Talk:Starling (structure)

Starling or cutwater?
In the French villagepump on commons we recently had a question about a category name. Can a native speaker make a correction if necessary? Is the name commons:Category:Icebreakers (hydraulic engineering) right? Or should it be starling (architecture) like this article? And what is the difference between starling, cutwater and breakwater - I think the last one is on the coast not on a river? Traumrune (talk) 20:24, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Icebreaker is a poor choice. Their main function (on all rivers) is to divert floating treetrunks from a river in flood. The ice diverting function only applies in cold climates, and even these have flood issues in the Spring. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Factual accuracy tag
Hi - please could you expand on your rationale for the tag? I think you're saying that a starling and a cutwater are two separate parts of the overall structure, but I can't work out what completely illustrated with integral cutwaters means. Can you provide any sources that support this view? I'd be happy to do some work on resolving whatever you think the issue with the article is, but I need to understand properly before I can do that. Cheers Girth Summit  (blether)  13:46, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Thinking about it, I think you're saying that the article is completely illustrated by images of starlings that have integral cutwaters, but that actually the cutwater and the starling are separate things - am I getting anywhere? If so, could you please explain the difference between each of them, and point me at a source, so that I can do something about the problem and remove the tag? Thanks Girth Summit  (blether)  15:17, 7 July 2019 (UTC)


 * A starling, in bridge engineering context, refers to at least three different things. the first is a protective structure around piers or pilings, rather like a dolphin, but surrounding rather than simply an avant-garde. it is often, but not necessarily, in a cutwater shape. The piers or pilings, however, are what directly support the superstructure, the dolphin is merely protection against scour, impact, and so forth. It also refers to an artificial, often submerged, island in a similar shape, or to the retaining wall that defines and creates that island. The substructure of the bridge rests upon it. It, too, is usually, but not always, in a cutwater shape. Distinguishing between the two was often critical in repair or replacement of ancient bridges, and the large size of such structures often severely impeded flow. Over time, the name attached itself, so to speak, to integral cutwaters, which emphatically do not interfere with flow compared to a blunt structure of similar width.


 * Do you think any of the above is inaccurate? Qwirkle (talk) 15:46, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I've no idea - I am fairly fuzzy on these terms myself. I've been involved in bridge inspection work using sonars, but I was on the data collection and interpretation side rather than the engineering side - I've heard all these terms used, but I wouldn't be confident enough to point at something and tell you whether it was a dolphin, a starling or a cutwater. If you can recommend some good reading material though, I'd be happy to do some work on the article so it's factually correct, and so we can get rid of the tag? Girth Summit  (blether)  20:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Ahhh. I had meant that rhetorically. That’s a summary of the facts, sans refs of course, but do you see the difficulty in making blanket statements about three things which are related, not identical? Qwirkle (talk) 02:01, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, yes, I can see the difficulty - I'd like to do something about it if possible. To explain where I'm coming from, I've been writing some articles about Cat A listed bridges in Scotland, and to describe them properly it's necessary to use some fairly technical language that needs links to help the regular reader understand. I'd rather not send the reader to a page with a 'factual accuracy' tag on it (that doesn't inspire confidence!), but I agree from your points above that the tag is warranted.
 * If I've understood you correctly, and please correct me if I haven't, all of the three things you've described above ((1) a surrounding protective structure like a dolphin, (2) an artificial and potentially submerged island that the piers rest on, and/or the wall that retains it, (3) a usage of the word that has emerged more recently is to refer to an integral cutwater) are different types of starling. Do you think that it would be sufficient to expan this article, so that it has a section on each of them? I'm guessing that to do that, I would need some sort of engineering dictionary plus a reference book or two - I can search for that myself, but you seem pretty well versed in this stuff, so anything you can point me to would be appreciated. Girth Summit  (blether)  07:16, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The first type mentioned, the surrounding protective structure, might be solid walled and filled, and might be stone walled rather than piling. So you could have two almost identically appearing structures, which were radically different inside. (One of the less-explored consequences of Hank the Overwed’s thefts from the Church was a nearly complete break in institutional memory about much infrastructure, and many bridges were no exception to that. Carefully maintained records were destroyed, or were archived inaccessibly to the end users, so when the water line stopped flowing, or the sewer plugged, or you wanted to fix the bridge piers, all you had to go on was external appearance.) I do not have particularly good access to a decnt library right now, and the references easily available online do not seem to be useful without leading to other tags on the article, like, since many works use the wordstarling in one sense or another, but don’t draw a distinction with the other possible meanings. There is a good work on old London Bridge that covers the effects of the starlings on water passage - old estuarine bridges like it acted almost as dams, and boats had to “shoot the rapids” when the tide changed. IMS, the starlings reduced the flow area to one third of what was upstream. Quite a difference in size between types of starling there, no? Qwirkle (talk) 14:30, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Those are some mighty starlings alright! There's more starling than river, if the picture is to be believed. OK, I'll try to get round to looking for some sources on this myself - a quick check on Amazon tells me they're expensive even when bought second hand, so an academic library seems to be the best bet. I will see what I can dig out - if you don't mind, I might ping you with some proposals to change this article when they're ready? Cheers Girth Summit  (blether)  21:08, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Here’ a plan view of new bridge and old from 1832. It’s pretty damned impressive that the Thames flowed at all with that much in its way... Qwirkle (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Redirection of Fender pier here
I've redirected Fender pier here, importing its short description and its illustration. It is possible that "fender pier" is used for similar protective structures attached to moving bridges, as in the illustration of the Middletown–Portland railroad bridge. But I was unable to find a use of the term, and the sole source originally cited when the article was created in 2009 is a glossary for engineers that is no longer online: archived here. That definition, "Any construction adjacent to a wharf, pier, or other structure to prevent contact and damage to vessel or structure" has a narrower purpose and appears to include other kinds of fender, such as on non-protruding docks, and the article was accordingly expanded by with various types of fender. As discussed by and  above, there appears to be disagreement in the sources about the range of meanings of starling and cutwater; there may also be N. Am. vs. UK differences. But "fender pier" doesn't appear to be a usefully distinguishable term. (Disclosure: This was noted off-wiki at the "unnameable site".) Yngvadottir (talk) 22:21, 10 March 2024 (UTC)