![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Just found Railroad buff today while skimming "What links here". It seems to me that railroad buff should be merged into railfan much like railbuff was. Thoughts? slambo June 30, 2005 12:55 (UTC)
While the sentiment in the new section contributed by an anon is laudable and good, it isn't worded in a way that is particularly encyclopedic. It sounds more like something from a railfan's website. I'm tempted to remove it outright, but a better worded section could do well here. Thoughts? slambo July 7, 2005 21:01 (UTC)
That reads much better. Thanks! slambo 15:09, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
My wife wouldn't agree that railfans are virgins, especially since that's her (with a mutual friend of ours) in the lead photo. We are both railfans and we have a son who is also a railfan. At least half of the railfans that I know are happily married and raising children. The link to virgin is not appropriate here. The other links that are disputed are also of questionable appropriateness to this article. Please provide your reasoning here why you think they should be included. slambo 15:43, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
![]() | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a
worldwide view of the subject. |
This article is heavily biased towards North America with no examples from other parts of the world for viewing spots and terminology.
merging in train spotting and [[railroad buff] might help with this. They all appear to cover very similar activities, railfan is also a more neutral term than train spotting which can have (imho unjustified) negative connotations (at least in British English). Thryduulf 16:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
A new editor just changed ferroequinologist from a redirect (it was redirecting here) to contain material of its own. I've invited the new editor to join the discussion here before I put the mergefrom/mergeto tags on that too. slambo 19:14, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I said that we would do the merge on Tuesday, but I wanted to give everyone a little more time to comment. Seeing no further comments, I did the merge today from all four of the specified articles. slambo 19:46, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
What is everyone's thoughts on personal website links in the list of external links? Right now we have one... the Idiot Railfan. It's amusing, but I would think if we're going to list one, we might as well list several other personal sites which also have value. My gut feeling is we should remove this one link and let the list of links remain to discussion sites and other resources rather than plugging personal sites. Ahockley 14:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Is someone who is interested in rail infrastructure, but not the trains, considered a railfan? -- SPUI 06:38, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Merge with Railbuff? Or is there a subtle difference? Phlebas 21:29, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Removed link for "trainspotter" because it points back to this article. 64.50.192.206 16:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I just alphabetized the jargon section but it got me thinking... with a much more substantial Rail terminology article already in place, wouldn't it make more sense to just add any needed terms over there rather than duplicate the work in this page? It could be noted on the Rail terminology page if the term is one primarily used by railfans. Any thoughts? Ahockley 22:51, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
In case you hadn't noticed, both jargon subpages are nominated for deletion. The grounds for nomination is WP:NOT. I think these lists have value, and as it appears that they will be deleted despite many Keep votes, I would be willing to host such a jargon list on my personal website. I will check into the copyright implications this week. Slambo (Speak) 12:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
There's quite a bit of repetition--for example, the material mentioned in the "Other names" section is repeated in various other places in the article.
Also, someone said railfans tend to be male and homosexual. Source for this? cluth 20:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I have my doubts about the latest addition to the Reasons section added by ShyLou ( talk · contribs). The original wording made it sound like railfanning itself is a disease from which we must all be cured, but looking a little further, the addition was the user's very first edit under that username. Given the nature of some of the vandalism that we've seen on this page, I'm a little suspicious. A quick Google for "Obsessive Compulsive Railroad Enthusiasts" or for "Southern Ontario Review of Psychology and Neurology" comes up with no exact matches, so I don't know yet if the reference itself is real; do we have an established editor that can verify the reference? I would venture to guess that the "estimated 78% to 93%" figure could be applied equally well to sports fans (especially the ones who paint their bodies in their favorite team's colors; you know the kind of fans I mean). Every hobby has practitioners who could be diagnosed with OCD (see Fan (aficionado)), so it is believable, but I want to be certain. Slambo (Speak) 12:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
This issue is going to remain active so long as users such as WashingtonWillie continue to repost this unverified "information" and claim vandalism when anyone removes it. Maybe page protection is in order?-- Lordkinbote 19:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I've spent some more time trying to hunt this down, without success. I have however found the website of the "Southern Ontario Library Service" [1]. Thinking that if the journal exists/has existed that they would be likely to know about it I have just sent them the following email asking for assistence:
Hello I am an editor at Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org). I am trying to verify the accuracy of some information added to the Railfan article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wki/Railfan), apparently from a journal called the "Southern Ontario Review of Psychology and Neurology". Unfortunately neither I nor my fellow editors have managed to even verify that this journal exists or has ever existed. I found your website (http://www.sols.org) after much searching on Google for various organisations that might give some clue as to the existence of the Journal, from where we could then verify whether the study ("Obsessive Compulsive Railroad Enthusiasts") is genuine (neither the journal title nor the study title produce any direct matches). I was wondering if it would be possible for you check your records to see if you can find any record of the Journal, and if so where we might be able to check to see if the facts presented to us are actually confirmed in the journal. If this is not possible, I would appreciate it if you could advise me of somebody who might be able to help. If you could reply to this email address, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you
