Talk:List of rides

Removed suggested future ride dates

• Olympia, WA 10 Jun 2006 (no evidence that ride took place)

DLJ 17:22, 20 May 2007 (PDT)

removed rides

Maybe we should have a link on main page to removed events.DLJ 10:57, 7 August 2009 (PDT)

Keeping all rides' statuses updated

(Discussion originated on users SomeHuman and NSayers' talk pages, though moved here on 2010-01-04 for it might concern more editors)
Hi. Thanks for your contributions to the wiki. I appreciate your wish to clarify the status of rides on the List of rides page – it has a lot of questionable information about smaller or non-English-speaking ride locations. However, I'm concerned that your lengthy, red-letter, inline notes have made the page more cluttered, less reassuring for potential riders, and more confusing for editors to work out if rides were mooted but abandoned, or rumoured to have actually taken place. I've edited the sections I know the details of (UK etc), and I would like to tidy things up more. Please can we discuss a tidier way forward?
Nsayers 17:15, 10 December 2009 (PST) (originally posted on SomeHuman's talk)

Hi, you're doing a good job on this WNBR wiki. I'm afraid your note on my talk page remained unread till today. I had no intention to perpetually maintain all the red comments etc.

1a. But your idea that my edits confused editors about which events might have been intended and which were actually held, strongly focuses on the editors that have been maintaining the page. For myself, the true status of a very high percentage of rides was as clear as London's fogg a century ago. And most likely many other potential editors might have been scared off by such. I had hoped, and apparently not idly, that the ostentative markup would cause a proper verification, in particular for events that after my edits remained dubious or incomplete.

1b. Your work and I assume for research especially that of Marte, have helped a lot. But there were still a number of places with a status outdated by at least half a year. Apart from some further general tidying up, I corrected these, mainly by introducing 'previously suggested ride' (outdated status less than Newly planned) and 'previously planned ride'. The few past dates with an outdated 'Committed to ride' status, were with the benefit of the doubt placed amongst 'previous rides' but with a footnote reference.

1c. Hence, one can now also for those places introduce a 2010 date if this becomes appropriate. I think it might be best to remove a 'previously suggested ride' as soon as for that specific place a more recent ride was truly held, though 'previously planned rides' could be kept. (There were already lines indicating planned but cancelled rides.)

SomeHuman 2009-12-29 22:22 / 22:59 (GMT) (originally posted on NSayers's talk)

2. By the way, are you still familiar with Previous rides data - it has only a fraction of the ride locations, of which some are still being maintained well. I added the Brussels rides. You might know editors specializing in missing locations...

3. Are there instructions about using the categories? For Brussels, only its main page is categorized, none of its Brussels_200n_history pages that are linked from that main page. Although such helps preventing enormously long lists of categorized pages, the categories 'Brussels sub-page' and (the potentially enormous) 'Ride location sub-page' seem to be appropriate. These latter are found on Brussels_2007_Planning_Art_Mobilization.

SomeHuman 2010-01-01 16:50 / 18:15 (GMT) (originally posted on NSayers's talk)

Hi again. Thanks for your diligent, enthusiastic work on the wiki. However, I'm sorry to say I'm about to revert the recent edits you've made to the List of rides page. I think the changes you've made make the page more convoluted and confusing. I would prefer that the following changes are not made again in future:

• "Future" ride dates that have passed without clarification on whether they took place:
  

These should be left as they are, for local experts or people with evidence of the rides' status to correct accordingly. Adding the text "(Previously suggested rides: ...)" and footnotes just adds clutter to an already busy page. The current set-up isn't ideal, but without sufficient dedicated local wiki editors to verify and maintain ride info, I think it's the best way to maintain a reasonably easy-to-read and accurate list of rides.

• Footnotes, if they are added (I'd prefer not), should be formatted like citations so they're linked properly. There's some way to do this with wiki mark-up, but I'm not sure how.
• Please don't add spaces before ?s (eg: "June 2010?", not "June 2010 ?")
• Please don't pluralise previous ride dates if there has only been one (eg: "Previous ride: 14 Jun 2009", not "Previous rides: 14 Jun 2009")

Thanks mate. I'd be happy to discuss this with you by phone, Skype or instant messaging (message me for details) - it might be easier and quicker to come to some agreement on how to move forward. Sorry if I seem harsh, but I want to keep the rides list tidy.

