Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fastest production car (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep. The consensus below is that concerns with the article can be addressed by the normal editing process and that is is an appropriate encyclopedic topic. Eluchil404 (talk) 01:29, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fastest production car[edit]

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This is just poorly sourced random list of fast cars, this is not list of any organization-approved topspeeds (its missing clear rules what cars included and what are the requirements to be in this list, there is no rule what is mass produced car, what years are included etc. etc, so not very encylopedic list), thats why its missing many cars as this is just random list of cars from random years and we have already List of automotive superlatives Typ932 ^T·C 13:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I declined a prod on this, saying "appropriate list , sourced, not equivalent to any part of article cited as covering the subject". To expand: We have many lists of records over time, compiled from whatever sufficiently RSs are available. Its an appropriate function of an encyclopedia. There are sources for most items, and it should be possible to get the rest. That many of them come from web sources and some from manufacturer's sources does not totally invalidate them. The List of automative superlatives does not give an historical record, just the single record for what the fastest such car is as of now--that a one item overlap, not a duplication. Additionally, there seems from the history of the page to be a general acceptance of what a "production car is", and individual disagreements can be discussed on the talk page. (I note the page is not titled "list of fastest mass-produced cars" -- many of the early ones were made in limited quantities & certainly not by anything resembling "mass-production") The years included in the article are the ones were a faster record was set, which is what I would have expected; I suppose there is a place also for a list of what cars being currently produced in each successive year was the fastest, but that's not the present article. How this can be called "random" escapes me entirely. If the nom. thinks there were other cars to include for intermediate records, he should find the sources and do so. It's no more random than a list of best speeds for running the mile.

The earlier AfD was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fast cars in Dec 2006, where I said "I'm tired of saying this yet once more, but list-like articles that people use and can maintain should be kept." -- which was an almost unanimous keep, with the suggestion to rename to the present title. DGG ( talk ) 23:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment you cant make this kind of list encyclopedia article, because its random list without any rules and orgnization to approve these speeds compare it to Land speed record list, whihc is under FIA. --Typ932 ^T·C 13:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This AfD nomination was incomplete (missing step 3). It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 16:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This is interesting information for lots of people. All the list really needs is a better definition of what a production car is. I would guess that it means a car produced for sale to the public. Steve Dufour (talk) 16:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It would be maybe intresting if it would have all the missing cars and every year and proper sources and if the records were made with same standards --Typ932 ^T·C 16:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The sourcing issue seems to have been addressed, and the topic is notable enough. I think a different title should be considered -- this one is about the increasing maximum velocities of a production car, and not the fastest production of a car. Mandsford (talk) 19:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is the type of article with the potential to make me cringe, but most of the records have sources, so I believe the article can survive. --Pc13 (talk) 09:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to both I know you !voted before me but I would encourage both of you to change your position. Having read both your !votes I've actually gone to the effort of going through the sources in the article and came up with my deletion reason below. The assumption that the article is well-sourced because there's a superscript next to each entry is FALSE. Reading through the sources themselves reveals that they contain absolutely nothing of substance or pertinence to the article at hand. Zunaid 09:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is one of those WP:SYNTH cases that crop up now and then when dealing with lists. The main red flag is that there isn't an overall reliable source that unequivocally states that this is THE true and correct progression of the production car land speed record. Except for the last few entries referencing Guinness World Records, each entry on the list has a reference pointing to itself only, there is no overall source summarising the lists contents. This by itself isn't ALWAYS a problem; with some lists there is a clear and unambiguous means of determining which entries qualify even without an overall source. This is not the case with this list. How do you know for sure that there are no entries missing? You can't, because there IS no way to know without doing original research. The quality of some of the sources are marginal at best. The McLaren F1 source (surely one of the easiest cars on the list to verify?) references a user website rather than a reputable car publication, which is not acceptable for an encyclopedia. Neither the early Bentleys, nor the Pegaso, nor the Ferrari 410 Spider contain the claim on their respective pages that they are the fastest in the world. At this point I stopped bothering to look through the rest of them because a clear pattern emerges. (Also, at least two of the sources - hypertextbook and supercars.net - won't load for me.) Taken in totality and on closer examination, this looks more and more like someone has cobbled together top speeds of different cars from many different sources and stitched together their best guesstimate of the progression of the production car land speed record. It is far beyond just synthesis and is original research. The fact is: almost NONE of the sources support the claim that that particular car was the fastest in the world at the time. Zunaid 20:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Zunaid is exactly right. This is exactly the kind of original research article whose name lends itself well to that end. Ideally this would be a redirect itself (no one would name a car this) but the fact it's a competition lends even more credence to the fact it shouldn't be a stand-alone itself. Shadowjams (talk) 11:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note - If you want a list of fast cars then create List of cars by top speed, but this article's naming convention, and approach, is all wrong. If you want the singular fastest car then discuss it in that article. Shadowjams (talk) 21:43, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

this is good point --Typ932 ^T·C 21:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Just noticed that there is also funny Preceded by Succeeded by box in the end of some fast cars, see eg. Mercedes-Benz SSK --Typ932 ^T·C 22:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The source links above indicate that the topic is quite notable, as one would expect, and so there are plenty of sources which may be used to improve the article in accordance with our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Did you read my deletion rationale? I've looked through the so-called "sources" in the article...THERE ARE NONE (except for the last few). None of the sources ACTUALLY say what the article is claiming they say. They are being used to justify certain claims in the article only by the application of original research. The claims all rest on the following line of reasoning: "I - having personally dug through car articles in various sources - haven't found any faster car pre-1940 hence this must have been be the fastest car at the time..." etc. etc. Zunaid 09:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The current state of the article is largely irrelevant. To delete the article, we must satisfy ourselves that the article is a hopeless case - that it cannot be improved per our editing policy. To evaluate this, the sources in the article are a weak guide as these are often poor. Instead, it is better to look at the sources listed for this topic above - see the link marked Find sources. In this case, these seem ample to support the topic. For example, see Autoweek, which states, "The Koenigsegg CCR -Competition Coupe Racing - officially set the record as the world's fastest production car with a top speed of 241.0 mph (387,9 km/h) measured over one kilometer, The hallowed McLaren F1 XP5 prototype had held the record since March 31, 1998...". Colonel Warden (talk) 10:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes of course, as I've mentioned above the last 3 or 4 entries are the only ones reliably sourced. So you'd end up with a list of 3, maybe 4 cars. That ignores the 100 yeas of motoring that went before (as it should if there are no sources). Basically what I'm saying is that this list article can never be written because the sources, from which it could possibly BE written, do not exist. You're arguing for keeping a cut down and hopelessly incomplete version of the article based on what sources can be found, while I'm arguing for deletion of the same. Let's agree to disagree. Zunaid 13:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is often the case that the early history of some topic is confused or disputed because, by its nature, a topic only becomes well-established after it has existed for some time. And there is naturally some competition to be first or greatest. Such difficulties are inevitable and so no bar to our writing upon a topic as notable as this. Please see WP:V - The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep obviously notable, and worthy of improvement if needed. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! (talk) 16:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I agree with Colonel Warden : "The current state of the article is largely irrelevant. To delete the article, we must satisfy ourselves that the article is a hopeless case" Lots of things here can & should be improved, but that is not a reason to delete. It's a reason to make it better. OckRaz (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.