Talk:BSA Gold Star

New Category for British Motorcycles

As part of the Motorcycling WikiProject I am working though all the missing articles and stubs for British Bikes. To make things easier to sort out I have created a new category for British motorcycles. Please will you add to any British motorcycle pages you find or create. I've also linked it to the Commons British Motorcycles so you could help with matching pics to articles or adding the missing images to the Commons - take your camera next time you go to a rally! Thanks Tony (talk) 12:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, instead, all pages should be categorized as described in Wikipedia:Categorization. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:40, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Post-Gold Star sporting singles

In the section "1963 End of Production", it stated "A sporting single was not produced again till the BSA B50 models that were produced from 1971 through 1973." There is no source provided for this claim, nor could there be for it is incorrect. In fact, BSA's single-cylinder B44 "Victor" scrambler was hugely successful, winning the 500cc World Championship in 1964 and 1965, and the production derivatives were successfully campaigned by many privateers throughout the production span of the model, from 1967 until its demise in 1970. Therefore, I've removed the erroneous claim. Bricology (talk) 06:33, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Main Photo

Of the two bikes in the main photograph of this article, the closer one is not a Gold Star (it is a twin), and so if another photograph of only Gold Stars is available then the photo should be replaced. 98.207.61.227 (talk) 01:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)David

You appear to be correct - do you think it's a BSA Rocket Gold Star (which was a twin)? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes I believe it is a Rocket Gold Star, so the photo could be moved to the Rocket Gold Star article (which does not have a photo of a Gold Star). There is a good photo of my Gold Star here, but it is not my photo so permission would be needed from the photographer. -- David — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.35.196 (talk) 18:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Neither bike is a gold star or rocket gold star. KFO755 was registered in 1958 and has a 650cc engine. DAS570, which was registered and has a 646cc engine. On that basis I have removed the picture from the article. --Biker Biker (talk) 13:51, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

650 cc could be 646 rounded to the nearest 10, and 646 cc is correct for a BSA Rocket Gold Star, but 1958 is too early. Apparently DAS570 was manufactured in 1961, but not registered until 2001. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:23, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

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Editing

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Per WP:TALK, article talk pages should not be used as a forum for interpersonal disputes. Please go to WP:Dispute resolution if you have an issue with another editor you feel requires further action. Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:28, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

---

Hello all,

Firstly, if you think I am making a hash of all this & (and!) I am in the wrong place, please delete this new section or modify as you see fit!

I have mostly & infrequently made "minor" edits of a few articles, completely in ignorance of all the correct procedures but with good intentions and hopefully at least with accuracy and good grammar. So please consider me a child in these matters. I have no knowledge of coding or any computer tech other than as a casual home user. I find even the simplest action on here quite impenetrable! What may seem dead simple to you is not at all so to the outsider. I really have absolutely no grasp of the architecture and will have to spend some time reading up on "How to do it, although I have limited spare time. There must be a simplified handbook to be written...

Anyway, regarding the Gold Star page, I have made considerable changes and additions to it, initiated by the erroneous claim about YB32s & YB34s being Gold Stars. I am pleased that someone was at least keen enough to build the page in the first place, however there were a number of incorrect, misleading or ambiguous elements I felt the need to rectify and some areas that I felt needed expanding. I have not checked everything on the page. As a result some citing is now in need of updating. A number of the citations are from perhaps less reliable sources, or rather have been misinterpreted without knowledge of peculiarities relating to the Gold Star. There are many myths or misunderstandings that are often repeated in magazine articles. I can only claim decades of involvement with the machines, a lot of notes and BSA Parts lists, Club Membership (over 30 years of club magazines) and a number of well-regarded books to refer to, as listed. All of these contain a lot of factually correct detail. Regarding the YB32 aluminium engines, I have it on good authority, or should I say, the all too human memory of the GSOC Magazine editor who bought one in later years; that someone at BSA told him some had been built. It was news to me. I have no way of further verifying this but left it in the article with my justification to see if there were any responses. I am tempted to remove it. There are a number of machines that seem to have come from BSA at this time, that do not strictly fit the year, range, build spec. etc. lists available, or that were produced in very small numbers for specific, usually sporting / competition purposes. They could be allotted a separate section on the GS page or even a completely separate page of their own "BSA Works Factory Specials"

There are still some clarifications to be made on the page, that I have not attended to. --Flowbench (talk) 20:57, 19 January 2021 (UTC) Sorry I probably haven't worked out how to sign correctly...

