Talk:Roller derby/Archive 1

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Old leagues

The world famous Los Angeles T-Birds were one of the teams used for the show (the other teams were The Rockers, Hot Flash, The Violators, Bad Attitude, and The Maniacs —:These aren't the teams that I know from Roller Derby. The ones I knew were the New York Chiefs, the Northwest Cardinals (formerly Mexico Cardinales), the Bay Bombers and the Detroit Red Devils. The T-Birds were, from what I know, in the Roller Games league, not the Roller Derby league. RickK 07:30, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Not to diminish the contributions of other Wikipedians, but this article is thus far 90% the product of approximately three or four dedicated editors, all of whom are in their 20s and 30s and are familiar only with the current all-female revival. If you see things in the article that are clearly wrong, then fix them. If you are dismayed that the article seems to provide relatively little info about the sport's 70+ year history, then please add the missing info (but keep it encyclopedic) or comment on this talk page and point us to some resources where we can get more info. So many teams came and went, so many players rose to stardom and faded into obscurity, and yet so little of it seems to have been documented, and so few people seem willing or able to contribute authoritative, useful information to this article. I appreciate seeing the names of these teams; it gives us something to go on, but we need a lot more info like this, and, preferably, citable sources. If anyone is out there who can help, please take a moment to hit the "Edit this page" link and add your 2 cents. Thanks!—mjb 09:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok here's what I remember from way back just before Griffiths bought out Seltzer. The teams then (about 1972 or 73) were the San Francisco Bay Bombers, the Midwest Pioneers, the Eastern (or New York) Chiefs, and three "road" teams: the Jolters, the Red Devils and (briefly) the Eagles. As I recall the last three were not, at that time, identified by a home venue. The Braves and Cardinals were out of business by then. In Griffiths league, which I disctinctly remember as being ID'ed (by Dick Lane no less) as the National Skating Derby, there were the Los Angeles Thunderbirds, and these road teams: Texas Outlaws, Northern (formerly Chicago) Hawks, New York Bombers, Brooklyn (formerly Detroit) Devils, the Australian Kangaroos and Reilly's Renegades, who replaced the Roos. There were also the Libertadores (a Spanish-speaking team) and the Tokyo Bombers later on. Also Team Canada, the Baltimore-Washington Cats (sometimes called the Atlantic Cats) and Philadelphia Warriors. The Warriors were apparently the east coast equivalent of the T-Birds and they two only met after the buyout. They apparently shared road teams.

An interesting side note: the IRDL was apparently the first "single entity" sports league in existance. Staszu13 15:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

To RickK: I may be very late on this, but those so-called 'World Alliance of Rollersports' teams, the Rockers, Violators, Bad Attitude, Maniacs and Hot Flash, were strictly for television purposes. They didn't even represent a particular city or state.

That's because most of the skaters on the show were members of Bill Griffiths' Roller Games league. Hence, the name RollerGames.

From what I have gathered, Griffiths' league did not exactly die in 1975. The teams representing that league were still skating throughout the late-1970s and 1980s, although they weren't skating at the frequency they were skating before 1975 (4 to 6 showdowns per week). I gather that, even though most of the original Roller Games teams survived the organization's decline, the organization itself wasn't running the show entirely. My assumption is that these teams were free to compete against teams that once belonged to any other league, if they weren't doing that beforehand.

The obvious reasons for the decline during that period were the oil embargo of 1973 and the recession of 1975. Leo Seltzer's original National Roller Derby League died hard because the embargo and gas lines damaged the ability of the teams to travel. I assume that Roller Derby operated at a much bigger budget than Roller Games.

If it were not for the original Roller Games teams staying in business, and the formation of the IRSL comprised of many of Seltzer's Roller Derby teams, the sport would never have survived 1980, let alone that entire decade itself, although on a smaller scale. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CookyMonzta (talk • contribs) 08:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Dallas Incident

Currently seething at the Dallas Incident. If somebody wants to re-host the pictures on Wiki, feel free, I don't have the patience right now.Kar98 14:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I've removed the addition as it has nothing to do with the article itself, nor is it encyclopedic. The content is below for reference. --LeFlyman 17:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Dallas Incident

On Friday the 13th of January 2006, a roller girl was stopped by police for apparently "roller skating across the road". Pictures of the incident have surfaced on the internet of her being violently restrained by the police.

Pictures of incident: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

  • If it's not encyclopedic, rewrite it. You don't have to delete it. This incident is important to the discussion of Roller Derby as it relates to public perception. Radiodog 02:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • It doesn't have any such connection-- and attempts to connect such a single occurence to "public perception" would be Original Research. The incident may have been terrible for the woman involved, but Wikipedia is not a soap box. In particular, Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought notes:

    Although current affairs may stir passions and tempt people to "climb soapboxes" (i.e. passionately advocate their pet point of view), Wikipedia is not the medium for this. Articles must be balanced so as to put entries for current affairs in a reasonable perspective. Furthermore, Wikipedia authors should strive to write articles that will not quickly become obsolete.

    --LeFlyman 03:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
If there was a history of occasional public villification, repression and violence against rollergirls, as there is against, say, ravers, then the incident might make a good example to support such a claim, were such a claim made in the article. But there is no such claim because there is no such conspiracy, and we don't know the circumstances of the arrest, anyway. As it stands, it is not noteworthy to the subject of the sport of roller derby that a cop roughed up and sat on someone who happens to be involved in the sport. Also, the onus is on you to ensure your contributions to Wikipedia are encyclopedic. In this case, there's no way to really make it encyclopedic, unless you have some other info aside from the LJ post. — mjb 09:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
NBC5 DFW, Same article on MSNBC, Same incident, different, more detailed article, registration required Kar98 14:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
WFAA-TV, Channel 8 News, DallasKar98 15:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
  • You still have not demonstrated how this is connected to roller derby; is the claim that the cop specifically targeted the girl because she was involved in the sport? Or is it because she was wearing rollerskates, and thus he must be an anti-rollergirl bigot? Yes, it's a sad occurrence, but the assault does not belong in this article. —LeFlyman 17:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I didn't say it was a case of police in general being "anti-rollergirl bigots", did I? There is so much stupid crap on Wikipedia, putting in a reference about what can happen if you're trying to hand out roller derby flyers in Dallas into a rollergirl article, shouldn't be a problem. Kar98 18:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Kar98 - I'm afraid I agree with LeFlyman. Yes, this incident is very crappy, and I'm as upset about it as you are, but news articles are not appropriate as encyclopedic entries. Furthermore, this incident is only tangentially related to Roller Derby itself - yes, she is a RollerGirl (and a good one), but being a roller derby athlete is not the reason for this incident. This information would be much more appropriate in an article on policy brutality (particularly in Deep Ellum), or the like. -- Marumari 15:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC) (Soylent Mean #2022, TC Rollers)
It really wouldn't be appropriate for inclusion in police brutality either (I checked before leaving my last comment). I think they deliberately keep that article free of incidents of suspected police brutality; they only want the most egregious examples. — mjb 19:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
being a roller derby athlete is not the reason for this incident. Totally agree, but I can just imagine the shitstorm were I to post what I think the reason for this incident is.Kar98 20:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Current pro leagues

Could someone research and contribute more info on the current "professional" post-RollerGames leagues that are mentioned in the article? What is in the article right now is basically the result of Google searches; I gleaned all the info from web sites and miscellaneous articles posted on the Web. I suspect that these leagues are all barely functioning (if at all) and that their web sites are 95% hype, but I really have nothing else to go on. If you know anything about them, please contribute, and if you're a journalist looking for info, please make some phone calls and find out what you can for us! Thanks! — mjb 23:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

64.12.116.137 seems to be using the Wikipedia page as a marketing opportunity for some books and his/her website. I removed quite a few links, and I'm considering moving around a bunch of the links, given that they seem to be marketing sites with little content. -- Marumari 17:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
And, they're back! Check out this egregious anti-amateur league, anti-flat-track set of edits. I'm reverting the whole thing until they demonstrate some maturity.—mjb 20:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
This led me to introduce a new section about the definitions of "professional" and "amateur" in the sport; see below.

