Wikipedia talk:WikiProject World Rally

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[edit] Welcome!

Welcome to WikiProject World Rally, feel free to make a comment while we grow! Wrcmills 15:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Great job. It was about time there was a WikiProject about rallying. I've been meaning to create WikiProject Rallying, but I think this will work very well. Prolog 15:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flops in rallying

I have added three Gr B cars which was suggested by a friend, feel free to add more even if they are not Gr B and feel free to remove them if they are not failures. You will find it here. Willirennen 18.12 26 November 2006

I guess Metro 6R4 and RS200 were indeed flops, although both have a legendary status nowadays. Outside of Group B, Peugeot 307 WRC might be a worthy addition, considering its nicknames, the success of its predecessor and Grönholm's "I hate this car" comment in public. I can't find any source listing rallying flops, though.Prolog 20:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
That's one of the worst pages I think I've seen on Wikipedia. Unencyclopedic POV original research like that ought to be purged from the servers. --DeLarge 16:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
As an addendum, how are they flops? Both of them were very late intros to Group B, and both were victims of circumstances after Toivonen's death forced the abandonment of the class before development could be completed. Both also scored podium finishes in their debut year (the RS200 in Sweden, the 6R4 in Britain), and both also went on to illustrious subsequent careers in Rallycross, which demonstrated their underlying soundness. "Flop" is an incredbly strong word in these circumstances.

[edit] Improvements?

I'd probably agree with User:Prolog that a "Rallying" WikiProject would be better, as currently it sounds like we only cover the current WRC stuff (i.e. post Group A). There's plenty of stuff in the sport outside of the WRC which needs improving, e.g. SCCA/Rally America, and a lot of the historic stuff lies outside the confines of the world rally championship, e.g. London-Sydney Marathon. Might be better to create an overall Rallying Wikiproject, and this can be a subset of it if the current members here have no interest in non-WRC articles.

Also, with regards to the driver infoboxes, I think there's a couple of things need editing:

  1. I'm not nuts on the necessity for two different infoboxes unless we're discussing living/dead drivers. Unlike F1, which I suspect these boxes were modelled on, it's very easy for ex works-drivers to continue to participate in individual events long after their peak years are over. Therefore, I think having a "last race" or "last win" box is questionable until we know they'll never win another.
  2. Active drivers move around and have multiple co-drivers, so the "co-driver" and "team" section should be pluralised for both, in my opinion.

In all honesty, I think a single box would cover both classes of driver, and where he/she is still alive the "last race/last win" and "date of death" sections can be left blank. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DeLarge (talk • contribs) 14:02, November 28, 2006.

And the moment I think we should concentrate on WRC personally because it is a broad subject when you think about it and maybe rename the project when we have completed a good amount of articles but then again when you talk about recruiting members it changes my mind... I'll think about it. Wrcmills 16:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Common infobox which meets each circumstane should be the way to go, wikipedia has far too many infoboxes to chose from already so one the meet all needs should be the way to go. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 16:40, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I did indeed model the infoboxes after the F1 ones. I don't see the "last race" as a big problem, because it doesn't need to be the last race. But I can agree to a merge, and I'll try to see what I can come up with. I definitely agree about the co-drivers and teams. Prolog 18:31, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I suppose there is a balance to strike between attracting more members to this project and taking on too much workload. I agree with Wrcmills about the scope of the WRC. Perhaps the project could be expanded when we're a little further down the line. Adrian M. H. 19:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The two infoboxes are now merged in {{WRC driver}}. Co-driver parameter is gone, team is in plural form and first/last race/win are all optional. If you can improve the template, please do so, since modifying it will be much harder when the template is transcluded in many articles. Prolog 12:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WRC results layout

An anonymous user jumped in today and changed the layout of the 1992 and 2006 WRC results pages, saying they "simplify and improve visual appeance of tables, especially on wide displays". Now, as I'd already mentioned in another discussion, 60% of the internet still uses 1024x768, and there's no more use larger displays than still use 800x600 (see here and here), so I don't think that's necessarily a good motivation for changes.

Also, the other 32 years of results were left alone, so I reverted back to a consistent style. However, User:Andrwsc has subsequently reverted back to the "new" way, so I'm throwing it open to the project as to which looks better. Before I tidy anything. One way or the other, let's get all the pages looking the same though.

For the record, I preferred the original layout, as the multiple tables on each page were of the same width and because the tables looked consistent across the years, even though the number of events changed annually. --DeLarge 20:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The tables definitely need to be consistent in the layout. On 1024*768, both look fine and on 1280*1024, the old layout might be a bit too wide, but I still think it allows the user to locate information more quickly. Prolog 21:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I should comment, especially since I'm mentioned here. I noticed that change in a scan of anon edits, and I agreed with it. Table formatting is a personal pet peeve of mine, I guess. I see so many instances where people don't understand table formatting or don't consider how they will be rendered on other screen sizes. Why create something that looks terrible to 20% of the readers out there when you can make something that looks good for 100% of them?
Anyway, things that caught me eye with that edit and why I reverted back:
  1. The table headings made sense. "Events" is inappropriate and confusing as the column header for the list of manufacturers and list of drivers. The change to put it above the list of event flag icons made perfect sense.
  2. Even at XGA size, I think there was too much unnecessary whitespace after the manufacturer name or the driver name. It looked ugly in my eyes, even at that resolution
  3. The old version had some head-scratching markup code. Why was "colspan=1" on every line? Why was the header redundantly bolded when the wiki table header does that already? What was "width=1%" supposed to accomplish? etc. It just looked like the anon editor knew how to clean up some poorly written table code.
I've made a slight adjustment to World Rally Championship 2006 results to put a bit of whitespace back in, and make the two tables the same size in a way that works well with multiple display sizes and with multiple broswer font sizes. If this project agrees, then I would be happy to make the same changes on the other 32 pages. Andrwsc 00:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the updated layout looks good and the headings make more sense now. Hopefully the table will look good also on seasons like 1974, which had much fewer rallies. Now that we're doing some changes, I propose all instances of "Manufacturers Championship Points" to be changed to "Manufacturers' Championship points" and "World Rally Car Championship Points" to "Drivers' Championship points", for better description and to fix unnecessary capitalization. Some articles already seem to be like this. Prolog 08:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

<reset indent> Tables look a lot better now that they actually line up, i.e. the individual event columns are directly aligned in both tables, which was one of my biggest objections. I'd still like to see the columns widened a bit more - I think the tables should be a consistent size throughout the various years, and I'd want available space for a driver/team with an unusually long name to be accommodated without line wrapping. --DeLarge 10:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