Hi Flowbench, thanks for your improvements to the article. I had intended to work on it further myself but never actually got around to it.

I know what you mean about the myths, but also the factory records and parts lists sometimes don't always tell the full story. I worked at Pride & Clarkes in Brixton in the 1970s (better known as Pride of Sharks!). Although BSA was defunct by this time, older members of staff told me that BSA machines quite often came in from the factory with non-standard parts fitted. I was told that to maintain production BSA would fit anything that was available if the correct part was not available. Also, when the new years models were introduced (in August?), the first new models sometimes were a mixture of old and new models dependent on parts availability. Possibly P&S brought these off-spec machines at a reduced price from BSA so it wasn't as common with bikes brought from more reputable dealers.

There are also things we can remember from the period that we can't verify today. I can remember seeing a graph from BSA showing the power outputs for the various 441 models. The Victor GP put out the most, the Victor Special and Victor Roadster less (but the same as each other) and the Shooting Star the least. Looking at the specifications available now, all bar the GP put out the same. I can also remember having a conversation with my local BSA dealer about not being able to fit a 10.5:1 piston from a Barracuda to my Starfire (10:1) as the gudgeon pin was different. Looking at the specifications today, they both used 10:1.

Looking at pictures of Gold Stars at the time, and also current verified as genuine GSs, there seem to be frame variations that don't seem to be talked about. Some scramblers have the loop for the passenger footrests, others don't. I've also seen a few with a horizontal member between the downpipes, possibly this was a factory racing mod? Keep up the good work. Regards. --John B123 (talk) 01:06, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi John B123, thanks for responding. I didn't get involved with bikes until the mid 80's. I bought a B32 & became completely a BSA competition model singles specialist, which at the time not much seemed to be known about. "It's either a B31 or a Gold Star mate". Info seemed hard to find but back then I knew no other bikers so didn't have much to go on! There are an awful lot of anomalies or short lived changes & variations. I know of at least one alloy B31 type cylinder head, almost certainly a "works" item, there may even have been barrels but never seen or heard of one. In period photos the works bikes often have details not seen on production models. Your P&C (P&S):-) info doesn't surprise me. After BSA made all those bits they had to make money from them somehow! The compromises & economic reality of production. Why invest in new tooling if you can use the old. That's why later GS cranks weren't that good; 30's design with late 50's power outputs = short life! And we know what lack of investment did for the industry. As you say, there are quite a few frame differences over the years, cast or brazed on brackets, headstock bracing fitted etc. The oil pump frame rail inserted section I only came across a few years back, being discussed on the Britbike forum. Someone had come across one & was asking about it & someone else knew a little bit about them. From memory I think only used on comp. bikes but I could be wrong. BSA probably using up the casting from rigid M20 frames!

I will get back to the page at some point. I realised it's easy to get a bit too bogged down in detail with something that is really "only" an encyclopaedia page. Keeping it short & to the point is quite tricky; what to put in or leave out. On the other hand, the GS is quite famous among m'cyclists & the baby boomer generation at least; "my uncle had one" I've heard a few times (mine didn't, I'm the only ever biker in the family!). It had a long successful career with quite a few changes so some good detail fills out the story a bit for the enquiring mind. Is this how everyone communicates on here, via the article edit talk page? I thought there might be some other way; a messages page or something. Thanks again Flowbench (talk) 12:54, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi Flowbench, messages on the article's subject are usually on the article's talk page and should pertain to improving the article. More general messages can be placed on user talk pages.

The page has suffered some driveby tagging today. I'll have a look at resolving the issues. Regards --John B123 (talk) 00:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me? I first edited this article eight years ago, in 2013. And even if I hadn't, please discuss edits on their merits, not on what you perceive to be the status of the editor. This "driveby" crap is classic WP:OWN behavior and it's unacceptable.

