Talk:Ryan Doyle

The Ultimate Parkour & Freerunning Book says Manchester. ESPN says Liverpool. Maybe he was born in one place but now lives in another? not sure but wanted to mention it.Cptnono (talk) 21:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Looks like the book got it wrong - his personal site also says Liverpool. (D'oh!) Will go and change that now. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 10:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Recently there has been disagreement at this article about whether Doyle should be called a "parkour practioner", a "freerunner", or both. This has led to this edit being reverted four times, which amounts to edit warring, in my opinion. Faeress has outlined their position at User talk:Feraess. Faeress's argument is that mainstream sources such as this New York Times article are not reliable for calling Doyle a parkour practitioner, because they are misconstruing the nature of parkour. However, I would argue that the relative obscurity of the origins of parkour, coupled with the attention by mainstream sources like the NYT, has changed the definition of parkour itself.

I think that we should base our articles on what mainstream sources like the NYT define parkour as, rather than whatever the original definition might have been. Ignoring the majority of mainstream sources in this way seems to me to constitute original research, which is forbidden on Wikipedia. I would be open to a compromise solution, though - perhaps we can call Doyle a parkour practitioner, but say that what he does may not fit with the definition of parkour as it was originally intended? Let me know your thoughts on this. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Just before I get onto the actual issue in question, I disagree with your assessment of the situation. This is not an edit war (as yet) because we are trying to resolve the differences with discussion. You and I were discussing this topic on my talk page where I have been awaiting a response since 9th May. Squish7 isn't currently involved in a discussion on this issue, but then he's only made one edit on this so far and was perhaps unaware of our discussion. All that's happened is that I've undone one revert from each of you, in both cases because your attempt to re-add material was not supported by sources. See WP:Burden Feraess (talk) 12:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

In order to include the statement "Ryan is a freerunner and Parkour practitioner" you have to provide evidence that he is a freerunner and you also have to provide evidence that he is a Parkour practitioner. If Parkour and Freerunning are the same thing then we don't need to use both names. One will suffice. However the statement in question treats them as two separate things, so to support it you need reliable sources for each. The fact is, there is lots of evidence to support the freerunner part and no evidence to support the Parkour part.

All of the sources describe Ryan as a freerunner. Even the Red Bull website which lists Ryan as a Parkour Ambassador describes him as a freerunner rather than a Parkour practitioner. There is only one source which contains any kind of statement about whether or not he practises Parkour, and that is the Daily Trojan article in which Ryan states that he is 'a freerunner who practises parkour', directly after the article states that he does not like to distinguish between the two. All other sources contain the same qualification. Even if you consider sources which only imply that Ryan practises Parkour rather than make a statement, the only sources that exist are those which also claim that Parkour and Freerunning are the same thing. There is no source which states that Ryan practises two separate things called Freerunning and Parkour.

Even though the sources are unreliable in their labelling, they are consistent in their descriptions of what he does. In every source, Ryan is described as someone who does acrobatics, flips and tricks, and uses movement as a form of expression. We know what he does, we just need to work out what label to use.

Stating that the definition of Parkour has changed seems to me to be original research. I don't know of any reliable sources which gives this view, and quite honestly I don't see how an article in the New York Times has any bearing on how the discipline is defined. Parkour is clearly defined by its creator and its practitioners, and the definition of Parkour seems to be a subject on which they have the final say, not the New York Times. There's no distinction between 'original Parkour' and 'modern Parkour'. Parkour hasn't changed. The situation is the same as it always has been. There are people who practise Parkour, there are people who do other things, and there are people who can't tell the difference.

Ignoring a large number of sources is not original research when those sources are unreliable. Parkour is a very popular subject with the media, but most importantly it's a new subject and a lot of stuff gets published without much fact-checking. See WP:CEE. It's harder to do a good job on fact-checking when you don't have access to anyone who knows the facts. As I said in our discussion on my talk page, given that most new practitioners based their understanding on poorly-checked media reports, you now have media organisations producing poorly-checked reports on practitoners whose own facts are poorly-checked. Consequently, many media organisations that would normally be considered reliable are unreliable on the subject of Parkour. The amount of nonsense written about Parkour is huge.