One more very small thing... is it just me, or does anyone else find it unintuitive to have each season's calendar of events after the points tables? --DeLarge 11:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It would probably make more sense to have the events section first, but I had never paid any attention to it. I previewed by cut-pasting the event results above the points section now, and it looked fine to me. In case we will have season summaries later on, the event results should probably be first. Prolog 16:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Now that you have all sucked me into this WikiProject ;), let me offer some additional suggestions:
  1. I agree that the events section ought to go first. It is the only place on the page where the name and location of each event is given, and in the points tables, the event is identified merely with a flag icon only. Not very intuitive. I would not only move the event section first, but also add a column ("Location" or "Host nation" perhaps) with the flag and full name of the nation. That would provide context for the points tables that would then follow.
  2. I agree that the headings need to be fixed with respect to WP:MOSCL guidelines. I would go a step further. The blue title bar in those tables is visual cruft, in my opinion. Better to use a second level heading instead. Therefore, under the "Points" sections (perhaps renamed to something more descriptive, like "Season standings"??) there would be two sub-sections - "Manufacturers' championship" and "Drivers' championship" (unless "championship" should be capitalized because it is a title - I'm unfamiliar with this subject).
  3. Each page needs a much better introduction. Even a rudimentary sentence like "These are the results of the 2006 season of the World Rally Championship" is better than the sentence fragment used now.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you need help with making these changes on all pages. Andrwsc 18:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Those are very good suggestions. "Location" column sounds useful, but I don't know if it fits in there? We might need to make the text smaller, as in 2006 Formula One season. I think "Championship" needs to be capitalized when using the full title; World Rally.... When only mentioning drivers' championship, WRC.com uses lowercase. All seasons definitely need better introduction and hopefully a season summary. I added a very short one, along with an image, to World Rally Championship 2006 results. Thanks for your suggestions. Prolog 10:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

<indent reset>Ive added a test page to my userspace at User:DeLarge/WRC season, moved the table of events to above the points tables. and renamed the headings. There's still a bit of work to be done, but once the "template" layout's established we can go about applying it to other pages, as well as creating the missing/content-free years. --DeLarge 13:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I would still prefer some changes:
  1. Use of next level section headings instead of the blue table headings
  2. Consistent use of "Event" row in both points tables
  3. Same width for "Manufacturer" and "Driver" columns (whether that be 15em or 20em, but not more than that)
  4. Something more than just the flag to indicate the rally event in the points tables. I like the approach taken on the F1 pages, where they use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code wikilinked to the event article. It's still not 100% obvious, but the wikilink is a vast improvement than nothing at all.
I have mocked this up at User:Andrwsc/WRC season for comments. Andrwsc 19:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Good work. I made a minor change aligning the country codes vertically, as in the Formula One tables. Unless someone can figure out more improvements, this should probably be copied to Wikipedia:WikiProject World Rally/WRC season or similar, and given the "official" style guideline status of the project. Prolog 22:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Before it is cast as "official", might I suggest another change I'd like to see. I think the podium columns would look better with three columns instead of two, such as:
Round Rally name Podium finishers
Rank Driver Car Time
1 Flag of Monaco 74ème Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo
(January 20-22)		 1 Flag of Finland Marcus Grönholm Ford Focus RS WRC 06 4:11:43.9
2 Flag of France Sébastien Loeb Citroën Xsara 4:12:45.7
3 Flag of Finland Toni Gardemeister Peugeot 307 4:13:07.0
I think this has a cleaner appearance and avoids the extra space wasted by duplicating the list numbers. I think the times look better lined up also. It looks like more work to implement, with more specification of row & column spans, alignment, etc. but it should be easy to use the first instance of this table as a "cookie cutter" for all years. Andrwsc 23:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It looks better there, but when used in a long table the problem is that it is hard to tell the positions apart, and thus see whether driver won rally C or was third in rally B. See example. It would need some kind of colour coding. Prolog 23:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, good point. I'm not a big fan of color coding, as per Wikipedia:Accessibility. The only other thing I can think of at the moment is to put a "separator row" between each event, as I have added to your sandbox. Is that enough? Andrwsc 23:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Another possibility is to alternate rows with different shades of color (different from how I interpreted your statement of 'color coding', but maybe this is what you had in mind) such as found on tables like on Basketball at the Summer Olympics. Andrwsc 23:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
That was indeed what I had in my mind, though not as "colorful" colors as on the basketball tables. But I think the separator rows fix the problem. Prolog 00:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Would this work for event tables? It uses the small font, as the Formula One tables, but otherwise it would be pretty impossible to fit the Round and Location sections in it. Prolog 14:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the flag in front of the rally name is probably a good compromise to having a "Location" column. That matches the F1 table style. Also, for some reason {{flagicon}} works better with nation names in full (e.g. "Monaco") instead of the country code ("MON"), as the flag version you get is the bordered one. Andrwsc 19:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Since there's been no recent activity on this issue, can I assume that this layout is acceptable to everyone? I'll probably try to create the missing years over the next few days, and I'd rather not start until I know the layout's set in stone. Also, I'll probably create new articles first, then repair the old ones, if anyone's wondering. --DeLarge 20:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Adrian M. H. 21:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Seems like everyone favours the changes and the new layout. I'll probably create one using your upcoming article as basis then. Prolog 23:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I would like to propose one minor change to the format of the results table, and that is to add a break after the flag. This help prevent some unnecessary wrapping of the event name, and there is plenty of vertical space to do it cleanly: Josh 15:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Round Rally name Podium finishers
Rank Driver Car Time
1 Flag of Monaco
74ème Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo
(January 20-22)		 1 Flag of Finland Marcus Grönholm Ford Focus RS WRC 06 4:11:43.9
2 Flag of France Sébastien Loeb Citroën Xsara 4:12:45.7
3 Flag of Finland Toni Gardemeister Peugeot 307 4:13:07.0
I think the flag looks a bit "lonely" on its own line, especially when flags are followed by driver names in the "Podium finishers" section on the right. But other than this, you're OK with the updated layout (narrower table width, smaller font size, no more headings on a blue background color)? Prolog 16:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename proposal for season articles

World Rally Championship YEAR results --> YEAR World Rally Championship season

I feel the current name is a bit "difficult" and unencyclopedic in a way that it invites only result tables without, say, a short summary about what actually happened during the season. The naming convention I'm proposing matches the syntax used by Formula One, DTM and A1 Grand Prix, and is used by WRC.com. Prolog 21:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree - I certainly think the original title is unwieldy and I've never liked it (although I followed what was already there). Will be a pain in the ass to fix, but if you're volunteering to do the donkey work I'm amenable. Following the primary source and the other motorsport articles seems sensible too, so I won't bother trying to offer any alternatives. --DeLarge 21:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree; it seems a logical suggestion and probably worth the effort. Adrian M. H. 19:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
All season articles have been moved now, except for the empty tables created by a few users. I prodded some of those, because there is no actual content. Prolog 18:30, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Saw all this after the change had taken place - It now means that the pages are out of naming convention with the template and the summary page and also none (ok some!) of the links have been fixed to point direct. Not the way such a change should take place. More effort could be going into such changes and ideally into adding the information about the results, particularly in the missing years. Just to penny worth! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 11:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