If there is no current and static definition of Professional roller derby v Amateur roller derby, and in fact as seen in section 2.6.3 there isn't, then it logically follows that there cannot be the seperate sections 2.6.1 (Amateur, all-female leagues) or 2.6.2 (Professional leagues). I would think the same person who wrote the "egregious anti-amateur league, anti-flat-track set of edits" also created these two sections (2.6.1 and 2.6.2) or aided in their creation. A very strong argument could be made that the so-called all-female "amateur" leagues are in fact more professional than the so-called "professional" leagues. The all-female leagues, particularly those in WFTDA, have consistantly scheduled games, travel across the country to play against one another, and surely generate more revenue than the so-called "pro" leagues. If their play is more regular, they have not one but two governing bodies (whereas the "pros" have none), generate more revenue and have a much greater fan base, then does the mere fact that the leagues are non-profit and/or the players don't get paid make them "amature"? Is a lawyer who takes only pro-bono cases only an "amature lawyer" rather than a "professional"? The answer to that question is clearly no. Therefore, to label the grass-roots all-girls leagues as all amature, including those under the WFTDA body, is naive at best and at worst is an atempt to undercut support for such leagues. Furthermore, nowhere in any published media do the WFTDA leagues promote or refer to themselves as amature. If the site is going to label them as self-proclaimed amature leagues, then the site needs to back that up with a citation. The only group of people casting the box of "amature" around the WFTDA leagues is those who are self-proclaimed professionals with a monetary interest in advancing THEIR style of the sport. Therefore, I suggest sections 2.6.1 and 2.6.2 be largely re-written or removed as they are based in and facilitate a biased view of the newest evolutions of roller derby. 70.171.196.47 05:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)SLF


I don't think that the amateur label is necessarily negative per se - it is merely used as a distinguishing mark between leagues that pay their athletes and those that don't. Certainly leagues such as the Bay Bombers, whose attendance is low and who pay their skaters a shameful amount, are not more "professional" than a league such as TXRG, which does not pay its skaters. The reason there is no static definition of professional v. amateur is the relatively new nation-wide revival. I think the amateur/professional distinction should be maintained, since it merely delineates between pay-for-play teams and those that do not pay their skaters. Onlyemarie 20:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Pivots

Although it was moot, the point 64.12.116.137 tried to make about pivots in the amateur leagues being merely pack-leading pacesetters is partly my fault. Previous incarnations of this article had made such a statement because a certain league that was providing info to me at the time had apparently mistaken a training exercise for traditional gameplay. The article has since been corrected, but Mr. anonymous at 64.12.116.137 apparently did not notice.

I think the training exercise snafu exemplifies the disconnect between the new startup leagues and the sport's 70-year history, as well as the astonishing lack of readily available, well-organized documentation about how roller derby is/was played. Only very recently has WFTDA published its rules online; before that, unless I've missed something, there were no online resources for that kind of info, other than what we had written in this article.—mjb 09:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Blockers

This aging derby veteran is compelled to pass on these tidbits for the aspiring blocker. They are few and easy to understand: 1) Be fully aware of the location, speed, and physical stability of the WHOLE floor. Each player is a potential asset or challenge. The person behind you is the be greatest asset. You can stop/slow down and they are your tool. 2) Practice skating under adverse conditions. When I learned to skate the skates were 'free ball'. This meant that these bearings are individually a potential hazard. Many of the rinks in the SF Bay Area were popular by leather-wearing, aggressive, individuals without a strong desire to meet the 'norm'. The skills in management of these types were highly valuable. Block, parry, dodge. And, again the awareness of their location, speed, and stability is vital if one wants to be, as I was; a floor guard. 3) Ability to skate extremely slowly. A blocker needs to be stable at any speed of travel. 4) The ability to change speed within a few feet of travel. Learn 'duck-walk' deceleration and learn that the forestroke is more valuable than the back stroke. You can see where your feet are ahead of you and this reduces vulnerability. 5) One maneuver which was most valuable for blocking was created by a crazy kid who was willing to break the rules of gravity. This maneuver was, at the time called the "careening spider". This maneuver covers a large space of floor, is unpredictable, and; once mastered can be extremely stable. One person applying this maneuver can throw the entire pack into disarray. I cannot describe it. It can only be understood by seeing it applied. 6) You aren't there to be elegant. You are there to aide the forward and pivot. Get over yourself.

Professional vs amateur

After the recent revisit by the "professional" league advocate whose contributions consist mainly of denegrating the current wave of startup leagues, and after reading some other hostile comments from old-timers in a forum, I decided to open a can of worms and add a section about the distinction between "professional" and "amateur". In it, I assert that the distinction is essentially arbitrary and is based on how leagues choose to promote themselves, rather than qualifications laid out by a governing body.

In fact, AFAICT, the only governing bodies right now are USARS and WFTDA. USARS has a very inclusive and useless definition of "amateur", and WFTDA has no authority and isn't chartered with classifying leagues as pro/am or anything else. USARS bylaws do require, however, that organizations who want to be USARS members be not-for-profit. So it looks like pretty much any individual skater can join USARS, but for a league to join, it has to be not-for-profit. Is it correct to assume that the "professional" leagues (ARDL, NRDL, etc.), being for-profit, do not qualify for USARS membership? I also assume a league might want to avoid representing itself as "professional" so that it won't risk being excluded the benefits of USARS membership.