Hopefully they'll get back to me with something. Thryduulf 13:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, FRN is a real name that some railroaders use to describe railfans. I've heard it from some friends of mine who work in the industry. In an effort to be a little more neutral in POV, I've added it back to the article and included a book reference for it that specifically cites this term as well as foamer. Slambo (Speak) 18:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I may have considered that, however I maintain that it is not appropraite becuase it stands for "f'cking rail nut" and because of conflict I got into with Monicasdude over the article on Self Portrait where I kept rewriting the s-word with asterisks and I noticed it kept on being changed back. When I eventually looked at the page's history I discovered that this user kept reverting "censored language." Monicasdude stated that wikipedia is not censored. I took this up at the village pump, and then later found WP:Profanity. I also discovered that at Wikitionary and Wikinews this was general policy, but with the allowance for articles to be censored after a consensus. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian):-(
We now have a nice big box on the article from someone else who thinks we've got too many External links here. I've stated above that we need to reduce them, so I'll propose that any link that does not give a further description of what a railfan is should be removed. In other words we should remove links that cover topics of interest to railfans and list only those that further describe or define railfans. Slambo (Speak) 16:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
A quick google for the new word (check the history; I'm not mentioning it here to prevent false hits on future search results [I don't like FRN either, but that term is in widespread and published use]) shows six hits, with half of them being a username. I haven't looked at the site mentioned in the latest revert, but I suspect that this new term isn't quite as widespread as it's being made out to be. I'd rather see more references to the term's use in more widely-read and well-publicized resources (I've seen two links, please list more below) before we include it here. Slambo (Speak) 13:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I have sometimes seen the word trainspotter used as an insult for a person diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. After reading this article, indeed, I can understand how many trainspotters and railfans could very well be diagnosable with this condition. Maybe something about this hobby in relation to Asperger's syndrome should be added to the article by someone more intimately familiar with both concepts.-- NeantHumain 00:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I have removed external links to discussion forums as they are a violation of WP:EL. -- MakeChooChooGoNow 17:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I have removed this link twice as a violation of WP:EL and it's back.
My arguments for removing.
The recent edit introduced inconsistencies in the usage of the terms "railway" and "railroad" as well as introduced spellings that were not consistent with the rest of the article. Slambo (Speak) 10:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Another editor added the merge tags; please discuss the proposed merge here. Slambo (Speak) 15:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
The other page was deleted on November 4 through the {{ prod}} process as "NN hobby, importance". I didn't see too much from there that wasn't already in this article. Slambo (Speak) 14:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Ferroequinology is not just studying steam locomotives. Slambo (Speak) 17:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Just found Railroad buff today while skimming "What links here". It seems to me that railroad buff should be merged into railfan much like railbuff was. Thoughts? slambo June 30, 2005 12:55 (UTC)
While the sentiment in the new section contributed by an anon is laudable and good, it isn't worded in a way that is particularly encyclopedic. It sounds more like something from a railfan's website. I'm tempted to remove it outright, but a better worded section could do well here. Thoughts? slambo July 7, 2005 21:01 (UTC)
That reads much better. Thanks! slambo 15:09, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
My wife wouldn't agree that railfans are virgins, especially since that's her (with a mutual friend of ours) in the lead photo. We are both railfans and we have a son who is also a railfan. At least half of the railfans that I know are happily married and raising children. The link to virgin is not appropriate here. The other links that are disputed are also of questionable appropriateness to this article. Please provide your reasoning here why you think they should be included. slambo 15:43, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
![]() | The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a
worldwide view of the subject. |
This article is heavily biased towards North America with no examples from other parts of the world for viewing spots and terminology.
merging in train spotting and [[railroad buff] might help with this. They all appear to cover very similar activities, railfan is also a more neutral term than train spotting which can have (imho unjustified) negative connotations (at least in British English). Thryduulf 16:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
A new editor just changed ferroequinologist from a redirect (it was redirecting here) to contain material of its own. I've invited the new editor to join the discussion here before I put the mergefrom/mergeto tags on that too. slambo 19:14, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I said that we would do the merge on Tuesday, but I wanted to give everyone a little more time to comment. Seeing no further comments, I did the merge today from all four of the specified articles. slambo 19:46, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
What is everyone's thoughts on personal website links in the list of external links? Right now we have one... the Idiot Railfan. It's amusing, but I would think if we're going to list one, we might as well list several other personal sites which also have value. My gut feeling is we should remove this one link and let the list of links remain to discussion sites and other resources rather than plugging personal sites. Ahockley 14:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Is someone who is interested in rail infrastructure, but not the trains, considered a railfan? -- SPUI 06:38, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Merge with Railbuff? Or is there a subtle difference? Phlebas 21:29, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Removed link for "trainspotter" because it points back to this article. 64.50.192.206 16:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I just alphabetized the jargon section but it got me thinking... with a much more substantial Rail terminology article already in place, wouldn't it make more sense to just add any needed terms over there rather than duplicate the work in this page? It could be noted on the Rail terminology page if the term is one primarily used by railfans. Any thoughts? Ahockley 22:51, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
In case you hadn't noticed, both jargon subpages are nominated for deletion. The grounds for nomination is WP:NOT. I think these lists have value, and as it appears that they will be deleted despite many Keep votes, I would be willing to host such a jargon list on my personal website. I will check into the copyright implications this week. Slambo (Speak) 12:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
There's quite a bit of repetition--for example, the material mentioned in the "Other names" section is repeated in various other places in the article.
