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Clearing up the Lotus situation

For those of you that have not yet seen it, http://www.saveteamlotus.com has been set up, which might give some useful information to include when explaining the Lotus situation, although it is likely to have a biased point of view on some things. It also picks up on some inaccuracies on the Lotus Cars (Group Lotus) page (which it wrongly blames Group Lotus for!!!) that we should try to fix. - mspete93 20:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Information, yes. Reliable source, no. It is just a blog, and a fairly opaque blog at that as nowhere is the originator identified. Nevertheless the comments about Lotus Cars are fair, but I'm shunting all the blame for that onto the appropriate wikiproject... ;-) Pyrope 23:46, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting that it criticises Proton / Group Lotus for "presenting Team Lotus' history as its own in an effort to convince the public that it was true" since that is exactly what Fernandes' crowd has been doing. Talking about Lotus Racing being the "DNA" of Team Lotus is stretching a very thin point to a ridiculous degree. That's a horribly biased source and we can't use it. Interesting to see that it exists though. Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:59, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not exactly about the legal links of companies to other and other related laws. It is about making information more accessible. Merging Lotus Racing into Team Lotus makes sense we are not here to discuss weather the two companies are linked but they race as a Formula One constructor and if Team Ltous is to be called Team Lotus in 2011 then the two articles must be merged under the team lotus tag (Wiki id2(talk) 16:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC))

This discussion was not about merging the two. This was about clearing up the history of Team Lotus and Group Lotus, which are of course two separate entities. "Wikipedia is not exactly about the legal links of companies to other and other related laws" - We need to display on those pages what is factually correct. Obviously there is an issue with the reliability of that actual source, but it does still point out that there are some potential inaccuracies which may need adjusting. What we do with the Lotus Racing page is for another discussion. - mspete93 16:59, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

New article

I notice the recent creation of Adam Parr. It needs some tidying (which I don't have time to do right now). DH85868993 (talk) 02:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

2011 updates

Given there's already been an initial flurry of "2011" activity, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss/agree when the various 2011 updates should be made. Here are my suggestions:

Update	DH's suggested timing	When it was done last year
Add 2011 info to team/driver infoboxes and navboxes (but leave 2010 info in place)	now	2 November 2009
Add 2011 info to {{Formula One teams}} (but leave 2010 info in place)	now	2 November 2009
Add 2011 Formula One season link to {{Formula One}} (but leave the existing 2010 Formula One season link there)	now	26 November 2009
Change {{Formula One circuits}} to list 2011 circuits as "current" instead of 2010 circuits	1 January 2011	2 January 2010
Change {{Formula One races}} to list 2011 races as "current" instead of 2010 races	1 January 2011	4 November 2009
Update the bolded (= "current season") races in List of Formula One Grands Prix	1 January 2011	2 December 2009
Update the bolded (= "current season") circuits in List of Formula One circuits	1 January 2011	1 December 2009
Remove 2010 info from team/driver infoboxes and navboxes	1 January 2011	2 January 2010
Remove 2010 info from {{Formula One teams}}	1 January 2011	2 January 2010
Remove 2010 Formula One season link from {{Formula One}}	1 January 2011	23 February 2010
Add 2011 rows to driver/teams results tables	Just before/after the first race of 2011 (see Note 1)	13 March 2010 (see Note 2)

Note 1: I would have written "these can be added in, commented out, at any time" (as per the discussion above), but because there's an extra race next year, it requires adding an extra column to the table, which means either having an empty column in the table until the first race of the new year (i.e. while the 2011 row is hidden), or having to add the new column when uncommenting the 2011 row, which partially defeats the purpose of adding the row in ahead of time. If we do decide to add them in commented out, I recommend adding a comment saying "Please do not uncomment this until the first race of 2011" - it probably won't do any good, but at least we will have tried.
Note 2: The 2010 row was added to Sébastien Buemi's results table on 13 March 2010; without checking, I suspect the other driver/team tables were updated at about the same time.

Comments? DH85868993 (talk) 02:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

All sounds good to me. - mspete93 16:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I've updated {{Formula One}}. Someone else had already updated {{Formula One teams}} (which I then tweaked). I'll add the 2011 fields into {{Infobox F1 driver}} and {{Infobox F1 team}} within the next 24 hours (unless someone else beats me to it). DH85868993 (talk) 08:16, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The last one - after the conclusion of first qualifying, when we know the polesitter for the race, as it gets mentioned in the table.BleuDXXXIV (talk) 11:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I've added the 2011 fields to {{Infobox F1 team}} and {{Infobox F1 driver}}, but have not updated the individual driver and team articles (and have no immediate plans to do so myself). Note that in the driver template, I've left the 2011 car number field hidden, to discourage the rampant crystal-balling we saw last year. It can be unhidden once the official 2011 entry list has been released. DH85868993 (talk) 02:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Following the release of the (first draft of the) official 2011 entry list, I've added the 2011 info to the driver and team infoboxes, and unhidden the 2011 car number field in {{Infobox F1 driver}}. I've also added a wikinote at the bottom of all the team and driver results tables asking editors not to add a "2011" row until the first race of the 2011 season. DH85868993 (talk) 01:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Brabham fuel 1983

The Renault F1 article currently includes these words:

"In 1983, Renault and Prost came very close to winning the drivers' title but were edged out by Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) at the last race of the season in South Africa. It was later rumoured that the Brabham team had been using illegal gasoline in that race. It has however never been proved. The fuel used was illegal in that it was of "five star" quality. This could not be obtained by most teams in most countries. However the rules were that the grade of petrol used must be of the standard bought in the car manufacturers country of origin. As five star could still (just) be bought in England, Brabham's usage of the fuel was allowed."

It's ref'd to this url: http://www.autosport.com/asknigel/index.html/id/22176 which is now behind the Autosport paywall.

There certainly was a rumour about Brabham using illegal fuel towards the end of that year, but as far as I know, the details in the Renault article are wrong. The rules did not specify 'less than 5-star quality' but rather no more than 102 Research Octane Number ( 5-star was 'only' 100 RON). Brabham and BMW were alleged to have used fuel with a RON greater than 102, provided by a German company. (See Alan Henry 'Brabham - The Grand Prix cars', p.267-269) I don't recall there being any rule about country of origin of fuel (and if so, why the car manufacturer, not the engine manufacturer?), certainly none is mentioned in my sources. And of course if it was down to country of origin of car manufacturer, then the majority of the field could have pulled the same trick.

Does anyone have access to Autosport, and could they check whether the ref has been correctly quoted? Thanks. 4u1e (talk) 07:26, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The ref just says that Renault were convinced that Brabham's fuel had a higher octane rating than the 102 permitted by the rules and identifies the German company that supplied it. (I'm loath to quote directly for fear of violating Autosport's copyright). There's no mention of "5-star" or that the fuel had to be of the standard bought in the car manufacturers country of origin. (From memory that was why the McLaren and Penske practice times at the 1976 Italian GP were disallowed - perhaps the editor who added the text to the Renault F1 article got the two confused?) DH85868993 (talk) 09:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks DH - sounds like it might have been written from memory and then a source vaguely in line found to back it up. Should be OK then if I rewrite in line with Henry (and use it to replace the Autosport ref, which is a Roebuck Q&A section, judging by the title), no accurate information will be lost. 4u1e (talk) 18:16, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Monteverdi/Onyx

This shouldn't be too difficult to resolve, but why is Monteverdi considered to be a separate constructor from Onyx on the List of Formula One constructors? This results in the farcical situation where the last race for each is the same (which is particularly noticeable as they are next to each other alphabetically), although the stats do not overlap. Consensus from other Wikipedia pages suggests that Onyx is still considered the constructor, even after the Monteverdi buyout - comparable to Spyker MF1 I guess. Should Monteverdi be removed from this article (and its stats added to those of Onyx)? «dæɑðe jekwæɑld» (talk) 20:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I think Monteverdi should be removed from List of Formula One constructors and its stats added to those of Onyx (and the "Monteverdi ORE1-B" row of Gregor Foitek's F1 results table should be merged into the preceding "Onyx ORE1-B" row) - I think that, as you say, it's a similar situation to the Spyker MF1 buyout. Neither www.formula1.com nor FORIX (subscription site) identify Monteverdi as a separate constructor. DH85868993 (talk) 21:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. «dæɑðe jekwæɑld» (talk) 17:54, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

F1 car results tables

Results tables have recently been added to McLaren M23, Lotus 72 and Williams FW07. These results tables have been split into "works" and "non-works" entries. I know we do this for constructor results (see Ferrari Grand Prix results, Penske Racing#Complete Formula One World Championship results as examples), but I'm wondering whether this is necessary/desirable for F1 car results tables. I don't have strong feelings either way, but I think we should make a conscious decision. Thoughts? DH85868993 (talk) 02:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Given that we're talking about the car, not the team, I'd prefer to put all the results in one table, making it clearer that, for example, at the 1980 Canadian and US GPs, there were four FW07s on the grid. That would mean making "entrant" one of the columns in the table, of course. Also, is it not true that in some cases (I'm thinking of Coopers, Brabhams and Lotuses back in the late 1950s and 1960s), the non-works entries may have scored points towards the constructors' championship totals? 4u1e (talk) 07:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a strong preference either way, but I lean to agree with 4u1e. Since we talk about the cars, not teams, it probably makes sense just to make a combined table with distinction between entrants. But decision to do one way or another should probably be guided by ease of maintainability, and clarity of the article — that's why I'm mostly leaning this way. cherkash (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Non-works entries have always been eligible for WCC points so I would always put the non-works and works results together. I'd prefer to do that for the constructors' results pages too, but I can see that the team/constructor/entrant confusion means that others are happy the way they are. For a car there is no ambiguity and all results should be in the one table, such as at BRM P261. Pyrope 16:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposed rename of John Barnard

It has been proposed that John Barnard be renamed to John Barnard (Formula One). Please express any views you may have on the matter at Talk:John_Barnard#Requested_move. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 02:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the result of the discussion was "no consensus to rename". DH85868993 (talk) 01:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

2013 season

Should we create a new page for the 2013 season I've been planning to do so for a while but I know little on wiki writing nor do know any relevant sources for 2013. Anyway I came here because perhaps we can all decide whether we should create the page now or whether we should wait.--Brainybrains 15:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brainybrainiac (talk • contribs)

I think you've answered your own question by saying you don't know any relevant sources for 2013. I don't think we should have one for 2013 until the 2011 season starts. - mspete93 17:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi Brainybrains, and welcome to WikiProject Formula One! :) A page for the 2013 season has been started several times, most recently just over a month ago, see here. It has however, been discussed that there are very few driver signings, no calendar dates etc so far - see the discussion at Articles for Deletion here so the article has always been deleted. I still believe that this is the case - as you say there are very few relevant sources at present. With the exception of 1.6L turbocharged 4 cylinder engines being introduced in 2013, I can think of nothing else notable for inclusion in such an article at the moment. Do keep an eye out though for important rule changes, driver signings etc planned for 2013, as these will be necessary when the article is created in future. Regards, Schumi555 17:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely not. This is an article that has been deleted no less than six times in the past, most recently only a few weeks ago. --Falcadore (talk) 21:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The earliest you could reasonably create the page is once the 2011 season starts. I think that's how we've done it before: create a page two seasons in advance once the upcoming new season has begun. But at the same time, you need content before you can create it. Don't just create it for the sake of creating it. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 22:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Pointscoring finish

I've just reverted an edit that changed Tony Brooks' 7th place finish at the 1957 Italian Grand Prix from pointscoring (green) to non-pointscoring (blue). My logic is that even though he finished "outside the points" in terms of position, he did score a point for fastest lap. If I was right to do so, do we need to clarify the key? 4u1e (talk) 00:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you completely. --Falcadore (talk) 01:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Tyrrell 1984

Another question: A user has filled in all the results for Tyrrell for the 1984 season. These were previously marked as DSQ, because the team and drivers had their actual results up to the Dutch Grand Prix disqualified. Formula1.com (I know, I know) shows them as DSQ, but Autocourse gives their results. Which is correct? Schumacher in 1997 and McLaren in 2007 both have their full results, but in both cases only their overall championship result was annulled, whereas I believe all of Tyrrell's individual results were cancelled out. 4u1e (talk) 00:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

DSQ is correct. Unlike in 1997 with Scumacher, all race positions were re-allocated after Tyrrell's disqualification. You'll notice the matrix now says two cars finished in the same race position. It's completely wrong and I'll revert right now. --Falcadore (talk) 00:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry guys my mistake.User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 13:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC).

WilliamsF1

Anyone know why the Williams page is at 'WilliamsF1' with no space? As far as I know, they've never been called that, and they certainly don't refer to themselves at it now. Their official website is headed with 'Williams F1', so it should surely be at that or just 'Williams'. Thoughts? Jonchapple (talk) 09:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The team was officially known as the "BMW WilliamsF1 Team" (or "BMW.WilliamsF1 Team"), i.e. with no space between "Williams" and "F1" from 2000 to 2005 (which is the period covering the date on which the article was created - 15 January 2002). But the team's official website currently styles the name as "Williams F1" (i.e. with a space). So there possibly is an argument that the article should be renamed to "Williams F1". "Williams" would not be a suitable alternative, as there are many other things called "Williams" - see Williams. DH85868993 (talk) 14:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

...and as "Williams F1" is actually only a trading name of "Williams Grand Prix Engineering" there is an argument that if we aren't going to use the common name (simply "Williams" to most people) then perhaps the official Companies House name (and earlier public incarnation) should be the page name. Just a thought. Pyrope 16:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I've moved it to Williams F1 for the time being, but perhaps using the common name with a disambiguator, i.e. Williams (Formula One team) or something similar, might be more appropriate. Certainly no one calls the team "Williams F1". Jonchapple (talk) 18:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

With respect, it seems that the team refer to themselves as "Williams F1" (in addition to "AT&T Williams") - from the homepage of their website: "The road safety campaign currently being run by Williams F1, QNB and QSTP...", "The RBS Williams F1 Conference Centre...", "Williams F1 takes its commitment to corporate responsibility seriously...", etc. One issue with "Williams (Formula One team)" as a name for the article is that it then becomes ambiguous with Frank's earlier team (Frank Williams Racing Cars) which was also known as just "Williams" at the time. If it can be confirmed that the company's official name is still "Williams Grand Prix Engineering", then that might be the most appropriate name for the article. DH85868993 (talk) 21:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I've moved the article back to WilliamsF1 pending the outcome of this discussion. I'm concerned that if we leave it at Williams F1, then "keen" editors (or bots) might start changing some of the hundreds of links to WilliamsF1 (with no space) to Williams F1 (with a space), only for them potentially to be changed again a few days later. DH85868993 (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

A quick check of company names listed at Companies House reveals that "Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited" is still a registered company (number 01297497) with accounts and records fully up to date (including recent updates to the particulars of directors Samuel David Michael and Adam Stephen de Voghelaere Parr... I knew he was an Old Etonian but wow that's a name and a half!). The only company registered as anything to do with "Williams F1" is the "Williams F1 Team Foundation" (number 07136191, which is Williams' charitable road safety arm, currently hard at it promoting road safety awareness amongst the teenage males of Angola... seriously. Anyway, without investing my own money and actually ordering the accounts (one whole British pound if you are so inclined...) what I suspect you would find if you did order the document is that the cover would be entitled something along the lines of "Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited t/a Williams F1". It is just a guess, but anything deeper almost certainly counts as OR. The fact that "Williams F1" doesn't exist as a company name under which records are maintained at Companies House almost certainly indicates that "Williams F1" is a trading name only. Anyway... Pyrope 02:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

'Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited' is undoubtedly the official name of the team, just as McLaren's is 'McLaren Racing Limited', Force India's 'Force India Formula One Team Limited', etc., but if they refer to themselves at 'Williams F1' and trade under that name, then I think that should be the name of the article. It definitely shouldn't be 'WilliamsF1' without a space, as nowhere do they, or anyone else, refer to them as that any more, and I don't think it should be the long name either, per McLaren, FI, etc. Jonchapple (talk) 10:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There are good reasons for changing to Williams F1, but I wonder about the necessity. It is easy to move an article, but then you have to change all links to it unless you think it is satisfactory with a redirect. John Anderson (talk) 09:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The instability of a trading name is precisely why I think changing from WilliamsF1 to Williams F1 might be a bad move in the long run. In the last two years Williams has already changed the typography of the public name, and there it little to prevent them deciding that, in keeping with the current vogue, they should change to "Williams GP" or similar for next year or beyond. This is particularly the case with BCE trying desperately to convince people that "F1" is trademarked (it isn't, except in China) so I can see a future case where Frank and Patrick have their arms twisted to revert to the Williams GPE name. Pyrope 16:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Have again moved to Williams F1. That's their current trading name, and it's Wikipedia policy that there's nothing wrong with a redirect. If and when the name changes again, we'll move it again. Cheers. Jonchapple (talk) 18:29, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Flagicon in infobox

I've noticed the infobox for many of the drivers have a flagicon next to nationality - which goes against MOS:FLAG guidlines (specifically 'Avoid flag icons in infoboxes').

The same arguments for not giving undue prominence to one field among many in a person's infobox is no less relevant for Lewis Hamilton as it is David Beckham, Shane Williams or Tony Blair while ensuring consistency throughout the encyclopaedia helps the entire community.

I'm happy to go through and update the various articles (it should be relatively easy to write some batch software to do it) but before I do anything I’m interested to hear people’s opinion here, whether you all think a special case should be made and why!

Richardeast (talk) 12:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a strong view either way on the use of the flags. My only comment would be that they need to serve a purpose.

Just to get the discussion off on the appropriate footing, the relevant bit of the WP:MoS is "As a rule of thumb, flag icons should not be used infoboxes, even when there is a "country", "nationality" or equivalent field: they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many."

Note that this is a rule of thumb that is part of a guideline and that we are at liberty to agree to make an exception if we wish. Richard, I'm not aware that we have to make a special case to anyone - what did you have in mind? As far as I can see if a consensus is reached that this is not the best solution here, it just needs to be documented. It doesn't involve any re-writing of WP:MoS, which already makes allowance for exceptions.

Note also that when we say nationality we mean the nation for which a driver officially competes, which under current rules is his or her passport nationality. 4u1e (talk) 13:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree - icons need to serve a purpose and I'm not convinced drawing attention to someone's nationality is particularly relevant (especially as drivers don't specifically race for their country). By all means have a nationality field, but lets not effectively elevate this above more important aspect of a driver's life and career --Richardeast (talk) 13:26, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

The difference I see between F1 and most other sports is that representaive nationality is *always* a part - national flags are part of the podium ceremony, national racing colours were in use in Grands Prix long before 1950. -- Ian Dalziel (talk) 13:33, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure I'd agree with that - nationality is a lot less important in F1 than say, rugby - where countries compete against each other and, personally, I would consider a driver's nationality less important to a neutral than say, the number of championships they've won.

