc with a space in between, while the List of 500cc/MotoGP Motorcycle World Champions and List of 250cc Motorcycle World Champions which are Featured lists use 500cc, 250cc, etc. — Martin tamb (talk) 08:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Also the notations used in MotoGP official website and FIM official website are always 500cc, 250cc, 125cc, etc without a space in between. — Martin tamb (talk) 09:35, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Motocourse uses 500 cc, however, I've noticed some magazines use 500cc, so I'm at a loss to which is the correct one.Orsoni (talk) 19:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess it's correct either way. I prefer 500cc though. Asendoh (talk) 20:27, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Career statistics tables - which order?

There seems to be some discrepency over which order the career statistics tables should be in on motorcycle rider articles. Most MotoGP (and lower class) riders have the oldest results first and the most recent ones at the bottom of the table, but riders from other series have it the other way around. I think there should be a standard rule for how this is done otherwise we will get disagreements like on the James Toseland page. But which order should we go with? Christophee (talk) 01:36, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the career statistics tables should been listed in chronological order, the oldest at the top and the latest at the bottom. Almost all sports statistics are written this way, see the example in featured articles for F1 driver (Damon Hill), football player (Steve Bruce), basketball player (Yao Ming). Also the list of motorcycle racing champions are also listed in chronological order, see List of Superbike World champions and List of 500cc/MotoGP Motorcycle World Champions. — Martin tamb (talk) 16:42, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

If I were reading an article, I would assume the tables were in chronological order.Orsoni (talk) 22:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

But it also makes sense in reverse order because you always want to know at the top of the results page whats happening at the current moment, having the newest results first means that your not having to look though all the past results in order to see how he has done this season (which is probably what most people would want to do...) but i guess if everything else is layed ou like that then there will be no debate... Xrateddan (talk) 09:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

After their career has ended, the tables would be left in reverse order. I think most people searching for results would look in the yearly summary of the series. These articles are meant to be encyclopedic in nature for people who know nothing about the subject, not for serious race fans looking for the latest results, therefore, I would think chronological order would be best.Orsoni (talk) 20:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox AMA Superbike rider

Template:Infobox AMA Superbike rider has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. RL0919 (talk) 16:27, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed that World Superbike Info boxes have also been deleted. I haven't a clue why someone found these objectionable. Does anyone know the reson for deletion? It seems that over-zealous editing has become rampant in Wikipedia.Orsoni (talk) 18:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

New Info Boxes

Since the new info boxes replaced the old ones a couple of months ago there has been no improvment on the drop down box, i would like to suggest that first it should work... (which its doesnt on most pages) and secondly that you should be able to put BSB and BSS (British superbike and British supersport) info into the drop down menus. As i have no idea where to start would it be possible to put this info into a dropdown? If so can someone tell me how that process is done and or do the process themselves and i will impliment it across the articles in the BSB and BSS championship. Xrateddan (talk) 09:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Erik Buell Racing

Some of you may have seen the announcement in October than Hardly-Ableson had canned the Buell motorcycle brand. The good news is that Erik Buell, with Harley-Davidson's blessing, has now launched a new independent enterprise Erik Buell Racing which will build race-only versions of the 1125R and provide parts and support to privateers. I would appreciate it if members of this project could add to / improve the stub article that I have created (and added to the scope of this project). --Biker Biker (talk) 13:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Rider Userboxes

Hi, i have problem with editing userboxes for rider which the birthplace and date of birth does not appear in userboxes, also how can i delete the career statistics from the rider userboxes?

The page is Doni Tata Pradita.

Thanks. MbahGondrong (talk) 02:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

To enable DOB you need to enter it in this form below the nationality | Dateofbirth = Yes | Birthdate = (1985-10-29) 29 October 1985

And you cant delete the career stats section because its part of a template, if you have any career stats for the rider above then please put them in :) Xrateddan (talk) 09:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Where can i see the template description? I have no idea what should I put in career stats.

