Talk:Top Gear (2002 TV series)/Archive 8

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Racism?

I'm not sure why the article suggests that making a reference to Nazi g=Germany is racist, so I've removed it. As far as I am aware, the Nazis were more or less all Caucasian German and not their own race, thus I've changed it to supposed 'xenophobia'. 90.214.234.36 (talk) 11:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Top Gear Races AFD

There is currently an AFD for the deletion of Top Gear Races at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Top_Gear_Races. --aktsu (t / c) 12:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Merger

oppose the critisisimm is necacary and the main article is too long anyway to add it in.  rdunnPLIB  19:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose proposed merging. The criticism article was created because the main article was too long and messy. I fit was merged back, those problems would resurface. Looneyman (talk) 16:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose there is sufficient criticism and accompanying material related to whether that criticism is valid, to make it notable in its own right. Also as per rdunnPLIB and Looneyman's comments. Halsteadk (talk) 18:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose - No suitable reason to be merged, the article is long enough as it is. jenuk1985 (talk) 20:08, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

DVD releases - ridiculous level of detail - split to separate article?

Having just seen the words "This DVD Was Issued With Top Gear Magazine And Could Be Found In Two Styles- A Standard DVD Case And A Cardboard Sleeve" in this list, I can't help thinking this is way beyond the realms of useful or interesting information, especially for this main article (although I doubt it would be particularly useful or interesting anywhere). Unfortunately removing the text (even from all of the entries) won't make the list much shorter - I wonder if the list needs to be a separate article? Halsteadk (talk) 18:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

  • Oppose Can't see that there is enough in the section to warrant moving it into it's own article yet. However, should the section get rediculously big, then it should. But right now, I don't think it's big enough. Looneyman (talk) 12:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Strong Support It would go some way to de-cluttering this article, and will allow the section to be expanded (which shouldn't be too difficult) jenuk1985 (talk) 14:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Support, List of Top Gear DVD releases would be fine with me. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Support, as per above>  rdunnPLIB  10:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose Good grief, does this really merit its own article? Cut it down to a reasonable level and leave it where it is.

PROPOSAL Semi-protection

Over the past month, this page seems to have attracted a silly level of vandalism. All I seem to see in the recent edit history is vandalism and people reverting it. Is it worth applying semi-protection to stop newly registered users and annonymous users from editing? Looneyman (talk) 10:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Do episode guides need inclusion of reactions to segments/episodes?

User:Warren has insisted that reactions to certain segments/episodes of Top Gear need to be included in the respective Top Gear Episode lists, rather than the catch-all page Criticism of Top Gear. I'm of the position that unless said reactions are mentioned in the episodes itself, then it would be fine. But since many are not, they need to be put in their respective page.

Here are the episode lists and what was put in:

Now upon looking at other TV Episode lists for other TV shows on Wikipedia, many do fine without references to any reactions and whatnot, a/or make special pages/sections to address the issues arising from the shows airing. The articles need to follow this trend, otherwise, why do we have a Criticism of Top Gear page in the first place when we don't put stuff into it??

I ask for input into this matter.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 09:13, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Many of the criticisms have been of a major issue (such as the Lorry drivrer's and prostitutes row) and incidents that put the show on headline news or attract opposition from governments are notworthy enough to be dealt with seperately. I agree that something minor can be put into the relevant section (like the tree damage on the Toyota Hilux test) but anything major should be left as is. Looneyman (talk) 14:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Please read -- for the first time, perhaps? -- Wikipedia:Criticism. It pretty strongly discourages moving all criticism to a separate article. Your attempts to remove all sign of criticism from these articles is a rather vile attempt to unbalance the articles in favour of non-critical content, which is not only considered Wikipedia:Content forking, but is explicitly against Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy. This is behaviour that needs to stop, immediately.
Wikipedia has plenty of television show articles that have information outside of a basic description of the episode in them. Look at The Simpsons (e.g. Treehouse of Horror IV) and Dr. Who articles (e.g. Journey's End (Doctor Who)), for two prominent examples of information that's not in show, being present in Wikipedia right beside information about the episode itself. If criticism or other reception information gets pushed off into an article like Criticism of Top Gear, how is a person supposed to know that a particular show was criticised (or, for that matter, lauded) in the media or by notable interest groups?
More generally, it's surely quite fine to include information or extra details that make the subject easier to understand. For example, I just added some information on the fact that a Saab 9-3 SportWagon was shown in an episode in series 6; they didn't mention the model name in the show, but the encyclopedia becomes more interesting and useful if we identify it ourselves. And that's what it comes down to, really -- informing our readers. When we completely slice pieces of information out and put it in other articles, especially without identifying the fact that the information is in another article, as you seem to be satisfied with doing, we damage the quality and informative value of the encyclopedia. There's nothing wrong with having information in two places -- in many cases, it's absolutely necessary. Warren -talk- 14:26, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Point 1: I've warned you about your manners Warren, stop being abusive. Continue on with that line of talk and I will seek alternative means to settle the matter at hand in a civil way. You are not helping yourself by verbally abusing me like that. I'm willing to see your side, but act like you want to resolve the matter, not act like a spoiled brat.

