Talk:Bicycle cooperative

This article was nominated for deletion on 25 October 2015. The result of the discussion was keep.

About the previous incarnation that was PRODed

There was an article before named "Bicycle Kitchen", but the topic was a specific Bicycle Kitchen (San Francisco if I remember correctly), and it was ignoring the fact that the term is used in more places. If this article is ever PRODded or AfD-ed again, keep in mind that the former article with this name had a different topic.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 21:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dear all, please note: I have moved the article "Bicycle Kitchen" to the more-commonly-used term "Bicycle cooperative".[1] The above comment was posted back when the article was still called "Bicycle Kitchen". —Unforgettableid (talk) 06:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cooperative ownership

User:Keithonearth wonders: Are bicycle cooperatives cooperatively owned? --Unforgettableid (talk) 03:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Only some of the organisations described in this article are co-operatives, so as it stands the article is wrongly named. It needs to better reflect the names used in the sources, and it badly needs better sources than a wiki and a local club's website. NebY (talk) 08:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article is entitled "Bicycle cooperative" because "co-op" seems to be the most common term people use to refer the organisations. This is true on Stack Exchange, and within this list of organization names, and in my personal experience in real life. I admit, though, that the term is slightly misleading when used to refer to a non-co-operative. Unforgettableid (talk) 06:30, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Keithonearth: I've removed the {{clarify}} tag from the article. If you're still dissatisfied, please restore it. —Unforgettableid (talk) 19:13, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Unforgettableid, thanks for the notification. To start with I'd like to apologize for not being more communicative, and to thank you for actively working on this page. Unfortunately I don't think that my original concern has been addressed. It is unfortunate because it really cuts to the core of this article. "A bicycle cooperative ("bike coop"), bicycle co-operative ("bike co-op"), bicycle kitchen, or community bike shop is a non-profit assisted-service bicycle repair shop" needs a citation, so I put my citation needed tag back on. It needs more than just clarification. I have heard these terms used interchangeably by people informally, but I would argue that they are not necessarily the same thing. I would also argue that any sort of co-op needs some sort of co-opertive ownership. I would argue that if there's no co-op then it's not a bike co-op, even if it charges low prices, lets customers work on their own bikes for a small fee, and is run by a non-profit. (as this article states) The problems with definition are important and they are causing the article to contradict itself at present: "...is a non-profit..." followed shortly by "...Generally they are not-for-profit organizations...". Are they non-profits or just sometimes?

Anyways, thanks for your work, I'll try to do more than just complain, and actually get work done, but in any case I think my concerns are justified. --Keithonearth (talk) 21:10, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Keithonearth: (cc: @NebY: @Mikejamesshaw:)

I dunno. I wrote much of that lead section of the article, but it was based on what I've seen and heard in real life. I think that, in real life, people seem to call assisted-service bike repair shops "co-ops", even though I strongly suspect that not all are true cooperatives.

People sometimes call things by inaccurate names. I recently saw a family member of mine call a facial tissue a "Kleenex" even though it wasn't made by Kimberly-Clark. People also might call a Canon photocopier a "Xerox machine", or a vacuum flask a "Thermos", or some air bubble packaging "Bubble Wrap". See our generic trademark article. So, too, they might call an assisted-service bike repair shop a "bike co-op" even if it's not a true cooperative.

Perhaps it's all part of how language changes and evolves over time. See also descriptive linguistics.

My local public library system offers patrons free at-home access to lots of article databases. (My local library system isn't special. This is true of many public library systems worldwide.) I opened up Gale General OneFile and searched for [ bicycle bike co-op ] to see what would come up. I found quite a few results, and added some to the "Further reading" section.

I also found an article about a place in Cambridge called Broadway Bicycle School, which might still be a true worker cooperative. It says that it's a worker-owned and collectively-run bike shop:

Formosa, Nicole. "Collective business model clicks in college town". Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (1 December 2009): DT-3(1). Retrieved 9 June 2015. It started in 1972 as a worker co-op where cyclists could work on their own bikes and share knowledge with each other. Today, it continues to run as a collective with seven partners who share the management and financial responsibility for the business. ... Broadway also rents space at $15 an hour to cyclists who want to tinker on their own bikes, and provides teaching assistance at $36 an hour.

I invite you to read the articles I linked to in the "Further reading" section, to do your own research, and to try to figure out what to do about our article. I personally am not sure what should be done.

You can also try a Google search for [ co-op site:bicycling.com ].

Making generalizations about discrete entities is a difficult task.

