The power of Wikipedia!

The Wikipedia system seems to be populated with Editors who lose touch with reality as well as trolls who use simple sabotage for their own gratification.

As an example of the former, we had included some photographs taken in the first decade of the 20th century to illustrate pages of family history that we were putting on Wiki. After several years without trouble, these were arbitrarily removed by an Editor without notice or discussion and it would seem we have to get the consent of the photographer before using such matter. Not many of us are in a position to get that consent for photographs that are over a century old. As I said, out of touch with reality.

My experience is similar: there is (was) a Wiki page on George Welch, WW2 USAAF fighter pilot and later a member of North American Aviation's flight test department. George would later be killed while testing NAA's F-100 supersonic fighter.

George Welch has an unfortunate "claim to fame", which he'd have been unaware of during his lifetime: in recent years conspiracy theorists have postulated that he beat Chuck Yeager to breaking the sound barrier, sometime in early October 1947. Welch had flown the first XP-86 jet (later to become the legendary F-86 Sabre) on 1st October, with Yeager doing the official deed aboard the XS-1 two weeks later. So there was time on his side, even though welch had his hands full with flight testing a new jet instead of trying to set any type of record.

Unlike many (including Al Blackburn, who wrote many unsubstantiated claims regarding Welch in his book, Aces Wild), I have copies of the North American Aviation flight test reports for the whole of October 1947 and an interesting read they are. So with these to hand I set to correcting the Wiki page on Welch, which just repeated the multitude of erroneous claims, without any real primary source data. My corrections cited all the NAA flight test reports and set the story straight - or so I thought. Within days my fully justified and referenced entries were removed and replaced by a load of garbage, which in essence gave as substantiation, "my mate thinks this is what really happened". Of course it's impossible to prove that many things didn't happen, so at that point I gave up trying.

So I use Wiki every so often if we get into a discussion about Derek Guyler, but it's not a serious resource. In the words of one much wiser than I, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story".  

 

Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.

https://en.wikipedia...iginal_research

If you follow the links to 'reliable, published sources' you end up circling a drain, which is in itself self-contradictory in some ways.

Some while back Allen suggested to me that whether I liked it or not, I needed to work with Wikipedia to help WATN's Google rating. The more links on Wiki, the higher the page is on Google. I still haven't fully embraced it and have concentrated - for now - on other non-Wiki ways of increasing the rating, but I am in the relatively envious position of being able to publish my own research immediately as a credited source on Wikipedia as long as it features somewhere on the site.

But for other things I'm interested in and do research - former players of Reading FC and former World Cup players, I have, like others above, found the research discovered in books or public records that aren't online is removed which, again like others, makes me just give up and just keep it for my research.

However, I can help with anyone that is on the WATN list if anyone has got original research that Wiki keeps refusing as I can add it, and then link to, their entries.

Edited by Richard Jenkins, 28 August 2016 - 21:11.

After several years without trouble, these were arbitrarily removed by an Editor without notice or discussion and it would seem we have to get the consent of the photographer before using such matter. Not many of us are in a position to get that consent for photographs that are over a century old. As I said, out of touch with reality.

And possibly out of touch with the law. I'm one of the louder defenders of copyright here, but it doesn't last forever. In my country, it expires 50 years after the creator's death, which would likely make your use of 100+-year-old photos fine. Other jurisdictions may have other laws - it would be interesting to hear from anyone who knows how this differs from place to place, and how organizations like Wikipedia determine which laws apply to them.

UK copyright for both photos and books is now 70 years from the creator's death - so there are (for example) books which are in the public domain in Canada which are still covered by copyright here and in the USA: the works of Winston Churchill, TS Eliot and Somerset Maugham to name but three who died in 1965. Australia is even more complicated, because although copyright there is now 70 years, that has only applied since 2004 - so anything published there by authors who died before 1955 is in the public domain and nothing else will go out of copyright there until 2024!

As for photos, this website seems to suggest that in the USA it subsists forever!

http://www.ppa.com/c...ItemNumber=1720

Which is presumably Wikipedia's reasoning.

UK copyright for both photos and books is now 70 years from the creator's death - so there are (for example) books which are in the public domain in Canada which are still covered by copyright here and in the USA: the works of Winston Churchill, TS Eliot and Somerset Maugham to name but three who died in 1965. Australia is even more complicated, because although copyright there is now 70 years, that has only applied since 2004 - so anything published there by authors who died before 1955 is in the public domain and nothing else will go out of copyright there until 2024!

 

As for photos, this website seems to suggest that in the USA it subsists forever!