That said, I did note that there are observable differences between the leagues that promote themselves as "professional" and those that don't. I tried to quantify those differences while emphasizing that they are not necessarily criteria for classifying leagues; it's more of a list of statements that go "leagues that identify themselves as 'professional' tend to…(something)…while other leagues tend to…(something different)". Hopefully people will not be tempted to add more comments referring to non-pro leagues as being homed in "broken-down rinks struggling to reclaim attendance" and the like, but that's probably wishful thinking.—mjb 09:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The picture and statement about the so-called "amature" all-female leagues is misleading and inaccurate. Take a look at the team pictures of nearly any of the other teams' photos and it is evident almost every single one has a uniform and more put-together look than this photo would lead one to believe. See http://tucsonrollerderby.com/teams.php?id=4, http://tucsonrollerderby.com/teams.php?id=2, http://tucsonrollerderby.com/teams.php?id=3, http://gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/gridlock/, http://gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/pain/, http://gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/mayhem/
For all the WFTDA leagues and pictures see http://www.wftda.com/leagues.html. The team used to illustrate the "look", the Hell Marys, is undoubtedly one of the least uniformed teams (as is Texas' style in general) if not the least uniformed team in the organization and therefore is the WORST possible illustration of "typical components of uniforms used by leagues in the modern, all-female revival". I suggest this photo be replaced with a photo from a league that is more representative of the uniform of the "all-female modern revival". Also, are there any permission rights for the use of this Hell Mary's photo? 70.171.196.47 05:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)SLF
Also, it is very important to note that the new, all-girl teams do not ever promote or refer to themselves as amateur. The majority of those people proclaiming them to be amateur are the self-proclaimed "pros".70.171.196.47 06:32, 8 September 2006 (UTC)SLF
I see you've already made (on Sep 8) edits along these lines. Regarding pro vs am, I don't agree with everything you've said, but you do raise some good points that I am still thinking about and will respond to later. For now, I do feel professionalism and the stark contrast between historic leagues and the new wave is an important subject that should be addressed somehow, even if it hasn't been the subject of reliable, citable publications of prior research by a sports historian. I feel we can make note of what is directly observable in primary sources (e.g., league web sites) as long as we avoid any "therefore"-type statements, although the guardians of WP:V likely disagree and would say that the observations themselves are original research even if they don't draw conclusions, and they'd also say that if it hasn't been written about, then it isn't notable and isn't knowledge. I say it's doing a disservice to the subject if Wikipedia unintentionally promulgates, through omission or through complicity in the marketing schemes of 'pro' leagues, a distorted view about what roller derby is (e.g., only what they did, not what the new leagues are doing) or what 'professional' means in sports. Such misconceptions are not 'knowledge'. But I do see room for improvement in what I wrote, and perhaps some of it could be excised if and when we can address the issues that precipitated its creation.
In the meantime, I can tell you about the Hell Marys photo. It is one of only a very small number of photos that have ever been uploaded for inclusion in this article. The others that were uploaded, one of which was a nice historic photo from Jim Fitzpatrick, got deleted because copyright and permission-to-use information had not been supplied with them. I think we're all in agreement that the current photos leave much to be desired, but simply put, no one has taken it upon themselves to put forth anything better in the manner necessary to ensure their survival on Wikipedia. It's kind of ridiculous; all one has to do is click "Upload file", upload a photo, supply copyright/permission-to-use info, and make a reference to it in the article. I'm sure one of us with more experience could help someone with the latter steps; we just need someone who has a photo they have permission to republish to just upload it and supply the necessary info!
The caption on the Hell Marys photo used to just say it was the Hell Marys, but I changed it to what said before you trimmed it down on Sep 8, just because any photos that we keep need to be relevant to the article, and their captions should justify their existence. I felt that that particular photo is, at best, is an illustration of the 'look' of a modern all-female team, so that's why the caption said what it said. I was grasping for a reason to keep it, since someone who apparently was angry at that league had tried to remove it. But I'm all for ditching it as soon as someone follows the right procedure to upload something better. mjb 00:24, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
How's that image look? Feel free to tinker with the caption. --Marumari 15:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Pop culture section

I restored the pop culture section that was deleted today. I would rather such a drastic change be discussed first. What prompted it? If it's the length of the article, that's something we can address by moving more of the history and pro league details off into separate articles.

As for it being potentially endless; it's quite comprehensive, yes, but that means most every historical reference has been accounted for, and only new references would be added. We'd have to cut it off if the references were to become as ubiquitous as they could become, but right now it's still very much on the fringe of pop culture, so the list is not at all unwieldy. There were two self-promoting video productions that didn't really belong on the list, so I removed them when I restored the rest of the section. I think these may have contributed to the list looking like it was about to go on forever.

More importantly, I think it's unfair to dismiss it as "trivia". It's interesting to me, as a reader, to see both how much and how little the sport has permeated our culture. As long as it remains on the fringes of our culture, most every independent reference to it has value, to a researcher, in ascertaining things like how relevant it is in pop culture; what kinds of portrayals of the sport people have been exposed to; the disparities between the sport's real history, how it is regarded in mass media, and how it is portrayed in fiction; and so on. These are topics of importance because of the sport's history of being a form of "sports entertainment", partly fictional and crafted for a television audience.

Lastly, there's also a great deal of precedent (Google link showing 5000+ articles) for having this kind of section. The fact that there's a toomuchtrivia template that acknowledges that legitimate trivia sections exist, and the fact that WP:Trivia is only an essay, not guideline or policy, indicates that there is nothing approaching consensus for summary deletion of such sections. The discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Trivia#I love the trivia sections is interesting as well; I'm clearly not the only one who is "pro trivia", where reasonable.—mjb 05:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If it hasn't already, roller derby is about to break out of the "cultural fringe". With every major city in the U.S. and a dozen or so minor cities launching leagues this year, you can rest assured that the list of cultural references to roller derby isn't going to get any smaller. When ABC News starts doing stories about roller derby in Hudson Valley, that's when you know you've hit the big time. That being the case, having a list of cultural references to Roller Derby is soon going to be akin to having a list of cultural references to breakdancing or hula hoops (obviously a pointless endeavor). That said, I suppose such a list isn't necessarily harmful to the article if it is limited to only the most notable references. Let me try editing it down a bit and tell me what you think. Keep in mind that maintaining such a list is hard work since it means removing cruft and trivia ever other day. That's why I would prefer to chuck it altogether personally. Kaldari 06:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that it will ever enter the public consciousness on more than a superficial level because it's purely a spectator sport: people can breakdance and use hula hoops at home, but they can't play roller derby on their own. I doubt it will be at the level of things like kayaking, skateboarding, snowboarding, pro wrestling, etc., which have their own magazines, competing event circuits, TV coverage, well-known (within the scene) figures. Therefore my prediction is it isn't really going to 'blow up' in a way that will make its cultural references come in very fast at all.
Also, it hasn't been that hard of work; the only things I've had to trim with any regularity are the self-promotion attempts. I'd rather more attention be paid to more important things. For example, try to reconcile or at least document conflicting historical details (see discussion in other topics above). Find more sources for each statement and document them. Convert references that are just links to use the {{cite web}} templates. Replace any dead or outdated links with archive.org references, if possible. Follow up on recent pro league activity. Move most of the professional vs amateur stuff into a proper notes section, and further apply its wisdom (i.e., treat all forms of the sport as different-but-equal) to the rest of the article. Somehow point out that all of the books mentioned so far were authored by skaters, except the one by Herb Michelson, which was commissioned by the Seltzer organization. Point out that Tim Patten's book is a work of fiction. Make diagrams of gameplay. Solicit historical photos from other archives. And so on…
Your arguement is flawed. All you need to do roller derby at home is a few people who have skates, a large flat surface, and some chalk. That's even less than you need for a home game of basketball, and roughly what you need for a home game of football. Fredsmith2 18:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
See what you think of the improvements I made to the pop culture section. I restored the episode references, but trimmed them to their bare essentials and put them all into one bullet point. I removed the bullet point for the RollerGames TV show because it's already well-covered in the article and doesn't really belong in the list anyway (it is derby, not a reference to it). I also split them up into subsections: documentary, fiction, and other. I think that'll make it easier to fork it into a separate "List of" article if we need to later. —mjb 18:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to restore the list of songs, and sure enough, someone attempted to add the Jim Croce "Roller Derby Queen" song today. I think that would tend to happen even if the pop culture section were completely gone. People interested in this topic consider that kind of thing noteworthy, even if by more general Wikipedia standards it isn't. Should I bring back the list of songs? They were deleted in this edit.—mjb 18:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Roller derby songs again

Kaldari, I've had to delete roller derby songs from the pop culture list now five times in about a year (30 Dec 2007, 2 Nov 2007, 11 May 2007, 2 Jan 2007, and 7 Dec 2006). I'm only doing this to try to accommodate your personal preference regarding the pop culture section. Your hit-and-run approach to deleting things is not productive. Why aren't you the one doing this? You come here and wipe out the whole section, then tag as useless trivia the trimmed-down one I restored, and then you're apparently not willing to follow up on it when, as I predicted, people with limited editing skills come in and attempt to add what they consider to be missing material. As far as I can tell, it's important to some roller derby researchers that Jim Croce wrote "Roller Derby Queen". I don't know why, but it just is. So what's the harm in mentioning it here? —mjb (talk) 15:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I added it again, blissfully unaware of the previous discussion, and Mjb asked me to present my views here. There seems to be a lot of spinoff info, which stands to reason given the pervasiveness of Roller Derby in American culture. Maybe a spinoff article for this info would make sense. I was wondering why Croce was being picked on, given that he's probably better known than "Episode 27 of The Untouchables" or whatever. But apparently there is a lot of music related to Roller Derby, and could be a growing list. A separate article could grow without impacting this one. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 05:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Content moved to Wikia

After deleting from the pop culture section yet another mention of the Jim Croce song, I contemplated spinning off the section into its own article. But after reading WP:POPCULTURE, I was discouraged. The WP:POPCULTURE project is generally inclusionist, but nobody's going to defend content of questionable notability. Separate articles devoted to lists, especially "in pop culture" lists, are (apparently) even more likely to attract attention from deletionists.

