User talk:A7V2/2021/March

1908 Grand Prix Season

Hi there, thanks very much for adding info to the 1908 Grand Prix season page, I have seen reference to Sheldon's book but do not have it (it is very expensive to buy!), so it is great you can tap into it. I am wondering on the value of putting such exact values of the race times. I find it doubtful that the race officials would have had such precision timing equipment on hand. For my part, I have been including race times to the rounded-off minute just as a way of comparing race speeds between events of similar length, highlighting the very fast circuits versus the far more twisty or rough tracks, as well as a comparison to the casual reader to modern race times. Bottom line though, it is no biggie, but just explaining where I have come from on my page write-ups. Cheers, Philby NZ (talk) 22:05, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

@Philby NZ: I'm not sure I'm so distrustful of the timekeepers (often tenths of a second where available were actually fifths) but I agree with this and will round everything to the nearest minute (and nearest 10 miles/kilometres) as you're right that it's not important to have such precision. The only reason I changed them all anyway was because of an error with the French GP time (and don't get me wrong, with the size of the edits you do it would be impossible not to make a mistake or two!). I eventually intend to go through all of the GP season articles since there's a few things to tidy up but they are really very good. Two comments I'll make as suggestions (which I will probably eventually do myself on the ones you've already done) is that row-spanning dates (except where the events happened at the same location) makes the tables a bit hard to read I think, and also I feel that for European Championship years it would be a good idea to use numerals for the championship events, and letters for the other major races, like you did for 1925-7. Keep up the good work! It's great to see someone putting so much effort into this period of motor racing history. A7V2 (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

@A7V2: thanks very much, like your suggestions - was thinking the merged date would show conflicting race-events and drivers at one or the other. But then a race run a day earlier in another country isn't merged, so that kinda defeats my purpose anyway, and I know that reading clarity is always a better goal for these fringe topics to get better viewership. Also was thinking the number of Championship races would be less than the number of non-championship races hence using letters, but then I also am not going to nominate that there were ever >26 significant races in a season, so I defeat my own logic there! Working on 1932 at present, (but have got distracted halfway through by a non-Wiki project) and will go back and reformat the numbering accordingly. Really appreciate any voiteurette details you can add to the early years up to 1930 as I only have limited records about those races and they were far more popular generally than GP racing during the lean years. And thank goodness for Snellmann/Etzrodt's amazingly detailed webpages for (most of) these years - makes our job so much easier!! Cheers, Philby NZ (talk) 01:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

@Philby NZ: If there was a season with more than 26 significant non-championship races then we can cross that bridge when we get there! I think definitely having numbers for championship rounds (when there is a championship) is a must for readability and consistency between all of the articles (we aren't going to put on 1931 French Grand Prix that it was round B of C or something like that!). As for voiturette races, I think these articles are already becoming very long, probably from 1934 or so onwards (or maybe earlier) it will be better to have these in a separate article, but definitely I can add short descriptions of the older voiturette races. A7V2 (talk) 03:28, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Mexican GP/Mexico City GP

This response is pretty late but I wanted to clarify what I meant in that past discussion. When I was talking about the Malaysian GP's name change being a totally different thing. I meant that it was a small change compared to the Mexican/Mexico City GP change. People still commonly referred to the Malaysia GP as the Malaysian GP despite the change (and it's considered under the same history). The Mexican GP/Mexico City GP change is much different as the event title now represents the city it's held in rather than the whole country itself. The Mexico City GP title has no history compared to the Mexican GP title. (The discussion I'm referring to is Here.) Speedy Question Mark (talk) 19:25, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

@Speedy Question Mark: Hello and thanks for this clarification. I understand your reasoning but I still disagree. I don't think I mentioned it in that discussion but I have a few other times that there are too many race articles on Wikipedia which tie races together in a questionable manner, without relying on reliable sources (one example is the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix). That said, we should not do the opposite and separate races which reliable sources consider together. As I said in the original discussion, it is not for us to decide if the Mexico City GP (if one is ever held) is a continuation of the Mexican GP or a new race. I do think it is highly plausible, if not highly likely, that reliable sources will consider it a continuation and so I don't feel a separate article is warranted. Thanks. A7V2 (talk) 23:23, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

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