If you want to talk about content, the sources I tagged as personal web pages, blogs, fansites, scraper sites, and other utterly unreliable sources are not going to fly. They don't meet WP:RS. There's a good list of quality sources right there at the bottom of the article, so there's no excuse to lean on essentially worthless websites.

The editorializing is easily remedied if you can cite evidence to go with it. Like either name a reputable expert who shares these value judgements, or stick to facts. People don't really come to an encyclopedia for subjective color commentary. Readers want to know what are the solid-ground truths everybody more or less agrees on.

I'm honestly baffled by all the scare quotes. What grammatical or typographic purpose do the serve? Like the distinctive feature of the GS swingarm was a kink. That is, "a sharp twist or curve in something that is otherwise straight." We call that a kink. Why would you call it a "kink", as if the word isn't really the right word? I'm just confused by all the quotes.

My edit summaries refer to specific points in the MOS. If they're unclear, please say so. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:09, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:DRIVEBY seems appropriate to me: Adding tags for non-obvious or perceived problems—without identifying the problem well enough for it to be easily fixed. I have better things to spend my time on than going into detail about every tag on the page, but a few examples:

Take the clarification needed tag added to "plunger" twice, most people who have knowledge of motorcycles of this period will know what this means. The word is linked to Motorcycle suspension which has a section and an image on plungers, so anybody unfamiliar with the term can see its meaning in this context by following the link. This is one of the purposes of wikilinking. How would you suggest this was further clarified? Where a term needs to be clarified to a reader, this is done on the first instance of the term. It's not necessary to clarify every time the term appears on the page, so tagging the second instance of plunger is pointless and unnecessary.

Tagging the ref to the BSA owners club with better source needed is puzzling. The "good list of quality sources right there at the bottom of the article" will have used the various BSAOC publications as reference pieces. The BSAOC holds the factory records of BSA from which their publications are derived, in this case the year listings are derived from the BSA factory dispatch records. They are regarded as the ultimate authority on BSA and their written conformation that a machine matches their records is held in high esteem, so much so that a machine without one will have a value thousands of pounds less than one with. Auctioneers such as Bonhams will accept the certificate as proof that the machine is a genuine.

Your definition of kink, "a sharp twist or curve in something that is otherwise straight" exactly fits the deviation of the frame bottom rail to clear the oil pump on the GS. This kink is not present on the otherwise identical frame fitted to the A7/A10 models.

There are issues on the page (including unreferenced/poorly referenced parts) but the tagging is excessive and in some cases unnecessary. --John B123 (talk) 19:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I thought I mentioned quotes above... ah, yes, here, I wrote "I'm honestly baffled by all the scare quotes". And I stated it clearly in all the tags: {{what?|reason=why the scare quotes?|date=January 2021}} If you hover over you will read why the scare quotes?. What exactly does a person have to do to announce that the problem is the fcking scare quotes?

Scare quotes. WHY ARE THERE SCARE QUOTES around plunger?

Take Motorcycle suspension#Plunger suspension. Quotes around plunger? No.

Let's back up to "Adding tags for non-obvious or perceived problems—without identifying the problem well enough for it to be easily fixed". I identified the problem, didn't I? REPEATEDLY. *whispers* The problem is the scare quotes.

Look you seem like someone who needs to be shouted to and I don't want to shout to get your attention. If you can't read more carefully then I'm going to start ignoring you and do what I think needs to be done to fix the article.

Go read MOS:SCAREQUOTES and scare quote. Unless anyone can explain what they're doing there, I'm going to delete them.

Your comments on the club website links suggest a need to review Wikipedia:Reliable sources. I might have mistaken one or two, but from what I can tell, the books listed are not self-published, they are published by established publishers like Haynes and Osprey. The club website is self-published. You can claim that some of these authors have some connection with the club, but that doesn't transfer some kind of aura of reliability to the club, and particularly to whatever gets put up on their website. I and the other editors in WikiProject Motorcycling, WikiProject Automobiles, have been removing links to clubs for years. Go back to the WP:RSN from 2009: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 44#Use of owners' club websites to verify automotive data. Same discussions have happened at WikiProject talk pages and elsewhere. You can push the issue if you want to but there is widespread consensus against fansites, owners clubs, self-styled experts' personal web pages.