As I said, the question is not whether someone's nationality should or should not be shown, but whether it's that important that we need to effectively give it prominence over all other fields with a flagicon. Happy to follow the general feeling of people who manage this area of wiki though, F1's not my sport of choice and so it's not for me to be meddling on how you run your pages; I'm only looking to ensure consistency throughout the encyclopaedia where I can. Richardeast (talk) 15:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I think there is a clear difference from rugby or football - in those sports most competition is at club level. While F1 is contested by teams, the national flags of the top three finishers are raised after every GP. I think that's a good reason for those same flags to be present in the driver articles. I'm not partisan on the issue, though - consistency is more important. -- Ian Dalziel (talk) 15:51, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and please check the archives for previous discussion. Wheels are essential in F1, but let's not reinvent them! --Ian Dalziel (talk) 13:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Richard - drivers very definitely do drive for their country. See para 112 of the International Sporting Code (pdf). It's an essential part of the sport. 4u1e (talk) 15:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) We have had this discussion many times, and flagicons have been removed from other parts of the wikiproject articles as a result of those discussions. Other flagicons should still be removed. It was agreed that driver infobox flagicons were to stay. Personally I'm in favour of them, though not strongly, yet there needs to be a decent reason to remove them. Flagicons actually never serve an intrinsic purpose in themselves. They can all be deleted across the entire encyclopedia in that case. Here, to my mind, they serve an at-a-glance, complimentary purpose as a national identifier, particularly in the case of F1 drivers who do not always race under the same nationality as their passport nationality. Drivers do race for their country, hence the flags on the podium, and I do not agree that the presence of a flagicon elevates that field above any other. That seems to be something of an empty concept, unless there's some evidence of it that I'm not seeing. Readers aren't magpies, only looking at shiny things. I agree with 4u1e that there is no explicit ban on the use of flagicons in these infoboxes, and no special case needs to be made anywhere other than here for their use. Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think having the flag icon makes the nationality look like 'the most important' bit of the field either. Just saying... 4u1e (talk) 15:40, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok - well, I think we can all agree there's certainty a clear consensus in the group not to drop the flagicons.... so they should remain! --Richardeast (talk) 21:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Formula One Future Races

Just spotted this article, which, forgive me if anyone is offended by this, seems pointless. Any thoughts? Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is pointless. Isn't List of Formula One Grands Prix good enough? Recommend deletion. QueenCake (talk) 14:27, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Carlos Reutemann and Vandals

Wo puts Carlos Reutemann's name in th 1984 season please sstop it.For Example Look at the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix.And the Same for the Hesketh team. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk • contribs)

It's vandalism by an IP hopper. You can memorize the IP ranges from Special:RecentChangesLinked/Template:F1GP_80-89, add the target articles to your watchlist and revert suspicious edits on sight. I'm already dealing with this through rangeblocks, but those will always expire eventually. Prolog (talk) 17:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Could people please make sure to leave a vandalism warning on the talk pages of those people who vandalise articles. It's all very well to fix what they break on an ongoing basis, but unless you slap the appropriate warning on their page it is very difficult to do anything about them in the long term. Pyrope 23:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

There's no point in warning vandal socks. Reverting & blocking/reporting is enough. Prolog (talk) 06:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm intrigued, how do you block without a warning when you aren't an admin? Pyrope 16:51, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Being an admin or not is irrelevant please stay on topic and refrain from commenting on the individual user and limit comments to the the topic under discussion.--Lucy-marie (talk) 17:15, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Lucy, it's a perfectly valid and on-topic question. And no-one has made any comments about the individual user. 4u1e (talk) 17:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I was actually after some information. All too aften I come across vandalism on a WP:F1 page and, having reverted it, find that the perpetrator is a persistent vandal. Unfortunately, people are fairly bad about using the warnings which then means that when you head to WP:AIV a perfectly reasonable request fails points 2 and 3, as a result of which many sysops will then refuse the request out of hand. This is completely on topic when we are discussing a persistent, unwarned, vandal. Pyrope 17:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

If you note that the unwarned vandal is a sock engaging in long-term abuse, an admin should block or at least leave the report to be dealt with by another admin. Declining due to lack of warning(s) would be clueless. However, I haven't watched AIV in years so maybe the situation is as bad as you say. Prolog (talk) 19:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

You have all missed the point of my earlier comment. It i that it is for a user talk page and not this discssion page. The comments may be relevant to what you are discussing but the discussion has now gone off being relevant to this discussion page. It belongs more on a user discussion page and not here. --Lucy-marie (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

If that was your point earlier Lucy, I missed it. Nevertheless, the discussion is not specifically about Reutemann or that specific IP and is appropriate for general discussion here. I too would be interested in the answer to Pyrope's question, having had the same problem. 4u1e (talk) 19:52, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the others, the question is valid and helpful. I'm not sure why you are disrupting the discussion, Lucy-Marie, or where you are getting some of these warnings from.

I see no reason not to take the minute to find an appropriate warning template. It makes the admin's job easier and means the vandal can be dealt with quicker. The³5₉ (Talk) 20:32, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary in am trying to keep the discssions on topic and prevent them from going off topic and thus I am trying to prevent users distracting discssions away from the articles and the wikiproject at hand.--Lucy-marie (talk) 21:36, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The topic is vandals and how to deal with them, a relevant topic to a project of our size. No one is distracted, except by your strange off base complaints. If you have a problem with a specific user and his/her discussions on this page, please express your views on what the specific problem is on their talk page, as per your advice. The³5₉ (Talk) 02:15, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of being accused of going OT, can I add another tangent? I've noticed (not this Project in particular) a reluctance to block, or ban, repeat IP vandals. Is there any guideline on it? Or somewhere I can "complain" to try & get stronger (or more conisistent) action? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:35, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest raising the issue at WT:AIV.--Midgrid(talk) 22:37, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Kojima Engineering

The article Kojima Engineering has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Does not seem to meet WP:N and fails WP:V, tagged as unreferenced for 4 years

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 16:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Added refs, and removed prods. Not much I could find in a quick run through, but the articles good enough to stay now. QueenCake (talk) 17:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

What a ridiculous prod. The team achieved a fastest lap in a World Championship GP, quite apart from satisfying the notability requirements simply by taking part in a GP. At least it prompted people to improve the article with refs (good work) - can't believe I've only just spotted it now... Bretonbanquet (talk) 14:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

f1fanatic

Sorry if this has been asked before - I couldn't find anything with a cursory search. Is http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/ considered a reliable source of information? Trebor (talk) 18:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It frequently gets used because it's treated a news site. Blogs like Joe Saward's tend to be opinion-oriented, and while Keith Collantine runs the occasional opinion piece, most of his stuff is factual. Articles often quote people directly. Besides, we can't just rely on Autosport for reference - we need to spread the sources around a lot to prevent bias from building up. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 07:36, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that's useful, thanks. Trebor (talk) 12:08, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not so sure - I can't see anything that suggests it meets the reliable source criteria. It seems like one man's blog. AlexJ (talk) 23:38, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

That's what got me wondering initially. It's obviously a very popular and developed blog [1], and if you google the author "Keith Collantine" he has also done work for published magazines and so on, but ultimately it's still only a blog. I'm not sure, which is why I opened it up to further input. Trebor (talk) 01:06, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why just because a site is a blog it makes it unreliable. Surely it depends on who's it is. I think most of the stuff on there can be seen on other websites so I don't see what the problem is. - mspete93 12:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, two points. One, blogs aren't accountable so they don't go through the usual journalistic checks and balances. Their very existence is predicated on their ability to disseminate new items rapidly, and this often results in errors. Two, if as you say most of the items are available elsewhere then why use the blog as a source? Pyrope 12:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

What Pyrope said. Most blogs aren't even checked for typos and stat errors. Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, blogs by default fail reliability. In this case, I'd say, check against reliable sources & see how often he goofs or slants. If it's a lot, drop it; if it's rare, keep. I know of no source with no error or bias ever. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:24, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Team player

Discussion here (believe it or not ;p) got me thinking about race teams. There's scant coverage of the structure of the teams & their important people, or of the notable managers. Doesn't it deserve more attention here? (Also raised the issue here; probably better discussed there IMO.) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 19:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

DNP, DNA, WD

I'm adding DNP, DNA , And WD at the formula one season results look for an example at the 1962 formula one season and I also added Karl Oppitzhauser at the 1976 formula one season entry list but I don't know his number (No) .Can anyone help me whit this.Doed anyone a site Were I can find al the info of drivers wo entred a race but didn't start DNA WD DNP et. User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 16:39, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If they did not appear at the races or were withdrawn, they should not be included, IMO. What notability is there in NOT taking part in a F1 race? --Pc13 (talk) 15:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I'f they entered a rece they should be Included. Otherwise they also shouldn't be on they startlist either. User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 16:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You're right. They shouldn't be on the starter list either. --Pc13 (talk) 17:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. If a driver makes no contribution to the season, they should not be in the season article. A WD or a DNA is not a contribution to the season, the terminology involved highlights specifically they did not contribute towards the F1 season. --Falcadore (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't mean that an you know that they certainly should be on the start list.User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 20:40, 21 December 2010 (UTC) If they'r is a attempt to quallify they should be added. User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 23:01, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

But they didnt attempt to qualify. If they never even made it to practice, then they never actually turned a wheel. How is someone who did not even drive making an attempt to qualify? The³5₉ (Talk) 06:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

They are on the list because they make a atemtp to qualify but DNA IS did not arive because example they drove elsewhere but they should race but because of a problem they couldn't. User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 21:40, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Simply going out in practice (DNP or WD) is not attempting to qualify. If they actually attempted to qualify, they'd be listed as DNQ or DNPQ. The³5₉ (Talk) 21:46, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Ummm, no that isn't what DNA means at all. DNA means they did not arrive for that event. What they did at other events is completely irrelevant to the DNA at any given race meeting. Stating that a "problem" causes DNAs is also an assumption. There are many reasons why a team chooses not to show up at a race meeting and the term "problem" doesn't cover them all. I'm also completely agreeing with User:The359 that DNP is not attempting to qualify. Not all WDs are attempting to qualify either. DNQ covers those that fail to make qualifying cut. DNQ is what that instance is there for. Perhaps you need to read List of motorsport terminology to brush up on your classification acronyms, you seem to have some confusion in what is a clearcut issue. --Falcadore (talk) 23:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I assume anyone who already qualified and then withdrew would be covered under DNS. Therefore anyone marked as WD in our results certainly never made it to qualifying. The³5₉ (Talk) 03:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Bruno Junqueira at Indy last year leaps to mind as an exception. --Falcadore (talk) 05:07, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

It is definitely not safe to assume that WD equates to not making into qualifying session(s). There are many reasons drivers or even whole teams may withdraw from an event, even after successfully qualifying for the race. Consider, e.g., both Saubers in Brazil-2000. Some WD's could be pre-qualifying, but many are actually post-qualifying. So please don't try to invent shortcuts in the taxonomy of GP results that are simply incorrect. cherkash (talk) 08:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Except in that case the Saubers are DNS. No one is inventing anything. The³5₉ (Talk) 08:49, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems like we are going into semantics here. WD is for "withdrew"/"withdrawn". This could be either pre-GP or during GP (including after qualifying but before the race). You seem to favor calling any post-qualifying withdrawal (or even any during-GP one) a DNS, but I must point out the difference between DNS where the driver/team intended to participate in the race till shortly before the start of the race but couldn't (due to any number of reasons, e.g., a mechanical break-down on the starting grid) — and DNS where the team/driver actively withdrew at some point (therefore canceling their participation). When there's an evidence to the latter (official request by the team, driver injury, etc.) then this should be indicated as a WD, whereas the former should be a DNS. This may be a fairly minor semantic point, but I feel strongly against bunching together such WD's and DNS's into a single all-encompassing DNS category. cherkash (talk) 05:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm ok whit you guys that you don;t want it in the driver standings because they did not take part in the grand prix weekend. But I think they should be added to the entry list because they were entered to that race.And why has somewone removed Karl Oppitshauzer in the 1977 entry list he was entred for the gp enyway so he should be on the starter list.

User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 22:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Oppitzhauser's entry was refused - he had no entry. You need to actually establish that what you are doing is factually correct before doing it. Bretonbanquet (talk) 11:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It might be worthy of annotation in the individual races that make up the season, but articles like 1977 Formula One season is a summary of the season. Drivers who do not even practice for a single grand prix make no contribution to the season. They are not deserving of a mention in season summaries. Maybe in the invidual race articles, particularly if they are a competitor local to the host nation but definately not in the season summary. --Falcadore (talk) 23:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to add that "WD" should not be shown anywhere on any table of results. It can always be replaced by DNS, DNQ, DNPQ, DNP or DNA. These are the easily established results of a driver's participation. A withdrawal is a reason for non-participation or a curtailed participation - such reasons are beyond the scope of any of these tables.

What others have said about DNP is correct - a DNP is a driver being present at the circuit but not taking part in either practice or qualifying. A driver who left the pits during practice but did not take part in qualifying is a DNQ. A driver who has satisfied the requirements for qualification (whether it's a fast enough time or simply performing enough practice laps, or just being present) but did not start the race is a DNS. The only exceptions should be drivers who qualified for the race but were not allowed to start, usually for infringing the rules during practice or qualifying - i.e. excluded (EX). Bretonbanquet (talk) 00:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of "former team" templates from articles

A couple of editors are removing the former team templates from the articles of drivers who no longer drive for the stated team (e.g. this diff [2]). Is this a legitimate updating or are we adhering to the "once a team driver, always a team driver" principle? Britmax (talk) 13:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, the templates are a bit of a mix of info aren't they? They've usually got current drivers and personnel, a selection of former personnel, including world champions, and all former cars. That suggests they should appear only on current drivers' pages and on of those who were world champions with the team. Certainly it would get a bit ungainly to have all former team templates for someone like Andrea de Cesaris (10 teams). 4u1e (talk) 13:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

An editor just asked me whether the Ferrari template should be placed on the Giancarlo Fisichella article, as he is a former driver and there is a link in the template to a list of former drivers. But I can see that showing the templates of all of a driver's teams is impractical. I note that an IP from Hungary keeps removing the template from the Luca Badoer article, but he is listed under "former personnel" so in his case, the template should stay. Bretonbanquet (talk) 17:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, that editor was me. Now that I think about it, it is perhaps best to only put the template on articles about drivers actually mentioned in the template itself, to avoid the "de Cesaris problem". Cordless Larry (talk) 07:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Niki Lauda

Hi, I come from es:Wikiproyecto Discusión:Automovilismo. I use to translate articles from here to spanish and mostly add interwikis here. I know your work, but I don´t use to write because my english is not good enough for as an article request. I´m trying to add refs and info in The article of Niki Lauda in es:WP, but I have a "problem". In the first paragraph of "Biography" says:

"Born in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy family. Although it is often reported in Spain that his paternal grandfather was Juan Lauda Crespo, from Galicia, according to Austrian sources his paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born businessman Hans Lauda."

I heard this version before. However, I´m not sure if the best is put the "spanish" origin first. Why I say this? Because I search in several sources, neither from Austria nor Spain, like this or this book I bought, between many others. I think the best is to keep both versions of the history´s family, but chanching the order. However, you´ve got the last word in this matter. Thanks for your attention and have a very Happy New Year!!!!. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 17:40, 31 December 2010 (UTC) PD: I´m at your service if you´ve got any "spanish" doubt or I can be useful somehow

I believe it has to do with the phrasing of the sentence. Putting Spainish reports before the Austrian ones reads better. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 02:27, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Sure, but also make more notable something is it not confirm and no worldspread. But, it´s ok, I´ve got no problems. Cheers. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 01:56, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Difference between points systems for Drivers' and Constructors' championships?

The article for the 1961 season was recently updated to show difference between two points systems (9-6-... vs. 8-6-...) used concurrently in the same year. Was that indeed the case? Can someone confirm the reference given — and more importantly, provide some extra references so we can be sure it wasn't a typo on the side of Automobile Year?

Was this the only year when the two points systems didn't match? cherkash (talk) 05:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Page 196 of Mike Lang's Grand Prix! Volume 1 confirm 9 points for a win for drivers and 8 point for a win for constructors in 1961. It's also confirmed by FORIX (subscription site) and ChicaneF1. As far as I'm aware, this is the only season when drivers' and constructors' points differed (apart from the fact that constructors were never awarded points for fastest lap). DH85868993 (talk) 23:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

1961 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers

The above note from Cherkash caused me to look into the Constructors table, and I notice some problems. Firstly with the flags. Before you groan about another discussion about flags, there is an accuracy issue here. I note Cooper-Maserati is flagged as British, however the only teams to have used a Cooper-Maserati combination were Italian teams, the same is also true of Lotus Maserati. Emeryson-Climax is flagged as British, yet was only fielded by a Belgian team. Constructors is separated as a Chassis-Engine combination within the rules, yet flags are applied according th the location of the chassis builder, regardless of any other detail about the car. Is it correct to show flags in this way?

And on a separate issue, is it correct to show winning constructor for non-championship races when the constructor terminology belongs pretty much exclusively to the pointscore of world championship events, and is not really particularly accurate in the terms of non championship events anyway as the bulk of these races are made up of independant teams who do not represent the constructor and there is no acknoledgment of the 'constructor' at these events. --Falcadore (talk) 07:52, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The chassis constructor is usually considered as the 'important' part of the chassis-engine combination - hence awarding the Constructors' Championship to the chassis constructor - so I guess the flag should reflect that. Also, if you started changing the flags to reflect the nationality of the only team using a particular chassis-engine combination, you would, for example, have to change Matra in 1969 to British, which would be inconsistent and confusing. «dæɑðe jekwæɑld» (talk) 18:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

It's already inconsistent and confusing. That was the point. --Falcadore (talk) 20:53, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see an inconsistency. The 1961 article lists constructors for the non-championship rounds, and constructor nationality is always that of the chassis manufacturer everywhere I've ever seen, despite the fact that it consists of both chassis and engine and regardless of the team running the car. On that basis the article is correct as it stands. If it's inconsistent for non-championship races, it's just as inconsistent for the championship - as noted above, the Tyrrell-entered cars in 1969 are (correctly) listed in the constructors' championship results as French, despite the British team entering them and the (arguably) American engines powering them.

There is a question about what information is relevant to include for the non-championship events - there are no points to be awarded, so is it more appropriate to give constructor or entrant, or both, or neither? And was there any official position on nationality at the time? A quick look at one Autocourse and one John Player Motorsport yearbook, reveals that neither gave constructor or entrant nationality anyway, even for the championship races. Perhaps best to list both constructor and entrant and ignore nationality? 4u1e (talk) 11:54, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed change to wording at Tom Pryce

A proposal has been made at Talk:Tom Pryce#A Welsh racing driver to change the wording in the lead paragraph regarding Pryce's nationality. It's a proposal specific to that article and not applicable to other articles, not yet at least. Anyone wanting to have their say, please do so. Bretonbanquet (talk) 16:19, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Although note that in effect we are then saying that the new default is that if you can reference English/Scottish/Northern Irish/Welsh nationality, then you can do this for any other article. In effect this already happens on a lot of articles, and the current "British driver from X" wording is quite awkward, so I'm quite happy with this as a new standard but it will set a precedent. Just to be clear, this has no impact on the infobox or flags. 4u1e (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but IMO you will not be able to stop this from becoming a precedent for other articles if you break consensus in this way. The wording is the same as, say, David Coulthard and should be left as it is, unless you want the fans of every British racing driver to point out that their exception is also exceptional. Britmax (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I came up with the 'British driver from X' wording in the first place, btw, but I don't think the consensus was ever very strong. A lot of (mostly Scottish) articles don't use it, for example, I assume because collectively we're not sufficiently bothered to keep fighting that battle. I agree that once we change one, others will use it as a precedent, which is why I thought it should be mentioned here. In practice, I can't think of any examples where it's not clear which nationality applies. Nigel Mansell and Jenson Button perhaps, since they use the Union Jack on their helmets. Northern Ireland is the trickiest question, where there is often a tendency to want to call Watson, Irvine and the rest Irish, rather than British or Northern Irish, regardless of what nationality they actuallly hold. Again, you would go with the evidence, but you'd have to restrict it to actually having Irish nationality, rather than simply considering themselves Irish or it all gets really complicated. 4u1e (talk) 12:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

2008 Hungarian Grand Prix PR

After its FAC recently failed, I have renominated 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix for a peer review here. Please feel free to comment on the article.--Midgrid(talk) 15:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Colinmotox11

A user, Colinmotox11, has been quite prolific of late on the 2011 Formula One season page. He keeps editing Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi into the driver table, despite having sources that are six months out of date and superseded by the FIA entry list that was released in December. He has had his edits reverted a dozen times, has been asked to stop by half a dozen users, and has promised to stay out of it on more than one occasion. He came dangerously close to the 3RR warning by a matter of minutes the other day, and yet he continues to edit the same information into the page. I'm just wondering if there is anything we can do about this. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 12:57, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I've added a little note to his talk page. Let's see if he does it again, and if so, we can look at the usual warning templates for adding improper sources. Hopefully he, like the rest of us, can just wait for a proper announcement. Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:01, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Majorcan Grand Prix

Hi WPF1, was going through Special:UncategorizedPages and came across the article on Majorcan Grand Prix, supposedly a proposed new race which will replace Valencia. I'm not sure how your project views such articles; this article may not even be notable. Please advise on whether I should PROD or AFD it or whether the project is willing to work on the article in which case I'll leave it to you. Thanks, Strange Passerby (talk • contribs) 07:11, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Not notable at all - it is only a potential new race - and would probably not be named the Majorcan Grand Prix if it replaces Valencia (it would likely be the European Grand Prix). I'd suggest deleting it. «dæɑðe jekwæɑld» (talk) 11:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It's been nominated for deletion by someone else, fwiw. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs) 12:14, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Williams results tables

User:217.123.215.92 has moved the results table from Frank Williams Racing Cars to WilliamsF1 Grand Prix results. What do people think of this change? Last time we discussed the possible merging of the two Williams results tables, there wasn't a clear consensus one way or the other. DH85868993 (talk) 11:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

A dim move made by an editor with no clear understanding of what they were doing; glad it was swiftly reverted. Falcadore's comment equating Williams with Renault doesn't really hold, as even FW tends to only date the current entry's history from the founding of WGPE, as was evident a only couple of years back when they celebrated "30 years of Williams". Pyrope 17:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Bernard de Dryver and Patrick Nève

Does anyone know the startnumbers of Bernard de Dryver and Patrick Nève og the 1978 Belgian GP.And also the tyres. User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 13:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

De Dryver and Neve were DNAs at Belgium '78. Don't add them to the season entrylist, if that's what you want to do. --Pc13 (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

They had been added so I removed them. «dæɑðe jekwæɑld» (talk) 16:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

No reason they could not be added to 1978 Belgian Grand Prix though. --Falcadore (talk) 06:09, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Broadcasting changes

Hi. I have recently seen that both 2008 and 2009 Formula One season pages feature a section called Broadcasting changes. I seriously consider removing them, since retrospectively this kind of information is not related with the season, but is rather part of the "background" or the "context" surrounding the season. Each item on the broadcasting change table/list is specific to a country, thus not being general to the whole season. Furthermore, it has no impact on the developpement of the season. For all these reasons, I think it's worthless keeping them in the articles.
What do you think ? Maimai009 (talk) 13:28, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it generally has any relevance to the season. A really big development, like, I don't know, the first ever live broadcast of a race, might be notable. 4u1e (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The 2011 page also has broadcast changes (under the "other changes" subheading), largely because the sport is finally getting HD coverage. I think that's pretty significant. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I can accept the arrival of HD as notable (ish). I struggle with the interminable lists of which broadcaster happens to have the contract this year in every single country around the globe. 4u1e (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

There are some notably American based articles CART/IRL that list each commentator in each year. I really struggle to understand how that is notable to the article.

