Talk:Ashley's bend

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The request for citation is misplaced. The book cited exists, and is a solid reference. Within that book this article cites specific sections that will point to the specific information being referenced. I don't know if the issue is that wiki citations are not being used, or that there is a dispute of the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.16.172.22 (talk) 03:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comment. The tags at the top of this article are quite old... I think currently the issue of lack of references is most applicable to the statements about the jamming behavior of this knot. While I believe these statements are factual, their author alludes to the fact that there aren't too many references which discuss this behavior. This is problematic because of Wikipedia:Verifiability. Arguably, any person could actually try testing the knot themselves with a length of line, but it is much preferable to have a solid, published, independent source for things like this. BTW, I often quote Cyrus L. Day for solid statements about knots (he's great!) but on the Ashley Bend he also claims it's non-jamming when depending on arrangement it does indeed appear to be prone to jamming.

In any case, the statements about Day in AK&S calling the knot Ashley Bend are correct, but perhaps could use a little work on giving them a bit more of a encyclopedic tone. (e.g. Whether Ashley and Day were "friends" is both somewhat speculative and likely irrelevant.) It's interesting to note that in the first edition (1947) of AK&S, Day does not call the knot "Ashley's Bend" in his presentation on page 64. However it is listed under that name in the index (p.223). By the 4th edition(1986), it is listed by name on page 56 with the presentation of the knot. I don't currently have access to the 2nd and 3rd editions, but they were published in 1955 and 1970(or 1972?), respectively. Since Day died in 1968, only changes made in the 2nd (and maybe the 3rd edition) would have likely have been made by him. That said, I think it can be restated in a way that can address the current issues.

Overall the article could definitely use a general cleanup and reformatting to bring it in line with other knotting articles. I'll take a pass at it. --Dfred (talk) 07:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]