Talk:Top Gear (2002 TV series)/Archive 6

Cool Wall edits
If I may be allowed to defend myself on this point, please let me explain what I think the content of this particular part of the article should be: An explanation of the "rules" (and the contradictions of them that have arisen) and the context of the feature within the show. And actually, all my edits to it, besides adding a small sentence about Fiona Bruce's car, were to make the wording of what was already there flow better. By undoing my edits, there has been no real reduction in the amount of content. (By the way, I have now taken out the paragraph on the chainsaw incident, which did seem to me to be pointless fan trivia.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kisbie (talk • contribs) 00:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Excess detail in Top Gear challenges
I've noticed an IP continually adding waaaay excess detail to the latest two challenges over at Top Gear challenges - unfortunately I'm now at 3 reverts in 24h and have run into problems from reverting persistent vandalism before. Could someone else sort this out please - what gets added is pure fancruft, and while interesting is not what should be in an encyclopaedia. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh, very persistent Anon it seems. Is there any policies we can quote and/or get a consensus on whether that much info is wanted? Makes me feel a bit bad reverting something someone obviously has worked quite a bit on, and very much so wants included :P Don't want to seem like a "bad guy" who just deletes other peoples work without most people agreeing that it should go. -- aktsu (t / c) 13:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It won't be semi-protected as it's not vandalism - I asked in IRC. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Can someone take a look at Top Gear Races? Revert? Also, shouldn't Top Gear Segments be deleted? -- aktsu (t / c) 12:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Currently Top Gear Segments appears to be just a rip of this article, and hasn't been edited since it was created on 30 April. Either the material in this article needs to be severely cut down or Top Gear Segments needs deleting - having two articles with the same content is clearly not good. I'm not sure "Top Gear Segments" is really a viable article in its own right as it's not about something particularly tangible (not really a general or a specific subject, though I'm struggling to explain that!). The lack of an introduction doesn't help it either. There are also main articles about various segments, which is more appropriate. I would propose: delete Top Gear Segments and look for ways of cutting down the detail in this article on those segments that have their own article. Halsteadk (talk) 13:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I got the impression everything on Top Gear Segments were copied straight from existing pages. What do you think about the changes by 90.205.32.76 on Top Gear Segments? Seems like more of the same of what's been happening on Top Gear challenges, although not as extreme... -- aktsu  (t / c) 14:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Assuming you mean the anon's contribs to Top Gear Races ;) I don't personally have a huge problem with that - there are a few little details that are probably a bit too much.  For example the additions to the Oslo race all seem to be important to the race's result, but bits like "while May was stopped to pay the congestion charge" aren't significant (and that particular example seems to be wrong - didn't he phone from the car, and he was stopped because to check the crew car's filming licence?).  It's not the most elegantly written material, but I think a clean up of that with some little removals would be more appropriate than a complete revert - it has been done in good faith. To put into context, each of these races lasts for about 25-30 mins and I'm sure there is far more intricate detail of a 25-30 minute episode of other shows that has been acceptable elsewhere. Halsteadk (talk) 14:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll try to clean it up a bit and restore some of the things lost in the edits. I figured I'd ask what people thought before doing anything because I personally think it looked better before, but didn't want to remove anything if it seemed like good additions :) -- aktsu (t / c) 14:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, done. Hope that improved it somewhat. Still, isn't the page breaching No original research? -- aktsu (t / c) 16:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think so - it's just reporting what was shown, not re-interpreting it. It could be argued that there is no implied link between the various races against athletes and that link has been made here by Wikipedia categorising them and collecting them together, so maybe that categorisation could be OR - but I don't think that applies to the "epic" races as they have always referred back to the previous ones. However, this collecting together items that appear to be similar applies more generally to parts of the other TG articles too (eg the list of "unusual reviews" in this one). Is there anything specific that breaches OR? Halsteadk (talk) 17:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * In the Top Gear Races article, I noticed the page jumped from 11k to 14k from july 15 to july 20. Basically was it better to copyedit as Aktsu did the 11k version or the 14k version as the user did? Cause, the IP user who had been previously reverted on the page, wasn't the second and third times which increased the article from 11k to 14k. Any thoughts? El Greco(talk) 17:29, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Clarkson eaten by the dogs!