Changes in broadcaster are minute, has zero effect of the season itself. --Falcadore (talk) 09:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I have yet to see such a thing but if it's true, I agree that it does not belong in the article as it has no direct link with the sport and no impact on the season. Maimai009 (talk) 11:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

An example: Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen. --Falcadore (talk) 23:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Malaysia(n) Grand Prix

Is there general consensus that this year's F1 race in Malaysia will be called the "Malaysia Grand Prix" (i.e. not "Malaysian Grand Prix"), as indicated in this news report? If so, should we rename Malaysian Grand Prix to Malaysia Grand Prix (and Category:Malaysian Grand Prix to Category:Malaysia Grand Prix)? DH85868993 (talk) 04:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I would bet that the common name of the race will remain "Malaysian Grand Prix", so I think that the article name should remain the same, with the lead amended to "The 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix (formally the XIII Formula 1 Petronas Malaysia Grand Prix)...". In my opinion, this is similar to the case of the European Grand Prix: the official name is "...Grand Prix of Europe", but it is ordinarily referred to as the "European Grand Prix". Of course, if all the news sites start calling it the Malaysia Grand Prix, then we should change it, but I don't think this will happen.--Midgrid(talk) 13:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe It was renamed "Malaysia Grand Prix" for marketing purposes. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 21:18, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Team names on team pages

I made a change to the Renault F1 page last night, which Jonchapple reverted. I'd like to discuss it here as it brings up an issue which applies to all team pages.

The change I made was to rephrase the introductory sentence and alter the info box to reflect the various team names and logos which the team has had. Here's what I did.

This to me is the correct thing to do, since the article is not just about the 2011 season. I'd suport making similar changes to every team page. Please discuss. Tubefurnace (talk) 12:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tubefurnance! I understand your point that the article isn't just about the 2011 season, and I've no opposition to having previous team logos and names further down the page in the history section, but at present they don't belong in the infobox.

I'm personally not too keen on what you're proposing, as I think it looks messy and clutters up the infobox unneccessarily, but would be interested to hear what other people think. As an example, if such changes were implemented across the board, the McLaren article would have have 25px|this logo in the infobox and would feature under 'Full name' something like:

"Vodafone McLaren Mercedes", "Team McLaren Mercedes", "West McLaren Mercedes", "Marlboro McLaren Mercedes, "Marlboro McLaren Peugeot", "Marlboro McLaren", "Honda Marlboro McLaren", etc., etc. Best, Jonchapple (talk) 12:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

All that info is relevant knowledge about McLaren, so I believe it should be there, somewhere. A compromise solution would involve re-formatting the info box so it has a separate section for current, and for historical info. Vodafone McLaren Mercedes didn't make its debut at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, and that's how it currently reads. Tubefurnace (talk) 13:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The intent of the infobox is to display current information. There is plenty of scope elsewhere in the article for historical information. Statistics in the infobox is also clearly demarked separately from the rest of the box. --Falcadore (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

If the info box is to show current information, then that would be clear cut. However, the info box includes historical data, such as first GP, number of wins,etc. Tubefurnace (talk) 13:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Number of wins is certainly current information. Additionally the statistics is presented in a demarked separate section of the infobox. I would certainly be against the presentation of multiple logos as you have suggested, it prevents a very confusing result. --Falcadore (talk) 14:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You say it looks like Vodafone McLaren Mercedes made their debut in 1966. Well, they did really, didn't they? Just because that wasn't the name at the time doesn't mean the team didn't make its debut in 1966. The team's always refer to their current name when talking about their history anyway. People at McLaren will tell you Vodafone McLaren Mercedes made its debut in 1966.

You actually made the change first to the Renault page, much of which I agreed with. I don't see the need for different logos in a current team's infobox, but I do feel the intro paragraphs at Renault F1 need significantly changing. This is because the article (in terms of both title and content) need to reflect far more than their current identity of Lotus Renault GP. The intro section there needs rewriting as though it is a new article designed to serve the full history of the team. I don't think this problem exists across other teams though. - mspete93 15:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe "McLaren will tell you Vodafone McLaren Mercedes made its debut in 1966", it's just factually incorrect. "The McLaren team" (adoptong a fairly generic name) yes, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes no. Tubefurnace (talk) 15:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

To turn our attention to opening paragraphs for a minute, rather than infoboxes, which of the following do people prefer:

Current -

Lotus Renault GP Limited[2], formerly Renault F1 Team Limited, is a Formula One racing team, which has competed in various forms since 1977. Until the end of the 2010 season the team was owned by the Renault car company.

My attempt -

The Renault F1 team, currently known as Lotus Renault GP Limited,[2] (and formerly Renault F1 Team Limited), is a Formula One racing team which has competed in various forms since 1977. Renault's history in F1 as a constructor and entrant can be separated into two phases: the 1977-1985 team and the current team which was formed after Renault's takeover and rebranding of the Benetton team.

Or how could either be improved? Tubefurnace (talk) 15:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I do prefer the latter, but I've got a couple of gripes. The opener, "The Renault F1 team", is original research - the team aren't called that: the company name is Lotus Renault GP Limited, and the constructor name is simply 'Renault'. Secondly, where are you putting the Lotus rebranding in your two phases? If we're going down that route, does it not constitute a third? Jonchapple (talk) 16:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Could do with a general purpose name, take your point that "The Renault F1 team" was never on official name. As an unoffical way to refer to the team, I'd say it's OK. "The Renault F1 team" (with quotes) gets 97,000 google hits, so not that original.

2.No, the Lotus phase is not a major new shift in terms of team structure. Only a change in title sponsor. Agree that could be mentioned, but would not overplay it. Tubefurnace (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't go for either version for the lead. I'd simply have: "Renault F1 is a Formula One racing team and engine manufacturer. It has competed in Formula One in various forms since 1977, winning constructors' and drivers' titles in 2005 and 2006. It has also supplied the engines for a further 5? drivers and constructors' titles by other teams." I'd follow that with one or two paras on the (convoluted) history of the team, something like the current fourth and fifth paras, but with a passing mention of Toleman. I'd finish with a final short one liner on the current Group Lotus situation.
The current version and those suggested above give way too much prominence to the current ownership and naming situation, which is ephemeral and can be dealt with somewhere down towards the bottom of the article. In my opinion, of course! I agree with Falcadore that the infobox should solely reflect the current incarnation. 4u1e (talk) 18:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

But the convention is to have the organisation's official name to start the article. "Renault F1" isn't an entity - the company is Lotus Renault GP Limited, and that should be reflected in the opening sentence, per Force India, Williams F1, etc. It's hardly ephemeral; the introduction should give due weight to something's current situation. You'd hardly open an article for a country with its earliest recorded history and work forwards, would you? Jonchapple (talk) 19:46, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

4u1e's suggestion sounds good to me. I can see improvements over my attempt. I would argue that the introduction and name of an article should provide a summary of its topic, without bias to any particular period. "Renault F1" is a general name for the team, covering all its incarnations. "Renault F1 team" OR "Renault formula one team" gives 3.7 million hits in google, it's a well established way to refer to the team. The current company name is only relevant to the last two months. I don't see that the convention of using the current name only is a useful one, and would challenge it in all cases, not just the Renault one.Tubefurnace (talk) 20:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S. As for the country point, take a look at for example England or United Kingdom, how far down the article do you have to go to find a specific reference to something that happened in the last decade, let alone the last 2 months?Tubefurnace (talk) 21:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I do understand your reasoning, but the team simply isn't called "Renault F1". We can't just refer to it as an old name because we don't like the new one. And with regards to your second point, the United Kingdom is at its current name; it was called Great Britain or simply England for the majority of its history, but it isn't any more and the article reflects this. Just like the Renault F1 one does! Jonchapple (talk) 22:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if we're going to agree on this... The team is called "the Renault F1 team", as the aforementioned millions of google hits verify. See Autosport, the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph , ITV... it's hardly original research.

The United Kingdom article is about the United Kingdom, not anything else, that's why the first sentence of the history is "On 1 May 1707, the United Kingdom of Great Britain was created by the political union of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland".

While there may be a dispute over whether "the Renault F1 team" is a correct name for what's covered in the article, I can't see any argument for the sentence "Lotus Renault GP Limited...has competed in various forms since 1977." It's simply untrue. Tubefurnace (talk) 22:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Google hits have never defined the names of entities. The belief that what is popular must be true gave the Mythbusters a career. Leave the myths at the door please. --Falcadore (talk) 22:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

OK go by the five reliable news sources I also cited then? Tubefurnace (talk) 23:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I could spend the rest of my life proving that the Renault F1 team is called the Renault F1 team. Can anyone provide a single source that says Alain Prost ever drove for Lotus Renault GP Limited? Tubefurnace (talk) 23:04, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The official Formula 1 website calls it "hRenault F1 team". surely that's conclusive?Tubefurnace (talk) 23:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

How about something like this this - Renault F1, also currently known by its commercial identity Lotus Renault GP Limited, has been two separate French Formula One motor racing teams and an engine manufacturer. Since 1977 the two teams have represented and worked directly with French motor vehicle manufacturer Renault to represent the car-maker at the highest level of motor racing competition. Renault F1 has twice won the World constructor's championship in 2006 and 2006 and has been a part of an additional five constructors championships as engine partner to Formula One teams WilliamsF1 and Bennetton Formula. --Falcadore (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I've had a go at a new intro over at Renault F1 while you were typing your reply Falcadore. It's similar to what you've done. See what you think. I've tried to go for a balance between views, without saying anything factually incorrect. Tubefurnace (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I suggest "The Renault Formula One team, currently operating as Lotus Renault GP Limited, is a Formula One team..." as the beginning of the lead sentence. Just because the 'Renault Formula One team' is bolded doesn't mean it is an official name, so there is no original research. Also, as previously said this is how it is being commonly referred to now Lotus have got involved. Using the 'F1' abbreviation in the bolded name (as previously suggested) implies it is a formal name, whereas Renault Formula One team (complete with lower case 't') simply implies it is the Formula One team known as Renault, which is what it is. - mspete93 23:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Good point, mspete. Are we reaching a consensus?Tubefurnace (talk) 23:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

<written during edit conflict, and amended to incorporate the F1/Formula One conversation immediately above:>

I would go with WP:COMMONNAME and keep the emboldened title in the lead the same as the article titles (which by consensus omits the sponsorship, and rightly so in my opinion. The list of sponsors (if relavent), or team brandings can be mentioned in the rightful place in the history. If the founding is mentioned, the original name can be there, and as 4u1e said, the current situation can also be mentioned. If you choose to use Renault Formula One team instead of Renault F1, I would extend that argument to the article title also.

My suggested format of the lead to Renault would be:

Renault F1 are a UK-based Formula One racing team and engine manufacturer. They currently compete as "Lotus Renault GP", and are based at Enstone, Oxfordshire where the chassis are designed and built; engines are manufactured at Renault's facility at Viry-Châtillon outside Paris.

Renault's involvement in Formula One began in 1977 as an extension of its Renault Sport racing in the 1970s. Their first Formula One car, the Renault RS01, was the first to use a turbocharged engine. The Renault team left Formula One in 1985, but rejoined in 2002 with the takeover and rebranding of the Benetton (formerly Toleman Motosport). The Renault car company sold its stake in the team over the period 2009-2010; the team is owned by Genii Capital (75%) and title sponsor Group Lotus (25%).

The team (in its current form) won two Constructors' Championships in 2005 and 2006, with Fernando Alonso also winning the equivalent Drivers' Championships. Renault have supplied engines to Lotus, Benetton, Williams and Red Bull amongst others, continuing during the period when the team did not compete as a constructor; Renault engines contributed to six Drivers' Championships (1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2010) and seven Constructors' Championships (1992–1997 and 2010).

—User:MDCollins (talk) 00:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I like it, but I would expand Renault to Renault F1, Benetton to Benetton Formula, Lotus to Team Lotus, Red Bull to Red Bull Racing, all to save confusion with the parent companies involved. For example Renault have supplied engines to... makes it sound like the produciton car company have supplied the engines. It could loose the Toleman connection however as there is more than a decade removed since the ownership change from Toleman to Benetton, sufficiently for removed that it has no real bearing.

Also this change - The Renault team left Formula One in 1985, but continued a presence in the sport as an engine manufacturer. Renault F1 returned in 2002 as a full team with the takeover and rebranding of the Benetton Formula. I suggest this change as it underlines Renault never really completely left the sport apart from a break during most of 1988 for the transition from turbos to NA engines. Additionally I broke the sentence up under the editting advice that if a sentence can be easily broken into two shorter sentences, generally it is better to do so. --Falcadore (talk) 00:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, how's this (couple of other minor tweaks):

Renault F1 are a UK-based Formula One racing team and engine manufacturer. The team currently competes as "Lotus Renault GP", and are based at a factory in Enstone, Oxfordshire.

The Renault car company's involvement in Formula One began in 1977 as an extension of their Renault Sport racing in the 1970s. Renault Sport's first Formula One car, the Renault RS01, was the first to use a turbocharged engine. The constructor left Formula One in 1985, but continued to supply engines for other teams. Renault bought the Benetton Formula team in 2000 and the team was rebranded as Renault F1 for the 2002 season. Renault sold its stake in the team over the period 2009-2010; Renault F1 is currently owned by Genii Capital (75%) and title sponsor Group Lotus (25%).

The team (in its current form) won two Constructors' Championships in 2005 and 2006, with Fernando Alonso also winning the equivalent Drivers' Championships. Renault engines, currently manufactured at Renault's facility at Viry-Châtillon outside Paris, have been supplied to Team Lotus, Benetton, WilliamsF1 and Red Bull Racing, and contributed to six Drivers' Championships (1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2010) and seven Constructors' Championships (1992–1997 and 2010).

Just wondering what name they actually competed under between 1977–85? I assume it was essentially Renault Sport (the car was RS01); if not, the first words in sentence2/para2 need adjusting to match.

—User:MDCollins (talk) 01:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Like it. Note sure about turbo era name, I'm geographically separated from my library ATM, but I think Equipe Renault was their preferred title at the time. --Falcadore (talk) 02:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

ChicaneF1 indicates they were entered as "Equipe Renault Elf" from 1977-85, which matches my recollection. DH85868993 (talk) 02:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Renault Sport being the English translation of Equipe Renault will probably suffice then.—User:MDCollins (talk) 11:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that "Equipe Renault" translates as "Team Renault" (or "Renault Team") rather than "Renault Sport". DH85868993 (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I like the intro, but I'm still really, really not keen on having "the Renault Formula One team" bolded. I think it implies an official name and is innapropriate in this case. But it appears I'm in a minority. 92.24.234.66 (talk) 07:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

That was me, by the way. Jonchapple (talk) 07:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

So you would prefer Renault F1 bolded? 'Renault F1' is an outdated official name of the team that is no longer used, whearas Renault Formula One team simply states the subject of the article. I would support changing the article name to this as well because 'Renault F1' no longer relates to the commercial or legal identity of this current team. Though I'm guessing people wouldn't like that idea because it breaks from the norm of current team articles. - mspete93 08:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree with MsPete93. The reason I brought up this topic for discussion was not to debate at length the Renault F1 introductory paragraph specifically (though that is useful). I wanted to establish a clear principle for how we name and begin F1 team articles. It seems to me that Wikipedia should use a name which "simply states the subject of the article". The current practise (which has sort of become a convention) of always using the present official name of the company or team seems like recentism to me. I'd like to suggest that we go for more balanced titles and introductions for all relevant articles (reflecting the subject of the article), even if that means changing a few things and adopting a new convention. In some cases the best title to reflect the content of the article will be the same as the official team name. Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Torro Rosso, Force India and HRT have all had the same name throughout their history. The other teams have all had changes to their name. Tubefurnace (talk) 09:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't agree with either. You don't go to a Wiki article and expect to see a generic name or description for a company, you expect to see its official title. "The Renault F1 Formula One team" isn't trading as Lotus Renault GP'; that's the company's name. If anything, it's the other way round. I didn't see a problem with the opening sentence before, i.e. Lotus Renault GP, formerly known as Renault F1, etc. The rest of the paragraph I don't have a problem with. Jonchapple (talk) 09:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This would be valid for an article about the current business or the exact current form of the team, but that's not what the article is about. If there were a split of the article, to produce onw about Lotus Renault GP, then fair enough.81.132.38.37 (talk) 11:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The name shouldn't be a name that changes year to year because of vagaries what the team puts on entry forms, which by the way is not necessarily the official team name, sponsored identities are occasionaly just that, transitory names used for publicity purposes. It is hardly uncommon practice. And if impleneted on Wikipedia would be a never ending series of updating links across hundred of articles.

And it should be remember there IS a court case surround the team names of the two teams called Lotus. I would definately recommend against moving the page at very least until that matter was decided. --Falcadore (talk) 11:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I would strongly advocate the use of some form of common name, echoing what Falcadore has said above. I see Renault F1 as the common name for the team, although to be honest, they have just been knowns as "Renaults". To that end, I could agree with the title of the article being Renault Formula One team (which would work consistently, particularly disambiguating those production car manufacturers). In that case, perhaps you could just embolden Renault. The phrasing "for sponsorship reasons" I've seen used across many other sports to avoid changing articles around (wp:recentism).

The Renault Formula One racing team and engine manufacturer are based in Enstone, Oxfordshire. For sponsorship reasons, the team currently compete as "Lotus Renault GP".

—User:MDCollins (talk) 11:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this position.Tubefurnace (talk) 11:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me. I'm not trying to move the article. I think it's fine where it is for now, at the constructor name. Jonchapple (talk) 11:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that. However, I was possibly advocating that. I think it needs to be consistent. If Renault F1 is fine for the title (constructor name as you put it), then it should be fine in the lead. If, as this discussion is going in the direction I think it is, that Renault F1 is unsuitable in the lead, then calling them Renault but with the "Formula One team" as a disambiguator in the title might be a compromise.—User:MDCollins (talk) 11:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The Grand Prix Data Book (Hayohoe and Holland)is a pretty good source. I'd suggest we follow how that works. Their team summary section for Renault is headed "Renault". The McLaren one is headed McLaren. They don't go into title sponsors in the headings or in summary descriptions. However, full entrant names are used elsewhere as relevant. This is exactly what I'm suggesting, should have cited this book before. Tubefurnace (talk) 11:34, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a good approach to me - just take care with the titles for disambig/consistency.—User:MDCollins (talk) 11:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Obvously we can't call the article just Renault (not sure if that was what you were suggesting!?). The issue with using Renault F1 as favoured by Jonchapple is that it is a former commercial/legal name of the team, and not one that is currently used. I'm not sure we can say it is the commonname either - I can't see people referring to it as 'Renault F1' this year. That's why I suggest Renault Formula One team as the lead. While Lotus Renault GP should feature in the lead as the current entrant/legal name as per all other current team articles, it should not be the beginning of the article because most of the stuff in the article it about the Renault car company's involvement and not Lotus's involvement. Basically, if people particularly want the title and lead to be the same then I suggest one of the following solutions:

Title: Renault Formula One team

The Renault Formula One team, currently trading as Lotus Renault GP Limited and formerly Renault F1 Team, is....

OR...

Title: Renault (Formula One) (This uses the common name of simply 'Renault' and then Formula One as a disambiguator)

Renault has competed in Formula One in various forms since...

