Talk:Zorbing

message: "Zorbing is a recreational activity which emerged in the early 21st century. It involves rolling down an incline in an inflatable, usually transparent, sphere made from PVC.
Zorbing originated in New Zealand as the brainchild of Dwane van der Sluis and Andrew Akers, who invented the necessary device, which they named a "zorb", in 2000"
This reads like an ad. The date can't be true because I've seen it in an older Jackie Chan Movie. It was either this from 1986 or this from 1990.—Preceding unsigned comment added by R.H. (talk • contribs) 04:09, 9 July 2005
* This one: Armour of God II: Operation Condor (1991). The "invention" date is impossible. This German article says they were invented by v.d.Sluis and Akers in 1994, and in 1999 there was a zorb race in Hamburg, Germany. 1994 still doesn't explain how it could appear in the movie.--84.188.129.253 21:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In Russian newspaper article  1973 is given as the year of zorb invention. And two mentioned guys from New Zealand named as persons worked on improving zorb in 1990-ies. :ru:User:Дмитрий Кузьмин —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.195.11.101 (talk • contribs) 20:59, 30 May 2006
The zorb is an awesome experience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.54.110.91 (talk • contribs) 04:51, 30 July 2006
The Dangerous Sports Club article claims it was they that invented rolling around in an inflatable sphere, not a bunch of New Zealanders.  Is "zorbing" a sport or trademark? 220.233.191.2 05:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reads like an ad

message: *In all my time on wikipedia I have NEVER seen an article done this badly. Over the entire thing, Some moron added there own little advertisements into the origins and current situation of the Zorb without even incorporating it into the text; "This is not the case"... And the part that really got me was the Company History tid-bit. It sounds like it was written by a disgruntled employee. When I find myself feeling comfortable with my Wikipedia article editing skills I'll come back and do my best to make this article the least bit informative. Good day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.196.119.146 (talk • contribs) 06:16, 13 August 2007
** I agree. People involved with or related to the Zorb business appear to be fighting with each other, according to the change history. Currently the article contains obvious NPOV commentary. It also reads like a marketing brochure (see similar comments above). I am nominating this article to be checked for neutrality. --Fjarlq 02:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV review 

message: The most glaring problem with this article is that there is no mention of the activity itself, though the picture does provide a strong clue.  The article is almost completely comprised of the equipment and the company owning the patent.  The sphering article shows a similar lack as it only mentions Zorb. 68.176.139.61 02:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the prod because the topic deserves an article, and there have been so many revisions that there probably is useful, non-POV, non-ad content in them that I wouldn't want to delete to help people work on cleaning up the article. I reverted to a version from last year, before Craig Horrocks's COI edits, and which has less ad-like language. I kept the disputed tag, though, since the reason Craig began editing was apparently because of factual problems, and added a rewrite tag per the concerns of others here. There may be additions made after this revision which contain useful materials, and I encourage people to work on improving the article, observing spam, verifiability and neutral point of view. Rigadoun  (talk) 06:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of important content 

message: We definitely have a bit of a problem here. I think Lizzie Dean's suggestion that the article be renamed to sphereing is a good one; it should also get a rewrite to make it more generic and less focused on the zorb company. We can note in that article that while many people, possibly including the OED, call the activity "zorbing", this is a case of band-aid/adhesive bandage, jello/gelatin. 
There have been some questionable edits just today; some of them are obviously justified, such as unsubstantiated allegations about employees leaving the company; we can't pass around rumors like that without evidence, a  tag does not cut it. Other changes, though, like removing the mention of a video game that features "xorbs", I'd say are probably unjustified. I suggest we grab the appropriate material from the previous edit () and incorporate it into the rewrite. Could someone please be bold and do it? I have to go to bed now... :) -- Akb4 (talk) 08:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: rename

message: someone made a small pile of additions mentioning zorb new england (or ZorbNewEngland) in several places. I've cleaned them up to be a bit less npov, and for grammar. I entirely pulled this bit: 
:In 2007, Barry Billcliff, CEO,  ZorbNewEngland, redefined the sport bringing the most balls owned by any country to numerous ski resorts and tubing parks across the United States easter seaboard, stemming from Amesbury Sports Park in Amesbury, Massachusetts
I'm not usually one to gripe about cites, but online searches for zorbing locations in the north east US mention only amesbury (as opposed to parks across the eastern seaboard), amesbury sports park doesn't mention zorbing on their own web page, and zorbnewengland.com redirects to complexplastics.com, a plastics manufacturer. While I don't think absence of web pages means something doesn't exist, at the same time I see a lot of hype with little substantiation. And websearching on barry billcliff reveals some amusing information about someone of that name being rather dishonest. Of course, that might be a completely different barry billcliff of massaschusetts/NH; I have no idea how common the name is around here. -- Akb4 (talk) 18:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: removing information from the article relating to a competitor with whom you are having a trademark dispute is not generally acceptable. That said, it does look like zorb new england is a marginal enterprise that's been trying to use wikipedia to gain legitimacy. I can find almost no web cites of their supposed trademarks, so I'm pulling the section on their trademarks and I've edited their name out of several places; I think we need good cites before including much about them. -- Akb4 (talk) 09:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: zorbnewengland