By the way, I have fixed the contradiction you mentioned. I doubt that they are always non-profit. IIRC Biketoons in Toronto offers assisted-service bike repair, but they are for-profit. (IIRC shop time there is Cdn$15/hour. I'm not sure if this is self-service or assisted-service shop time.)

Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, @Unforgettableid:. Thanks for your response. I agree with you on most of your points. I by no means dispute that many people call them co-ops. Likewise I do not dispute that people use Kleenex, Xerox machine, Thermos, or Bubble Wrap as generic terms. But you will note that none of those articles are about the generic use of the term. They are all either redirects to an appropriately named article, or specifically about the trade marked brand name. Yes, people sometimes call things by inaccurate names, that doesn't mean we have to here.

Your suggestion that it is part of the natural evolution of the language seems a bit disingenuous. Are you really suggesting that English is evolving so that the word "co-op" is more inclusive, and now includes assisted-service bike shops? I'll believe that when you get it to stick on the Co-operative page.

I will remind you that "it was based on what I've seen and heard in real life" is original research, and not something to cite. Of course making generalizations about discrete entities is a difficult task, but that is not my issue with this article. I would like for this article to not be named "Bicycle cooperative",think your examples, that I link above, argue in my favour. I agree with you that the term is popularly used, but I'd argue that it is a misnomer, and that we shouldn't perpetuate it here. I would not object to making "Bicycle cooperative a redirect to a more appropriately named article. Your use of the term "assisted-service bike shop", seems like an improvement, but I'm open to other ideas. Thanks. --Keithonearth (talk) 08:15, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Keithonearth:

I did some research. Perhaps every bike co-op qualifies as a volunteer cooperative.

As for your points — let me address them in order.

1. "Bubble Wrap" (with initial caps) is indeed an article about the brand, but "bubble wrap" (spelled in lowercase) is an article about the generic packaging material.

2. The term "co-op" alone doesn't usually mean "assisted-service bike repair shop", but "bike co-op" by now might.

3. Our article title policy says: "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural." But the policy continues: "inaccurate names for the article subject ... are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources". The policy adds that we should be concise when possible.

4. "Assisted-service bike shop" is wrong, since all local bike shops offer assisted service. (Walmart's bike department is probably more like self-service; but Walmart is not a bike shop.) "Assisted-service bike repair shop" is better, but not very concise. "Bicycle kitchen" isn't so concise either. "Bike kitchen" is concise, but hard to pronounce accurately, and so I don't think we should promote the term in our article title. (People might say "you should take your bike to a co-op", but not "you should take your bike to a kitchen".) And anyway, I don't like the term "bicycle kitchen". A kitchen is where you cook food, not where you fix bikes. Perhaps that's why the term is so seldom used. "Community bike shop" is so-so. (Anyway, I'm not sure that all these establishments sell bikes. And, if an establishment doesn't sell bikes, it'd be odd to call it a "community bike shop".) "Bicycle collective" might be okay; then, inside the article, we could call the establishments "collectives". But, again, that's not what most people call them.

Anyway, I propose that perhaps all bike co-ops are volunteer cooperatives and so we should leave the article title as-is. Fine?

Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 15:18, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unforgettableid, you wrote "all local bike shops offer assisted service." I don't know what your locality is. I can think of two LBSs in my locality (about eight million people and a million cycle trips a month in summer) that have occasionally offered group training sessions in maintenance, but they don't open their workshops for assisted service. NebY (talk) 09:47, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @NebY: I meant that local bike shops assist you in choosing which bike to buy. I didn't mean that they assist you in fixing your own bike yourself. :) Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 01:08, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Co-operative retail stores

