Talk:Railfan/Archive 1

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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.

Contents 1 Another merge candidate 2 New "Safety" section 3 link to Virgin is not appropriate here 4 limited geographic scope & merge 5 Personal Website Links

Another merge candidate

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)

New "Safety" section

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)

link to Virgin is not appropriate here

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)

• I've removed it as I agree with you. Thryduulf 16:15, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

limited geographic scope & merge

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)

I knew about train spotting, but never heard that it is sometimes considered a less-than-savory term. I think such a merge would be tricky as "railfan" is so ingrained into the hobby in North America that at least one popular magazine uses it in the publication's title (Railfan and Railroad magazine). However, "train spotting" is known widely enough that I think the majority of American railfans at least know the term and that it is used to describe railfans in Great Britain (or at least that's what I hear from talking to friends here). Probably to do such a merge justice, the lists of railfan hotspots and jargon should be split into separate articles. The jargon could be merged into Rail terminology, but it somehow doesn't seem quite as appropriate there. Hmmm... I'll have to think about this a little more. slambo 17:11, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Trainspotting isn't an unsavoury term, but it is used in a derrogitary (sp?) way by some (cf the links that keep being inserted). Railfan isn't a term that is common in the UK, at least not to my knowledge, although its pretty obvious what it means and from the articles it appears to be a slightly broader term. I would describe myself as a railfan rather than a train spotter, because I am a fan of and interested in railways in general and rail photography rather than just the trains and am not into collecting sightings of particular trains/locomotives. My thoughts on suggesting the merge were to treat it as basically an American English/British English difference, with the article being at the AE title with a redirect from the BE title (plus the normal bolding, etc). It seems to me that basically there are two closely related concepts, "railfandom" and "trainspotting" - both referred to by the first term in the US and both referred to by the second in the UK.

The jargon could be a separate article as its relevant to both these articles and Rail terminology but not quite fitting perfectly within either. The railfan hotspots would probably work less well as a separate article unless it needs to be spun-out of the main one for size reasons. Thryduulf 17:24, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay, after some more thought last night and this morning, I'm inclined to agree on the merge; I'm curious to hear what other editors have to say about this (I've left a note on that article's talk page inviting everyone to the discussion). I have no strong preference for which article should become the new "master" article, but I can see where some editors might prefer one or the other. slambo 13:01, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Five days later and I still see no other comments, so I'm putting the mergeto/mergefrom templates on the articles to try to get some more discussion on this. I'm more inclined now to agree with the merge proposal as presented above. slambo 13:12, July 20, 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)

Personal Website Links

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)

The real question is: does the link add value to the article? The links list on this article is, IMHO, a bit long and should be reduced to just those that contain information about railfanning/trainspotting itself rather than where to go and what to see. The links that we have are all relevant to the hobby, they're just not about the hobby. Using only this criterion, we'd probably end up removing all of the links, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I guess my question would be: what other criteria should we use for inclusion in this article's links list? slambo 15:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)