So, I decided to try an experiment: I moved all of it to another wiki, and left here on Wikipedia only what I think are the least contentious items:

  • nonfiction literature
  • documentary film and television

The full list is on wikia.com, and I linked to it from our External Links section.

The list includes not only nonfiction, but also fiction and music. Maybe this will lay the issue to rest. —mjb (talk) 05:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Roller derby rules

The discussion below has been copied from my talk page. I thought it might be more useful to discuss here.--Rsl12 23:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for helping out with the roller derby article. You're the first person to complain about the previous description of the rules being incomprehensible. I disagree with that assessment, but would be interested to hear what exactly was confusing about them and how they could've been improved.

The main problem I have with your edits though is that the description of the game is now extremely biased toward the modern revival and specifically WFTDA's rules. We (well, User:Onlyemarie, mainly, and myself to a lesser extent) were trying to make sure the game was described in a sufficiently general manner to 1. not burden the casual reader with too many details like the number of periods, specific durations and distances, etc. — these details aren't necessary for understanding the game and are likely to change over time and from league to league or revival to revival; and 2. describe the features of the game that are common to all leagues, including "professional" leagues, be they theatrical or unscripted, past or present.

You're right in that we didn't cite sources, and we should, but it's a process that takes time. In the meantime, content shouldn't be removed just for being unsourced, especially when not considered contentious or biographical. It just wasn't that important, at the time, and there were (and still are) very few sources available. ULC/WFTDA only published its rules in early '06, and leagues do deviate from them in non-WFTDA matches, including intraleague regular-season bouts.[9] —mjb 04:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey RSI12, I'm poking my head in to give you the reasoning behind the way I wrote the rules section. When I wrote the section, I wanted it to cover roller derby in all of its incarnations to date: old banked track and current flat/banked track. I chose to go with less instead of more specificity since WFTDA rules, while used voluntarily by many non-WFTDA leagues, are only one set of specific derby rules. In the absence of a good Web or print source laying out the differences between these different rules (which can vary from league to league and even game to game depending on the skill set, refs, and a variety of other factors), I decided to go with the rules that "make roller derby roller derby."
While there is definitely a place for WFTDA rules (and I myself play by those rules in my home league), they don't apply to all present-day or past roller derby. Hence, I think that inclusion of those rules to the exclusion of any others misrepresents the actual state of rules in present-day (and past) derby, and I'd respectfully ask that you remove them in favor of the "old" treatment of rules. Perhaps we could include a short summary of what makes WFTDA rules distinctive in another section of the article? --Onlyemarie 04:17, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your responses. I'm sorry, I know I too quick on the trigger to throw out everything you did. I see what you were trying to accomplish, and now that I sort of know the rules to roller derby, what you wrote makes much more sense. But to someone who knew absolutely nothing about roller derbies coming in, I couldn't understand anything. In particular, definitions of terms were left wide open. "Two teams of five skaters...take up positions alongside each other in a pack formation." This might make perfect sense if you know what a pack is, but not to someone who has never seen or heard of the sport. Perhaps you were purposely refraining from giving strict definitions in the hopes of making the rules section of the article hold true for different rulesets. If you go back to the old version, stronger statements regarding what things like "packs" and "jams" are would greatly improve readability.
Another instance: "A signal is given and the jam commences." Jams aren't defined outright, who gives a signal, or why the signal is given. Moreover, two paragraphs later, you have "Blockers (including pivots) start skating at the referee's first signal. A second signal is given to launch the jammers, who must catch up to the rear of the pack. Jammers navigate through or around the pack, then lap around the track until reaching back of the pack again." Putting these two quotes closer together would help establish that the two quotes are talking about the same thing!
"Initially leading the pack are special blockers known as pivots, who set the pace and give the other blockers direction in order to strategize and keep the pack relatively tight." What are pivots setting the pace of? (I know now it's the pace of the pack, but that's not clear at all) What does it mean to keep a pack "relatively tight" and how do you do it?
Much of what was in the rules weren't really rules--they were things that would be better presented in separate sections, such as "strategy" or "Professional leagues". They are meddlesome to someone who just wants to know how the game is played--it's hard to understand strategy if you don't even understand the rules, and distracting to get a paragraph on similarities to professional wrestling.
Regarding the generalization of rules: are the WFTDA rules the most commonly used, as stated in the article cited? If so, it makes sense to present the most common ruleset currently being used, with additional paragraphs describing that other rulesets are/have been used, and some of the major differences. But if the article is wrong, and a wide variety of rules are in play that are significantly different, your approach makes much more sense. I am doubly sorry if this is the case--I just read this one article and assumed it was so. I have no other basis for thinking this.
Finally, I disagree with your statement that "content shouldn't be removed just for being unsourced, especially when not considered contentious or biographical." The "no original research" policy is one of the three central content policies for Wikipedia. From Wikipedia's official policy:

Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: the only way to demonstrate that you are not doing original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say.

If you're working this hard to come up with a generalized ruleset, it sounds like you're doing original research!
In any case, feel free to revert to the old version if my arguments don't hold water. I was too hasty and should have discussed these issues, particularly since I came in knowing nothing of the game.--Rsl12 23:27, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding original research, yes it's true that sources weren't cited, but that doesn't mean there aren't any to cite. By accident, the gameplay description actually does paraphrase both the WFTDA rules and two historical (1970s and late 1940s, I think) rule sets that were available until recently on the temporarily(?) hacked/unusable rollerderbypreservationsociety site. So it's a case where sources were found after the fact, but citations weren't added because the statements weren't considered contentious or in need of immediate citation. That said, in the last two days Onlyemarie and I found some older (late 1930s-early 1940s) descriptions in newspapers that describe slightly different gameplay, so there is work to do.

Also, I want to be sure we balance WP:NOR against WP:NPOV and not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Awkward phrasing, which you rightly point out, and the possibly overstated scope of gameplay are things that can and probably should be addressed. Care needs to be taken, though, to not do it in a manner that introduces an undue amount of coverage and favor to the current revival by reciting, in too much detail, the current rules used by leagues, including those that WFTDA published in early 2006 for its members' interleague play. So on the one hand, we want to avoid original research, but on the other, we have an obligation not to unfairly promote whatever ruleset is currently #1 on Google.

