Talk:Top Gear Race to the North/Archive 1

Archive 1

Non-stop?

What's the definition of 'non-stop' steam train journeys, given that the Top Gear train did stop to take on water?

I think the point is that in the days of steam there would have been lineside water troughs that the train could pick up water from without stopping. The train didn't stop for any other reason (ie to pick up passengers on the way). Halsteadk (talk) 21:56, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
It still stopped for water and coal, therefore by definition wasn't "non-stop". 59.167.47.25 (talk) 10:06, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Also bear in mind that the car and motorbike also stopped for fuel (and breakdowns).--Gaunt (talk) 10:44, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

'non-stop' = not stopping at any intermediate station. i.e. if you got on and didn't want to go to Edinburgh, you were pretty much screwed. MickMacNee (talk) 20:47, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Since an editor has just removed two instance of 'non-stop' (now replaced by me) we may need to clarify this within the text. It is significant to the journey. -- EdJogg (talk) 16:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Do we need this

I hate to say something like this, but do we REALLY need an article on this one off race on Top Gear? A few lines in the Races article should be enough. Looneyman (talk) 12:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course not. We don't need many articles at all.
So what's your real point? Are you advocating the deletion of this unnecessary article? Does it offend in some way? Does it fail our clearly established policies on what we permit on Wikipedia? Technical failure to clearly demonstrate compliance with such policies is regularly cited as a reason to delete articles that we might even be said to "need", so if you have any solid reason to show that this article fails to meet the holy trinity of WP:N that is WP:V by WP:RS, then lets get the nasty unnecessary thing expunged with all possible haste!
Otherwise this comment is nowhere near being an action that's likely to encourage the goals of the project, the growth of an encyclopedia or the support of a content creator (that despicable bunch, with the temerity to edit in mainspace outside of WP:*). I do question why you felt it was necessary to add it. 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 15:58, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I unfortunately had a feeling that question would arise at some point. Well I hope we do need this article as it is very well written, well referenced, interesting and obviously the result of hard work by its initial creator (just look at the first iteration of the article) - and Wikipedia needs more articles like it. It's not as if it's taking up space that could be used by something else is it? In terms of a feature on an episode, it may not be notable (there aren't other articles on individual TG items), but it's apparent that the feature recorded an arguably notable event (for the train) beyond the confines of Top Gear. TG fans (myself very much included) should remember that occasionally (as with the Polar Challenge) Top Gear is just a part of the action and was arguably very much along for the ride on this one. Is there a strong justification to wipe out a lot of hard work? (I'm not sensing a strong argument for its deletion in any of the above, just a bit of a test...) Halsteadk (talk) 19:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I suppose that I was a little too concerned that the artifle fails WP:N. If I'mm honest, I am a big Top Gear fan, but I'm still unsure about the notability of this challenge. I agree that the Polar Challenge is notible enough for it's own article, but I'm just not too sutre about this one, even if it is good. Looneyman (talk) 10:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Then have the nerve to AfD it. Sitting back and sniping at the work of other editors, and one editor in particular who seems to offend by writing high-quality articles out of nowhere, is not helpful to the project. Hiding behind WP:N is ridiculous and fools no-one. Policy is clear enough, and this very obviously meets it. Where does it say that it's a good idea to repeatedly attack the very editors who write the good content? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Firstly, I wanted to be sure that it was a definite violation of policy before I nominated it and on closer reading, I can see that the article does pass notability (so therefore, I withdraw my concerns). Secondly, I wasn't sniping and hiding. I was expressing my concerns while seeing what other users thought. Finally, your comment seemed (in my opinion) close to violating WP:ATTACK. I don't want to get into an abuse war with anyone. Looneyman (talk) 15:07, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I think the concern Andy is voicing is that the mere talk of deletion of an article raises the risk that it will happen. There are editors at WP who seem to take delight in deleting articles, and waving an article under their noses invites trouble! -- EdJogg (talk) 16:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I have two concerns: firstly, as Ed says, deletion breeds deletion. More importantly though, I've seen a number of articles now from this editor where they've produced a pretty good article out of their own work, only to have it immediately attacked as unnecessary and targetted for deletion. These weren't problematic articles, in one case it was a narrow article that was obviously rather better than the existing article on the broader topic was after a few years work. It's difficult to think why some editors see their only role as in finding the quickest reason to delete something at all? Yet posting "Thanks for your recent work, let's delete it immediately" is never seen as WP:ATTACK, is it? Andy Dingley (talk) 17:05, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Can we end this discussion now. I see all of your concerns and I accept them. Furthermore, after reading the article, I now see tha article passes notability and there is no need for deletion. I never intended to attack anybody, I was just voicing the concerns at the time. Looneyman (talk) 19:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
That's fine by me. Let's put it down to the difficulties of communication in an ASCII-only medium. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Strictly speaking, this is Unicode, not ASCII. :-) Warren -talk- 19:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)