Can you just stop with the attitude? Stop with this indefensible accusations of "drive by" tagging. All I'm asking you to do is look at the clearly identified issues I've raised and explain if you can. If not, then let's fix them. The point of what we're doing is to collaborate to make article better so let's focus on that. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Dennis Bratland In response to your main points; as you will have read in my initial comments above, I did point out that the citing was now incorrect following my edits. I had simply left them on the page & I did not check any of them, beyond wondering if they were all reliable. As you have looked at the citations I take your word for it. All of them were on the article page when I came to it; I haven't changed or added any. They may well be insufficiently robust & will therefore need changing. I would certainly never consider citing any of the unreliable source types you list. As you say, there is a good list of quality sources appended to the article & in fact my own short list of books, included in my intro' above contains a huge amount of cross-referenceable data. You have noticed something unsatisfactory about the article as did I & as you seem to have been editing here for years, you clearly have the advantage.

"Scare quotes"; is not a phrase I have come across before. It may be a difference between UK & US sloppy usage. I realise it is common on social media to use quote marks for comic purposes or as a way to express disbelief of others etc. That generally is not how I use them within the small circle of people I write to or text, more usually to signify something that may need further clarification. It's probably a bad habit. I accept it may be an ungrammatical usage & I can see, now that you have somewhat brusquely pointed out, that the usage is perhaps excessive & even a bit kinky... I think I removed some & will get to the others.

Just as in Redrose64's straight to the point comment to me on not using ampersands; where I would have been quite content to correct them, I found he had done them all by the time I looked. Many of your inserted comments are pertinent & you could probably have advised me here & saved yourself time, rather than go through them all. I am quite open to advice & useful conversation about the subject / article building process. I am now also aware that there is Wikipedia manual of style that I will no doubt benefit from.

As to your initial comments, I am sorry that you found the "drive-by" comment distasteful. I think it is true to say that nearly everyone at some point has fired off comments these days, without thinking who will be reading or whether a different phrase might be more appropriate. Also one man's tongue-in-cheek is another man's ear bashing... I actually assumed he was referring to me, as I hadn't seen your inserted comments at that point. I just thought, "Oops what have I done wrong? I'd better go & check." Regarding WP:OWN & WP:RS I had to look them up. There's nothing like a bit of jargon... For myself, I can only say I make no claim to the article. I believe collaboration can be a very good thing, along with politeness. I also have a feeling that pretty much all of this could be on another page or even deleted as only a small amount is about the actual editing. Flowbench (talk) 20:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Dennis Bratland: Your sarcasm does nothing to help move things forward. It seems that the start of the problem here is the use of {{clarify}} to denote your objection to scare quotes, {{clarify}} is for "editors to clarify text that is difficult to understand". Using {{Copyedit|reason=excessive use of scare quotes}} would have been far clearer and also compliant with WP:TAGBOMB.

Except for the BSAOC I don't disagree with most of your tagging for references needed or unreliable sources. {Possibly some of the non-RS refs were added by myself some time ago when I was less experienced in the ways of WP.}

Like Flowbench, I haven't come across the term "Scare quotes" outside this conversation. I don't really have a strong opinion on this either way. It doesn't add or subtract from the article whether they're there or not in my view.

Given that Flowbench has made very few edits, most of which have been on this article, you might want to read WP:BITE in view of the number of tags you have put on his additions to the article. --John B123 (talk) 22:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Absolute utter nonsense. "Regarding WP:OWN & WP:RS I had to look them up. There's nothing like a bit of jargon.." No. No, I'm sorry, but you didn't have to look them up. I courteously saved you the effort of looking them up. I linked them for you so all you had to do was click. How considerate of me! How much more welcoming to newcomers can one be? That's is typical of the kind of utter nonsense the two of you are up to here.