 

http://www.ppa.com/c...ItemNumber=1720

 

Which is presumably Wikipedia's reasoning.

Of course, in this instance, one must consider the source....

As I observed some years ago, while Wikipedia certainly appears to be a great idea in theory and principle, too often when it runs into reality it becomes in practice something far less then what it suggests or wishes it is.

Recently, when I returned to academia for a spell, it was pretty much a policy within the department that the use of Wikipedia by students was verboten. Indeed, I was surprised just how easily it was to discover the use of Wikipedia by students (egad, even by graduate students in some cases!) in their work. Yes, it might possibly be an Alpha source, that is, an initial or beginning point for exploring a question, it most definitely is not on the Omega end of the spectrum when it comes to research.

Whatever my dark thoughts regarding Wikipedia might have been years ago, they are definitely even less charitable today. The litany of reasons is a lengthy one, with its pretensions is but one of the many.

As I observed some years ago, while Wikipedia certainly appears to be a great idea in theory and principle...

I'm not sure I can bring myself to be even that generous.

I used to show an excerpt from Wikipedia to my students in order to put its inadequacies into focus. It was about a grisly murder committed in Canada by an Asian immigrant. The article stated that Asians had higher rates of mental illness than non-Asians, and that consequently their immigration into North America was a public menace.

Supporters of Wikipedia were quick to point out that the passage was soon deleted. But my point was, and remains, that it appeared at all - completely unsubstantiated and utterly fallacious. It shows that the accuracy of a Wikipedia is a crap shoot - if you're lucky, you read an article at a moment when the BS has been removed. The same article, a moment before or after that, could be full of misleading or even vile nonsense.

One of my teacher acquaintances was using Wikipedia in a music lesson and somewhat naively told his 6th formers that it was a great source of accurate information. While he was talking one of the students was sitting at the back of the class, using his iPad to edit the very page which appeared on the screen, to include said teacher's name and quotes in real time. Since then I've always been uber cautious about any "fact" which appears; the links at the bottom of the pages are handy, so in that respect it has its uses...

Of course, in this instance, one must consider the source.....

Yes, there's obviously a certain amount of self-interest there and it's something of a blunt instrument.

UK copyright for both photos and books is now 70 years from the creator's death - so there are (for example) books which are in the public domain in Canada which are still covered by copyright here and in the USA: the works of Winston Churchill, TS Eliot and Somerset Maugham to name but three who died in 1965. Australia is even more complicated, because although copyright there is now 70 years, that has only applied since 2004 - so anything published there by authors who died before 1955 is in the public domain and nothing else will go out of copyright there until 2024!

 

As for photos, this website seems to suggest that in the USA it subsists forever!

 

http://www.ppa.com/c...ItemNumber=1720

 

Which is presumably Wikipedia's reasoning.

Wikipedia took down the thumbnail image of the cover of my Power Without Glory on the grounds that the Stilltime agency supplied photo was in US copyright for years to come. They said that was the law they applied. In vain did I argue a) I had paid Stiltime a fee for the use of the photo and b) it was out of copyright in the UK anyway

However the point of this reply is to challenge the view that in the UK all photos are in copyright until 70 years after the author's death.

In summary, and without going in to all the legalities ( I am only a humble architect):

Under the Copyright Act 1911 a photo had a copyright period of 50 years from the end of the year of it being made.

Under the next Copyright Act, that of 1956, this provision was continued for photos taken before 1 June 1957. If taken after that it got more complicated.

Under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988 the transitional provisions in Schedule 1 continue the period of 50 years from the end of the year of it being made for photos made before 1 June 1957. If taken after that it got still more complicated.

Under the Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performance Regulations 1995 (which harmonized British and other EU countries' law) the otherwise widely applicable copyright period expiry date of 50 years after the death of the author was extended to 70 years. Because these regulations only amended parts of the 1988 act, and not the transitional provisions, in my view the copyright period for photographs taken before 1 June 1957 remained at 50 years from the end of the year in which it was taken, and all such photographs (and cine film by the way) are now out of copyright.

My own personal summary of the position is that copyright expires in a photograph:

• If made before 1 June 1957, at the end of a period of 50 years from the end of the year in which the photograph was made.
• If made on or after 1 June 1957 and before 1 August 1989 and published, at end of the period of 70 years from the end of the year in which the author dies.
• If made on or after 1 June 1957 and before 1 August 1989 and not published, at the end of 2039.
• If made after 31 July 1989, at end of a period of 70 years from the end of the year in which the author dies.

