Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Puddle Duck Racer

Puddle Duck Racer

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Unreferenced by any independent sources (one claimed, but it's dead). No significant indication that this simple dinghy design has achieved any notability.

Bit of an ongoing POV spam issue across other articles too. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:56, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question. Hi Andy. Are you suggesting that in addition to its apparent lack of independent RSs currently reflected within the article, you did a wp:before search and could not find any? Or a sufficient number? Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:42, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BURDEN, the fact that it's not an area I'm familiar with (I can work Google, but I'm not going to judge advertorial vs. serious comment), but mostly the egregious spamming of this boat and this article that has gone on across other articles. AGF is not a suicide pact with self-promoting spammers. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a big fan of wp:burden, so no argument there. But that goes to the issue of whether to delete material from an article, as unverified. There is a different burden at AfD, which is set forth in wp:before. That's what I was thinking of.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:59, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As above. It's a boat: it does at least exist and they have been built to this design. However it has the hydrodynamics of a housebrick. Is this a useful boat? Is it easy access to sailing for weekend constructors, or is it a waste of good plywood that sails like a wardrobe with a mast on it? That needs significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, which I would also contend requires significant coverage claiming that it's a credible boat, not merely that it's a box-shaped thing that it's possible to construct. The nearest comparison I can think of would be the Mirror dinghy, which has been around rather longer, yet is a product of the tiny UK rather than US, and still it has something like a hundred times as many constructed boats. Have enough Puddle Ducks been built to make it notable? Clearly this is not a design that changes the history of navigation such to require a puffery addition "PDRacer The Easiest Boat To Build Yourself" to Boat (as has been repeatedly removed of late). Is it though a workable boat? – I'm leaving that one up to the dinghy sailors to judge.

Also, as endless dragging of TenPoundHammer to ANI has demonstrated, WP:BEFORE is optional and can be ignored with impunity. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I was curious about this one, because when nominated it really was in a bad state, yet I'd encountered this boat at a couple of wooden boat festivals so I was curious. In digging, there seems to be enough about to get past the GNG - it certainly isn't as notable as the Mirror (nice to see Andy mentioning it - it is one of my favorite dinghy designs), but it seems that the low cost and rapid construction using the box design has picked up some converts, and has led to some coverage here and there. Mostly as a result of group builds, but so be it. I suspect that there might be more in the wooden boat magazines, but the main one I'm thinking of doesn't have online archives. - Bilby (talk) 07:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep There is ample evidence that the PDRacer does exist, many of them have been built world wide, see the member list at the pdracer website. For that reason alone, the wikipedia page for the PDRacer should not be removed.

Reading User:Andy Dingley comments above, it is evident that his reasons for requesting the pdracer wikipedia page be removed, is because Andy has a personal bias objecting to the unconventional shape of the pdracer, also objects that it was created in the US instead of the UK where Andy lives. Andy also indicates he did no research before requesting the removal of the PDRacer wiki page, which supports his motive of personal bias. Further looking at Andy's contribution and edit history, it appears Andy is not a sailor, has little or no knowledge of anything to do with boats, so I question why is he trying to slash and burn in subjects he has no command of.

I want to thank Bilby for his extensive work he has done to clean up the PDRacer wiki page. Reading other comments from Bilby, it appears he doesn't have a puddle duck, but he went ahead and spent extensive amounts of his personal time collecting references from across the web to include with the pdracer wiki page and used his extensive wikipedia editing skills to clean up the text of the pdracer wiki page to make it sound professional, informative, concise and accurate. Due to the positive effort of people like Bilby to help others, Wikipedia is the greatest information source in the world. In addition to that, the world wide puddle duck community shall benefit from Bilby's work. Many people talk of making the world a better place, this effort of Bilby is an example of a person actually doing that. Buthsop