John B123 you can throw around WP:DRIVEBY, WP:TAGBOMB and WP:BITE all you want, but the evidence is right here. Everyone can see the diffs. You're gaslighting me and I'm not amused.

Please admit that I clearly told you the problem was scare quotes. It's in the {{what?}} tags. I repeated it in the edit summary: "I'd just delete all these apparently arbitrary scare quotes but I suspect there's a point behind them. We just need to be told what it is." I did not demean whomever added the quotes. I charitably, respectfully said maybe there's a point. What an open mind I have! Perhaps it's my own ignorance. Even though I was pretty sure that they are simply a bad habit of someone who sandbags their writing with extraneous junk, like saying utilise instead of use because the extra syllable makes them seem smart. See how nice I was to not say that? But see after a while, when you're enough of a dick to someone, the sarcasm starts to come out. One thing you might want to try to understand about Wikipedia is that when you've been obstinate and disingenuous enough, we begin to excuse a bit of sarcasm. When you bring it out in people, you can't exactly whine that you're the victim of sarcasm.

The decent thing would be to retract the false accusation of "Adding tags for non-obvious or perceived problems—without identifying the problem well enough for it to be easily fixed." After having been informed in the tags, and informed again in the edit summary, I told you a third time in my talk reply.

Even if you don't know what scare quotes are, I did inform you the problem is with the quotes. You have eyes. You can see them. What if you saw "The BSA %^^^Gold"" Star..." ? Gee, what's that random punctuation doing there? Can I explain it? You're sitting here telling me I didn't bend over backwards enough to make you understand I wanted to know what the purpose was of the OBVIOUS extraneous punctuation on the page right in front of your eyes. While you sit here with a wondrous machine that lets you type in words like "scare quotes" and you'll be given 23,800,000 results in a mere 0.57 seconds, the first one of which is none other than a definition of scare quotes. The second is the Wikipedia article scare quotes. You have 128,000 Wikipedia edits and you're acting like you arrived on the planet Earth five minutes ago. I think it would be honest to admit posting this without bothering to read my edit summary, or examine the tags in the article at all. I'd happily forgive such an oversight. We all make mistakes.

If I had used the banner {{Copyedit}}, you still wouldn't have bothered to look at the diff or the edit summary. You'd be on the talk page whining that I should have used inline tags to specifically identify where precisely the issues are. Juxtapose your two different, contradictory complaints: not identifying the problem clearly enough, and too many tags. Which is it?

Someone with 128,000 edits thinks a web 1.0 WP:FANSITE written by (we can only assume) boomer "Rickard Nebré" (see what I did there?) is a reliable source? Astonishing.

So yeah, sarcasm. That's where it comes from.

I'm done. I'm ignoring both of you. You're gaslighting me, you're wasting my time, and I've been far too patient. Go back to doing actual work on the article. The problems with this article are easily fixed and you're both perfectly capable of doing it without all this drama. I'll take care of it myself if no on else does. If you have a complaint about me, take it to an appropriate noticeboard. You have no good reason to carry on this discussion. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:33, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Whatever. While you have been throwing insults around I've been improving the article. --John B123 (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about the insults. I can only imagine how hard all this has been on you. You have been leveling accusations that if they were proven, could get someone blocked from editing. But I guess we can agree what you will never admit your errors, hyperbole, or falsehoods.