If a source gets basic facts about a subject wrong then we cannot consider it as a reliable source on that subject. Specifically, on the subject of whether or not Ryan practises Parkour, if a source gets basic facts about Parkour incorrect then it is not a reliable source. Also, Ryan himself is not a reliable source. He gives inconsistent definitions of what constitutes Parkour, none of which are entirely accurate.

If you think that Parkour absolutely has to be mentioned in this article, then it should say something accurate like, "Ryan is sometimes labeled as a Parkour practitioner by those who don't distinguish between Parkour, Freerunning and acrobatics ." It's not notable enough for the first sentence though.

We should leave a discussion of what constitutes Parkour to the Parkour article, where as a result of a lot of recent tidying and correction it's now clearly defined. Incidentally, it should have a capital P since it is the name of a specific discipline rather than just an activity. Feraess (talk) 12:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

(BTW, I merged my section on this subject into yours since we posted concurrently) Feraess (talk) 13:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, Ryan considers himself to practice Parkour. There is absolutely no doubt about that. He always says "Parkour" when referring to his discipline in his most polished and professional videos (video being his primary--virtually only--medium of publication, 100% quotable by the core spirit of WP guidelines), especially ones discussing the philosophy of what Parkour is about, so much so that his video comments are constantly bombarded with angry notes from purist traceurs saying he's misleading people and spreading misinformation. Even if those people represented the general consensus of the PK/FR community--i.e. if the community that Ryan declares he's a part of didn't accept his classification--then it would still be prudent to mention he was a "self-declared Parkour athlete", especially since he's in a position to help shape and define the terminology (that is, that top-level experts or authorities are sometimes the people who set standards and shift tides).

Now, since it's actually not the consensus (i.e. at least part if not most of the community accept Ryan's declaration), then in combination with him being in an authoritative expert to say what Parkour is/isn't, then this certainly should call for declaring him a traceur. Further, since the consensus in the community seems to be that Freerunning is a subset of Parkour (see the WFPF website)--with which Ryan also has officially stated--he already practices Parkour by default anyway. I suppose in the scenario that Freerunning was strictly and universally considered a subset of Parkour that it would be redundant to list "Freerunner and Parkour practitioner", but since there's so much debate and confusion, it's overwhelmingly prudent to list him as both. I suppose it may be prudent to list Freerunner first given the number of PK practitioners who don't consider him one, but the very sport/discipline he says he practices, and promotes constantly, can't be entirely cut out in any scenario.

Please note this official Red Bull ad that lists him as "Parkour Athlete" at 0:12. (This was my very first exposure to Ryan, PK, or FR; it played as a pre-video ad on YouTube and I ran to look him up here. There was no article, hence I started this one.) Squish7 (talk) 06:52, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree that Ryan considers himself a Parkour expert. However the only evidence that he is an expert comes from his own statements to that effect, and statements from companies that rely on his credibility for promoting themselves (such as Red Bull and WFPF). The Parkour community is very clear that Ryan is not a part of it, as illustrated by official statements such as this one from ParkourUK stating categorically that Red Bull talk nonsense when it comes to Parkour.

The fact is that Ryan doesn't have the first clue as to what Parkour is, and both he and his projects are considered jokes by the community. It's unfortunate that there are media organisations willing to give him a platform for self-promotion, but then it seems to be a fact of modern media that substance matters far less than appearance.

If you want to mention that he is a self declared leader of Parkour then I think there's enough evidence to support that as long as we can find a direct quote, but to present a balanced viewpoint we would need to also include the fact that it is a claim that is disputed (by a National Governing Body amongst others). Feraess (talk) 09:43, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I had no idea the orthodox parkour community's rejection of the Red Bull AOM was this thorough, thank you for sharing. For reference here's the passage I'm talking about

Parkkour UK in its role as the National Governing Body for the sport of Parkour / Freerunning would like to issue the following statement regarding the event entitled "Red Bull 'Art of Motion' " which will take place on Sunday 20th March 2011,

Parkour UK is in no way affiliated with Red Bull or the Red Bull 'Art of Motion' event and its opinion as the National Governing Body is that the event does not accurately reflect the core principles and values of Parkour / Freerunning. Parkour UK, believes the ethos, philosophy and spirit of Parkour to be concerned with individual strength and well-being and that the sport should be practised in an environment of co-operation and not competition.