If the author of a photograph made on or after 1 June 1957 is unknown:

• The period of copyright of 70 years runs from the end of the year that the photograph was made or was first made available to the public whichever is the later.
• Copyright is not infringed if after reasonable inquiry the identity of the author of an anonymous or pseudonymous works cannot be found and it is reasonable to assume that the author died more than 70 years ago.

Numerous British institutions such as the National Library and the National Library of Scotland will assert that the copyright expiry date for photographs which were in copyright at 1 January 1996 is 70 years after the death of the author (or in some cases the end of 2039). Photos taken before 1 January 1946 are indisputably out of copyright but in my opinion so are those taken before 1 July 1957.

Edited by tsrwright, 04 October 2016 - 05:56.

I would have thought images of book covers would fall into the same category as images of album covers - a low resolution image is allowable under fair use to illustrate the subject's article, as long as words to that effect are added to the image's Wiki page - see the following for example, under 'Licensing':

https://en.wikipedia...album_cover.jpg

 

Photographs made before 1st June 1957These photographs were originally protected for a period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which they were taken (regardless of whether they were published or not).

If the photograph was still in copyright as of 1 July 1995 however, the period of copyright was extended to the life of the photographer plus 70 years. If copyright protection had expired before 1 July 1995, there was still the chance to "revive" the photograph. An eligible photograph would then  be protected by the new term, ie the photographer's life plus 70 years.

Find out if a photograph is eligible to be "revived" below.
Whether copyright can be revived in old photographs The 1995 Regulations allowed for the copyright in some old photographs to be "revived" if they were in copyright somewhere in the European Economic Area (EEA) as of 1 July 1995.

For example, if a photograph was taken in 1930 in the UK and the photographer died in 1940, then under the 1911 Copyright Act and until the 1995 Regulations were introduced into UK law, copyright in such a photograph would have expired in 1980.

Some European territories such as Germany already protected photographs for the life of the photographer plus 70 years. If this new term of copyright protection were applied to the photograph, then copyright would not expire until 2010. 

This meant that although the photograph had been in the public domain since 1980, its copyright could be "revived". 
Who owns copyright in a revived work The owner of the revived copyright will be the former owner (ie the person who owned the copyright immediately before it expired).

If that person died before 1 January 1996 or was a company that ceased to exist before 1 January 1996, then the revived copyright will pass to the photographer or the photographer's heirs.

https://www.dacs.org...-in-photographs

I would have thought images of book covers would fall into the same category as images of album covers - a low resolution image is allowable under fair use to illustrate the subject's article, as long as words to that effect are added to the image's Wiki page - see the following for example, under 'Licensing':

 

https://en.wikipedia...album_cover.jpg

That's useful to know and I will try posting the cover again to see what happens. Thanks.

https://www.dacs.org...-in-photographs

Yes, I know all that and this is the standard line that comes from libraries, museums etc . However, if you read the actual legislation, which is easy to do online, it is clear that the 1995 regulations amended parts of the 1988 Act (of which there is now no definitive published version!) but did NOT amend the savings clause that continued the 50 year term for photos taken before 1 June 1957.

As I said, I am not a legal person, but I think this is just one of many examples I have come across in life where the public service and official bodies interpret the law as they think it should be not according to what it says.

For what it is worth, A User's Guide to Copyright (Tottel, 6th edition, 2006) by Flint, Fitzpatrick and Thorne states at page 87 that for photographs taken between 1 July 1912 and 1 June 1957 the duration of protection is '50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the photograph was taken.'

Edited by tsrwright, 06 October 2016 - 13:27.

While I'll admit I'm loathe to do so, I think it's high time for anyone who has a interest in accurate information about motorsports history to get together and make a concerted effort at editing out the garbage at Wikipedia. This is something other groups have taken on, and with good reason.

The mind-boggling error in the bio of Dario Resta and ridiculous story about Ed Elisian (both since edited out) being two great examples. In addition to errors in driver bios (and one driver having a Wikipedia entry solely over his gruesome and gory accident ), there are plenty of errors in track histories as well.

Now, I can see most here offering curmudgeonly replies, or worse. But, Wikipedia is the front line in the battle. It's where the bad information goes to propogate and become even more widely distributed (see the above examples of Resta and Elisian. There are still plenty of places those still turn up, solely down to them appearing on Wikipedia).

Ahead of the inevitable responses, I share your sentiments. It thoroughly p***** me off to spend valuable time cleaning up the mess of others, but if this isn't taken care of by someone who does know better, what will happen? More propogation followed by acceptance. More tales like those in the Resta and Elisian bios.

Two questions, Jim.

