Talk:Toy/Archives/2012

Boy/Girl Toys

Does Wikipedia have a list of toys classified by whether they are thought of as being for boys or girls?? This question is useful because I have just created a boy article separate from man to satisfy a user (Notthe9) who doesn't like the re-direct and I added a gender-role section. Georgia guy 22:40, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Don't use trademark symbols

From Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks): "Do not use special symbols such as ^TM and ® unless they are important to the context." There are no need for them in the list of toys, so I've removed them.

Grouping toys

I just stumbled on the toys articles and boy is it a jumble of concepts! See Category talk:Toys. Elf | Talk 16:06, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

List of toys? --Abdull 10:46, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Maybe... the current list certainly has to be removed. Gflores ^Talk 06:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I hope this is not the way you usually talk with your fellow human beings. You know, most reasonable people prefer reasonable arguments over apodictic statements. Common Man 15:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying be commanding. I thought it was fairly obvious... the list is excessively long and would be better if it were in a separate article (or at least trimmed down). If you go to WP:FAC, they'll tell you that in a second. Of course, this is my opinion. I'm open to other suggestions, though. Gflores ^Talk 18:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

They tell me what? I spent several seconds on that page, but I can't see where it says that lists of examples should be removed. Common Man 20:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

... Do you think the list should remain exactly in its current form? Do you think the article is presentable this way? I would like to hear your opinion on this, please. There is not set rule (I don't think) on having lists, but from what I've read on previous FACs, the WP:MOS, and in my personal opinion, there shouldn't be such a large list in the article when it can easily be split off into a separate article. Gflores ^Talk 21:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

These are detail questions, which come later. First, we need to see if there are any rules which dictate your basic premise: that "the current list certainly has to be removed". You said "If you go to WP:FAC, they'll tell you that in a second." But I don't see it there. Now you're pointing to another page, which takes a bit longer than a second to read. Please point exactly to the rule you are talking about as I'm getting tired of your shifting red herrings. Common Man 22:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I have already apologized for the first remark I made (I had initially thought it was obvious to move it to a separate article, I was wrong and said I was sorry). When I pointed to FAC, I wasn't saying there was a rule there, I was saying there have been suggestions from people to FA candidates about having lists converted to paragraphs (or moved to a separate article). As I have already said, there is no specific rule on this, I don't know why you tell me to point you to the rule I'm talking about, as I've never said there's a rule to begin with. Gflores ^Talk

How about we start anew? Disregard my first comment, it was unfounded and evidently not unanimous. I'm sorry. There is no rule on having lists in articles. What should we do about the list in the article? My proposal is to create a separate article List of toys and move the list there. Doing so will make the article more presentable (in my opinion) and seeing how there is already a List of toy brands, it seems like a good fit. Comments/suggestions are welcome. :) Gflores ^Talk 23:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a reasonable idea to consider, as there are plenty of "List of..." articles in wikipedia. But I also wonder, since all of the links here actually have articles to go with them, whether we can dispense with the list entirely, convert it back to simple examples (or a list of TYPES of toys as the top-level bullets indicate ... construction toys, etc.), and in fact rely on Category:Toys to provide the same info so we don't end up with redundant lists? Elf | Talk 00:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Starting anew is is a very good idea! So let's ask ourselves: What do we want to achieve? I agree with you that the list is too long for this article. What else do we want? I see the following options – please feel free to edit the text below. Common Man 00:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The Teddy

The bear on the top is so cute does anyone know where to get that Teddy?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.238.130.175 (talk • contribs)

Try asking on User talk:209.177.21.6. That person added that image to this and several articles a week or so ago. Or you could try asking User talk:I'm so bored here, as that is the person who took and uploaded the photo. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 14:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

List of toys?

