Talk:The Bat (Kings Island; opened 1981)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Article Needs Cleaned Up

This article seems to be unreadable and contains topics that should be separated into lists. It can be started by putlings lists about the ride itself, why it closed, and so on. Please fix this problem. Sawblade05 00:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

This article relies on no sources and it seems like whoever wrote it made most of this information up. It is biased and definitely unreliable and readable —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bjamessuchy (talk • contribs) 21:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 10:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Moved to Talk:Arrow Dynamics

I've started to clean up some of the issues, primarily having to do with chronology and naming, grammar, punctuation and links to other articles.

For future reference, the chronology of the Arrow bankruptcies, buyouts and name changes is:

• 1945 to 1981 - Arrow Development, including the period after 1972 when owned by Rio Grande Industries.
• 1981 to 1984 - Arrow - Huss. Bankruptcy late in November 1984, two weeks after Toomer relocated his family to Utah.
• January 1986 to Dec 3, 2001 - Arrow Dynamics
• Oct 28, 2002 - Bought by S & S Power
• August 25, 2006 - Stan Checketts and Gene Mulvihill purchase controlling interest of S & S.
• February 2009, Larsen MacColl Partners acquires significant equity interest including all shares owned by Checketts.

DWmFrancis (talk) 19:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

@DWmFrancis: I've edited your post to add bullet points because Wikipedia discards single line breaks and compacts all of it into a single paragraph. Hope you don't mind.

Anyway, I wanted to make a point about Arrow's history. Yes, the ownership and name of the company changed several times, but in essence wasn't it the one company? I feel up until the point where S&S bought the rights to the 4D coasters and such, all coasters should be categorised as Arrow Dynamics, but where applicable be labelled as Arrow Development, etc. At the moment there are categories such as this which are populated but do not exist. If we were going to create multiple categories for the one company for its different name changes, then we'd have to do a lot of work to split S&S Worldwide/S&S Power/S&S Arrow, Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters/Philadelphia Toboggan Company, and E&F Miler Industries/Miler Coaster, Inc. just to name a few. In reality this is separating roller coaster articles when they shouldn't be. Themeparkgc  Talk  22:50, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Themeparkgc here. Name changes do not a different company make. Both Arrow Development and Arrow Dynamics should be under the same category. jcgoble3 (talk) 07:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Greetings all - and thank you for your ideas. I agree, mostly. My rationale is that over the 30+ year history of Arrow there really were three very different companies. I'm basing that on the historical account and my observations as a business analyst.

From 1945 to 1972 Ed Bacon and Karl Morgan ran and owned Arrow Development personally.

They sold out to Rio Grande Industries in 1972/73, right after Disney informed them that Central Shops would be doing all Disney's work in house from that point on. Morgan and Bacon stayed on for a few years, as advisors, but during that time there really wasn't much new ride development done. RGI was milking the cash cow. That is also when the flow of new patents stopped.

RGI sold the company to Huss in 1981. By then Karl and Ed were completely gone and Ron Toomer - who joined Arrow in 1966 - and Dana Morgan - Ed's son - were pretty much running the show. 1981 is also when the name legally changed to Arrow-Huss. At that point, the key people, corporate ownership and ride systems under development were completely different. Of course, Huss Park Attractions has continued and in terms of scope they are probably closest to what Arrow Development was in their peak years, but Huss clearly didn't want to keep them afloat. The intellectual property raid was over, the cash well had run dry.

A-H went bankrupt in 1984. Arrow Dynamics was formed in January of 1986 with Ron Toomer and a dozen other A-H era employees. They went bankrupt in 2001, at which point S & S comes into the picture. BTW - None of the sales literature I've been able to locate says Arrow Development after 1981.

BTW - Roller coaster fans remember them for coasters, but their dark rides, flume rides and mini auto rides were a huge part of the business. You can certainly group Mine Trains, Coasters and Steeplechase rides together technologically, but their installations of guided track vehicle rides (~100), water course rides, tea-cup rides and Merry-Go-Rounds were very different systems.

Having said all that, I don't want to force you guys into a lot of changes to the terrific work you have already done. Your focus is coasters and mine is Arrow. I don't think Arrow Dynamics is the same company that Karl and Ed formed and ran until 1972, hence the "labeling" issue, which I'd like to see corrected. Arrow Development worked in relative obscurity for many years and I'd like to see that rectified. DWmFrancis (talk) 16:26, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@DWmFrancis: This is great information! I agree that during each era, Arrow was in many ways a different company. However, evolving and changing over time is something a lot of companies do. If its name and intellectual property remains intact through each transition, then all that change would still be considered a part of S&S Arrow's history. We shouldn't need to create a separate article/category to represent each era. We should actually merge the Arrow Dynamics and Arrow Development articles into one, since neither is really all that long. Then afterwards, both the article and category could be renamed to S&S Arrow to match the current name of the company. Anyone searching for Arrow Development, Arrow Huss, or Arrow Dynamics would be redirected to S&S Arrow. My 2¢ anyway. --GoneIn60 (talk) 20:44, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@ GoneIn60 - I totally follow your thinking, with regard to the company legacy flow thru/name changes idea.

When writing historically accurate articles, I think its best to be precise with regard to product attribution. For example, the P-51 Mustang was designed and built by North American Aviation. No one calls it the Boeing Mustang, although NA was bought by Rockwell and Rockwell Aviation was acquired by Boeing. (eg; The Wikipedia article calls it the North American P-51.)