On the discussion pages for Wikipedia policies, proposed policies, guidelines, mailing lists, and elsewhere, there's ongoing debate about how to remain encyclopedic while covering pop culture topics like roller derby. These topics tend to be difficult: academic sources of information are scarce or nonexistent, specialty-market books and magazines are relatively biased and largely reflect commercial interests, mainstream media coverage is cursory and poorly researched (even in otherwise reputable publications, in part thanks to the inverted pyramid writing style and file drawers full of boilerplate copy), and so on. Some folks feel this means the topics aren't important enough for an encyclopedia, which may be true, but that position is undermined by the fact that such topics are often popular enough that a steady stream of contributors demand, through their edits, coverage of greater depth than a strict policy would allow. One either has to aggressively deny and revert all attempts to cover not-immediately-verifiable aspects of the topic, or show some latitude for allowing experts to contribute plausible material and for sources to be cited or challenged and removed over time. Standards aren't really lowered, per se; the time frame for collaborative editing is just lengthened. I greatly prefer this approach, rather than immediate and possibly premature dumping of uncited material.

Therefore I've reverted your changes and would like to proceed by working on a better characterization of the sport's objectives / gameplay / rules / defining facets here on the discussion page. Hopefully we can do it in a way that accurately reports on and paraphrases what has been reported about roller derby in both the past and the present, without overemphasizing either one. —mjb 21:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, no hard feelings either way I hope. I leave you to your work (I'm afraid that roller derbies don't interest me enough to continue work here). I want to emphasize two points before I leave. First, you shouldn't have to struggle too hard to get all points of view. Again from the Wikipedia policy article:

In many cases, there are multiple established views of any given topic. In such cases, no single position, no matter how well researched, is authoritative. It is not the responsibility of any one editor to research all points of view. But when incorporating research into an article, it is important that editors situate the research; that is, provide contextual information about the point of view, indicating how prevalent the position is, and whether it is held by a majority or minority. The inclusion of a view that is held only by a tiny minority may constitute original research. Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder, has said of this: If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; If your viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, then — whether it's true or not, whether you can prove it or not — it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, except perhaps in some ancilliary article.

There is no NPOV violation in describing the majority view and labeling it as such.
Secondly, citing your sources should be a very high priority. From the wikipedia policy on Verifiability:

Be careful not to go too far on the side of not upsetting editors by leaving unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living people. Jimmy Wales has said of this: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

--Rsl12 17:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Seeing no improvement in the rules in the past month, I'd like to repropose my version of the rules, for the following reasons:

1. Cited is better than uncited. Mjb states that the current version is based on actual sources, yet none have been listed for a long time. From wikipedia policy on Verifiability: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced."

2. Current version borders on original research. I can understand trying generalize two or so versions of rules, but it sounds like the authors of current version of the wikipedia article are trying to incorporate every single version of roller derby rules that ever existed, including rulesets from the 1930s! This would be fine if there existed published material in which the core rules from all roller derby rulesets were described. As none exist, it appears that the authors of the current version are putting in exceptional effort to collect large quantities of data and distill from them information that doesn't currently exist in published literature.

3. More comprehensible to laypersons. The current version requires some prior knowledge of roller derby rules to be comprehensible. Since the target audience for wikipedia is a general audience, the rules in particular should be made as comprehensible to the lowest common denominator, as understanding the rules will help people understand the remainder of the roller derby article.

4. Focused discussion of rules. The current version is disorganized and contains information that should rightly belong in other parts of the article, such as strategy discussion.

Mjb has noted that NPOV may be an issue with my version, because it only describes the WFTDA version of the rules, while excluding all other rulesets. I disagree. In my version, I state that the WFTDA is currently the most popular league (I have found no information that refutes this claim), and present WFTDA rules only. This is in line with Wikipedia policy: "It is not the responsibility of any one editor to research all points of view. But when incorporating research into an article, it is important that editors situate the research; that is, provide contextual information about the point of view, indicating how prevalent the position is, and whether it is held by a majority or minority."

Moreover, NPOV has to do with point of view (i.e., opinions or contentious facts), not with actual established facts. The concern of the authors of the current version for giving "equal weight" to all rulesets is, in my opinion, unfounded. If I understand correctly, no one is disputing that the rules I state are the WFTDA rules are actually the WFTDA rules, nor, if I understand correctly, is anyone disputing the fact that WFTDA league is currently the most popular roller derby league. So there are no opinions or contentious facts in my version, only facts with which everyone can agree (unless I'm mistaken--let me know if I am!). Trying to give equal weight to all roller derby rulesets that ever existed seems as silly to me as trying to make sure all rules are described using exactly the same number of words, so that no single rule is given preference. It's impractical and unnecessary.

My version most certainly could be improved by adding information about other rulesets. But I think that alternative rulesets can be presented in terms of the WFTDA rules (i.e., paragraphs like "The XYZ Federation rules are similar to WFTDA's, with the following major differences..."), thereby preserving the readability of the article, making the most popular ruleset the most important portion of the article, and requiring less 'original research' than the current article (since it would require comparing everything against WFDTA vs. trying to generalize from 5+ rulesets).--Rsl12 15:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

