User talk:Sable232/Standards

It's been some time, and still no comments? It is sad to see yet another attempt to finally formalize the WikiProject Automobiles conventions and standards meet with so little attention, but I guess we should not give up...

Here are my comments:

1. IMHO, the Festiva SHOgun should not be treated differently, i.e. it should not be included. I guess we should just state that Wikipedia does not discuss particular aftermarket modifications at all. Leaving any loophole would make this convention ineffective from day one.
2. While the wording seems rather crude and might be confusing, I agree that, based on WP:NOT, we may specifically list the following as not appropriate to be included in automobile articles:
   1. Detailed technical specifications beyond what is included in infoboxes, default tech spec tables (if we agree on some concerning e.g. powertrains) and mentions of details that are important in itself (e.g. first or prominent use of a given technical solution, or a major change during the model's lifetime) - the latter part could perhaps use further refining to be less confusing and not create loopholes.
   2. Paint codes, part codes, lists of standard/available equipment/options/extras, detailed prices and any other similar lists. It might be advisable, though, to link to reliable external sources containing those in the "external links" section.
   3. as noted above Discussion of any aftermarket modifications, as well as the model's reliability, maintenance, running costs and other issues pertaining to the model's ownership, maintenance, modification or repair. - I believe, though, that some more "prominent" conversions offered by established companies on a serial (rather than incidental) basis, such as e.g. the Damd Ancel Lapin in case of Suzuki Alto Lapin, should be mentioned and somehow exempted from that rule, I have no idea for wording it appropriately atm, though
   4. "Reviews" of any kind, i.e. any attempts at assessment of the model's merits, which should be left to media dealing with reviews.
   5. Mentions of fan clubs, owner clubs, individual retailers and media devoted to the vehicle, including websites.

While the current external links guideline makes it quite clear what should and what should not be included, it might not hurt to restate its stance on some more specific cases pertaining to automobile articles. I.e., the following can not be linked to:

1. Forums
2. Fan club sites, except for specfic pages that would contain information that would contain information unfit for inclusion in the article but expanding the user's knowledge, according to WP:EL - e.g. detailed technical specifications (unless an official site with those can be found)
3. Reviews
4. Commercial sites, beyond official sites for a given model. An international site should take precedence, if none available, then the "original market" one accompanied by an English-language (e.g. US or UK-market) site.

As concerns images, I believe the current Convention covers for most of the issues. I think that if an article contains multiple generational infoboxes, than an image in the main infobox should be considered purely optional, and its inclusion should not compromise the layout of the article. I mean, in quite many cases the lead section is so short that when an image is included in the main infobox, the infobox protrudes into the first section below, thus pushing the other infoboxes even lower and often making them appear in the wrong parts of the text (depending on the reader's resolution and other settings, but still). I think that if there is a place for an image in the main infobox, it should be left to the editors of the article to reach a compromise on the talk page (should there be any controversy), but still the image should comply with the basic convention, and it should not be one used anywhere else in the article.

I do not agree, however, with the notion that an image of the estate version should be taken from 3/4s rear etc. The general convention would suffice, IMHO.

I also believe we need to more precisely define the use of infoboxes regarding which ones to use for what information, how to divide information between the main and generational infoboxes and what information to include in specific fields. Regards, PrinceGloria 06:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not really sure what to make of trim levels. I mean, in some articles discussing them provides for rather unwieldy pieces of text discussing moderately irrelevant and uninteresting stuff such as whether GLX had heated mirrors while GL hadn't, and the former was only available 1992-1996 in the UK, but 1991-1997 in continental Europe, but not in Switzerland where it was called "Gruetzi" etc... OTOH, sometimes mentioning trim levels or special versions seems very informative and appropriate. I just don't know how to establish a firm rule on that...

I've a few comments for the above rules, but specifically I'd like to suggest one or two:

• For "appearances in films/TV", which by and large are crufty and unnecessary sections, I'd recommend we cite IMCDb.org. It's not that it's the greatest website in the world, nor is it particularly comprehensive, but it's an external source entirely unrelated to WP which is basically dedicated to assessing the notability of vehicles' onscreen appearances, and is therefore ideally matched to WP:NOTE. We can pretty much say that anything less than a four star rating on that site means it doesn't merit inclusion (and even a lot of the **** are borderline).
• Given the recent move request for Mazda Axela, I think we ought to formally get a standard together for article naming which can then be forwarded to and posted at WP:NAME. Of course, we'll need to make darned sure we're not in conflict with any wider WP convention when we draft it. --DeLarge 16:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up those two issues - I agree with you on both, though concerning IMCDb, I would limit the mentions to those that would merit five stars (i.e. the vehicle has to be the part of the movie). "Four star" appearances include all major uses of the vehicle by a major character, so we would e.g. have to mention the Mercury Marquis in Beverly Hills Cop (were you even aware there was one in the movie? I wasn't!). As concerns the "home market" thing, thanks a lot again for reminding of that - we have been abiding by the convention for so long, and it still remains, AFAIK, unwritten... PrinceGloria 19:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here's an explanation of my logic in response to the concerns above:

My mention of aftermarket modifications was intended mostly to avoid what we saw in Infiniti G20, stuff like "the engine is well suited to tuning and you can buy a chip for it…" That kind of stuff is true for any car. I think that massive conversions, like the SHOgun and the Bronco Centurions, are worth a mention.