Should it not be mentioned that Clarkson is no longer a presenter anymore because according to May last night, he was eaten by the dogs? HRHSabineSchmitz (talk) 10:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No. Stop being like creationists and trying to say something is controversial when it is not. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, good grief! Drmargi (talk) 11:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh my god. How obvious does it have to be that it was a joke!.  If he really had been, they wouldn't have aired the segment and he wouldn't have appeared in the studio. Looneyman (talk) 12:05, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * HRH, I hope despite the above responses that in fact you were joking - but the strength of the responses I think illustrates just how sick and tired some people are of you, and they're not ready to share a friendly joke. Remember you are actually currently banned for attempting to impersonate an administrator closing your sockpuppet case, which we have well established was a valid ban regardless of the other issues. Winding up other people is not appropriate behaviour for someone who is apparently trying to make a fresh start after calling people (including myself) "fools" amongst a lot of other things, when you knew you were lying.diff Halsteadk (talk) 12:51, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

It was obvious it was a joke so we won't even go there. Halsteadk, I am not banned and as you know that is already being investigated for irregularities with certain administrators, etc. I have attempted to reach consensus on TGD, TGSM, Sabine, et al. but progress appears to have stalled. HRHSabineSchmitz (talk) 21:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You have personally attacked, vandalised, annoyed and generally pissed off most of the contributers to this page, HRH, and you expect progress to be swift? You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and you've put enough acetic acid over your head to make enough people stay clear away from you for a long time. Do you really think that jokes are the best course of action here? Considering that a Talk Page is not for random triva? Hmm? LicenseFee (talk) 00:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As a matter of fact, DaveSmith (the user behind HRHSabineSchmitz) HAS been banned - at least twice in fact - and indefinitely banned too. What we have here is yet another illegal sock-puppet.  No un-banning hearing has yet been held and every word that HRH posts is therefore contrary to Wikipedia's policies.  We need an admin to block this account - just like the drawerful of other socks we've seen. SteveBaker (talk) 05:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The Emma account - ie YOUR account, HRH, which impersonated the admin IS currently banned - which was grounds for banning quite apart from alleged "irregularities with certain administrators". You have admitted on HRH's talk page that Emma was a sockpuppet of a banned account (DaveSmith33), which is also grounds for permabanning you and all of your accounts. I wouldn't be too certain "irregularities" are being investigated either - is this another case of things being "investigated" or "appealed" when in fact they aren't (just like the old DaveSmith days). Emma/Dave/HRH, you are here against policy, it is with a heck of a lot of grace that no-one has just banned your current sockpuppet and given you a chance. Through your various illegal accounts and entirely by your own doing you have made yourself about as welcome in this community as a fart in a crowded lift. I was willing to give you a final chance when others (rightfully) wouldn't, but you are just about to blow it for me by showing signs of behaving just as before by deliberately saying the opposite of what you know to be true. Halsteadk (talk) 09:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * OK peeps, this is not the place to discuss this matter. Reaquaint yourselves with WP:TALK. Discussion closed. Talk Islander 19:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Time to Archive?
This talk page is getting long. Do you think it's time to archive this and start fresh? Looneyman (talk) 22:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe all the 2007 topics and all the 2008 up until but not including June? El Greco(talk) 22:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't just yet, frankly. Let's be sure the "many faces of Davesmith" problem is well and truly solved first.  I haven't seen anything on the talk pages of several of his sockpuppets indicating they've been blocked, despite the comment in Conclusions.


