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Revision as of 22:30, 29 June 2009

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Archives of past discussion

Archive 1

Requested move

It has been proposed in this section that Straight-four engine be renamed and moved to Inline-four engine. A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil. Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly. Links: current log • target log • direct move

Straight-four engine → Inline-four engine — Straight-4 engine is rarely, if ever used to describe (an inline) 4-cylinder engine. Article name should be changed to Inline-four engine which is most often used to describe this type of 4-cylinder engine. Vegavairbob (talk) 22:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

• Straight-six Straight-6 and Straight eight Straight-8 are used to describe these engines because 6- and 8-cylinder engines are also (and usually) offered in V configurations where 4-cylinder engines usually are not. Because of this 4-cylinder engines are not (and don't need to be) referred to as Straight-four engines.Vegavairbob (talk) 22:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
• However, a much better name would be Four cylinder engine, or 4-cylinder engine. Almost all four cylinder engines are inline, and unless otherwise specified, they are inline. Straight-four is almost never used, and inline-four hardly ever used. Four cylinder engine already redirects to this article. 199.125.109.19 (talk) 01:58, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: the other Straight-x engine article use the same format, so why be different? Also, straight-four engines maybe not be referred to as such in the U.S., but they are elsewhere (UK, Australia, NZ (+ probably others, but I don't know any more off-hand)). OSX (talk • contributions) 06:49, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: Both terms are in popular use but we should keep it consistent with the other straight 2/3/... articles. Redirects take care of the other forms and most people won't even notice the difference. And for 199.125.109.19, there are plenty of V4's (Ford) and boxer 4's (Subaru, VW, Porsche) out there. Stepho-wrs (talk) 08:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: Highly unnecessary move, seeing as how straight and inline are synonyms.--Flash176 (talk) 12:41, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. I can see some justification for the move, in that the normal abbreviation for this configuraion is I4. But the justificaton given seems to be based on guesswork, and not always very good guesses. The names straight-four and straight-six probably came from the famous straight-eight automobile engines of the early and mid twentieth century, which were slightly preceded by the V-8. Other inline automoble engines of the period had relatively little competition from corresponding V configurations, and the inline four is still dominant enough among four cylinder autmomobile engines to often be simply described as a four, with vees and boxers etc being more fully described. On balance, I'd leave it as is. Andrewa (talk) 13:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: "Straight" and "inline" are synonymous, so the issue can be handled with redirects. "Straight-six" and "straight-eight" are more popular because of the poetic nature of the names (alliteration and assonance, respectively), which "straight-four" lacks, but it's still a common name for the configuration. V-4's are rare, but they do exist, as do flat-fours (alliteration, again). If we were starting with a blank article, it might be worthwhile to use "inline-4" (as long as we also used "inline-6" and "inline-8"), but at this point, I don't think it's worthwhile changing it.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 16:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. I won't bother voting, but please note that "...to keep it consistent with other Misplaced Pages pages" is absolutely no reason at all to have an article at a certain title. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should go with the most common name as used by secondary sources, not what helps keep our own little filing system tidy. If that's your only reason for opposing, I'd recommend you strike your vote. Incidentally, a Google search of all variations ("inline/straight-4", "inline/straight 4", "inline/straight-four", "inline/straight four") suggests that "inline" is the more common term in each case; whether or not its majority—between 2:1 and 4:1—is sufficient to warrant the move is another argument. --DeLarge (talk) 19:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't have any strong feelings on this, but shouldn't inline-four engine redirect to straight-four engine (or vice versa if the move were to be made)? I'm kind of surprised that there isn't already a redirect in place. swaq 20:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment Yes, that redirect was definitely missing. I've just put up redirects from Inline-four engine and Inline-4 engine. That won't resolve or dissolve this present proposal, but it should alleviate whatever dead-end-link effects might have been bothering Vegavairbob. I haven't made up my mind whether I favour the proposed move. I do see and hear both terms in widespread common usage, so I don't think either term can really be considered wrong. My unsystematic survey suggests Rockymtnguy may be correct that people might tend to select one word or the other depending on which number follows it. For instance, people seem to want to say "straight-8" rather than "inline-8" because the former rhymes. I don't think I agree with Vegavairbob that inline is necessarily more suitable or appropriate than straight, but I don't think I agree with DeLarge, either, for WP:GHITS seems to caution us against basing this sort of decision purely on Google hit counts. —Scheinwerfermann ·_C20:55, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

A long time ago, I made some choice with agrement of several Wikipedians. "Inline" has not exactly the same sense in aviation and automobile. In aviation "inline" is opposed to "radial" thus a "V12 inline engine" makes senses for an airplane. Ericd (talk) 21:31, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• 'Comment The issue here is not the redirect. The issue is the name of the article. I have not seen a 4 cylinder inline engine referred to as Straight-4 in ANY publications (Road & Track, Car and Driver, Road Test, Motor Trend, or ANY engineering reports in 40 years. It is incorrect. The article should titled inline-four engine with the re-direct for Straight-four. Is this going to be based on opinion or what is CORRECT and widely used? Why should this site use an incorrect name for ANY article, including inline-four engine? What a waste of time. If you want to improve the auto articles on this site, wise up and listen, instead of being difficult. Vegavairbob (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

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• Requested moves