As for wagon images, my thought was that since there should already be an image of the car's front end, it doesn't need to be repeated. Of course, the only reason to show the rear of a wagon is to differentiate it from the sedan, so then we'd need an image of the back of a sedan too. I suppose the best way would be to say that a wagon image needs to be angled more towards the side profile. --Sable232 20:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid we're walking on thin ice here - there are many people around who have modified their cars extensively and believe those vehicles are special. For a popular car, numbers of individual, extensive modifications can run into thousands. I stumble upon notes on such mods being put into articles by unregistered editors all the time, and I think the auto articles would do better without them, while I can't think of any objective criterium to sort those into "includeable" and "non-includeable", so I guess we should not open the Pandora's box here... PrinceGloria 13:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox production parameter

Greetings, Sable232. Not sure if this is the right place to bring this up, but it's becoming a bit of an issue, so if I should be raising it elsewhere, please direct me thereto. There seems to be no agreement on whether the production parameter in vehicle infoboxes should refer to calendar years or model years. Offhand, there seems to be no especial advantage either way. Model years are the common referent to a vehicle's "year" in North America, but are handled differently in other countries (or not used at all, in countries where a vehicles actual production date is used instead). Calendar years, on the other hand, indicate production dates but give rise to false edits based on "Whaddya mean the Dodge Shadow was made from '86 to '94?! Everyone knows '87 was the first year and '95 was the last! Geeze, you guys are idjits!" types of positions. The compromise I thought had been reached was to annotate when model years were used, as in the first truncated example (relevant portion highlighted w/red bold).

Chrysler LeBaron
European Export-spec 1990 Chrysler LeBaron convertible
Overview
Manufacturer	Chrysler Corporation
Production	1977–1995 (model years)

Recently, an anonymous user (71.62.244.59) has been changing some Chrysler and Ford articles so the infoboxes contain two sets of years, as in the second truncated example (relevant portion highlighted w/green bold).

Dodge Shadow
Facelifted 2-door Dodge Shadow
Overview
Manufacturer	Chrysler Corporation
Production	1986-1994<br=>1987-1994 (model years)

So...what do we think? Personally, I think the two sets of years (production/model) might be justifiable in special cases, such as when a model year is skipped or extended, but it quickly gets clunky to have two sets of years, differing only in final digit, in each and every infobox. Further—and this is still just my opinion—I think the name of the parameter in question ("production") obviates the need to annotate the years unless they are model years rather than calendar production years. Finally, I think probably it would be most useful to have the annotation link to Model year, as in the third truncated example.

Chrysler LeBaron
European Export-spec 1990 Chrysler LeBaron convertible
Overview
Manufacturer	Chrysler Corporation
Production	1977–1995 (model years)

Would like to discuss and build consensus on this so that infobox edit wars don't result. --Scheinwerfermann 02:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Speaking for North America, model years are almost always used. Since an exact cited date (or at least a month) would be necessary to say when the actual start an end of production was, the infobox should contain model years. Exact dates, if available, should be in the prose.

I want to emphasize that calendar year production info is not always available, and I really don't want to open another part of the infobox up to more OR. --Sable232 17:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that in North America, the model year holds sway. However, two facts remain:

•This is an international encyclopedia, including articles about cars made and sold where the model year concept is of little or no consequence (to say nothing of North American cars sold abroad, where they are registered and referred to by production date)

•There is an onrunning debate in the form of repeated edit revisions cycling amongst various year modes in the infoboxes. Editor "A" sets it up with non-annotated model years, editor "B" comes along and changes it to calendar years, editor "C" changes it back to model years and adds the "(model years)" annotation, editor "D" changes it to show calendar years and parenthetical model years, and editor "E" puts it back the way editor "A" or "C" had it...round and round and round we go. I agree with you that prioritising model years is probably the least problem-prone way to go, and I think that ought to be made clear to editors. This could be done via a policy or guideline, or it could be done (probably more effectively) by changing the infobox parameter "Production" to something along the lines of "Production (model years)" or "Model years". --Scheinwerfermann 20:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps linking "production" to model year would be a start, at least. That article will need a great deal of expansion, though. --Sable232 23:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. How might that get done? --Scheinwerfermann 00:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)