So much for "I leave you to your work" and you having no particular interest in roller derby. You seem quite invested in getting your edit in.
I think you're mistaken to assume that lack of dissent means everyone thinks your version is better. Most people visiting the article don't even look at the talk page. Those who do don't care that much about this issue to weigh in, or they don't feel strongly one way or the other.
The factual accuracy of your summary of the WFTDA rules is not in contention; I trust that you did a good job paraphrasing what's published on their web site. But that's all you've got; the sin is in the omission, and the failure to adequately convey the limited scope of that particular ruleset; "currently" isn't a strong enough qualifier, IMHO. I'll get to that in a minute.
Another red herring is the out-of-context Jimmy Wales quote, which I believe is still being beaten to death on wikipedia-l, Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability, and thousands of articles' talk pages, all of which are philosophical battlegrounds where the reality of an article's natural maturation process tends to get lost in the well-intended effort to avoid giving crackpot pseudoscientists and libelous vandals a megaphone. In general, sources can be incorporated, generalizations can be rephrased, and other refinements can be made over time, with priority given to violations that are disruptive or in need of immediate resolution, rather than technicalities in benign material. Aggressive removal of unsourced but uncontentious and non-libelous material, or filling up an article with sourced but one-sided or inadvertently promotional material isn't inherently productive, especially when a lot of effort went into stabilizing the text such that people wouldn't be tempted to do a poor job of filling in what they think is missing. A gets written as a reaction to such contributions; when someone added something but didn't write it very well or think of how it sounds in context, people rewrite it for them, and try to do it in such a way that it satisfies their intent (unless they're just plain wrong) while discouraging any more low-quality contributions.
If you want to start splitting hairs, quoting and misapplying Wikipedia guidelines, consider your assertion that "most leagues" play by WFTDA rules. Is that something you want to defend? Did you find it in a reliable secondary source? I doubt it's even in a primary source. Sure, it's plausible, maybe even probable, but there's no way to verify it. Change it to "As of 2007, many all-female flat-track leagues contend on their web sites that they play by WFTDA rules", and you might have something with more longevity, even though it'll be hard to verify in the future, and is a conclusion that requires direct observation. But at least you could cite enough sites to make it into a somewhat verifiable statement. It wouldn't pass muster with the WP:V crowd, though.
But throwing the rulebook at each other like that is not very productive and isn't really a battle I want to fight right now, since we'd have to gut almost the entire rest of the article on the same grounds. Then we'd be back to the days when every other day, some rollergirl or fan or ex-player with an ax to grind would be coming along and adding back what was missing, only doing it in a typo-ridden, self-promoting, unencyclopedic manner, as if this were a MySpace message board. At least as it stands, the article is relatively stable, covers the topics that people want to read about – gameplay, history, current status, pop culture refs, links & further reading – contains little self-promotion and no overtly dubious claims, and very directly attempts to avoid reinforcing common misconceptions about sport vs. spectacle and professional vs. amateur. It still needs work, but I'd rather you directed your efforts toward improving the history section (which is woefully inadequate when it comes to how the current revival took off) instead of nitpicking over the rules.
You claim NPOV has to do with point of view (i.e., opinions or contentious facts), not with actual established facts but I respectfully disagree, and suggest you read more of the discussion archives behind the NPOV policy page and/or bring up this topic there. I predict they'll tell you that what's in an article could be 100% factual, and as editors apply TLC it'll become ever more verifiably so, but if at any point it intentionally or unintentionally steers the reader away from having a reasonably complete impression of the topic in a historical context, present and past, then it violates NPOV policy. Also, WFTDA is not a neutral organization; to rely on such a source or mention it too many times in the article is insidious self-promotion, a neutrality issue. Their web site may be a reliable source about what their own barely-a-year-old flat-track roller derby rules currently are, but even if you're careful to qualify your claims about the rules being just WFTDA's and you don't make claims about how widely they're used, you're still in trouble if that's the only mention of rules in the article, because…
Now that the site I mentioned earlier is back up, various old pro derby rulesets can be consulted and (if you/the rest of us consider it a worthy source), paraphrased and cited. If you are committed to the quality of this article then you'll find a way to concisely include them, perhaps with a reasonably brief paraphrase like the one you deleted. However, even those paint an incomplete picture of roller derby rules over time. I've seen New York Times and Los Angeles Times writeups from the sport's first decade that indicate that a notably different set of rules were in effect before it was put on television.
The unfortunate Fact is that this is is an article about a very poorly documented pop culture phenomenon. The topic has numerous media citations, but almost zero reliable, well-cited research. It hasn't been the subject of anybody's Ph.D. thesis. There's primarily just hyperbolic sportswriting (in a handful of books and old newspapers), blatant self-promotion (in the written works of individuals affiliated with the sport) and local-interest feature stories (in modern newspapers) about individual leagues in the new revival. The few secondary sources of historical info that I've cited have turned out to be somewhat unreliable (though mainly just in getting dates wrong).
The current version requires some prior knowledge of roller derby rules to be comprehensible / The current version is disorganized — you failed to demonstrate how this was the case, or how your new version improves upon the situation.
Strategy discussion [belongs in other parts of the article] — only if there is a strategy discussion elsewhere already, which there isn't. IIRC the only strategy mentioned was the reason why the lead jammer rule exists. To mention that a jammer can become lead jammer and call off the jam early, without explaining the objective of doing so, leaves people scratching their heads. It's a mysterious rule that needs to be explained. IMHO.
The only other thing I'll add right now is that anything that makes the rules section longer and more complicated is not an improvement. —mjb 03:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll respond better when I have time, but just a few points:
1. When I said "I leave you to your work," it sounded like you were about to at least cite the sources you used to get your information. After a month, I checked back in and, seeing no changes, left a note here, then waited again to make sure that at least you had been active at the Roller Derby article at some point after I had left the message. Seeing that no-one responded (and waiting a total of 2 weeks after leaving the message), I made actual changes to the document.
2. If there are actual sources that can be cited, then 75% of my issues disappear. The other issues are fixable, particularly if there are sources. Without the sources, it's hard to edit your version, not knowing what is a generic rule over all rulesets and what isn't--we're just taking your word for it.
3. I am involved only because I came here to figure out the rules, and left frustrated by the article because the rules posted here didn't help me understand how the game was played at all. My (unscientific) sample of friends who I got to read your version when I was trying to figure it out agree.
4. As I said, if there are sources that can be cited, I am much more amenable to your version. But for my own sake, I'm going to bring up this NPOV discussion in the NPOV Talk page. You seem to be saying that giving equal weight to different roller derby rulesets in a roller derby article is analogous to giving equal weight to different opinions about abortion in an abortion article. I looked through the NPOV discussion (skimmed is more like it--there is a lot of discussion) and couldn't find anything that related. So for my own edification, I'd like to know what the general wikipedia consensus is.--Rsl12 11:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC) (EDIT: Discussion is on [Village pump].)

Concerning NPOV, there is one more part of the policy you need to consider:

NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well.

I leave it to you editors working on this article to figure out the appropriate way to comply with this part of the policy, I just wanted to call it to your attention. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC

Since I guess I'm probably the only Rollerderby referee/Wikipedia administrator I feel compelled to weigh in on the matter. According to the Attribution policy, the burden of providing a source lies with whoever wants to include information. Anything that is not sourced may be removed if challenged. Since the WFTDA rules are the only source currently available, our article should reflect those rules and cite the WFTDA site. If other sources become availble, they can be incorporated into the article as well. This does not violate the NPOV policy as the policy requires fairly presenting all published points of view. As we are not aware of any other published rules, we are adhering to the NPOV policy by using the WFTDA rules exclusively. Kaldari 14:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
The NPOV issue is a red herring. Just because there's a piece of paper/website laying out the WFTDA rules in existence doesn't mean we can quantify which leagues in fact use those rules (for example, my non-WFTDA league uses them for inter-league games but a slight variation for home games).
The problem with this article continues to be the fact that there are no academic or otherwise reliable texts available on roller derby, period. If we can use the WFTDA rules as a source, we should also use articles from the 1930s written by [probably somewhat unreliable] sports writers which detail the rules of the game as it stood then. We're writing about a 70-year-old sport here, not a one-year-old subset of rules. There are similarities and aspects of the game that makes the sport roller derby -- then and now -- which I attempted to summarize in a general summary that encompasses the rules of past and present (and which stood uncontested on this site for over a year). Focusing on one set of rules used by one (unquantifiable) portion of one incarnation of derby in the past five years doesn't seem very representative of the sport as a whole. If that's the case then I think we should spin off a new article dedicated to the "roller derby revival" or somesuch because we're neglecting 65 years worth of rules, play and history here. 24.8.97.14 19:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Whoops, wasn't logged in for some reason. The above comment is by me. Onlyemarie 19:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Please feel free to cite sports articles from the 30s if you can find them. I would love to know more about the early rules of roller derby. Perhaps we could eventually have two sections: "Contemporary rules" and "Historic rules". I do like having an unambiguous description of the WFTDA rules in there somewhere though, since I imagine that's what mosts people reading this article are going to be looking for. Kaldari 20:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
The "Contemporary Rules" and "Historic Rules" split appeals to me too. That would allow people like me to get the information I need, as well as provide you a way to present information that you're clearly passionate about, without the two goals butting heads.--Rsl12 22:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

League-specific articles: continue to delete?

The following articles used to exist, but were deleted for non-notability reasons and replaced with redirects:

  • TXRD
  • Treasure Valley Rollergirls

The following league-specific articles exist now:

I propose deleting the 6 rollergirl league articles. If we allow an article to be created for every league, that's over 160 articles, and I don't see how they provide value; they're just advertising.

Reasons to retain:

  • In some cases, there appears to be interest among city-specific WikiProjects in having the articles (unconfirmed)
  • They don't violate the letter of the WP:ORG (notability of organizations) policy
  • They seem to satisfy the primary notability criteria: pretty much every league has had a feature article written about them in local newspapers (that is, they've been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works)
  • There doesn't seem to be a clear policy on the notability of local sports clubs

Reasons to delete:

  • Precedent (past consensus was to delete such articles).
  • Every league is already linked to from List of roller derby leagues.
  • Nearly every article is destined to be really short and consist of all original research, existing mainly just to duplicate what's on the league's own web sites/MySpace pages, boost Google rankings, and link to their sites — in other words, it's vanity, violating the spirit of WP:SPAM, WP:NOT#WEBSPACE, and, assuming the creators of the articles are league reps themselves, WP:COI and Wikipedia:List of bad article ideas.
  • Notability is still in question. Even though every league has had local media coverage, those articles generally all read the same and aren't of interest outside the league's local area. National coverage of specific leagues is rare, and when it does occur, whatever leagues are mentioned are generally just selected to be representative of the new revival, which doesn't really elevate their notability.

