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There is certain problem with Wikidata. In Polish, "car race" (pl:wyścig samochodowy) and "car rally" (pl:rajd samochodowy) are types of "car sport" (pl:sport samochodowy). I think it's possible to distinguish a few terms, like car race (or "auto race"?) - single event which is "part" of "auto racing". If there is "auto racing", then term "car sport" or "auto sport" exist? "Car sport"/"Auto sport" is wider than "auto racing" because it also includes "ralling". Eurohunter (talk) 22:54, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Yes, this is a problem and it is not good. I have had this conversation since I joined here. Unfortunately, there is opposition to improving this from a large section of English speakers from North America. Rally Wonk (talk) 23:22, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
We've got motorsport, which is the broad article, and we have auto racing which is narrower and focusses on the motorsports which involve racing. What I think you are suggesting is an article on auto sport which would fit in the middle in terms of broadness. However, this would essentially be a split of motorsport. We are not a dictionary, we do not need a separate article for everything, and given the size of motorsport, I do not see how a split can be justified.There are also far bigger problems, why does motorsport have huge sections on auto-eacing, but says nothing about motorbike, plane, or boat racing? And how do we justify not classing rallying as auto-racing. The definition of racing is: "compete with another or others to see who is fastest at covering a set course or achieving an objective." which rallying is. Whether you compete at the same time, or compete with a staggered start is not relevant to the definition. These are some of the actual problems these articles have, and once we fix the first one, we might actually have enough content to justify splitting into auto sport. SSSB (talk) 08:41, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Rallying is NOT competing with others to see who is fastest.
It's true the WRC includes that but this is only one rallying series. Nor are trials, gymkhana, drifting, monster truck driving, and many other forms, racing. Apologies for the bold and caps, it's not intended as aggression, but I want to indicate the frustration I have had here again and again, and again.
We will also differ on opinion on the Motorsport article too, but at least this is through common use probably. I would say that Motorsport does not cover planes or boats, and is the common name for automobile sport - not auto racing - and may include motorcycle sport. This is why the motorsport article is in a terrible state, it doesn't know what it is because English speakers do not agree.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but the point in Eurohunter's question is more how Wikidata works. The English language not using an automobile sport term is a disservice to all other languages. Rally Wonk (talk) 09:14, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
@Rally Wonk: Yes, I want to fix things on Wikidata, but we also need redirects to correct and categorised terms here at ENWP. It's quite hard to describe it exactly but in Polish we also call "car races" or "rallying", just as a "motorsport" ("sport motorowy") but more as a group of sports, and we can clearly distinguish "sport samochodowy" (it's also called "automobilizm" in Polish - rather rarely) - so how is this called correctly in English? Redirect for "auto sport" exist but is this correct name in English and is this common name or there are more variants of name and all of them are common? Btw. I think Polish "automobilizm" is taken from English "automobilism" but I'm not sure if it has exactly the same meaning in English. We could make here some kind of list or hierarchy of terms with all variants of names just for this talk to clarify. Eurohunter (talk) 10:05, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
There is no common use for "auto sport" or "automobile sport" in English, only official use. The common names are "Auto racing" in North America, even if it's not racing!; and "Motorsport" in the rest of the world. There is reluctance from North Americans to change this despite it clearly being wrong to others, and neutral opinions favour the ignorant policy of whatever came first is fact.
