Talk:Catalina Yachts

(Comments)
I've been doing research on other sailboat companies of similar size and found most did not have articles at all. Surprised when this article had so much information by comparison. Then found that language of the description of the boats felt like sales material and not especially neutral. External links to corporate website and yacht broker seems a little questionable. I certainly don't want to go in and make any changes to article, much of which is well done, factual and informative, but I'm concerned about the POV here.

Additionally, although this is not really related to neutrality, it needs some sourcing work. Gonna try to find that tag somewhere as well.

Thoughts out there?

Bradfordschultze 00:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

indeed few other sailboat manufacturers, and possibly even fewer naval architects, appear in wikipedia; hopefully this will slowly be corrected as the huge number of companies and the difficulty of finding information on the vast majority of them is currently a serious problem for buyers, brokers, surveyors, et al.. i agree this current article on catalina is advertorial. it is one-sided, misses salient points in the company's history, and focuses on trivia (like the companionway construction..), neglects a nuetral consideration of the company's market positioning, etc.

I've read the article and feel that it is truthful. I am a Catalaina yacht owner and webmster for the Catalina 380 International association. Most of what is written here is generally common knowledge which would be hard to document for sources.

I'm not really debating whether or not it is truthful, and the article has certainly been improved over its previous incarnation, but I still believe it could be improved. WP:NOR is my main concern, along with some WP:CITE issues and WP:MOS concerns. Regardless, kudos to those who are contributing - let's make this a great article that will hopefully be an inspiration for other sailing and sailboat builder articles. I'll take a stab at the opening paragraph now for some examples of what I'm talking about. Oh, and if we can sign these discussion threads (WP:SIG), it'll make things a lot easier. Bradfordschultze 20:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to remove some of the blatant problems regarding objectivity, but another editor is intent on injecting the subjectivity back into the article. As to citations, this is a subject about which little has been written. I think that there is a fine line between primary research and colleting information from sources such as the Catalina website where models by number and features are readilly viewable. It is matter of collation rather than research.

This morning a representative of Catalina Yachts reviewed and approved what had been written. I'm not sure whether this helps to satisfy your concerns.

Kevin Murray 22:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC) Kevin Murray _ unsure if this is the proper way to sign

Much infromation removed
AA Milne, an editor with some higher level of authority has removed a significant amount of information from this article. I believe that this has been done improperly and have asked him to cooperate with the return of the photos and timeline.

To the other active editors: we have to be careful with this article seeming to be too much opinion.

Thanks

Kevin Murray 23:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The information you added, at first glance, appears to be absolutely useless; the photos look like they're selling me something. I suggest removing the timeline, leaving it in the external links section, and putting effort into cleaning up the majority of the article. - ¡Kribbeh! Speak!\Contribs 23:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I've no greater authority than any other user, no greater level of authority than you. Please read WP:NPOV though. Articles MUST be neutral, not just seem to be neutral and users shouldn't express any opinion on the page. The article should be geared towards a passer by interested in finding out about Catalina Yachts, not a source of information (and by default advertising) for prospective customers and to me, anyway, that's how much of this article now appears. AA Milne 23:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't Agree
If you want to make some changes fine. But where do you get off judging my intentions etc.

I reverted back, but am happy to discuss.

Kevin Murray 23:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

COMPROMISE?
I've reverted to an earlier version, removed the photos of the interior ammenities, and removed the Timeline.

Perhaps this can accomodate all concerns, or at least many.

I've tried to rework this article to a nuetral POV since I began editing on 10-17.

My originalk goal was to write and article about Coronado Yachts and stumbled across the Catalina article, which was tagged for POV and lack of citations. I hope that I have been able to make it better and more interesting. I would like to continue this theme on other boat brands as well; when we've worked out the ground rules.

I have permission for the use of all the photos and the timeline from Catalina, but let's just let that issue go away for now.

Thanks.

Kevin Murray 23:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, but please make sure that you follow WP:SPAM. As we dont want this article to become a page to promote the brand but instead it should be a NPOV article Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 00:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

PRECEDENTS - ARTICLES ON OTHER CORPORATIONS & PRODUCTS
To establish guidelines, I randomly looked at Wikipedia articles on other manufacturing companies and their products. I looked around the room and out the window for some samples including: Sony, Cadillac, IBM, Microsoft, and General Mills. I searched each name on Wikipedia and for each there was an article. In every case there was a link to the corporate website. In most caes there was some form of timeline, links to users groups etc, and extensive photo representations of the products.

I think that before we go hacking up the Catalina page, there should be a consistent standard applied. I would say that nothing that has been posted here in the last 24 hours violates the defacto standards applied to other articles on corporations and their products.

Further removal of peoples hard efforts here will be reported as vandalism!

