Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles/Archive 14

HELP!!
I am tinkering with the Chrysler New Yorker page and may need some assistance in the 1960s section particularly in gathering information. --Ace Darville (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Automobile and fuel economy, again
Narnia205 has attempted to add a fuel economy parameter to Infobox Automobile without reaching consensus on the talk page. They have also created a fuel economy template which is original research. I have listed this template for deletion: Templates for deletion/Log/2008 July 30. swa q  18:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Automobile style change
I just noticed that User:Thumperward modified the Template:Infobox Automobile design. I can't see any evidence of a discussion. Should we revert? In know this is opinion, but the old design looked much nicer. OSX (talk • contributions) 08:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I had a quick hunt around, and I think the discussion happened at a much higher level (by "higher", I only mean hierarchically speaking); from the oldest discussion on the Template talk:Infobox page back in January, it looks like a decision was made on the en-Wiki mailing list to try and standardize infobox code, in the same way that has already been done with navboxes. If you look at Thumperward's template edit history, that's what he seems to be doing. He's also edited other automotive templates for the same reason: Infobox Automobile generation, Infobox Automobile platform, Infobox Automobile engine, etc. Also, the other edits he made to the auto infobox code seem to have shrunk it in half (from 3655 to 1500 bytes); that'll do wonders for transclusion performance.
 * In such circumstances the onus is probably on us to show why we can't follow a standard layout. Nevertheless, looking at his edit summaries I think he'd be amenable to reverting some stylistic changes if you leave a message on his talk page. Personally though, I think that sticking to a default layout is wise; it makes the learning curve for editors a little bit less steep if they don't need to keep adapting to the idiosyncracies of individual WikiProjects. --DeLarge (talk) 10:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * What has changed cant see any differencies? --&mdash;  Typ932 T  11:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Just go to any car article (Holden Commodore for example)—the style is definitely different to what it was before. Anyway, thank you DeLarge for your reply. I was not aware of any such discussion, since no mention was made in the edit summary/talk page et cetera. Regards OSX (talk • contributions) 00:03, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Can the colored box around the title be put back? It looks odd with the title just floating there. --Sable232 (talk) 15:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I certainly do agree with Sable232. PrinceGloria (talk) 16:22, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Infiniti G20 - input requested
Now that the controversy over the Infiniti G20 article has had over a year to die down, I'd like to reopen discussion about the revised page. Is the new layout consistent with Wikipedia standards? Does the article follow the standards in general? Should any information be added or removed? What needs to be done to bring the page up to the point where it has a chance to be voted as a GA? Thanks! Thefultonhow (talk) 18:25, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that the information under headings "Equipment", "Engine", and "Transmission" should be relocated under "First generation (P10, 1991-1996)", with the infoboxes assigned to the particular generation headings, so that the appearance is consistent with other pages. The performance modification section can be placed towards the bottom as its own section. This could be done, without any loss of information in about 5 minutes. I don't recommend deleting any information from what I've read. (Regushee (talk) 19:34, 8 August 2008 (UTC))
 * I'm sorry, but I don't think this layout works. The P10 section is now very top-heavy and contains a sizable amount of information applicable to both generations.  Could you please provide me with examples of articles that put this layout to better use? Thefultonhow (talk) 07:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What counts as a Reliable Source in auto coverage?
I am planning to do some work on the Kia_Mohave/Borrego page, and I want to ask first about which sources are considered reliable by this WikiProject. Here are my sources under consideration:


 * AutoWeek
 * AutoBlog
 * CarGurus
 * Edmunds InsideLine
 * The Car Connection

Please let me know which of these is appropriate, or let me know if they all may work.