 * User:Akhilleus said that an indef block had been applied to all known DaveSmith accounts. (See the very bottom of Suspected sock puppets/Davesmith33). That was on 28th July 2008.  User:HRHSabineSchmitz hasn't edited under that name since 21st July.  I'd tentatively suggest it's all over.  SteveBaker (talk) 02:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I realize that, thus my comment above. My point is that there is no notation on any affected talk page that the blocks were applied, which is unusual, to my mind.  I'm not at all confident they were done.  Drmargi (talk) 04:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah...OK, do this:
 * Go to User:HRHSabineSchmitz, click on "User contributions" on the left-side menu then at the top of the resulting page, click on "Block log" - and you'll end up here: - that page says:
 * 21:20, 27 July 2008 Akhilleus (Talk | contribs) blocked "HRHSabineSchmitz (Talk | contribs)" (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Abusing multiple accounts: Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Davesmith33)
 * So HRHSabineSchmitz has definitely been indef-blocked by Akhilleus - that's a much more solid proof than a template on the User: or UserTalk: page (which is easily faked). You can do this for the other DaveSmith accounts and thereby be convinced that they've all been indef. blocked.
 * SteveBaker (talk) 09:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's clear that the situation has been resolved and there is a message saying that the talk page is getting long if you click 'show preview#. I'm not confident enough to do the archiving so, if we all agree, who wants to do it? Looneyman (talk) 15:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If no one else does it, I'll set Miszabot up to do it later this evening - haven't got time now. Talk Islander 15:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

PROPOSAL-moving Unusual reviews into Challenges article
The section of unusual reviews seems like it belonges in the Top Gear challenges article in my opinion. I propose the list be moved into the article under a new sub-heading. What do other people think of this proposal? Looneyman (talk) 15:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Heads up people
TopGear.com is updating their site, which might mean some links may go down when the articles are reshuffled. Just a warning. LicenseFee (talk) 18:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The Stig's nationality
There is a current discussion of this issue at Talk:The Stig. There's only two (opposing) opinions. Given one of the opinions is mine, I'll keep this neutral and not describe the disagreements here. I'd welcome a third opinion (or more). Mark83 (talk) 23:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I have been watching the discussion informally, and my opinion is that you should say that his birth is unknown but there is a strong possibility that he is British. That should make everyone happy and be most informative. Zach4636 (talk) 00:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree: "strong possibility that he is British" is speculation and unverifiable. I would simply omit his nationality altogether until there is evidence. Stephenb (Talk) 08:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with that, but on the Stig's talk page, there was some debate as to whether or not the show's announcers referred to him as English. But I have no problem with simply removing nationality as he is anonymous. Zach4636 (talk) 13:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

And that's my whole issue. It's all too vague and too speculative to ever be supported to any reasonable standard of evidence, which is why I think it should be omitted. Drmargi (talk) 14:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Drmargi and Stephenb, Zach4636 is wrong, saying "but there is a strong possibility that he is British" is not encyclopedic. However, I can think of an episode when Clarkson says [when talking about two German cars] something like "what we need is an English umpire, let's bring him out, Stiggy Bird" (reference to Dickie Bird), and similar quotes -- Not the vague "some say he....." Someone still has to point out to me what is wrong with referencing that episode number and calling him English.
 * Drmargi's objections so far are based on original research. "On a British show with three English hosts, referring to The Stig as English (whether formally or informally) isn't terribly surprising." - So the host's have a natural bias to lie about it? If that is not OR I don't know what is. Mark83 (talk) 22:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This is stupid. I admit that I was wrong originally, but at that time, it seemed to remedy the problem.  If The Stig is anonymous, there is no way to tell his nationality: just say that it is unknown.  Also, Mark, "Zach4636 is wrong" borders on a personal attack.  In the future, you may want to try to be less cutting. Zach4636 (talk) 00:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No Zach4636, the full quote is "Zach4636 is wrong, saying "but there is a strong possibility that he is British" is not encyclopedic." - That IS unencyclopedic. If I get called on a personal attack I will apologise at the earliest opportunity, but if you re-read you will see that wasn't. Mark83 (talk) 01:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Mark, with all due respect, you've had difficulty grasping my arguments more than once. Actually, my objection is in large part to the lack of any reliable sources available to allow us, to a reasonable standard of evidence, determine that the person, no the character, or is it both (?) is English. We're dealing with a figure too amorphous to ever allow us to make such a determination and be confident it's accurate, especially to an encyclopedic standard. It's not an issue of whether Clarkson et al are lying about his nationality per se, something you've twice drawn (erroneously) from my questioning his nationality. And it's not a question of parsing his nationality, something you've also drawn (again, erroneously) from my objections. Rather, the whole point of the portrayal of The Stig as anonymous is we're not meant to know who he is in a fairly comprehensive way that includes such specifics as country of birth. Thus, my suggestion that any references to nationality, which are confined to comments on the show, are informal, to some degree we cannot determine designed to maintain the illusion of "The Stig" and thereby questionable. Drmargi (talk) 14:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