There were no responses here for five days, and no opposes at all, so I went ahead with the changes. Which pages are referring to? Which template? I "fixed" the wikilinks on {{World Rally Championship results}}, but generally, valid redirects should not be changed. See Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken. If there are some inconsistencies, these can be solved with the move function. Prolog 12:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, I changed the wikilinks on World Rally Championship results so that the piped links now point straight to the page (I'm aware of the "don't fix redirects" suggestion, but since I was making edits anyway it makes no difference to the server load). I'll also move the actual page to World Rally Championship seasons, or whatever the appropriate form should be, if that's OK. Also, the {{World Rally Championship}} has a couple of links which could be adjusted to point directly to a page, but I don't see any major hassles with the renaming.
I'll try and get round to dealing with the blank years over the next few days, as I finally have time off before Xmas. The previous pages I created took 2-3 hours to copy/paste and populate the tables, so I simply didn't have time to tackle them (especially when I was subsequently forced to repeatedly revert date adjustments by User:SndrAndrss).
Since we're still getting the exact layout set in stone, as with the above discussions, it shouldn't really matter if the prodded pages are deleted since we'll be starting again from scratch anyway. With that in mind, I'm going to copy the 2006 page to my userspace and create a template that people can tweak. --DeLarge 13:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
World Rally Championship seasons makes sense. The season list should probably be turned into some kind of table with additional information of each season. Prolog 13:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need for a WikiProject: Motorsport?

Do we need a WikiProject Motorsport for collaboration on topics that affect all motorsport articles? I came across Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rugby - the purpose of which is to "maintain its children Wikiprojects: Rugby league and Rugby union as well as recognising, organising and improving the common areas between the codes." Now we have a lot more Motorsport WikiProjects covered than two and I sometimes think stuff such as the UK country discussion on the F1 Wikiproject applies across several others. I'm posting this on the F1, WRC, NASCAR, American Open Wheel Racing, A1GP and IROC to get people's opinions. Your comments are welcome! Alexj2002 21:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget, there's WikiProject British Motorsport as well. It might be a good idea to have something that ties them together - it might generate an increase in collaboration (and membership). Adrian M. H. 21:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current work

I'm just curious what were all up to about the WikiProject at the moment! Wrcmills 19:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Not much, I must admit! I've been concentrating on two of the other motorsport projects recently. A Kris Meeke article is in the pipeline - I just need a bit more research material. Adrian M. H. 21:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Just started a page for Bruno Thiry. Needs a little work, can anyone help? scancoaches 21:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. I made a few minor changes and added the infobox. Prolog 22:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Prolog, looks better, still need a bit more I feel, maybe when I find the time!scancoaches 16:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Just completed Freddy Loix. Any comments or suggestions? scancoaches 21:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Good work. Before reading the article, I couldn't remember much about him except for the fact that he was Mäkinen's teammate at Mitsubishi. I changed all instances of "Freddy" to "Loix", as using the last name is usually more encyclopedic. Prolog 23:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Markku Alen Photo

So yea, I got a photo of this guy Markku Alen for his page (after seeing the To-Do List) It doesn't really look right (lol) I'm kind of a noob at this. If you go to Markku Alén's Page you will see what I mean. Just lookin' for someone to fix it for me. Thanks. ~Blake D. Hawkins 02:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to the project and thanks for checking the to-do list. The image you uploaded was speedily deleted because the use of it was allowed only for non-commercial purposes. You can see a list of available copyright tags here and don't forget to mention the source when uploading. For more, see Wikipedia:Image use policy. Prolog 05:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank's for clearing that up for me; as I said, I'm new here. //Blake D. Hawkins 21:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drivers' wins tables

Is the wins table on Marcus Grönholm's page considered to be the accepted standard? Most winning drivers don't have this (having an unattractive list instead, or nothing at all). If the Gronholm table style meets with general approval, I'll make a start on updating a few of the more popular articles. It could perhaps be improved with flags for each event, although it currently matches the titles table better without them. Adrian M. H. 20:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd definitely use the flagicon instead of a second column for the country, since it looks very superfluous most of the time (i.e. Telstra Rally Australia, Australia). Ditch that, and maybe the "round" column in favor of expanding the year column to include a fuller date? Also, add a column for the co-driver? I don't know about Grönholm, but most of the top drivers have had different navigators over the years (Mäkinen, McRae, Kankkunen). Guys like Derek Ringer have their own articles too, so it wouldn't be an entirely non-linked column either.
Number Date Season Event Co-driver Car
1 February 11–13 2000 Flag of Sweden 49th International Swedish Rally Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
2 July 14–16 2000 Flag of New Zealand 30th Rally New Zealand Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
3 August 18–20 2000 Flag of Finland 50th Neste Rally Finland Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
How 'bout that? The layout's a bit simpler too, no complications with background colours and the like. Any alternatives? --DeLarge 22:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that's a very good step in the right direction. You're right about using flagicons to replace the country names, and a co-driver column is so obviously a useful addition that I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself! The only changes that I would suggest are: put the event before the date and keep the current light blue style under the headings (it seems to fit somehow). Adrian M. H. 23:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I like this. I'm not a big fan of tables with alternating colors per line - they can be difficult to maintain. The only suggestion I'd make is to put the Season column in front of the Date column, as it is more important. Actually, perhaps the Date column is redundant on these tables, as the dates would be included on both the wikilinked season articles and specific rally articles. Andrwsc 23:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I would have: # - event - date - season - co-driver - car, in that order. The date may have some relevance to place the data in the context of a driver's career (more so with fewer wins), but I wouldn't bother applying links to it (it would look cleaner without them). Adrian M. H. 23:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
# Event Date  Season  Co-driver Car
1  Flag of Sweden 49th International Swedish Rally   11-13 February   2000   Timo Rautiainen   Peugeot 206 WRC 
2  Flag of New Zealand 30th Rally New Zealand   14-16 July   2000   Timo Rautiainen   Peugeot 206 WRC 

