Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Minnesota Timberwolves all-time roster/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by NapHit 16:11, 20 September 2012 [1].

Minnesota Timberwolves all-time roster[edit]

Minnesota Timberwolves all-time roster (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Albacore (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this list meets the featured list criteria. It is loosely based on the Philadelphia Phillies roster lists. I started this list some time back in my userspace and I wanted to finish it before I started anything else. Albacore (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose based on criteria 3b and 5
    • Have you ever discussed this list with the WP:NBA members? ...because it appears you changed the style format from NBA-related to Baseball-related. Did you receive a consensus on that?
    • The way you forked the Minnesota Timberwolves all-time roster list appears to be wrong, to me at least. I strongly want some competent wikipedians(page-move experts) to check all these page-moves that were done. The fact that Minnesota Timberwolves all-time roster is a disamg. page right now looks wrong, as well. Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster, in your example, is not a disag. page, but rather a featured list.

--Cheetah (talk) 03:46, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If I broke the "notes" section into "points", "rebounds", and "minutes played" columns, would that take care of point 5? If you could give me an example of "the style format of NBA-related lists" that would be appreciated.
Charlotte Bobcats all-time roster is in the WP:FL right now. I'd appreciate if you started a discussion at the WT:NBA and discuss the style with project members.--Cheetah (talk) 04:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've started a discussion at the WikiProject's talk page. Albacore (talk) 20:30, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I believe the change of style is a big enough issue that needs a group consensus.--Cheetah (talk) 21:32, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How the Minnesota Timberwolves all-time roster page is formatted has nothing to do with this list.
I need some clarification on how this violates 3b. Albacore (talk) 04:13, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The way you forked this article violates the content-forking guideline.--Cheetah (talk) 04:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Not at all content-forking. The Phillies is a good example; the main part can be expanded later...--Kürbis (✔) 10:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose a franchise with such a small number of players and short history should be one page. To be honest I am quite flabbergasted that it would be split into two when there are teams with much much longer histories (and thus more players) on single pages. -DJSasso (talk) 19:26, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would like an example of a team's entire roster on one page that displays all the information this list presents. Further if I combined the lists the page would be upwards of 100,000 bytes and 200 references. I would like to see a FL with those characteristics as well. Albacore (talk) 19:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just to use examples I am more familiar with, List of Chicago Blackhawks players and List of Detroit Red Wings players. Both teams in existance for almost 100 years and both include about 850 players and have more information than what you present here. As for 200 references, you don't need a reference for every player. You just need a reference pointing to the all-time roster. You are over referencing. Cutting out a lot of the essentially duplicate references would greatly improve on the size of the page. Take a look at my two examples for how this can be done. -DJSasso (talk) 19:50, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • So a note on the general reference saying all players are reference to their page would suffice? And both of your lists fail MOS:DTT. Albacore (talk) 20:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah they could probably use a bit of sprucing up as they are a couple year old FLs now I think. Was mostly just pointing them out that it is easier to fit it all on one page than you might think. I think the biggest size issue here is the references. Basically I would have one or even a couple links to reliable sources that have the entire past roster listed. I don't know as much about basketball sources as hockey sources so I can't give any good examples. But I know the NHL official website linked to all-time rosters so maybe the NBA does too. Even basketball reference has an all-time roster page. Just put those under General references and you have for the most part covered that they were on the team. You would just then need general references for their stats etc, which may or may not be the same sources. -DJSasso (talk) 20:18, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree on fewer sources, unless the data of every column is available on a smaller set of sources. Of course the other option is to match the columns to a more limited set of sources.—Bagumba (talk) 20:36, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • As long as the reference leads to a main all-time roster page that then leads to the rest of the information then WP:V is satisfied for what information isn't already on the all-time roster page. In this case the all-time roster page links to each player page which has the nationality etc that is missing from the main page so it is covered. -DJSasso (talk) 11:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems like a fair concession when a source leads to a list of links to other sources.—Bagumba (talk) 17:29, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • My system would appear to follow the Bobcats list. Albacore (talk) 20:49, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Based on my cursory glance, the columns were not consistent; it is closer to the Bobcats than Mavs though.—Bagumba (talk) 22:08, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Striking the Mavs roster from discussion, as it was incorrectly referred to as an FL.—Bagumba (talk) 17:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Right