I'm not forcing anyone to use either of these, just suggestions. Personally, I don't see that the article title and lead sentence have to be the same so I'm fine with keeping it at Renault F1 for now (due to Falcadore's highligted issues) and then using the first of my suggested leads or a variant of. - mspete93 16:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if you were replying to me or someone else, but I wasn't implying calling the article "Renault". I think my preferred option is

Title: Renault (Formula One team) or possibly Renault Formula One team

Lead: Renault are a Formula One team...

I'd extend this to other teams (the actual root of this discussion) to create a common disambiguator in the title devoid of sponsorship using the format "<common name> (Formula One team)"

Title: Williams (Formula One team)

Lead: Williams [referring to the common name] are a Formula One team founded by Frank Williams and Patrick Head. They are known for sponsorship reasons as "AT&T Williams". [I'd mention WilliamsF1 and Williams Grand Prix Engineering Ltd elsewhere as appropriate.]

For some teams the disambiguator need not be used:

Title: Red Bull Racing

Lead: Red Bull Racing is one of two Formula One racing teams owned by...

—User:MDCollins (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I like the above suggestion. This discussion has focussed a lot on the case of Renault. I'd like to propose a consistent approach for all teams, so I'm starting a new topic - Suggested convention for team names - below. Tubefurnace (talk) 13:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

GPUpdate.net

It would appear that GPUpdate.net have reorganised their website, which means that many (most?) of the links from English Wikipedia to the website are now broken. There doesn't seem to be any recognisable pattern to the changes (for example http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news/2000/12/04/bar-signs-anthony-davidson-as-test-driver/ has become http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/22018/bar-signs-anthony-davidson-as-test-driver/), so I think the only way to fix all the links is to go through them one by one. I've created a list of the 147 articles I found containing links to GPUpdate.net (by doing a wiki search for "gpupdate.net"), in case anyone wants to help out. DH85868993 (talk) 08:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I'll fix any I come across, though it might be somewhat better to move the most important links to more reliable sites (Autosport, BBC, etc), that don't break every redirect after an upgrade. I still come across broken links from when F1-live was taken over. QueenCake (talk) 16:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should be using GP Update as a reference right now. They sponsor Dutch driver Christjian Albers, and over the past few days, I've heard rumours that Albers could be joining Narain Karthikeyan at Hispania this year. I think GP Update might also be a minor sponsor of Hispania. I'm not accusing anyone of any wrongdoing here, but there's a clear conflict of interests going on in this case. I think we should avoid referencing GP Update, at least until Hispania's second driver and testing line-up is confirmed. I don't think it will be a problem, though, because we tend to use Autosport, F1 Fanatic and the BBC as our primary sources, with James Allen and Adam Cooper as secondary ones (after Joe Saward's heavily biased article on why Force India were opening themselves up to trouble for dropping Liuzzi, I'm very hesitant to use him ever again). Prisonermonkeys (talk) 07:39, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The vast majority of the links are historical stuff (see above example), so there's no conflict of interest. But thanks for raising the point. DH85868993 (talk) 08:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

They're all fixed now (except for two where I couldn't locate the new location of the page). Thanks to Cs-wolves and Schumi555 for their help. DH85868993 (talk) 03:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Virgin Racing

This page needs to be updated for the name change. The page needs to be moved and the new logo has to be added. I would do this myself but am stretched for time at the moment. Thanks. —Half Price 13:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Updated for what? It already includes details of the Marussia deal, and we don't name pages after teams title sponsors, (like in the Lotus Renault case above).

There is a new logo available via their Twitter account here. But as said above the sponsor name should not appear in the article title. - mspete93 18:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Not unless an entry list is released showing Marussia as the constructor, of course. That's the only time we can change it. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 03:06, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

In that logic the first year we can talk about BMW Sauber is '08. According to formula1.com they were still Sauber powered by BMW in '06 and in '07 they were just BMW.

http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2006/751/

http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2007/770/

In '08 they were BMW Sauber

http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2008/787/

So it's not always the chassis name that determines the name of the article. I accept the article being called Virgin Racing as the teams are usually referred by their chassis names but I just wanted to notify you about this. And should the name Marussia Virgin become usual, then the article should be renamed, IMO. --August90 (talk) 22:19, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggested convention for team names

In the light of the above discussion, I'd like to propose (for discussion) some guidelines for how we title and introduce F1 team articles. There is a convention to use the present team name including title sponsor for the article name but the general consensus seems to be that there are flaws in that approach, and titles devoid of sponsorship details should be used. Here's my proposal, which builds on User:MDCollins' suggestion above.

For a team which has only ever operated under one name:(e.g. Red Bull Racing, Force India).

• Article name: common name
• Introduction: common name and full entrant/constructor name should be emboldened.

For a team which has operated under multiple names:

• Article name: common name. The phrase "(Formula One Team)" could be used where disambiguation is needed, e.g. from a car company.
• Introduction: common name should be the first bold name. A selection of notable full team names may also be used in bold. This may include the current name, or historically significant names. No need to list all names in introduction.
• Redirects: redirects should be set up from all the full names used.

Here's a table with a few examples to illustrate my suggestion.

Article name	First emboldened team name	Other team names to be mentioned in introductory sentence	Redirects from	Notes
Renault (Formula One Team)	Renault	Lotus Renault GP (current name)	Renault F1 Lotus Renault GP Equipe Renault Elf ING Renault F1 Mild Seven Renault F1	-
Lotus Racing	Team Lotus	Lotus Racing (founding name), 1 Malaysia F1 (business name)	Lotus Racing	contentious example due to ongoing team name debate.
McLaren (Formula One Team)	McLaren	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes (current name), Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Team (founding name)	Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Team McLaren Mercedes etc....	-
Scuderia Ferrari	Scuderia Ferrari	Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro (current name, since 1997)	-
Williams (Formula One team)	Williams	AT&T Williams (current team name), Williams Grand Prix Engineering	Canon Williams, etc.
Red Bull Racing	Red Bull Racing	-	-
Force India	Force India F1	Force India Formula One Team Limited	-
HRT F1 Team	HRT F1 Team	Hispania Racing F1 Team (common name)	Campos Meta (pre-launch proposed name)

I'm sure there'll be proposed amendments to this, but it would be good to get a common approach to article naming. Note I'm not talking about what names we put later in the article (probably all full names should be used somewhere, but will depend on individual case) or the info box (which is a separate discussion). Tubefurnace (talk) 13:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You can't have disambiguators in the titles where disambiguators are not required - there needs to be a very good reason for having a disambiguator. Having "(Formula One team)" in the title looks terrible, creates unnecessary redirects and is not in the least bit necessary anyway - in the case of Renault, then "Renault Formula One team" is what you'd use to avoid the disambiguator. Disambiguators are not there for fun - they're there when two articles have the same title and no other title will suffice. Having another article about the car company is not sufficient reason for a disambiguator - you just include "F1 team" or something similar in the title. That's the first thing.

Secondly, where is the convention to use the sponsor in the article title? McLaren, Williams, Renault etc - none of them do it. Sponsors are not necessary for the titles.

Thirdly, what on earth is the point in creating redirects from ancient sponsor titles like "Canon Williams" when nobody is ever going to search using that term?

All the titles currently used are fine, with Renault F1 to differentiate from Renault, likewise Williams. A simple "F1" suffix covers all bases, current and historic. No need whatsoever to make this endlessly complicated. The title of the article does not have to reflect the actual name of the company - it describes the content of the article. "Renault Formula One team" is acceptable, though in my view a bit long-winded, but the bracketed disambiguator is not possible in this case. Introductions can be tailored to each individual article with discussions on their talk pages, which is where that whole Renault discussion should have been, not here. Bretonbanquet (talk) 16:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with most of the proposal (I guess as it was based on my suggestion I should do though). Breton, the danger I feel with just using F1 as a tag-on (Renault, Williams), is that someone will come along and think that "Renault F1" is the actual name of the team (rather than the article), and try and move it to "Lotus Renault" or whatever the current sponsorship name is. Regarding the parentheses, I'd liken this to the cricket team article I co-wrote which was at Unicorns cricket team until it was moved to Unicorns (cricket team) because "cricket team is not part of the team's name; they are known simply as "Unicorns". However, since moving this article to Unicorns would be inappropriate, adding "cricket team" in parentheses as a disambiguator seems to be the only logical solution." I didn't necessarily agree with this approach, but that is what happened, albeit with a weak consensus; that is why I went for (Formula One team), which looks clumsy due to the capitals I guess. Perhaps "Renault (F1 team)" would be better?

Sponsors are't really a problem in the articles, but it helps when the boldened part of the lead is consistent with the title. It's probably the engine changes which also cause people to try and move things about (every season!).

I agree that all the redirects probably aren't necessary, just for the main changes of company; but they don't do any harm.

I would tend to avoid emboldening all of the important names in the lead and use " " instead as more than 1/2 boldened pieces detract the eye.

I agree that the Renault example went on too far, but some consistency across the project would be nice, and here seems the best place for aiming at a style guide rather than on an individual basis.

—User:MDCollins (talk) 23:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Bretonbanquet: Very well said, encompasses the arguments perfectly. --Falcadore (talk) 23:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The case of the Unicorns cricket team is a perfect example of someone not knowing much about capitalisation. "Unicorns Cricket Team" would be a title of a cricket team. "Unicorns cricket team" is a cricket team called Unicorns. There is a difference. The article should be Unicorns cricket team - no suggestion is made that this is the title of the team. Unicorns Cricket Team would be a declaration of the team's actual name. In the F1 case, Renault F1 Team would appear to be the team's title (in this case, an erroneous one). Renault F1 team is simply an F1 team called Renault, and no element of that is under any debate at all - it is an F1 team called Renault, and therefore the article name is accurate and not misleading. No parentheses are necessary, just to satisfy the needs of people who don't know how to use their own language. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Amen. Pyrope 20:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

KERS in 2011 race pages

When KERS was used in 2009, we marked the teams and drivers that used it with a "‡" in the qualifying and race results tables. Now that KERS is back, I'm wondering what we should do because more teams are using it. In fact, more teams will be using it than not. So should we instead mark teams that do not use it in the qualifying and race results tables? Prisonermonkeys (talk) 11:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Does it need marking at all? Did we mark those using the double diff? Or those with the F-duck? I don't really think it's necessary; if it is, I wouldn't confuse things by changing the "‡" from "using it" to "not using it".—User:MDCollins (talk) 12:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

There's a full season between it being abandoned and re-introduced. Properly marked, there's little cause for confusion. People aren't identifying that symbol with the use of KERS because it wasn't around long enough the first time. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 13:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Usage of KERS and any other form of technology is best indicated on the article page of each race car rather than in the season summary. MDCollins point is well put. --Falcadore (talk) 22:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I was just going by 2009. I didn't really join Wikipedia or edit pages until the beginning of the 2009 season, and we've never had something like this before. I just wasnt sure if it was important enough to warrant marking, because not all teams are using KERS. And some teams will likely start using KERS halfway through the season. We can't right have a "Who used KERS and when they started using it" section of the season page. Although I suppose that if someone like Virgin picks it up halfway through the season, then we can make a note on the page for the race they started using that. We've detailed major upgrades to cars before, like when the FIA doubled the load tests in Hungary and Italy last year. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 23:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think what it suggests is that the KERS annotations should be removed from the 2009 page and replaced as prose rather than anything for 2011 page. --Falcadore (talk) 23:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Dates on references

Stop me if this is a silly question, but I'm having a little trouble with the dates on references. I just added a little section to the 2011 season page about tyre wear, and the reference I used was published on the 2nd of February. However, I am Australian, so its actually 10:00am on the 3rd here. Do I list the publication and access dates in the refernence as the 2nd and the 3rd respectively, or should I list them both as the 2nd or both as the 3rd? Prisonermonkeys (talk) 23:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I always use Wikipedia time. Apterygial 23:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll try and keep that in mind from now on. I know midnight GMT is 11:00am AEDST, so early-morning edits will simply have to be listed as the day before for me. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 23:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It is also interesting to note the guidance at Template:Cite news, which says about the date parameter: "To avoid ambiguity, write out the month in words, using the same date format as in the main text of the article." I just don't fancy going through the whole article changing all the date formats! Schumi555 10:37, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

For those of us who don't do well with time zones, :( a question: will the tilde coding ~~~~~ work in citeweb? It seems to me that would give time & date. (If it doesn't, of course, a preview would do it, too...) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:09, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

If you use the tildas you'll get a signature as well. To be honest, a few hours doesn't make any difference - the chances of an article being changed in a matter of hours...? I'd go with the date you retrieved it; simpler!—User:MDCollins (talk) 23:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, 5 tildes give back just date & time. In the main, I'd agree, tho, local time would probably do well enough. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 01:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Larrousse/Lola 1990 points

Both Larrousse#Lola chassis (1987 - 1991) and Lola Cars#Larrousse-Calmels state that the Larrousse team lost all their 1990 Constructors' Championship points because when they entered the championship, they inaccurately registered the car as being manufactured by themselves, whereas they were in fact designed and manufactured by Lola Cars. But Larrousse#Complete Formula One results, Lola_Cars#Complete Formula One World Championship results and 1990 Formula One season#1990 Constructors Championship final standings all show Lola-Lamborghini as finishing in 6th place with 11 points (which is supported by www.formula1.com). So did Larrousse/Lola lose their points or not? DH85868993 (talk) 09:29, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Grand Prix: The Complete Guide (1997) also lists them in 6th place with 11 points. Schumi555 11:12, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly the 1990-91 Autosportcourse lists Larousse (not Lola) in sixth place. If I'm remembering right, the problem only kicked off shortly before the 1991 season so any changes wouldn't be reflected in Autosportcourse. Could it be that the points were transferred to Lola from Larousse? I definitely remember there being a problem, but you'd need access to contemporary Autosport or Motor Sport (or Motoring News!) to confirm exactly what it was. 4u1e (talk) 15:33, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Importance rating for season summary articles

As some of you may have noticed, I assessed a few WPF1 articles yesterday. I assigned the season summary articles which didn't already have an importance rating a rating of "low", but subsequently noticed that the 1950, 1951, 1952, 1989, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 season summary articles have been assigned an importance rating of "high". So what do we think they should be? All the same? All "high"? Current season "high" and all the others something lower? Or something else? The project article assessment importance scale doesn't provide guidance for season summary articles. Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 08:05, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

New name for Lotus Racing page

The Lotus team have moved their website to www.teamlotus.co.uk, also adding the Team Lotus logo in place of the Lotus Racing one. I thought this would be a good time to bring this matter up, because they are probably going to start referring to themselves as Team Lotus all the time now. This means some users will want to try to rename the Lotus Racing page. I know that we were originally waiting to see what happened with the naming dispute, but Group Lotus seem okay with Team Lotus using the name for now, and that we won't hear much more about it until it goes through the courts later in 2011. Obviously, with a page already called Team Lotus, we need to establish what the new name should be. I guess Team Lotus (2010) would be a good place to start.

One question is whether the old Team Lotus page should still be called just Team Lotus, or whether Team Lotus should be a disambiguation page. I know that some of you will say "The old Team Lotus is the proper Team Lotus" and so on. However, I'm sure that by mid-2011 when someone says 'Team Lotus' not everybody will think about the old team. I'm sure that when somebody searches for 'Team Lotus' on Wikipedia, in 95% of cases they will be looking for the new team. I think it would therefore be wrong to direct them to the old team, and that Team Lotus should therefore be a disambiguation page. What does everybody else think? - mspete93 13:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you Pete that Team Lotus should be a disambiguation page with the new team named as Team Lotus 2010. Not sure what the old team name should be... Team Lotus (1954-1994 ), Team Lotus (Original) ... Bjmullan (talk) 13:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

With the legal wranglings still proceeding apace I am very reluctant to start messing about with disambiguation pages and suchlike. There is still a significant chance that this is just more manoeuvring by various parties and we are not really in the business of trying to second-guess these things. Add in to that all the links that already exist that would have to be changed and this looks like a bad idea to me. A hatnote at the top of the proper Team Lotus page is perfectly adequate for now. Pyrope 14:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Pyrope. DH85868993 (talk) 14:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough points regarding the changing of links and things - we might find they'll have to drop the name for 2012 or something, so I'll ditch that idea. You still happy with the page move for Lotus Racing though? - mspete93 14:33, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure. The team first raced in 2010, but didn't/won't adopt the name "Team Lotus" until 2011, so maybe "Team Lotus (2010s)" might be better? On a related note, Lotus Racing has already been moved twice (admittedly by the same editor; obviously just changing their mind) since this discussion was started; I wonder if we could/should get it move-protected pending the outcome of this discussion? DH85868993 (talk) 22:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I just dropped him a message telling him that we'll move it when we have come to a decision here, but protecting it wouldn't bother me. When using years to disambiguate, I think it is common to use the 'first year' in the title - the only example I could think of off the top of my head was Top Gear (1977 TV series)/Top Gear (2002 TV series). Therefore I would use (2010) - (2011) wouldn't be appropriate for a team that started racing in 2010, albeit under a slightly different name, and (2010s) might look a bit odd in the next decade if the team is still competing under that name. I guess we could use Team Lotus (2010-) if you preferred. An option I would like to rule out would be using (Malaysia) to disambiguate - seeing as both the teams are/were actually based in Norfolk. - mspete93 16:48, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Article name should be Team Lotus(1Malaysia) or Team Lotus(1Malaysia Racing)] 21:56, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Why? Thats not a very help descriptor, as most English readers of Wikipedia would not be aware of the whole 1Malaysia ownership scheme. The³5₉ (Talk) 21:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a reminder that however we rename this article, Team Lotus (2010) is out as they weren't called Team Lotus in 2010. Talk about a contradiction in terms... Bretonbanquet (talk) 14:58, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

But you can't call it Team Lotus (2011), because the team already existed prior to 2011. The year should surely refer to is establishment (which was technically 2009) or its debut (2010), not just the year when it renamed itself. - mspete93 18:01, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

We can't have it both ways. If we're going to move the article around according to its current name, we can't use the year of establishment as a disambiguator. It's too misleading to have a year in the title which doesn't really correspond to the name of the team. You could even argue that it's not the same team as last year, since the 2010 outfit was no relation to the original Team Lotus, and now they're (outrageously) claiming that they're one and the same. Are any other teams disambiguated via their year of establishment? My suggestion is Team Lotus (Malaysia) as it is unarguable and an effective disambiguator. Even then it's a bit of a fudge to include the Lotus Racing period in that article. Bretonbanquet (talk) 18:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with some of your earlier points, but they're not entirely Malaysian (as they're run out of Norfolk), and you're also throwing in the issue of Lotus Cars also being Malaysian owned (I know it wasn't during the time of Team Lotus). Also, I don't think they're claiming they're any different to how they were in 2010 - they're not stupid enough to claim they're the same Team Lotus when the Chapman family don't agree! It's simply a solution to the unfair situation placed upon them by Lotus/Proton. - mspete93 23:48, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

They're Malaysian in that they have a Malaysian licence, which is pretty fundamental. I did hear Fernandes refer to "our history" a little while ago, and the question remains about just why a totally unrelated team decided to buy Lotus' name and take it as their own. Lotus have every right as a car manufacturer to use their name in F1, just as other car manufacturers have done, and they are not claiming any history apart from borrowing the 70s livery. I don't see anything unfair about it. In any case, my main point is that a year disambiguator is not really appropriate in my view. Bretonbanquet (talk) 01:01, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I knew you'd ask why it was unfair - it is unfair because they took the Lotus name on a licence for five years and had it taken away for no good reason - they're now as good as screwed without that identity. Fernandes has said he would rather have kept with Lotus Racing. Anyway, all that is besides the point.

I agree that year is not suitable, and we can't agree on using nationality either. How about Team Lotus (current), or a variation of? Obviously they won't always be a current team, but when that is the case we can just have this discussion all over again. - mspete93 13:09, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Team Lotus (Tony Fernandes team) - ? --Falcadore (talk) 05:55, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

We don't know if there was a good reason or not to take away the licence to use the Lotus name. It'll be sorted out in the courts, I guess, as Fernandes is seeking compensation for that. If he'd had any sense, he'd have done what anyone else would have done, and thought of his own name rather than hijacking an old one. Anyway... I'd be happy with some variation of "current" or "new" possibly, or the use of Fernandes' name as Falcadore suggested. I only really have a problem with using a year. Bretonbanquet (talk) 14:10, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

A note on disambiguation pages, as one has been proposed for this - two articles aren't enough for one. DAB hatnotes should be used instead. Miremare 15:27, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Right, does anyone object to me moving Lotus Racing to Team Lotus (current)? I'm open to other suggestions, so long as it doesn't drag out. - mspete93 16:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I prefer Team Lotus (Malaysia) or better still, waiting until the courts have decided what's allowed and what isn't. It'll only be a few weeks. Bretonbanquet (talk) 17:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I had somehow managed to forget that the court judgement is on its way. I guess that would save a bit of effort! - mspete93 17:05, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see the pages named Team Lotus (1958-1994) and Team Lotus (2010 or 2011) and the Team Lotus would become disambiguation page. Or just wait for few weeks.--Canukki33 (talk) 11:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I just saw this talk page but I have already moved the original Team Lotus page to Classic Team Lotus, redirected Team Lotus to Lotus Racing and submitted a request to move Lotus Racing to Team Lotus. I also fixed all(hopefully) the links in other pages. I beleive this is the most ideal solution because the original Team Lotus is now officially known as Classic Team Lotus so no need for Team Lotus (1958-1994) and Team Lotus (2010 or 2011) mschumacher69 (talk) 11:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Without wanting to be rude, that was about the most unhelpful thing you could have done. Not only are you factually bereft, but moving pages without talking about it first is so disruptive. You also left hundreds of wikilinks directing to the wrong page. The pages have either already been moved back, or will be moved back soon. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:42, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Out of interest, I had a look at how foreign language wikis have addressed this problem, and I've laid out here what they've done. I'm not advocating any of these ideas particularly, it's just for information.