Something like that? Adrian M. H. 23:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I wikilinked the dates so that user preferences would be applied to them (i.e. it looks like "August 18" to me, but "18/8" to others, and "8/18" to Americans). The date is, however, definitely the least important column, and assuming that one day we manage to get all the individual rally articles up to scratch, they should include the dates. I'm with User:Andrwsc though about colour; I just like class="wikitable" and be done with it. So, as before but without the date column... --DeLarge 23:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Number Season Event Co-driver Car
1 2000 Flag of Sweden 49th International Swedish Rally Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
2 2000 Flag of New Zealand 30th Rally New Zealand Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
3 2000 Flag of Finland 50th Neste Rally Finland Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
or
Number Event Season Co-driver Car
1 Flag of Sweden 49th International Swedish Rally 2000 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
2 Flag of New Zealand 30th Rally New Zealand 2000 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
3 Flag of Finland 50th Neste Rally Finland 2000 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC
Yeah, either of those look good to me. As for the table colors, I strongly agree that the "wikitable" class is perfectly suitable. I think Wikipedia is much stronger with visual consistency across articles. It's distracting when different editors adopt their own personal favorite styles for their own additions. Andrwsc 00:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
The new table layout looks good and is definitely an improvement. I stole the tables on Marcus Grönholm from the French Wikipedia article and didn't bother modifying them much, nor did I think we would later come up with a standard. Of the above examples, I slightly prefer the latter one as it somehow looks more natural to me. Prolog 07:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
The second order is better (year after event, not before). I don't mind either style; my reasons for suggesting the blue style were simply that it was already there; I'm not sure how many articles currently use it; and it may previously have been chosen as the accepted style for the rally driver articles. The blue seems to fit, and matches the infobox colour. But I don't really mind either way. Re: date preferences - my preferences (English layout) aren't being applied to your linked dates for some reason. I see "11 February-13", which looks very odd. I would expect "11-13 February". Adrian M. H. 15:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Concensus?

Did we come to a conclusion about which table layout to use? DeLarge's second layout? Adrian M. H. 12:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No-one is opposing that layout, so it seems to be the way to go. Prolog 12:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
That's what I thought, but I didn't want to waste effort using the wrong table. Thanks. Adrian M. H. 12:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rally reports.

Would anyone object to me starting in making Rally Reports for each rally, in a similar way that the F1 project create? --Barberio 16:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Naming for each report article would be to use the formal name for the individual rally. So the first one will be 55ème Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo --Barberio 16:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be great to have reports similar to F1. The formal name makes sense, but it can also create some problems, such as making it hard to find a certain year's rally report while browsing a category. I would prefer having the year first in the title, as it's similar to F1 and seems to be common use in media. Either way, there should at least be redirects at 2007 Monte Carlo Rally et cetera. I noticed a typo on 2007 World Rally Championship season, so the first article would be 75ème... Prolog 17:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I've been meaning to start on these, but have been pushed back to due to lack of time. I hope to start on 2006 ones sometime next week Wrcmills 17:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Some initial work done on 75ème Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo --Barberio 19:16, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm really rather new to following the WRC, so someone giving a hand with finding the drivers full names, nationalities and their cars would be a big help. --Barberio 23:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
The layout looks very good. I have a few suggestions though. Results for top-40 seems a bit too much. Wouldn't the first 20 finishers be enough? I also propose replacing "Penalties" (this is usually 0:00 and can be mentioned as a note below) with "Car" field. Should we also make a race report infobox? Prolog 23:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Good ideas, be bold and make the changes.
I'm currently trying to work out a quicker way for me to generate a table of the stage results which might make producing the pages quicker for me. Once I can populate a database with all the various driver information. --Barberio 00:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, I put together a bit different layout, with different table fields, for the main result section. It's added to 75ème Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo now. Prolog 00:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
The "Stage times" section might be a bit unnecessary and create problems (table width) with some rallies that have almost 30 stages. In the 70's and 80's, there were even 60-70 sometimes. Prolog 01:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I can't really see how the stage times section will work. Is it just the first person to lead after the first stage and then their times are but down or something else. Im a tad confused Wrcmills 09:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I was going to put all the drivers times in, but that looks to be a hugely over complicated task. --Barberio 16:50, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I think we're really getting there now on a model of what can be used for the future Rally Reports. --Barberio 16:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Rally reports should probably use the full self titled name, and a redirect from "2005 Foo Rally". --Barberio 20:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Is anyone going to do an WRC event infobox? It would just make the reports look a whole lot better! Wrcmills 07:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to - I've been working on a lot of infoboxes lately. Just let me know what fields you would like to see and I'll put it together. Adrian M. H. 12:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes in Templates

Hi, I'm currently making some changes over on the WikiProject Motorsport Assessment Page. Look in the statistics section. Only 240 articles have the template WikiProject Motorsport on it. I'm thererfore going to propose something (I think this has been discussed a while back). Can every single Motorsport article have the template on it's talk page. My reasoning for this is that some drivers have only the Formula One template on the article. However, surely (by the way, this goes for virtually all articles), they haven't got to Formula One someway. They haven't just been thrown into F1, I don't think any drivers done that. They've gone through other forms of Motorsport. Therefore, surely the Wikipedia Motorsport template is needed for every single Motorsport article?. I'm going to do a vote on this (on this page, plus the Motorsport project and all the child projects) so we can get a decision on this. By the way, don't bother voting on different projects, as only one of your votes will count! Davnel03 16:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Agree


  • Disagree


  • Leave Comments Here

[edit] 19xx in motor racing categories

I've recently created Category:1950 in motor racing - Category:1968 in motor racing. So, feel free to add any relevant articles or subcategories into these new categories. -- DH85868993 12:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Standard width for driver infoboxes

There are numerous driver articles which contain multiple infoboxes, for the different series the driver has competed in. One issue is that the various driver infoboxes are different widths, which means that the infoboxes don't always "stack" neatly - contrast Olivier Gendebien (all infoboxes the same width) with Julian Bailey (different width infoboxes). The current infobox widths are:

  • 25 em: F1 driver, A1GP driver, V8 Supercar driver, WRC driver
  • 24 em: Former F1 driver, Former Champ Car driver, Former F3 driver
  • 22 em: BTCC driver, BTCC alumnus, DTM driver, Junior series driver, Pickup Truck driver, Infobox racing driver
  • 270px (which is very close to 24em): all the NASCAR driver infobox templates

I propose that we standardise the width of all driver infoboxes at 24em, to improve the visual appearance of articles containing multiple infoboxes. Please leave comments here. DH85868993 14:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Following broad support at WP:MOTOR, all motorsport people infoboxes have now been changed to a standard width of 24em. -- DH85868993 12:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name this car

I'm currently importing a load of freely licenced motorsport photos over from flickr to the Wikimedia Commons. I've come across a photo which of a car from an era well before my time. It can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/exfordy/186643767/ It looks to me to be an old BMW rally car. Any help with regard to establishing model,year etc. greatly appreciated. AlexJ 01:04, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Well before my time too, but it seems to be Rauno Aaltonen's BMW 2002ti. According to RallyBase, Aaltonen competed with it at least in 1971 and 1972. Prolog 08:14, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Motorsport Library