I've merged the table into one page, Minnesota Timberwolves all-time roster. My list follows the Charlotte Bobcats list, with improvements, and it is an invalid reason to oppose this list's promotion just because other stuff exists. If you want to oppose give me a reason other than "recommend to follow other similar NBA FLs". What is wrong with the way information is presented in this list? What can I improve on? Albacore (talk) 06:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The comparison to the Bobcats was to another FL in the same WikiProject, so it seemed to be a viable precedent beyond a random "other stuff" comparison. Perhaps your point is that the Bobcats FL can be improved, and I have no immediate comment if that is the case. My cursory check was to see if there were any differences to a similar existing FL, and that failed. I can detail those differences if they are not apparent; on the other hand, you can present rationales for improvements on the existing Bobcats FL format. Either way, one byproduct would be an informal MoS of NBA all-time rosters list, so that the next NBA roster FLC has a reference point with supporting reasons behind some layout decisions. The benefit would be a more consistent reader experience in similar NBA team roster lists, which I think is consistent with the spirit of FLCR #5. Let me know your preference.—Bagumba (talk) 18:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • S/C Denotes what school or club the player came from → Please clarify school/club the player came from before they joined the Timberwolves or before they were drafted or before they joined the NBA. If you are going for the latter, there is another problem with undrafted American players, who played college basketball and often played overseas before they joined the NBA. Ricky Rubio has another problem, he played for DKV Joventut before the draft and then played for FC Barcelona before he joined the NBA.
  • Changed to "Denotes what school or club the player was drafted out of". Albacore (talk) 04:30, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm still not sure that college team is relevant to this list. Sure it's interesting to see that seven former Golden Gophers have played with the Timberwolves, but it's trivial information. If other reviewers have no problem with this, I won't argue, but to me it's a little irrelevant.
    • I understand the inclusion of points scored and minutes played as the most important basketball statistics. However, why is rebounds more important than assists?
  • Rebounds show the defensive ability of the player (i.e against points offensively). They are more important than assists because again they show the defensive and offensive value, and assists only show offensively. Albacore (talk) 15:09, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's weird to have a player in Celtics uniform as the lead image, even if he's the most successful Timberwolve ever. Here's one pic of him wearing the Timberwolves uniform. Here's one pic of him without any team's logos/names.
  • Changed.
  • Changed to guard. He was signed in December 2011 but he didn't play in a game for the Timberwolves until 2012.
  • No, he played for the Suns in 2009 and the Timberwolves in 2010. Albacore (talk) 15:09, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wally Szczerbiak is an American who was born in Spain.
  • Changed to nation of birth.
    • Sasha Pavlović's nationality is complicated. He is born in SR Montenegro, SFR Yugoslavia (now Montenegro) and he has represented Serbia and Montenegro internationally. However, since Serbia and Montenegro split in 2006, he have not represented either of them. I'm not sure whether he's Montenegrin or Serbian.
  • Changed to nation of birth.
    • Michael Olowokandi is born in Nigeria and grew up in England. I'm not sure about his nationality, but his wikipedia article says that he's British.
  • Changed to nation of birth.
    • Kosta Koufos has both Greek and American citizenship but he plays for Greek national team.
  • Changed to nation of birth.
  • Changed to nation of birth.
I'm not sure how to deal with complex nationalities issues here, but I believe that in a sports list, nationality refers to the player's nationality in the sporting sense, which means the national team he represents or eligible to represents. If you decided to go with player's sporting nationality, perhaps this should be explained clearly in the Key. — MT (talk) 08:03, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
On ice hockey player FLs like List of Chicago Blackhawks players we have a legend for the nations and on it we title it nation of birth. We do this specifically to get away from trying to determine the complex nationalities because nation of birth is clear cut. So that is a good way to get around that issue. -DJSasso (talk) 12:02, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good call. Albacore (talk) 15:16, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My bad on Alando Tucker, I read from other source that he was traded on December 29, 2009 but I post the wrong source in this discussion. Anyway, I just realized that the year/season criteria is when the player is actually made an appearance for the Timberwolves, not the year/season they joined the roster, so it's all good. If you're going for nation of birth, there are still some inaccuracies: Kosta Koufos was born in the United States, Anthony Randolph was born in Germany and Sasha Pavlović's city of birth is now part of Montenegro, not Serbia. — MT (talk) 17:01, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When going by place of birth you have to use the country at the time of birth. So you wouldn't go by what it is a part of now. That is standard for anything on the wiki when it comes to birth locations in bios. -DJSasso (talk) 17:11, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If that's the standard, then Pavlović's nation of birth should be SFR Yugoslavia. This would also applies to all Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin players who were born before 1991. Furthermore, Vētra, Tskitishvili and Pecherov's nations of birth should be Soviet Union and Randolph's nation of birth should be West Germany.
Anyway, I have another concern about using nation of birth (and the flag) because it seem to violate Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons#Use of flags for sportspersons which says that Flags should never indicate the player's nationality in a non-sporting sense; flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality. Also, other NBA FLs such as 2008 NBA Draft or NBA Most Valuable Player Award both use representative nationality in the table and footnotes to explain multiple nationalities. As long as the legend is clear, I'm neutral about whether to use nation of birth or representative nationality. However, I personally lean towards using representative nationality since it's more relevant.— MT (talk) 17:36, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to start a thread on WT:NBA regarding listing of country of birth or nationality.—Bagumba (talk) 18:37, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The thread is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Basketball_Association#Nationality—Bagumba (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Use of flags in infoboxes is the concern with WP:INFOBOXFLAG. Otherwise, it's not as clear cut they they can't be in lists. The name of the flag's country should appear somewhere; having a legend like the hockey FL would avoid having to repeat the country name.—Bagumba (talk) 19:19, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In regard to Bobcats format