1 Where do you start? Editing out the errors - hopefully to the capricious satisfaction of the Wikipedia editors - is the obvious first step. But then ...

2 Where do you stop?

I noted a while ago that the leading British voiturette driver of the 1930s Arthur Dobson's entry had been pulled from English Wikipedia - which seems to think pretty much all European motor racing apart from the big events like GPs, Le Mans, the MM etc, started in 1950 - on the grounds of 'no assertion of notability'. Despite his illustrious career.

http://forums.autosp...son/?hl=+dobson

However, he's still on the Polish, French and German Wikipedia sites, with the French entry being the most comprehensive.

Of course, in this instance, one must consider the source....

 

As I observed some years ago, while Wikipedia certainly appears to be a great idea in theory and principle, too often when it runs into reality it becomes in practice something far less then what it suggests or wishes it is.

 

Recently, when I returned to academia for a spell, it was pretty much a policy within the department that the use of Wikipedia by students was verboten. Indeed, I was surprised just how easily it was to discover the use of Wikipedia by students (egad, even by graduate students in some cases!) in their work. Yes, it might possibly be an Alpha source, that is, an initial or beginning point for exploring a question, it most definitely is not on the Omega end of the spectrum when it comes to research.

 

Whatever my dark thoughts regarding Wikipedia might have been years ago, they are definitely even less charitable today. The litany of reasons is a lengthy one, with its pretensions is but one of the many.

That's the same position as in the UK, certainly as far as the Open University is concerned

Two questions, Jim.

 

1 Where do you start? Editing out the errors - hopefully to the capricious satisfaction of the Wikipedia editors - is the obvious first step. But then ...

2 Where do you stop?

 

I noted a while ago that the leading British voiturette driver of the 1930s Arthur Dobson's entry had been pulled from English Wikipedia - which seems to think pretty much all European motor racing apart from the big events like GPs, Le Mans, the MM etc, started in 1950 - on the grounds of 'no assertion of notability'. Despite his illustrious career.

 

http://forums.autosp...son/?hl=+dobson

 

However, he's still on the Polish, French and German Wikipedia sites, with the French entry being the most comprehensive.

Yes, the capriciousness (or zealousness) of some Wikipedia editors can be troublesome. The greater problem seems to be the deifiniton of citable material. Little in way of the myth debunking is online, aside from forum message boards such as this. Then again, I've seen personal blogs cited, so it's worth citing some of the discussions.

The irony with the idea that European racing pretty much didn't exist until 1950 is the amount of U.S. racing entries that are clearly entered by folks for whom English isn't a first language, those who are interested, yet not that familiar with the racing and/or view it from a different perspective.

For 1. and 2.: Like with everything else in life, one just does the best one can, and hopes to make a difference. That's the best we can hope to accomplish with Wikipedia.

This is an interesting thread. I rarely bother to refer to Wiki simply because you cannot ever be sure that whatever is there is in any way factual. Much is aimed to discredit or mislead anyway! I do not have the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. Wiki is best just ignored. Most Google searches bring up many references on most subjects anyway. 

Do they accept eyewitness reports?

 

According to the rules, they don´t (at least not as 'facts', but sometimes maybe as 'receptions'). And even whether enbalmed or not doesn´t matter. That is a general thing, because the idea is an encyclopedia to bring together the general knowledge of the world (and not only motosport history), an not a platform for personal memories, anecdotes or even co-operative research (like TNF). It is simply a completely different concept for a completely different purpose, therefore necessarily different rules. Or to say, if it worked like TNF who would need TNF?

And if you take a second thought about that, and maybe you forget about motorsport for a moment, I am sure you will understand that it has to be this way. For example if you are looking for informations about possibly controvesial and sometimes quite 'sensitive' matters - like medizine, political parties, religions, ideologies or inter-state conflicts - I am sure you will appreciate it when the information you get is based upon established 'research' rather than on personal opinions of maybe some exotic outsiders. Even in motorsport, from my personal experience, it is always extremely risky to rely on eyewitness testimonies. The more respectable the person, the more problematic sometimes, as maybe they are not used to any form of 'scientific' cristicism. As my old history teacher told us, the task is to work out the difference between 'stories' and 'history'.

But back to wikipedia. If a subject ist regarded controversely then wikipedia sees its task to give the reader a neutral description of what is state-of-the-art research, but also to point out what different opinions are existing. The intention is not to 'make' opinions but to 'present' the opinions and also to sum up what seems to be the 'accepted' knowledge. For that they can only rely on 'approved' and generally accessable sources and nothing else.

