Talk:Roller coaster inversion

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 This article is part of WikiProject Roller Coasters, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Roller coasters. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.
Good article Roller coaster inversion was a nominee for good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
October 1, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed

Contents

[edit] Barrel roll

Isn't barrel roll just a lay-person name for an inline twist? I don't believe there is any distinguishable difference.

No. A barrel roll is a heartline twist. An inline twist rotates around the track; a barrel roll rotates around an imaginary line drawn at the level of an average rider's heart. Timetrial3141592 11:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed naming convention

To keep a consistant naming convention between all these roller coaster inversions (and because many of them have other, much more known meanings) I propose the standard naming convention for all roller coaster inversions be <inversion_name> (roller coaster). This is how the loop is already classified.


[edit] Use of images

I would also say the use of images for the different roller coaster inversions is almost a necessity, considering many are close to impossible to describe verbally and consequently understand by reading their description.

[edit] Rename?

This article is more like a list. Perhaps it should be renamed to List of roller coaster inversions. --64.175.32.30 03:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think the article needs to be expanded, including some pictures of different types of inversions, wikilinks to a few of the different types (e.g. Corkscrew (roller coaster element), etc. The list should be removed -- that's why we have Wiki-categories. Just my opinion. --Rehcsif 03:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

This article has many links to Wikipedia articles that do not exist yet. Because of this, many of the terms are undefined. It would also help for the articles in the list that do not have pictures yet if they received an illustration of some sort for them. This might be slightly difficult for the inversions that only ever existed on one roller coaster that does not exist any more but it can be done. Also the article needs more article, not just a list. Estridaldrea 14:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add information of History of Inversions

I am thinking about adding some information about the history of inversions, such as early loopers and innovative ones. All of the information comes from other Wikipedia articles but it would be usefull if the arcticle had more article in it.Estridaldrea 15:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interlocking loops

As I just noticed, why had the article been deleted and redirected to roller coaster? -- Valerius Myotis 00:34, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

At the moment it had nothing more that warranted an article. I'm not sure if there's enough about it to have its own page since most of it is covered here (since there were only three coasters with it, ever, and only one still exists. ALTON .ıl 20:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b (enough images: lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

After reviewing the article, I think that the sections that are present are nicely done. The problem that I have with this article, however, is that it really seems to be lacking in broadness of coverage. The article presents a very detailed history of roller coaster inversions, but little else. It requires more sections regarding other aspects of Roller coaster inversion. For example, what kind of effects do inversions have on the human body? What is their overall popularity in roller coaster parks and why? What is their spread (you give a good chronology of innovations and record-breaking, but it doesn't give an idea of these are just parks trying to "one up" each other, or if they are a common/standard feature in roller coaster parks)? Obviously, if there's nothing available on these particular topics, I'm not asking you to come up with original research, but these are the types of questions you should be asking in order to come up with ideas for new sections. As it stands, the history of inversions alone is very comprehensive, but not substantial for a Good Article.

It might also be nice to have a separate section of some sort that highlights current records and active coasters with interesting features. Maybe taking a little bit out of the "Innovations (1977-present)" and having a small section called "current status" would be helpful. The section could discuss and expand upon some of the interesting coasters noted in "Innovations (1977-present)," mentioning what makes them special or how long they've been recordholders - just something to take the most interesting aspects out of the "Innovations (1977-present)" section and put them in an easily accessible section of their own, so that someone who's not interested in the history, but wants to know about the unique coasters of the day (at least, the one's whose uniqueness/record relates to inversion) can read about it without having to pick through the massively cited "Innovations (1977-present)" section. That way, you have a brief discussion/explanation of each under the auspices of a single citation, thus preventing the break up in text found in "Innovations (1977-present)," which quite frankly looks like it used to be a list that was mashed into a work of prose. I dunno, these may be crap suggestions, but hopefully they've got you thinking on ways to improve the broadness of coverage in this article. In addition, there are some other concerns:

  1. The lead needs some work - it contains facts that are not present in the body of the article. For example, it is mentioned that "The degree to which it must invert riders is nebulous and a point of contention when it comes to elements like overbanked turns, which turn riders such that their heads are below their feet, but are not considered inversions." This fact never again mentioned in the article, despite the fact that it looks like an excellent departure point for another section in this article (perhaps a "defining a roller coaster inversion" section)
  2. I would cut down the captions on the Coney Island and Boomerang pictures - pictures should be used to identify an aspect of the article; you have already explained the significance of the aspects in the main body of the article itself.
  3. I was also thinking that the article somewhat fails to state the obvious, though that policy doesn't quite get at what I mean. Perhaps an idea for another section would be a background of roller coasters themselves, with a link to the main article. I don't mean going over the whole history of roller coasters, but more in the sense of having a "background" section, where relevant aspects of the history of roller coasters could be used to place this article in proper context. Without a bit of a background, it's impossible to tell how long inversions have been a part of roller coasters, for example. Reading your sources, there's a lot of interesting material in there that could be used to give a brief background on relevant aspects. For example, it might begin "Forms of roller coasters have been around since the 1400s, but the first type of 'modern' coaster has been around since ______. Roller coaster inversions, having been introduced in primitive form in the early 1900s, and in modern form in the 1970s, are a relatively (new/old) development in the history of roller coasters. Earlier coasters (did not/could not) have inversions because... etc. etc." Again, I'm not suggesting that you rehash the entire history of roller coasters in this article, but anything that's relevant would really help put the article in context.

Normally, when a review encounters a small number of problems it is put on hold for a period of up to seven days so that the problems can be resolved. In this case, however, I believe the problems to be too major (thinking of and implementing ways to expand the broadness of coverage) for the article to be put on hold (the problems listed are just the most pressing ones - there are more stylistic concerns that have to be looked at as well once the larger issues are dealt with). When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a Good article reassessment. Thank you for your work so far. Cheers, CP 16:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

You have perfectly valid contentions and extremely valuable suggestions. Thanks for the time, and the article should include all these things in time. ALTON .ıl 00:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I would like to mention another issue that isn't addressed yet (neither here nor in any other coaster-related article in English or German Wikipedia). As far as I can see there are two major classes of inversions: 1. Inversions where the passengers are pulled into their seats by centrifugal forces (and that therefore could go even without restraints in principle) and 2. inversions where the passengers are only kept in the seats by restraints. Although I'm not entirely sure I would guess that most vertical loops belong to the first type (it is the natural understanding of a loop that the car is kept on the track by centrifugal forces and the restraints and the underfriction wheels are only backup systems in case of a malfunction). Heartline rolls, on the other hand, should belong to the second type since the axis of rotation is the heart line rather than a line high above the passenger's heads. Corkscrews and other, more complex types of inversion may belong to both types, depending on the track design and the speed of the cars. Could anyone verify this by some reference?--SiriusB (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Intro Paragraph

Ok, I really must admit that the intro seems to have been written in about as complex of a method as possible. It does not even make sense —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearsbaseballcubs (talk • contribs) 02:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, you have to expect a certain amount of encyclopedic terms. Why not head over to the Simple English Wikipedia and see what information is available there? Seaserpent85 03:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flip Flap neck snapping claim

The article claims that Flip Flap snapped riders' necks, and the citation backs this up. However, this claim is highly dubious, since the ride operated for several years-- surely if it snapped people's necks, they would have closed it soon after it opened. Sure enough, a Google search reveals a whole spectrum of claims, from severe discomfort/minor whiplash to the aforementioned neck snapping, but none of the articles I found cited any sources. What to do? --Skylights76 (talk) 11:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the mantra "verifiability, not truth" applies here, but whether or not it does, I'm not prepared to defend its validity. It is dubious, now that I read it, and I suppose we could just remove the offending fact. It adds little. ALTON .ıl 08:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I also doubt that Flic Flac really reached 12 Gs. Look at this Image:Flipflaprailway.jpg. The ratio of drop height and loop height is very similar to that of modern loops. Therefore the ride cannot create forces larger than about 6 Gs according to Newtons Laws of motion. I guess that the main reason for neck injuries might have been the high jerk due to the almost instant onset of acceleration. The only way to get 12 Gs would be a "bumpy" design, i.e. locally smaller curvature radii (about half of the average loop radius), resulting in a brief peak in G, but I cannot see this on the picture.--SiriusB (talk) 20:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)