Thoughts? Shall we nominate them for deletion? —mjb 03:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Articles about individual amateur leagues should be deleted. Kaldari 05:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I would tentatively say that they should be deleted, but at what point do they actually become notable enough to get their own article? For example, the MNRG's most recent bout (which I think would make a great picture for the article):
[10]
When a league is pulling in as many fans as a professional women's sports team, wouldn't they deserve their own article? --Marumari 07:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, at what point does non-notability and original research fade and notability/verifiability begin? By that tack, we'd definitely have to include leagues such as Texas and Seattle, both of which have huge followings. --Onlyemarie 03:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The Texas league was the subject of a series of television programs. I would like to disagree with the assumption that the creators of the articles are league reps themselves; I have no financial interest in the Rat City Rollergirls, LLC.Michael J Swassing 04:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I would further disagree that it would matter if most article creators were league reps themselves. League reps are volunteers who are inspired by their enthusiasm for the sport; article creators are volunteers who are inspired by their interest in the topic. ~~ Michael J Swassing 07:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It is worthwhile to note that not all leagues are run as non-commercial entities. Or, at least, their commercial status is blurred. Furthermore, how much can an article about a single derby league grow into (ie, the drama that league meetings generate)? At the most, they should be put into a misc or trivia section of their home cities and/or in a list in the derby article, e.g. City ABC is home to the XYZ derby team. As for league rep vs. article creators the matter comes to motivation and impartiality. Is it to promote the league because you have a personal, emotional (or, let's face it, even slightly erotic) interest in it or to actually write an article about something worthwhile and noteworthy from an impartial perspective. It is also a false assumption to say that interest sparks inspiration. I can re-write a major portion of an article because it reads horrible or is blatantly wrong. In this case, my "inspiration" is wikipedia.--66.93.220.66 07:28, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

League specific articles satisfy the notability standard for those leagues which have "received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." If these articles cannot be expanded to a length suitable for separate articles for each league than they should be merged into an article about current, active roller derby leagues. Let's look to similar standards for other sports teams like, for example, the Oakland Raiders or the Toronto Maple Leafs. ~~ Michael J Swassing 15:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not personally involved with a league or a team, but I definitely think these are notable enough to have their own articles. There are articles for scores of Pokémon characters (e.g. Ruby (Pokémon)), and they have very little coverage in news or literature. In contrast, the Roller Derby leagues are composed of real people engaged in actual competition with a significant fan base. Care should be taken to draw from published sources, avoiding original research and without bias, as with all WP articles. As for the likely brevity of the articles, that's OK. Not every topic needs to be 80,000 bytes to be thorough. My vote is to KEEP writing articles and developing the topic.--Appraiser 21:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia process is to nominate for deletion, see Wikipedia:Deletion process, and that is done on an article-by-article basis. If this discussion continues, it really should continue on individual pages.
But, if the articles haven't already been deleted after this discussion, then odds are they're probably notable enough to keep. A couple notes: 1) Advertising should always be removed. But, if it's a newbie that's doing the advertising, read WP:BITE, and try and reword it so you're not just deleting content that could be Wikipedia-worthy. 2) The number of possible future articles (160 referenced above) really has nothing to do with notability, or whether that number of pages should be included in Wikipedia. 3) The definition of amateur versus professional varies by sport, and so decisions based on whether something is amateur or professional are likely to be uninformed decisions, and probably shouldn't be part of this discussion. WP:NOTE doesn't mention the word amateur. Fredsmith2 19:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

How is TXRD non-notable with a A&E show, a movie and such a huge fan base? In the article's current state you would not even know they exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brentlavelle (talk • contribs) 17:06, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I moved your comment down here and signed it for you. Short answer: there was no consensus for continued deletion, so it's not an issue now. League-specific articles can be created as long as they adhere to Wikipedia policies, citing reliable third-party sources for all their info. Please take it upon yourself to search for some newspapers, documentaries, and non-self-published books which mention the league in question and cite them as sources for info you add to those articles. However, any mentions of a league from within the main roller derby article or its history of roller derby subarticle need to be justified by context and kept to a minimum, so as not to lend the appearance of self-promotion or bias. TXRD is already well accounted for, for example, so you should focus on creating & improving a TXRD-specific article, which any mentions of the league in other articles can then be linked to. —mjb (talk) 19:56, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

"American" sport

The first sentence, to me, seems to imply it is only played in the United States, whereas there are teams in many countries. Perhaps it could be changed to say an "American created sport" or a sport "first developed in the United States" or some such thing. Camcurwood 00:31, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I changed it to "American-invented" soon after you posted this. Is that sufficient? You could have changed it, yourself; Be bold! —mjb 18:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Remove Controversy Section?

I'm not sure what the guidelines for unsourced criticism about pages that aren't people are. I know that if this were an article about a person, then we probably should immediately delete this section. Do you think we should remove this? Fredsmith2 18:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, and I just did. Someone (who is most likely "fresh meat") clearly has an axe to grind, and apparently thinks they can use weasel words on Wikipedia to do it, feigning an encyclopedic tone in order to make generalizations in the airing of a rather petty grievance against what is likely just one particular league. It was first posted under the new account name Staypuff22, so I deleted it and left an admonishment on User_talk:Staypuff22. Then someone at 64.38.167.66 — which traces back to msreal.com, a real estate appraisal company in Seattle — reverted the deletion without explanation. I assume it's the same person. Although you added fact tags, I reverted/removed the entire thing again because there's really no chance it will ever be sourced; no respectable publication is going to write about such minor league drama. —mjb 18:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Restored and reverted again… this time they connected from a Seattle Comcast IP as they got home from work. I left another note for them in case they continue to use that IP. —mjb 01:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Staypuff22 attempted to simply delete this discussion today, and from the msreal.com IP attempted to restore the material as "interesting facts that should be known by women wanting to start". First of all, Staypuff22/whoever you are, never delete relevant posts from an article's discussion page. Second, the fact that you don't feel any responsibility to engage in discussion of the merits (or lack thereof) of the "controversy", which you have yet to prove is anything but your attempt to disguise a petty, personal grievance you have against one league, indicates you aren't editing in good faith. Third, I hate to throw the rulebook at you, but the trend within this article is the same as on all of Wikipedia: all content must be attributable to reliable sources. You've already been pointed to the policy pages WP:V and WP:RS; although you may find the WP:ATT a little easier to read. —mjb 22:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
First of all Mjb, I have already found the sources for the items that I have mentioned. Second of all Mfb, I don't think that being a tyrant when it comes to any aspect of this wikipedia "user-edited encyclopedia" AS YOU HAVE DONE by simply deleting my entries constitutes any better behavior than you are accusing me of. I have lost faith in wikipedia by your actions. Keep checking back and I'll go ahead and update everything with several links. Thanks for being an ass. Staypuff22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.159.98 (talk) 02:35, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh, also it was put back up and I deleted it since I hadn't found creditable sources. But you seemed to have forgotten that. It seems to me that you're the one who has an axe to grind -- deleting anyone's comments who disagree with your own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.159.98 (talk) 02:38, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
If you really want a controversy section, then it's going to be better to talk about what you're trying to do on this talk page first. That way you don't get into an edit/revert cycle with someone. Another option could be to wait for a few months, and see if someone does a news story on disgruntled roller derby girls, because it could be that it's just not notable right now. Oh, and mjb, staypuff22 is probably a newbie on here, and so it would be much better to educate about wikipedia policies than to "throw the rulebook." There are a lot of policies and they can be really confusing at first. Fredsmith2 12:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


Professional versus amateur, take 2

Or, it might be 3.

