Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football

To cat or not to cat

I had, a few months ago, a (friendly)discussion with User:Kolins, about categories in players. My approach is the following:

I think that even when a player is naturalized, he should have the categories of his former country in his page. For example Liédson became a Portuguese citizen in 2009 (at 32), Marcos Senna a Spanish one at 30 - and there is one Serbian guy whose name i cannot remember, but he started playing for Singapore at the age of...37!! What about the past from these guys, do we erase it? They were, for a long (sometimes VERY LONG) period in their careers, "x footballers" and "x expatriate footballers".

An effective comparison would be when a player changes teams. What do we do, remove the cats from ALL his previous clubs? No we don't, so i think the same M.O. should be applied in the contents shown above. Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

If a player publicly changed nationality, we should keep both as categories. I'm less sure about expatriate ones though. WFC (talk) 20:19, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe the Serbian-Singaporean guy you mean is Aleksandar Đurić. – PeeJay 20:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

But I think that contemporary sportsmen have only one nationality sports. In my opinion, to change nationality is not the same thing that to change club. A Jew transformed to Christian, continues being a Jew?--Kolins (talk) 21:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The Jew continues to be a Jew racially (as long as his mother was a Jew), but a Christian by religion. So for example Disraeli's categories include the following: English people of Italian descent, Converts to Anglicanism from Judaism, Sephardi Jews, English Anglicans, British Jews, Jewish politicians. I think Vasco Amaral's approach is the correct one.--EchetusXe 22:31, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok. The religion topic as example for my idea it wasn't good. But in the association football (at least), the player has only one nationality. "Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.", said the message in the template of "football squad" used for the clubs... and is the truth.--Kolins (talk) 16:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with this: it opens a huge can of worms. Is Andy Goram an English goalkeeper because he was born there? (update:bad example: apparently he currently is.) Exceptions can certainly be made for Ferenc Puskas and the like (who actually played for two different national teams), but for better or for worse our national categories reflect this "sporting nationality" nonsense exclusively right now and changing that would be an atrocious amount of work. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No more hypothetical questions for a while, promise!

Would a player whose sole fully professional appearance at a national level was as a substitute in the Football League Trophy be eligible for an article under WP:ATHLETE? WFC (talk) 20:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Possibly, although I'm not convinced, particularly in those years when Conference teams entered the FLT. I did once successfully contest a prod on Adam Legzdins on the basis he had two years previously appeared as a sub in a Football League Trophy game between two League clubs. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:05, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

While I'm happy that the lad can now tell his grandchildren that he was a professional in the Football League, from my perspective it's a shame that the subject of that article subsequently played for Crewe.

My intention is to start an RfC (possibly a centralized one, if there is agreement that there is scope to do so), focussing on WP:ATHLETE. But it would also ask the wider question of whether our methods for determining notability in general are too arbitrary, or inconsistent between different fields/countries. At the moment I'm thinking of using Kurtney Brooks to do so. But if there is consensus that a player who once came off the bench in the Paint Pot is notable, the argument would be that little bit stronger. Regards, WFC (talk) 21:17, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, by "our", I am referring to Wikipedia as a whole, rather than WP:FOOTY. WFC (talk) 21:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea, although I presume you are fully aware of WP:NSPORT.Eldumpo (talk) 07:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm aware of it. The problem with regards to football is that it's replacing a flawed guideline, with an incomplete and factually questionable list of Fully Professional Leagues. While it might work for other sports, for us it is if anything making the worst part of ATHLETE – its somewhat arbitrary and at times counterintuitive nature – even stronger. WFC (talk) 18:12, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd certainly like to see this guideline tightened up a little so that we can loose a few '1 appearance for Boston United before disappearing into non-league obscurity' players. --Pretty Green (talk) 08:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

A related RfC on the matter has been initiated below. Regards, WFC (talk) 16:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Team of the year source

Is there a source for this template because I swear Luke O'Brien and Peter Thorne were not in the final team. 91.106.102.76 (talk) 12:40, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