Thanks for reply. MbahGondrong (talk) 14:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi again, Rider Template is there if you look in the usage column you will see all the uses of the table, you don't have to include them all, just the classes that he has competed in for example "World Supersport" would be listed as SS so copy all of the values with SS and then the drop down should display his stats for SS Thanks, hope that helps Xrateddan (talk) 15:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Very helpful, thanks again. MbahGondrong (talk) 21:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Isle of Man TT Races

Is there a consensus for a rewrite of the Isle of Man TT article in perhaps the style of something like the Tour de France article or other sporting events???? The resulting article may be much longer than the current article! Agljones (talk) 22:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Although the Tour de France article is a good model, I don't think the current Isle of Man TT article is all that different. As I stated in the TT article's discussion page, I think it can be shortened by moving some of the results to the individual yearly race articles.Orsoni (talk) 06:07, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Problems with 2009 season articles

Having quickly dashed through the collection of articles under 2009 in motorsport template, I have found the following articles do not mention who won the race/championship/title featured in the topic in the opening paragraph, or in the executive summary at the start of each of the articles.

The winner of these series or events is the most important detail of each as sporting events and they should all have this article included up top as a matter of logical writing for encylopedic content.

The list is:

• 2009 British Superbike Championship season
• 2009 British Supersport Championship season
• 2009 FIM Motocross World Championship season
• 2009 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season
• 2009 Isle of Man TT
• 2009 Manx Grand Prix
• 2009 Superbike World Championship season
• 2009 Supersport World Championship season
• 2009 FIM Superstock 1000 Championship

--Falcadore (talk) 03:21, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Sports Notability

There is discussion ongoing at Wikipedia_talk:BIO#RFC:_WP:Athlete_Professional_Clause_Needs_Improvement debating possible changes to the WP:ATHLETE notability guideline. As a result, some have suggested using WP:NSPORT as an eventual replacement for WP:ATHLETE. Editing has begun at WP:NSPORT, please participate to help refine the notability guideline for the sports covered by this wikiproject. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 03:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Help with Elena Myers article

I just created a stub for Elena Myers. It has a bare list of article links and I'm in the process of expanding it now. I need help correctly presenting and citing the career stats. I'll be submitting it to Did you know? in a couple days or less. All contributions or advice are appreciated. --Dbratland (talk) 23:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

1998 motorcycle Grand Prix

A vandal added these tables. They were removed and then restored by another user with no sources. Could somebody please spot-check or add a source. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:11, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

They appear accurate. I'll try to dig up some sources when i have time.Orsoni (talk) 06:03, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Sometimes vandals mix in good edits. I can't figure out the tables. Not my thing. But I do know writing about "pole position" in motorcycle driving is just rude. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Nothing the least bit rude about pole position in motorcycle racing. Jpg1954 (talk) 18:45, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposed: Category:Supersport motorcycles rename to Category:Sport bikes

--Dbratland (talk) 05:16, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

World Superbike & British Superbike Articles

I wondered if these two articles should fall into line with the moto GP article, in the way that all of the moto gp "support" races are covered in the one article. Would this help with both British superbikes and world superbike "support" classes, the big advantage i see to this would be that much more information could be put on one page, the downside looking at the moto GP article it can become rather long! In the article 2010 motorcycle grand prix season all the support classes (125 and moto 2), where as on the world superbike pages there are seperate articles for each class. Just thought i would see what everyone else thought! Cheers Xrateddan (talk) 21:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to add i would like to see both the british superbike and world superbike articles include support classes like the moto gp article Xrateddan (talk) 21:48, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Motorcycle Grand Prix seasons

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Motorsport#Motorcycle_Grand_Prix_seasons. DH85868993 (talk) 16:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Rider categories proposed for deletion

FYI, an editor has proposed a number of "rider by competition" categories for deletion - see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_August_9#Category:World_Supersport_riders. DH85868993 (talk) 03:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed category rename

I have proposed that Category:British Superbike riders be renamed to Category:British Superbike Championship riders to clarify that this category is for riders who gave ridden in the British Superbike Championship, not Superbike riders who are British. Please add any thoughts you may have on the matter to the rename discussion. DH85868993 (talk) 15:16, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Grand Prix motorcycle racing season

There is a glaring omission in the new edits to the 1998 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season and 2000 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season. There is no links to the race bikes used such as Honda NSR500 and Yamaha YZR500. I will add them if no one else does.Orsoni (talk) 12:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Infoboxes

Just wondering, is there any reason to use {{Infobox MotoGP rider}} rather than just using {{Infobox motorcycle rider}} ? Infobox motorcycle rider has more options, so seems as though it's more useful. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:16, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Super Single for deletion

The article Super Single is being discussed concerning whether it is suitable for inclusion as an article according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Super Single until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Dbratland (talk) 03:17, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to separate 500cc/MotoGP and 250cc/Moto 2