Nevermind, i've seen the edit summaries on the pages. I'm done seeing Warrens side. I request a Moderator and other users step in the matter as this matter has gotten quite personal.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Please note that I have posted an alert to Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts to attempt to resolve the issue of abusive language in an attempt to settle the content dispute. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 20:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Right, I think I found a fair compromise. The O.C. (season 1) has sections at the beginning of the list where they detail cast/crew, and other assorted info. I figure that any little tidbits about certain episodes can be put into sections rather than in the list itself. Good idea to stop the bickering?

Oh and, we don't need "Excess info" that wasn't mentioned in the episode itself. Alot of cars served as background pieces, there is no need for such information. Unless you want to detail every single appearance of the "Indestructible Hilux".--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 22:12, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

First of all, before we even get to the content dispute -- making exaggerations to try and bolster an argument is an extremely weak form of argumentation and debate. When having discussions with anybody, anywhere, you should do your absolute best to avoid it -- exaggerations are entirely unconvincing and only serves to turn people off of the real point your trying to make. Dane Cook (of all people) on his Retaliation album put it like this: "When you start to exaggerate, I don't follow the story, I follow the exaggeration, and it gets me frustrated, because you'd be like 'Oh my God, Dane, there was a fire down the street from my house, there was like a thousand fire-fighters out there' .... no there was not! That's way too many fire-fighters!"
Your assertion that I'd want to detail every time a particular car appears (which is present in the studio for the vast majority of the aired episodes) is a useless thing to say. If you review my edit history, you will not find me promoting anything vaguely resembling that idea, either on Top Gear episode articles or on anything else I've worked on in three and a half years of participation.
On to the content dispute.
There is a careful balance to be found between informative detail and excessive detail. In a good encyclopedia article, every sentence should tell a reader something interesting; it should be educational, informative, enlightening. It should lead the reader on and encourage them to read more. Saying, for example, that a particular film made extensive use of music from a certain soundtrack or album is informative because then a reader will go, "Ah-ha! I liked that music, and now I can click this Wiki-link to find out more!" ... likewise with many other prominent things seen in the show, even if they aren't explicitly identified -- maybe it's the name of a bridge, a town, or a region. But -- and this is where you disagree with both me & Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy -- this goal of providing good informative value also means that we need to cover issues related to the creation and broadcasting of the episode, especially if such issues have been widely covered in the press. It might be something positive, such as the episode winning an award, or it might be something negative, like critical reaction from notable groups who take issue with how the episode was created or broadcast. Wikipedia cannot choose to discriminate in favour of one or against the other -- both laudatory and critical reception needs to be mentioned.
Yes, we have an separate article documenting criticism of the show. Yes, this means the criticism appears in two places. That's all perfectly fine. What we cannot do, per both WP:NPOV and WP:CFORK, is allow the dispassionate, informative detail sit entirely separately from the criticism. That doesn't mean we have to cover the entire issue, verbatim, inside both articles; the episode list articles could, for example, have a couple of sentences of introductory material about the criticism, and then a link to Criticism of Top Gear could be included to lead readers to the more detailed rendition of the criticism.
That's all I really have to say on the issue; you can either choose to accept that NPOV and CFORK apply to every single article on the encyclopedia, and work within the established policies and guidelines -- or not. Which side of this are you going to be on? Warren -talk- 23:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Oops -- almost forgot to address your compromise suggestion. The criticism & reception in The O.C. (season 1) covers the season as a whole. Accordingly, it makes good sense for it to be gathered together at the topic article. What we're addressing here is criticism of individual episodes. Warren -talk- 23:31, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Again, focus on the content, not the contributor. Until you can stop attacking me and just focus on the matter at hand, I'm just gonna ignore your banter and do it myself. I suggested a compromise, and your first paragraph attacks me. Do you want to end the dispute or not?
Oh P.S.- I created both the original Episode List Templates and the infobox at the bottom of the Top Gear Articles, not to mention finding a free image of The Stig, so don't think I didn't contribute greatly to Top Gear on Wikipedia. --293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 01:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you two need an extra opinion, the most appropriate place for specific criticisms is in the individual episode pages, as we don't have individual episode pages for Top Gear, the next logical place to put them is on the series pages. See how it is done on the various Doctor Who episodes for examples. Jenuk1985 | Talk 00:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I had a look with the Tenth Doctor's episodes, and it does match what was seen in The O.C. (season 1). Since there is no episode articles for each Top Gear episode (barring any future editorial choices), the only logical thing is to make a section (Reception and Reaction?) preceding the List and sub-section it to specific Episodes that need the references instead of embedding it directly into the episode lists. That way, the information is forward and easy to pick-out. As is, it's so deeply embedded into the list template, it's kinda hard to find in some cases.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 01:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