I'm pretty flustered by this as someone who sees Ryan is as half-traceur, half-freerunner, so let me regroup and renew my option with this new information. A few points.

1. Parkour UK is not an international group; Wikipedia is. What Parkour is should be defined by the sum of people globally that state that they practice Parkour. The origin and history are extremely important, but if more people than not who declare they study Parkour would agree that Ryan fits into the community (if we were to take a global census), then I think that by default/definition constitutes the basic statement that Ryan is a Parkour athlete. Hence, the position of the World Freerunning / Parkour Foundation should be given considerable weight--even though, or maybe especially since, Ryan is a founding member; that is, supposing Ryan single-handedly convinced 51% of the community that he's a traceur, this would still be 51% of the population who say Ryan studies Parkour--as should the organizer of the most global/prominent event of something at least generally to do with Parkour/Freerunning movements. In short, the statements of Red Bull and the WFPF should be given incredible weight in this issue, even if other local/national bodies feel the same way as Parkour UK; hence I suppose our task on this issue would be to balance all available sources on both issues. Can you find quotes from other national PK authorities that mimic that of Parkour UK? If not, I think your case falls a bit short.

2. A statement about thing X says nothing in regards to Y. Ryan's actions, art, and dogmas are especially thick and multi-layered, saturated with all the epitome items constituting what Parkour is. This statement says squat about Ryan's net beliefs and accomplishments. His philosophy and missions, etc., in life are so much more important to who he is than how he did in XYZ competition. Even if Ryan was half-competitor and half-philosopher, this would still strictly call for a statement he is both a Freerunner and Parkour practitioner. Put simply, Parkour UK would have to make a statement about the all the major aspects and dimensions of his life and goals for it to denounce Ryan as a traceur in all/most endeavors.

3. Ryan constantly drills in the core importance of individuality. He believes and states that everyone should figure out what Parkour is on their own grounds, telling people not to listen what he says or what anyone else says but to discover it for themselves. (He often wraps up an interview or video with this statement.) He basically directly declares that he is not associated with any particular party's definition of Parkour, and as people who's job it is to carefully balance all possible information out there, I think we should especially respect this dogma. In other words, declaring him only a "self-declared traceur" as if saying the entire community agrees with him rather than just a portion of it--is a bit insulting given the difficult tornado of terminology and particular beliefs.

4. The lede does not have to state that Doyle is a direct and definitive associate with Parkour in order to put him in place with the breed of Parkour he practices. Simple tricks like using "parkour athlete" (which could be read as "one of the body of people who include athletics/competition in their breed of Parkour") may do a lot in a small space. Or, maybe this should warrant a few sentences that concisely sum up the controversy about this point.

5. Parkour UK is intrinsically going over the line of their effective governing to include "freerunning". The Red Bull AOM incorporates the epitome concept of freerunning (even if it's just freerunning). It doesn't matter precisely how they were designated official "Freerunning" body; it's clear that that official designation process didn't have the mechanism to debate these endless split-hair distinctions. If their creeds reflect the general views of orthodox Parkour, that's fine, but they can't say they speak for the general freerunning community, as they're going against the very core of freerunning (showcasing, style, etc., which fits intrinsically into the Red Bull AOM). Therefore, they have weakened credibility for being objective and drawing particular boundaries. If you want to apply this statement to Ryan--arguing that because he's involved in the Red Bull AOM, the statement applies to him in general--then you have to include Freerunning as something Parkour UK states he does not practice by definition, i.e. you'd be arguing that Ryan is neither a traceur nor a freerunner, hence by your argument, WP shouldn't list him as either, and if he's not either, what is he?