Of course this leads into a lot of conflicts and also more than once existing articles do not meet the intended standards, but who can claim to be perfect? Instead the idea is, to get a little bit better with every contribution. To my own experience, if you show engagement to improve the content, take your time for the debate and use well-founded arguments - ideally based on publically accessable sources - then you usually find good solutions in the end. Because it is an open platform you may come into dispute with some destructive characters, but maybe you find also such people in TNF. And at least in the German wikipedia I can show you examples of some really excellent elaborations. Yes, admittedly, it needed some common effort to make the community aware of motorsport before and outside of Formula 1, but in the meantime it is absolutely accepted standard for example to use 'automobile world championship' instead of 'formula 1 world championship' (with 1952/53 and Indianapolis in mind) and now there are also steadily growing articles about every Grand Prix season before 1950.

Finally, a last statement. If you dig out some of the very old TNF threads you will perhaps recognize, that not everything, what seems now so much obvious to us, was not necessarily common knownledge in the beginning. But nobody was made ridiculous if he made a wrong statement or asked a 'wrong' question. Rather, the effort was, to get things corrected as good as possible and to work out the truth behind the myths. Since then a lot of things have been found out here, but I think it would be a little bit arrogant to expect the whole rest of the world to follow TNF. Rather, if we are really interested in correct information, we must actively spread the message...

Edited by uechtel, 27 January 2018 - 14:04.

Wikipedia, like any encyclopedia, is just a summary of the published knowledge of any of its subjects. Original research isn't allowed because it hasn't survived publication and debate. It's really just a first-look source. Encyclopedias always are; and they usually contain errors (Britannica always did!)

I have made only a couple of Wikipedia amendments.  One was to an entry about the old airbase north of Naples, which was used by the Allies in WW2, but which no longer exists (Pomigliano). The entry said its location was now unknown. I added that the Alfasud factory (now Fiat) was built over it, and linked it to the Alfa Romeo Entry, which said just that. Now my amendment has a little note, "citation needed". And, with perfect timing, I had a few days before  donated my authoritative book on Alfa Romeo's history to the WA Motoring Museum Library, so I couldn't give them an author/book/page citation. Ah well.

Of course, the meaning of "publication" has changed, as have encyclopedias. Wikipedia, as a digital on line publication, ought to accept other digital on-line publications as "published" for the purposes of its entries. But what on-line publications? The Web is jammed to the gunwales with rubbish sites full of fantastic misinformation posing as "research" and "fact". 

In Wikipedia they accept information from the subject's own Facebook page! And it turns out absolutely impossible to correct such mistakes unless you're prepared to register as a user. No contact details whatsoever to whom/where you could point out the mistaken, conceivably even fraudulent information.

The 1924 Bugatti Type 35 is probably the most successful racing car of all time, with over 2,000 wins.[citation needed]

Historians, just as in the case of scientists, use a process called peer review for articles and monographs being offered for publication, a process which begins with the writing of research papers, theses, and dissertations. Wiley (https://authorservic...view/index.html) describes the process this way: "Peer review is designed to assess the validity, quality and often the originality of articles for publication. Its ultimate purpose is to maintain the integrity of science by filtering out invalid or poor quality articles." The process is also used in the social sciences and the humanities. It is not a feature of the Wiki process as far as I can tell, given the rather haphazard and even chaotic nature of its system. Ever notice or realize that actual encyclopedias do not use the Wiki system? There could be a reason....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti


No doubt, someone will soon step in and provide the necessary citation; wikipedia will be happy, and this palpable nonsense will soon be regarded as "fact". Long live wikipedia

Or, more likely, it will just sit there, and sit there, and sit there (which will serve the same purpose of it being regarded as "fact", see Dario Resta/Buttonwillow for how leaving it allows it to propogate). So much of Wikipedia hasn't been updated in years and years. Many times, I've run across non-historical entries not updated since 2008.

Think how simple it would be to edit out that palpable nonsense, instead of simply taking the time to whinge or complain about it  Actually about as much time as it took to post here 

Think how simple it would be to edit out that palpable nonsense, instead of simply taking the time to whinge or complain about it  Actually about as much time as it took to post here 

I've done that in the past and the purveyor of palpable nonsense just edits it back in. After a bit of that and other meddlers rewriting things into their brand of English and subtly changing the meaning, one can easily lose interest.

