Talk:Malaise era

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2022 and 4 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ssin13 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Syan32.

Removing references

Pogorrhœa tag bombed the article and removed unreliable references and text. Maybe it's the right thing to do in the end but I'd rather see a more incremental and less hostile approach to improving the article. I'll try to find time to have a closer look in the coming week. ~Kvng (talk) 12:52, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

"Tag bombed"...? "Hostile"...? I beg your pardon, I don't agree, and I ask that you please take a look at WP:TAGBOMB: At the top is an advisory that it's an essay, a statement of opinion, not Wikipedia policy. And even if it were more than that, even if it were policy, its first sentence defines "tag bombing" as the "unjustified addition of numerous tags to pages" (emphasis added).

I think my edits were well justified by some key official Wikipedia policies which are posted conspicuously and widely: Encyclopedic content must be verifiable by appropriate citations of reliable sources. A quick one-click dig to see what those things mean brings clarity: 'Verifiability, no original research, and neutral point of view are Wikipedia's core content policies. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. Edits for which no reliable references are provided may be removed by any editor.

I will freely acknowledge my personal opinion that the notability and encyclopedia-worthiness of this article's subject is very dubious, but that doesn't disqualify me from working on the article, and since mine was not the prevailing opinion on that matter when I put it to the community in an appropriate manner as you can see near the top of this page, I set about doing some work to improve it -- operating on a "don't just complain about problems, work to fix them" philosophy. Your casual and inaccurate lobbing of an accusation of tag bombing, your objection to my removal of non-references, your characterizing my edits as "hostile improvement" to the article, and your summary wholesale reversion seem tantamount to a just-barely-unspoken accusation of bad faith (speaking of key Wikipedia policies...).

I applied appropriate tags to problematic statements in the article. I removed only some fatally flawed material. I deliberately did a partial job of it, only addressing the worst departures from basic requirements for Wikipedia articles, specifically to avoid creating a feeling that I was trying to do an end-run around the no-delete determination by drowning the article in red ink. For the same reason, I left in material that really could have been cut. Consider, for just one example:

There has been some disagreement over when exactly the "Malaise era" ended. Some feel that the era ended in 1983, with the advent of computer controlled vehicles, and turbos beginning to take a foothold on Japanese vehicles,[6] while others put the end date at 1996, when OBD II computer controls were mandated federally.

The first sentence says there are differing opinions. The second sentence contains an assertion of opinion, the first part of which is supported by a reference ("the era ended in 1983"). But the second part ("with the advent of computer controlled vehicles, and turbos beginning to take a foothold on Japanese vehicles") is completely unsupported -- and muddily written. Next comes a contrary opinion ("Others put the end date at 1996 when OBD II computer controls were mandated federally") completely unsupported and, as far as I can tell with a brief seach, unsupportable. So by Wikipedia standards, that block of text should be pared down to something like this:

It has been said[6] that the "Malaise era" ended in 1983.

I left the unencyclopedic text in place, though, tagging it to draw attention to the issues and giving the maximum possible opportunity for people to come along, pitch in, and add whatever they can to bring it closer to being at least minimally encyclopedic. I did the equivalent of pulling noxious weeds so there's room for intended plants to grow. think that's in line with how we're supposed to work toward better articles on here. Pogorrhœa (talk) 23:25, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

@Pogorrhœa: Sorry if I hit a nerve. When I said tag bomb I was referring to your adding 4 inline tags to the first two-sentences of the lead. When I said hostile I was referring to your edit comment, "Removed gradeschool-level babble and rambling, irrelevant personal opinions...". I also found your original delete proposal (see above on this talk page) to have a hostile tone.

I haven't had time yet to do a detailed review of the content but hope to soon. I'll leave your changes as they are now because I have no intention of fueling an edit war.

You should also know that my WP:DEPRODDING of the article doesn't necessarily mean that I support keeping it. It means that I didn't find your stated justification for deleting it to be uncontroversial and so I don't support deleting it without discussion. If you still think it should be deleted, you may nominate it at WP:AFD. ~Kvng (talk) 14:32, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Recent POV-pushing and other unproductive edits

The following unsourced POV-pushing and decidedly pointed language was added, some of it with the blatantly misleading edit summary of "Gen'l cleanup":

• Increasingly strict safety standards, notoriously including heavy, ugly, shock-aborbing bumpers, added weight and compromised both performance and looks.
• ...but were also extremely un-stylish relative to those produced on either side of the era.
• This too had a similarly massive consequence: Americans flocking to smaller, more efficient, attractive, and affordable foreign imports, overwhelmingly from Japan.
• The 1977 AMC Gremlin epiotomized the height of the Malaise era
• ...a historic disregard for the environmental consequences of internal combustion engines...