message: "Sphereing (or Zorbing) is the practice of humans traveling in a sphere, generally made of transparent plastic, usually for fun."
...'Usually'? --78.148.58.175 (talk) 19:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Practical Zorbing 

message: (Copy of answer on my talk page to questions from "Zorb guru".)
Eight hours after my edit to Sphereing, editor "Thrill Girl" made a significant edit that was reverted within a few minutes by experienced editor "SynergyBlades". The changes she made are here . "Thrill Girl" made several types of change — almost all were unhelpful, or were contrary to guidelines. One you might be most interested in is:
"While the Zorb Limited business model involves leasing spheres to franchisees, and not selling them to private individuals, several companies now offer sphereing balls for sale."
This describes details of business of Zorb's business. But this Wiki article is about the concept of "sphereing", not about a business. Perhaps Zorb would like to imagine they invented the whole thing, but in fact, this idea has been around for decades. Phrases such as "Zorb Limited" -- which does not appear in the summaries on first page of Google results for "zorb sphereing" and "business model", and the sly innuendo that "other" companies produce inferior products suggests "Thrill Girl" wants to assert that Zorb is what sphereing is all about. (Note there has been much on the discussion page about how commercial this article is .)
Next most importantly, "Thrill Girl"'s editing process was poor, particularly that she gave no explanation at all for her edits. Especially when such major changes are made, it's just politeness to other editors to explain them. (If you look at her editing history, you'll see she never explains herself.) This kind of behavior is close to vandalism, especially when...
Many of the changes she made were wrong. She replaced 14 trivial popular culture links -- use of such is discouraged in Wiki. I had changed the opening sentence to match a common Wiki style. She changed it back to include verbose, pointless phrases such as "the activity of", and "the recreational practice of humans". She put Wikilinks on words "recreational", "business model", "franchises" and "sphere", none of which are probably necessary WP:CONTEXT. I.e., she's apparently an advocate for Zorb, is writing poorly, and is ignoring Wiki policies and protocol. Piano non troppo (talk) 01:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I think all she did was revert to an earlier version. Either way, this page is continually the target for certain companies to spam their wares so vigilance is required. SynergyBlades (talk) 11:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Thrill Girl edit

message: I am writing this on behalf of SphereMania® Ltd, who hold the trademarks for SphereMania®, Sphereing® and Sphering®
This article is a shocking misrepresentation of the company SphereMania. The information given in this article is wholly inaccurate and incorrect. It must firstly be pointed out that the activity in question is hill rolling, and the names Sphereing® and indeed Zorb are not generic terms; but are company names. Our market competitor (Zorb) seems to be happy to undermine our trademark in order to protect his.
FYI with reference to the "most recent editor... claiming to be the CEO of Zorb Limited" I am that person. I have provided my email address. If you want to check the facts please visit the New Zealand Companies office link NZ Companies Office. I simply edited a completely erroneous entry. The replacement text contains a number of false statements. While others may have had similar concepts over the years the Zorb was invented and patented in New Zealand. There is no issue of the people related to Zorb "fighting each other". That is what my edit was designed to show factually. Zorb is like many innovators, flattered by its --Craig Horrocks 15:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trademarks and Misrepresentation 

message: There are 3 kinds of Wiki editors, those who can count and those who can't:
"
The Guinness Book of World Records recognises two sphereing records, set over two consecutive days in 2006:
Longest sphereing ride held by Steve Camp who travelled 570 metres (1,870 ft).[citation needed]
Fastest sphereing ride held by Keith Kolver who reached a speed of 52 kilometres per hour (32 mph).[citation needed]
Fastest 100m in a Zorb – 26.59 seconds. Held by Andrew Flintoff who broke the record as part of his attempt to break 12 world records in 12 hours for BBC Sport Relief.[citat
Kdammers (talk) 01:42, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Three kinds of mathematicians 

message: I'd like to point out that the guy who died in the zorbing accident travelled "a kilometer away" and the guy with the zorbing "distance record" didn't even travel 1000 meters.  The guy that died in the zorbing accident should have the record, it only seems fair.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.16.192.129 (talk) 06:31, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guinness World Record