Note: I am also thinking the article should be simply "Kia Borrego" as this is the name of the vehicle as released in the U.S. Thoughts? NMS Bill (talk) 16:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Merging roadster et al
The articles roadster, cabriolet, convertible, coupe roadster, spyder and retractable hardtop (and doubtless a few others I've left out) could stand to be merged into one over-arching article. As they stand individually, these articles are simply masquerading as photo galleries and lists of examples, with very little actual content and even fewer references. In addition to this several of the talk pages indicate that there is considerable confusion and original research in classifying these vehicle as one type or the other. Historically they are all part of the same body style i.e. a vehicle without a fixed roof. Starting with roadsters (as they were classically defined - without any roof) and evolving to soft-top cabriolets/convertibles and finally to retractable hard-tops shows the evolution of this body style and probably sets up a good framework for discussing its historical development. This would lead to a more naturally flowing article and would probably realise a lot more content. In today's marketing terms, the words used to describe these vehicles are often interchanged, and these days there is no reason to consider each one as a separate class of vehicle, rather, they are all variations of the same theme. I suggest roadster as the over-aching name for the merged article, as it is a common term for all these vehicles, and allows the history section of the article to start with the vehicles that didn't have roofs. Of course the traditional uses of all the alternate names can be discussed in the article in an appropriate section e.g. four-seater convertibles (hard and soft-top), which might not be considered as roadsters in the traditional sense, can be mentioned briefly in a section that discusses the use of the term convertible or cabriolet. Thoughts?  Zun aid  ©  ®  19:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, I didn't realize we had so many different ones. I would agree that most, if not all, of these should be merged.  I'm not sure if roadster is the best article for the merge target, as that implies a light 2-seater.  My first thought would be convertible as the merge target, as that seems more generic, but there is also the issue of cars which can't "convert" back and forth.  Perhaps there should be an article with a more generic term that all of them could be merged into?  Nothing is coming to mind right away though...  swa  q  20:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree. These should definitely be merged. If they had to all go into one article, I'd say convertible, but I'd want to see convertible and roadster have their own articles since there is a difference with convertible being 4-seat and roadster being 2-seat.  roguegeek  ( talk · cont ) 20:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I've seen "convertible" being used to market two-seaters as well, in particular for the case of a coupe that has been offered in a convertible form (Chrysler Crossfire convertible, however as a counter-example, Nissan 350Z roadster). I agree that roadster more strictly refers to two-seaters only, however I do think there will be a lot of overlap in using two articles to describe similar vehicle designs. Like Swaq I'm trying to think of an even more generic term to describe this entire class of vehicles, without much luck. Otherwise I think both your points are valid, "convertible" is a more generic term than "roadster". However it does exclude that crucial original class of vehicle that could not "convert", which historically basically defined this entire vehicle segment. Unless we leave it at "convertible" and just explain (in an appropriate history section) that it evolved from open vehicles that weren't originally convertible? Roadster would in that case go into the appropriate "nomenclature" section. To Swaq: these are just the articles I found through inter-wiki links, there are countless more redirects as well!  Zun aid  ©  ®  20:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree. FYI, Chrysler classifies the Crossfire as a roadster as well. I really wish there was one place to get proper designations for car classes. It's frustrating how all manufacturers are trying to be unique by marketing a new class of vehicle, BMW being a major one I can think of, but I digress. Yeah, just group them all into convertible for simplification. It works just fine like that.  roguegeek  ( talk · cont ) 21:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you could clarify your goals for me? This is where I'm having problems with your proposal: none of these is a subset of roadster... all of them are a subset of "convertible." The Convertible and Retractable hardtop articles are both substantive with 13 references each. The Convertible article has a Variations section that defines each of your sub-sets already... what possibly would a new article cover? How would the combined article result in better "flow" and increase content?

Perhaps the Convertible article could be restructured incrementally to highlight and clarify the variations sooner in the article?