List of toys page has already been made Zephyr103 10:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

What should we do about the list in the article? My proposal is to create a separate article List of toys and move the list there. Doing so will make the article more presentable (in my opinion) and seeing how there is already a List of toy brands, it seems like a good fit. Comments/suggestions are welcome. :) Gflores ^Talk 23:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a reasonable idea to consider, as there are plenty of "List of..." articles in wikipedia. But I also wonder, since all of the links here actually have articles to go with them, whether we can dispense with the list entirely, convert it back to simple examples (or a list of TYPES of toys as the top-level bullets indicate ... construction toys, etc.), and in fact rely on Category:Toys to provide the same info so we don't end up with redundant lists? Elf | Talk 00:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's ask ourselves: What do we want to achieve? I agree with you that the list is too long for this article. What else do we want? I see the following options – please feel free to edit the text below. Common Man 00:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The second option looks like a good compromise. I had initially thought of creating a section 'Types of toys', but I'm now thinking it might be better as a list. Gflores ^Talk 03:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that is also not a bad idea. Maybe there even doesn't have to be a clear distinction. We can start with the list and gradually flesh it out with text where needed.

As to the list itself: I see the following entries as related:

• Miniaturized items
• Model building
• Model collecting

They all are about models as toys. Unfortunately, there currently is no good article on this general topic. Do you think we should (a) move the sublist to the existing article on Scale model; (b) create a new article for models as toys or (c) create new articles for Miniaturized items and Model collecting? Common Man 18:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Complete list in separate page

Pro:

• toys are sorted into groups at one glance.

Contra:

• Long (There are currently about 400 article in category:toys and subcats, and it will probably grow a lot.)
• Redundance with categories.
• The list is not so easy to maintain. (This is evidenced by the fact that the list, while it obviously had big gaps, changed much less than the first paragraphs with prose, which were completely rewritten in the last half year - see [1].)

Shorten list here, keep sublists in subarticles

This means, move e.g. the entries from Erector Set to Mome into the Construction set article. In cases where there is no big list yet, or where it is unclear what a group means we could just add one or two examples on the same line as in

• Educational toy (e.g. Ant Farm)

Pro:

• compromise between the current list and no list at all
• provides a nice entry point for further reading

Contra:

• We'd have to create articles for groups, such as Drawing toys.

Intro questions

• Manchester United -- Is this a football team or ???
• "The haulage company owned by Eddie Stobart produced model lorries, which now subsidise the business" -- Does "haulage" mean "freight"? Does this sentence mean that toy sales carry a larger business? Is "Eddie Stobart" meaningful, distinctive or famous?

Thanks. Maurreen 04:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The soccer club. Very popular in England. 129.62.113.183 05:02, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

1.0 core topics COTF

• Still needs a lot of work, but I can now glance at it without stylistic annoyance. +sj + 23:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Note This article was the Core Topics COTF from April 20 till May 15, 2006, and the article was improved to B-Class. Walkerma 05:48, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Move a see also to disambiguation?

Should "sex toy" be removed from "see also" and put into the disambiguation page? Andjam 12:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

"Sex Toy" is already in the disambiguation page. I agree it should be removed from this article --HTGuru 20:57, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

GA Failing

The reason that the GA failed for this article is that some sections were all muddled up, needs cleanup, and possibly some expansion. If you improve the article, you can re-nominate it, cheers M inun ^(Spiderman) 13:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

2nd one

Failed for: several citation needed tags, refs are non consistent and a mess. Refs go after punctuation with no space between them. Put them in standard cite web/php format. Find refs for the cite needed tags. Rlevse 03:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Who nominated it for GA? I've been putting a lot of work into it hoping to go for FA in a few months, but I know it's no where near GA status and as far as I can tell, I'm the main one working on it. So, who nominated it? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 15:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Lead Paint

I added lead paint info. This article though has a great amount of info on toys so kudos to everyone involved.--JMST (talk) 03:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Images

Alright, this one page has WAY too many images (17 images). I suggest that they all be broken down into a wikimedia commons gallery link and 4 images remain on the page. There's way too many images cluttering up this page and it prevents the page from being a good encyclopedic resource. For people interested in the images, they can always go directly to commons for them. Any thoughts? - Zarbon (talk) 23:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I was going to agree wholeheartedly, since articles like this tend to accumulate too many images from editors passing by and adding their pictures to help out, just look at the history of Stuffed animal...

But, looking at the images here individually, a lot of them are quite encyclopedic and conform well to the WP:IMAGE policy.