If you really examine things, this quote actually declares Ryan to be a Parkour practitioner. If the epitome core of Parkour is to promote "individual strength and well-being in an environment of co-operation and not competition", then all of Ryan's activities, projects, and philosophies that fit this clause (too many to list) prove him by Parkour UK's definition to be a traceur. Squish7 (talk) 18:03, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I can't agree that Parkour should be defined by the sum of the people who say they practise Parkour. An analogy would be that the theory of quantum mechanics is not determined by how high-school students explain it just because there are more high-school students than physics professors. We have to evaluate the sources and give due weight to the significance of each. This is explicitly stated in WP:DUE. In this case we should give more weight to the views of people who have actually studied Parkour, than to the people who just decided to use a cool name to describe whatever they happened to be doing (or have been persuaded by someone else who did that). Neither Red Bull nor WFPF can be considered reliable sources as per WP:QS as both have questionable oversight and both have a financial conflict of interest. Neither should be given any weight on this issue. See also WP:NEWSORG: "For information about academic topics, scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports." It makes sense to give more significance to people who are demonstrably experts than to newspaper reports, even about people who are self-professed experts.

I agree that some of Ryan's words fit with ideas present in Parkour, but equally many of his words go against them and he's not always consistent. For instance, in this interview he talks about how individuality is the most important thing and how it can't be classed as a sport, but then he refers to it as a sport the entire length of the interview and says that practitioners need people to set the goals for them. He also says that cars have made Parkour obsolete, that he uses the word 'Parkour' just because it's cool, and he confirms that he's solely responsible for Red Bull's Parkour information. If you compare what he says with the views of actual experts then it seems obvious that he isn't one. In any case, he is an unreliable source on the issue of whether or not he is a Parkour practitioner or expert due to conflict of interest. If we lack any reliable source that says he's a Parkour practitioner, then we can't state that he is in the Wikipedia article.

I think a simple statement that he is a self-declared Parkour practitioner or leader would not really be accurate, and I agree may be insulting. If you have a source for what you said about Ryan not associating with any particular definition then I think it would make more sense to say something like, "Although Ryan does not fit into existing definitions of Parkour, his opinion that definitions are not important means that he often labels himself as a Parkour practitioner." That seems to be fairly neutral and inoffensive, and maybe we can include more detail about his beliefs later in the article.

Freerunning is a discipline created by Sebastien Foucan. The core value of Freerunning is "Express yourself in your environment without limitations". There are no other principles, because the whole point is that you should be free to be yourself. Showcasing and style aren't principles of Freerunning, they are just things that some (not all) Freerunners want. Art of Motion is an event for some Freerunners, but not all. It's only representative of a part of the Freerunning community.

I agree that the ParkourUK statement doesn't necessarily have perfect reliability as a source on what Parkour is. They themselves make it clear that their descriptions of Parkour are only meant to describe the sport side of Parkour, not the discipline as a whole. However that statement is the most significant of the expressed viewpoints on the reliability of Red Bull, and means that even if we can find a reliable source to support Red Bull (which is unlikely) we still can't state Red Bull's statements as fact. As it is, we have to reject Red Bull's views on Parkour entirely, for a variety of reasons. Feraess (talk) 13:50, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

You know your stuff, I'll give you that. Maybe you're right about a lot of points, you've educated me on a lot I didn't know about. Your arguments are too thorough for me to keep up this debate/research over a single lede word. I think saying he's a founding member of the World Freerunning & "Parkour" Federation in the first sentence is enough. (Note I've added "world champion" as it just sounds weak/lame to say he's just a "freerunner" with no other classification granting him sophistication. Note that this is a very common nutshell term--"world champion freerunner"--applied when summing him up in a phrase.) Perhaps I'll pursue this more later, I have some counterpoints or fine notes to your arguments and sources. I do agree there are other ways to phrase things that might present a perfect balance, it's just too tedious to find the absolute precise phrases that will represent and be fair/uninsulting to all parties involved. I'm happy with the lede sentence if we simple include "world champion".