I'm just saying. 842U (talk) 21:13, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Convertible is by far the most complete of all these articles, I was perhaps more targeting the others for a merge. The ultimate goal is to write a comprehensive over-arching article that details the evolution of the convertible/roadster (and perhaps we'll be forced to use 2 different articles, it doesn't seem like a happy marriage to lump these two together) as a class of vehicle first and foremost. The info in all the available articles can easily be merged and then some without endangering article size limits. Convertible itself still has room for improvement in terms of content and flow as follows, and perhaps will gain from whatever info is available in the other articles: convertible gets hung up on the different roof styles quite early in the article and perhaps not enough with the actual body styles. The variations section is not written in prose form and is more a list of examples. In fact the article leans quite heavily on lots of "references-by-example" rather than references that directly back up the content, if you get what I'm saying. If we consider "convertible" to be an over-arching, broad-based article then it should lay out the history and development of this vehicle segment first (in prose form with pertinent examples). THEN deal with different roof styles (again in prose form with pertinent examples) as history has progressed. And we definitely need more references, the last few "cite web"s are broken.  Zun aid  ©  ®  21:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * These could be in same page so merge ..--&mdash; Typ932 T  19:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Sport utility coupe AfD
I have listed Sport utility coupe for deletion. swa q  16:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Link updated. It was relisted due to Roadstaa trying to add more articles to the AfD.  swa  q  15:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Notability guidelines?
See also: Wikipedia_talk:AIR, Notability (aircraft).

The WP:AIR project has drafted some notability proposals that have not had a lot of discussion but are generally followed. One of the concerns that came up in actually implementing these guidelines was that they were too specific. I was considering whether or not it would make sense to have a unified transport notability guideline, since planes, trains, and automobiles have similar boundaries for notability (i.e. notability of broad types, individually notable vehicles, etc...).

Does this project have any notability rules that could be rolled into making a unified "notability for vehicles guideline?" Would this kind of guideline be helpful or appropriate? SDY (talk) 19:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Updating and expanding Kia Borrego/Mohave page
I've posted a comment over on the Kia Borrego/Mohave talk page asking for community input on planned changes. I've already made a few, mostly adding sections. I must be very careful, because I have a COI issue with the page. I believe I can make neutral, constructive edits, but before I go much further, I wanted to check with this WikiProject. Questions or comments? NMS Bill (talk) 20:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Death race?
In an effort to prevent an edit war, can somebody look at this, this, & this, as opposed to this? I'd call the first 3 vandalism, never mind the edit summary (which I find offensive). TREKphiler  hit me ♠  10:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Cooler heads are hereby encouraged to join Talk:Custom_car. Both users have legitimate concerns. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 12:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * On the subject of the glossary, l'd add it's not usual even in the magazines for the terms to ever be explicitly defined; they're in such wide usage, it's usually presumed the readership knows what they mean, which demands either omission, which isn't helpful here, or OR, which is frowned on... So which is the better, in such cases? (BTW, it's precisely because they're rarely defined I put them in; sourcing a definition could take rather a long time, absent OR...)  TREKphiler   hit me ♠  18:03 & 18:15, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Replied at talk ˉˉanetode╦╩ 08:37, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * After a genuine effort to discover just what complaints Zerocannon had, exactly, with the included material, the response was "You know what, fuck you, go revert my edit. This is more pointless than talking to a brickwall." And I still have no idea what, exactly, was the beef with them in the first place. And just to be clear, it's the removal of the pictures I don't get.
 * This appears to be more in the same vein. And this appears typical of his approach.  TREKphiler   hit me ♠  17:17, 17:44, & 17:46, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The edit to rice burner had a reasonable explanation; insulting an IP for vandalism is childish, but that edit was from almost a year ago. As for the latest outburst, it will be dealt with in the manner explained on the talk page. There's a reason why no one from the project has jumped in yet... ˉˉanetode╦╩ 21:18, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

<--I didn't look too carefully at the dates, just took a glance at contribs & spotted those. TREKphiler  hit me ♠  21:29, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

We now have a 3d opinion: JeremyMcCracken prefers this to this. Here's an idea: why not just AfD & save everybody the embarassment of uncited material? TREKphiler  hit me ♠  22:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for layout change of Automotive company timeline templates
I would like to propose a layout change for all Automotive company timeline templates: Take a look at my sandbox.

I am using the CSS rule table-layout:fixed to 1) remove the messy width definitions from all columns (except the leftmost), and 2) makes all columns the exact same width (again, except the leftmost).

