Talk:Synthetic ice

Comments

why no disadvantages?

it would seem that this article is very biased, perhaps even written by manufacturers of synthetic ice as it seems to suggest that synthetic ice is identical to regular ice but with advantages. Every account I have seen by people who actually skate on these surfaces suggest that it is very hard to glide on an nowhere near comparable to real ice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.137.243 (talk) 22:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly! Synthetic ice is not ice. Skating on newly surfaced real ice is incredible. The slightest push results in gliding for in excess of ten metres. Artificial ice is rubbish. The material cannot be surfaced like real ice. It does not lie flat and it ruins the sharpness of one's ice skating blades. This material is not "synthetic ice" it is a plastic alternative. From when it is first laid it deteriorates. It can only be "resurfaced" by relaying it upside down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GGeoff (talk • contribs) 19:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Advertising/superglideskating.com

I cut the advantages section...it was written like advertising. And I cut the references linking superglideskating.com since I suspect they might be biased.--Nakerlund (talk) 04:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

My edits were reverted--including the advert template--because there was a disagreement regarding the validity of the references I removed. The references to superglideskating.com are not ok as they are "promotional in nature".

The disadvantages section that a later edit added was not ok either as it basically said that there are no disadvantages, making itself redundant and clearly biased. That said, it is true that there are few disadvantages of synthetic ice mentioned in reliable sources. But that goes for the advantages too, so perhaps it'd be better with no advantages/disadvantages sections. Perhaps we need a general section on the subject in which we could weave in the obvious advantages(no cold or water needed) and the disadvantages(less glide and more wear on the blades). Synthetic ice could be cost efficient if there is no natural cold or water around, and the panels are not so heavily worn that artificial and renewable ice is cheaper.

Apart from that, I think the article could do without the advert template with some minor rephrasing and restructuring.--Nakerlund (talk) 15:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

First, let me be up front and tell you that I am not hiding the fact that I work with Global Synthetic Ice. However, it is not my intent to "push" their products here. We merely noticed that there was not an article about "synthetic ice" and felt that there should be. To date, no one has published any books on the topic, and "source" information is hard to come by. But, Global Synthetic Ice is a manufacturer of synthetic ice, does this not make them a qualified expert? So, I had the president of the company draft an article and we made that article available in the public domain (yes, it is published on their website, that way we know it's not going to disappear) as a reference for this Wikipedia article. NotSpartacus (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I feel that the advantages section is relevant. Being "green" is very popular in today's culture, and most of the advantages of synthetic ice relate to that. Feel free to rewrite the information to your liking, but the information presented is factual. NotSpartacus (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The disadvantages section I added in response to the complaint above that there wasn't one. I don't really care if disadvantages are included or not. NotSpartacus (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, you've removed the only real reference on this page. While parts of the article are biased, the historical and basic information that it provides are not. It was that generic information that was used in this article. You've cited that reference as an "unreliable source", which is defined as "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions." I don't believe that any of that applies to Global Synthetic Ice as a source in this instance. And this statement from the "self-publishing" section immediately after your "unreliable source" reference is more relevant here: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." NotSpartacus (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll wrap this part of the discussion up with this thought: Look at this article on Tires and tell me how many of the references are companies that manufacture tires. This situation is no different. The manufacturers and innovators in the industry ARE the experts! As long as they are speaking generically about their industry and products, their input can be considered as an unbiased reference. NotSpartacus (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

All I want to see is a strongly referenced article that isn't likely to get nuked from Wikipedia for not having sufficient references. No specific company or product is mentioned in this article, its purpose is just to define exactly what synthetic ice is as best we can. NotSpartacus (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello NotSpartacus. I don't think this article is in danger of being (or should be) nuked from wikipedia. And I do not doubt that you are the experts, and it is true that the tires article mentions companies several times.

References are needed when "When adding material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" and I don't see why that is needed for the history of synthetic ice. On the contrary, the references appeared to subversively lead visitors to superglideskating.com. Maybe we could keep the link to the history of synthetic ice in an "external links" section instead?

If you have an advantages section, you need a disadvantages section to be fair, and I can't find any good references for either. There are some news articles mentioning synthetic ice skating as fun but nothing that goes into the environmental friendly aspect of it. I know I pointed to that "When to cite sources" policy earlier but I think this is different. When you say something is good or bad, that's going to come out as a point of view and unless you can back it up with a solid reference, it'll not be a NPOV. And in this case, a reference to superglideskating.com, even with the best intent, won't be believed to be neutral.

I therefor propose a more general section that could contain this part of the head.

"A typical synthetic ice rink will consist of many panels (usually in typical building material sheet sizes) of thin surface material assembled on top of a sturdy, level and smooth sub-floor (anything from concrete to wood or even dirt or grass) to create a large skating area."

And then a briefer mentioning of the obvious advantages and disadvantages that should be safe even without references.

The way I see it, and this is clearly not a NPOV since it is me seeing it, is that synthetic ice is only green if there is no water around and you can't wait until winter, or use roller skates. It could be green under some circumstances, but not generally and therefor it would not be fair to put it in an advantages section.

Also, if you have some image laying around of Synthetic ice(in action perhaps?) that you'd be willing to donate, I think it would benefit this article. It'd be best if the image shows no logos or anything that ties it to a specific brand of synthetic ice, to keep things NPOV. It'd be good if it mentioned the brand on the image page though.--Nakerlund (talk) 09:34, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly, you are more experienced in the ways of Wikipedia than I. I made our goals clear above, we just want people to be able to come to Wikipedia and learn about synthetic ice. I think we all have the same goal, just slightly different opinions on how to get there. I tend to take the "Wikipedia is not a source" philosophy to heart and try to not post ANYTHING that I can't reference. I'll see if I can come up with a good photo that we can make available. Look for it soon. NotSpartacus (talk) 19:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Did some editing today to return this article to a more useful state. So much information had been cut out of it that it didn't even state what synthetic ice IS any more. There are still precious few references, as there is such dispute over using commercial references, but at least the information is correct and useful for anyone looking to learn about synthetic ice. Also removed the "advertising" tag as I don't believe there is anything of the sort left in this article. NotSpartacus (talk) 16:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

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