At the moment, Wikipedia treats 500cc and MotoGP as being practically the same thing. 250cc and Moto2 get the same treatment. 500cc and MotoGP are not equivalent, neither are 250cc and Moto2. They should be separated. Readro (talk) 17:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

MotoGP is the same thing as 500cc. It just uses a different formula, same for Moto2 and 250cc. Formula One is not separated into "Formula One 3.0 V10" and "Formula One 2.4 V8", neither should grand prix. I am in favor of each championship (MotoGP/500cc, 350cc, Moto2/250cc, 125cc, 80cc/50cc) getting its own article --Chris Ssk _talk 18:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Dorna themselves state that Moto2 is a new class that replaces the 250cc category. http://www.motogp.com/en/MotoGP+Basics

What articles you're referring to, exactly? I can't understand your point. Asendoh (talk) 12:54, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, 500cc and MotoGP are the same in that they represent the top tier of motorcycle road racing. To separate them would give the reader an impression that a whole new facet of the sport was invented, which isn't the case. The F.I.M. simply came up with a new engine formula.Orsoni (talk) 09:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

GPUpdate.net

It would appear that GPUpdate.net have reorganised their website, which means that many (most?) of the links from English Wikipedia to the website are now broken. There doesn't seem to be any recognisable pattern to the changes (for example http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news/2000/12/04/bar-signs-anthony-davidson-as-test-driver/ has become http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/22018/bar-signs-anthony-davidson-as-test-driver/), so I think the only way to fix all the links is to go through them one by one. I've created a list of the 147 articles I found containing links to GPUpdate.net (by doing a wiki search for "gpupdate.net"), in case anyone wants to help out. DH85868993 (talk) 08:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

They're all fixed now (except for two where I couldn't locate the new location of the page). Thanks to Cs-wolves and Schumi555 for their help. DH85868993 (talk) 03:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Brian Deegan (Moto X)

What is the preferred term for a person who races motorcycles: driver, rider, racer ... ? His article should be renamed to reflect his truck off-road racing career, as he was a recent champion in LOORRS. I didn't know that he was so notable for his motorcycle career (no wonder I thought his name sounded familiar!). I probably have photos of his truck racing at the off-road world championships in one of the past few years. Royalbroil 00:55, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

For someone involved in different motorsports perhaps, the word (motorsports) in parenthesis after the name might be suitable?Orsoni (talk) 09:45, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

A disambiguator asking for help

Hello,

I'm coming to you as a disambiguator, and am hoping that some of you from this Wikiproject can help me with your expertise.

I was working on cleaning up the disambiguation page Frédéric Petit. You can see that one of the entries on this page is for the motorcycle racer Frédéric Petit. When there isn't an article about someone who ought to be included on a disambiguation page, we aim to link to a related article that best provides information about the person/thing. There is not a clear article to link to for this guy, since all of the links about him are the results of various races that he was in (take a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Frédéric_Petit to see what I mean). With a clear presence in articles, I though it might make sense for him to have an article of his own, but a) I'm not familiar enough with the notability guidelines in this field to know if that is legitimate, and b) if he were notable enough to have an article of his own (located, in theory, at Frédéric Petit (motorcyclist) or something similar), I wouldn't know the best format for displaying the information about him and all of his racing results. My only thought was that per Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#Motorsports, a racer would be notable if she/he had been in a "fully professional series"... but I don't have the knowledge to know if the races in which he has been fit this bill

So, I was hoping that I could get your insights into:

1. If this Frédéric Petit is notable enough to have his own page, and if so,
2. How to go about best putting information on this page. (If it is easier for one of you to make it, totally go for it).

Thanks so much for your help, -- Natalya 22:10, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

New article created for Frédéric Petit (motorcyclist).Orsoni (talk) 08:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Magnificent! Thank you so much for your help and expertise. -- Natalya 17:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Doubly wow, thanks for fixing all of the links to point to the correct article as well! -- Natalya 17:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Race result boxes