Kevin Murray 00:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Please note that this is not an attempt to remove your work. I encourage you to edit, but we want to have good articles that are not ads for a brand. Feel free to use information from the website and to link to it. All that I ask is that we try to avoid making this into an ad for the company. I agree that photos are needed, but use in moderation we dont want this page to be all photographs of the product, and a small amount of text. I enjoy seeing photos but just be careful not to flood the page with them. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 00:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Kevin Murray 00:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Kevin, I like Betacommand don't want to put you off editing Wikipedia, but the contributions you added to the page didn't comply with Wikipedia policy on copyright, please read WP:NPOV, WP:SPAM and WP:C before making anymore major edits. I've included some information about copyright which is important with respect to this article. If you feel you can turn the article we have today into something that resembles with Microsoft, IBM or Cadillac articles, go for it, we're not here to stop you, we're here to stop the people who don't care about Wikipedia policies and reck your work and our work for no reason.

"To use copyrighted material on Wikipedia, it is not enough that we have permission to use it on Wikipedia alone. That's because Wikipedia itself states all its material may be used by anyone, for any purpose. So we have to be sure all material is in fact licenced for that purpose, whoever provided it.

To do this, we must often email or contact the copyright holders and ask them to allow us to use it under the GFDL or a GFDL-compatible license, which would be compatible with how we want to use it. See Wikipedia:Copyrights for more.

The main legal thing that is important to explain to potential contributors: they would be agreeing that their picture (or text) can be used freely by Wikipedia AND its downstream users, and that such use might include commercial use, for which the contributor is not entitled to royalties or compensation. Wikimedia itself is a non-profit organization, and any money raised from the re-use of Wikimedia content would go to furthering our aims—buying new servers to keep the websites running efficiently, producing print runs, making Wikipedia available on CD/DVD for schools and developing countries. However, not all of those who re-use our content are so high-minded.

This means that a contributor's work might appear in print or digital versions of this encyclopedia that are sold in stores. It might appear in WikiReaders, or other specialized subsets of the full text—teacher curriculum packets, publicity brochures, other uses we haven't thought of yet. It will certainly be used by other websites that legally copy our content.

About half the people we ask say yes, especially if it's explained that the license terms mean it is wider appreciated and that we do not want to use all their material, but just one image or item. See Wikipedia:Example requests for permission for more.

This page explains what must be done, if you want to use content that's copyrighted, whether you know who produced it or you don't. Goto Requesting copyright permission"

Failed GA
This article has failed the GA noms as it seems to be mostly cited from one source and an article on such a topic should have alot more information. If you feel that this review was in error feel free to take it to WP:GA/R. Tarret 23:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't dispute that this article lacks the polish to qualify as a "good article"; however, I do dispute the allegation of single sourcing. The notes section is heavilly weighted with statistical references to the Catalina website, but the history of Butler, the company, and the line is well referenced to three substantial and informative sources: Good Old Boat magazine: Volume 4, Number 1, January/February 2001, Sail Magazine: August 2004 pages 54 - 57, and Heart of GLASS, Fiberglass Boats And The Men Who Made Them by Daniel Spurr pages 244 - 250. The performance statisitcs are cited from an independent source, the Northern California Yacht Racing Association, with published ratings based on and consistent with other worldwide rating organizations. --Kevin Murray 20:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Notes AND references?
Regarding the new "references" section: There are no references to these items in the article. For instance, the "Sail Magazine: August 2004 pages 54 - 57" item. Also, the "Catalina Timeline" is really just a nice external link. I don't believe we need a "Notes" section that is contains inline references and a "Notes" section that contains items that could be distributed elsewhere... The inline refs should be under "References".

I do tons of work with referencing. I typically don't include items that aren't easily verifiable. So the inclusion of "Sail Magazine: August 2004 pages 54 - 57" as a bibliography item makes little sense especially since nothing points to it in the article. It hangs out there alone. The article really doesn't need a bibliography section. I just think the items we have could be covered more simply as they stood.

I'd prefer that we not include items that aren't easily verifiable. E_dog95' Hi ' 23:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * As articles for boat manufacturers are frequent targets for ill formed AfD nominations, including as many strong references as possible which support the general text is highly advisable. Footnoting every sentence is going too far. The Timeline contains a lot of information on the evolution of the line and the magazine article tends to establish notability in fulfillment of [WP:N]. Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * OK - I now understand your past experience defending boat-related articles from AfD nominations. I'll be doing what I can for referencing the article. E_dog95'  Hi ' 00:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. I see that I won't be able to make inline refs after all... E_dog95'  Hi ' 05:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Making inline references also makes them available to readers and editors alike. By converting these references to the "general" variety (the way they've been done here) makes them inaccessible. The "general" method being implemented here does not align itself with Verifiability. Cheers E_dog95'  Hi ' 05:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see why inline footnotes and a bibliography can not continue to be compatible as they have for centuries in print. At WP the preference is to call a bibliography a reference section, but that is just nomenclature. --Kevin Murray (talk) 05:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

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