Talk:Handlebar

History note
The previous history of a page at Handlebar is now at Bicycle handlebar. Anthony Appleyard 12:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Disambig and Replaced with Disambiguation Page
This seems to me to be a disambiguation page for handlebar to split bicycle and motorbike. Should it be reformatted as one and have that convenient template at the bottom? Goodnight mush  Talk  04:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * As pointed out by Goodnightmush, this page exists solely to direct users to either bicycle handlebar or motorcycle handlebar. As per guidelines, this consitutes a disambiguation page, not an article (see WP:D). I see no reason whatsoever to keep this as an article so I have replaced it with a disambiguation page.  Dubious Irony  yell  05:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is suboptimal for at least three reasons:
 * The information about handlebars on vehicles other than bicycle and motorcycles is now lost.
 * Several articles; Tricycle, Yamaha Phazer, Freestyle Scooters, All-terrain vehicle, Kick scooter, Zip line trolley, Mobility scooter, Floor buffer, Protei-5 Russian diver propulsion vehicle, Jeff King (mushing), King (TV series), and Auto rickshaw; all link to handlebar in the non-bike-vehicle sense.
 * At least two articles, particularly countersteering and Bicycle and motorcycle dynamics wikilink to handlebars generically for a convenient definition and brief explination that is neither bicycle nor motorcycle specific.
 * For these reason, I suggest we revert this change -AndrewDressel (talk) 13:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I do share your concerns, I made this change in the spirit of "bold, revert, discuss". If you believe that the article was more useful and more in line with WP guidelines the way it was, I understand a revert. Here's my reasoning: One last thing, I'm not sure how to best include related information (such as handlebar moustaches and the song by the Flobots). I think they should either be both hatnotes (i.e. For the moustache, see handlebar moustache. For the song by the Flobots, see Handlebars) or they should both be in the bullet-list. Thoughts? Thanks for taking the time to comment, it's appreciated!  Dubious Irony  yell  18:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The article was in a strange half-article half-disambiguation page limbo for a pretty long time. All of the content was duplicated in the motorcycle and bicycle handlebar articles. I made the decision to make it into a disambiguation page based on the WP:D criteria "Disambiguation is required whenever, for a given word or phrase on which a reader might search, there is more than one existing Wikipedia article to which that word or phrase might be expected to lead."
 * I agree that a short definition may be beneficial, I have restored the longer definition as used by the article in previous revisions, in the style of disamb pages such as conflict. I think it might be better if it was cut down to something a bit shorter (I'm also not sure about all the wiki links to vehicle types) but I can't really think of any better way to phrase it right now.
 * Cool. I like your changes and have added some of my own. As for other meanings, I followed the example in Fairing. -AndrewDressel (talk) 18:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice, I like your most recent revision. This is a bit of a strange situation because articles that link to handlebar are just looking for a generic definition (e.g. Auto rickshaw, kick scooter) but the WP guidelines frown on linking to dab pages to provide definitions. Still, I think this is the best solution when you think about ease-of-use for the readers. I've only been here for a few months though so maybe someone can provide additional insight.
 * I think it might be possible to expand this into a real article, but it would have to be sourced (not to mention the possibility of it falling back into a stub repeating stuff listed on the motorcycle/bicycle handlebar pages). I think what we have now (a dab page + separate articles for various sub-handlebars) is the best solution. To anyone reading this: feel free to make ATV handlebars, scooter handlebars, etc. provided they meet the criteria for an article :D Cheers,  Dubious Irony  yell  00:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)