Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Toyota acronyms

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 delete. Consensus is that there isn't sufficent notability here for this article. Courcelles 13:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Toyota acronyms

Toyota acronyms (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Unreferenced article about non-notable marketing acronyms. While this information may be appropriate for an extremely brief mention in another article (although I've looked and couldn't find an appropriate location), it certainly is not notable enough for its own article, nor is it a broad enough subject to create anything other than a permastub article. Delete per WP:IINFO and WP:NOTDIR. SnottyWong ^soliloquize 15:41, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I've been a bit slack about adding the references but I have just added most of them. The subject is notable because these terms are used in many Toyota articles but there is no explanation of what they mean. Even Toyota's own brochures and marketing material often use them without explanation. So I gathered the few explanations that Toyota gave into a single article which can be referred to from other articles. Originally these were part of List of Toyota engines but TEMS and Pegasus didn't fit there, so I split them into their own article. Look for how many times TEMS and BEAMS are mentioned in other articles (note that I have edited each of those articles to point to this article but the terms were already there before me).  Stepho  (talk) 02:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that that's a reason for a separate permastub article on four marketing acronyms. If the articles which use these acronyms don't define them, then they should be defined in those articles. For instance, "The 2007 Toyota Camry was the first model to use LASRE (Lightweight Advanced Super Response Engine)." No need for a separate article, these are just marketing terms. Look at all the puffery words used in them: Super, Advanced, Breakthrough, Precision-Engineered, Geometrically-Advanced, etc. This article essentially serves as an advertisement for Toyota advertisements. SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 14:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

If your argument is that it is too short, then I can quite easily fill it up with dozens and dozens of Toyota specific terms. I was trying to avoid that because then it would become an advertising page. Sadly, each manufacturer takes commonly used technology and puts their own name on it. Having a page that maps the marketing name to its more common name isn't supporting the brand, it's cutting through the marketing BS. Now, some of those names are just puffery - notice that LASRE and BEAMS are described as 'marketing term', cutting through the BS. Whereas TEMS and TTC are actually described as meaningful, physical items (ie a suspension feature and an emissions control feature that can be pointed to).

What makes these terms notable is that they are very commonly used in Toyota's advertising but are not explained very well. I went through my extensive library of brochures and found BEAMS mentioned (but not explained) on vehicles with 3S-GE, 1JZ, 2JZ, 1ZZ and 3UZ engines. Most of the WP articles mention that they are BEAMS engine but don't explain what BEAMS actually means. The typical reader will be confused. Isn't it the very purpose of WP to explain things? At least now the reader can follow the link to here and find out that it really is a near meaningless marketing term. Or we could just leave them in the dark...

Likewise, TEMS is often mentioned in brochures and in many WP articles (Soarer, Cressida, Chaser, FX-1, Supra, Active suspension). But in this case it really is a piece of technology that actively controls the suspension damping characteristics of the vehicle (switchable between hard sports mode and soft luxury mode). To explain it in each and every article it appears in will cause duplication, possible contradictions and probably leave gaps as each version will be probably be different. Much better to have those articles reference a common description where all the information is pooled together.

I wasn't sure if 'Toyota acronyms' was the best name for this article. Perhaps 'Toyota terms' or 'Toyota technologies' would have been better. Thoughts?  Stepho  (talk) 00:27, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - Wikipedia is not a glossary of Toyota marketing acronyms. Or, more relevantly, no reliable sources to establish notability of these terms outside of Toyota materials or passing mentions. The lack of explanation of the acronyms in other articles is a fault with those articles that should be fixed within that article. Bigger digger (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

These terms are already used in a number WP articles. Do you seriously want me to put a full explanation in each and every one of these articles? A major purpose of wikilinks is so that you do not have to provide the same explanation over and over again - possibly conflicting each other.  Stepho  (talk) 04:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

That would be true if LASRE and BEAMS etc. had their own articles. Then, we could link to them from the other Toyota articles for a wider explanation. However, in most cases, concepts like LASRE and BEAMS are not notable enough for their own articles (presumably). In these cases, the concepts should be described in the articles in which they are used, not in a random glossary article. Besides, there are only 4 acronyms on this page, and 2 of them simply tell us what the acronym stands for. Surely we could jam this information into the articles in which these terms are used. SnottyWong ^verbalize 15:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Each of those articles has a link of the form Toyota TEMS. Those links have automatic redirects to the appropriate section of this article. This has the advantage that we can have a specific wikilink (ie which lead to the advantage of not having to explain thigns over and over again in each article) while also having the advantage of being able to aggregate multiple small articles (each one possibly too small to survive on its own) into a medium size article. You can see that I have done similar for small subjects such as some early, not well known Toyotas (eg Toyota AC, Toyota SD) and some Toyota concpt cars (eg Toyota RV-1). Hopefully this will also give you an idea of the quality of my edits.

For your second point, we get back to duplication of effort. They are mentioned in multiple articles, which means you are asking for multiple explanations. Anybody who has done information science or computing science knows that this is to be actively avoided - too much chance of conflicting information and too little chance of corroborating information.

For your last point, 'too small' (or 'only 4' in your words) is only a reason to delete articles that have been around a long time. New articles usually start small and then get expanded over time. I can easy add more terms if you really want me too.  Stepho  (talk) 01:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The terms shouldn't be in any of the articles, they're marketing obfuscations. TEMS should be replaced with "two-setting active dampers" or some such, and the use of BEAMS can be removed: in Toyota Celica "the SS-III was given a BEAMS Tuned 3S-GE engine" can become "the SS-III was given a tuned 3S-GE engine" without losing any information at all. Whether the car articles even require that much information is outside my knowledge of en.wp. There're only about 15 articles to edit, with your agreement I could start tomorrow! Bigger digger (talk) 15:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

To some degree, yes they are marketing obfuscations. Should we cut through the marketing crap or should we leave the reader in the dark? Check out the forums to see how often the terms are mentioned. Also, enthusiasts usually wind up collecting a few brochures of their car - the older the car, the more brochures they seem to collect (I've got a couple of hundred covering 50 years myself). These enthusiast read their brochures and see terms like BEAMS. Where do they turn to for an explanation? Combine this with the fact that so many articles had these terms mentioned in the first place. Doesn't that imply that at least one editor thought it important enough to add and that a lot of other editors thought it important enough to stay?

