Talk:Motorcycle training

To Do
--Dbratland (talk) 19:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Add more detail about typical curricula
 * What effect does training have on accident rates? Answer is in Hurt Report's and MAIDS report's findings.
 * Mention other types of training, such as police motorcycle training, military, and off-road
 * Include more factory training, such as Harley's Riders Edge, Honda's HART.
 * Expand research section beyond Hurt and MAIDS. Good overview here.
 * More coverage of Semper Ride.

Workpage
For the next day or two I have a workpage up for the next major series of edits I'm doing. Edits and comments by all are of course welcome.--Dbratland (talk) 20:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Done with workpage. Speedy deletion requested.--Dbratland (talk) 15:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

World view of this article
Most of this page is very US-centric. Captions of photos from any other country would name the country as well as the state - why not here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.51.251.198 (talk) 17:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Naturally we would all like to see more verifiable information about this topic from places outside the US, UK and so on. At this point I've put in as much as I have on hand, and will add more if I'm able to find it.


 * As far as the photos, I chose them based on 1)What free images were available, 2) Images that illustrated something useful about the article. I included as much information as I had in the captions.  Unfortunately, the Australian HART photo lacked specifics about the location, although no dobout someone in Australia could probably deduce where it was taken based on the date and the subject matter. --Dbratland (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The full set is here, if anyone can tell the location from there.--Dbratland (talk) 18:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, it'd be REALLY nice to have a large discussion on training outside of the US, and comparisons between the methods and effectiveness of the various models. MCN (the USA's MCN) did an article in the past 6 months on US vs UK or US vs Europe, iirc; I don't archive them, though. If anyone knows of reliable sources to base the expansion on, feel free to post them here. For various reasons, including WP:5, we really need the sources before adding information, though. tedder (talk) 01:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was moved. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 01:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Motorcyclist training → Motorcycle training — As per WP:COMMONNAME


 * "motorcyclist training" 	6,800 Google hits
 * "motorcycle training"	 288,000 hits

In the state of Florida alone, there are no less than 43 organizations with the phrase "motorcycle training" right in their name. Not one uses "motorcyclist training." At DMOZ.org "motorcycle training" is used 17 times in the names of schools, or in their description of what they do. "Motorcyclist training" is used not once. Try searching for "computer training" at Google or DMOZ too, just for kicks. It's not a kind of Machine learning. I can see how one might wish to reengineer the English language and make improvements, but Wikipedia does not practice prescriptive linguistics, but rather follows mainstream definitions. As per Search engine test, this is a question of usage, not neutrality, and usage wins.

If some authority were to publish a grammar lesson on the topic of motorcyclist vs motorcycle training, we could mention it briefly in the article, however.--Dbratland (talk) 17:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Good luck training motorcycles. Funny thing.  The AMA changed its name to "American Motorcyclist Association."  I guess motorcycles don't pay dues or read magazines. Somewhere On The Road of Life (talk) 20:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree with move It may be grammatically incorrect, SOTRoL, but MSF stands for "Motorcycle Safety Foundation", NHTSA has a section called "Motorcycle Safety", and Team Oregon (sigh, redlinked) calls it "Motorcycle Safety". We're just here to reflect the common name, not the correct name.


 * Having said that, California's official program is "Motorcyclist Safety". tedder (talk) 20:38, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Not only incorrect, but patently dumb. Why not go for correct language? Somewhere On The Road of Life (talk) 20:40, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Per WP:COMMON. tedder (talk) 20:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The phrase does not mean what you are reading it to mean, any more than potty training or toilet training mean trying to educate potties or toilets. In fact, toilet training, jungle warfare training, flight training, etc., are grammatically correct.    The phrase is structured as training, not training.  Like motorcycle jacket, motorcycle is an adjective that modifies jacket, motorcycle training is an adjective, motorcycle, modifying a noun, training.  Same with flight training, and flight plan, where flight is an adjective that modifies plan or training as the case may be.  There's a certain pedantic stubbornness (I won't say dumb) behind reading the structure of English in  peculiar way in the face of overwhelming proof that the language actually follows different rules.  As a first approximation, what is more plausible:  the English language is defective, or our understanding of that language is in need of improvement?