"Professional Roller Derby" (at least what I found through a quick Google search) usually refers to the leages in the 60's through 80's that were very similar to professional wrestling.

Most members of teams in the WFTDA consider themselves professionals, even though most haven't claimed they're part of a professional league or a pro sports team. Thus, saying or implying these women aren't professionals could be considered offensive.

However, all of the WFTDA teams probably technically classify as amateur teams, because right now no one is making a full-time living off of roller derby and all of the atheletes do it part time. Here's a quote from one of the team's websites: "No one is a professional skater paying the rent through Roller Derby. They come from all walks of life ranging from students, artists and homemakers" http://www.azrollerderby.com/press_room.htm.

My opinion is that all references to "amateur" and "professional from pages that talk about WFTDA teams, and similar teams. The biggest reason is there aren't any references to use either of those words, plus the discussion can be pretty inflamatory.

Fredsmith2 19:43, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Your 2nd-to-last sentence was incomplete. Do you mean all references to "amateur" and "professional" should be removed from certain pages?
Strictly speaking, professional just means the participants are paid to play (or act like they're playing), but we all know the term also connotes skill, expertise and athleticism (or in some cases, theatrics), and therein lies the problem: as you point out, skilled athletes don't like to be called "amateur" because it implies they are beginners or just not up to par with professionals. However, IMHO it has nothing to do with WFTDA membership. WFTDA is just an association, not a synonym for skill…it has not yet found a way to reliably measure skill for purposes of membership, division placement, or status/rankings. There are more than a couple grandfathered-in WFTDA leagues that arguably should be considered recreational since they compete on a much lower level (or dismissed altogether if only WFTDA had a code of conduct for sportsmanship). There are also WFTDA leagues that are division 2 or 3 that should be division 1 or 2, skill-wise. And there are non-WFTDA leagues that are now at competitive skill levels but haven't become members due to geography, politics or technicalities.
I have a couple of ulterior motives for making an issue of defining pro & am (as it related to roller derby) in the article. The main thing is to stave off any further "contributions" by pro league promoters who want to disparage the amateurs by relying on loaded terminology and reader assumptions. Another goal is to arm readers with a critical eye, so that when they encounter those words in the media, on pro league web sites, as well as in this article's own references, they'll recognize the bias that's often in them, and not assume that pro means skilled and higher quality. Ultimately, it would be nice to instead just rely on the amateur sports and professional sports articles for this, but they're not really evolving fast enough to be useful just yet. Anyway, I'm not saying the article doesn't need more work, just that I want to be sure that the edits aren't just broad deletions, which would undermine the reasons the content was added in the first place. —mjb 23:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
That's what I meant. Good discussion on this, too. Fredsmith2 13:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

History Fork

I've thought for a while that the article was too long, so as per the notice I've split off the history section. kencf0618 02:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm doing some additional cleanup and work to help with that. —mjb 05:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Much appreciated. I'm a wordsmith, not a template maven! kencf0618 21:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Create pro league articles

Since it's pretty well documented now that the current pro leagues (NRDL, ARSD, ARDL, RGI) all really do exist and have had some kind of activity & press coverage in the last decade, I'd like to get separate articles created for each of them, so we can get their details off of the main roller derby article. Any volunteers to do that, please? I'd rather focus on other parts that need attention. —mjb (talk) 08:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done this just now. The new articles are National Roller Derby League, American Roller Derby League, American Roller Skating Derby, and Roller Games International. —mjb (talk) 06:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Has it actually been documented that the ARDL still exists? While the owner has renewed his trademark on the league a year or two ago, I've actually seen posts by him mentioning that he hasn't put on a game himself in several years. While it is on a site with membership, membership is free, so presumably that might be a valid source. I suppose I might want to take this to that page's discussion page. TimBRoy (talk) 21:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Professional vs amateur again

I think that the defining amateur and professional should be split into its own article, also. Fredsmith2 (talk) 23:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, but I have to think about what to do, exactly. I feel the content is important, but it needs to be rethought. —mjb (talk) 06:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
To try to facilitate discussion and perhaps clarify in your mind what you want: What are you trying to accomplish by having this in here? Fredsmith2 (talk) 22:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. This is a good exercise. There are two goals:
  1. Address the topic of the sport's legitimacy by informing the reader about the "governing bodies" for the sport, the scope of their governance, and who recognizes their authority.
  2. By addressing the underlying topic of the differences between leagues in the old and new revivals, discourage would-be editors from adding material that denegrates the current revival.
Regarding the first, the governing bodies for roller sports in general (USARS, FISA, etc.) limit their scope to what they call 'amateur' competition. Since September 2007, USARS has recognized WFTDA as a governing body for 'amateur' roller derby competition in the United States. I feel it should be made very clear to the reader that these authorities and recognitions don't mean much; i.e. it's not like you have to get WFTDA's permission to put on a bout. But anyway, the point is they have their own definitions of amateur, and they use them to set the boundaries for what they choose to recognize.
As for the second goal, earlier in this article's history, there were a few anonymous people editing it who wanted to make a distinction between their favorite style of roller derby (banked track, modest uniform wearing, highly skilled, theatrical) and the style of the all-female leagues that were starting up. That's a nice way of putting it; they really just wanted to bash the new style, and say that it's not even really roller derby.
I like to 'accommodate' such points of view by writing something that addresses the underlying topic — that there are differences between the old and new revivals — but that is more encyclopedic. I don't think we should just rephrase contentious opinions that these people are trying to pass off as fact, though. The idea is rather to just write something that minimizes their temptation to add more material on the topic. I chose to do it by accepting the line they drew between the current wave (mainly all female, amateur) and everything else, and making a list of 'observable' (plausible might be the better word) comparisons between the two groups.
I hoped the list would one day be backed up with references, but I knew most of it wouldn't really stand up against WP:OR, long-term. For example, we could probably find some references to say that certain leagues do indeed pay their players and certain leagues don't, but it's "original research" to synthesize that info into something along the lines of "X type of leagues tend to pay their players", which suggests that more than a few leagues were polled and that a conclusion about this alleged tendency was published somewhere. —mjb (talk) 02:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't the Renegade Rollergirls deserve a mention?

At present there are five leagues in OSDA. There's seven Renegade Rollergirls leagues.

What about the Men's Derby Coalition?

Where's our breaking point for a mention in the "other evolutions of roller derby" section?

TimBRoy (talk) 14:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

All of these organizations should be mentioned, IMHO. The exact number of leagues isn't as important as just the fact that they exist, plus whatever citeable info we can find about what sets them apart and how they came to exist. —mjb (talk) 21:24, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Finding cites on the Renegades can be a bit tricky. Their web presence tends to be limited to MySpace, I'm not sure they're currently hosted. Though there is that one page someone else made that documents their game against the distaff squad of the L.A. T-Birds (no, I didn't make that up) back in 2004. Not that that one event is necessarily that applicable to this section (though possibly for the parts about modern derby versus retro-derby), but I half-think that the article mentions that they split from AZRD and gives a rough time frame and possibly even some sort of reason. It is a secondary source, and if it's stayed on the web this long, it's hopefully there for a while. I'll try to dig it up.
MDC is easier to peg down. They have a web site and are considered an interesting topic within the derby community.
I'll see what I can unearth on both next week.
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