Wiki itself took down a lot of photos that they claimed should only be there with the consent of the photographer - as in a couple of cases they were photos taken c 1910 they did not explain how we could have had that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti


No doubt, someone will soon step in and provide the necessary citation; wikipedia will be happy, and this palpable nonsense will soon be regarded as "fact". Long live wikipedia

You see that just the wrong way around. It is in wikipedia, because it is already regarded as 'fact' (probably taken from some Bugatti 'bible')

I still wonder why all the blame is on wikipedia, while all the nonsense that it admittedly contains comes from the available books. So if the nonsense is that obvious, why have historians failed to write books with the correct content?

And when you talk about peer review, I very much doubt that it this method is used quite frequently in motorsport literature. Rather I see a lot of content just copied from author to author, reaching finally back to some original press report, more or less literally taken from some original press report without any double-check (like for example the nonsense, that the 1935 French GP wasn´t a round of the European Championship). Nevertheless, I have not yet seen discussions about the authors of books containing such errors being completely incapable (which they aren´t of course).

And furthermore, wikipedia DOES indeed have a mean of "peer-review" in form of the discussion page. The major difference (and in my opinion advantage) to books is the possibility of a permanent improvement. As I already wrote above, to my personal experience, if you find a statement questionable, don´t just remove it, but instead bring it to the discussion page, write your arguments, give your sources, discuss it with the other members, and THEN judge about the result.
 

Two questions, Jim.

 

1 Where do you start? Editing out the errors - hopefully to the capricious satisfaction of the Wikipedia editors - is the obvious first step. But then ...

2 Where do you stop?

 

I noted a while ago that the leading British voiturette driver of the 1930s Arthur Dobson's entry had been pulled from English Wikipedia - which seems to think pretty much all European motor racing apart from the big events like GPs, Le Mans, the MM etc, started in 1950 - on the grounds of 'no assertion of notability'. Despite his illustrious career.

 

http://forums.autosp...son/?hl=+dobson

 

However, he's still on the Polish, French and German Wikipedia sites, with the French entry being the most comprehensive.

It is hard to not to think that the reason for this is that Dobson was English and/or that the person(s) responsible for this was possibly British and a sub-30 year old.

You see that just the wrong way around. It is in wikipedia, because it is already regarded as 'fact' (probably taken from some Bugatti 'bible')
 
I still wonder why all the blame is on wikipedia, while all the nonsense that it admittedly contains comes from the available books. So if the nonsense is that obvious, why have historians failed to write books with the correct content?

I will never cease fighting against wikipedia and all its brethren.

 

From history we can learn, that is always a mistake to fight wars which you can not win...

Wikepedia is a fantastic source, from which we can learn an enormous amount, especially on subjects we'd otherwise be too lazy to investigate. Should we regard it as definitive and flaw-free? No, of course not. Are some of its entries dreadful? Yes, of course. Is it likely to be the most trusted source for our specialist subject? No, because it's not intended to be, as demonstrated by its own reliance on other published sources.

No doubt like most TNF posters' houses, the structure of Sterzo Towers is groaning under the weight of motor racing books and magazines. Yet even the most treasured have their shortcomings. Gerald Rose's "A Record of Motor Racing 1894 - 1908" misses out the Italian races because he wasn't sent the organisers' records. Chris Nixon's "Racing with the David Brown Aston Martins" relies on who was available for interview, and some perspectives are tantalisingly absent. As for my 1955 "Boys' Book of Motor Racing"...

In any case, Wikepedia aims to replace none of these. It's a starter for any subject, not the complete or definitive record.

Precielsy because of wikipedia, it is no longer feasible to write books at all.

It seems to be the opposite.  The widening of technology, ease of research, and breaking down of barriers to publication means it is more feasible to write books - and there seem to be more and more of them.
 

Just on motor racing biographies, for instance, there have recently been published books on Bert Hadley, Pete Lovely, and Jim Crawford.  30 years ago there was no chance of that happening. 

The widening of technology, ease of research, and breaking down of barriers to publication means it is more feasible to write books - and there seem to be more and more of them.

True, writing books is easier than ever. It's breaking even on them that's become nearly impossible.

It seems to be the opposite.  The widening of technology, ease of research, and breaking down of barriers to publication means it is more feasible to write books - and there seem to be more and more of them.
 

Just on motor racing biographies, for instance, there have recently been published books on Bert Hadley, Pete Lovely, and Jim Crawford.  30 years ago there was no chance of that happening. 

And also the content is generally much better researched than ever. Indeed I have seen (and bought) a couple of books since wikipedia exists and they are really good ones, in which it is very hard for me to detect errors, when usually in the literature that came out before the millenium this usually was not a big challenge. Seems not least places like this have contributed much to increase the standards. Not everything was better in the past.