Language	Original Team Lotus article	Malaysian Lotus article
Czech, German, French, Croatian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Simple English, Slovenian, Swedish	Team Lotus	Lotus Racing
Greek, Galician, Catalan, Romanian, Albanian	Team Lotus	no article
Spanish	Team Lotus (1958-1994)	Team Lotus (2011)
Finnish	Team Lotus (1958-1994)	Team Lotus (2010-)
Hungarian	Team Lotus	Lotus F1
Indonesian, Latvian, Dutch	Team Lotus	Lotus F1 Racing
Italian, Lithuanian	Team Lotus	Lotus F1 Team
Polish	merged	merged
Russian	Lotus (Formula 1 team)	Lotus Racing
Bulgarian	Lotus (Formula 1)	no article

Seems like most organised wikis (and there are surprisingly few of those) are either waiting for the court judgement or are happy with "Lotus Racing". Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

2008 Hungarian Grand Prix - FAC

I have once again nominated 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix for featured article status here. Any comments would be much appreciated.--Midgrid(talk) 21:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry

I think we have some sockpuppetry going on, and I want to see what other people think before taking it to SPI. User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 is IP 217.123.215.92. The IP was blocked for six months last year for sockpuppetry. The Kevintjeerdsma1996 account was started less than a week after the IP was blocked. Now both users are engaged in removing the same big chunks of info from various season articles [3], [4] for example, likewise the 1952 article. Both work a lot on European F2 stats and fringe F1 stats. Since this guy once threatened to kill me, I'm ready to go to SPI. However, if people here think he's a useful editor, maybe we can think of something else. Bretonbanquet (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not really sockpuppetry if he's simply making the edits while not logged in. Also, I'm failing to see the harm in removing results from an entirely seperate championship that is not the Formula One World Championship. Why are these stats on this page in the first place? The³5₉ (Talk) 21:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Because the season summary articles cover the entire Formula One season, i.e. all the Formula One races held during that year, not just that year's World Championship. Consider the lead of 1975 Formula One season (with italics added by me for emphasis):

"The 1975 Formula One season was the 26th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1975 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1975 International Cup for F1 Manufacturers which were contested concurrently from January 12 to October 5 over fourteen races. The season also included three non-championship Formula One races and a nine race South African Formula One Championship."

Also, WP:SOCK indicates that "Logging out to make problematic edits as an IP" is considered sockpuppetry. DH85868993 (talk) 21:53, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

But why do the South African races not have their own season page? The Aurora series has its own season pages. The³5₉ (Talk) 22:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The other national F1 series could have their own articles, but currently they don't, and the answer is not to persistently delete them from an article where they're perfectly legitimate. This user has been asked not to do it, but as always, he doesn't discuss anything. As DH says, the season articles are F1 season articles, not World Championship articles. Also as he says, making hundreds of edits as an IP, particularly ones which can cause problems, is sockpuppetry. It's exactly what he was banned for six months for doing before. Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, he created a new account in order to avoid detection and evade his block - also not allowed as per WP:SOCK. Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:25, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

If sockpuppetry was confirmed by SPI, would all his edits be reverted? That would be unhelpful, since many/most of his edits are constructive. DH85868993 (talk) 23:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

No, that didn't happen last time, so I've no reason to think it would happen this time. Many of his edits are constructive, which is why I didn't just automatically report him. I figured it out months ago but let him carry on. Technically we are obliged to report him, but I could be convinced otherwise if he cuts out his edit-warring and random deletions of good info. Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't several Aurora races also include Formula 5000s? Thus was considered more of a Formula Libre series than F1? --Falcadore (talk) 06:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If the article is to be limited exclusively to world championship races then the article name should be changed to reflect that. 1975 Formula One World Championship season, for example. It is just that simple. If not then leave in the SA races. --Falcadore (talk) 03:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

But please, nobody go ahead and rescope/rename the articles without discussing it further first (not that I think anyone who has contributed to this discussion so far would do that, but someone else just reading it might). DH85868993 (talk) 03:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Am I a suspect of sockpuppetry , What is going on? User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 13:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I am abroad on holiday, we'll talk about it when I get back. Bretonbanquet (talk) 18:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Please be aware that the latest IP that likes to delete huge chunks of driver articles is blocked for the second time, this time for a week:

217.27.231.238 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)‎

This IP is a sock of User:217.123.215.92. The geographical locations are identical. Also note that the latter IP made this edit to Augusto Farfus [5], which was reverted, only for User:Kevintjeerdsma1996 to later make exactly the same edit [6]. Just one example. This is more than enough for SPI, maybe Kevintjeerdsma1996 would like to comment. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:03, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Guys seriusly where are you talking about . kevintjeerdsma1996

Seriously, User:217.123.215.92 and you make edits that are very similar, and sometimes identical. You also make the same spelling mistakes, and your account was created just after this IP was blocked for 6 months for sockpuppetry. People aren't stupid, you know. Are you saying you're not 217.123.215.92? Bretonbanquet (talk) 16:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Guys you are right I don't have to say more. kevintjeerdsma1996

Team Lotus / Lotus Racing

A user called Mschumacher69 has taken it upon themselves to wreak havoc all over the Lotus-related pages, moving Lotus Racing to Team Lotus and Team Lotus to Classic Team Lotus. I've moved the former back, but can't figure out what he's done with the Team Lotus article (blanked the page, perhaps?), so someone who can needs to move that one back. Best, Jonchapple (talk) 11:47, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I've redirected Team Lotus to Classic Team Lotus but we'll need an admin to move the Classic TL page back to Team Lotus. At least now all the zillions of wikilinks direct to the right article. That editor needs to be blocked for that move - ignoring countless discussions and making a terrible mess. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Once all the pages are back in the right place, is there any chance we can get them move-protected to avoid a recurrence? DH85868993 (talk) 12:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't need an admin - just a speedy delete on the redirect page. There is a criteria... G6 I think. --Falcadore (talk) 13:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Good idea to move-protect, and if a speedy delete will work, maybe we should try it. Do you know how? Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Team Lotus has been restored to its original condition (with Classic Team Lotus as a redirect). I have requested move-protection for both Team Lotus and Lotus Racing. DH85868993 (talk) 02:15, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Both articles have now been move-protected. DH85868993 (talk) 06:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Formula 1 Safety Car

I notice the recent creation of Formula 1 Safety Car. Should it be named Formula One Safety Car, for consistency with other F1 articles? DH85868993 (talk) 01:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The bigger question though is it really sufficiently notable topic for it's own article? --Falcadore (talk) 02:50, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Having has a look at the article is seems almost a word-for-word fork of the Formula One section of Safety car. The only significant addition is the large table list all the F1 safety cars, which seems to be the very definition of trivial content. The manufacturer of the safety car makes no difference to its operation and the identities of the drivers beyond being professional drivers makes no difference either. Safety car drivers are not individual measured for performance there is no noteworthy achievement in the role. Isn't the FIV more notable becasue the skill of the Doctor is much more important than the driver's ability to hold station at a controlled pace well within the vehicles capability? --Falcadore (talk) 03:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

That's very much the way I'm leaning too. This seems to be page creation for page creation's sake. Pyrope 05:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Merger discussion. --Falcadore (talk) 09:22, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Kubica Injury

I have reverted a description of this driver's injuries for the reason I give here, on the talk page. I would like the opinions of project members regarding my thinking. Britmax (talk) 19:30, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Here we go again (Lotus/Renault)

So, Renault has sold their stake in their F1 team back to Genii, Genii has then sold a stake to Lotus Cars. Renault will be solely an engine supplier in this new deal. Official team name is Lotus Renault GP Team. Do we create a new article for this team? Do we link to an existing Lotus article? Certainly we should not link this to Renault F1, as has already been done on 2011 Formula One season.

Second, since Renault is no longer the constructor, what are we going to list in the Constructors column?? We now have two Lotuses that claim to be constructors. Lotus Renault maybe? The³5₉ (Talk) 09:37, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

One question answered, Renault will remain the constructor. The³5₉ (Talk) 10:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Continuing to detail the team's history in the Renault F1 article will be a bit odd, but I can't think of an alternative, so I'd run with that for now. One thing I thought we could use to judge would be the company name. Up until now it has been Renault F1 Team Limited, but with Renault no longer owning any of the team I'm wondering if this might change. If it doesn't, we could keep the same article, that would detail the company Renault F1 Team Limited under whatever entrant names it has used. If it becomes something else we could use that to help use determine the name for a new article. Not a Wikipedia-friendly situation this. - mspete93 16:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Here are the two press releases published on Genii's website, for those wanting more info. [7][8] - mspete93 17:01, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Me again! Another useful piece of information: Formula1.com's headline reads "Group Lotus to become Renault title sponsor". This give's us F1's standing on the matter. - mspete93 17:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

MsPete is probably right to suggest keeping this new incarnation of Toleman/Benetton/Renault/Lotus in the current Renault article - technically all that is happening here is that the existing Renault team is changing one of its minority stakeholders and gaining a new title sponsor. Admittedly that means that the constructor name doesn't really relate to the team (but then consider BMW Sauber this year...) and the new title sponsor has an almost identical name to one of its rival constructors... Presumably within a year or two all this idiocy will stop - probably when between them the two teams have destroyed the value of the Lotus name - and it may become clear how the articles should be structured in the long term. An alternative would be to create a new article for the new (Genii) Lotus Renault team. That goes against all our precedent, but would provide clear compartmentalisation between Team Lotus (original), Lotus Racing (now Team Lotus) and Lotus Renault (Genii) until it becomes clear what the longer term status quo will be. Sheesh. 4u1e (talk) 21:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that we should keep Renault F1 article as it is but refer to it as Lotus Renault because Lotus is just the sponsor (so far). It is not offcially listed as the constructor of the team. As for Lotus Racing and Team Lotus I think for the sake of the fact that new Team Lotus and old Team Lotus should have the same article, I know that many people will disagree in the fact that they might be different teams but it's getting too complicated and it's better that we merge Team Lotus and Lotus Racing. Wiki id2(talk) 17:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Lotus Racing, I think we should wait until it is definitively settled as to what name the team will use next year (which might take a while!). This week's Autosport says that Group Lotus will probably buy out Renault completely in 2013 or 2014, so I would support putting information about the team in the Renault F1 article until that happens.--Midgrid(talk) 19:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd definitely say don't merge new Team Lotus with old Team Lotus yet. It looks very uncertain that Lotus Racing will in fact become the continuation of the original Team. 4u1e (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm I can see Midgrid's point but we can't wait until 2013 or 2014. What if the problem still isn't sorted? Two to three years is a long gap and we can't ignore the two articles (old team lotus and new team lotus).

My idea is that we merge the two articles but say we create a new section in the article (after the old team lotus history) and say we call it "Ressurection of team lotus (2010)" (just an example) and that we refer to the Team Lotus as a new entity or a new (incarnation) of Lotus. (Wiki id2(talk) 20:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC))

Of course we can wait. Sometimes action prior to though is absolutely the wrong action.

Don't merge the teams. For every reason to merge, there is just as as many not to merge. --Falcadore (talk) 08:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed - easier to merge later than to merge now and the have to split and merge differently later. 4u1e (talk) 10:08, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems sensible to keep the Lotus Renault stuff at Renault F1 for now - maybe a better option will arise later, and it is basically the same team.

Merging Lotus Racing and Team Lotus is impossible as the Lotus Racing team of 2010 was not related to Team Lotus, as is openly admitted now by everyone concerned. They used the Lotus name on licence from Group Lotus and had no connection whatsoever to the old team - that was lying economy with the truth on their part. If in 2011 they are finally allowed to race as Team Lotus and we suspend reality enough to consider them the same team as the old Team Lotus, then we have the daft situation of the 2010 team standing alone as a separate team. The only sensible thing to do is keep the 2010-11 team in their own article. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:29, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

When it was first suggested I supported the merging of Team Lotus and Lotus Racing. However, when the car company began objecting I changed my mind and was strongly against it. However, as time has gone on I feel that Fernandes' team almost appears closer to the old Team Lotus than Bahar's clan does. Mind you, I still don't think they should be merged, particularly due to the car company's involvement with a rival team. I did wonder about the possibility of calling the Lotus Racing page by its company name (1Malaysia) as a way of ditinguishing it - the only problem being that that is not commonly used enough, to the point that users might get confused when they click on Team Lotus and get taken to a page with an entirely different name. I say we wait until the rebranding goes through in both cases (i.e. websites relaunched etc.) and then discuss what changes need to be made. - mspete93 13:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Mspete here, we should wait with both teams. I think things will look clearer once the season starts. However, I think we will have to create a new article for the old Renault team by then, at least if it's true Renault does not own any stake in it anymore. Right now it is silly season regarding teams and team names, just as last year by this time. John Anderson (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, if this goes on for some time - and it probably will; I'd be incredibly surprised if we started the 2011 season with the legal side of things settled - we could create a separate page to explain the naming dispute? Kind of like what we did for the 2009 FIA-FOTA wars. Except that this would be called something like "Team Lotus naming dispute". It might not be as notable as the FIA-FOTA coming-together, but it is a farily substantial event and it would certainly make clarifying the subject easier as it woud have all the relevant information in the one place. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 04:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd already thought about a page called Lotus in Formula One, which could detail everybody who's ever been called Lotus, including the disputes. I don't know that the dispute itself is worthy of a page yet. If the legal bit gets really massive next year then maybe. - mspete93 15:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. It would be a good article also for reasoning about wether Team Lotus was ever a works team of Lotus Cars or not. (The old team was usually considered to be that, I think.) John Anderson (talk) 08:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Latest: The company Renault F1 Team Limited appears to have been renamed to Lotus Renault GP Limited [9]. That takes away one of the reasons to keep the team at Renault F1, as the page name 'Renault F1' will no longer reflect the current state of the team, like it would have done if that was still the company name. The only issue now being that the constructor is still Renault!

Three options:

1. We could create an all-new page called Lotus Renault GP,

2. We could rename the current page Lotus Renault GP, as its current name, yet still retaining the history of the team (with Renault S.A.'s F1 involvement potentially split into a new page),

3. We could keep the page as it is with the same Renault F1 title, even though the team (and company) is now called Lotus Renault GP and it is part-owned by Lotus Cars but not Renault.

We might also want to bear in mind that Lotus look like they might take full ownership of the team and attempt to change the constructor name as well as building their own engines.

Getting myself involved in two different renaming discussions here - both about Lotus - could get confusing!

P.S. The team's website http://www.lotusrenaultgp.com/ launches on January 31 2011, if we want to wait 'til then before making any changes. - mspete93 17:19, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe there could be a new article for Lotus Renault GP. We have separate articles e.g. for Jaguar Racing and Red Bull Racing despite they're the same team. Also BMW Sauber and Sauber used to have separate articles. Furthermore, (old) Team Lotus and Lotus Racing have separate pages despite both teams' chassis is called Lotus. So, maybe the article 'Renault F1' could be about the era of Renault involvement and a new article 'Lotus Renault GP' could be about the era of Lotus involvement.August90 (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, it would be the best to add the informations and facts about Lotus Renault GP to the article about Chapman´s old Team Lotus which existed in F1 from 1958 to 1994. It is typical comeback of F1 constructor, the same as Alfa Romeo comeback in 1979 season / Alfa Romeo competed in 1950-1951 and then 1979-1985/, Renault comeback in 2002 season / Renault competed in 1977-1985 and then 2002-2010/ or Mercedes comeback /1954-1955 and then from 2010-/. Lotus Renault GP has nothing to do with Renault F1 team, apart from the same base, headquarters. But the same HQ have a lot of past and present F1 teams / Toleman-Benetton-Renault-Lotus Renault GP, Tyrrell-BAR-Honda-Brawn-Mercedes, Stewart-Jaguar-Red Bull, Minardi-Torro Rosso, Jordan-Midland-Spyker-Force India /. Also in constructors statistics, if Lotus Renault GP win a race in 2011 season, it will be the 80th win for Lotus in F1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.103.32.145 (talk) 13:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

"Lotus Renault GP has nothing to do with Renault F1 team, apart from the same base, headquarters." The constructor is still called Renault. It is considered the same team by the FIA and F1. Lotus is effectively just a title sponsor, albeit with a shareholding in the team. This comeback by Lotus is very different to those others that you have listed. - mspete93 14:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

As I previously said there's no Renault involvement in the team and the fact they have now a UK licence shows they're now more Lotus than Renault.

August90 (talk) 15:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Although there is not much involvement by Renault the car company, the team is still Renault. A bit like Lotus Racing is still Lotus even though there is absolutely no involvement by Lotus the car company. A daft situation, I know, but it's out of our hands. Look here: http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/ and http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/f1releases/2010/Pages/f1_2011_entry.aspx (constructor column). - mspete93 16:05, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Can I just say that Renault does not yet have a British licence - I tried to stem the tide of editors changing it, but I gave up - it has not been confirmed yet. In any case, the chassis is Renault and Lotus is currently no more than a shareholder and title sponsor. Bretonbanquet (talk) 16:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It doesnt matter who created the chassis, Dallara created the HRT chassis, but HRT is not Dallara F1. Genii's team is not Renault. The shares that Renault used to own is now owned by Lotus Cars. Its Lotus Renault GP http://www.lotusrenaultgp.com/ Wims (talk) 04:43, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

By saying "the chassis is Renault" we mean the name of the chassis, like as you say HRT, not the builder of the chassis (like Dallara). Last year the team was Renault and it still is this year. The fact that the team isn't much to do with the Renault car company anymore doesn't mean it still isn't called 'Renault'. You don't call a McLaren a "Vodafone" do you? Just because Lotus are a car company doesn't mean they are any more than a sponsor/shareholder. We had the same situation with Marussia, strangely. - mspete93 17:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

In any case, Lotus doesn't own any shares of Renault F1. Eric Boullier mentioned in an interview published in this week's Portuguese Autosport (signed Roberto Chinchero/MMI, so it came from an agency, in case anyone feels the Portuguese motor press isn't reliable) "Renault decided to focus on its role as an engine supplier for F1 teams and sold their remaining 25% to Genii Capital, who hold the totality of shares on the team". --Pc13 (talk) 18:27, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

As a passer-by, with connections to Lotus Renault GP, I spotted a problem. Lotus Renault redirects to Renault F1. However, 'Lotus Renault' is the official FIA constructor for the Team Lotus cars http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/f1releases/2010/Pages/f1_2011_entry.aspx . At the very least, this needs a disambiguation page. Alternatively, Lotus Renault should direct to whatever page is used for the current Team Lotus. Never having edited Wikipedia before, I'm unwilling to try to sort this myself! 194.74.179.34 (talk) 13:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Lotus Renault should probably be a disambiguation page, since it could refer not only to either of the two current teams, but also the original Team Lotus, which at one time used Renault engines. Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:51, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds sensible. 4u1e (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. DH85868993 (talk) 01:48, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Done (pending review by those with more knowledge of Wikipedia...) However, just spotted an error in my edit summary. Drat. 194.74.179.34 (talk) 10:40, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Flags, engine suppliers for defunct teams

Just noticed DH85868993 has reverted an edit of mine on the Jaguar Racing article in which I attemped to add a flag and engine supplier to the infobox, in keeping with current teams. Is this a rule that we feature neither for defunct teams? If so, should the flags be removed from Benetton Formula? Best, Jonchapple (talk) 17:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, the edit I reverted was the addition of a flagicon and engine supplier to the "short name" displayed above the infobox. I've done a random sample of defunct constructors and I couldn't find any where the short name includes the engine supplier, and the only ones which seemed to have flagicons were those where there has been some dispute/confusion over nationality, e.g. Shadow Racing Cars and Benetton Formula. DH85868993 (talk) 22:35, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

If you are putting flags and engines into a field called 'Short name', you are perhaps missing the concept of what the word short means. I would further suggest that flags are not appropriate for that field regardless of nationality, confused or not. Indeed it is widespread Wikipedia policy to not place flagicons in infoboxes at all. I'm not advocating the removal of all flags from our F1 infoboxes, but frivolous useage like the 'Shortname' field should be discouraged. I think it would be entirely fair and correct to remove the flags from all current teams as well. Exactly what purpose does it serve? Is it somehow not noted anywhere in the article the home country of the team? --Falcadore (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't really understand peoples' opposition to infobox flags. I like 'em. Make the boxes look a bit less boring. What's the problem? And re: defunct constructors, I've been going through added engine name/flag to infoboxes to standardise them with active constructors, but if we're dead against that, I'll stop. Jonchapple (talk) 12:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Meant to say, the reason the 'short name' field is the way is it is because it's in line with the FIA's way of referring to teams, i.e. Constructor-Engine. Jonchapple (talk) 12:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Falcadore is right - it's just flagcruft. Flags don't remove any confusion about nationality, when the word "British" or whatever is already there. Decoration is not a reason to add flags - otherwise we'd be adding pretty borders and things as well - this discussion has raged before. Apart from anything else, the MOS discourages flags in infoboxes, and the F1 wikiproject often has to fend off outside editors who want to remove them all. Adding more will weaken our case to keep some. I'd be happy to see just drivers with flags. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Summarising flag problems from WP:MOSFLAG: Emphasises nationality where unnecessary, do not use to indicate place of birth/death; avoid in infoboxes because they are unnecessarily distracting giving undue prominence to certain fields, (some infoboxes explicitly ban them); you must accompany flags with country names for those readers who don't recognise them. The use of flags without names causes accessibility issues (colour blindness/screen readers); flag templates can look so small that they are hard to distinguish at icon size. That's why there is opposition.—User:MDCollins (talk) 12:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

One argument for not including the engine supplier in the "short name" field for defunct constructors is that many defunct constructors used several different engine suppliers throughout their history. To be honest, I don't really know why we need the "short name" field at all - it's fairly self-evident that the infobox in the Brabham article contains information about "Brabham"; I don't really need the word "Brabham" sitting on top of the box to tell me that. DH85868993 (talk) 13:07, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Another is the whole constructor nomenclature will actually produce false results for smaller privateer outfits from the 50s, 60s and 70s, even into the 80s. Right up until the days of Scuderia Italia and Larrousse in the mid-90s we had chassis constructors with different names to the team. Yoeman Credit Racing would have a short name like Cooper-Climax, which is obviously misleading.