Also, someone said railfans tend to be male and homosexual. Source for this? cluth 20:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I have my doubts about the latest addition to the Reasons section added by ShyLou ( talk · contribs). The original wording made it sound like railfanning itself is a disease from which we must all be cured, but looking a little further, the addition was the user's very first edit under that username. Given the nature of some of the vandalism that we've seen on this page, I'm a little suspicious. A quick Google for "Obsessive Compulsive Railroad Enthusiasts" or for "Southern Ontario Review of Psychology and Neurology" comes up with no exact matches, so I don't know yet if the reference itself is real; do we have an established editor that can verify the reference? I would venture to guess that the "estimated 78% to 93%" figure could be applied equally well to sports fans (especially the ones who paint their bodies in their favorite team's colors; you know the kind of fans I mean). Every hobby has practitioners who could be diagnosed with OCD (see Fan (aficionado)), so it is believable, but I want to be certain. Slambo (Speak) 12:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
This issue is going to remain active so long as users such as WashingtonWillie continue to repost this unverified "information" and claim vandalism when anyone removes it. Maybe page protection is in order?-- Lordkinbote 19:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I've spent some more time trying to hunt this down, without success. I have however found the website of the "Southern Ontario Library Service" [1]. Thinking that if the journal exists/has existed that they would be likely to know about it I have just sent them the following email asking for assistence:
Hello I am an editor at Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org). I am trying to verify the accuracy of some information added to the Railfan article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wki/Railfan), apparently from a journal called the "Southern Ontario Review of Psychology and Neurology". Unfortunately neither I nor my fellow editors have managed to even verify that this journal exists or has ever existed. I found your website (http://www.sols.org) after much searching on Google for various organisations that might give some clue as to the existence of the Journal, from where we could then verify whether the study ("Obsessive Compulsive Railroad Enthusiasts") is genuine (neither the journal title nor the study title produce any direct matches). I was wondering if it would be possible for you check your records to see if you can find any record of the Journal, and if so where we might be able to check to see if the facts presented to us are actually confirmed in the journal. If this is not possible, I would appreciate it if you could advise me of somebody who might be able to help. If you could reply to this email address, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you
Hopefully they'll get back to me with something. Thryduulf 13:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, FRN is a real name that some railroaders use to describe railfans. I've heard it from some friends of mine who work in the industry. In an effort to be a little more neutral in POV, I've added it back to the article and included a book reference for it that specifically cites this term as well as foamer. Slambo (Speak) 18:04, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I may have considered that, however I maintain that it is not appropraite becuase it stands for "f'cking rail nut" and because of conflict I got into with Monicasdude over the article on Self Portrait where I kept rewriting the s-word with asterisks and I noticed it kept on being changed back. When I eventually looked at the page's history I discovered that this user kept reverting "censored language." Monicasdude stated that wikipedia is not censored. I took this up at the village pump, and then later found WP:Profanity. I also discovered that at Wikitionary and Wikinews this was general policy, but with the allowance for articles to be censored after a consensus. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian):-(
We now have a nice big box on the article from someone else who thinks we've got too many External links here. I've stated above that we need to reduce them, so I'll propose that any link that does not give a further description of what a railfan is should be removed. In other words we should remove links that cover topics of interest to railfans and list only those that further describe or define railfans. Slambo (Speak) 16:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
A quick google for the new word (check the history; I'm not mentioning it here to prevent false hits on future search results [I don't like FRN either, but that term is in widespread and published use]) shows six hits, with half of them being a username. I haven't looked at the site mentioned in the latest revert, but I suspect that this new term isn't quite as widespread as it's being made out to be. I'd rather see more references to the term's use in more widely-read and well-publicized resources (I've seen two links, please list more below) before we include it here. Slambo (Speak) 13:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
I have sometimes seen the word trainspotter used as an insult for a person diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. After reading this article, indeed, I can understand how many trainspotters and railfans could very well be diagnosable with this condition. Maybe something about this hobby in relation to Asperger's syndrome should be added to the article by someone more intimately familiar with both concepts.-- NeantHumain 00:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I have removed external links to discussion forums as they are a violation of WP:EL. -- MakeChooChooGoNow 17:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I have removed this link twice as a violation of WP:EL and it's back.
My arguments for removing.
The recent edit introduced inconsistencies in the usage of the terms "railway" and "railroad" as well as introduced spellings that were not consistent with the rest of the article. Slambo (Speak) 10:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Another editor added the merge tags; please discuss the proposed merge here. Slambo (Speak) 15:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
The other page was deleted on November 4 through the {{ prod}} process as "NN hobby, importance". I didn't see too much from there that wasn't already in this article. Slambo (Speak) 14:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Ferroequinology is not just studying steam locomotives. Slambo (Speak) 17:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)