User talk:F1steveuk

June 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from Reid Railton. When removing text, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the text has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Just read the book? Dozen cites in the index? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Removed reference to Barry Stobart-Hook "The Last Crusader", on the request of Railton's daughter, who disagrees with the content of that title.

Re: Removal of Steve Holter article

I deleted it because its proposed deletion tag had expired. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the article per the PROD policy, but please keep in mind that in general you shouldn't edit articles about yourself. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, It had links to other pages, it was verified, can't see why it was removed, especially as much of the text from my book on Sir Malcolm and Donald Campbell has been lifted without permission and appears on Wiki pages on the Campbells and Blue Bird and Bluebrid vehicles. Only the info' lifted for the Rolls-Royce R type article has any acknowledgement!!

I have also been accused of "vandalising" the Reid Railton, I removed a reference to a book by Barry Stobart-Hook. I did this after contacting Wiki, as Railton's daughter strongly disagrees with the content of this book and wishes to discuss it with Mr Stobart-Hook. I expalined this and was told to remove it, I then got quite a rude message telling me to leave it alone!!

I am quite happy to proof read land/water speed related articles, but having my many years of research "borrowed" is a tad annoying!!

Many thanks

Steve Holter

It had links to other pages, it was verified, can't see why it was removed, especially as much of the text from my book on Sir Malcolm and Donald Campbell has been lifted without permission and appears on Wiki pages on the Campbells and Blue Bird and Bluebrid vehicles. Only the info' lifted for the Rolls-Royce R type article has any acknowledgement!!

I have also been accused of "vandalising" the Reid Railton, I removed a reference to a book by Barry Stobart-Hook. I did this after contacting Wiki, as Railton's daughter strongly disagrees with the content of this book and wishes to discuss it with Mr Stobart-Hook. I expalined this and was told to remove it, I then got quite a rude message telling me to leave it alone!!

I am quite happy to proof read land/water speed related articles, but having my many years of research "borrowed" is a tad annoying!!

Many thanks

Steve Holter

Dear Mr Holter, If you're claiming copyright violations from your book in any of the Campbell articles, then please state so openly and don't insinuate. I object most strongly to that, especially as I authored much of those articles and although I'm aware of your book it's not actually in print, I don't have a copy and haven't read it. The story of the Campbells is hardly a secret either.

Are you accusing me of having lifted copyright material from your book? Which sections, which articles?

You did not "contact Wiki" before deleting a bibliography entry from the Reid Railton article, only after repeated unacknowledged and unexplained deletions of it. These were reverted, as per policy, and with due warning, to which you didn't respond until after several reversions. Even then you haven't identified any real issue here (Wikipedia policy is to be strongly supportive of any real issue in biographies). You claim to be representing a vaguely identified relative, about some unspecified issue with the book, which you still haven't explained. It's a long stretch to imagine just what can be so terrible that it demands removal of all reference to the book entirely! It's also quite a useful book, as it's on the little-described Crusader, rather than K7 about which books are so commonplace. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:26, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Dear Andy.

I'm a little taken aback by the tone of your message. Maybe I can answer your points, one at a time.

I indeed sent an e mail to Wiki asking if a block could be put on the link to the Stobbart=Hook book, and explained the reason for this. I still have the response, which I shall be happy to forward.

Mrs Joslin (nee Railton), Ried's daughter, has many queries regarding the this book, and to be honest I would have thought if there was ANY doubt, Wiki would have been happier to remove it until such time as any problems could be rectified? The major issue is who actually designed Crusader, and even I have seen this as a matter symantics, but there are suggestions in the book that Railton was happy to allow certain design features to be included (flat planing surfaces for example) which he most certainly was not happy about. As the design of the forward shoe lead to the final accident, and Cobb's death, I think that is fairly "terrible".

I apologise for not answering the first "warnings" about the removal, but to be frank, wiki's messaging system isn't the most user friendly, and I simply did not know how too, although there is evidence I did try.