 * He's a racing driver - they're not born, they come from outer space. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not even clear that The Stig is just one person - there are persistent stories that they use a variety of people to run their track tests and that the presenters themselves have, on occasion, stood in for The Stig in some sections of the show. The most likely way to find the truth is that whoever this person is is known to coach the drivers in the "Star in a reasonably priced car" section - the people who have done that must know who he is.  However, I don't think anything that the presenters of the show say about Stig can be taken as the truth.  That they said he was an "English umpire" proves nothing - they also said that "he only knows two things about goats and neither of them are true"...do we believe that?  Against that background of humorous untruth - I don't think we can hang anything on that somewhat offhand comment.  We should say nothing about his identity until there are actual, published facts from a reputable source.  That's the Wikipedia gold standard: "reputable sources" - and the presenters of the show are NOT reputable sources when they are talking about The Stig. SteveBaker (talk) 11:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, he knows two things about ducks, not goats. His nationality is unknown and probably irrelevant since he came from outer space. -mattbuck (Talk) 12:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * On may 22 on TV Limburg (Belgian regional television) there was a report about Top Gear filming in Belgium. On their video you could see The Stig? without helmet... Do you think this is The Stig, and if so, who is it? http://www.tvl.be/nl/nieuws/2008-05-22/top-gear-in-zolder.
 * Update: the words the man says when showing The Stig? are in English: And for the fans, the mystirious man testdriver called The Stig. For one time without his helmet... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.196.153.33 (talk) 16:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the Stig is Mark Webber. TopGearFreak (talk) 15:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

"The Cool Board"
On one occasion of The Cool Board, Clarkson and Hammond couldn't be bothered putting the E90 3 series on the board because "It's just a lump of car." Is this worth putting in the article? Pezzar (talk) 06:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC) P.S If anyone can think of any other notable moments, please put them here.
 * I feel that's more of a moment than a piece of information about the Cool Board section of the show. If that is the exact wording or if you know the exact wording, perhaps it should go on the Wikiquote page for the show. -Sketchmoose (talk) 15:06, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Addition to Segments - The News
I came to the article trying to find some information about "The News" segment and found it to be unlisted in the article. This would seem to me to be an oversight as it is a regular segment and has been for years (including the segment's recurring jokes of Clarkson goijng on the internet where he found "this" (referring to hardcore pornography shown only to the studio audience), as well as May's recurring "disappointment" at the production delays for the Dacia Sandero). I am, however, new to editing wiki articles and don't want to stuff it up. Help please? 124.170.142.109 (talk) 12:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of the Criticism
I admit that it is a very controversial program, and is no doubt recipient of many complaints, although i do believe that the 'criticism' section is disproportionately long when you understand that, compared to the hundreds of millions of fans, the complainers are a rather small contingent. By all means, include it. But not that long! J. Thompson (talk) 20:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm cutting parts of the criticism section section and relocating them in other places, e.g. if hammond was criticised for something he said in series 2, episode 7, I'd move it from the criticism section to the section on that particular episode. Help would be appreciated, as the criticism is ridiculously long. TopGearFreak   Talk  12:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've moved as much criticism as I can. How does the article measure up? Is it ready for re-nomination? TopGearFreak   Talk  17:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Nominated. TopGearFreak   Talk  17:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Prostitute controversy