I only know of one example, but what of retail stores run as co-operatives? For example, Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative. -- MikeJamesShaw (talk) 17:01, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Mikejamesshaw: Retailers organized as worker co-operatives (like the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative) or as consumers' cooperatives (such as REI or Mountain Equipment Co-op) are different beasts than the non-profit assisted-service bike repair shops described in our article. The name "bike co-op" is perhaps not always technically correct, but people do seem to use it in real life to refer to non-profit assisted-service bike repair shops. See also the earlier conversations above. —Unforgettableid (talk) 18:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is really a continuation of my above concern, But I think it's important to point out that they fact that your observation of peoples' use of this term is enough to justify it's use in Wikipedia. Really what you are doing is relying on original research, research that is just your personal observations as you go through your daily life. If the article is going to stay in its current form, we need strong citations that a "bike co-op" is not necessarily a co-op, and is a retail establishment of the type this article describes. Insistently, two more examples of bike stores run as worker co-ops are Brixton Cycles in London and Urbain Cycles in Toronto. --Keithonearth (talk) 15:50, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Broken Spoke in Oxford is also a workers' co-operative, as are Birmingham Bike Foundry and Bicycle Doctor in Manchester. Cycle training workers co-ops include Pedalready Co-operative in Sheffield, Westcountry Cycle Training and the London-based Cycle Training UK. RE:CYCLE Sussex membership is open to volunteers and users, and the Green Bike Project in Birmingham seems similar, espousing the International Co-operative Alliance principles. A few others don't seem to be active any more, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are more that have launched recently or don't advertise their co-operative principles so clearly. NebY (talk) 18:51, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not surprised to hear there are lots that I don't know about. What I'm interested in is if those worker co-ops are not "bike co-ops" as this article states, and if "bike co-op" is an appropriate term for what this article is talking about. I believe it's not, and think that the article is a bit of a muddle.--Keithonearth (talk) 19:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - I find the whole approach of defining bicycle co-ops as not being co-ops very strange. I just wanted to supply you with a few more examples for the discussion - carry on, please! NebY (talk) 20:24, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting development has occurred with the hypothesis that Bike Co-ops are not Co-ops, put forward above by Unforgettableid above. I added the statement "Bike co-ops are not Cooperatives" as it seemed very unclear from the article that we are not talking about co-ops, so despite the questionableness of the hypothesis, I wanted to make it explicit. Despite their statements above, Unforgettableid edited this to say "Not all bike co-ops are true cooperatives". And in doing so introduced what is to me a new concept of a true cooperative. I find this disingenuous as it seems to suggest that many "bike co-ops" fall into some sort of grey area of being semi-co-ops, while this is just not the case, and many clearly have no co-operative structure. This was later edited (again by Unforgettableid) to claim bike co-ops are "usually organized as a volunteer cooperative". No citation. I've edited it again, requesting a citation, and bringing the central problem of this article to the light, as I don't want to see this contradiction swept under the carpet. I hope we can resolve this issue without just pretending that it doesn't exist. --Keithonearth (talk) 09:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Keithonearth: Your main questions seem to be: What is a bicycle cooperative? And are all non-profit assisted-service bike repair shops co-ops? These are valid questions, and I'm not sure that I have any good answers. You are right that my idea of the "true cooperative" was a silly one. Although I don't know of any reliable published source which says so, I still suspect that bike co-ops are usually organized as volunteer cooperatives. Do you believe that my hunch is wrong? Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 03:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Unforgettableid: sorry for the slow response, and thank you for keeping our lack of agreement civil, meaningful, and on topic. I'd not say those are my main questions. I'd say I'm confident bicycle co-op needs to have a co-operative ownership and structure, and "non-profit assisted-service bike repair shops" often don't have co-operative ownership or structure. I do not think your hunch is correct, though I am not really clear on what a volunteer co-op is. I know many "non-profit assisted-service bike repair shops" have volunteers, but I don't think that is enough to qualify them as volunteer co-ops. I don't think that the volunteer co-op structure really helps resolve this article's issues. --Keithonearth (talk) 02:39, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Keithonearth:

If you take a look at Cooperative § Volunteer cooperative, you will see that a volunteer "co-op" doesn't have to be an actual worker cooperative or consumers' cooperative. A volunteer "co-op" can instead be a non-stock corporation or a service organization. Do you believe that Cooperative § Volunteer cooperative is wrong? And, if so, would you be willing to please start a discussion on the talk page there?
In a "web extra" article on the website of the Bicycle Times print magazine, online editor Adam Newman writes: "Not all community workshops function the same, or are even similar. The phrase 'co-op' gets tossed around a lot, but many community workshops do not even use the co-operative model."

Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 09:45, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the update to your last comment Unforgettableid, I think that quote from Bicycle Times is very accurate, the term does get "tossed around" (i.e. used informally with little regard to it's definition). I also think that this writer may have provided us with a very useful term with "community workshop". This is a nicely concise way to refer to the "assisted-service bike repair shops", as it doesn't refer to the administrative or ownership model the shop uses, but strictly to the way it interacts with the public. The public can use the workshop space. Do you think we could make this term more central to the article? --Keithonearth (talk) 19:01, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Defining the term "bicycle cooperative"

What counts as a "bicycle cooperative"? And does the lead section of http://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Community_Bicycle_Organizations provide a sufficient answer to the question? (See also the bicycle organization directory which was compiled by Ian Fritz, of Tucson, AZ, and colleagues. To get a copy of the directory, click this link and write to the email address shown.) —Unforgettableid (talk) 04:09, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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