Talk:BMX racing

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This seems like a pretty pointless stub. How about deleting this and keeping all the info under BMX?

Nojer2 11:27, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would agree with combining "BMX" and "BMX Racing" into one top-level page with further detail in follow-on linked pages. The BMX page does seem heavy on the freestyle slant, and someone created this separate "BMX racing" page, so here we are.

J. Riechel 11May2005


BMX Racing is different then BMX Free style, which makes this not a pointless stub ... Bikes are different, riding is different, organization and riders are different. Racing gave birth to free style and ramps ...


--Nwbmxdad 02:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

There is not such therm or phrase as "BMX racing" officialy. BMX is what it is - "Bicycle Motocross" what actualy is the racing. Like "MX" - it's racing. Creators of "BMX" page in wikipedia only want to make easer access for information for uninformed and uneducated kids who thinks that "BMX" is kind of bicycle and sport is named in the name of bicycle.

"BMX" is "BMX" but "Freestyle BMX" is like a slang, not official, becouse BMX has nothing similar with freestyling. It's speed and technics. --BMXrace.lv 17:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there an official name for any sport? Anyway, even if there is not official name for BMX Racing, BMX is made up of different disciplines, including freestyle. The term BMX freestyle simply is a convenient and accurate way of differentiating from other sports with freestyle branches. For instance Swimming:

Freestyle swimming

Skiing:

Freestyle_skiing

Wrestling:

Freestyle wrestling

skateboarding:

Freestyle skateboarding

Our even freestyle MX:

Freestyle Motocross

Freestyle BMX is just a way to describe a subdiscipline of the sport, just like all the others who have similar subdivisions. As a person who got into BMX in 1981 and raced for nine years until 1989 I can tell you that while the term "Freestyle BMX" maybe unofficial, that it hasn't been handled down from upon high, it is been around since 1979 and is perfectly descriptive. Just because no one has codified it someway doesn't mean it is not legitimate. Long term use confers it own legitimacy, and as pointed out above many other sports use similar titles for branches of the sport that rely on the initiative and imagination of the athlete.

As for splitting this article up I don't see the need. It is just as long as the American Baseball and Ice Hockey articles at this time. Hunter2005 09:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Wrong terminology Again...

Theese You mentioned are not diciplines or subdiciplines. Here's different situations with each sports You named. These are paralel sports or maybe subsports. Dicipline for swiming "Freestyle", becouse of swiming style, technics, but purpose is the same - racing - wins who faster. And as You know, there is other sport called "Synchronized swimming" and it could be compared with FreestyleBMX(cycling). As everyone knows, Freestyle Skiing is whole other sport, with its own disciplines: Aerial Skiing and Acroski. And this is what I'm telling about. From UCI You will never get other name for Bicicle Motocross racing but "BMX". Thats why I forsee changing the name of "Freestyle BMX" to something like "Freestyle Cycling" or "Cycling acrobatics", becouse of using diferent categories of bicycles and no more theoretical links with original father-sport "BMX" as it was with using 20". Besides... Freestyle MX never was discipline or subdiscipline of Motocross(as You see: without "racing") I understand that there in USA its very profitable and comfortable to put this popular activity in this magical 3 - "BMX" ... but there's no logical sense anymore if some looks form other side. Imagine that someone founds subdiscipline of baseball called "Freestyle Baseball" with jongling balls and the bat. You will never want to call it discipline... and most probably You could name it other way :) Like "freestyle batballing" :) Let's think and act for future! --BMXrace.lv (talk) 17:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] It seems that someone dismantled the Cycling portal......

.....without supplying something in its place. If you are going to change something at least put something in its place. This looks more like vandalism than an legitimate edit. I believe the old portal should be restored. Hunter2005 11:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, that would have been me. Please contribute to the discussion there, at Portal talk:Cycling, rather than in a dark corner of another room down the corridor. The idea was simply that is was far too prose heavy - check out some featured portals and you'll see they are a gateway rather than an attempt at compressing the whole project into one page. Either way, discussion there, not here. Thanks. Mk3severo 13:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legendary BMX racers

This section is inherently POV. It has a POV title, POV prose and a POV list. There is not a single citation to suggest these are anything but the opinions of one or more editors. As such, I question the validity of the section.

