Talk:Los Angeles Motordrome

New ideas

A picture caption reads "The Motordrome incorporated many features that were new ideas at the time, and would eventually become common to many race tracks.". What were these? They aren't mentioned in the text. 86.133.210.76 (talk) 16:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree, the image caption could be a little more specific. The safety features referred to are guardrails and run-off areas with sand traps. This is also mentioned in the lead, although it occurs to me that the lead suffers from the same ambiguity. Belchfire-TALK 16:41, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Bullshit caveats

Currently,[1] the article reads--

The Los Angeles Motordrome (sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Los Angeles Motordome, also sometimes confused with the Los Angeles Coliseum Motordrome) was a circular 1-mile (1.6 km) wood board race track.

I see no reason for any of these caveats, especially where they are, as they render the opening sentence very difficult to read.

Why do I see no need for them? Well, to begin with, from what I'm reading online, the LA Motordrome and the LA Coliseum Motordrome are not two separate things. So, if they're the same thing, they can't be "confused". And the assertion that it is sometimes mistakenly refered to as the Motordome, sans the "r", while credible, is both unsourced and (more importantly) just not important enough to include in the opening.

Sometimes we do need caveats in our opening sentences, but they need to be important enough to justify the disruption to the text. To tell you the truth, my initial response to seeing this was to go about creating a hatnote. That's when I found that the LACM does not appear to have existed as a separate entity. HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, when I expanded the article there was ample reason to think people were confused on both counts. For one thing, there has been a redirect from Los Angeles Motordome since 2007, which didn't happen by itself. And if you see something that tells you this track and the LA Coliseum Motordrome are one in the same, you're looking at bogus info. Jack Prince built both tracks, and they are indeed two different entities. Belchfire-TALK 00:26, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Look, I'll be the first one to admit I don't know squat about the subject. But right now, there's not only no other article on the LACM, there's nothing in this article or anything that I saw online supporting its existence. Now my search was a very brief one, but what I saw (LACM existing in the same town built by the same guy in the same year), when dissected with Occam's razor, certainly makes it seem more plausible to me that these were one and the same.

As far as the existence of the redirect goes, you're right, it didn't happen by itself, but it does nothing to prove the two get confused. It only proves that some editor was astute enough to recognize that someone might well type in a misspelling, and he wanted to break their fall when they did so. It doesn't establish that the two are routinely confused.

I'll leave it as it is for now (but only because it's already off of the DYK cycle), and wait a brief time for some good evidence that the LACM was an actual, separate entity. I certainly realize I could be 100% wrong, but I'm not going to just accept it on one person's say-so, since logic directs me in another direction. The best thing, I would think, would be a sourced Wikipedia article on the LACM, so that a hatnote (which would be less disruptive to the text) could be placed above the first paragraph. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:27, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps your Occam's Razor needs sharpening. Ask yourself: Why would a facility called the Los Angeles Coliseum Motordrome be built next to the ocean, miles away from any coliseum?

But apart from the obvious, I invite you to look at the sources right here in this article. That news story, published two months before the LA Motordrome was built, makes it quite clear that we're talking about two different race tracks, both built by Jack Prince about a year apart.

You might also look at this source, from motorcycle racing historian Daniel Statnekov. "This changed in March of 1909 when John Shillington Prince, a former high-wheel bicycle world champion, opened the Coliseum motordrome in Los Angeles. At 3&1/2 laps to the mile, the new Coliseum was nearly twice as long as the velodromes..." The motordrome in this article was one-mile, not 1/7-mile, and the one-mile track was built in 1910, not 1909. Again, two different tracks, built a year apart by the same guy. This is all right here in the sources, if you bother to look.

This sorta disproves your theory that people don't get them confused, doesn't it?