I've been trying to start creating pages for each individual GP from '70s up for a while now. Before spending more time on it, I wanted ask an opinion of others if this race result box I've created would be acceptable look. Example is on my sandbox.User:Marty Rockatansky/Sandbox2. Any feedback is much appreciated.cheers.Marty Rockatansky (talk) 08:01, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks good except for under the BIKE category, I would link to the actual bike such as Yamaha YZR-M1 rather than link to the manufacturer.Orsoni (talk) 05:39, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I agree I'll do that. I got various years of Motocourse but do you know whats the most detailed race result websites out there. I've noticed its notoriously hard to find full race results from earlier years of GP racing, specially early 70s and older. FIM seems to care only points finishers.Marty Rockatansky (talk) 06:24, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I've found two sites but, they're not in English and I'm not sure English Wikipedia accepts non-English web sites as a citable source. This one is in French and only shows classifications: http://racingmemo.free.fr/MOTO_SOMMAIRE.htm. This one is in Dutch and covers 1973 to 2011 with classifications and timing: http://www.jumpingjack.nl/GP-races_Index.htm.Orsoni (talk) 09:44, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah i know those two, theres another french site [7]. I don't see why not, the results are results. Sad thing about the Racingmemory site is, the owner got killed in a bike accident about a month ago, according to the forum i visit. They are working on locking the site somehow that it won't go offline and all his valuable work will get lost.Marty Rockatansky (talk) 10:33, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It wouldn't hurt to reference the source and see what happens. Sorry about the sad news. By the way, thanks for your great work on the Grand Prix racing seasons articles. One small point on the Isle of Man TT. I believe it was considered the British round of the FIM calendar and that it was organized by the Auto-Cycle Union, the British motorcycle governing body, therefore the event should carry the British flag rather than the Isle of Man flag.Orsoni (talk) 10:57, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation inconsistency

So, should it be Bradley Smith (motorcyclist) or Danny Webb (motorcycle racer)? Personally, I think it should be (motorcycle racer), as the important part is that they race the bikes, not that they happen to ride them. Whichever it should be, we should aim for consistency. GedUK  06:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, from a layperson's viewpoint, a person involved in motorcycling would simply be a motorcyclist. That they happen to also race motorcycles would be part of being a motorcyclist. I think the naming should be done for readers who are not avid followers of the sport. To them, world traveler Ted Simon or racer Valentino Rossi would both simply be viewed as motorcyclists.Orsoni (talk) 14:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

And if their careers are long enough to merit a Wikipedia article, they end up doing training, like Keith Code, or non-racing sport like Chris Carr (motorcyclist)'s land speed records, or motorcycle journalism, or design, or sales, or team management. In many cases a more general term like Joe Biker (motorcycling) is better. And still perfect consistency will remain a distant goal. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 14:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Joe Biker (motorcycling) looks good to me. Readro (talk) 15:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

So, are we agreed on (motorcycling) as our disambiguator? GedUK  19:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Motorcycling is fine by me although, it will require a bit of article renaming.Orsoni (talk) 06:45, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Should this include moving Brian Jones (motorcycle designer), Peter Egan (columnist), Arthur Davidson (Harley-Davidson founder), David Mann (painter), etc to (motorcycling)? Or only move racers? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 14:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Discussion included at WikiProject Motorcycling

Motorcycling is fine with me for people primarily associated with any aspect of motorcycling be it writing, racing, riding, designing, building, repairing, tuning, painting, photographing etc. It's nice and simple like me. --Biker Biker (talk) 14:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It seem very odd that anyone would consider adding the suffix "motorcycling" for a person, "motorcyclist", "motorcycle racer", "designer", "engineer", etc., are appropriate. How many instance do we actually have where other people have identical name that would require a suffix? Motorcycling describes an action and people are not actions. I have to agree with Orsoni on this one. ww2censor (talk) 05:17, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Because motorcyclist includes only riding activities, and motorcycling is broad enough to include making or selling motorcycles, or being an executive in the motorcycle business, or participating in motorcycling culture like making films or writing. You might want to assume that doing all these things means also being a motorcyclist, but is that entirely accurate? Dave Mann (American football) is a good example. If you said Dave Mann (football player), you'd be leaving out his role as a coach. Many famous players become coaches, after all.