Thanks for improving the article. What would we do without you? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:18, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Dennis Bratland You certainly take no prisoners. You seem to have been unable to see anything in my previous comments as even a cack-handed attempt at diplomacy. That does not mean you should expect me or anyone to grovel. Your last response has made so many assumptions it is laughable. You misconstrue everything to suit your own ends. I chose my words carefully enough that there might be room for us to start again on better terms. You chose to continue with your attack. You will note that I haven't insulted you or used any four letter words. Believe you me, I have a comprehensive capacity for both taking & giving insults of any sort. But I did not come here for that. "We" are not "up to" anything other than attempting a pleasant collaborative effort, such as it was. It is not a conspiracy. If you hadn't intervened so heavy-handedly & engaged in angry & pedantic nit-picking whilst an edit was ongoing, we, or I, rather than feeling obliged to respond to your onslaught, would have definitely spent all this time working on & improving the article to a standard that you, yes even you would surely have found, if not immediately perfect as you appear to expect but at least acceptable. As it is I have found your intervention quite unpleasant & unhelpful in it's exceptionally abrupt manner & in the sheer volume of points you seem to demand rectified NOW! like a boot-camp sergeant-major. So many, that your accusation of WP:OWN could well be applied to you. Any or all of these comments could have been made with a kinder or more friendly tone, as displayed to me by John123. You are talking to another human being, not some soulless drone you can kick about with intemperate diatribes. I was hoping to engage with an interesting project but I am dismayed to find here all of the things that are all too prevalent in the worst aspects of social media. You have displayed little understanding or sensitivity other than on your own behalf and are certainly no ambassador for Wikipedia. 86.144.36.135 (talk) 12:39, 22 January 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flowbench (talk • contribs) 12:39, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

All of these false accusations are easily proven false by the diffs. I realize this all seems to be going over your head, but I'll say it now and maybe in a few months of editing experience, you'll get it. The article history and talk page history shows exactly what I did, and when, and it shows what John B123 did, and what you did, and when. Someone can read your accusations and give you the benefit of the doubt, but the next thing they will do is review the diffs. Then they will see you have no idea what you're talking about. For those reasons, it's a waste of your time, and often self-defeating, to make false accusations. The record is permanent and you will get found out in a matter of seconds when you misstate the record. Stick around for a while, learn how Wikipedia works, and then you'll understand how right I am. Until then, please focus on making arctics better and not this interpersonal drama.

BTW, please try to remember to log in, sign your posts, and, if you must, use {{Reply to|Dennis Bratland}} (aka {{re|Dennis Bratland}} as you can see above) if for some reason you think you need to get the attention of the person you're replying to (in fact that's rarely necessary. Note how you and John were able to carry on this discussion with me even though I never pinged either of you in my replies). If you were to click Show preview and click on it before you click publish changes, you'd see that [[Dennis Bratland]] goes to a nonexistent Wikipedia article, not a user page.

I'm going to take the initiative to close this unproductive discussion. If you want to discuss the article, please start a new thread. If you have a problem with me, please follow the steps at WP:Dispute resolution. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:28, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Infobox

In regards to the changes/comments to the infobox:

• name = agree changing from 1956 to the whole series makes sense
• predecessor = Empire Star makes sense as the infobox is now for the whole series
• successor = I've never seen the B50 as a successor. Might be as well to delete the B50 content from the body. Possibly add a hat note linking to the B50 article as it shares the same name
• class = The various types listed in Types of motorcycles are more for modern machines. My preference would be the suggested option of "clubmans racer" with an explanation in the body
• brakes = single/full width could be explained within the article
• fuel_capacity = various sized tanks were used so dropping this is probably better than listing all the various type
• related = might be worth adding the B31

--John B123 (talk) 23:29, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

My question is, what are you doing for the average reader when you tell them the class is Clubman's racer? What exactly does that mean? Especially when they don't recognize it, and naturally proceed to Types of motorcycles to find out, and we don't have an answer for them. I'm thinking of readers who are (hopefully) learning the broad classes: cruiser, dirt bike, touring, sport, standard, etc. Saying it's a standard isn't saying it's not a Clubman's racer (whatever that is); it's only giving the reader a start in understanding that it's essentially an all-rounder, in that the riding position is neutral between leaning forward or backwards, it doesn't have an especially tall suspension or long travel, it's not massively overpowered, nor underpowered with extraordinary fuel economy. Pretty much right down the middle. Standard. Traditional. And then when we read the bike can come in different versions: "tourer, trials, ISDT, scrambles, racing or Clubman's trim"... wait... The entire line is a Clubman's racer, but this Clubman's racer comes in a Clubman's version? Is it a Clubman's Clubman's? And also a Clubman's racing version? Is a Clubman's racer trials bike a thing? To me the fact that it does lend itself to use in such diverse roles as trials, touring, or road racing screams "standard" all the more.