Further:

• America's indifference toward fuel mileage began with the 1973 oil crisis is unsourced and the exact opposite of reality.
• and Americans with the means exploited emissions loopholes allowing heavily modified and otherwise banned "grey imports" into the US. - also unsourced and I question its relevance.

• This deletion of referenced content was insufficiently explained - and the explanation clearly indicates an axe to grind.

I admit, I had never read this article before and it probably wasn't in the most stellar shape as it was, but the changes above made it demonstrably worse. In accordance with WP:BRD I am inclined to restore it again; the IP editor will need to justify the unsourced POV-pushing and pointed tone of their prose. --Sable232 (talk) 21:35, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Very biased framing

This is a very strange article and not at all up to the standards I'm used to seeing on Wikipedia. Simply spamming a lot of references to politically biased sources like "reason" magazine, a libertarian publication, does not make an article well-sourced. This article in general reads as the grievances of an automotive enthusiast, with no proportionality for the relative importance of things like "cars of this era are aesthetically appealing" vs the scale of the energy crisis, climate change, or the push for vehicle safety in the wake of the Pinto. - Frederick

Is this really encyclopedia material?

I agree with the previous comments on this talk page: this article seems more like an expression of strongly-felt opinion rather than a presentation of facts. There are assertions made, some of which are supported with decent citations, but there's no evidential line drawn from any of them to any coherent thesis beyond some alleged journalist (so proclaimed, with no reliable backing) having made up this "malaise era of cars" concept. What there is, is a bunch of libertarian talking points and citations of very dubious adherence to NPOV. There's this weird presentation of headlamp laws, as if it proves something -- yes, the US required sealed beams for four decades...so what? How does sealed beam headlamps equate to cars that inspire malaise, or whatever malaise is supposed to have to do with them? During that time, many cars in markets outside the US had un-aerodynamic headlight styling too; they might not have been standard-size circles or rectangles, but a lot of them were nonstandard-size circles or rectangles, and many of them were very upright. So then what was it about sealed beams that supposedly created or expressed malaise? Surely nobody actually believes sealed-beam headlights are what caused the lousy fuel economy of a giant, hulking 1976 Oldsmobile 98 Regency (or whatever)? Talk about citation needed. Same with the bellyaching about the bumper laws. Yes, bumpers got bigger in the '70s, but nobody could seriously claim a '75 Mercury Marquis (or whatever) would have gotten good fuel economy and had brisk acceleration if only it hadn't been for the bigger bumpers. As for emissions versus fuel economy: yes, the 1970s and early 1980s were a time of low engine output and slow vehicle acceleration times. That was an effect of trying to clean up car exhaust with early/limited understanding of how to do so and primitive available technology. But articles like Vehicle emissions control, Bumper, and Headlamp present comprehensive, well-supported pictures of the effects, pro and con, of the various laws and regulations...this article falsely paints it like certain regulations were stupid/bungled/100% con and 0% pro, with "citations" to Libertarian publications that could legitimately be called propaganda in service to a sweepingly anti-regulation philosophy. Basically this article reads like a big, steaming pile of UGH. Does it really belong here? If so, certainly not in its present form! 2001:569:7EE8:B400:A410:77D0:32D:E6EC (talk) 20:12, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Article Revamp

This article's Talk page is pretty much just a list of significant tonal and reference issues regarding it. As such, I've undertaken a rewrite. I've purged some unsupported or irrelevant material, chopped the NPOV language mentioned and added:

1. A greater appeal to relevance. It should be clear by reading now that this isn't just a random statement made 15 years ago on Jalopnik.
2. More and better sourcing. Less libertarian think tanks, more government legislation and automotive sources.
3. More background and context. There was almost no lead-up to the era, and frankly it can't be understood without a brief overview of the legislation that creates it.
4. A greater focus on performance over aesthetics. There's no doubt in the minds of most that vehicles from this era are hideous from an aesthetics standpoint, but that's pretty hard to argue in an encyclopedia and so other than the section on awkward bumpers (which also had performance implications), I've just alluded to this widespread view at the article's end.

Palindromedairy (talk) 22:14, 17 June 2022 (UTC)