Talk:Harley Owners Group

Copyrighted text

The recently deleted edit is copied from one or more Harley Owners Group sites, which include a copyright notice for all material on the sites. It is unclear where this was originally copied from, but Wikipedia can't use it. Please do not add this copyrighted text again, and please cite reliable sources for any edits.--Dbratland (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Disclaimer to Hells Angels

I'm confused about why a disclaimer to Hells Angels is necessary at the top of the page. User:LUUSAP has added, twice, with the following rationale:

"HOG & HAMC both ride Harleys exclusively. Plenty of HOGgers look as gruff as the HAs. Therefore, many laypeople think the HOG is associated with the HAMC, so I'm letting them know that they aren't."

The logic is a little suspect, but who would type "HOG" or "Harley Owners Group" and be surprised it isn't the Hells Angels? Are there reliable sources discussing confusion between the two groups? Otherwise, it's just the silliest disambiguation in history. It would make sense if it said "did you mean Honda Owners Group", because that would also (theoretically) be HOG. Hells Angels doesn't have any words in common and the acronym isn't in common either. If it's because they have the Harley bikes in common, why not point to other notable groups too? It doesn't make sense as a disclaimer/top-of-page disambiguation. It might make sense as reliably-sourced text in the middle of the article, however: "60 Minutes reports that people are being scared away by groups of bikes, even though they are just RUBs on Harleys and in a mild club, out an outlaw group like the Hells Angels." --tedder (talk) 08:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I can offer two citations that might help untangle this a little bit:

• Brown, Roland; McDiarmid, Mac (2000), The Ultimate Motorcycle Encyclopedia: Harley-Davidson, Ducati, Triumph, Honda, Kawasaki and All the Great Marques, Anness Publishing, p. 352, ISBN 1840388986, 9781840388985  
• Joans, Barbara (2001), Bike Lust, Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, p. 5, ISBN 0299173542, 9780299173548 , "As middle America rides and parties with the urban middle class, neither discusses the skeleton in the closet. Neither draws attention to the fact that much of the Harley mystique, most of the unwritten rules of the road, and many of the values and ideals come from the unruly and bastard parent, the outlaw club" 

Both of these refs appear in the lead of Outlaw motorcycle club. The factory club Harley Owners Group is a subset of what marketers call the Harley-Davidson subculture of consumption; a community identity based on a consumer brand. Outlaw bikers are also a subset of the H-D subculture of consumption, and the appearance and superficial trappings of the of the outlaws are often imitated by the larger H-D consumer community. Brown and McDiarmid, for example, say that non-outlaw H-D clubs (not only the HOG) choose to organize themselves in chapters with the same sort of officers (President, Vice-President, Sergeant at Arms, Ride Master, etc) originated by the outlaws, not to mention the similar clothing fashions and whatnot.

Anyhoo. This is not about confusion or overlap between the Hells Angles and the Harley Owners Group. It's about overlap and/or confusion between outlaw motorcycle clubs and Harley-Davidson partisans in general, so it doesn't belong on this page so much as on either Harley-Davidson in the culture section, or on the page Outlaw motorcycle club. Although as I just said, it is already mentioned in the lead of that article and so perhaps there is no need further belabor the point. --Dbratland (talk) 20:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Charity work

Why should charity work done by an individual branch of the club be removed? If anything there should be more examples, supported by references, to support the assertion made in the article that HOG does work for charity. --Biker Biker (talk) 16:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Because there are over 1000 hog chapters worldwide, most of them doing local charity work. We do not want chapters thinking they can come here and list their charity ride in hopes of promoting it. Regardless of what your motives are, we don't want to become a clearing house for all the charity rides, and we don't want this article's charity section to be longer than the article itself. Akuvar (talk) 23:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree strongly. The current section is too short, is unsourced and doesn't reflect the worldwide activity. As for it becoming a clearing house that wasn't my intention - it was just to illustrate that things take place in HOG groups outside of the USA. Let's see what others think. --Biker Biker (talk) 08:57, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you can find something on Harley's site that talks about chapters doing local charity work? They may have a good statement that could be used to blanket the whole thing. I just know that once you start listing individual events, people are going to want to list their event, because of pride or promotion, it would start to fill up fast. Akuvar (talk) 15:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that lists of this sort can become dumping grounds where everybody adds their favorite thing. The reason that happens is a lack of standards or criteria for what is on the list. I would suggest including only those charity events that have received major media coverage. Non-notable organizations often get routine coverage -- they have an event and the local media put it on a calendar or in a column without discrimination. So leave that out, and leave out any brief news items from local media. But include ones that have garnered attention in major regional or national media.

I think that is generally in line with Wikipedia's policy on notability, and it prevents the section from growing indiscriminately. I would write it out that way: "Charity events that have received major media attention include..." and possibly add a comment asking editors not to add to it without citing significant media coverage.

There also at least a dozen marketing books published that mention HOG charity work. The HOG is included in many marketing textbooks and the charity aspect is considered an important element in Harley's groundbreaking use of the club as a marketing tool. --Dbratland (talk) 17:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)