WP:BLP is clear about contentious material concerning living people:

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material—whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable—about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

So I am removing it again, as per Wikipedia policy (policy must be followed). Please cite the section before putting it back in. Finally, please assume good faith even in edit summaries. Regards, SeveroTC 12:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Didn't you look at any of the source material I provided as say magazine footnotes? How about the external links? Or the online website links as foot notes? I would appreciate before you act that you talk to me please. No offense, but you do not know the subject matter. I have the magazines and I have provided the website links. Show me one racer that doesn't have sourced data in either hardcopy form or a website link please. I can google every one of those names for example. Choose any name you like as an example. Hunter2005 13:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
They need to be sourced as legendary. It is POV to list them together as such. There is no source for the list. The list does not need sourced data for each rider - that does go in the bio's. It is as a sourced list. Maybe one of the magazine's has done a "Top riders of all time" list or something which this could be replaced with? As WP:BLP states, it is obligation to act, on sight, when it comes to living persons. SeveroTC 14:17, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I can remove the term "legendary" and use "example" how about that? No pov connotations there. I am taking a stand on this because I do think it would benefit the reader to have examples of participants of the sport. The listing of sanctioning body racers is not enough since some racers never held a national title. Again, I would render the section more neutral but I do think it is necessary. I really wish you would talk to me first. Hunter2005 14:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that having *some* examples is a good idea. The trouble is in who's opinion it is. Frankly, my opinion or your opinion is useless. Using example, then still picking your examples is slightly less POV, but still POV. If you have many magazines (just a guess ;-) ) maybe one of them has a list of their top riders. There could be copy-vio issues in that approach but we can overcome them as we find them. SeveroTC 14:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, since it seems that I am the only one contributing to the BMX Racing article it will in inherently be mostly from my POV. The fewer the contributors, the more it will reflect by greater proportion the POV of the authors who do contribute to it. What I did to counter this innate bias it set some rules for myself to lessen the bias:

They have to have made some notable objective contribution to the sport, like win at least one national title as a amateur or professional. Richie Anderson and Stu Thomsen fall well within that, both winning multiple titles, Richie as an amature, Stu as a pro. If you win multiple racing titles I think that would meet the criteria of "legend" in anyone's book. Just like the New York Yankees are a legendary team in part for the 26 World Series titles they won. On the other hand the defunct Montreal Expose and Boston Braves aren't, although I am sure they have their fans. If they didn't win multiple titles-and to reduce the champion bias-maybe they were a manufacturer as well as a racer. Jeff Bottema fits that bill. Maybe they were a promoter as well as a racer. Charlie Litsky fits that bill. On the other hand Scot Breithaupt fits all three criteria. So did Bobby Encinas and so did Andy Ruffell in England. Mike Miranda, a well respected racer didn't win any titles but he was well liked enough to win a career appreciation award called the NORA Cup. He also promoted racing events. Jeff Ruminer, who also didn't win any titles (and I haven't written an article for yet) helped start BMX in Oklahoma as well as raced. Debbie Kalsow was the first female National No.1 girl racer ever. Cheri Elliott and Corine Dorland were a couple of the best. Harry Leary didn't win many titles but he is also known for creating a signature jump and being a team manager and mentor. Those are some of the criteria I set for myself. Yes, I cannot include every racer, and some probably could question why I included this person and left out another is legitimate (it could be the lack of sourcable material available to me, which is why the "Thom Lund", "Charlie Listky", "Kathy Schachel", "Jeff Utterback", "Kim Johnson" among other entries are still red) or yes I didn't include them because they didn't meet my criteria like Greg Schofield, a hot child racer who retired when he was about 12 years old without a national title or making some other contribution. He was a great racer earning the moniker "Little Mr. Awesome", but he retired to early and didn't do other creative things in BMX. Same thing with Brit Audeoud who quit when he was 11.