I think there are answers to all these questions but they depend on a deep understanding of the times, the market back then, and how racing classes worked back then. Complicated ideas just don't belong in at-a-glance facts in infoboxes. That's where we give the simple, short answer. Clubman's racer is a complicated answer.

But anyone who wants to write at length on this topic, explain it for the general audience, whether here or in a related article, would be most appreciated. I think the information should be included but just not in the |class= field. At least not until we refactor the whole concept at a higher level at Template:Infobox motorcycle -- which is a viable option but that horse goes before this cart. If other editors support keeping "Clubman's racer" instead of standard, I'll go along with it but this is why I'd prefer not to. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:56, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Most GSs were produced in clubman's trim. If you go to an old motorcycle show the chances are that any GSs there will be clubman's variants. However, as you point out, other variants were available. Putting aside whether "clubmans" is an understandable term to the average reader, the fact that not all GSs were clubmans probably makes its use in the infobox inaccurate.

In the 1950s, most motorcycles were used as primary transport. Today most are used for pleasure. This is reflected by the manufacturers. In the 50s, a basic version for mass production was designed and then other variants such as sports, off road etc developed from that. Today, if a manufacturer wants to produce a specific type of machine they start from a virtually clean sheet of paper. The result is that there is a far greater variation between types. (engine configuration, suspension travel etc). Categorisation of a 1950s bike by the parameters we use for a modern bike doesn't really work. At the time the GS was a high performance bike, in modern times, 40 bhp from a 500 would probably be looked at as underpowered.

Putting aside the characteristics we normally see in a particular type of bike and looking at intended use, the first sentence of Types of motorcycles#Standard contains "versatile, general-purpose street motorcycles". This doesn't really apply to the GS. Sport bike's "optimized for speed, acceleration, braking, and cornering on paved roads, typically at the expense of comfort and fuel economy by comparison with other motorcycles" would apply to the clubmans versions but not the off-road ones. Looking at it another way, from the BSA range of the time, the B31/B33 were the "standard" types, the GS wasn't.

In summary, I can agree with not using "clubmans", but don't think "standard" is appropriate either. Looking at articles of other motorcycles of the time, most don't use the |type= field. Perhaps this is the best way to go for now. --John B123 (talk) 11:38, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

At Honda CB750 we call it a standard and a sport bike, for reasons that are somewhat comparable. It's probably not an accident that so many of the models that motorcycling historians tell us are so important are typically versatile, rather than narrowly specialized, and often raise debate over which category they belong in, over what to even call it. The Honda Super Cub was called a moped, a scooter, a step through, simply a motorcycle, before later generations settled on underbone. We should make an effort to clarify for readers the difference between what contemporaries said of it at the time and what later retrospective critics said. Kawasaki triples, another standard, a UJM, that is also very much a sporting machine, was praised for it's excellent brakes and handling in its own time, yet later writers called it the 'widowmaker', and shuddered at of how terrifying it was to attempt to control it. Equally true, depending on which decade you're riding the bike in and what you're comparing it to.

So regardless of what we do or don't have in the infobox, modern readers really need someone to explain what a Clubman's racer is, what "sporting" meant at the time, what it meant to have four or five compression options, and so on. Nobody today could conceive a single model that could be competitive at both the IOM and trials; we live in an era of much greater specialization. The Gold Star was notably configurable, so probably something like

Class Standard configurable for road racing, scrambles, trials, and touring

I've made current version of the infobox too busy, so probably some of the excess detail, like listing all compression ratios, should be moved to the body of the article and replaced with only a range 6.5:1 to 13.0:1, and replace the power field with simply 18–42 hp (13–31 kW), leaving the particulars for the body text. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Going back to the 1960s and before, motorcycle magazines were largely financed by manufacturers advertising in the magazine. The road test bikes were supplied by the manufacturer/importer. A bad road test would result in a loss of revenue from the manufacturer and not getting any future machines to test. Road tests tended to be positive or at worst neutral and bad points were either played down or ignored. This changed in the UK with the launch of Bike (magazine) in 1971, which was funded by advertisements from accessory and clothing manufacturers and other products that were likely to be of interest to a younger rider. Road test machines often came from dealers rather than manufacturers. The magazine could be more honest in road test. I assume similar changes happened in the US and other locations. This led to a situation in the early/mid 70's where a road test from one magazine would praise a bike and another criticise the same bike. Specifically about Kawasaki triples, the Bike tests of 72 & 74 criticise the handling, the 74 article having a sub heading "PS - But it still doesn't handle",[23] whereas a 72 Motorcyclist test reported "secure handling, even when ridden hard".[24] Widowmaker was a common term in the 70s for the H2. Getting back to categorization of types, this 69 test by Cycle World describes the Mach III as "the fastest production touring machine available."[25] The Mach III a tourer!

