Talk:Spud gun

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[edit] Existing talk

[edit] Spud guns which are not compressed-air-powered

I moved this discussion here from User talk:Anthony Appleyard: Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The move of Spud gun to compressed-gas-powered gun was inappropriate. Many spud guns don't work pneumatically, but by combustion. Please undo. Rracecarr (talk) 16:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • What sorts are these? How are they powered? Best describe them by editing page Spud gun. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Regrettably, I have reverted the enlargement of page Spud gun, for reasons stated in page Wikipedia:Content forking. If pneumatic and non-pneumatic spud guns (in the cannon sense) have similar valve systems and construction details, apart from the power source, then spud guns (cannons) cannot be easily separated from compressed-air cannons used to fire other things more practical than potatoes, and people wanting information about such more useful compressed-gas-powered cannons are unlikely to look in "spud gun", which to most people means a child's toy pistol as in Image:Spud Gun.jpg. The text being discussed here can go in either file but please not in both. As regards whether combustion-powered cannons belong in here: the combustion produces compressed gas, so the cannon seems to belong in page compressed-gas-powered gun. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 18:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
According to your argument, since burning gunpowder creates compressed gas, all firearms are compressed-gas-powered guns. So should we eliminate that article too? Also, I strongly disagree with your statement that to "most people" spud guns are the little toys. I think to most people, it means the larger guns that shoot whole potatoes. Rracecarr (talk) 20:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
  • In the explosion-powered guns described in compressed-gas-powered gun, the power source always seems to be a (rather weak) explosion of gaseous fuel, not of petrol/gasoline or solid explosive. Reading this page is the first time I have heard of cannons firing whole potatoes, but I have seen plenty of the little pistols called spud guns in children's hands and on sale in general stores. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I believe that you had never heard of spud guns before. Nonetheless, rest assured that there are quite a number of people who build and fire them as a hobby, and they call them spud guns or potato guns, not compressed gas powered guns. I have heard "spud gun" used to refer to the cannons far, far more than than to the little toys. But neither of our bits of anecdotal evidence is worth much. I realize that cut-and-paste is not a good way to move pages around, but I don't want to undo your work, and I definitely think the "spud gun" page should talk about pneumatic and combustion cannons. Also, see spud gun legality. Notice it's not called compressed gas powered gun legality. Rracecarr (talk) 12:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The trouble with calling the cannons "spud guns" is that:
    1. The weapons described in Compressed-gas-powered_gun#Practical_uses / Spud gun (cannon)#Practical_uses are unlikely to be called spud guns, and they are described in the same article; and there is no query about their legality.
      • Inclusion of the FN 303 in this section is beginning to shade over into the topic of Paintball gun.
    2. "Spud gun" may mean the cannon to enthusiasts for making them, or to people who know such people; but to me and likely to very many others "spud gun" means the child's toy.
    The text "A larger gun used to fire a whole ..." in page Spud gun is not content forking but a stub-and-pointer.
    Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • This matter was in spud gun, about (1) the small child's toy, and (2) large cannons that fire potatoes; but with time and editing the subject spread away from that topic to compressed-gas-powered weapons / devices which fire other objects and are never called "spud guns". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The page is now in Spud gun (air cannon). Discuss moving it to Compressed-gas-powered gun. Another page involved in this is Spud gun (toy). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Just to make the history clear (at least for me, following move histories is very confusing)
For a long time (years, haven't checked exactly) there was a page called spud gun (or, for a while spudgun and Spud Gun and who knows what other variations) which had a tiny blurb about the child's toy, and for the most part concentrated on pneumatic and combustion powered hobby cannons. Then Anthony Appleyard moved the article to Compressed-gas-powered gun, giving the reason that other things were fired by these cannons besides potatoes. I opposed this move because the fact that you can shoot onions with them does not change the fact that they're called spud guns.
I wrote AA a message asking him to revert himself. He did not. Since I am not an administrator, I cannot move pages properly (ie with their histories) if the target name already exists. So I simply restored the spud gun page to its former state and left compressed-gas-powered gun alone (which meant that largely the same content was included in both articles). It sat like that for maybe a month.
Then AA reverted my restoration on the basis that content forking is bad.
I tried another idea: move the main article to spud gun (cannon), with spud gun a redirect and at the top "For the toy, see spud gun (toy)." But AA reverted me in the process.
I tried again, but since spud gun (cannon) was no longer available, I moved the page to spud gun (air cannon). That's how it sits at the moment. Rracecarr (talk) 14:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The introductory line to the section you reference above is "Although spudguns are created and used for the purpose of recreation there are other devices which work on identical principles in many other fields with more serious uses." It is a small part of the complete article, and with that intro line, it fits in perfectly in an article about spud guns. *Just because the article has one small section on related devices does not mean the name should be generalized, in my opinion. Rracecarr (talk) 15:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  • OK OK, perhaps the FN 303 does not belong here. Or we need to point to a page more generally about compressed-air-powered guns, or write such a page if it does not exist. The central theme here seems to be wide-caliber low-powered guns, often home-made. If they are much used for other things more useful than firing potatoes about, they may need to be renamed. Otherwise, OK, perhaps put it back in Spud gun (cannon). Are there compressed-air-powered guns (wide-caliber or not) used to fire a weight trailing a line or a net or an explosive projectile? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems there might be: [1]
Never mind, I think that's a rocket. Rracecarr (talk) 16:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)