• I think the article should include at least one historical image, the one with the boy looks clearer.
• Pictures showing gendered toys highlights the difference, but I don't know if these two images are that good, the tank one in particular is too large. (and I don't know if it can be made smaller and still be seen clearly)
• The toys'r'us image is a good illustration to what would otherwise be a very dry section
• The Rubik's Cube picture is great, it's an iconic toy and is nice and colorful, likely to draw people in to read the caption and the text. The puzzle section is also long and could do with an image.
• The Play-Doh image, iconic toy, interesting fact in the caption, likely to draw people in.

All in all, I don't know if we need to cut the images down to only four though, the article is quite long and the subject lends itself well to illustrations, but sure, a few of them could be cut, it's a bit cluttered right now. Siawase (talk) 23:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the article has too many images. "Too many" is a function of clutter and relevance, not a set number. It's a decent size, so it can support a larger number of images than shorter articles. Most of the sections with pictures have one which is relevant and informative, with a good caption to explain those elements. A few have two, but it makes sense to have two for history (as "history" covers a long and diverse time span) and gender (since there are two bases to cover). This article has a higher concentration of images than many, but they are not random or cluttered, and it's a topic for which it makes sense to have a number of visuals. --Icarus ^(Hi!) 04:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

At one time I was putting a lot of work into this article hoping to make it featured quality. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done. However, I haven't been as active in Wikipedia lately, and over the last year to year and a half have mostly limited myself to dropping by on occasion to clean up vandalism. That said, if I get back to working on this article, several sections will find themselves quite a bit longer, and thus better able to support the images. Those specifically will be the history section, the child development section, and the gender section.

I'd like to find a better image than the rubber duck for the development section (Perhaps the kind of block that have different shaped holes in the lid for different shaped blocks that help teach children shape recognition while promoting various other skills in building and stacking the blocks with an informative caption... perhaps also comparing/contrasting such toys with some of the more hi-tech "educational" modern toys that some developmental experts say do more harm than good). So if you want to get rid of the rubber duck for now that would not be a problem, as it's not the most informative of images... but expect images to re-appear when that section is expanded.

I like the two images in the intro (not that particular teddy bear specifically, but I didn't have the heart to remove it when it was added) because the toc takes up so much space I feel there needs to be something down the right side of the page to balance it out. Is there some wiki-coding that will make the text move up to eliminate the white space? If so you can get rid of one of those two images without a problem.

I've never been fond of the listing of types of toys. As long as I've worked on this article I've debated removing that section entirely. If it goes, so can a bunch of images there; but as long as it remains in the form it is in I feel that it's important for each type of toy to have an illustration. Let me rephrase that - I don't want to get rid of the information there; but the list format of it bothers me, and I think it's a dragging point in the article.

I suppose we don't really need the picture of Play-doh. The text in that part of the article says the same thing as the caption, and people can always click through to the article on Play-doh to see the image. It's another section that I thought would eventually be expanded to the point where it needed an image, but it'll be harder to expand than the others I mentioned earlier, and the Play-doh image really is not informative as to the process of inventing toys. However, as Siawase said, it does help to draw people in.

As for the gender section, the images there have been changed several times. The one I liked the best showed Barbie and Fulla (the Muslim Barbie), which would have made a good focal point for discussion of cultural differences. However that one had copyright issues. I really like working Barbie in there somehow, though I don't particularly like the current Barbie - but it's safe from a copyright standpoint. I think whatever we use needs a stereotypical male toy for contrast, though the tank pic is a bit big. Remember, that section needs considerable expansion.

The qfix robot "crash-bobby" pic was in the article when I found it. I don't really care about it being there or not... though I like the idea of bringing up the issue regarding battery disposal - but that can be done in the text.