See from the start I wanted this to be a much more thorough and in-depth article. I was and still am still very unhappy to say the least in its minimal nature. Anything extensive I tried to add was torn apart, some with good reason, but some in what I consider violation of the spirit and core of the guidelines, particularly the stone-carved omnipresent ostinato that sourcing in any particular scenario is a delicate balance of all possible factors and principles evaluated and looked at together in a whole picture. E.g., I utilized some of Doyle's videos--his main medium of publication--as self-published sources. They got torn down in part because YouTube/etc is usually a poor source as it's not often used for professional publication, this reason (usually, without any attention to specifics guiding the scenario) being completely against the core of Wikipedia guidelines and its mandate. Completely throwing out an entire medium as a means of publication and documentation with no regard for the careful evaluation of a particular case is offensive to the very nature of objective referencing and documentation. (Note that my extensive documentation of my reasoning for the particular scenarios were not even read at the time nevermind not addressed, basically intrinsically violating the policy that cases be evaluated and discussed when there's disagreement.)

Long story short, this New York Times article (that Mr. Stradivarius put the to-do list as an important new source) is practically a rewrite of the additions I had made here. Now I'm told, "Oh, well now that someone reputable agrees with your sources, we can put it in." Now no, original research isn't deemed retroactively appropriate when someone reputable has confirmed it, but I'm not talking about original research, I'm talking about basic sourcing with the same set of information I had. The NYT article actually quotes two of Doyle's videos in practically an identical manner as I used them. It's almost comical. Perhaps you have an opinion on the matter, though I wouldn't want to burden anyone with sifting through the entire edit war. Squish7 (talk) 23:07, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

On reflection I've removed 'world champion' from the first sentence. The lead already states in the second sentence that he won two Art of Motion competitions, and that's a more accurate statement. 'World champion freerunner' means that he is the best in the world, and that's not true. Although the Art of Motion is a big event, there is no championship that is sufficiently representative of freerunning to accurately label anyone a 'world champion'. I have seen Ryan described as a world champion, but even Ryan acknowledges (here) that freerunning is not competitive and that the events are exhibitions rather than championships.

I agree with you that we can use videos as sources on Ryan's views. We can't use them for statements of fact though. Maybe the best thing to do would be to go through them here on the talk page one by one and work out an appropriate wording for each so that the material can be used. Feraess (talk) 09:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Kudos to your precision. In the context you've presented things I suppose I'm forced to agree in this case, though aside, do note that "world champion" in this context if used would refer to the fact that he's won at least one competition, technically 2, hence he's often referred to as a "2x world champion". I suppose it's arguable that "world champion" is an ambiguous phrase if not modified, but really, how many competitions keep net score on a year-to-year basis? I suppose "all time" might be used for that, but I think "at least one-time" supersedes "all time" as a default if no modifier is present.

In any case, you've left the opening phrase too minimal when reduced to a single word. Can we agree on "international"? If you look at the lede, there's not even enough information in the first paragraph to deduce he's an international athlete. He could be a founder of the WFPF and be a Red Bull sponsor without traveling to other countries, and the "Art of Motion" might signify a national competition without reading the whole article or following the link. Also, he's unarguably one of the most international freerunners of the world if you look at the staggering portfolio of locations he's been to (half of them just recently; see his 2012 world tour videos where he toured "the 7 world wonders", though I left out the "the" when I noted this as his particular list just isn't definitive, and there's also no information about his 7th location as he only has videos of 6 of them; I assume the 7th didn't work out because in the 7th he says he's finished traveling leaving the series off in Santorini.)

You know, on second thought, even that is a bit non-descriptive given his increasingly diverse skillset. Even if you read the full article, this says little to the precise balance of the core basics. I believe it's our job to present the best overall view as concisely and quickly as possible. To relate, consider Jackie Chan's opening line (Ryan's icon and someone he's often compared to):

Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer, and stunt performer.