Whilst I don't think "Standard" is the correct term for a GS, Class Standard configurable for road racing, scrambles, trials, and touring is a good compromise. Agree terms such as clubmans probably need expansion for the more modern reader, adding in differences between half width and full width brakes, the same machine being used for trials and road racing and so on, there's probably enough for a separate article. --John B123 (talk) 10:57, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Widowmaker was a common term in the 70s for the H2. - John B123 - do you actually have a facsimile image of 1970s text showing widowmaker? I only skimmed through the 2015 link which would not load quickly due to the images and I have minimal time presently, but Ctrl with F only showed the (two) sub-ed comments.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 14:23, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@Rocknrollmancer: As a teenager in the early 1970s, when discussing bike we'd love but couldn't afford, the H2 was referred to as the windowmaker, the Suzuki GT750 as the kettle or the bubbly, Honda's CB750 as the Honda four (which stuck even when Honda introduced other capacity fours). I can't find any literature from the period online mentioning windowmaker, but later articles such as here[26] don't suggest the nickname was applied retrospectively. --John B123 (talk) 15:59, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @John B123:, as I thought....no historic evidence that we know of...(it's on my list). There was Window Maker IBM software for just that - making PVCu windows. And my Katana was a coathanger .

Changing the angle slightly, the late Peter Williams (motorcyclist) seems to have 'invented' (see what I did there - no scare quotes, whatever they are) the term Wagon Wheels (see here) around the time of his 2010 book (writing this from memory). I have no historic proof that it existed before then (neither does anyone else on the racing groups I am part of) but I have semi-verified that the term wheelbarrow was applied (based on the cast wheels) to circa 1980 in Motorcycle Sport *somewhere in the house* - not exactly what I wanted but better than nothing. rgds.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 16:31, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Any sources we could actually cite on Wikipedia about these topics are most welcome. There's always a lot of cynical talk about biased motorcycling and car media, but sources we can use are few and far between. I can think of three citations I have any confidence in, cited in the discussion at Talk:Motorcycle testing and measurement#Specially prepared press vehicles. Motorcycle Consumer News over the years frequently criticized their rival advertising-funded magazines for pay-to-play relationships, where journalists depended on the very subjects of their reviews to provide free test bikes, and accepted lavish junkets to exotic locations, helping to sell magazines and bikes. Kevin Ash was killed on one such junket, surrounded by many rumors but few reliable sources we can use on Wikipedia. Which is my point. Without good sources to contradict them, we have to take these old magazine reviews at face value.

I'd love to see Motorcycle testing and measurement expanded with more reliable facts that can help the general reader understand what performance claims and critics reviews mean in the correct historical context.

With regards to the Gold Star, the bit about the certified dyno tests cries out for context. The general reader is likely to have some awareness that historically, early to mid 20th century, power claims lived in the realm of pure fantasy, often inferred simply by engine displacement. Notoriously American car manufactures advertised unfalsifiable BHP numbers, somehow descended from SAE gross hp, that told you next to nothing about what you were really buying. DIN ratings brought in some sanity. What I'm saying is our highest priority should be to give readers a way to know what the Gold Star's power certificate actually meant, why that was different from what you'd get with the next bike, and how a rider's expectations in 1950 differed from 2021. For me context, a sense of historical and geographic place, is the definition of encyclopedic. It's that kind of information that makes an encyclopedia article more than a dictionary definition or a statistics database. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)