And believe me or not, I have succeeded in writing some wikipedia passages that have indeed survived over months, in some cases even over years.

And also the content is generally much better researched than ever. Indeed I have seen (and bought) a couple of books since wikipedia exists and they are really good ones, in which it is very hard for me to detect errors, when usually in the literature that came out before the millenium this usually was not a big challenge. Seems not least places like this have contributed much to increase the standards. Not everything was better in the past.

 

And believe me or not, I have succeeded in writing some wikipedia passages that have indeed survived over months, in some cases even over years.

You just said "Jehova", didn't you?

I think the world is a better place with Wikipedia than without it even if it has obvious shortcomings. Until someone develops a better way to tap into the knowledge of millions, this is the best we got.

From history we can learn, that is always a mistake to fight wars which you can not win...

Es geht im Leben nicht darum, immer zu den Siegern zu gehören. Wer mit einem intakten Rückgrat durchs Leben geht, wird niemals zu den Verlierern gehören. Das sollte eigentlich gerade uns Deutschen unauslöchlich ins Stammbuch geschrieben sein!


http://www.zukunft-b...ie-weisse-rose/

They were young, they were very passionate in their resistance to evil, they wanted a better Germany - and they paid the highest prize! They are my true heros.

JoBo

The race was the eighth round of the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship and marked the first time that the French Grand Prix has been run since 2008. It was the eighty-seventh running of the French Grand Prix, and the fifty-eighth time the event had been included as a round of the Formula One World Championship since the inception of the series in 1950. (https://en.wikipedia...ench_Grand_Prix)

Being otherwise occupied with several ongoing projects, I was surprised to discover that there was a Formula One race in France today. This was pointed out to me and that someone pointed me in the direction of the articles on Wiki, from the above was copied. Alas, I seem to have failed the new motor sport history given what I found. I pity the poor Winston Smith clones who just seem to just keep going and going and going rewriting and revising history, certainly they must get tired at times. Double alas, since I was under the obviously mistaken notion that thanks to the FFSA taking the sanction away from the ACF, that the first of the current Grand Prix de France (actually, it seems that officially it was the Formula 1 Pirelli Grand Prix de France) series started in 1968, the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France ending in 1967 after making its debut in 1906, then being replaced by the new FFSA event in 1968. Or, am I mistaken, as seems to be the case here nowadays given that such details are now deemed inappropriate and simply being nit-picky? (https://en.wikipedia...ench_Grand_Prix)

Given the now accepted orthodoxy that whatever some of us -- okay, well, just me, it seems -- were mistaken that happened in 1980 -- spearheaded by the same person who managed to end the GP de l'ACF, interestingly enough -- actually did not happen in 1981, I will refrain from any further mention or discussion of that possible event given that I was clearly mistaken and obviously misunderstood the findings of my research. I must remember, as Earl Langrebe suggested, to not confuse myself with the facts.

It's not a pedantic point, or even an historical point, by now, but, I would suggest, a semiotic point.  What is the "French Grand Prix", as an English definition?  The French race that counts for the World Championship or a race that was organized by the ACF and no longer exists?  Or even  race organized by the FFSA in which case Fangio never won the French Grand Prix?

In sport there is a difference between the legal position and the continuity.  I give the example of the football club now called Airdrieonians.  The original Airdrieonians went bust 20 or so years ago.  Dead.  Buried.  Gone.  But the people behind it wanted to continue.  They bought the similarly moribund Clydebank FC.  Changed the name.  Moved to the old Airdrie ground and changed the name. 

So you have Airdrieonians, playing at the Excelsior stadium, in the old Airdrie colours, with the Airdrie support.  Proud at winning the Scottish Cup in 1925 and legends like Hughie Gallacher.

But legally it's Clydebank.

Yet there is no continuity with Clydebank,  The continuity is all with Airdrie.

So I would be happy for the "French Grand Prix" to be the ACF race in 1966 and FFSA in 1968.

Plus, if we look at the "legal" position, then again isn't the Paris-Bordeaux a Grand Prix?  And Harry Harkness is a National Champion because USAC said he was...

Or, am I mistaken, as seems to be the case here nowadays given that such details are now deemed inappropriate and simply being nit-picky? 

 

Given the now accepted orthodoxy that whatever some of us -- okay, well, just me, it seems -- were mistaken that happened in 1980 -- spearheaded by the same person who managed to end the GP de l'ACF, interestingly enough -- actually did not happen in 1981, I will refrain from any further mention or discussion of that possible event given that I was clearly mistaken and obviously misunderstood the findings of my research. I must remember, as Earl Langrebe suggested, to not confuse myself with the facts.

