Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Motorcycling/Conventions

RfC on Motorcycling Conventions

The information page Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycling/Conventions has been evolving over the last few years, as our version of Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles/Conventions. We filched a lot of material from that page, though the motorcycling conventions are not subordinate to the automobile conventions. We often follow their example because wider consensus exists, and some consistency between related projects is desirable. It has been a while since these conventions were discussed, and they have changed in the meantime with little discussion. They have never been officially adopted by the Motorcycling Project, though they have been listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycling with no objections.

The goals of this RfC are to:

1. Ensure the conventions to not overstep any Wikipedia-wide Policies and guidelines.
2. Remove any parts which lack consensus.
3. Correct any egregious errors or contradictions.
4. Receive input from non-motorcycling readers and editors, to help make the topic and project accessible to all
5. Establish consensus for the conventions.

Beyond that, all changes and commentary are welcome. It might be best to hold off any major deletions until a lot of participants have had a chance to see the starting version of the conventions page, instead using inline notes, highlights, and discussion here on this talk page. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:13, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• Some suggestions (about style rather than substance) from a non-motorcycling editor:
  • Instead of (or as well as) a "Conventions" page it might be better to have separate pages on notability, style etc. Advantages include avoiding the ambiguous word "convention" and fitting into categories such as Category:Wikipedia notability (transport). (The category this page is in at the moment, Category:Wikipedia information pages, is virtually a miscellaneous category).
  • The Infoboxes section is unnecessary and risks duplicating/contradicting the template documentation. It would be better to transfer info (e.g. about the Assembly parameter) into the template documentation, add a reference to the infobox in the style section and delete the Infoboxes section.
  • There are several "will"s that should be "should".
  • Avoid unnecessary references to the wikiproject - e.g. "there are several Motorcycling Project exceptions" would be better as "there are several motorcycle-specific exceptions" (or similar).

DexDor ^(talk) 21:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

• I've made a few copy-edits and pointed out that lower-case letters aren't always correct for units: diff here. --Slashme (talk) 08:28, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

• Using a retroactively created fictional person to justify capitalizing L for liter in the example is a bit dodgy. But I can live with it. - Brianhe (talk) 23:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

@Brianhe: "A bit dodgy"? It's thoroughly disreputable! To clarify, my link to Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre was an intentional violation of WP:Easter for humorous purposes. WP:UNIT allows uppercase or lowercase L for litre, but I prefer uppercase because it improves readability.--Slashme (talk) 08:48, 3 March 2016 (UTC)