It looks like we're talking about 200 to 300 articles with a disambiguation in the title, but probably 9/10 are known for racing only. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox former Grand Prix motorcycle rider

I notice that it was recently decided that Template:Infobox former Grand Prix motorcycle rider should be merged with Template:Infobox motorcycle rider. Is anyone prosecuting this merger? DH85868993 (talk) 12:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I prefer the older version as it is inline with the Formula 1 infobox, although motorcycle racing is complicated with more classes. I think the generic Template:Infobox motorcycle rider only lists MotoGP and not 500cc. A case could be made that MotoGP refers to the premier division that also represents 500cc, but it could lead to some confusion. It also list teams as "current team" which wouldn't apply to a rider from the 1950s. I also don't like having to click to open an infobox. I'm not well-versed in the infobox code to try and make any changes.Orsoni (talk) 12:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Flag icons - action needed

Personally I loathe flag icons in Wikipedia articles, but I recognise that both car and motorcycle racing articles make extensive use of them, and I can actually see the value that they add in large tables of results. I would therefore like to bring to your attention these edits, in which all the flags were removed from British Superbike Championship Support Series. Perhaps somebody from this project would like to address those edits? More importantly, it would be useful if the members of this project were to reach consensus on the use of flags in motorcycle racing articles. Do you use them, or not? If yes, then they should be formally documented in your project guidance so that people who decide unilaterally to remove flags can be pointed to the wikiproject's policy on the use of flags. --Biker Biker (talk) 07:00, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

MOS:FLAG makes clear that the flags need to be removed from nearly every article in this project: "Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality - such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams." The World Cup and the Olympics are the two most obvious examples: competitors are actual representatives of a country. Although even then, citizenship and birth are orthogonal to whose flag you wore in an event. In MotoGP and virtually all motorcycling sport, national origin and/or citizenship is as incidental to the subject as religion. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:12, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

In the past I have remove flag icons from the userboxes of many motorcyclist but ran up against some car racing objections when I got the Mike Hailwood [8] and John Surtees [9] but after a long discussion on my talk page let those slide though their reasons to keep seemed week. Result tables are a different matter and WP:WORDPRECEDENT states that: "In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when the nationality of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself," so we need to consider if they are pertinent. Entrants in motorcycle event are usually made by the entrant or his team but he does not represent his country, so we should probably get rid of them. ww2censor (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It's clear that some editors are invested in keeping the flags. But I've yet to see a citation to support the criterion that these motorsport competitors "actually represent" a country. We hear things like, "well, he had a flag painted on his car" or on his helmet. That is not what "actually represents" means. But I don't think it's going to be resolved at the level of the WikiProject. The decision is going to be made at a higher level to bring projects like Motorcycle racing into compliance. It might be wise to let it go for now. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Given that I loathe the bloody things I'm happy to side with removal. How many people to we need to set consensus for the project? I guess we need to leave it a few days to give others a chance to contribute? Assuming the result is "remove" then a bot can be employed as was done recently to remove all flags from instances of {{Infobox company}}. --Biker Biker (talk) 21:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I understand where this is all coming from, but all motorsports use flags as a way of communicating which country they are from. For example all the offical Moto GP and World Superbike classes carry such flags. I think that having the flag of where someone is from is causing no harm, it makes them pages look less like generic information and give it some life. I feel its a piece of information that does "need" to be there but it's nice to know where the person is from, give it a bit of personality. I can understand why no flags in the rider infoboxes because it already says within that box where they are from, so no need for duplicate information.

I just don't see what's wrong with having flags... Is it offending people? Ah well Xrateddan (talk) 21:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

So just to be clear, this discussion is about all motorcycle racing articles within the scope of this project - so that's WSBK, MotoGP, Speedway, Motocross, etc. etc. --Biker Biker (talk) 21:43, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Its also a nice way to tell who's who, if you have two people called Simon Jones for example, ones from Scotland and ones from United States, how would the user be able to tell the difference between the two names? Without flags articles such as the British Superbike Support Series become nothing more than lists of names with no personality. Xrateddan (talk) 21:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

See MOS:FLAG#Inappropriate_use_2 and MOS:FLAG#Use_of_flags_for_sportspersons. For sportspersons, the flag is assumed to show representative nationality. Not citizenship, not birth. It creates ambiguity and confusion if you insert a flag for citizenship or birth when the normal assumption is that the flag is there for representative nationality -- the country they were competing for, and representing. Casey Stoner is free to have an Australian flag on his gear, but he is not in actual fact riding for Australia. Sure, MotoGP.com's marketing department is happy letting Australian fans believe that he's riding for them, or that Rossi is riding for Italy. But that is false.