Obviously he's been around for a bit longer, but the point is Doyle is eclectic in a similar way, accumulating the above talents to the point where plenty are notable 2nds to his primary career. (He also aspires to this type of increasing diversity, and while this alone might not affect documentation of what he's achieved thus far, it should just be mentally noted, i.e. that any modifications thrown in will quickly become more accurate as time progresses.) For instance, the film "Shinobi Code" by Airborn Entertainment (not released but in which he's noted as an actor in the cast) is an example of his acting career furthering at the moment). In fact, the article doesn't even mention Airborn Entertainment and Airborn Academy which he founded and runs (and should really both have their own articles!). It should really be expanded to include these (with sufficient sourcing of course).

I don't want to sit here and edit back and forth, especially because you're so apt at these fine details, but I'll just note that all the following are arguable choices to include (obviously we've exhausted debate on the first two):

freerunner, traceur, actor, educator, trainer, stunt performer, action choreographer, martial artist

(Education especially is vacant in the article as he's a well-established trainer, although I suppose more sources may be prudent before stating this.)

I just don't agree that someone should have to read the whole article and click the links to calculate an estimation of the balance of all these things, even if it's possible sans editor-level research. What do you think of including more of these terms or akin and keeping this list up-to-date long term? Squish7 (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I have no particular objection to the word 'international', but I agree that 'international freerunner' is not a particularly descriptive phrase. What is it about him that makes him international? If you go to virtually any freerunning community website you can see that it is very common for freerunners to visit other practitioners in other countries, so I'm not sure he stands out in that regard.

Airborn Entertainment is his own company and (iirc) consists of just him and his brother, making anything that it produces self-published work and not notable in itself without external references. To my knowledge Airborn hasn't done anything significant and therefore doesn't deserve its own Wikipedia article. Without any other references, and without the film actually having been produced yet, I would assume it to be a kind of extended YouTube video, along the lines of his 'world tour' stuff. I don't think it indicates a 'progressing' film career as yet, but I have no objection to listing actor in the first sentence as he has acted in a film previously. I am also happy with 'coach' and 'martial artist' as there are sources that indicate he coaches kids and took part in martial arts competitions. There's still no reliable source to indicate that he's a traceur, so I can't support that, and I don't know of any source that says he's done anything significant as a stuntman or choreographer. If you can find reliable sources then we can add those too, but for now I'm happy with 'freerunner, martial artist, actor and coach' if you think the sentence needs more.

In my own personal opinion, Ryan is not a particularly notable person and it's borderline whether he deserves an article here. My interest in primarily in Parkour and since Ryan isn't notable in any shape or form to Parkour I don't have great motivation to help support this article in the long term. This article is already on my watchlist so I'm going to keep checking and helping where I can. In my view though Ryan's fame comes simply from being the first freerunner to self-promote to this extent rather than any great ability or achievement, so I don't expect there will be a lot to add here in the future.Feraess (talk) 19:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Given your attention to detail and proper sourcing, I'm baffled at your opinion he's not even notable enough for an article. You feel Freerunning is notable enough to be campaigning for its own article, so how can you say that a 2x winner of the most prominent global Freerunning event is not notable enough for that reason alone, never mind everything else on and on... I'm not sure you understand his status in the Freerunning community off-line. He was already an icon before anybody started writing about him. He's just one of the top people of the Freerunning community, I don't know what more someone could possibly do to be notable here. Do you think Timothy Shieff and Daniel Ilabaca are also unworthy of inclusion? If so, your opinion of notability seems extremely subjective as all 3 articles stand solid, and if not, you'd really be splitting hairs to separate Ryan Doyle from the former 2 in the FR community. I mean who is notable if not these 3?

I feel that "international" is just a typical term when referring to someone like Ryan. I can't wrap my brain around your question "What makes him international"? He's been in most of the international FR competitions, he's toured half the world achieving breathtaking cinemetographic footage, he spreads news of the community globally when he visits other places, he has half of the FR community demanding he visit their country, he's backed by a global organizer, on and on and on. Someone could be a "freerunner, martial artist, actor and coach" in a single isolated town, this says nothing about his notability of being one of the most globally active members of the FR community, and the epitome of a global athlete in general. WP labeling him as "international" does not mean "well, he could have traveled once to a neighboring country". It means that we as editors are presenting the term as an epitome description of his career and characters. You just can't get more global than Doyle without living on an airplane and not even having a physical residence. Does "world class" or "global" fit your taste better? Squish7 (talk) 15:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Art of motion might be a nice showcase for some aspects of freerunning, but who wins it is utterly irrelevant as shown by the fact you can win it with a shattered leg.