Your reply to my comment not only proves my point, but makes it clear to me that the issues I am describing are even worse than I originally thought. Firstly, you are putting words in my mouth. At no point did I talk about "trials, gymkhana, drifting, monster truck driving, and many other forms,". I was specifically talking about rallying. I was also mistaken about rallying - I didn't realise how broad rallying is. However, the point remains that some rallies are racing (like WRC) or include a racing element. This should therefore be discussed at auto racing.Secondly, "I would say that Motorsport does not cover planes or boats, and is the common name for automobile sport - not auto racing - and may include motorcycle sport." I'm sorry but this is nonsense. How can "auto racing" include motorcycles? "Auto" literally means car. Likewise "motorsport" is the competive use of vehicles that use a motor. Boats, planes and motorbikes use motors. The only reason that motorsport appears to be the common name for automobile sport is because car racing is by far the most common and most popular form of motorsport. Something being the most common context does not make it the commonname, especially when the terms are defined by the dictionary.Thirdly, the fact that we are discussing what these terms actually refer to means that we are in no position to make any wikidata connections. Before we do anything else we need to agree on definitions and chnage the relevant articles to match those definitions.Finally, the entire basis for this discussion is nonsense. We do not decide what articles to write based on what we find on wikidata. We do it based on Wikipedia's numerous policies and guidelines - none of which advocate writing articles just because they exist in other languages. This is for multiple reasons, some of which I will briefly outline. As any translater and most competent multilinguals will tell you, it is not possible to literally translate things word for word. Language doesn't work like that, it is much more nuanced and complicated than that. You cannot take a Polish article, but it's title into Google translate, and say "we need an article with this name". Directly translating an English term into Polish may well result in a term which has a broader or narrower scope in Polish compared to English. It will not always be possible to find a perfect match for wikidata to connect to. We need to be pragmatic and find the best possible connection. This may involve creating a redirect and going through that. Or it may not be possible to do this. However, in instances where a link is not possible, that is just unfortunate, but unavoidable. We simply have to make do. But making a whole article purely for the benefit of wikidata is both inappropriate and impractical. For example, the Polish "truck race" may just have to connect to thr English "truck racing" In short, we can make no progress at all until we agree on definitions. (At this point we can probably connect the Autosport redirect to wikidata And then we need to decide if a splitting motorsport to create an auto sport article is appropriate (in my opinion it won't be at least until we flesh out the non autosport motorsports, until then there is literally no point in splitting). SSSB (talk) 17:04, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
I think we agree on most things, and have no need to drift to a conversation on who-said-what. But just to be clear:
Trials, gymkhana etc were words from my mouth to highlight how silly auto racing is. I did not mean to suggest you had said these.
Also, in my opinion motorcycle sport is a form of motorsport, alongside what could be called automobile sport. Planes and boats belong elsewhere for good reason I shall explain if asked. However, I also believe the term, motorsport, is the common use for what may be called, or translated into English as 'automobile sport'.
I do not push for a creation of "automobile sport" article, however, I believe that "auto racing" is very wrong, to the point of being harmful, and to the point where I believe Wikipedia and its policies are a negative force.
My proposal now would be to have the wikidata item "automobile sport" contain the language links found on auto racing, and simply not have an English article attached. I doubt this would gather support if I made the changes alone.
I'm open to proposals but I don't think defining anything is what's really needed. We're restricted by policies and technical abilities. Rally Wonk (talk) 19:09, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Your hierarchy makes perfect sense, but it doesn't justify Wikipedia articles as SSSB has said.
The only occasions I see Automobile sport being used is officially by the FIA. I have never seen Auto sport being used anywhere. Autosport is a magazine.
At least in Britain, motor racing would be more common, then car racing would be used secondary. Nobody uses the term auto racing unless they have been influenced by Wikipedia. I shall add two lines to your table. Of course it can only be an opinion. Rally Wonk (talk) 21:05, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
An interesting point to add, the FIA organise the FIA Motorsport Games which, being the FIA, is open to automobiles, there's no other vehicles or bodies involved. Yet, it's not the Auto Racing Games or the Automobile Sport Games. This fits in with the Olympic structure and ASNs from 72 nations from around the world sent teams, including the USA and Canada. Rally Wonk (talk) 14:17, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
This is the hierarchy which I'm trying to sort out
If it's possible to language link to a redirect it should have been done long ago.
There are 90+ language links on Wikidata/Auto racing, most of them do not belong there. Some may belong to Automobilism, however in some languages that includes sport whereas in English it means car culture. Many would need moving to Automobile sport. It might be worth waiting for more comments before undertaking this.
What do you mean with "If it's possible to language link to a redirect it should have been done long ago."? Do you doubt its possible to link an article in a language to a redirect in other language? Rpo.castro (talk) 15:48, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
Yes, that. If using redirects had been raised in this conversation that you and I were both involved in, even I could have done it before.
I'm only aware that we could link articles to redirect pages in wikidata since somewhere in past year and never remembered to bring it up. Rpo.castro (talk) 07:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)
What definitions of car and automobile are you using? Because I just googled and the answers said that "car" can also refer to train cars. Meanwhile automobiles can also be refer to buses, trucks etc. (Again according to Google). SSSB (talk) 19:02, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I wasn't broadly talking definitions but the common use, I'm not sure the question was anything but opinion and experience, although I did google a few phrases to see what results came back. There is no use of 'lorry industry' or 'van industry', for example.
The only definitive point I made was about not all cars are automobiles, you can also have:
and so on. But in usage, 'car' alone is the automobile kind.
I'm happy with the definition of Automobile found at Car; vans, trucks and busses are not automobiles to me. The FIA has a definition of Automobile for sporting purposes but other international bodies tend to use 'Car', but I think this is heading off-topic. Rally Wonk (talk) 21:52, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