fastest car

the fastest car is the bugatti veyron at 253 miles per hour (407 kmh) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.70.228.100 (talk) 19:08, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Rather irrelevant if you ask me. Looneyman (talk) 16:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Did you watch the episode the Bugatti was on? It may be the worlds fastest car, however it was NOT the fastest car on the track, when compared to the Pagani Zonda on the Top Gear track conveniently on the same episode the Zonda was faster. The Gumball is the fastest in case your wondering. Bumpyrat (talk) 09:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


Sorry, I meant Gumpert* not Gumball, but here is the official track timing list. Track Times:

  1. Gumpert: 1.17:1
  2. Ascari Alo: 1:17.3
  3. Koenigsegg CCX: 1:17.6
  4. Pagani Zonda Convertable: 1:17.8
  5. Bugatti Veyron: 1:18.3
  6. Nissan Zonda F: 1:18.4
  7. Maserati MC12: 1:18.9

Bumpyrat (talk) 10:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Top Gear Specials

I've had a look through the Top Gear Template and I've noticed that the US, Polar and Vietnam specials all have their own articles, but the Botswana specials don't. Why is this the case. Also, do the specials need seperate articles or could we make a single article for all four specials? Looneyman (talk) 16:53, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I suppose people just found the first three more interesting- can't say I agree, but I don't really feel like writing the article right now. Can't see any reason the specials all need individual articles myself. Nevard (talk) 14:27, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Too many references to the 6/21/09 Stig clip

There are too many references to the supposed identity of The Stig, that was aired on 6/21/09. It seems every line that references him has the blurb about it being Michael Schumacher. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.221.88.81 (talk) 03:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree . The show itself revealed the "Schu is the Stig" gag to be a joke. In addition, it has previously been noted that the Stig has very dark (almost black) hair which does not fit Schumacher. People need to bear in mind that not everything on Top Gear is intended seriously. CrispMuncher (talk) 13:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Given that Schumacher owns the Ferrari FXX that he drove for the power lap, it would make sense that to wind people up over the 'who is the stig?' the top gear guys got Schumacher in to test the car and pretend to be the Stig. I find it very unlikely that he is the Stig. I changed the opening paragraph of the article to reflect that the episode ended with Jeremy saying that he didn't think that Schumacher was the Stig. I did a brief scan of the article to find more references to Schumacher being the Stig, but could not find any. Until it is confirmed/disproven, Schumacher being the Stig should only be mentioned once in the article. So if you find any other references to this remove them and leave it simply as the Stig. DrMotley (talk) 17:27, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
I noticed BBC News was running a story that simplicity discredited the theory, I'll try and gig up a reference. CrispMuncher (talk) 21:59, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Ferrari FXX

The qualification for the power board is that the vehicle being tested must be a road-legal production car. Why is the Ferrari FXX on the power board? WikiABG (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Whilst it is true that the qualification is to be a road legal production car, it is also possible for vehicles that do not meet that criteria to appear on the list, as a comparison to the other power laps, but are then removed. This is true of the Sea Harrier Jump Jet which obtained a lap speed of 0.31.2, and will most probably be true of the FXX. DrMotley (talk) 17:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
The Ferrari FXX was actually removed from the power laps board in the episode that aired today. Clarkson said that this was because the car violated the rules about slick tires, though it's more likely because it isn't a road legal car. Looneyman (talk) 22:07, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Article is too bloody long....again.