I think it's a big stretch to say that Ryan has ever been an icon. What is it that makes you say he was an icon before he was written about? To my knowledge, nobody had heard of him within the freerunning community before he injured himself spectacularly in Vienna's Art of Motion, and the complete list of his accomplishments to date only includes three things: winning two competitions in a non-competitive activity, and appearing in a very bad film. None of which has received much coverage in independent sources.

Ryan and Tim, although good at moving, are famous solely for winning some virtually meaningless competitions. They are not icons, but rather than being a criticism of them, it just reflects the non-elitist nature of the freerunning community where everyone treated as being equal. They are notable to some degree within the freerunning community, but not very notable from a wider perspective. Although I may be wrong, I just don't think there's a lot that we can say about them that meets Wikipedia's criteria.

Danny is probably one of only two people that could be said to be an icon in either the Parkour or freerunning communities, the other being David Belle. In both cases it is because they have consistently pushed the boundaries of what is possible within the disciplines. However with regards to Wikipedia both have a lot more sources of information than either Ryan or Tim, which is reflected in their articles. Feraess (talk) 10:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I really don't have time to debate all these points as we disagree too much, but I will say one thing, I think your broken leg comment is tactless and logically absurd. Ryan gave a spectacular performance in Vienna. He tried something difficult at the very end and missed his landing by a few feet, not the 170 feet that would be required by your logic to retroactively nullify his performance up until that point and throw off the entire net score. His broken leg was a haphazard consequence of one failed move. Plenty of sports operate on the accumulation of points that can't be retraced at the end of a game because of an injury (soccer, football..). You have a minor point that this could be likened to a sport where the score is based on an entire performance in one block--i.e. that if an olympic ice skater slipped the wrong way at the end of their performance and happened to break their ankle, it might damage their overall score enough to lose them a gold metal--but even if we let you impose your personal scoring system on the Art of Motion (the only way you even have a point at all), their failure to succumb to your system in this instance still doesn't trivialize the entire event as next to irrelevant in the FR community (especially since you're criticizing the very first instance of the event). It doesn't void the culture and spirit surrounding it. It doesn't void its evolution into a continuously more prominent and popular event. It doesn't speak to its intrinsic ability to showcase FR whether or not this or that academic paper has been written about it.

From this springboard, I think your other points are also flawed in a similar way. That is, this speaks to your general reasoning behind what you feel is notable or not in the FR community. You're entitled to those opinions but the consensus on WP doesn't quite fit your standards. This article was nominated for deletion at one point and it was voted on as notable enough to be here. It's just bizarre to me how you're so passionate about freerunning in general (restoring the freerunning article and hoping to make it more thorough, etc), yet trivialize its major people, events, and organizations. Just weird... Squish7 (talk) 18:05, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

For reference there are some major holes in the article, the fact that Ryan runs a well-established academy and entertainment production company. It should especially be expanded to include his prominence as an educator, which there's support for, but I'm afraid not enough to insert this without argument sans milking all available sources. I think in general that an academy/school of substance is more notable than an individual, perhaps not in this case, but the following should at least be heavily observed for insertion here or new articles. Maybe a sentence or two here would at least suffice. I'm too fatigued haggling all these infinitesimal wordings to spare the time to do this, but they should be on a to-do list for this page in any case:

Airborn Academy, Liverpool (official website)

Airborn Entertainment (website down / under construction, though it's existed from Doyle's pre-YouTube tricking days)

Shinobi Code (new film) (official trailer) -- there's more out there on its development and evolution