I've made a suggestion at WikiProject Motorsport for a list of hardcopy references and who holds them, to help with referencing articles. This was prompted by the realisation that I have access to quite a lot of material which I'm not currently using. Please comment here. Cheers. 4u1e 16:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:<nationality> rally drivers

Over at WP:F1 we have decided that all drivers in [Category:<nationality> Formula One drivers] should also be directly included in [Category:<nationality> racecar drivers], on the basis that F1 drivers don't exclusively drive F1. You may wish to consider whether the same principle should be applied to [Category:<nationality> rally drivers]. -- DH85868993 11:13, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Only for rally drivers who actually do (or did) some racing as well, such as Loeb or McRae. Adrian M. H. 18:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rallying image on Main Page

Image:Peugeot 206 WRC.jpg will be featured on Main Page as the picture of the day on July 2, 2007. You can improve the caption at Template:POTD/2007-07-02. Prolog 17:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New infobox for any rally driver

While I'm in the mood for sorting out and improving the motorsport infobox situation (see WT:MOTOR) I have got around to creating a generic and comprehensive infobox for (hopefully) all rally drivers at {{Infobox rally driver}}. It is based on {{Infobox racing driver}} but with rallying-specific data fields. All fields are optional, apart from a few that are activated by an optional parent field (eg. whether you need to use "last series" or "current series") and co-drivers are catered for. I would have liked to included years for teams and co-drivers, but there won't be enough room. I think I have remembered to include all the pertinent fields, but let me know if I have omitted anything important. I hope that this can eventually replace {{WRC driver}} as the de facto rallying infobox. Feedback is welcome. Adrian M. H. 11:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Some random thoughts after a quick look:
  • I don't like the idea of having date of birth, place of birth and date of death in infoboxes. These are or should be mentioned in the first sentence of the article, and having them repeated in the infobox lengthens it with little to no extra value. "Retired" parameter seems to be redundant to "years active"? "Related to" is interesting, but a bit trivial.
  • "2007 {{{current series}}}": I'm wondering if there are enough editors to keep sections like this updated and accurate, especially since many rally drivers compete in very small series after quitting at their top-level. Maybe the "current co-driver" and "current team" fields could be added to the main section.
  • "Previous series": I like the idea, but this too might easily make the infobox too long.
  • "Championship titles": This seems useful, but is this information presented best in the infobox, in the article's biography section or as an external table like on Marcus Grönholm? For example, many WRC drivers have a long list of different kind of national-level titles which should really not be listed in the infobox.
  • "Awards": Are there any related awards, and do we really need to list those in the infobox?
  • "Best finish": I guess this replaces the "Championships" field? Seems like a very good change.
  • Shouldn't "last series" be "main series", as in about what the driver is really known for, be it WRC, ERC, a national championship, etc.?
  • For "podium finishes", you wrote "(other than wins)" in the doc, but wins are podium places too. This is also how the number of podiums is marked at least in F1 and WRC biographies that I have seen.
  • "Co-drivers": This does not seem like a good idea. Many rally drivers have 6-12 co-drivers during their career.
  • The colour reminds me of gravel, but I think it doesn't suit Wikipedia's current white-grey-blue theme very well and therefore might be a bit of distraction usability-wise.
I realise that almost all of the fields are optional, but I still think this template needs to be heavily stripped down. Prolog 12:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Those are a lot of thoughts, but I'll try to address them all. I have tried to create consistency between infoboxes because I believe in the importance of that. {{WRC driver}} sits virtually alone as a little oddity among bio infoboxes, much like all the deprecated templates that were created for things like A1 Grand Prix, most of which have been replaced and nominated for deletion.

  • Birth and death data is considered to be an important addition in all biography infoboxes. I was encouraged to include them in {{Infobox racing driver}} and I am convinced that they are worthwhile. The infobox content is surely supposed to summarise the key data from the article and that includes this kind of personal data. I note that you did not raise this point at WT:MOTOR, but if you missed that discussion, that's OK.
  • The opportunity to include notable relatives is important in circuit racing (I could name more than a dozen racing families). I can appreciate that there are fewer uses for this in rallying, but off the top of my head, there are the Higginses, the McRaes, and the Wilsons. But as with all the fields, it is optional.
  • Updates should not be an issue. I update about 15-20 circuit drivers articles per week and there other editors who do the same or more. Rally driver articles should have sufficient support, I'm sure. As long as the data is available, there are editors who can add it.
  • The list of previous series does not have to be complete, just notable if preferred. I rarely list every participation there, particularly if some of them involved just a couple of events.
  • Notable/major titles only?
  • The Autosport Awards to name just one. That has categories for various levels of rally driver. Optional, but if the info exists, it is interesting.
  • "Last series" could become "main series" or similar.
  • Podium finishes are 2nd and 3rd in practice. yes, one stands on the podium after a win, but in practical terms, all sources that I use and all periodical publications that I have read refer to them separately and do not include wins. It is odd and misleading to have "podia" and "points finishes" include the value from the figure above them. But, my solution is to remove it altogether if that's what it takes; I omitted it from the other infobox right from the start in anticipation of this debate and potential confusion when editing articles.
  • I like the co-driver field, but if it really has to go, then I guess it has to go. But how about "notable co-drivers"? Can of worms, or manageable?
  • The colour was an artistic experiment and entirely provisional. I'm getting a bit sick of grey!

I think that has covered everything. What are your thoughts now? Adrian M. H. 14:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for consistency, which is why I modelled the WRC template after {{F1 driver}} and I think it is very similar except for the colours. I'm not saying the DoB/DoD/PoB fields are completely useless, but that they are not worth the space they take due to this information's MoS-guided place in the article's first sentence. I'll try to see how this template looks like with an example below and continue discussion there. Prolog 22:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not the most important person here, but just wanted to take a part in discussion too (generally supporting Prolog's opinion):

  • Date of birth/death isn't worst idea on earth, but just like Prolog said - it's mentioned pretty much always in first sentence of an article.
  • Rally drivers indded are really "unstable" when it comes to series. Many of them compete only in some events, others in 2-3 series at the same time... Field may come either innacurate or cluttered, both cases it's bad. Leaving only most "important" one could do the job. But retired WRC drivers would be left without mentioning WRC career, only some minor series. Imagine an IRC & ERC & WRC driver. Ending career after rallying in local series. IMO separate boxes have their real strong pluses...
  • Previous series - Prolog got the point.
  • Championship titles - again, like Prolog. On polish Wiki there are titles mentioned and it looks awful ugly (just look at pl: Marcus_Grönholm. Cluttered and impractical. I'm thinking about creating special box for WRC driver there, and there goes just the opposite on en:. Funny ;)
  • Awards - + for Prolog. Could be easy too miss some data. Not so crucial information.
  • Best finish - ? Don't get this field. How do you compare same places in rallies/champs? (Loeb?)
  • Podium finishes without wins? An oxymoron, clearly... It's not hard to subtract number of wins from podiums... And our rally sources I used, count wins (rallybase, juwra.com...). And having such "dominators" as Seb or Marcus, podium finishes can give better clue about the driver than wins only ;).
  • Colour reminds me of something else, but it's a matter of taste, changeable luckily :).