I've merged the two "begin" and "end" columns into one "seasons" column to save space. I don't see the advantage to having the columns apart, if someone wants to sort by what year the player ended their career with the Timberwolves, the column sorts by the year they began their career with the Timberwolves, so the year ended would be in descending order. I cut the "jersey number" column because I thought it was unimportant and took up space. I changed "assists" to "rebounds" because I thought I have offense with points, and rebounds represent defense. Assists only show offense, and to an extent rebounds show both. In regards to birth place, you want me to change the Soviet Union players to a Soviet Union birthplace, or should I use the SFR Yugoslavia as mentioned above? And are there any problems with the lead? Albacore (talk) 21:49, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comments from Bagumba
  1. Pts, rebounds, and assists are pretty much the standard basketball stats. Why are assists being omitted? As an example, FL 50 Greatest Players in NBA History lists pts, rebs, asts.
  2. If a stat is going to be added to indicate how much a player played, why choose minutes when games played could be added instead and a reader could get a rough idea of a players averages per game—another common statistic aside from raw career totals.
  3. Agree with MT's comment above that schools seem trivial here; more suitable for an article on Minn draft picks.

—Bagumba (talk) 06:25, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose for now per preceding comments.—Bagumba (talk) 15:39, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Giants2008 (Talk) 18:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments –
  • In the second sentence, you may want to abbreviate the NBA's name, since the shortened version has been provided already.
  • "accumulating 734 during the 1990–1991 season". The convention is to shorten combined years into something like this: 1990–91. I see a similar instance in the Anthony Tolliver photo caption.
  • What was the Timberwolves' inaugural season?
  • And what season was Gugliotta's record set?
  • Jonny Flynn photo caption could clarify that it is referring to points (I assume).
  • In the Ricky Rubio caption, should "lead" be "led"?
  • In ref 18, Sports Illustrated should be italicized since it is a published magazine. Giants2008 (Talk) 21:21, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All fixed. Albacore (talk) 20:30, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • One more from checking the changes: "Pooh Richardson holds the single season record for assists, accumulating 734 during the 1990–91 season, and Sam Mitchell for his 338 personal fouls over the same span." The second part of the sentence isn't connected well to the first, prose-wise. Maybe try "and Sam Mitchell committed a record 338 personal fouls over the same span."? Giants2008 (Talk) 18:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reworded. Albacore (talk) 01:15, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "Of those 179 players" no need to immediately repeat the number.
  • "A total of 14 " -> "A total of" is redundant, but make sure not to start a sentence with a number.
  • "a Timberwolve" isn't the singular of Timberwolves just Timberwolf?
  • What is LSU? Not clear to a nonexpert.
    • Louisiana State University. Fixed.
  • "Gundars Vētra " has a diacritic.
    • Fixed.
  • What's an "ACL"? Don't abbreviate things before you've explained them.
    • Fixed.

The Rambling Man (talk) 06:45, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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