Other problems with flags you'll see in the MOS is that they are distracting, and that they carry political and nationalistic implications. In virtually all motorcycle sport, there is zero political or nationalistic representation, and it is deceptive and confusing to imply otherwise. Flags are powerful symbols and Wikipedia's consensus is to not use them lightly. And the guidelines in the MOS represent the consensus of thousands of Wikipedians, not just the handful editing motorcycling articles. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:04, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I believe that, although flags are harmless and shows extra information, I believe they should be removed from most racing articles. In seasonal articles such as 2011 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season, the use of flag are excessive and there is no country names, which should be there according to WP:MOSFLAG: The name of a flag's country should appear adjacent to the first use of the flag icon, as not all readers are familiar with all flags. On the other hand, in the articles/lists which has a separate nationality column such as List of 500cc/MotoGP Motorcycle World Champions and List of Grand Prix motorcycle racing winners, where the flags are accompanied with country names/abbreviations, the flags could stay, because ven though the riders do not represent their countries in the races, their flags would still be raised in the podium, which clearly shows their representative nationality. About the use of flags on the manufacturers/constructors/teams, the flags should be removed, those manufacturers/constructors/teams do not represent their country. — MT (talk) 05:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The official Moto GP site and the WSBK site use flags in all of there timing and championship table material! So why can't wikipedia? People are interested in where people come from, its the iconography that most riders wear, i don't see why there is such a problem with it, think its being OVER thought, its just a flag... Dennis i don't think having a little flag to indicate where someone is from really has any political meaning. Why must the fun be sucked out of everything? F1 uses flags, world rally use flags as well as: Basketball, Cricket, Football, Ice Hockey, Rugby and pretty much EVERY other Sport uses Flags infront of names to show where that person is thought to be from. If you remove flags people with no knowledge of the sport will not know whats going on... I notice no one has commented on if two people have the same name post above, just like usual people ignore what others have to say to put there own opinions over others. Xrateddan (talk) 20:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

To suggest that there's "zero nationalistic representation" in bike racing or other motorsport is simply rubbish. The riders/drivers have a representative nationality which is displayed on the podium while we all listen to the national anthem of the winner, exactly the same as an athlete at the Olympics, for example. Pretending otherwise is misleading, and proving otherwise will be impossible. The flagicons in use which indicate representative nationality do satisfy the MOS, including the single flag in a sporting infobox. Others that don't should be removed. Arguments such as "distracting" and "carrying political and nationalistic implications" cannot be used in this case, since those arguments apply to all flags, and nobody is advocating removal of all flags across Wikipedia. Bretonbanquet (talk) 20:38, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

First, if someone wants to see what MotoGP.com has to offer, they should point their browser at MotoGP.com. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and does not attempt to be an imitation of web sites that serve a different purpose. Second, please cite where it says in plain English that riders represent any country. Yes, they decorate their helmets and web sites with flags. But they also decorate them with all sorts of things. Valentino Rossi is not, in actual fact, a doctor. In the Olympics or the World Cup, citations exist which state -- in words -- that the competitors do actually represent a country. Cite where it says Rossi represents Italy and you've got all you need to keep the flag. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:48, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The MotoGP official website is a reliable source - why is it not acceptable to you in this case? Any or all sources which state that an athlete represents their country at the Olympics are also "websites that serve a different purpose", what's the difference? That riders represent their countries is self-evident from the podium ceremony, which again is identical to an Olympic podium ceremony. What other manifestation of representative nationality do you need? Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree it's reliable. Just tell me where it says that the riders are actually representatives of any country. If it is so self evident, surely somewhere there exists a citation where an author or journalists said in simple words that a rider represents a country. I find it bizarre that nobody has ever stated in words this self evident fact. Citations exist that fire is hot and ice is cold and the earth is round. Why not this self evident fact as well? Unless...--Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:08, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you can show me where the MOS requires a citation saying in words that they represent a country, as you put it. Unless... Anyway, here's a motogp.com article talking about the US GP, where in 1992, all race winners were "representing the USA". [10] Or there's this, in the first sentence [11]. It was self-evident to me anyway. Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:19, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The MOS is secondary to a more fundamental policy: Wikipedia:Verifiability. "This policy requires that all quotations and anything challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed in the form of an inline citation that directly supports the material." I'll relent on MotoGP. I do not think the citizenship they give for the riders on the official site is anything like the national representation of the Olympics, which is what the MOS clearly intends. But there is sufficient evidence on the MotoGP official site that the flags can probably be kept for now, until a more serious challenge to these flags arises.