I am so glad you feel K7 has been so "commonplace". I think (had you read my book) that Leap into Legend was the first, and only book to be written about Sir Malcolm and Donald Campbell as well as ALL the Blue Bird and Bluebirds (not just K7)that had the input of ALL the family and team members, as well as the designers, and was indeed written at the suggestion of Donald's sister Jean to correct the oft quoted errors of past books. Perhaps if 'Leap' had been read, the K7 article would be more accurate than it is? (The blown canopy for example was fitted in 1959 and not 1966 as suggested, and Donald brought the Midge (not Gnat) trainer BEFORE the conversion,that's where the tailfin came from, but these are just two of many points).

As regards my questioning material being lifted, there was no insinuation, I said it had been lifted, I quote,

"The cause of the crash --------potentially a cut-out of the jet engine caused by fuel starvation. Some evidence for this last possibility may be seen in film recordings of the crash - as the nose of the boat climbs and the jet exhaust points at the water surface no disturbance or spray can be seen at all".

Leap was the first book to bring both of these matters to print as it was Ken Norris and I who made some of the original analysis of enhanced footage, and agreed between us to publish.

I could go on, but I did offer to proof read and correct these inaccuracies for Wiki. As Leap was only fetching £399 second hand as "The" title on matters Campbell and Bluebird", and one is being auctioned at Bonhams at Goodwood soon, estimated at £300-400 it can't be as poor as you think?

I am currently writing Railton's biography, which I hope to have finished by Christmas.

Over to you!

Regards

Steve

AfD Nomination: Steve Holter

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, but all Wikipedia articles must meet our criteria for inclusion (see What Wikipedia is not and Deletion policy). Since it does not seem that Steve Holter meets these criteria, an editor has started a discussion about whether this article should be kept or deleted.

Your opinion on whether this article meets the inclusion criteria is welcome. Please contribute to the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Holter. Don't forget to add four tildes (~~~~) at the end of each of your comments to sign them.

Discussions such as these usually last seven days. In the meantime, you are free to edit the content of the article. Please do not remove the "articles for deletion" template (the box at the top). When the discussion has concluded, a neutral third party will consider all comments and decide whether or not to delete the article. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:33, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Leap Into Legend image

Totally separate issue, but are you aware that File:LeapIntoLegend.JPG is now on the Commons?

It's licensed there under a CC-by-sa licence, which means that anyone can print and sell commercial T shirts etc. with it. This might not be quite what you or the artist expected! Although there's an OTRS ticket recorded for it, I haven't seen that and I would rather doubt that this Commons licence is acceptable to the copyright owner - it may require some review of that licence. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:45, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Andy

Very interesting, I will inform Arthur (Benjamins) although the image shown is a very early draft of the cover, never used, and never realeased, how do people get hold of these things!!??

Steve

Presumably from Arthur Benjamins? That looks like artwork on board (look at the margins), not even a scan of the book. I suspect that if there's an OTRS ticket then there really is permission for some use of it (maybe hosted on Wikipedia, for use in the artist's article), but it shouldn't then be licensed with an open licence and it shouldn't be moved to the Commons. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Reid Railton

Andy

I have received today, a large envelope from Sally Joslin (Railton), Reid Railton’s daughter.

I have been going through the data for the biography I am writing, and Sally has returned the following extract from a text I wrote and sent her for another project. She has commented, “I feel this should be on the Wikipedia page”.

“Railton was well known for his design work on road, race and record breaking vehicles. His personal conversion of the American, Hudson Terraplane into the Railton road car came about from his desire to have a car with American build quality, that was more suited to the British driving environment. He worked with Raymond Mays and Freddie Dixon on the development from racing Riley to what was to become the ERA (English Racing Automobiles) series of racing cars. He designed and supervised the construction of the Napier Railton circuit car for John Cobb, and was also responsible for the development of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s highly successful Blue Bird car, before designing the incredibly advanced, twin engined Napier Railton land speed car, again for John Cobb. Through his office at Thomson & Taylor, at the Brooklands race track, he also produced the all enveloping bodywork for the MG Ex135 of Goldie Gardner.