I'd be pleased to help out with a merge, but owing to my personal bias towards Arrow, I'd rather not title it S & S Worldwide (The current last guys in the chain). Even S&S says about themselves that they were founded in 1994. The problem as I see it, is that the chain of provenance is too murky. Arrow Development -> Rio Grande Industries - > Arrow-Huss -> Arrow Dynamics -> S&S Arrow -> S&S Power... it's like trying to follow a hot potato and calling the last catcher the name of the first. And in this case, as you said, the name and intellectual property did not remain intact thru the whole chain of transactions. --DWmFrancis (talk) 21:07, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I started to post the following before you updated the thread, so here it is:

--> I'm going to revise my proposal. I stumbled across this court document in which S&S claims that it only purchased "some" assets from Arrow Dynamics, and is in no way a "successor" to the bankrupt company. Unless a similar claim exists regarding the acquisition of Arrow Development by Huss or the acquisition of Arrow-Huss by Arrow Dynamics, I still think the history of all three should remain in one article (called Arrow Dynamics). However, clearly S&S Arrow's history should not be included. --GoneIn60 (talk) 21:13, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@DWmFrancis: Now with that said, I agree with you about having proper product attribution. In each roller coaster article, for example, we can list Arrow Development, Arrow-Huss, etc., as the developer when applicable. However, the history of the company is a separate issue that I feel can exist in one article. Unless the length of that article gets to be very long, I don't see a reason why we need three separate ones. Additional thoughts? --GoneIn60 (talk) 21:18, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@GoneIn60 - Almost works for me. Now I have to go look at that court document. Have you looked at the Arrow Development Wiki page recently? --DWmFrancis (talk) 21:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I haven't actually. I looked at it just now, though. Did you create it? --GoneIn60 (talk) 22:32, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@GoneIn60 - Yup, atsa my baby. It used to be just a redirect to the Arrow Dynamics article.

DWmFrancis (talk) 22:37, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@DWmFrancis, GoneIn60, and Jcgoble3: Okay, after reading through this and skimming the new Arrow Development article, I am thinking I might change my position. Essentially I am thinking we split the articles based on when it went bankrupt. The companies never come back from bankruptcy, a different company acquires the previous assets. One example is The Gravity Group which was formed by former Custom Coasters International employees. Another is L&T Systems which had its assets acquired by Preston & Barbieri. So, this is my idea:

• An article named Arrow Development or Arrow-Huss detailing the company's establishment, Disney contributions, ... etc ..., bankruptcy and acquiring by Arrow Dynamics. I'd be in favour of Arrow Development as the article name because the rename only really markets the company's ownership for a short period.
• An article named Arrow Dynamics which clearly distinguishes it from the previous company and highlights the contributitions Arrow Dynamics made up until its bankruptcy. This article should also make note of S&S Worldwide's creation of the S&S Arrow division and subsequent acquisition of Arrow Dynamics' assets.
• Clarify the S&S Worldwide article to better reflect what actually happened. At the moment is makes it look like Arrow Dynamics was purchased as a full company by S&S.

Thoughts? Themeparkgc  Talk  23:01, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@ GoneIn60 & Jcgoble3 - Works for me. It would be pretty easy to just splice the stuff I've written on the transition into the Arrow Dynamics Article, or the exisiting "owners" of that article can do it. --DWmFrancis (talk) 23:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

At this point the discussion has become far more in-depth and complex than I care to deal with in my semi-retired state, so I'll exit stage left and let you guys sort it out. :) jcgoble3 (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

The problem for me is that Arrow Development and Arrow-Huss weren't extinguished during the "takeovers". They were merged the first time (Arrow-Huss) and re-emerged from bankruptcy later on (Arrow Dynamics). The case dealing with S&S Arrow so far appears to be the only time "assets" were purchased while the rest of the company was left in ashes. Therefore, I don't think splitting up the history of those three is the way to go, especially since the content in each one will be relatively scarce if we do.

@DWmFrancis: Just as an FYI, articles aren't "owned" here in Wikipedia – see WP:OWN. Any content an editor submits is free to the public domain and can be edited or removed through consensus. --GoneIn60 (talk) 21:41, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

@GoneIn60: I was under the assumption that Arrow Development/Arrow-Huss went bankrupt and a new firm, Arrow Dynamics, Inc., was created. The only government record which links the two I can find online is this, however, it lists its source as Reynolds' 1999 book. Themeparkgc  Talk  02:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Scott Rutherford's The American Roller Coaster written in 2000 states "Arrow ownership changed hands until eventually becoming today's Arrow Dynamics" (link). Harvard Business Press published a project management guide that claimed that Arrow "weathered two bankruptcies", "changed hands three times", and had its "final bankruptcy" in 2001, "when its assets were sold to a competitor" (link). Roller Coasters: United States and Canada describes the Arrow-Huss formation as a "merger" that preceded the conversion to Arrow Dynamics (link).
These are just the first few reliable sources I came across (I actually own Rutherford's book). The consensus is clearly that all three are the same company – renamed, repossessed, transformed at times, but the same company nevertheless. Unless a reliable, published source states very clearly that they were not legally linked, then I don't see why we should break up the company's history into two or three separate articles. --GoneIn60 (talk) 05:44, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok. In my second backflip in as many days, I'm back on the side I was before all this. Arrow Dynamics covering all variations of the company, and a small section on S&S Arrow in the S&S Worldwide article. Themeparkgc  Talk  07:18, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks for your input. I'm trying to make sense of all this myself, so I'm glad we had this discussion! Others may want to weigh in before merging the articles, but that looks like the direction we're headed at this point. --GoneIn60 (talk) 07:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.