Hope I haven't said anything too stupid. --Maggot666PL 14:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I can only address some of those points,as I haven't got much time. Reasons for birth/death info I covered earlier; basically, we must remember that there are considerations outside of our own projects. Put yourself in the position of a reader who is looking at the information at-a-glance and I can see why consensus favours the inclusion of this info. The previous series and titles will look nothing like that Polish infobox; just look at the articles that use {{Infobox racing driver}} and you'll see how it is formatted. I'm taking the podia field out, just to put an end to that issue. I think that's simplest. Best finish means "best championship finish in the series that has been highlighted above it, but obviously, I didn't have enough room to call it that ; ) Again, see the other infobox's articles as a guide. Thanks for your input. Adrian M. H. 15:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Couldn't really find any racedriver using this template... But found like 2 or 3 f1 templates, not to mention BTCC and others. I'll be grateful if you gave me a hint. And I'm against striping infobox of podium finishes field. Podium box has 3 places, there's no doubt about that, and it's IMO pretty important data when it comes to rally drivers.
Also I'm against co-driver fields too. Had some real bad experience with this kind of stuff (stupid question "what if his previous co-driver comes back?" killed me...). And if current co isn't a bad idea, definitively "previous-cos" must go (how could you distinguish notable ones from not-so-notable? They all do hell of a job there).
After all it's good job you're doing, but I still like the current, neat and clean box. --Maggot666PL 18:37, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, 74 articles currently use the circuit racing version, so I don't know where you could have been looking. Many of those articles will give you a good idea of the finished appearance. "5 wins and 5 podia" says 10 good results, yet you want me to accept that this is only five results displayed twice??? That goes against logic. I'm glad that you appreciate my efforts here. At the end of the day, you might not have had the existing WRC infobox at all if I hadn't worked hard to come up with a streamlined solution for all the motor racing infoboxes as a compromise solution. The merger might well have gone ahead and the current WRC template would have gone to TfD. At least this way, you get to keep a dedicated rallying infobox, and surely it is better to have one that is suitable for all rally drivers? That is what I'm trying to aim for, because I have found the current option to be less than ideally suited to the task. Adrian M. H. 20:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
You're right, I haven't used "proper" ways to find them. Anyway, here infobox looks neat, indeed. WITH additional box for F1, of course. If you're planning to do same thing for rally drivers (rally box + additional ones for past important series, this way important info won't be missing), I'm 90% positive. But with podia, please ;) - they're not repeating wins: wins are rather precising results (10 good results, 5 of them wins). --Maggot666PL 17:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Sure, put the podia field back in, then. I still disagree, but I don't want to give the incorrect impression that I'm not open to compromise. It is everyone's template to use. I'm not sure whether we would actually need any other infoboxes, and I was trying to avoid that situation with my comprehensive/flexible approach the available fields. When the merge proposal was happening, we argued that it was too inflexible to lose the F1 templates, for example. But in this case, I can't think of any other infoboxes that we would need for rally drivers unless we want to detail their results data from more than one series, and that might be overkill (especially on a stub!). I think it's best to keep the detail for their most notable/important/relevant series and keep it neat. What do you think? Adrian M. H. 17:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that's a good idea. The most important rally series are clearly WRC/IRC/ERC. And if "most important series" contained them, there would rarely be a need for an additional infobox. Unfortunately, size is quite inevitable characteristic of complex infobox.
I've put podium finishes back in and changed color of last brown header, cause it was only one unchanged. If on purpose then I'm sorry for messing up. And as you said previously, it might be a good idea to change color of box a little. Maybe not to brown, but some darker blue could be nice to distinguish rally box from race driver one. Right now I think that box looks nice. I'm only worried what will happen when we use it for retired WRC driver. He'll be active, so many fields from "last series" section will be in use, leaving no place for "notable series". It needs a little redesigning, but looks like you're ready for it (I'll do my best to contribute if needed). But, as I said, it's looking good :) --Maggot666PL 19:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
We had already touched on the subject of the "last series" field for ex-WRC drivers and I agreed with Prolog; I amended the instructions in the pro-forma accordingly to encourage editors to use this section to highlight the driver's most important participation (normally the highest level, but it may be where they were most successful or most famous). In other words, it doesn't have to be their last participation, but I can't think of a short field name that would encompass what I have just described, so I kept the name. "Notable series" probably covers it I guess. Because of the use of a grey title area, "last series" is not actually displayed anywhere in the finished box, so I don't think we have to worry too much about it as long as the usage is clear enough. Thanks for spotting the last heading colour! Adrian M. H. 19:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Example

I wanted to see this new template in action, and maybe others do too, so here is an example of it with information for Marcus Grönholm (feel free to edit). It looks very nice, but I think all the information makes it just way too long, especially since it is missing the first/last rally/win fields which are on {{WRC driver}}. These fields are very useful in determining when the top drivers were really active and at their peak, since rally drivers can go from age 18 to 48 with different levels of activity and success. "Début season" can be replaced with "Début" (world rally) though, so it would be in this case "1989 1000 Lakes Rally".

"Date of Birth" and "Place of Birth": "Birth" should not be capitalized if these fields are kept, but like I mentioned above I don't think these are worth the space. "Awards": I would leave this out, even if it is optional. It is trivial and it turned out that finding a good source even for Autosport Awards was hard. If an award X of year Y would be listed, it would need to be verified if the driver has won the same award some other year too. "Championship titles" seems to be useful if a driver has many notable titles, and it looks pretty nice, but again I must wonder if it is worth the space it takes. On podium finishes I agree with Maggot666PL, it needs to be mentioned and it needs to include wins because that is how our sources count them. "Co-driver" and "best finish" seem to work well. I left out the "Previous series" section entirely. One problem with an infobox of this size is that it doesn't really invite users to take on the task of adding infoboxes, both because it takes a lot of time to compile the information and because the user might be confused by its complexity. Other problems involve the page layout. On Henri Toivonen, on a large resolution screen, the template would reach well down the "Early Career" section despite the lengthy lead section. In stub articles, which are the majority, large infoboxes tend to look silly. Prolog 22:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

You can't make the debut WRC-specific; what do you do for drivers who have never competed in that championship (which was a big reason for the generic template)? Adrian M. H. 23:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Ïndeed. I meant the driver's debut rally in the series, but I lost the big picture while thinking this specific example. Prolog 23:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Anyway, we seem to differ about the length; I honestly think that the current WRC template is too short and does not offer enough data. But life would be boring if we all thought the same thing, I guess! With regard to stubs, one tends to have less data to play with and my approach with the other template was to limit myself to the most important bits when editing short articles. Partly for quickness, I must admit, but that's not to say that I agree about complexity; this is not complex at all. Adrian M. H. 23:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rally results page

I've been doing some WRC-related layout changes on Polish Wiki recently and I've come up with rally results page looking like this (with full rally review) or this (bare, tables only). Avg. speed is calculated by me. IMO it looks nice, I'm planning on expanding results to PCWRC/JRC top-3/top-8 (points), WIP may be found here.