There's more controversey. Clarkson's comment about lorry drivers murduring prostitutes made in the last episode. Here's the relevant article since it should either be added to this article or Jeremy Clarkson's own article. Looneyman (talk) 22:38, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Done, I just cleaned it, but I think the critisism section is getting stupidly long now. Since every other word out of Clarkson's mouth is liable, this needs to be sorted before it starts filling up. Also, can an admin please archive the talk page? It's quite huge now, thank you! LicenseFee (talk) 20:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If the controversey section is getting so long, maybe it could be put into it's own article? Looneyman (talk) 20:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If anyone's willing to give it a go, I'm game. LicenseFee (talk) 20:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If I start creating a page in my own user subpag, you can help me fine tune it and get it ready for going live if you like. Looneyman (talk) 20:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Re. archiving talk page: done. I've set Miszabot to automatically archive it - will solve future problems. Also note that anyone can archive - you don't have to be a sysop :P. Talk Islander 23:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to cut information out of the criticism page and paste it onto other parts of the article e.g. I put the bit about JC drink-driving in the Arctic into the separate arcticle about the Polar special, etc. Help would be appreciated. TopGearFreak  Talk  19:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * There, the criticism section is about half as long as it used to be, so we don't really need that banner over the top any more. Could a)someone delete it and b)someone tell me if this article is ready to be re-nominated for good article status? TopGearFreak   Talk  17:20, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well done! Looks lovely and clean. I'm just going to do some reorganising on the section now. I think that banner can be removed. LicenseFee (talk) 17:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. May I suggest that if more incidents occur the critism is bung straight into the episode in question instead of the main page? That is, unless it is very, very major. LicenseFee (talk) 18:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Also guys, I've started creating a page on the Criticisms of Top gear in a user sub page. There's a link to it on my main page if anyone wants to help. Looneyman (talk) 22:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Archiving
I know there's a bot for this, but it was quite long and now there's a good article nomination it might be better for a clean slate. Anyway, archived! LicenseFee (talk) 17:37, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * First off, we have a bot set to do this now. Secondly... don't archive EVERYTHING - leave the latest few discussions. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, as someone has agreed with me, I've reverted you. As pointed out, even if we didn't have a bot, you never completely 'harvest' a page. I've moved the archived material back here, fixed the bot dialogue (a stupid mistake of mine meant that it wasn't archiving - it should now...), and standardised the archive box. I'll keep an eye on this page to check that it archives, but I no longer see any reason why it wouldn't. Talk Islander 20:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry! I did say previously that an admin would have to do it, because I wasn't sure, it was my first try and I tried to follow the rules on the archive wiki page... I'm really sorry, and I didn't think that bot was working! (Which it wasn't) Really sorry again. Urg. I fail at this.LicenseFee (talk) 22:46, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Seriously, don't be so hard on yourself. You made a mistake, and should be more careful in the future, but that's it. Talk Islander 22:56, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Cheers. LicenseFee (talk) 22:58, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Top Gear Dog
I know he's not a major part of the show, but he isn't mentioned once in this article. 'Top Gear Dog' actually even redirects here for absolutely no purpose.--Santahul 16:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
 * He, is in fact, a she. And she doesn't get the resect she deserves. Emma368 (talk) 17:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What respect (sic) is that? She's a DOG.  She doesn't present.  A present has to have one facility TGD does not: the power of speech.  She lends a charming presence at times, but she's hardly the victim of disrespect you make her out to be.  She's treated kindly, goes along for a ride occasionally, is seen but rarely, and that's it.  Hardly worth the fuss of this morning.--Drmargi (talk) 03:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, hey, hey! The Stig doesn't speak, either! And Emma368 is right, she doesn't get the respect she deserves. I'm going to make an article on her. TopGearFreak (talk) 16:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You might want to do a little reading before you undertake that, and save yourself the effort. Drmargi (talk) 16:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? TopGearFreak   Talk  18:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Article title
I have read the above discussion on the article name change. While I do not forsee a name change,' (so do not reply with that in mind) I not not agree with the justification for nonconformance with WP:TV-NAME: "2002 TV series" does not necessarily imply that it ran for one year. Futher, "current format" does imply that someone looking for the article already has some familiarity with the subject, which is a hit against the hypothetical "first time reader" the articles are meant to be written for. 118.90.5.177 (talk) 23:54, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The argument made was bogus - there's hardly any discussion at the "vote" pointed to, and the naming guideline certainly doesn't mandate the current title. I'm moving this again after the GA review has concluded. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:26, 21 November 2008 (UTC)