Secondly, TEMS and TTC are real features. They have marketing names attached to them but they are real parts on the car. TEMS requires components to adjust the dampers, a computer to control these components and inputs to control the computer - this is above and beyond what is normally on the suspension (TEMS was optional on some models). TTC also requires extra parts on the car (catalytic converter being the obvious one - present for some markets, not present in less stringent markets).  Stepho  (talk) 01:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

For TTC, I would like to expand the section a lot more. I have several books explaining why emissions controls were pushed for in Japan, Toyota's part in it (Eiji Toyoda, Chairman of Toyota at the time, was on the Japanese board that dealt with this), and more specifically for this article, how (and why) Toyota implemented 3 different methods (lean burn, catalytic converter, vortex chamber).  Stepho  (talk) 01:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Stepho, sorry, this is not the forum to discuss planned improvements, this glossary of terms fundamentally fails WP:N, and if you read it carefully I think you would agree. It seems the information might be useful to some people, is there a Toyota wiki you could add it to? This is a rhetorical question, I'm trying to draw an end to this conversation. Best wishes, Bigger digger (talk) 19:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. If the planned improvements counter your arguments to delete the article, then it is entire appropriate to discus them here - it would be too late to discus them if the article gets deleted first.

However, you do have a valid point that I need some better references beyond Toyota itself. I will search my non-Toyota literature for such references.

Something I am struggling with is the difference between not allowing Toyota's TEMS but allowing BMW's iDrive. Apart from the iDrive article being more fully developed (see my future plans as given above), I don't see a difference.  Stepho  (talk) 22:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah, that's a good point, but I'm still waiting for those sources, so couldn't see the point of continuing the debate, sorry if that came across as curt, which it does to me on review! For iDrive WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but I can also find significant, in-depth coverage like this review and this one. Bigger digger (talk) 00:33, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

<---Outdent

I should also address your other points. TEMS is no more than Suspension_(vehicle)#Semi-active_and_active_suspensions whilst the info you have on Japanese emissions controls would probably be better at the general article Vehicle emissions control, which needs some serious attention. Bigger digger (talk) 00:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

---

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 13:49, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delete - NNCUCA. Non-Notable Compendium of Useless Commercial Acronyms. Carrite (talk) 16:55, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete, blatantly non-notable. Peter Karlsen (talk) 17:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delete Not enough notability I say, doesn't have too many sources either. DARTH SIDIOUS 2 ^(Contact) 20:33, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Keep, place to gather small but useful info that is otherwise scattered.  Stepho  (talk) 23:02, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• Stepho, please don't !vote more than once. SnottyWong ^converse 00:05, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• Not Stepho's mistake. I'm the relisting editor. I think while he was placing the previous iVote, he didn't format the vote correctly; so perhaps he presumed the vote didn't count. Anyway, I've formatted his previous vote too. Warm regards. ♪ ♫ Wifione ♫ ♪ _―Œ ^{♣Łeave Ξ мessage♣} 02:34, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Oops, my mistake., With the 'relisting' and a pile of new votes straight afterwards, plus a bit of stress from here and some stress from work, it looked to me like votes had been taken from above and put at the bottom to make counting them easier - ie remade into a new list. I have re-read it and now understand that it simply meant that Wifione had extended the discussion period. My apologies for the misunderstanding. However, the word 'keep' with the strike-through looks like I have rescinded my vote. Any suggestions to making a single vote look neat again would be welcome.  Stepho  (talk) 08:35, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I've improved my references a bit by adding some non-Toyota sources. Due to the age of this material, much of it is not online, so online searches turn up little except for forums (which are of course not acceptable as references). But I will continue searching through paper magazines and books for more.

For those who say that this article is too small (only 4 items), the VVT-i and T-VIS articles would be good candidates to merge in this one. Also note that I'm slowing building up a better picture of what each term really represents (ie a bit more than just puffery). LASRE seems to concentrate on lighter weight of the reciprocating masses (camshafts, pistons, timing chains, etc) while BEAMS concentrates on added mechanisms like VVTi. My research continues.

Digger, your suggestions are quite reasonable. I did think of putting TEMS into Active suspension and TTC into Vehicle emissions control. But past experience has taught me that the editors of such articles want to remain generic and not get bogged down with brand specific implementations. You can see that I redirected the small mention of TEMS in active suspension to this article so that it could be fleshed out without detracting from the generic article. I also thought of putting them into Toyota but that is more concerned with the company rather than specific technologies used. Perhaps I should have named this article 'Toyota technology'. My concern is have a place to put all those little bits of info that are too small to have their own article and are used in more than one vehicle/engine article. Cheers.  Stepho  (talk) 09:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• Transwiki to Wiktionary, as wikt:Appendix:Toyota for Toyota terminology. 70.29.210.72 (talk) 02:50, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When I began this article, that would have been a possibility. But now I have added technical details (and plan to add more), so it is no longer suitable for a dictionary. Thanks anyway.  Stepho  (talk) 04:59, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I've added some more references. Many of these magazines are not online, so progress is slow, but I am finding out new bits and pieces to add to the article in addition to just adding references. The work continues...  Stepho  (talk) 04:59, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

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.