This being Wikipedia, feel free to improve the article (both text and images) however you can. As the article stands, I can see how it's image heavy. However my vision for the article makes heavy use of images. On the other hand, I seem to be "taking my sweet time" about it. Hopefully this gives you ideas of where to go with it, and why certain images are where they are. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 05:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

As a side note, after I posted my reply here, I found that User:Zarbon, who started this thread, was involved in an edit war over Action figure and his opponent brought up the number of images in this article as an argument, see User talk:Zarbon#action. Zarbon is now banned for a week for said edit warring, so it'll probably be a while before we hear back from him either way. Siawase (talk) 06:24, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry for the late response here. I had to wait for a ban to expire for said reasons (reverting). And yes, it was brought to my attention by someone who wants the clutter in the articles. I want to resolve this issue before it gets worse. The person was trying to do the same on the page also, action figure, and I had to maintain order there as well (one representational image). I still feel that 17 images is too many to have in one article. The best way to maneuver this is to take all these images and bring them into wikimedia commons (for anyone who wants to access the images) because that's the reason why we have image galleries, for people who are interested. But there's no reason to clutter this page with more images. I think one representational image is enough per type of item. I agree with Siawase that each type of toy should be mentioned...maybe around 8 images would be enough to accomplish this: rubik's cube, play-doh, etc. But the others should be linked through a wikimedia commons link for people to access through a gallery. The page is already lengthy as it is. Lets make it more accessible and less cluttered. - Zarbon (talk) 05:03, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Siawase. After all this time, I was hoping to see some difference on this page, but it's still very much worse than before. I counted 18 images on the page. I actually found that we can have galleries and sections like that for people who want to view them at wikimedia commons. What we can do is keep one type of representative image for each type of toy and put the rest in gallery format, for access to those who want to view it on wikimedia commons. That's why we even have galleries for wikipedia. I've brought up that suggestion. But the current status of the article is quite a mess. Do you think this is suitable for just one article? I believe my opinion isn't the only one that matters, and therefore, I want to hear from you. - Zarbon (talk) 15:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Galleries make sense either in a particular section when there are a great many relevant images (WP:IG gives the style sections in this article as a good example) or at the bottom of the article when there are a great may images relevant to the article's subject in general. Neither of these conditions applies to this article. Each section has a maximum of one image, or two for a few longer sections, and the images are each relevant to their specific sections rather than examples of "toys" in general. ONUnicorn has some good ideas about minor changes which would benefit the article, but I agree with Siawase that reducing it to some arbitrary number does not make sense. You have not offered any argument other than that you personally feel that there should be fewer than an arbitrary number, and any more is automatically "clutter". It appears that the reason your desired changes have not been made is simply because other editors do not agree that it would be an improvement. I, for one, like the images. They break the monotony of endless text, and other than the few improvements ONUnicorn suggested (like replacing the rubber duck with an "educational" toy), help to explain their relevant sections by giving visual examples. --Icarus ^(Hi!) 01:45, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I like the pretty pictures too. The total size is only around 250k, and they aren't so large as to make it hard to read the text, and they're thought-provoking, and yes, what's "clutter" other than some subtle offense to your personal aesthetics? Card Zero (talk) 09:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

"(game-centric) services"

What does this mean? Services, in the context of goods and services, means to me something like financial administration or window cleaning. Can somebody provide an example of a game-centric service, and then an example of a game-centric service being used as a toy? Actually I'm going to delete the four words "or (game-centric) services" for the time being. All I can think of are computer programs designed to be played with (those which aren't games), such as those known as "java toys", and if that's what's being referred to here it's a really clumsy and oblique way to do it. Card Zero (talk) 09:25, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Lead paragraph

The first paragraph introducing any topic should follow an outline that paraphrases the rest of the article.

What, or how, does a toy prepare young for their future role in society? You could make that argument for educational toys for children of a certain age, but most children who play with toys are doing so in a world of make-believe (not the real world).

fyi, this section should identify any problems/issues in the header.Fanniefoster (talk) 03:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Chimpanzees & gender-based toy preference

I recall there being an article in some science magazine (I think it was Illustrerad Vetenskap) about the toy preference of chimpanzees being based on gender. When given the choice between a toy car and a doll, male chimps usually preferred the car and females preferred the doll. However, my memory might serve me wrong and I don't have the copy for verification, so I won't add it in the "Animals" section. If someone has the article or other research on the same subject, it would serve as an interesting addition to the article. Zakhalesh (talk) 19:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)