I removed the "Billy Jones (BMX Racer born 1981)" entry because there was no material on the page about him. It was a memorial page job that was unsourced, without any indication of what he did while racing, nor were there any mention of him when I googled him. (Not to mention I never heard of him. If you want to check my entries use "'racers name' bmx" as search criteria in Google. i.e. "Dale Holmes bmx") Even if he did race and earn trophies and local titles I still most likely wouldn't had included him because it wasn't national or international titles. It is like "why did Babe Ruth get a wikipage, but not "Joe Blow" in Double "A" baseball?" Sure "Joe Blow" could get a wikipage but he wouldn't be a legend in baseball like Casey Stengel would he? Would that be a memorial page if he did wrote sourced material for what could had been a journeyman racer like I was? Note, I have NOT put a page up for myself despite having raced because, there is nothing about me on the net or in magazines and simply I didn't do anything of note when I raced. Anyway Billy Jones was clearly a memorial entry and not a "legend".

Anyway, it is all on some level subjective. Someone will think something is biased. I am sure the Flat Earthers think the Earth wikipage is biased. It is a question of were to draw the line. If there were more people who knew BMX and that world contributing to this page I guess it would be a more neutral article in general and a more neutral section in particular. At least with my previously titled "Legendary BMX racers" section I have laid out here the criteria I was using. I will try to render the wording even more neutral. In any event, They are sourced articles even if anyone wants to argue the "legend" clam. No worries about defamation claims. And I doubt anyone would object to being called a legend in any case. :-) As for the listing you suggest using, there could be several with several different results, if they exist (The American Bicycle Association did have one but I don't have access to it yet), which should I use? All in total or a "representative" choice However, any of that would be my POV choice would it? :-) Anyway, this is a labor of love and I foresee myself doing this for literally years to come. I haven't even started the freestyler's and dirt jumpers bios yet (I used to be a racer so that is my bias I guess) nevermind writing articles about the manufacturers and non competitors who were part of the sport!

I will further reword the section to be less congratulatory, but a listing of who participated in the sport is I believe legitimate source of knowledge. Hunter2005 16:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Maybe it helps to understand...

"BMX" is official acronym of the sport called "Bicycle Motocross". Its official international sanctioned body is UCI(International Cycling Union www.uci.ch). All BMX rules are described there. "BMX Racing" is name of process, but not sport. And no special regulations about bicycle design. Only restricted are diameter of wheels in different cattegories: expert(20") and cruiser(24"...26") and using of unnesessary parts like chain guards, spalshers, etc... Thats all. Theoreticaly, there's no special BMX bicycles at all. BMX is racing on specialy designed tracks with obstacles and turns(bankings). Freestyle BMX community should not call their things "BMX"... Freestyle is primar experssion of sport. That's why for avoiding missunderstanding they should allways accent Freestyle, but not the sport from which it comes. If it coud depend on me, I should replace "Freestyle BMX" with "Freestyle cycling"... couse there also couldn't be restrictions on wheel sizes... besides Indoor cycling and Freestyle BMX could band together by time. --BMXrace.lv (talk) 15:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of notable BMX racers

Please stop adding redlinks to this section. Wikipedia is optimized for readers over editors, unreferenced redlinks are unhelpful to readers. Red link articles do not add content or meaning to the encyclopedia and should be in project or user space not the main space. --Hu12 (talk) 10:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Too bad I consider myself both a reader and an editor. I often thought a reader is a potential editor. Sometimes I have seen a red link and filled it in. I think of it as an invite, not a hindrance, a way to literally fill in the blanks. Sure the Wikipedia may have millions of pages in general, but people are not looking for millions of pages when they are looking for a particular subject. The redlinks are a way to invite a reader/possible editor that a sub-subject page needs to be filled if he/she is unaware that it needs to filled. None the less I will comply. If you are going to be so stringent on this issue, next time fix the column spacing because you are going to have a lot of lopsided article sections otherwise. Hunter2005 (talk) 16:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Again,redlinks and text links are Non-encyclopedic and fail ”Verifiability” which is a core content policy for inclusion on Wikipedia. please dont add them to this sction any more, please. --Hu12 (talk) 18:05, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Unlike the "examples" section, Text links are fine in "National American Sanctioning Body number one racers by year" because they can ”Verified" with ”Reliable sources”. fyi--Hu12 (talk) 18:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Why not keep all the redlinks on the talk page as this will give editors something to do if there is nothing for them to do, at least it will be better than vandalising articles, I mean only list notable redlinks here like that of the List of photographers talkpage. Jay Pegg (talk) 06:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC)