Talk:Beetle Cat

Nothing but advertising

This reads like an out-and-out piece of commercial advertising taken directly from a company brochure. I think it should be deleted. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's work on improving the article. no need to delete it. Kingturtle (talk) 02:44, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to admit that that's a better approach. I ran across this article in course of looking for something else, and was a bit too impatient. So, yes, improvement is better than deletion. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to find some time this week to work on it. Kingturtle (talk) 14:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Much improved. More work to be done, but much better. Timothy Perper (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

12 years later, under the section "Operational history" it includes a trivia section, added by user:ahunt on celebrity owners. --Cornellier (talk) 02:39, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

That para was brought forward from the old version of the article, but it is well-sourced to a WP:RS and lists some wiki-notable people (people with existing biographies on Wikipedia) who have owned and sailed these boats, so therefore not trivia. - Ahunt (talk) 12:57, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It's not about WP:RS. The boat's notability does not depend on it having been owned by the rich and famous, and this information is tangential at best, trivial at worst. On the other hand if there some context, the info might be useful, e.g. "built with traditional wood materials and techniques, this classic boat is a luxury recreation item owned by wealthy celebrities like Calvin Klein...". But just dropping the info without context sounds like name dropping. --Cornellier (talk) 13:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The cited source gives lots of background, so feel free to expand it to provide more context. - Ahunt (talk) 13:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

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Excessive referencing worsening readability

The phrase "The current manufacturer is Beetle, Inc. of Wareham, Massachusetts, which also is known as the Beetle Boat Shop" barely requires referencing at all since it is not controversial and not disputed. Why then does it need the 10 references added by User:ahunt? --Cornellier (talk) 02:16, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

This is the relevant guideline WP:CITEFOOT: The citation should be added close to the material it supports, offering text–source integrity. If a word or phrase is particularly contentious, an inline citation may be added next to that word or phrase within the sentence, but it is usually sufficient to add the citation to the end of the clause, sentence, or paragraph, so long as it's clear which source supports which part of the text.

The references for the material in the whole paragraph are all at the end of the paragraph to improve readability, since there they do not break up the text with reference numbers, but obviously they do not all relate just to the final sentence text. I have reviewed each reference and each one is required to support the claims made in that para about each manufacturer, its location and products, since the para contains a complex amount of information. Removing any ref there would leave text unsourced, and therefore subject to tagging and removal. If you like I can move each ref to the exact sentence or word in the paragraph that it references, instead of putting it at the end of the paragraph, but that would make the entire paragraph more difficult to read. - Ahunt (talk) 12:27, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I was going to show you what that would look like here on the talk page, but another editor has done just that in the article instead now, so now you can see how much harder it is to read like that, versus what WP:CITEFOOT says above is acceptable. - Ahunt (talk) 14:28, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by being a problem with WP:CITEFOOT. Generally, I think we should add the reference next to the specific claim that it is referencing and immediately following a punctuation mark, rather than grouping them together at the end of the paragraph. Otherwise it isn't clear what the reference is supporting. That was the initial problem - Cornellier felt that the references were all for a single claim, rather than different claims within the paragraph, and that's also how it appeared to me on first reading. I can certainly agree that a different approach is valid, but reducing confusion seems like a good thing too. :) - Bilby (talk) 15:27, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

It is all a trade-off between precision and readability. As I noted, WP:CITEFOOT says: it is usually sufficient to add the citation to the end of the clause, sentence, or paragraph, so long as it's clear which source supports which part of the text. I normally puts refs at the end of the para so as to not sacrifice readability, but if readers can't understand which ref is applicable to which segment of text, then we have to go with clause-by-clause referencing as you have started in on. Incidentally if you want to leave it like that, then that will require more instances of refs to be added than there is right now to make it correctly referenced. I can fix that, but it will get busier than it is already. - Ahunt (talk) 15:43, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done - I have fixed the refs so that each sentence is now properly referenced, with all the references that source each sentence and only the refs that source each sentence. If you are happy that is clearer as to which text is sourced to which ref, then I am happy with that. - Ahunt (talk) 16:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I still think the the article is excessively referenced though. E.g. the sentence The design was initially built by the designer's company, the Beetle Boat Co in New Bedford surely does not need three references. It has an air of WP:NOTEBOMB when combined with the dense and numerous red links. And per WP:MOSLEAD citations are often omitted from the lead section of an article, insofar as the lead summarizes information for which sources are given later in the article please consider removing or reducing cites in the lead. Also consider using single refs where a statement is uncontroversial. --Cornellier (talk) 11:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

In this case the refs in the lede are all required because they source text not sourced elsewhere, like the date and the lineage. There is no place in the article where there are refs cited that are not needed to support text. Removing any would result in the unsourced text being tagged and eventually removed. - Ahunt (talk) 12:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)