Nsayers 21:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC) (originally posted on SomeHuman's talk)

(Reply on 1.) I think this makes the page unnecessarily cluttered. If a "future" ride date has passed then it still shows that the ride status is unclear, without having to write this out in full. The best we can do is do a Google search or other research to ascertain if a ride has happened.

(Reply on 2.) Yes, I set this page up. It hasn't been edited by many people though, which is a shame

(Reply on 3.) The Ride location sub-categories (eg: 2009 ride locations) should only be used on the primary ride location page (eg: Belgium). The sub-page categories should only be used for sub-pages (eg: Belgium history). This category is automatically included with the 'Ride location sub-page breadcrumb' template. There's a list of help pages here, which you're welcome to add to: http://wiki.worldnakedbikeride.org/index.php?title=Special:AllPages&namespace=12

Nsayers 23:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC) (originally replied within SomeHuman's comment on NSayers's talk)

Nick, about your concerns of 21:37, 3 January 2010:

• Any 'next ride' must not be followed with a past date. It may be clear to you that it needs later attention (see your reply of 23:54, 3 January 2010 on 1.), but with a conspicious number of these, everyone else is going to conclude that the entire page is badly maintained en utterly unreliable. Knowing that this is one of the first pages all readers come to, one should assume all data to be suspect - even perfectly updated and verified data (helped by those locations' continuously attentive editors). Thus the page must appear well maintained, simply expressing its known uncertainties.

• I'll look into the footnote links soon. Meanwhile, readers will have no problem in finding the note that a clearly recognized footnote indicator refers to.

• Unfortunately, e.g. "Jun 2010?" [never 'June' etc on that page, remember] may be questioning the year, not the month of the ride being planned. Obviously, in most cases it will be the date as a whole, hence: "Jun 2010 ?", "21/22? Jun 2007" (uncertain day of the month), "17 Aug 2008 ?" (uncertain ride), "2009 ?" ( whereas "17 Aug 2008?" or "2009?", especially in a series of previous rides with a few years skipped, can be interpreted as 'Was the ride in that year or perhaps the former or next one ?' though in fact the ride is questioned.
  

A blank however, can cause wrapping the '?' to the next line, which looks sloppy or might not be spotted by a reader. Therefore, I now replaced such blanks with 'non-breaking spaces'. (It can also facilitate an editor's searches for specific types of uncertainties.)

• Done. Please note that before my edits, there were several plurals in front of single ride dates. Having it in correct English that does not cast doubt about a ride that might have been forgotten, does require a bit of our attention to pluralize when a new date gets added. But it is a minor burden and it's worth that.

Nick, in particular about your reply on my 1. : There is very little additional cluttering: most 'Previously suggested ride' or elsewhere 'Previously planned ride' tags occur for locations without actually cycled rides. For the few other locations the extra 'clutter' is not so much a hindrance as to lose the information for those few, and then unavoidably also for all locations' previous activities by organizers. I do intend to do some more research and that will get rid of some of the assumed clutter - Your revert had destroyed several updates that already reflected some of my research. And I will soon put the two forementioned tags in grey colour, ensuring readers' easy recognition of actual rides.

A major concern is freeing up room for the next ride: For a location that had a ride suggested or even planned, the people envolved last (or even earlier) year may well stay away from this wiki. New potential organizers however, used to see a 'next ride' being planned etc and could well hesitate to introduce their intended or planned next ride date. It might even deter them from organizing the ride. That's why we definitely must keep the 'next ride' open, with a clear invitation to 'Kickstart this ride'. The page is more important for rides to come than for those that might or might not have happened in the past [and only in that part of a line can there be a little clutter].

I appreciate your introduction of templates instead of direct image calls.

SomeHuman 2010-01-04 07:35 / 08:38 (GMT)