It occurs to me the real difficulty here is the wording. I will apply a fix that should correct any misunderstanding. Belchfire-TALK 16:44, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to yield to you on this matter; your knowledge on the subject seems to be pretty significant, and I'm now willing to believe that you know what you're talking about. But I'm sorry, but your sources do not make it clear to me that these are two separate facilities. Here's why:

• This source only mentions one facility. If the names were being used interchangeably, it contributes nothing to making the matter clear.
• This source, as far as I can tell, does not mention the two sites by the names that we have been discussing. It does refer to the LA Motordrome" to be completed in April, and a "motorcycle Coliseum" built the year before. Are you saying that the "motorcycle Coliseum" is the LACM? That certainly seems plausible, but far from certain. After all, we have three names here

1. Los Angeles Motordrome
2. Los Angeles Coliseum Motordrome
3. motorcycle Coliseum

If my guess about your assertion (after all, you did provide that source) is correct, you apparently think it's "obvious" that #2 and #3 are the same facility, and that it is also obvious that #1 is not the same as either #2 or #3. Is that what you think?

There was a time, when I was much younger, that I didn't understand that not everyone else knew what I knew, that my experiences were not shared by everyone else. But as I grew older--I'd guess sometime around my 5th birthday--I came to understand that we all have different knowledge because we don't all live the same life. That's why I don't think I'd ever say that it was "obvious" that a facility called the LACM be built anywhere near or far away from the ocean. BF, as far as I can see, this article doesn't address the proximity of the facility to the ocean. What makes you think that I have any idea where the ocean is, relative to this or the other facility? And how do I know where the various colisea in California are?

But even if the article did state these things, you might also want to note that I a) confessed my ignorance of the subject, and that I knew I might be 100% wrong, and b) allowed your version to stand, awaiting sourcing. I can't imagine taking another editor to task who fulfills those two criteria. Now I do have to presume good faith, and I will, but I will also tell you that at least one soul picks up a rather snide tone in some of your comments:

• Perhaps your Occam's Razor needs sharpening.
• But apart from the obvious
• This sorta disproves your theory that people don't get them confused, doesn't it?

I'm going to assume you were not trying to be--I hope I'm using this word correctly--snarky, but I feel I should tell you that it came across that way. Hazards of internet communications, and all.

Speaking of that last item on the list, if you re-read my post, I don't think you'll find that I posit any such theory that there was no confusion between two names. You stated that the existence of a redirect proved prior confusion; all I said that the redirect's existence did not prove confusion--if you take a logic course you'll learn that the fact that p does not prove q does not mean that q is false, it just means that you need to prove it some other way. Your edit summary appears to presuppose that I question the need for the redirect; I've not only said nothing along this line, I actually think the redirect makes great sense simply because someone could easily and understandably misspell or mistype the name.

Remember, I stated my awareness that I could be wrong, and that I admitted up front that my search for information was very brief. By the way, what I did was to separately google both terms, and I ended up with pretty much the same thing for both, including one article that read as follows:

The track opened (Grand opening), as the Los Angeles Coliseum Motordome, (sometimes called motordrome), in Playa del Rey at the intersection of Jefferson and Culver Boulevards, on April 8, 1909.

Now the date is clearly off by one year. But note that it tells me that the LACM is in Playa del Ray. This article we are discussing is about a facility in Playa del Ray. One is said to have opened in 1909, the other in 1910. Have you never seen newspaper account about something a century ago that were off on such a minor detail? I don't think it was absurd of me to think that someone may have "deconflated" (you can tell people you were there when that word was coined!) a single facility into two. Could I have conducted more research? Sure. But if you've been editing around here a while--and I'm guessing you have--you certainly sometimes go with your gut on such things. I do so, knowing that if I'm wrong, someone will point it out--and usually make the article better as a result, often with a thanks to me for pointing out the ambiguity or lack of clarity. Do you always exhaustively research every single edit before you make it? I don't know anyone who operates that way; it's inefficient and unnecessary. But I wonder if, when you go with your "gut" on an edit, do you go to the talk page and make it so abundantly clear that you realize that you may be wrong, or acknowledge that you're not in familiar territory? I do, and almost always, people understand and appreciate it. On the rare cases I have been wrong, I don't think I've ever been subjected to a tone that made me feel like I had done something wrong. Until now.

