Talk:Duckpin bowling

Ball weight/size
I made this info more specific (since it can easily be found on various websites selling duckpin balls [such as this one]), but I still find it kind of odd that the information was so terribly vague before. Was there some good reason that it wasn't fixed earlier? Is this information in dispute or something that I'm not aware of?

Thanks!

StarmanDXE (talk) 23:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

3 balls per frame?
It says that you recieve 3 rolls of a ball per frame, yet many bowling alleys that I have been to that have small sets of duckpin lanes only allow 2. Is there good citation on either?

The rule book of the National Duckpin Bowling Congress is the best citation, but it is copyright and not available on the Web as it is a benefit of sanctioning and membership. There is a short discourse at www.robinsweb.com on how to score duckpin bowling which is accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.45.47 (talk) 06:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding context
I noticed that this article is tagged for needing cleanup because the introduction lacks context. I think it's hilarious that the introduction goes to great pains to explain that a bowling lane a wooden rectangle with gutters, but doesn't mention that duckpin bowling is a sport. I don't know enough about it to try and do an edit, but I thought I would point that out.

Parables (talk) 16:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I would think most people would know that bowling, duckpin or otherwise, is a game...the photo of the pins could stand replacing (either that or this game is usually played under abysmal lighting conditions).

jmdeur 12:23 7 April 2008 (UTC)

High scores
We should watch to see if 74.106.231.195 comes back to re-enter unsupported claims about 88 people having bowled unsanctioned perfect games. I corrected that section just now (the second paragraph of the "rules" section). DerekTK (talk) 21:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)DerekTK

Article on Potter, Nebraska Duckpin Center
The January 19, 2014 edition of the Scottsbluff (Nebr) Star-Herald has an article on the restoration and reopening of the Potter three-lane duckpin bowling alley, with photographs, at this link 76.0.8.39 (talk) 04:42, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Ten-pin bowling is a category, not a single style of bowling game!
There's an odd dispute about whether duckpin bowling, which uses 10 pins, can be counted as "ten-pin" bowling or not. Well, if it uses 10 pins, then why not? It's not five-pin bowling, is it?

Then, in this same article, there's a weird dispute about whether the standard of ten-pin bowling is the one with the normal-sized balls (the most common version of bowling, which seems to make it the standard) or if there supposedly "can't be a standard type of bowling" and if the word "standard" supposedly "shouldn't be used in an encyclopedia." That doesn't make sense. I've seen the word "standard" used all over the encyclopedia because there are standards that encyclopedias recognize!

I don't know of any other name that standard bowling (the one with 10 normal pins, the normal 8-16-pound, normal-sized balls, with 10 frames and a top score of 300 points) has, so it's just standard bowling. It's the standard version of 10-pin bowling as opposed to the candlepin and duckpin flavors (nonstandard).

And then there's five-pin bowling, and I only know of that one flavor that uses 5 pins, so for all I've seen, that one stands alone. So according to the best of my knowledge, we have this:

Ten-pin bowling is a category, not just a single style of bowling game! Duckpin bowling uses 10 pins instead of 5, so it belongs as one of the styles of bowling in the category of bowling that uses 10 pins, or ten-pin bowling, just like candlepin and regular, or standard, bowling do.

Five-pin bowling is by itself. Thus, if put in a categorized list, they would look like this:

TEN-PIN BOWLING
 * Standard
 * Candlepin
 * Duckpin

FIVE-PIN BOWLING

Therefore, I've edited the article accordingly. Any questions?

174.23.175.115 (talk) 09:11, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The critical point you have been missing is that reliable sources do not use the term "standard" (or, especially, "normal") to apply to a type of bowling, and Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. Very simply, reliable sources do not use "ten-pin bowling" as a category to describe any bowling that has ten pins: you are taking words out of a general dictionary and trying to apply them without reference to their context in a particular field. "Ten-pin bowling is a term of art: "a term that has a specialized meaning in a particular field or profession". Especially since duckpin has over a century of its own history—in parallel with what reliable sources and Wikipedia have always called ten-pin bowling—it is irrelevant which type of bowling is "most common".
 * We should resolve this here, first, to avoid an WP:edit war. —RCraig09 (talk) 13:50, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * OK, RCraig09, then which supposed "reliable sources" do you believe you're talking about? And how can only one of the games that use 10 pins be called a "ten-pin" bowling game, while others that use that same system just get "left in the cold" from being understood as also 10-pin bowling games? 174.23.175.115 (talk) 09:11, 8 May 2019 (UTC)


 * You simply cannot decompose established phrases like a Martian newly arriving on earth, and expect your interpretation to be consistent with common usage. Also, you should be doing your own research rather than demand others do it for you, but here are references showing proper usage:
 * Sports Illustrated quotes the Bowling Museum director: —"A man named Joe Thum introduced tenpins to Europe in 1895, ..." says museum curator Bruce Pluckhahn. "But there are offshoots—bocce, bowling on the green, duckpins, candlepins, skittles and cocked hat, ..." —
 * The New York Times explains in the article "The Lost Art of Duckpin Bowling": —"... even though a turn can include throwing three balls, instead of the two in the more common game of tenpin bowling, scores are still much lower."—
 * Like any bowling alley I've ever known of, this Washington DC area company explicitly distinguishes its ten-pin leagues from its duckpin league in its flyer.
 * This newspaper article is just as explicit: "Most Americans are familiar with the game of ten pin bowling, which is the most common bowling game in the United States, but were you aware that several other variations of the game of bowling can be found across the North American continent? ... Duckpin bowling is another popular version of bowling found on the east coast."
 * Put simply, "bowling" is the generic term, and "ten-pin bowling" and "duckpin bowling" are specific types of bowling. You will be hard-pressed to find even one single reference that treats "ten pin" as a category that includes duckpin (and I'd be very interested in seeing a reliable reference that does). —RCraig09 (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Dubious claim
The article claims "The rubber band game is now almost extinct, with most of the lanes located in private clubs, though there is one alley in the U.S. still open to the public in Glassport, Pennsylvania." I think there are at least a couple rubber band duck pin alleys in Pittsburgh that are open to the public. Here's an article about one in the Garfield neighborhood. Also, the duck pin bowling at Coop De Ville looks like rubber band duck pin from the photos. Nosferattus (talk) 14:53, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Glassport Lanes (http://glassportlanes.com/ or https://web.archive.org/web/20210804204428/http://glassportlanes.com/) apparently has rubber duckies; I couldn't find an independent source. Zips Lanes (Johnstown PA) apparently closed, in fairly recent years. — RCraig09 (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
 * So the alley in Garfield doesn't exist any more and the one at Coop De Ville is mini duckpin. So Glassport might, in fact, be the last one in the U.S. Still haven't been able to find any sources though. Nosferattus (talk) 15:04, 12 August 2021 (UTC)