1.  Yes, as usual, you are being nit-picky. In the extreme.

2.  Presumably you will refrain from mentioning 1980/81 until the next time you mention 1980/81.

3.  Your lack of perspective in your chosen field of research gives the 'scholarly historian' a bad name.

4.  Remember sitting in that Maserati (?) when you were a boy? Motor sport, at its best, is exciting and enjoyable, as, in different ways, is motor sport history. Please stop taking the fun out of it.

In sport there is a difference between the legal position and the continuity.  I give the example of the football club now called Airdrieonians. 

And what about the relationship between modern day VAG Audi and the pre-WWII conglomerate called Auto Union AG? Following the partition of Germany in 1945, Auto Union AG was dissolved as a company in the east, turning into IFA the company which made Trabants. Most of Auto Union AG -- production car factories, workers, manufacturing equipment -- was in the east, so IFAs are the successor cars to pre-WWII DKWs and Audis.

A new company was launched in the west 50 weeks after Auto Union AG was dissolved, surprisingly enough called Auto Union GmbH, and making DKW-branded cars rather like the ones at IFA. Cars were sold at different times as DKW, Auto Union and Audi before settling on the latter name when the company tried to go up-market. Daimler-Benz and Volkswagen owned big shares at different times but eventually VW owned the plant and the western world brand names (except for Horch).

For continuity, IFA is the successor company to Auto Union -- same place, same manufacturing plants, changing in the same places. VAG Audi are the successor to IFA having purchased the company in the 1990s, and thus to Auto Union AG. But there is a fork in company history and sporting history in 1948.

It's not a pedantic point, or even an historical point, by now, but, I would suggest, a semiotic point.  What is the "French Grand Prix", as an English definition?  The French race that counts for the World Championship or a race that was organized by the ACF and no longer exists?  Or even  race organized by the FFSA in which case Fangio never won the French Grand Prix?
 
In sport there is a difference between the legal position and the continuity.  I give the example of the football club now called Airdrieonians.  The original Airdrieonians went bust 20 or so years ago.  Dead.  Buried.  Gone.  But the people behind it wanted to continue.  They bought the similarly moribund Clydebank FC.  Changed the name.  Moved to the old Airdrie ground and changed the name. 
 
So you have Airdrieonians, playing at the Excelsior stadium, in the old Airdrie colours, with the Airdrie support.  Proud at winning the Scottish Cup in 1925 and legends like Hughie Gallacher.
 
But legally it's Clydebank.
 
Yet there is no continuity with Clydebank,  The continuity is all with Airdrie.
 
So I would be happy for the "French Grand Prix" to be the ACF race in 1966 and FFSA in 1968.
 
Plus, if we look at the "legal" position, then again isn't the Paris-Bordeaux a Grand Prix?  And Harry Harkness is a National Champion because USAC said he was...

Plus, if we look at the "legal" position, then again isn't the Paris-Bordeaux a Grand Prix?

I have long thought we should regard the annual Paris-Somewhere races as Grands Prix rather than date Grand Prix racing from 1906, for a whole range of reasons which admittedly are spurious but convince me. Just as there's a Society for the Abolition of Split Infinitives (said to have one member in Yorkshire) and a Movement for the Banning of Tomato in Pre-Packaged Sandwiches, so there ought to be an organisation to campaign for this.

I have long thought we should regard the annual Paris-Somewhere races as Grands Prix rather than date Grand Prix racing from 1906, for a whole range of reasons which admittedly are spurious but convince me. Just as there's a Society for the Abolition of Split Infinitives (said to have one member in Yorkshire) and a Movement for the Banning of Tomato in Pre-Packaged Sandwiches, so there ought to be an organisation to campaign for this.

The ACF actually renumbered them in 1933. As far as they were concerned the 1906 race was the ninth, the first being the 1895 Paris-Bordeaux-Paris which actually took place before the club was founded!

 

Beginning in the early 1920s, French media represented many races held in France before 1906—such as the Paris–Bordeaux–Paris race in 1895—as being Grands Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, despite their running pre-dating the formation of the Club. Hence, the 1906 race was said to have been the 9th edition of the Grand Prix de l'Automobile Club de France. The ACF itself adopted this reasoning in 1933, although some members of the Club dismissed it, "concerned the name of the Club was lent to the fiction simply out of a childish desire to establish their Grand Prix as the oldest race in the world."

 

The French Grand Prix by David Hodges (Temple Press 1967) pp2-3.