Talk:List of motorcycles in The Art of the Motorcycle exhibition

Recommend using {{convert}}

The {{convert}} template is much more generic than the Category:Automotive conversion templates. You don't need to use a different template (e.g. Template:Auto CID vs Template:Auto cc-cu in) when you want to go from one conversion to another. You can use the same one no matter whether it's displacement or power or length. You just put in value followed by units-from and units-to for whatever you want, always using the same template. And auto has one template if you want your answer in L and different one if you want it in cc. I believe {{convert}} is also better supported since it is more widely used.

The other problem is that many of these have their nominal displacement in inches, not cc. For example, some the Harleys and Indians are 74 cu in. If you plug in 1200 cc you get the wrong answer -- 73.2 cu in. I was following the convention of using whatever the native units were, much like using British spelling for British vehicles and American spelling for American ones.

To a degree, whether a bike is advertised or named using inches or cc's is part of the image and marketing of it. Normalizing all of them to cc makes logical sense but I think it undercuts the historical and social meaning.

(I thought I read a guideline somewhere that said Auto was deprecated in favor of convert, but I'm not certain where I saw it.)--Dbratland (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Both automobile and motorcycle related articles have a convention that a comma is not used in units of measure e.g. 1000 cc not 1,000 cc. That's all the auto template does. --Biker Biker (talk) 06:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

OK. I would have thought {{convert}} has a switch to turn off inserting the comma, but as far as I can tell it doesn't, yet. I hope they add that because to me it's a pain to keep track of all the different auto templates.

We do need to follow local convention for units though, so the base unit should be the native one, ie 74 cu in (1,210 cc) for most Harleys, not 1,200 cc (73 cu in) (although I guess it isn't that vital either way). Note that not all Auto templates leave out the comma, so it's still going to be hit and miss.--Dbratland (talk) 15:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction tag

A contradiction tag was placed on this article on: 04:50, 3 August 2009 Dbratland (9,608 bytes) (main article; also 95 mtorcycles contractis 114 in The Art of the Motorcycle. reliable sources disagree, unfortunately.) Dbratland, do you need help figuring out the contradiction because all three sources actually have a different number in the showing. One has 91, the other 114 and the final one says there will be 130 motorcycles shown. I'm assuming here that you are still working on the article since you were it's creator. I don't know much about this area, but maybe someone who has the book can help? Otherwise, you could try re-wording slightly like, "Though 130 motorcycles were advertised to be shown, only 95 of the 114 listed in the catalog actually made it to the exhibit." That would actually solve the contradiction issue and still allow for the differing numbers in the sources. Just a thought. Kjnelan (talk) 23:10, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It just needs more precise phrasing to explain what they did. I tagged it because I didn't want to forget to go back and sort it out.
I can verify the exact number listed in the museum's catalog. In various news media, 114 is the most often cited number, but lots of other numbers are thrown around too. It depends on whether you want to count every bike they showed, or only the bikes listed in the catalog. I have a footnote in The Art of the Motorcycle that tries to discuss it. The official catalog of 95 was only 20th century bikes, because the premise was that motorcycles are a "metaphor for the 20th century." The dozen or so 19th century examples were too important to not to include, and real life doesn't always match our metaphors. So many reporters counted all of them and said 114. And then of course there were four venues, each with a varying catalog -- Chicago only had 72 exhibits, for example.
Hopefully I can avoid getting too bogged down in detail by providing a footnote that goes over all of this business.--Dbratland (talk) 23:44, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

... OK, now I've made the footnotes on the two match, and explained where 95 + 19 = 114 comes from. I think this list could be improved by adding a section with the 19 listed, and a section for the substituions that appeared in Chicago, Bilbao and Las Vegas.--Dbratland (talk) 23:59, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand! Cool and no problem. I kinda thought you were still working on it. I saw the tag in Category:Self-contradictory articles and thought I'd offer a hand. Glad to see you're on top of it though. Nice article! Kjnelan (talk) 00:19, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --Dbratland (talk) 04:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Table merge

To reduce the redundancy, I'm combining the 3 tables into one, with a new column for venue. I'm about halfway done; in case anyone else was already at work on the same thing. --Dbratland (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)