We had the problem when we had to shunt Power Laps and Star in a Reasonably Priced Car into Top Gear Test Track, now the article seems to be extremely overloaded with "too many examples" and even more fancruft. The Criticism alone should be pared down and most of the info thrown into Criticism of Top Gear, and i'm not even too sure which sections should stay and which section need to be excised.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 07:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm tempted to delete most of the criticism section leaving just the link to the criticism article, since everything in that section is already in the criticism article. Looneyman (talk) 16:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Let's get rid of the Allegations of Bigotry and homophobia for a start? El Greco(talk) 17:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Done. What next?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 05:59, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Morris Minors

Considering how the car does have a fairly large impact on the show (3 pianos dropped and counting), should it be included somewhere in the article?86.131.172.138 (talk) 21:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This is already in the second paragraph of "History". Please bear in mind this is an article covering 14 series of over 100 episodes so not every running joke can be covered in detail. (It's Morris Marina not Morris Minor b.t.w) Halsteadk (talk) 22:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

List of award also-rans

Can anyone give me one good reason why a list of award also-rans is in any way relevant to an article on Top Gear, particularly given the article is getting increasingly burdened by length and excess detail already? I've reverted the edit twice as has at least one other editor, and we're verging on an edit war over what is clearly not WP:NOTABLE and is simply WP:INDISCRIMINATE information. Drmargi (talk) 07:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

There are very good reasons, and in addition, for a third time you have turned that paragraph into nonsense. But fuck it, your attitude doesn't even make me want to explain it to you, and I get the impression you would neither undertstand or care anyway. So have it your way, innaccurate, incomplete, uninformative and a nice surprise for some people following section redirects. Of all the total pages and pages of shit hosted on this article and you are bothered about three lines which actually attempt to position the show in context of popularity over the decade. When editors start chucking out ACRONYMS which aren't even relevant (don't bother asking how or why, see above) is a sure sign that the time has come to ignore an issue. MickMacNee (talk) 08:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh, that's mature. And BTW, someone else did the original edits; I reverted (twice, not three times) back to that edit in part because of the needless list of also-rans and in part because your reason for leaving them is largely incoherent. Perhaps, once you finish throwing your toys out of your pram, you could consider re-edting in such a way that the point could be made without enumerating the runners up. Or not. It's up to you. But before you do, you might want to consider refreshing your memory wrt WP:CIVIL. Drmargi (talk) 09:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
(ec) I'm not surprised given previous statements, but it's probably escaped you that edit warring from an admitted position of ignorance of the facts is not civil behaviour in the first place, and trying to justify incivil behaviour by invoking CIVIL afterwards isn't actually civil behaviour either, its just more evidence that you know a few ACRONYMS without actually knowing what they mean. I know the policies, just like I know how to count and read a history log, and your assumption that I can do neither is only further evidence of the futility of this interaction, as you seem to think you know my mind better than I do, which is, you guessed it, not civil behaviour either. As before, you can have it, I am wasting my time here talking to you. It is not 'up to me' at all, your knowledge and attitude are the reason why doing anything further would be pointless. MickMacNee (talk) 13:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I did the first copy edit. Yes, the fact that TG won the poll is notable. I would say it's probably also notable to include the two runners-up to put it in some sort of context as a popular show. However, a comprehensive list of others is completely irrelevant to the content of this article. Having said that, there's nothing wrong with it within an article about the Greatest TV Shows... programme itself: that's where it properly belongs. Chris 42 (talk) 12:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
You've addressed half the issues with the c/e, and almost touched on the other problem with the removal, but as above, I really can't be bothered further. MickMacNee (talk) 13:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Mick, your response to all this is spectacularly out of proportion, and makes far more sweeping assumptions than those of which you (erroneously) accuse me. For example I'm not questioning your ability to read an edit history or count, but if you can make four reverts, two by me and two by you since Chris' original copyedit add up to three by me, more power to you. By my count, it's two reverts to get rid of a pointless, non-notable and indiscriminate list of runners up. As for the rest about incivility and assumptions -- that's just Grade AA nonsense. Perhaps it's time to step back, and take a breather, given your level of anger and how personally you're taking this edit. Drmargi (talk) 23:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Well yes, it would seem a little thing to you, because as we've already established, you really haven't got the first clue what the reasons were for my first revert, but edit warred anyway with dickish edit summaries, only later attempting to justify your actions with an incivil post here while chucking out utterly irrelevant ACRONYMS and still not really getting it, and then after all that you accuse me of being incivil to you, of all things. The innaccurate information was inserted once and at the same time turning an incoming section redirect into nonsense. This was reverted once by me, pointing out the innaccuracy and broken nav introduced, with an initial attempt to justify the rest of the material. Chris 42 can maybe be excused for making a simple mistake in his first copy edit, but at least he did not edit war, but the navigation error and innaccuracies of it had already been pointed out in my summary, and probably could have been covered further here as normal, if not understood. But before that happened, you decided to jump in, and edit warred to reinsert these errors not once, but twice, and the result is above. The only Grade AA thing here is your total inability to realise when you don't know what you are talking about, but have no problem trying to tell others what's what anyway and generally acting like a dick, and then claim others are taking things out of proportion. MickMacNee (talk) 14:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