I think there is a difference between running a few classes, and being prominent as an educator. Equally, I think there's a difference between making a company with your brother to produce a few straight-to-YouTube videos, and being a notable entertainment production company. I don't object to mentioning them in the article, but only if we can keep some perspective. Feraess (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I thought there was more to AE than that officially. Again you know your stuff. See I see things in sort of a timeless manner. I look at his achievements and growth and mentally project where things will be in decades, how notable things will be in the course of his lifetime. Obviously that has little or no affect here. I'll let my prediction stand just for reference that AE will a major film studio at some point. Squish7 (talk) 14:51, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm increasingly of the opinion that Airborn Academy should have its own article, I just don't know if there are references to support it yet. In 2013 Art of Motion interview, Ryan called it the biggest indoor PK/FR training center in the UK. Squish7 (talk) 00:44, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Ryan didn't compete in the 2013 AOM but was interviewed for several minutes, starting about 42:50. It was a prominent interview but due to some mic glitch it was next to inaudible; the video was also skipping here and there. I amplified it and did my best to transcribe it so there's at least one copy somewhere for permanent reference. While Ryan was recovering from an operation (treatment of his 2007 leg injury), it's not completely clear whether he would have competed if he'd been able to, as the video says it only took the top 6 contenders from last year, while he was 8th, though he does state he was hoping to compete.

Announcer: And we have run into Mr. Ryan Doyle. Ryan, I know you're sitting here watching right now, probably not exactly what you want to be doing, unfortunately. I know you want to be out there competing. But, a few things going on, you're just recovering from an injury. I saw a picture of what happened, tell us what happened.

Ryan: Well it wasn't an injury. I had a screw removed that's been in my leg for 6 years from the very first art of motion. since then they've been taking more and more out. They took this one out and the doctor said no high impacts. I was like oh man, I got a tournament. No high impacts. Doctor's orders. But I'm still here supporting the event. I got some good [..] training with the guys and [..]. I'm just here to support them. I found the island so I figure all this madness, I might kinda be responsible for it. Part of it might be my fault. But look at it now, this is where it's come.

Announcer: Yeah, it's amazing here. Look at all the people. You guys having fun? What else is going on, I know you're working on something big for the sport of freerunning in your home town. Maybe just give us a quick rundown of what's going on.

Ryan: Airborn Academy opening up this year. It's the biggest indoor training center in the UK for parkour and freerunning. Not only parkour and freerunning, but tricking, gymnastics, capoeira, you know, break dancing... It's a place where everyone can come and learn movement itself. Learn how to physically move, how to move correctly. And then, I will be connected to them even more 'cause at the moment, the people in Liverpool, they've got nowhere to train. I want to tie into the international touring team events that are happening everywhere else, too. So hopefully you guys can come visit me in Liverpool, come train at Airborn and learn how to move free and get involved in more art of motion stuff because we want to be doing tournaments, too, and get you down into [..]

Announcer: Freerunning [..] I'm not the most coordinated guy in the world. But that's really cool. I love the way you take your freerunning attitude which is move around obstacles, move through obstacles. I know you guys were having an issue with getting kicked out of the gymnastics gyms and not being able to train where you wanted to, so you thought, "You know what, I'm gonna make my own place!"

Ryan: They've got their facilities for them, OK, it is for gymnastics, so they can have it. We'll build our own. We've got our own [..] and we'll do our own thing. We don't need to share, we're big enough to be our own thing, now.

Announcer: Alright Ryan, well good luck with that. We're really excited to kind of watch that grow and build. I know we've got Team Tempest in the US and we've got Airborn Academy in Liverpool, we've got [..]. We've got all these places.

Ryan: [..] touring team events [..]. Everyone shares the epic moments together.

Announcer: Well [..] You graced me with one of your T-shirts yesterday. It's awesome to be part of that, thank you. [..] It's nice to see you here here at this event, you're not competing [..]

Ryan: I wiouldn't miss it for the world; I wouldn't miss this thing. These guys inspire me. Being here, is like, even now I'm itching to get on the course.

Announcer: I know you are, but doctor's orders. [..] Thank you.

Squish7 (talk) 00:39, 16 September 2013 (UTC)