 * And regardless, WP policy is clear.--Dbratland (talk) 22:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Support - Per Dbratland. I saw this proposal listed at WP:RM and came here expecting to oppose it, based on the impossibility of training a motorcycle. However, never have I seen as compelling an argument in Wikipedia as Dbratland has presented here, clearly and succinctly, particularly in his last comment above.   What else is there to say?   Nothing, except to say we support his proposal.  Well done.  --Born2cycle (talk) 23:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Motorcyclist training (term)

 * I would like to see one of you guys train a motorcycle to do anything! You can train a dog or a horse, but you cannot train a car, a tractor, or a motorcycle. "Here motorcycle, jump!"  Do you think that would work?


 * What is more important? Grammatical accuracy or the number of hits?


 * Good grief. 67.142.130.12 (talk) 21:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * While it's correct, the common name for something is what is used on Wikipedia. That keeps Wikipedia from being forked into pedantry rather than reflecting common usage. tedder (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Grammatical accuracy wins anyway. "Motorcycle" is often a noun, but nouns can also be adjectives.  Consider a "motorcycle helmet".  Is it a helmet for a motorcycle?  No.  Motorcycles have no heads, and no need of a helmet. It is a helmet for a motorcyclist.  Is a "motorcycle jacket" a jacket worn by a motorcycle?  No.  Motorcycles might have covers, but never jackets.  Because in these cases the word "motorcycle" is an adjective, used to modify the noun.  Thus a "motorcycle jacket" is not a jacket worn by a motorcycle, it is a jacket worn by a motorcyclist, the type of jacket is specified by the adjective that precedes it.  You can list hundreds of examples if you think about it. "Film school" is not a place where you teach things to films, it is a place where filmmakers are trained, even though we don't call it filmmaker school.  And we don't need to call it filmmaker school, any more than we need to say motorcyclist's helmet or motorcyclist's jacket.  Or motorcyclist training.We are not going to move Bicycle helmet to Bicyclist's helmet, nor Motorcycle helmet to Motorcyclist's helmet, nor Film school to Filmmaker's school.  Or Flight training to Flier training.  Or Sail training to Sailor training. Or Altitude training to, um, I don't even know what you would move Altitude training to.  All of these moves would be silly, and not demanded by English grammar.  And, as Tedder says, Wikipedia would still keep them even if they were grammatically wrong.  But they're not grammatically incorrect. --Dbratland (talk) 22:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Rating
Rated this C/Mid. It'd probably get higher than a 'C' but it has major omissions outside of the MSF/police programs- even in the USA, that leaves much out (Team Oregon, anyone?).. let alone outside of the USA. tedder (talk) 23:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Lead image.
The Army National Guard lead image is clearly much superior to any others on the page, except possibly the police motorcyclists. It's superior because it shows action rather than mostly static, stationary subjects, and because the motion blur and short depth of field give a better sense of dimension than the very flat Australian image. The Australian image is also not very high resolution, and it is not very sharp; probably taken with a low quality camera. The ANG image was actually released by public affairs officer and taken by a professional photographer, and it shows.Both images illustrate rider training and are perfectly suited to being a lead, but the lead should also be interesting and serve to draw the reader into the article. Bland leads with unprofessional photos are not helpful. --Dbratland (talk) 17:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I almost forgot: It's also tacky to have a large Honda logo at the top of the page. --Dbratland (talk) 17:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, to be fair, I have to say the reason the image looked blurry to me was some kind of caching issue. I think WP was stretching the old thumbnail up to 300 px instead of starting with the hi-res version from Commons.  Once the cache is purged or whatever it looks sharp.  But the rest of my criticisms remain.--Dbratland (talk) 21:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The army picture just shows a couple of people riding bikes. You have to study really hard to notice the mini cones i.e. you need to click the picture to full resolution. My personal opinion is that the depth of field and blur make it a bad not a good picture. The other picture shows a variety of machines on what is obviously a training area with marked out lines - and this is obvious at first glance and is typical of what riders would undergo with initial rider training. --Beemerboybob (talk) 21:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I suppose we should see what others think; I'll be happy with whatever the consensus is.--Dbratland (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

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