But that does not mean every other motorcycle racing article should have flags too, unless they also are accompanied by unambiguous citations. MOS:FLAG sets a high bar -- "If the use of flags in a list, table or infobox makes it unclear, ambiguous or controversial, it is better to remove the flags even if that makes the list, table or infobox inconsistent with others of the same type where no problems have arisen." -- and Wikipedia:Verifiability demands that actual citations be presented. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:22, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Interpretation of the MOS is a subjective thing; it says "representative nationality" and you've challenged the MotoGP riders' inclusion under that criterion, and sources are available which satisfy it. What the MOS may clearly intend is neither here nor there, it's what it says that matters, and until it says something else, that's what we work with. What other articles are you talking about? With regard to your MOSFLAG quote, for flags to be removed under that reasoning, they do have to make the list, table or infobox controversial in itself - that does not mean controversy over the mere presence of the flags. They have to cause ambiguity or controversy in the meaning of the list, table or infobox, which I suspect they do not. I assume you're not going to ask for citations to accompany every flag. Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:43, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Can I add that WP:MOSFLAG is a guideline not a policy, and the top of that guideline page states This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions. I see no reason why this cannot be an "occasional exceptions", if consensus deems it so. I also see no reason why this project should not have it's own MOS page - WikiProject Motorcycle racing (section)/Manual of style - created by consensus (just like some other projects), and then there can be no arguments (wishful thinking...)  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:21, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

In a sense, riders do represent their countries as they need to have a racing license from their home nation's governing body in order to compete in FIM events. In this article from 1979, the FIM advised the AMA that is was suspending Kenny Roberts for his boycott of the 1979 Belgian Grand Prix (http://books.google.com/books?id=FvgDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA36&dq=kenny+roberts+american+motorcyclist&hl=en&ei=o6QITeWbOoOBlAee583AAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0 ccoQ6AEwAjg8#v=onepage&q=kenny%20roberts%20american%20motorcyclist&f=false).Orsoni (talk) 05:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be terrible confusion about what "represent" means. There is nothing like each country having a fixed number of entrants, where if you are the best rider from a given country, then you compete, no matter how many good riders from other countries can't compete. Rider qualification in motorcycle racing ignores the rider's country altogether. If 25 riders from one country get hired by teams, and zero riders from some other country, that is no problem. If all the Australian riders leave, they're not going to go looking for some other Australians to take their places. They take the best riders they can afford from anywhere, based on almost any criteria except their nationality.

After a team hires a rider, then they go and plaster flags here and there, purely for marketing. The arbitrary and silly use of Texas flags for Colin Edwards is a prime example of how flags are being used for no purpose other than to excite fans. Some marketing guy thought "Texas Tornado" sounded like it would sell and they ran with it. The special meaning attached to having Rossi ride for an Italian brand is another example of pure marketing -- nationality is ignored or emphasized depending entirely on what message they want to deliver to the fans and the motorcycle buying public.

If you look at how the MOS is applied Wikipedia-wide, you've got to admit that once a large number of editors who don't happen to be part of the motorcycle racing project take notice of this, the flags are going to go. There is too strong a consensus Wikipedia-wide against just this sort of gratuitous emphasis on nationality. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:36, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

There was also the controversial incident involving Kawasaki rider Gary Nixon at the Venezuelan round of the 1976 Formula 750 world championship. The FIM refused to ratify Nixon's apparent victory in the event which eventually ended up costing him the championship. His appeal to the FIM was presented by the AMA not Kawasaki, which begs the question why the AMA was involved unless Nixon was racing under the auspices of that governing body and thus representing America. ( http://books.google.com/books?id=z_gDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=American+Motorcyclist+Pat+Hennen&source=bl&ots=BdpKwa2g1t&sig=5PBFS9qyXkAB5B-dTRNl3u5DiQw&hl=en&ei=x77aSr3OO4fg8QbKtYm3BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=American%20Motorcyclist%20Pat%20Hennen&f=false )

It's my understanding that Grand Prix competitors need to be licensed by their home country's governing body and only then are allowed to compete by the FIM. Honda isn't allowed to hire anyone they want unless they are sanctioned by their home nation's governing body. For instance, in the FIM's eyes, Colin Edwards is an AMA representative in MotoGP competition, and thus is considered an American representative. I'll see if there is any mention in the FIM website. .Orsoni (talk) 19:48, 3 October 2011 (UTC)