Cars were not Railton’s only forte however. He was also heavily involved in the designs of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird K3 and K4 hydroplanes. The hull of Blue Bird K3 was designed by Fred Cooper, while Railton’s task was to squeeze in the engine and drive train, but the single step hydroplane proved very unstable, and Railton suggested a new hull, based on the Ventnor three point principle, invented by Alfred Apel. Design work was again started by Cooper and Railton, but was completed by Railton and Commander Peter Du Cane of Vosper Ltd.

When John Cobb began looking at making an attempt on the water speed record, Railton produced the original concept and layout that was to become Crusader, which was taken from concept to finished craft, again by Vospers, under Du Cane and Railton’s supervision. It was in this craft that John Cobb was killed in September 1952, while attempting the world water speed record on Loch Ness.

In 1939, and the onset of World War two, Railton was requested by the admiralty, to relocate to the United States of America, to supervise several major war projects. He relocated to Berkley, California, with the Hall, Scott Motor Company, where he contributed his engineering skill towards the Liberty Ship scheme amongst other.

Railton died in Berkley in 1977 at the age of 82.”

Again, she has asked for the link to Barry Stobart-Hooks book to be removed, as she sees it as “too flawed to be attached to my father’s name”.

I have e mailed her and passed on an edited form of your comments, and stated that it cannot simply be removed, and I await her response on this. As for the above, please feel free to cut and paste any information to the Railton article, and hopefully in time I can send you edited extracts from the manuscript to fill in some more detail?

I will also try and locate a copy of Leap into Legend for you if you feel it will be of help?

Regards

Steve

Thanks for your notes here. Hopefully we can all use this to move forwards with better article content all round.

• I'm really unhappy to delete a book reference, i.e. all mention of a book. A book has got to be pretty bad before we get to that point!
• The article doesn't even cite any specific references from that book, it merely lists it as further reading. This is my fault: sheer lack of time to do anything more with it. I would like to extend this use, so that specific cites on specific information can be attached to it. Would you really go so far as to say that as general background reading we should ignore this book? There's not much else around on Crusader, certainly not that's cheap and available today.
• There's no mention made of precisely what's wrong with the book. Perhaps surprisingly I'd agree with you that errors in this book aren't something that we should propagate - but just what are they? Are any of the statements in this book that we might wish to cite still accurate and useful references for it? If so, then the book is still useful to mention.
• The more inaccurate the book is, the more important it is to mention those points (suitably phrased and referenced of course). An encyclopedia's primary role might be to convey correct information, but an important secondary role is to correct misunderstandings where they're widespread or stated in seemingly "authoritative" sources.

Andy Dingley (talk) 16:06, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Seems very resonable to me! I'll await Sally's reply and get back asap, in the mean time maybe leave the link as further reading with note that references to railton aren't sanctioned by the Railton family? As I said, I understand Sally's feelings, but there has to be a degree of bias in what she feels in respect of her father, and I'd be pretty uncomfortable siting a list of errors in someone else's book, some, like Blue Bird for Sir Malcolm, Bluebird for Donald are a bit "nit picky". I'll drop Barry a message and see if the two of us can't do something between us, although as he knows of my association with Sally, and is aware of her thoughts, it might be interesting!!!

Please be assured of my best intentions here, as you say we're here to educate and remind!!!

all the best

Steve

"Blue Bird for Sir Malcolm, Bluebird for Donald" That's (AFAIR) from Tremayne. Would you disagree? Andy Dingley (talk) 17:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No, that's right, I gave David the document from Leo Villa that explained that (we used to work together in Formula One) All of Sir Malcolm's were 'The Blue Bird" as in the play. Donald started with his father's K4, and kept the name. When K7 was named, Leo suggested that it needed a "new name to show a new pilot" and so it became one word for Donald's craft. My reference to "The Last Crusader was that they are all called "Bluebird" in that title.