Since en.wiki is lacking recent rally results I thought about adapting the layout here, but I would like to hear your opinions beforehand. --Maggot666PL 17:10, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

It actually looks very nice, Maggot. I moved my browser's viewport width around and they still look OK when viewed on a narrower screen, so I support that. Adrian M. H. 17:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Looks great to me. The few rally reports we have here at en: have several kind of layouts, so standard result tables and layout would be welcome. Prolog 22:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm really glad you like it. I tweaked the layout by adding PWRC/JRC standings and now it's pretty much ready - again, WRC+JRC - tables only and WRC+PCWRC - with rally review. I'll be slowly adapting the layout to en.wiki, just like I do on pl: event after event, going "back in time". I already made 2007 Rally New Zealand (blank, with leg 1 SS winners) if you want to take a look on semi-final effect. --Maggot666PL 14:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Great job. I guess we could use a "Report" column for 2007 World Rally Championship season soon. By the way, you don't need to calculate the average speeds for special stages yourself. Some result websites, like eWRC-results.com, have this information. Prolog 23:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that currently table works pretty well, I think that widening it by 2-3em (Event section) and centering might do some good. But if you've got an idea, I'm waiting for effects. And calculating avg. speed isn't such big deal, entering few numbers with numeric keyboard might even be faster than change_page-copy-switch_tab-paste-change_coma_to_dot :). Besides, sometimes different sources have different stage lengths (I'm copying them from WRC.com), so speeds aren't 100% the same. --Maggot -- [ talk ] 08:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expanding this project's scope past the WRC

Is there any interest in expanding the scope of this wikiproject to include all rally racing, hillclimbing etc? Right now it only focuses on WRC related material, but I think thats a bit narrow. What do people think? Tmaull (talk) 18:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be a good move. It has been proposed a couple of times before, but I don't think there has been a real discussion about it. Prolog (talk) 20:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
What would be the next step in the process? A rename of this project? Or the creation of a new project? Tmaull 13:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I don;t think a name change is necessary. Rally and World, all that means surely is that it covers all things across the world about rallying. What do you think. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 15:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The name isn't "World Rally Championship", so I don't think we should change it. --Maggot :: [ talk ] 15:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
OK. In that case, I am going to begin changing the description of the project to reflect the change. Tmaull 18:31, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2007 Welsh Rally

One of my flickr friends [1] posted numerous Welsh Rally images from a December 1, 2007 rally. There are over 100 quality images. They are marked Attribution 2.0, so they could be uploaded here to Wikipedia. Royalbroil 06:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'll definitely upload some of those to Commons. Prolog 11:32, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Done (about 70% of them are already on commons). There they are. Tried to chose those well-cropped and in good brightness. --Maggot :: [ talk ] 20:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Wow, great work. Looks like you got all the drivers correct too. Prolog 21:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Tried to reduce risk of making mistake by checking numbers on entry list and using some common sense (like comparing license plates, or "names" of Stobart's Focuses. Glad that could help in expanding WRC-related part of Wiki. --Maggot :: [ talk ] 22:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move request of Special Stage

Considering the endurance racing page had received that treatment despite only one article about the topic, the term Special Stage is commonly associated with rallying more than Sonic the Hedgehog, I decided to bring it up here as one user has so far opposed the move. Please add your nomination on Talk:Special Stage#Requested move. Willirennen (talk) 03:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was that Special Stage is now a disambiguation page, with links to Sonic, Manga and a new article Special stage (rallying).
Now, I need to check terminology specifics. The Special stage (rallying) article explains the concept of a Special Stage (and Super Special Stage). While looking for places that needed linking, I commonly came across the term "Special Stage Rally" which was being used to refer to what I call a "Stage rally". We should probably have some consistency over this term so which one do people think should be used? Either way, it's probably Categories of rallies#Special stage rallies (or #Stage rallies if that is the consensus) that these should be linked to not the Special stage article. AlexJ (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I have never used or heard/read the term "special stage rally"; it has always been "stage rally" to my knowledge. Adrian M. H. 21:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2001 Rally Finland

I came across some pictures from Rally Finland 2001 and got permission to use them. (Attribution license). I could use some help tagging them. They are here. Thanks. - Tmaull (talk) 01:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Great collection. Have you forwarded the permission to OTRS (permissions-commons at wikimedia.org)? I'll help you tag the images once I know the "ticket ID". Prolog (talk) 02:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I have. There a fair bit more where that came from actually. Tmaull (talk) 02:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Did the author release all of his images in here under CC-BY-SA-3.0? I'll see if I can help you with categorization. Prolog (talk) 03:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Some of them are dead links. As soon as the email thing goes through, I am going to get back in contact with him to see if he can email the one in the dead linked galleries to me. - Tmaull (talk) 03:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2008 WRC season