You state that there are "very good reasons" but the only one you give is to demonstrate the popularity of the show in context to others shown during the last decade. There is nothing wrong with that — just not within this article, which concerns itself with only one of the programmes listed. I'm sorry, but I genuinely don't understand your grievance about "incoming section redirects", etc. Why would anyone following a link from one of those articles want to end up at this particular section? Surely if they were interested enough to know what else was on the list, they'd want to see it in full within an article about the Channel 4 show? It's a simple case of what is notable in relation to TG and what isn't. Apologies if I've misunderstood you but your posts unfortunately contain a bit more heat than light at the moment. :-) Chris 42 (talk) 18:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Its simple - there is no article on the full list, and there likely never will be, but as a substitute, there is a navigation redirect to it from The Greatest TV Shows of the Noughties (Channel 4) to that section, which now obviously makes no sense at all. Secondly, without a separate list elsewhere, having it here showing the programmes TG beat is quite clearly relevant in the context of the shows popularity (we are talking about a decade list here), and it is more relevant as encyclopoedic content about TG than 99% of the stuff included in this article, much of which is pure fancruft (which is what this list was ludicrously called in a revert). Characterising it as an undue burden on the length when it is barely two lines long, is clearly not supportable at all. Finally, your copyedit version makes it sound as if YouGov polled industry executives and critics, as well as a thousand people, in their survey to produce the list, which I very much doubt happened, and besides, this is not what the sources said anyway so it should not state it. I could and would have eplained all of this calmly way before know, had the events described above not occured. MickMacNee (talk) 18:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Best of lists are a dime a dozen at the end of any year, and particularly when a decade rolls over. What makes this one in particular so special that the results are WP:NOTABLE, much less belong in this article? If they're important enough to enumerate, they're important enough for their own article, not a redirect to one article on the list. Detail on methodology makes clear you have a very small sample size, and that makes the results questionable. But that's a secondary issue. You've still got the issue of WP:INDISCRIMINATE information to deal with. Too much of what you're attempting to add (and overall length isn't the only metric) simply has no relevance to Top Gear. What you need to do is fix the redirect and put the list in its own article, or in an article about best-of lists, or some darned thing like that rather than using this article to store a list that is far more unrelated than related to it. Drmargi (talk) 19:03, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Look, the simple fact is, WP:NOTABLE does not govern article text, and WP:INDISCRIMINATE is even less relevant to article text, so there is no point even linking to them. But anyway, if by using those irrelevant links, you are trying to argue that in your personal opinion the list is neither worth mentioning, or relevant to the article, then if you have any example of any other Best TV shows of the Decade which Top Gear came top in and made the mainstream media, then let's have them, and ideally, they will also have involved the actual presenters commenting in it and commenting in RS on it, as this did. If you can do that, to give some actual backing to your view that this particular list is a 'dime a dozen', that's fine, it can stay out. But simply insisting I should move it somewhere else because you say so, that is just not going to happen. As a general rule, we don't exclude valid information that is misplaced or should be elsewhere unitl it can be put somewhere else, but you've already shown that it would be pointless to try to adhere to that in this case. MickMacNee (talk) 19:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

The text was slightly ambiguous on my first edit, which led to my misunderstanding. Hopefully the YouGov reference is clearer now. Chris 42 (talk) 21:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

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