I'm proposing the flags and constructor nomenclature be removed from all current teams now as well. --Falcadore (talk) 02:58, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean from the infobox? Or elsewhere? 4u1e (talk) 17:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Just that Short Name field that has featured in this discussion. --Falcadore (talk) 20:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

2011 race reports

The lede in all cases says something like "Foo Grand Prix will be the nth race of the 2011 Formula One Season". This is, to me, in breach of WP:CRYSTAL. There are many reasons why races may not go ahead, and if one does not go ahead, then the numbers for all the others automatically become wrong. I've edited the 2011 Bahrain Grand Prix article to state "scheduled to be", given the possibility that the situation in Bahrain may deteriorate and the race may not take place at all. Today's Asia GP2 series practice session was cancelled due to a lack of medical cover. Should the ledes of all articles on future GP races be altered to stated "scheduled" rather than "will"? Discuss. Mjroots (talk) 12:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

What race reports? Bahrain is the only race that's been started and it contains good referenced sources. So I've no idea what you are trying to say. Please, don't make stuff up. --Falcadore (talk) 13:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought I'd seen at least one other (and thus assumed that placeholder article had already been created), but it may not have been F1. Can we at least get agreement that "scheduled to be" will be used instead of "will be", thus avoiding WP:CRYSTAL? Mjroots (talk) 18:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Ratzenberger

There's a discussion here after an editor changed the lead paragraph of Ratzenberger's article. I disagree with the change, but I thought I'd post it here so anyone interested can have their say. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Random GP results vandalism

There is an IP edittor prowling around the Grand Prix report, alterring small things, usually in qualifying tables. Sometime its just little things like alterring qualifying 27th to DNQ, sometimes its removing lap times, but sometimes they are inserting non-existant drivers and teams into articles.

Please be on the lookout for this incremental form of vandalism, it's happenning on a daily basis at the moment. --Falcadore (talk) 00:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Still going on. Still annoying! ;) I've had some of the IP addresses temporarily blocked, but I don't think it'll make a lot of difference, since the editor's on a dynamic IP and hops around an awful lot. 4u1e (talk) 20:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I've raised this at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Formula_1 - my feeling is that as these old race pages are not going to change much (if at all), then the simplest option is to semi protect all of them. WP:PROTECT does say we can protect because of IP hopping, but that's after the event - I can therefore do the pages that have been attacked, but protecting before the attack is a bit of a grey area - hence the request for advice at ANI.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:28, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I've trawled through all races back to 1975, found over 50 that this vandal(s) have been active this year. User:Prolog has worked out some range blocks, and I've added a short semi to the attacked pages. A list of hit pages and rangeblocks is at User:Ronhjones/F1HitList. All the IPs resolve to Argentina Buenos Aires Apolo  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Team and Constructor names

Hey guys,

We've got a bit of a debate going over at the 2010 Formula One season page. A user keeps updating the Constructors' championship table so that the team names listed are the official team names. Instead of using the Constructor name "Ferrari", he wants it listed as "Scuderia Ferrari Malboro" and claims that the FIA refers to the Constructors with a full team name. I've tried explaining to him that because the team and driver table clearly divides teams up to show official team names and Constructor names, what he is doing contradicts the rest of the page, but he keeps bringing up "sources" that are ten years out of date and the like. I'm having a hard time articulating why the table is written the way it is, so I'm hoping someone can take a look at it and help me out here. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 02:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't know if it would help, but you could try saying WP isn't FIA. :/ Since WP is for a general audience, that might do it. Or you might ask if he intends to go back & change every page for every race back to 1946 to Scuderia Ferrari, & watchlist them all so they don't get changed back, & assume total responsibility for doing it, since none of the rest of us think his proposed change is a good idea in the first place. If that doesn't work, can I suggest a smack is in order? ;p TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

+1 for the Gibbs reference, but I think that's a little extreme. I'm just hoping we can get some support to show a consensus over on the 2010 talk page for now. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 05:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, he's not DiNozzo, so I figure an attitude adjustment is a possibility. ;p It was also offered as a last resort. :D I will chime in over by the water cooler. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 06:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Newsletter for this WikiProject gunking up user talk pages

I'm posting at this WikiProject's talk page because it seems to be more well-trafficked than the talk page for the WikiProject Formula One newsletter. When the newsletter is transcluded onto talk pages, it doesn't take up much room in terms of text in the edit window but it *does* cause talk pages to load more slowly and, in at least one case, stopped an archive bot from doing its job. While checking through the contributions of MiszaBot III (talk · contribs), I noticed that the bot was adding text to a talk page archive but not removing it from the user talk page. After this problem had occurred once a day for nearly six months (check the archive's history), Oahiyeel's talk page archive ended up looking like this. I've tried to clean the mess up, but what could be done to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future? BTW, Oahiyeel has been inactive since September 2010. Graham87 03:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I've removed Oahiyeel from the subscription list for now. Graham87 03:55, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

the same thing happend to Aldango. If I use Special:Expandtemplates on the current issue, it comes to nearly 38K of wikitext, which is an unacceptable amount of text to be posting to a user talk page once a month. It would be far better just to link to the current issue rather than transcluding it. Graham87 05:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I admit that this is a problem. I had already decided to stop delivering new issues to non-active users (no edits in the last three months by User:MessageDeliveryBot's criterion) from the next issue onwards (there is a note warning recipients of this change in the current issue), which should reduce the problem significantly.--Midgrid(talk) 12:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Properly documenting sources for statistical results

I want to open a fairly general discussion here, pertaining to the way we compile individual race/driver/team results, statistical data, etc. — and the ability of current or future editors to effectively check/verify the results against reliable sources now or in the future. I think it's fairly important and I find it difficult to maintain a lot of F1-related pages in terms and in the spirit of WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:Reliable sources, WP:Verifiability, and other such policies. I'm not sure if this subject was discussed recently or at all, please feel free to link to any relevant discussions here if you are aware of them.

The way a lot of F1-related pages (that have any results included) are organized in terms of the data and references basically prevents any editor who wants to verify sources for the results from doing that. By results pages I mean any and all of the pages that have some kind of structured data included, usually in the form of tables, e.g.: pages for individual races (e.g. 1995 San Marino Grand Prix) or seasons (e.g. 2010 Formula One season), pages with compilation of the results for teams (e.g. Ferrari Grand Prix results), drivers (e.g. Lance Reventlow) or team history (e.g. Minardi), statistical pages (e.g. List of Formula One Grands Prix), etc.

The current typical scenario usually involves one or more editors creating an initial version of the page with a fairly complete listing of the results: individual participations, qualifying/practice results, entrants, teams, chassis, engines, etc.; then other editors making small corrections over time as errors/inconsistencies in the original data are discovered. References cited usually include only the original source(s) used to compile the initial version of the page, with later changes (and, most importantly, their sources) being very poorly documented (using commit messages in the page history at best, but usually not even so). This may cause other editors to question the same exact points later that may have been researched before, and potentially come to different conclusions based on different sources/evidence used in such later stages of research (whereas in reality the reliable sources may disagree, there may be not enough evidence to support one point of view or the other, some unreliable information could have propagated and have been widely cited, etc.).

The current status quo doesn't satisfy WP:NOR neither in spirit nor in letter. Due to the nature of large sets of data, even when some sources are listed at the end of the tables or articles, there's usually no individual results attribution to specific sources, and OR is often used to compile the tables, often using other wiki pages with relevant information. So checking original sources, and verifying attribution becomes a practically insurmountable obstacle to verifiability.

Just the most recent case in point I came across (even if a bit obscure): Giorgio Scarlatti's privateer participation in 1956 Monaco Grand Prix. Was the entrant Scarlatti himself, or was it Scuderia Centro Sud? Additional practical difficulty — different relevant Wikipedia pages disagree (likely unintentionally) and there's no synchronization enforced between them in any way: compare e.g. Ferrari Grand Prix results vs. Giorgio Scarlatti vs. 1956 Formula One season.

Ideally, a diligent editor would like any individual data point to be documented and properly referenced. It would take probably about 10–15 such data points per car/driver entry per race: by data points I mean such atomic data as car no., driver, qualifying result/time/position, race result/time/position, constructor, engine, chassis, tires, etc. — with proper provision for unobtainable data (like <empty> or <null>, esp. relevant for earlier years) or for contradictory data in different sources without clear consensus (like <dubious>, or <contradictory> with variants listed).

This atomic data can then be included into any individual pages that reference the result in any way, from one common (and verified!) data source. This kind of organizing the information would be most suitable task for databases of course (which Wikipedia is currently not), but such organization would greatly avoid certain burdens on editors, including such tasks as keeping all related pages in sync, checking recent minor corrections against reliable sources, classifying the cited sources as reliable or not, etc.

As additional benefits of database-like organization one can envision creating templates for structured data tables, which would automatically enforce common formatting standards, e.g. things like automatic table cell highlighting with different colors according to finishing position, enforcing common format for F1 season results tables, driver results tables, etc.

Please chime in on any of the following:

• Would such effort necessarily require creating some Wiki infrastructure that doesn't exist (like some rudimentary structured data / database support)?
• Is this issue more suitable then to be raised on Wiki water pump? As a technical proposal? (Such proposal could no doubt be supported by many other Wikipedia projects as well — a lot of different topics use structured data.)
• Which of existing Wiki infrastructure could be suitable for us to use? I know there was some initiative on structured data for Wiki at some point, I'm not sure what the current status of such project(s) is.
• How can we best adapt to the requirements of verifiability with existing tools we have now (even if nothing more fancy than simple page editing is available)? Should we use inclusion/substitution/transclusion/templates/what-not?
• Should we start meticulously referencing sources for every and all individual results?
• I understand some things (like tagging and referencing every result) may look like an overkill on the pages, especially in the current Wiki format where every references is visible, and so results will tend to have superscript everywhere. Ideally, one would like hidden tags, which could be revealed on demand. Should we use <!-- ... --> for that purpose? What are the alternatives?

Please give some thought to your comments before you post, I hope we can have some creative and fruitful discussion. I think this is a serious issue, even if some of us may have ignored it for a while. Any ideas and comments are welcome. cherkash (talk) 10:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

♠At a brief first pass, I wonder if this won't open an enormous can of worms.

♠There's a prospect of edit warring or gratuitous fact-tagging over different sources with (slightly) different numbers, which I've already come across on this page. Am I being too paranoid? Or am I setting the bar for verifiability too low?

♠I particularly like the idea of an automatic correction function across pages (if I understand correctly). That could be useful elsewhere, too, if it could be made to work. (Just frex, aircraft variant pages.)

♠I'd oppose hiding footnotes as counterproductive. Is there a way to "shrink" the superscripts? That would help, & would also be useful on all other pages, where they can create an unpleasant appearance.

♠Just my C$0.02. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 13:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

It is the elephant in the room, to be honest. This stuff does need proper sourcing and we are not really following guidelines by ignoring the problem. I have no idea about any relevant Wikipedia infrastructure that could help with structured data, and I suspect the creation of such is beyond most of us, certainly me. But it would undeniably improve the stats held in the race/season/driver/team articles.

Sourcing is a big issue. Sources do differ, and we would have to take each contradiction individually and thrash out which is the most reliable source. That would take an extremely long time. No one source is inherently more reliable than others, as all of them contain errors. Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. We're currently applying 'Truth not Verifiability', aren't we? To be truly definitive as a set of referenced, reliable results we would probably have to do as Cherkash suggests. I don't know whether suitable functionality is available. If it is, we would still need to thrash out the most reliable set of data to start from (i.e. probably not Formula1.com!) and the 'correct' answers to each of the many inconsistencies between sources. It's in principle an achievable task, albeit a massive amount of work. The question prompted some thoughts:

• Should we reduce the amount of statistical data we are providing? We can (and would!) argue about what would be kept, but perhaps it is reasonable to say that we are trying to provide too much statistical data (see WP:NOT#STATS) Is it worth having a separate focussed discussion on this?
• It would be relatively straightforward (technically) to take one set of existing data (for example the Formula1.com results, as was done originally) and just ignore the fact that they are wrong in many cases. The referencing is then very simple. That would fit (sort of) with the ethos of 'Verifiability not Truth'. It would also make writing articles difficult in those cases where the results are just plain wrong! Also, if we copy results including errors precisely, are we going to fall foul of copyright?
• Are there guidelines on results tables already? Some of the other sports wikiprojects must have similar issues.
• From memory, results tables have had an easy ride at FA. It might be worth someone going back through all of the FA discussions to see if it ever came up. It may be, for example, that results were considered to be common knowledge not likely to be challenged. If so, I don't think that argument would hold for the more obscure facts - which brings me back to my point about considering limiting how much data we hold.

Just more questions, I'm afraid! 4u1e (talk) 20:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

♠To take the most serious first, as I understand copywright law (not a lawyer!), unless we're also copying the formatting from a website, we're okay. (Whether Bernie will beef about us using F1 stats without paying for them is another issue...seeing how snitty 9 men in a field have occasionally gotten over it. :( :( )

♠As to "common knowledge", I think we can safely avoid cites for number of laps every time, unless there was a change (weather or otherwise), even if it gets mentioned each time; AFAIK, nobody questions, frex, the Daytona 500 is 200 laps (or 500mi) every time, except when it's not, & when it's not, why would be cited anyhow.

♠Relying on a single souce would solve a lot of headaches, except when it comes in conflict with another, & that's my concern over edit wars. (I imagine that being resolved by a default to the more reliable, but...it may not be possible if there's no really good source.) There's also an issue of...I don't know what to call it: one source says one thing, another different, somebody changes it based on the 2d but doesn't add an "item cite", & then it gets challenged for failed verification. Probably we can avoid that by using a good enough source to begin with, but the farther back we go, the less reliable the sources are liable to be. (And news accounts are notoriously wrong, IMO, unless we've got coverage from Autocar or something. Which reminds me: does FIA have results going back to 1900? And are they readily available, if so?)

♠As for stats, I don't think we risk going too far. The typical article is providing results, & IMO that wouldn't be out of line with a results table for an Olympic 100m or something. (I can see not having complete results for, say, the Boston Marathon... 8o )

♠I also have some concern about removing data. I wouldn't, frex, want to see lap records removed, even if contested; I've personally found them occasionally useful, quite aside the general interest. I've never seen a race page with anything I'd consider puff (admitting I've not looked at enormous numbers of them...).

♠Does this only raise more questions? :( TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 21:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Well having been involved in a fair bit of statistical work over the past year, I've given this some thought. A single source for referencing would be by far the easiest way; currently our featured race reports utilise one source as a reference for the results tables. (See 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix as an example). Admittedly larger tables spanning multiple seasons will be harder to get from one source, however a list of references will be adequate, in my opinion, as a reference to the large tables we have here. I don't think there is anywhere to cut down on stats- currently the race results are obviously vital for any race-related article, and the drivers/equipment used is just as important.

• I would definitely not want to go down the route of referencing each and every result present on the page. Not only would this be an extremely long, tedious and probably never completed job, the sheer amount of individual citations would over load any of the larger results pages. We're talking about hundreds, if not thousands of references, imagine if every single result for Ferrari needed it's own citation, not only would that make the table a mess, but the page would become virtually unloadable.
• I don't know of any functionality that is available to us to hold all this data. That would be the ideal solution, but unfortunately I don't see how any of us here can do that.
• Looking at the basic results on the McLaren article, (note that this is not a full table, just a season summary) it is referenced simply to the results section on F1.com and another database at crash.net. It's hardly unreasonable to expect readers using these references to navigate through these sites, and this saves having individual results all linking to the same database. Could this be the easiest way to reference the tables?

Just my thoughts on this. QueenCake (talk) 19:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

♠"one source as a reference for the results tables" That's very close to what I had in mind, too. I'd only add, if there's a conflict, tag the difference: the main note says something like, "Sourced from Foo Race Results unless otherwise noted", & 2dry notes are the "otherwise". (As I understand it, the current markup doen't allow for that on the "Source" line. Am I wrong?)

♠That makes me realize we may have a bigger, & WP-wide issue, of citing stats. There may be two or more equally reliable sources that will disagree on specifics at times... :( Any thoughts on resolving it? (BTW, since this may, in fact, be bigger, I'm raising this here, if anybody wants to weigh in.) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:54, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

"one source as a reference for the results tables" That's very close to what I had in mind, too. I'd only add, if there's a conflict, tag the difference: the main note says something like, "Sourced from Foo Race Results unless otherwise noted" - this was what I was going to say until I read TREKphiler's comment. We can easily cite one reference for a whole table, or group of tables, and separately tag any individual stat if the main source is wrong. It would remove the task of citing hundreds of stats per page. On another note, I wouldn't want to see a reduction in stats overall - I think we generally strike a reasonable balance. Bretonbanquet (talk) 01:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Thx. :D I suggested added an initial note to avoid the subsequent tags leaving it unclear just what is, or isn't, in the "main" source. I've seen 'graphs cited where it's not at all clear what's being supported by which source, & I can see an issue here, too. (My own default is to cite at the fact, but apparently that's contrary to MOS. :/) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 05:22, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, having a single source and then separately citing any incorrect information with a correction from another source looks to me to be the best way of referencing statistical tables. I have seen this already implemented on some older race reports already; it looks to be the most manageable solution. The sheer amount of tables we have will mean it will take a considerable time to reference them all, but deciding how to proceed is always the trickiest part! :) QueenCake (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

(reset indent)A lot of what I wanted to say has already been mention previously, but to expand a little:

Implementing a database structure, as originally proposed by cherkash, would likely lead to function creep. Now we've got a database in place, why not add a few more fields, a bit more data until suddenly we've got stats website on our hands. Not what we're aiming at.

TREKphiller makes a valid point saying that we currently have no guidance on what to do when multiple highly regarded sources disagree, the one place where verifiability not truth falls down. I believe in these cases, we have to go with consensus on which of the sources is both verifiable and true, and indeed I remember some time ago we had tables of some of the more controversial results according to various sources and decided for each which we'd go with.

4u1e raises an interesting point about copyright. IANAL, but there was a case in the UK going back a few years where a map maker added a fictional street to one of it's maps. Another company copied the map, including the error, and were successfully sued for breach of copyright. I'm not sure if it would be the same in the US, but it is a fair point that whilst fact isn't copyrightable, errors aren't facts. Wrong spellings of names etc. are things we'd definitely want to avoid replicating, while disputed results are less obvious. Which one is the fact, or are they all facts?