Look, you don't know me, and I've been a bit snarky myself in my comments here, which is probably not the most productive thing to do. But you have to realize that, while you are probably an expert on this subject, there are other reasonably intelligent people around here who may occasionally have something valuable to contribute despite their lack of content knowledge. When I read something like this, that you wrote above: Ask yourself: Why would a facility called the Los Angeles Coliseum Motordrome be built next to the ocean, miles away from any coliseum?, it shows me that you need someone else to come along and review your work, because you are seeing matters through the lens of your expertise, not through that of the casual reader of this Encyclopedia. But it is for exactly that reader that we write. HuskyHuskie (talk) 01:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

We're both being unnecessarily snarky, and I apologize for my part in that. It's a bad habit of mine and I do it without thinking about it.

Anyways... I can't blame you for being suspicious, as this is the just sort of a situation where confusion creeps in, and there are, in fact, a few sources out there that have their facts wrong.

But, all that being said, as you seem to have realized by now, I have done a buttload of research on this topic, and this article is actually the fourth that I've either created or expanded. (See also: board track racing, Tacoma Speedway and Beverly Hills Speedway) I've sort of adopted the niche of board tracks, and I eventually plan to add comprehensive coverage to Wikipedia (See my list of projects here: User:Belchfire/projects) So, what I'm getting at is that, yeah... I have a reasonably good handle on the subject matter. Not that this means you should take my word for anything, but I was actually prepared to dig out other sources, if necessary, to show you that there were two different tracks. By no means did I use every source at my disposal when I built this article.

Really though, the Santa Monica Daily Outlook story should be dispositive, because (1) it talks about an existing LACM that was much shorter than a mile, and (2) talks about the LAM in the future tense. Present-day historians might become confused about two tracks with similar names built just a year apart, but a contemporary news account just isn't liable to suffer from the same problem. Belchfire-TALK 03:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, what I really hope that you will arrive at a point where you feel you have enough information to create a separate article on the LACM, then a hatnote here will make it all clear. One confession I will make: I have a peeve with articles whose first sentence is perforated by "also known as . . . ", particularly when there is more than one alternative provided. I think it is almost always unnecessary and make the encyclopedia more unreadable. (I feel the same way when an article starts off after the first word with a list of what the subject is called in each of four or five languages.) Of course, this situation was different than both of those scenarios, but the way it was written caught my attention for its similar appearance. So, yeah, I overreacted, and I apologize. Best of luck to you with this interesting interest of yours. HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:14, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, speaking of the Santa Monica Daily Outlook source: First of all, while I am truly and sincerely grateful for whoever has made these old newspapers available online, that particular source is sooooooo difficult to read. At least on my computer, I could never see the whole thing at once. And when I used the navigation buttons--for example, the down arrow--it would not drop me just a bit lower, but all the way to the bottom of the page, which was a different article. I did, I think, with great effort, get to read the whole thing, in bits and pieces. I think. So I could be wrong about this, but I never saw the phrase "Los Angeles Coliseum Motordrome" in that article. The closest thing I saw was "motorcyle Coliseum". It's possible that I didn't find it due to the navigation issues, but it contributed to my consternation, rather than alleviating it. Again, good luck. HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I'm trying to tidy up the Los Angeles County geo stubs and I wonder if Motordrome, California shouldn't be ported over into a section the bottom of Los Angeles Motordrome? I've never found any evidence of the location being significant outside of it being a rail spur (you can still see the rail spurs in satellite images bc the construction just have changed the soil compaction or something!) to get to the motordrome/aerodrome. jengod (talk) 01:59, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I thoroughly disagree with your suggestion. The Motordrome was historically significant if only as a place name on maps and was cited significantly across historical maps and other travel ephemera. By merging it into the article for the Los Angeles Motordrome you'll dilute the value of that article and take away from the opportunities to expand the current stub. I would just leave it for now and encourage others to add to it rather than merge it. Freechild (talk) 05:09, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

OK awesome. I think we can leave it then. jengod (talk) 06:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)