And yes, I’m using nested tables. But that is because the content of this navbox is tabular content (year vs car type).

Not all templates might easily be re-implemented this way, but most could. I would happily to all the work if enough of you applaud the proposal, and if few enough complain loudly :-)

All the best, Fred Bradstadt (talk) 15:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks very clean, I like it. swa  q  15:46, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * So do I. Only thing I would change would be to make the lines bigger so it's easier to see the different years since the line color and production year color are fairly close. Also, the Blackwood may be a little confusing since it's both in and out of the production year. Is there any way you can get the 2009 MKS to not stick out of the table? It looks sloppy with all of the other names neatly arranged. Just some suggestions, but I like it a lot.--Flash176 (talk) 16:34, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's clean, but my problem is longer names would have problems fitting in the spaces (in your very own example, the Blackwood name doesn't fit in its space), which is what contributes to the messy column sizes. Butterfly0fdoom (talk) 17:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It looks nice, the Blackwood should have two year production space 2001-2002 --&mdash; Typ932 T  19:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * According to Lincoln Blackwood, it should be 2002–2003 if anything… But please, let’s move that discussion to Template talk:Lincoln vehicles. –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 21:32, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Let me itemize my comments: Try resizing your browsers and give me more comments. Thanks for your time. –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 21:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The table cell border color and the “car table cell” background color are very similar. I’ll try to come up with a revised color scheme – and maybe widening the borders from 1 to 2 pixel, if possible. (UPDATE: See the 2nd and 3rd table in my sandbox for revised colors & borders.)
 * Content flowing out over table cell limits when the table is too narrow (“MKS” and “Blackwood” in my sandbox example) may or may not be regarded a problem. In my opinion, it is not a problem, but a feature that allows the table cells to have identical widths. The problem can be bettered by adding a soft hyphen in places where a long word may be broken – the soft hyphen should work in all major browsers now (even Firefox got it working in version 3, hurrah!). The problem/feature cannot be entirely avoided, not even by using soft hyphens, but again: I do not see this as a problem.


 * I think the second one is the best, we could also standardize more some aspects on those timelines, like similar ownership line if it is used, different color for badge engineered/license manufactured models and so on.. --&mdash; Typ932 T  11:44, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I’ve created a few more examples using the “second” layout: The Aston Martin template has some issues with overflowing text, and Maserati and Ferrari has a little bit in the rightmost columns. Comments are, as always, more than welcome. –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 16:33, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Audi (Europe) timeline 1970 to date &rarr; User:Fred Bradstadt/Audi (Europe) timeline 1970 to date
 * Acura &rarr; User:Fred Bradstadt/Acura
 * Aston Martin &rarr; User:Fred Bradstadt/Aston Martin
 * Maserati timeline 1950-2009 &rarr; User:Fred Bradstadt/Maserati timeline 1950-2009
 * Ferrari road car timeline 1960-2009 &rarr; User:Fred Bradstadt/Ferrari road car timeline 1960-2009
 * Stutz timeline &rarr; User:Fred Bradstadt/Stutz timeline
 * Volvo cars timeline &rarr; User:Fred Bradstadt/Volvo cars timeline


 * Only minor problem seems to be that small overflowing text, otherwise it looks clean and modern, we should also use similar colors in those ownership lines, that Aston Martin isnt particularly nice coloring...  --&mdash;  Typ932 T  19:52, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the look of the old design, so is it possible to retain the old look, but to keep the coding advantages of the new? OSX (talk • contributions) 23:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You mean like this? It’s possible, but I was kinda hoping to get rid of all those ’ed table rows… –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 07:29, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that way. It just looks more professional. OSX (talk • contributions) 06:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Ultimately, I think I prefer the tables the way they are now. They may not be evenly spaced, but I think text overflowing out of boxes is far more visually jarring than unevenly sized columns. Butterfly0fdoom (talk) 16:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I’m sad to hear that, but I’ll leave my proposal for now. –Fred Bradstadt (talk) 05:27, 21 August 2008 (UTC)