We know where most of the major discrepancies are, and have often somewhere discussed what to do about them. Suggest only using one reference per table, and then where we deviate from that reference, a footnote can be used to explain why, with the reference used cited in the footnote. AlexJ (talk) 20:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

♠Looking at this, it's formatted a bit differently than I imagined, but the result is pretty close. (I think I'd have footnoted the table with the "main source", but I wouldn't gripe if it was left as is.) Doing it this way does allow resolving conflicts, & also allows adding in new info as it becomes available, without having to completely rejig the page.

♠On the "fictional street", I've also heard of dictionaries (or encyclopediae) adding "fake facts" for that same purpose. Which means we may be well advised to do what journalists do: confirm from at least two reliable sources, instead of just one, in cases of conflict.

♠As for copyright on the data, IANAL either, but I've always understood copyright only protects the format, not the content. MBL has disupted that in cases of game sites & rotisserie leagues, IIRC, so that may not be settled law. WP's lawyers may have to look into it. :( TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 21:46, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Absolute fact isn't copyrightable, the point I was making is that, for example in a list of world drivers champions, "Michael Schumaccer:7" might well be copyrightable, where as "Michael Schumacher:7" wouldn't be (as the first isn't strictly speaking a fact). Something we need to be careful with with less well known drivers. AlexJ (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

What I'm getting at, tho, is the claim the data itself is copywritable. (I disagree, & I think it's ridiculous, but law & real life often don't intersect in a way that seem sane. :/ ) If it's going to be made, it will have to be dealt with eventually. As to your other point, the introduced error would fail verifiability anyhow. ;p I entirely agree, it might slip through. (It would almost certainly pass my ability to spellcheck. :( :( ;p ) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 07:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Field added to F1 driver infobox template

I notice that an "Updated" field has recently been added to {{Infobox F1 driver}}. Do we think this is a useful addition? If so, we should probably establish some rules for the population of this field, e.g. should it only be populated for current-season drivers (as suggested by the template documentation)? And what format should be used for the parameter value (I would suggest dates of the form "18 March 2011"). DH85868993 (talk) 08:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

classified or not classified

Hi all

I've got a question Ottorino Volonterio and André Simon finished only 72 of the 87 laps in the 1957 Italian Grand Prix. also Horace Gould finishes less than the alowed 10%. Joe Kelly finished less than 10% in the 1950 British GP and was not classified. There are more of these things that drivers finished less than 10% of the race but they are still classified is that a mistake or something? Kevintjeerdsma1996 (talk) 20:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Back in the '50s and '60s, the rules regarding whether drivers were classified or not used to vary from race to race, at the whim of the organisers. Today's standard rule that drivers are classified if they complete 90% of the winner's distance is a relatively recent phenomenon. DH85868993 (talk) 20:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Rules were different then, as DH says. You can't apply new rules to old races. The race articles and driver results tables are a mess thanks to this kind of thing. Kevin, you need to log in all the time, not just sometimes, or when you want to make a comment. I know you don't think rules apply to you, but they do. Bretonbanquet (talk) 00:39, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Flag Icons

This chap is adding flagicons to various articles,. I am about to return to real life and cannot attend to this personally, but are these changes of value? Britmax (talk) 16:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Luciano Burti

This edit [10] seems a bit suspect, whether it's actually Burti himself that's made it or not. Anyone recognise a copyvio or anything? Bretonbanquet (talk) 18:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Can't find anywhere online that supports the addition being a copyright violation, although the writer is definitely biased towards Burti... Orphan Wiki 20:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a copyvio from Burti's official website. I've reverted it. DH85868993 (talk) 21:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It's most likely not Burti himself, but rather a PR person associated with the company that made his website or with his management agency. I've had similar run-ins with PR people in the past. The name is also blockable unless the person can somehow prove they are in fact Luciano Burti. The³5₉ (Talk) 21:27, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Constructor timeline

I notice that a timeline has recently been added to List of Formula One constructors. Do we think this is a useful addition? We have previously deleted two variations of a constructors timeline due to them being "more trouble than they are worth" - refer to this discussion and this one. DH85868993 (talk) 08:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

As you say, deleted more than once before for sound reasons, which have not changed. There are accuracy and misrepresentation issues as well with this chart. --Falcadore (talk) 09:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi all

I'm the one that added the new timeline. I believe that because I've used the Help:EasyTimeline syntax rather than having a svg image, it will be a lot easier to maintain and for people to make small correction. One can simply change dates/names in the wikitext.

Falcadore: please could you point out the inaccuracies to me. If we can improve the quality, that would be great.

Gary van der Merwe ^(Talk) 12:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

What defines a team takeover? Why is the Lola of '97 considered the same as previous Lola incarnations, but Lotus '10 isn't the same as Lotus '58-'94? Can Tyrrell>BAR really be considered the same as BAR>Honda? And if not, how can the diagram explain the difference? Is Mercedes' current effort considered in the BAR>Honda>Brawn line, or the Mercedes '54-'55 line? Many more questions, most of which we'd find difficulty answering. AlexJ (talk) 15:23, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Exactly - we could probably spend weeks here arguing about Team A being a continuation of Team B or otherwise. This stuff is a bit of a minefield. Bretonbanquet (talk) 15:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Another problem, albeit a solvable one, is that it's not clear what it's a timeline of. It seems to start off as a list of championship winning constructors, then goes through an incomplete selection of race-winning constructors in the middle, then shifts to all current or very recent constructors. At the very least let's be clear what it is. The easiest thing would be current constructors and their forebears only, or championship winning constructors only. Even then, there are inconsistencies whose solution would have to be agreed. 4u1e (talk) 19:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

IDK about anybody else, but I find the thing damned ugly, as well as uninformative. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi all. Let me try address the points raised:

• The difficulty of deciding what defines a team takeover does seem like a valid issue, as it may result in misrepresentation. However, with some discussion, and and hard work, I believe that this could be solved.
• The selection of teams is how 4ule described. However, please note that the order that they appear in is not random. They are sorted by the end date, and then by the start date. I now think that it would be better to just have current contenders, their forebears, and constructors champions (i.e. remove the constructors that just have race wins,) and add a note about this in the article, above the timeline.
• "Damned ugly" - This is subjective, and I disagree. While it is not a piece of art, it's not ugly IMHO. Also please note that while the Help:EasyTimeline syntax removes fine control over the appearance that one would have when using svg, it improves the ease of editing.
• Uninformative: This is something that I strongly disagree with. While it is just the same data allready on that page, presented in another form, it presents it in a fashion that makes is much easier for the reader to get a quick understanding of when a team ran, for how long, and against which other teams. This would be very difficult to do using just the data in the tables.

So of the 4 points raised, I only agree that 1 of them is a good reason to remove the timeline. However, there does seem to be a strong concenses that it should be removed, so if that were to happen, I would understand.

Gary van der Merwe ^(Talk) 09:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The biggest problem, apart the fact you are trying to display a very complex 60 year competition history into a compartively small diagrammatic representation, is you can't seem to decide what you are trying to display. The top half of the chart is mostly a constructors timeline, the bottom is a teams timeline. Despite outward appearances to the contrary, the two terms are not interchangeable. You've also been selective on ownership issues as to how you've displayed certain teams. Arrows for example you've displayed during its ownership by Footwork and TWR, but you've not displayed March during its Leyton House ownership. You've shown Alfa Romeo in 1963-65 when no Alfa Romeo race cars were racing. An Alfa Romeo Special is not an Alfa Romeo. You've also been selective with which years Lola is represented. Lola only really entered itself as a manufacturer in 1997. On other occasions they built cars for other teams, but you've not shown all of them however. You included Bowmaker Racing and Larrousse while skipping the Honda and Scuderia Italia. You've shown Tyrell as a team, rather than as a constructor. You've listed Lancia-Ferrari as Ferrari. You've shown Tyrrell as a team, not as a constructor, but added Matra as a constructor, thus showing a team twice. You've shown Lola's disjointed history as a single line, but not given Renault the same courtesy.

You should make a decision what you are trying to achieve with this chart before implementation. In this confused hybrid inaccurate mix it must be removed.

In my personal opinion it should not be re-instated as in my belief you've taken a subject to large to be easily displayed in a single chart. It is not far removed for example as attempting to display the nationhood of Africa in the 20th century as a single chart. --Falcadore (talk) 11:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok - you have raised some points that I was not aware of. I'm going to remove it from the article, and work on it in a sand box until I have address the issues you have raised. Gary van der Merwe ^(Talk) 12:26, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Gary - the most important thing is to decide what you're trying to show. 'Notable constructors' (which is what you seem to be doing) is a very poor place to start. What is notable? Pick one very simple thing that is unarguable and well defined (like all constructors who have won a world championship) and work from that. And even then, there'll be plenty that needs discussion. 4u1e (talk) 07:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Understood. Gary van der Merwe ^(Talk) 06:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

British v Scottish

We have another IP changing drivers to show Scottish rather than British. They have done Di Resta, Stewart and Coulthard. Britmax (talk) 21:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

He's editing from work. I've given another warning (for blanking part of a talk page), and placed a "Static IP" template on his talk page. If he keeps it up from work we can warn again and then block (there is only one address), if he IP hops then maybe a short semi protect will persuade him.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

To the members of this project

First race of the year (after the cancellation of two weeks ago) is just minutes away so, as a wikignome who tries not to interfere with the pages that you take care of - but who has followed F1 for more than 40 years, I wanted to pass along best wishes for your work on this 2011 season. Some of the editing will be simple and some will be contentious but I know that you will be working hard to keep WikiP's articles informative and interesting. Kudos ahead of time for all the time and efforts that you will be putting in. MarnetteD | Talk 05:39, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks! Enjoy the season, and happy editing :) Orphan Wiki 19:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks :) I think this is one of the most hard-working and diligent Wikiprojects on Wikipedia, with a bunch of people who work really hard. I'm sure this season the many F1 articles, old and new, will continue to be high quality stuff. I'm willing to bet we'll argue over them but that's because we care about keeping up the high standard. Hope everyone enjoys the season. Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Malaysian Grand Prix

A move proposal is in place at Talk:Malaysian_Grand_Prix#Requested_move  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Removal/changing of wikilinks

I've noticed that in the last couple days an unregistered user was changing a bunch of links in the older articles (see list of their contributions). I don't think there's a consensus on removal of inactive links (which is what some of the removed links were), or some fairly arbitrary redirections (e.g. equating Jo Bonier with Ecurie Bonnier, etc.). I just wanted to bring it up here to ask other editors' opinions on what we should do if anything. cherkash (talk) 22:38, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've noticed these too - some of them relate to newly-started articles (Ecurie Bonnier, Bernard White Racing), although it can sometimes be rather difficult to figure out exactly what's going on. This is not least because the editor who creates these articles and changes the wikilinks etc uses three different accounts and doesn't leave any edit summaries, no matter which of his accounts he's using. It doesn't seem to matter how many times he's asked to use one account and provide edit summaries, we still get the same issues. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:57, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Kevin strikes again... Pyrope 00:16, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Kevin strikes again

Hello. Iv'e got a question In The List of Formula one Constructors are the names Delahaye , First , and Talbot But I have no any idea why the are there. Because the didn't made any atempt to start a Formula One race. So why are theyre names in this list. Kevin

Do you mean List of Formula One constructors? Because Delahaye isn't on that list. Talbot-Lago is, but has 81 entries in F1 races listed. First Racing is on the list, and never actually competed, but it did construct an F1 car and I guess the argument is that it did plan to compete with it. The page states at the top that it is a list of "a list of Formula One constructors which have competed or plan to compete in the FIA World Championship." 4u1e (talk) 18:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I mean this list on former constructors are Delahaye , First , and Talbot and also cosworth but they never raced are atempted to race in Formula One So I think They should be Deleted .You like making other people work hard to answer your questions don't you? Now we know what we're talking about, there was a discussion around this on the Template talk:Formula One constructors last year, which fizzled out. The main problem was agreeing what the definition of F1 constructor was. If we agree that it should be as for the List of Formula One constructors, then the logic I applied above still stands and Delahaye and Talbot should probably be taken off. Talbot-Lago, Cosworth and First would all stay on. 4u1e (talk) 19:03, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, well Kevin's decided no further discussion is needed and is off modifying various pages to his heart's content. Anyone else got any views? 4u1e (talk) 22:48, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes. The idea that F1 = WDC/WCC is unhelpful. Delahaye, for example, won the 1949 GP de l'ACF, so to dismiss them as a Formula One constructor seems unfair. I've reverted the changes (again) so hopefully he'll decide that discussion would be a good idea. Pyrope 01:07, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem stems from just how Kevin defines what Formula One is. Apparently he seems to believe that Formula One consists only of the post-1950 World Championship. But of course the defination of Formula One is quite wider than that. Perhaps Kevin what you really want to do is change that name of that template from Formula One constructors to World Championship constructors? Because that's a whole other debate. --Falcadore (talk) 01:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Falcadore (talk) I think you are right we need to change te name because it dousn't ,make sence that theyr'e are Constructors on the list who never participated in Formula One World Championship race So I think We should change the Name.

But the World Championship and Formula One are two different things. F1 existed before the World Championship, and the World Championship ran to Formula Two rules for two years in the 1950s. Pyrope 12:28, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Formula One is bigger than the World Championship. Some editors don't seem to understand that. It would be wrong to change any of the definitions of Formula One to just mean the WDC, including templates and lists. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

You know that, I know that - but the lead of Formula One doesn't say that! -- Ian Dalziel (talk) 13:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Kevin: you should know that was not my opinion, but my interpretation of your opinion. My personal opinion is the Formula One is not limited to the World Championship. Formula One did not suddenly begin on May 11, 1950. F1 had existed well before and has had several forms outside of the World Championship. As I said above, if you wanted to convert the template into a template on the World Championship exclusively, rather than Formula One, then that is a completely different discussion than what is eligible for a template titled "Formula 1 Constructors". --Falcadore (talk) 13:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I Know that Formula one didn't suddenly began at 11 May In 1950. But Example: Reynard isn't a Formula One Constructor They helped BAR whit the cars of them in the begginings of the team. But reynard isn't a Formula one Constructor. And They'r also is this. Formula one constructors 2011 Are Red Bull-Virgin Racing. Example Formula one Constructors competeted in 1950 or 1961 or 2001 or 1983. This are All constructors that competeted in the World Championship. I think That we should Keep The constructors Till the world championship and not in Non Championship races. Kevin

That isn't going to happen. Just because you think pre-World Championship or non-Championship F1 races somehow aren't F1, it doesn't mean that it's true. Incidentally, Reynard built an 89M F1 car for Bridgestone testing. It doesn't matter that it didn't race. Try signing your posts too. Bretonbanquet (talk) 14:03, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

They built the Pacific as well. Would you then nominate the removal of Dallara because they built the cars for Scuderia Italia but didn't enter or race them? --Falcadore (talk) 16:35, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok i didn't no that reynard built the pacific. I think this conversation is over. Because Now I know that Formula One Constructors Don't necessarely need to participate In World championship races or Race as a Race team In Formula One. Kevin

Sauber

Onather question: Why is Sauber on The list of Former Formula one Constructors? KEVIN

Sauber's history is a little complex. The original Sauber became BMW works team BMW Sauber, which we regarded (at the time) as a separate team. So BMW Sauber were current, and Sauber former. Then Peter Sauber bought the team back off BMW, but they kept the name, so still it remained BMW Sauber current and Sauber former. Now BMW Sauber renamed to Sauber, so Sauber are the current team, but is this the same team as the original Sauber or BMW Sauber? Currently we take Sauber ('06-'11, nee BMW Sauber) and Sauber ('93-'05) to be two separate entities. AlexJ (talk) 23:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Race reports

I think we need to review our race reports. I was just checking out the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix page and I was struck by just how unencycloaedic it is. I know I've courted controversy myself for being unencyclopaedic in my writings, but this is something else entirely. The race report is little more than lists of driver names, the laps they pitted on, and the times they set both before and after pitting, and all of it shoehorned into a paragraph of prose. It also feels like it was written by someone who is a fan of Lewis Hamilton, since Hamilton's exploits get recounted first and in detail before the author doubles back to describe what happened to others two laps previously. I wrote the original race reports for most of the 2010 season, but going back through them, they've all changed dramatically. It feels like the same person is doing it, but since it was a year ago, I can't work out who it was.

When I write a race report, I always follow the same structure: 1) Any major incidents before the race (like speculation over Red Bull's "start-only KERS" device or drivers who cannot take to the grid). 2a) The start, from the line to the first corner, including anyone who gained significant positions. 2b) Any subsequent incidents on the first lap, such as accidents. 3) Establish a running order for the first phase of the race (lap two to the first round of stops). 4) The first round of stops, but only if there have been any incidents along the way. 5) The second phase of the race, usually from the first driver to stop through to the last driver to stop. 6) Recount any and all retirements in the order they happened, from the start to the end of the second phase. May require some foreshadowing earlier in the report. 7) Anything and everything that happened in the final phase of the race. 8) The finish, including the winning driver, his margin to second place, and anything significant about the top three (such as Vitaly Petrov's first podium in Melbourne). This is followed by listing all of the points-scoring positions.

I think we really need to establish a set of guidelines for writing race reports, and monitor the pages to stop reports like the 2010 Malaysian GP report cropping up again. Prisonermonkeys (talk) 06:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Surely the best guidelines we've got are the featured articles? There's quite a few for the 2008 season that cover 'regular' races, which would have a fairly good structure to follow. AlexJ (talk) 19:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Most of the 2010 Malaysian report was written by User:Gokul009, who is thankfully now permanently blocked for sockpuppetry. He was also the guy who kept vandalising the Lewis Hamilton article with the racist stuff. At least we can be sure he won't be writing any reports this year. I agree that following the example of the featured articles would be a good idea. Bretonbanquet (talk) 19:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Third driver tables

Noticed a bunch of drivers who have never been anything other than Third Drivers were getting full results. Third drivers do not make a contribution to the Formula One season beyond practice and testing. Doesn't affect the grid or the race results. Unless you get a race start a table indicating when you've done a practice session is just overkill. --Falcadore (talk) 07:06, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, there are a few races which have a table listing third drivers but gives no other indication or explanation as to why this is significant. These should be deleted as well. --Falcadore (talk) 07:08, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted you at Fairuz Fauzy, I hadn't seen this discussion at that point. I disagree on the first point - third drivers take part in the weekend and I don't see how it matters that it doesn't affect the result. Lots of things we mention don't affect the result. It's valid information to mention which races each third driver has participated in, and I don't see the logic in including third driver participations for drivers who have started a race, and not for those who haven't. Either the info is valid or it isn't, and there doesn't seem to be any real reason just to delete it from several articles and not all of them. Why is Vettel's third driver info more important than Fauzy's? They did the same job.