Adding the standard standings tables to 2008 World Rally Championship season made me think whether we should start using the colour-coded layout that many series' (F1, GP2, MotoGP, DTM...) season articles have. Any thoughts? Prolog (talk) 10:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I like it. Tmaull (talk) 15:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
They do rather different things. Firstly the times are not included which is key to the WRC results, whereas the entire driver entry list are normally included, which for WRC would be overkill surely. We have a high level of consistency between years currently, are we able to get this information back populated? Come to that, do the information feeds that give "us" the results contain the information necessary to maintain these colourful schemes. There are provided for the limited entry fields of circuit racing formlua, but I don't think the open entry field of many rallies lend themselves to this comprehensive approach. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 16:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Kevinalewis - I'm pretty sure Prolog meant season-standings, which isn't so hard to gather. And when data is really hard to get - it is not mandatory to make it coloured.
It sure looks messy, very colorful. I think it's not a bad idea, but there are few issues:
  • in WRC standings (and in all rallying series, I think) there are points, not places used to fill the table. It's better since there is no constant number of competing drivers.
  • (minor) centering the points/places. Looks better.
  • Now that I think about it, we could even create statistics table, including only the drivers who at lest won the stage/earned a point.
  • Constructors layout would do even better, since now it's somewhat non-useful (provides only unclear data for the non-oriented reader), but we face the 'problem' of non-MF drivers taking high places. Coloring scoring places could help, but it would be good to show the amount of points after hovering the place (title param?) or at least placing it in parenthesis (maybe refs? Like ref name = 10 points, 8, etc. and calls from certain cells).
That's for starters. -- Ṃäģģöṭ · ↑¿₡₴៛↓ 16:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The constructors' table idea seems interesting, and made we wonder if the way the manufacturer points are awarded is currently fully explained anywhere. Prolog (talk) 05:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I just added a short sentence clearing it a bit in a section about points in World Rally Championship article. --Ṃäģģöṭ · ↑¿₡₴៛↓ 12:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I have created a small example at User:Prolog/Standings (places could be centered too). It is very colourful, but the colours are consistent with other series and widely used, so maybe that eliminates some of the messiness. We could still list only drivers who have scored points, but it is of course true that this system does not suit rallying as well as circuit racing. But it does have advantages. Compare Companc's "0 points, 0 points", to "15., 19.", or as another example, H. Solberg, Wilson, Sordo and Latvala finished 9-12th at 2008 Monte Carlo Rally, which also currently lead to not very informative zeros. I don't know if consistency with other season articles is a problem, since the overall layout was changed for the 2007 season anyway. Prolog (talk) 05:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Your example looks very good. I only miss the scores visible in the table, but this pattern give more useful and complex information, and points will be visible in the table on the side, so it's just a small change. Besides - when we create a good and useful template ('perfect'(?)) aren't we going to slowly apply it to older articles too? (I mean those non-made by DeLarge which are too good to change). --Ṃäģģöṭ · ↑¿₡₴៛↓ 12:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes I did misunderstand and I reverse my opinion as a result - I think this would a very positive improvement - go for it! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 12:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Alright, I'll finish the 2007 drivers' championship table at least some time today. Prolog (talk) 13:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of World Rally Team articles

I have come upon a dilemma as I have written articles on various World Rally teams for this wikiproject, having to do with the way the teams are organized within their parent organization. Although some teams are extremely self sufficient and solely focused on the WRC series, (the Subaru World Rally Team, and all the M-Sport Ford teams), some teams are very much a part of their parent companies, and have other areas of focus besides the WRC. This includes the Citroën Total World Rally Team, which is very much part of the Citroën Sport organization, responsible for several Dakar Rally entries, as well as a JWRC team. Also in this position are the Suzuki World Rally Team (JWRC), Toyota Team Europe (F1), and Ralliart (Dakar). My current thought is that for articles like Citroen, there should be a sporting umbrella organization article (Citroën Sport), and then more detailed articles about their entries into specific series (Citroën Total World Rally Team - focuses on their WRC and JWRC experiences). If there is enough information to warrant an article on their Dakar rally team, then it should get a separate one too. What do others think? - Tmaull (talk) 17:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. Until there is a separate article, a redirect can in some cases work well too. If Citroën Sport redirects to Citroën Total World Rally Team, the article could have something like "Citroën Total World Rally Team is part of Citroën Sport which also fields teams in the Junior World Rally Championship and the annual Dakar Rally." Or maybe the main Citroën article should be put to good use, since it still doesn't have a motorsport/rallying section. Prolog (talk) 14:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rally Raid sources?

I would really like to write a rally raid article. The problem is that I cannot find a good source online to explain rally raid. I think I understand pretty much what it is (I've seen the Dakar Rally a few times) but what I really need is a source. If anyone knows of one, I would really appreciate you letting me know. Thanks a bunch. - Tmaull (talk) 13:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"Rally raid" currently redirects to rallying, which doesn't even mention it. That is definitely a problem. There does seem to be a lack of good sources. I only found some one-sentence definitions and this BFGoodrich piece that contains mainly tire-specific information. Prolog (talk) 02:14, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Championship standings

I noticed that they were added to the bottom of the Mexico report and thought it was a good idea so I've added them to the bottom of the Monaco report as well! I'll do the same to the other reports when I've got time if no-one else objects. Younger2007 (talk) 00:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

We agreed with Prolog that it is a good idea while working on the infobox, so go ahead if you can and want. --Ṃäģģöṭ · ↑¿₡₴៛↓ 06:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Permissions for Rally Paradise Images

The OTRS ticket has gone through for the Rally Paradise images, and the tag is {{PermissionOTRS|ticket=https://secure.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketID=1310236}} Help in uploading and tagging images is appreciated. Previously uploaded pictures are here. Thanks, -Tmaull (talk) 16:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

All the images on Commons:Category:2001 Rally Finland are tagged now. Prolog (talk) 00:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Old rally car images

One of my flickr friends uploaded 74 free use type B rally car images from a retro rally race at Stoneleigh Park [2]. Enjoy! Royalbroil 13:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2005 Rally Finland Images

I uploaded some images here that I found from 2005 Rally Finland, and I was wondering if I could get some help tagging them. Thanks,- Tmaull (talk) 16:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice work, but I wondered why the roads looked so slow and rocky; the images are from the 2005 Acropolis Rally, so a bit of re-categorization is needed. Prolog (talk) 18:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
The images are now on Commons:Category:2005 Acropolis Rally. Prolog (talk) 18:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Oops. My bad. Tmaull (talk) 18:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Join?

Hi guys. I love rallying and rally cars (such as the Mitsubishi Lancer) and just cars in general. I know a lot and I would like to join Wikiproject World Rally. Now if you don't mind, I'll add my name to the list and put the userbox on my page! Thanks! --Carerracarerra 11:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome to the project. Prolog (talk) 19:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nationality of Ford team

On some pages Ford is shown as a Uk manufacturer while on others it is US. It seems pretty clear-cut to me that this team is British. The entity being represented is Ford of Europe, a UK-based company. The fact that it is division of a mulitnational corporation headquartered in the US is irrelevant. This situation is different from the Subaru team, which represents a Japanese company even though the team itself is based in the UK. The essential factor is nationality of the manufacturer. In the case of the Ford team, that is UK. Kenhullett (talk) 17:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Talk:World Rally Championship also has a discussion on the matter. There is confusion on the matter (although this webpage [3] suggests official manufacturer involvement) but that's no reason to change the flag on one article and ignore the convention followed on the majority of the other rally articles (e.g.2008 Swedish Rally)!

The BP Ford World Rally Team, although based in Britain, is an official manufacturer team and Ford is an American company. --Younger2007 (talk) 19:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

But, as I clearly stated above, Ford is not an American company, and neither is Ford of Europe, the manufacturer the team represents, as clearly stated on the team's website and Ford of Europe's website: [4][5]. I realize the knee-jerk reaction is to think "but Ford is American," but it isn't, and in this case it's simply wrong. The team has nothing to do with the North American division of Ford. Kenhullett (talk) 20:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any compelling argument to the contrary, so I'll go ahead and fix it. Kenhullett (talk) 05:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)