On your second point, I don't think the information should be deleted, as this is the kind of information that people look for, me for starters. The info should probably not be in a table, but transferred to text, with a proper explanation of what third drivers do at a race weekend. Bretonbanquet (talk) 07:21, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The information is statistics for the sake of statistics. These are articles about the drivers, and all the table says is that they practiced at one session which did not count for anything. It's a large table which can be entirely replaced with a seven word sentence. It's table bloating for no actual benefit. To use you're vernacular, it's not valid information for tabular purposes. --Falcadore (talk) 07:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

As I say, I disagree. In terms of a driver's career, the information is clearly important, and it is not by any standards a large table. If you think it's not information "for tabular purposes", then presumably you advocate removing all third driver info from all tables? Why is third driver info invalid, but DNS / DNQ info valid? That info has no effect on the race result either. Bretonbanquet (talk) 07:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I advocate removal if third driver is the ONLY information it carries. Apart from anything it carries the additional implication that the driver concerned is a Formula One driver, when they are not. --Falcadore (talk) 16:28, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

That's an arbitrary line drawn with no basis in the information itself. Either the information is useful or it isn't. We can't have a situation where it's useful for some drivers and not for others, when it is the exact same information. It's probably a good thing that this info implies that these guys are Formula One drivers, because they are Formula One drivers. Their job is to drive Formula One cars. They don't have race seats, they are not race drivers, but they are F1 drivers. The info does not state or imply that they are race drivers, in fact it says very clearly that they are (TD) test drivers. Bretonbanquet (talk) 16:35, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not an arbitrary line at all. You have a race start, you get a table. I fail to see how that is even remotely arbitrary. Until you get a race start, you are not a Formula One driver, it is the same policy we've used almost everywhere else in Formula One statistics. --Falcadore (talk) 03:57, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Bretonbanquet on this issue. Drivers like Ernesto Viso, Giorgio Mondini, Matteo Bobbi, Daniel Ricciardo (to name a few) have competed in official sessions of World Championship Grands Prix, and I think this fact is of sufficient notability for inclusion in their articles.--Midgrid(talk) 19:03, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent, not to say a touch apathetic, on this issue, but to say that they "competed" is wrong. There is no competition during testing, despite what some people seem to think. Pyrope 22:10, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Which is my point. --Falcadore (talk) 03:57, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

In which case, you should be advocating removal of all third driver participations in results tables. To talk about removing some and not others does not constitute a balanced policy. It really doesn't matter about the semantics of "did they compete" or "did they just participate" - they were present in the Friday a.m. sessions at the Grands Prix - so at the moment, we include those participations in the F1 tables. Is anyone advocating removal of those cells? Bretonbanquet (talk) 09:33, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

That, to me, is a side issue that I am indifferent towards. You have my arguments above. I am not indifferent to inclusion in the article, but just testing is a long way short. Testing does not indicate anything other than they were there, and that in itself can be misleading, as a filled in box suggests they took part in the race, until you look up what TD actually means. You state above that TD states very clearly that TD is Test Driver. It is NOT clear at all. No explanation of what TD means is provided in the Fairuz Fauzy article at all. So some of your reputtal points are not accurate. --Falcadore (talk) 10:16, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to seem awkward here, but what is the key for if not to tell people what the abbreviations mean? TD no more implies that a driver took part in a race than EX, DNQ or DNS does. If any reader is unclear on these abbreviations, then the key is right there to be used. The explanation IS there - there is nothing inaccurate or misleading about it whatsoever. Bretonbanquet (talk) 10:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Dunno, not seeing it. Is it hidden? Is it in a compeletely different article? --Falcadore (talk) 10:28, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Each table has a wikilink to the relevant key, below the subtitle, above the table itself. I presume we don't show the keys on the page in order to save space, unlike the season articles. Bretonbanquet (talk) 10:32, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

It is clearly there, where it says "Key" - it could be made more obvious but that is beside the point. Bretonbanquet is right that either being a test driver on a Friday is valid or it isn't. It doesn't only become valid if a driving goes on to race in a Grand Prix later on in his career. There has to be a level all across the field and not the inconsistency between articles that Falcadore is suggesting: Fauzy or Ricciardo are no different to Yamamoto or Vettel in the validity or significance in them competing in a Friday practice session before a Grand Prix. Officially Mr X (talk) 10:40, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Fauzy or Ricciardo are no different to Yamamoto or Vettel - except we have firmly established, across basically every other collection of statistics that they are different. Two are Formula One drivers, two are not. This is the core of my point. --Falcadore (talk) 11:07, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

The rest of the point that Mr X clearly made was ...in the validity or significance in them competing in a Friday practice session before a Grand Prix, which is what we're talking about here - nothing else. What you're saying is that Yamamoto's and Vettel's Friday practice appearances are more notable than Ricciardo's or Fauzy's, which is patently not the case. We even have Hulkenberg taking part in the very same session, yet you'd include his result and not Ricciardo's. Where is the logic in that? Bretonbanquet (talk) 11:14, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I have never once made that point, and I would appreciate that you not put words into my mouth. --Falcadore (talk) 11:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, how else would you like to put it? You want to include one driver's participation in a particular session (Hulkenberg), but not another driver's participation in the same session (Ricciardo). Yet you say that one is not more notable than the other? Please explain the logic in that, without making any pointless reference to any other aspect of these drivers' careers. Bretonbanquet (talk) 11:28, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Falcadore, that is exactly what you have come across as saying. You have been wanting to remove information from Fauzy etc. on the basis that he has never started a Grand Prix when that is quite irrelevant to the validity of his participation in Friday practice. His participation has equal weighting and significance to any other driver regardless of were their race career leads: fact is they have reached the milestone of being in Friday practice and that doesn't only then become significant if they then go further and race in a Grand Prix - it is significant now for what is it and will not become more so over time depending on the future of the driver's career. This is really a common sense issue about keeping a level ground. It is the session status which is important here, not the driver. Officially Mr X (talk) 11:34, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

His participation has equal weighting and significance to any other driver regardless of were their race career leads... [it] doesn't only then become significant if they then go further and race in a Grand Prix - exactly. Bretonbanquet (talk) 11:38, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

The logic is, Fauzy, Ricciardo et al, are not a Formula One drivers. They've never started a race. A table full of TDs conveys no real information of significance, that is not already covered by the body of the articles. --Falcadore (talk) 11:48, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

But it's not covered by the article. Also, this is exactly the sort of information that is best displayed in a table rather than a paragraph of text trying to explain the same thing. You, with respect, still don't seem to be understanding the main point of the argument, which has been explained many times above, that the significance of a session is not driver dependant. Officially Mr X (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Falcadore, I disagree that these guys are not Formula One drivers, as I have outlined already above. Since when is the definition of a Formula One driver dependent on whether or not they've started a race? These are people who drive Formula One cars for Formula One teams at Formula One events - it's not outlandish to hold the view that they're Formula One drivers. I suggest we see if anyone else agrees with your proposal. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

But it's not covered by the article. Really? Which one? --Falcadore (talk) 12:11, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Falcadore, I disagree that these guys are not Formula One drivers. Well the structure of how Wikipedia:F1 is set up very firmly establishes a difference between those who have started races and those who have not, so I'm afraid the entire project disagrees with you. --Falcadore (talk) 12:11, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Have to start a race to be F1 drivers? - what about those drivers in the 1950s who failed to qualify for Grand Prix etc. but are still listed in the drivers' standings. You always refer to Wikipedia policy but has it ever occurred to you that it could be wrong (or need amending), afterall it was written by people no different to us, so policies can be daft or lacking in common sense much of the time. Just a thought. Officially Mr X (talk) 12:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Well the structure of how Wikipedia:F1 is set up very firmly establishes a difference between those who have started races and those who have not, so I'm afraid the entire project disagrees with you. Show me where this is "set up" - show me a project policy, a guideline, anything in fact, that "very firmly" says an F1 driver is only so-called when he starts a race. This is becoming ridiculous. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:29, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Mr.X - how many races have Fauzy and Ricciardo and friends attempted to qualify for? How many? Is it less than one? If you have not even attempted to qualify for a race, never even tried, then how can it count? I've been accused of lacking logic in the debate, where is the logic of including drivers who have never, ever tried? TD makes no acknowledgement of performance, good, bad or indifferent, because there was no performance at all. Breton: you've accused me of lacking logic, I have laid out the logic. Zero starts, zero attempts. Zero. This is the setup I refer to. Additionally have a look at Daniel Ricciardo's category article. His article does not belong to any Wikipedia Formula One categories. This is also the set-up I refer to. You might disagree, but it is not illogical. So please, do not make it personal. --Falcadore (talk) 13:34, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

So in fact there is no WP:F1 structure that dictates this at all, just categories that are present or not present in a driver's article? And there is no "firmly established difference between those that have started races and those that haven't"? I'm not making anything personal, but you said things that don't seem to be based in fact. Yes, these guys have not actually entered the races, but the point remains - Vettel/Yamamoto/Hulkenberg etc didn't enter those races either, and the idea of including some and not others is farcical, in my opinion. The question revolves not around the drivers themselves, but the notability of a driver's presence in a Friday morning practice session. My argument is that a driver's presence in a Friday morning practice session is either notable or it isn't. Either they are all notable, or none of them is notable. Your argument appears to be that Friday practice appearances are notable, but only for drivers who have since entered a race unconnected with that practice session, and that once a driver starts a race, then his test driver practice sessions from previous races suddenly become notable - is this your argument? Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:50, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

TD makes no acknowledgement of performance, good, bad or indifferent, because there was no performance at all. Of course there's a performance. It's a timed session, in which the FIA rank the participants in order of the times they achieved, as opposed to pre-season testing, which has unofficial timing. The Friday testers are included in that ranking. It has no bearing on other sessions, but the fact remains that the drivers are officially ranked by time. All the results tables make no reference to anybody's performance in practice or qualifying (except pole position) - the TD is there to show which practice sessions that driver participated in. It really seems that you're implying that you think these test driver presences are not notable per se. I would find this a comprehensible argument, if it were applied to all drivers. Bretonbanquet (talk) 14:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

What Vettel or Hulkenberg may or may not have done is not relevant to the point I am trying to make. I've not said a third driver appearance by a driver who has a race start is notable and a driver with no race starts is not. I am not suggesting any alterations to other drivers tables. You may say it is farcical to suggest that, but I have never made any such suggestion. Any farce is contained entirely within your own argument and I wish you would not imply any connection to my arguement.

The fact additionally remains that if you look at the results of say the 2011 Chinese Grand Prix, none of those third drivers appear anywhere. Whether they took part in a practice session or not, they have no official presense in either race results, or season pointscore. There is no performance. The season is made of the races, of which these drivers have not participated.

And the table itself is titled Complete Formula One results. But there is no result is there? --Falcadore (talk) 22:01, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

MidGrid: I am not saying third driver appearances is not notable enough for inclusion in articles. My entire argument is that a table of Formula One Results that contains nothing but TD's should be deleted. That table could be entirely replaced by a seven word sentence, which in all cases already exists, despite Mr.X assertion that it does not. --Falcadore (talk) 22:08, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I think we're going to have to agree to differ. There's a fundamental difference of opinion on the implication of a prospective removal of "some" tables. I've made the point a number of times that I believe if one driver can have a TD in his table, then any other driver must have one as well, due to consistency. I do find it bewildering that you find farce in that argument, and with respect, I find your reasoning for this proposal utterly nonsensical. In your paragraph that starts: The fact additionally... - in my view, you strongly imply that third driver presences are not notable, and I'm amazed you don't see that. If Ricciardo's table could be replaced by a seven word sentence, why can't the 2006 row in Vettel's table be deleted in the same way? It takes up practically the same amount of room, i.e. not much. I am tired of this exchange - let's see if there is any support for this proposal. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't find farce at all. Apart from me using it to highlight a reponse I've never used the word - again putting words into my mouth. I make no suggestion as to whether TD should be removed from drivers like Vettel or not. That you find it bewildering is strange becuase I've never made any suggestion one way or the other on that topic. Consistency with other articles has never been a part of the argument, apart from to point out how we use consistency to define who is and is not a Formula One driver. Easing your bewilderment is easy, because you are arguing in places side issues that I'm not talking about. I do not believe third driver appearances is not notable. If you imply that from my arguement then I state here that is not what I am implying, any implication is entirely your doing.

A table titled Results, that has no results in it should be deleted. Does that make it clearer for you? Instead of making implications and creating farces and talking about drivers articles I have no issue with and am not proposing making any alterations to, why not talk about that? --Falcadore (talk) 22:34, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Any farce is contained entirely within your own argument - your words. I don't need to put them in your mouth. I know you've made no suggestion that Vettel's participations should be removed - my point is exactly that they're identical to Ricciardo's, yet you advocate one removal and not the other, for no other reason than driver #1 has done some other stuff and driver #2 hasn't. Some of the tables are titled "participations" rather than "results", if that settles the petty results semantics argument. I assume you're not going to suggest they haven't participated. The tables contain information, best displayed in a table rather than text. If I see false implications, that's because I read what you write and try to figure out a more logical reasoning than the confusing one that is most apparent. You usually make plenty of sense. If your argument simply consists of removing third driver participations from drivers who have not started a race, for no other reason than because you don't like the tables and you erroneously believe all that information can be put into seven words in the text, then I struggle to put into words how unencyclopedic, inconsistent, arbitrary and unbalanced I find that. I know you don't advocate it for other drivers, but there appears to be no reason whatsoever why you don't find the same objection to rows such as Vettel's 2006 row. Why is consistency something you have no interest in? Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:33, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Any farce is contained entirely within your own argument, and what I meant by that was that your words were the only place farce had come from. You were the only one who had typed that word, a[part from the clarifier above. It was not meant to imply anything about an opinion of your argument. --Falcadore (talk) 23:52, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

You can't draw an opinion from an abstention. That I do not advocate removal from Vettel's is not an opinion for or against removal, it is simply not what I am talking about. It can be up to others what happens in the case of Vettel. To me it is a separate issue. For the purposes of this argument, TD is not indication of a result, it's a job description. It is similar if we filled a box of results on Adrian Neweys page with a disgnation as Designer. That Ricciardo's role in the team is that of a Third driver is not improtant next to the fact he took no part in the race or qualifying what-so-ever. And a table full of Results which only state what role Ricciardo and others has and does not indicate a result at all (which very importantly is the title of the table) is either confused in its intent or fundamentally wrong. Additionally I find that changing Results to Participations produces equally semantic a result - a third driver is not a participant. Where in the results of a grand prix are third drivers listed? I've never seen a Grand prix result primary or secondary, that says 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc DNF, DNS, Third Driver. --Falcadore (talk) 02:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that what you mean to say always comes across clearly in what is typed on the page, but in any case, this is pointless. Input is required from others if this is to go any further. Bretonbanquet (talk) 00:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Falcadore, can I just point out that there is a difference between a third driver and a third driver who participates in a practice session. Therefore, "TD" is more than just a job description in this case, it is referring to a performance that was there. This consistency thing is one the most important issues here, despite what you might say, because it is fundamental to any balanced publication or encyclopedia. You cannot cherry-pick information or leave it fully open to interpretation that one driver's participation in a session is more important than another, or by not including the table for a driver like Ricciardo, it may not even be obvious that he was in the session because in line with other driver articles, a reader would be expecting a table to confirm that information. Anyway, this argument has gone on way too long - I think someone else needs to give their opinion on this, and then a conclusion can be reached. Officially Mr X (talk) 09:35, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

If there is not some value of performance attached to it, then it is just a job description. All third drivers have the same describer do they not? 1st, 2nd, 15th are all obvious performance indicators. DNF/Ret indicates they did not finish. DNS/DNQ give a very basic description of events. TD does nothing of the kind, it merely describes what they are. How can it do anything else because they did not particpate in the race or in qualifying whatsoever. There was no performance. Once the timing clocks made an actual difference to the unfolding of the event they did not set foot on the track.

Additionally you seem to have no understanding of half of what I am saying. I am not cherry picking in anyway. You are describing things of me which have not occurred whatsoever. I am not saying TD should be removed from Vettel's page. I am not saying it should be retained. I am offering no opinion at all on Vettel or any other 'graduated' former third driver. I am offering this argument only on articles like Fauzy, Ricciardo and other drivers who have likewise not participated in a race or qualifying session. That you've linked in this argument about consistency is entirely your doing. I am not sure how many different ways I can say it. Do not connect my motivations on this subject with other subjects I have not offerred an opinion on.

If you wish to have a debate on whether TD should be retained on other drivers pages, I can create a separate discussion for you to hold forth on it, you will likely have that discussion to yourself. I am not sure how to ask this diplomatically, but is abstention a difficult concept for you to grasp? --Falcadore (talk) 10:58, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I just think it seems a little odd that you have such strong views on TD for some drivers, and no opinion at all about the same information for other drivers. You spend a lot of time explaining how third drivers don't enter the race, participate in qualifying or have any kind of "result" to speak of, yet all that opinion evaporates once a guy starts a race. It implies that the third driver role only means something when a driver has left it behind and started racing. Until then, it means nothing. I do get what you mean, but I don't agree at all, and I just don't see how Wikipedia can make such an arbitrary distinction and remain encyclopedic. Bretonbanquet (talk) 19:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Nothing of the kind. The two need to be debated separately. While they are related, the reasons to keep/delete are different. I can't stop you making implications as to my motive, but I can tell you when you have made an incorrect assumption. It seems I need to spend more time doing this than debate the actual subject. Question I have is, if you make the debate long enough and spend enough time going over the same words repeatedly will ir successfully intimidate any other edittors from weighing in? Well that seems to have worked. Or don't you like others attributing motive to your actions without confirming with the author? --Falcadore (talk) 20:50, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I have made no implications as to your motive (rest assured I have absolutely no idea what your motive is or even if you have one), and you need to assume good faith. I'd like you to retract your accusation that I've prolonged this debate in order to discourage other editors from joining in, when I have said clearly three times that we need them to do so, hoping that this futile to-and-fro would die a death. I haven't been talking to myself here, though you generally don't attempt to address any of my points anyway, you just repeat yourself.

In my last post, I told you already that I understand your point, I just don't agree with it. You really don't need to go over it again and again, as I can see now that there's no further rationale behind it to be brought out. I suspect the reason nobody else has weighed in is that it's an irrational suggestion and it's not going anywhere anyway. Two other editors have already said they don't agree with it, another didn't care, and I was just trying to understand it. This was because I initially suspected a rational impetus behind your proposal, simply because there usually is one with your proposals. I now accept that there's no coherent, encyclopedic policy basis for the suggestion at all, and we can leave it at that. I say again, let's see if anyone else has an opinion. Feel free to transclude our discussion if you feel it "intimidates" other editors, though I don't know of any regular WP:F1 editors who seem the intimidatable type. Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:37, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes you got it. Mr.X is his last post however didn't. You however said it was odd, which you have also expressed previously, so it appeared I needed to re-iterate. Implications of lack of rationality however, don't appear to reflect good faith though. --Falcadore (talk) 21:42, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I did say it's odd, because that's what I think. I'm not saying that you're irrational - I'm talking about the proposal itself, and I'm saying that I see no rational policy basis for it. What I'm also saying is that you haven't provided a rationale answering my main objection to this proposal. I'm not going to repeat it because it's a waste of time, but in all this crap, there is no answer to that question. If you won't supply or even hint at an answer, or retract your accusation of my trying to artificially sway this discussion (like I need to), then I have nothing further to add. Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I have provided a rationale - you just don't agree or believe it. Pyrope, while admiting apathy, appears to have acknowledged some level of the concept with his line about stating that TD drivers and I quote "but to say that they "competed" is wrong". While examples like Wikipedia categories you have disagreed with, the distinctions do actually exist within Wikipedia, so some level of logic is inherent there as well. Third drivers are routinely not included in qualifying and race reports/summaries/tables in print and electronic media, so there is some level of belief there as well. OK, so we disagree on the point. --Falcadore (talk) 22:05, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I know all of what you've just said there, that's not what I'm talking about. My issue is this: here's an example, based on what I understand your preference to be - Chinese GP 2011. Hulkenberg and Ricciardo do the same third driver job in the same session. Hulkenberg gets a TD in his table. Ricciardo doesn't get a table because TDs don't justify a table as he hasn't started a race, he's not an F1 driver, and Friday a.m. practice sessions are not included in press qualifying/race data. I fully understand that part of your argument. My follow-on point is this: if TDs don't justify a table on their own for those reasons, then they don't merit being in any table at all. Conversely, if they do merit being in a table, then they justify a table even if there's no other info. You disagree with that, saying that they're two different subjects to be treated separately and you're not discussing TDs in race driver articles. I maintain the question: how can encyclopedic treatment of two pieces of identical information in two similar articles not be irretrievably related and treated in the same way, regardless of other aspects of the subject's career? My stance is that they cannot be treated separately with encyclopedic integrity remaining intact. Having TDs in all articles would be encyclopedic. Having TDs removed from all articles would be encyclopedic. Removing some TDs on the grounds that those drivers have a lower status would not be encyclopedic, when the nature of the TD role is exactly the same. On that, I never received a satisfactory answer. I know we disagree and it's best left that way, but I want to finish my involvement in this discussion by clarifying that initial point. I do not wish to be accused again of prolonging the debate to further some nefarious secret motive. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

That you have brought up Hulkenberg at all suggests you have not gotten my point. I brought up the difference between Formula One drivers and Formula One testers for a different reason than comparative labelling of table contents. Let me explain it thus - I am not advocating the removal of TDs, I am advocating the removal of entire tables that contain nothing but TDs in it. There is a difference between deleting the TD contents of a table and leaving it otherwise intact and deleting the table entirely. --Falcadore (talk) 23:28, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I know what you're advocating, why do you keep repeating it? I cannot fathom how you think I haven't understood your point - I just typed out a long paragraph detailing how I understand that you're only advocating the removal of TD-only tables and that you see a difference between TD-only tables and other tables. It's right there above, didn't you read it? I've moved beyond that to what I believe is an inextricably linked point, which you still haven't answered. I'm raising the subject of both types of table, because I'm saying that they can't be treated separately - this is my objection to your point. It's not a valid answer that you're not talking about race driver tables, because that is exactly my objection. It's a total fob-off. You have no apparent intention of answering or understanding that point, and this is a waste of my time, so we'll leave it there. Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, why the repitition on your part then? I understood your personal onjection was on the nature of consistency. My apologies if I did not make it clear that I understood your that nature of your objection. I reject it being unencyclopedic though on the basis that I would definatley agree with you on the unencyclopeidc part of your objection IF I was also advocating the removing of text describing a driver had a third driver role. --Falcadore (talk) 01:24, 19 April 2011 (UTC)