You were right, the proper team is here. I'll go ahead and correct the template. BigDom 12:52, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the template was created not from an original source, but from the team listed at PFA Team of the Year#2009, which was vandalised shortly after it was first added and nobody noticed. In which case, I wonder if there's any more old vandalism still in there that's found its way into the templates... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:05, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Since we're talking about this... Can we get references together for each list? I've added them for 2002 after I did the Second and Third Division teams the other day. Since then the 1996 Premier League team has been changed but I can't revert it because I can't remember who was in it. Argyle 4 Life^talk 22:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

User:Rupert1904

He's on a "[player] is a World Cup-winning footballer" crusade. I've reverted a couple of his edits, but obviously there will be a squadful. - Dudesleeper talk 23:40, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

• Also reverted some of them, in Spain's squad. Indeed, a bit too much on the strange side... - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

• Also speaking about this user (he has been the most pressing about these TWO subjects, and i promised i would send him a message with the results of the discussion, if any would emerge): i know this is the umpteenth time i bring this up - i know i must be getting annoying ;) - so now i'll ask the question that needs to asked, at the end...

1 - He has been removing runner-up honours in players, i already replied to him what a previous discussion on the subject "born", that is, that the runner-up in WC and UEFA CL are no small achievements and should stay in players' pages, unless the list of honours in one player was so big it would be just too much.

2 - He says that competition names should be written in its original name, arguing that English commentators call them LA LIGA, COPA DEL REY, SERIE A, CUPA ROMANIEI, ALLSVENSKAN, A LYGA, etc. I beg to differ: yes sometimes they address these competitions by "birthname", but not always, and i feel there should be some coherence - this is English wiki, names in English - again, i stress, some names like the last three seen above and DFB-POKAL for instance are never referred as such in 90% or more of the UK broadcasts, in TV or written press (and please, i don't links which could be sent to this discussion page to illustrate that i am not correct in my approach are not totally reliable, unless you would sent me 50 or more; most of the time, it consists in nothing more than an X or Y stylistic approach in writing, nothing else.

For 1 and 2, teammates, i would really like to know what is the WP guidelines. I do know the following: i have edited MASSIVELY in Spanish players, writing SPANISH LEAGUE, CUP and SUPERCUP in their HONOURS, and in 99,99999999% of the cases it is not reverted. My guess is that it is mostly a question of likeness of a given user, but if someone tells me "Vasco please stop, it's LA LIGA, COPA DEL REY, LIGUE 1, WP says so here or there", then i will obviously "convert" to the majority's cause. My concerns are mainly on point 2, since i believe 1 (runner-up, etc) is pretty much clear (allowed, if honours are not too many).

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 00:12, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

1. I think it's acceptable to list major runners-up honours for players, but this should generally be for the major continental cups. However, if a lower level player had 3rd level runners-up medals listed, and they were his only honours, I don't think I'd seek to revert that.

2. My view is that we should be seeking to use own-language names for competitions where they are generally used in other sources, so I would always put La Liga, Bundesliga, Copa del Rey etc. Beyond these top-level leagues it can vary as to naming terminology. I'd like to see own-language names used more, and certainly where there's a fairly even naming usage. Most of the time these competitions do not have an official English name and any English-language references are normally the result of 'lazy' journalism (often historical admittedley). We also have to be aware that most of the time Wikipedia articles will be towards the top of the search list for these competitions, and thus our usage can often inform future uses elsewhere. Eldumpo (talk) 07:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

1. We're an encyclopedia, so should be recording what a player achieved. If players' achievements only stretch to runners-ups in "lesser" competitions, that (IMO) that's what we should record.

2. When you raised this a few days ago, User:Knepflerle clarified that we should be using the most common unambiguous name, by the guideline WP:COMMONNAME. If literate English-language sources use Serie A for the name of the Italian top division, or format their sentence "Tim Template plays in the Allsvenskan (Swedish premier division)" and then go on to use Allsvenskan unqualified rather than an English translation, then so should we. That isn't inconsistency, it's following standard English usage. A shop where you change money from one currency to another is called a "bureau de change": the words may not be English words but it's the common English name for the entity.

Incidentally, in the earlier discussion, you mentioned UEFA's usage. Personally, I wouldn't follow UEFA as an English-language style guide. It's a multinational organisation with a lot of politics behind its house style, which may be why (for example) it insists on using the full names of clubs, e.g. putting Manchester United FC rather than just Manchester United in its prose, which no literate British-English source would (maybe the Americans do, I don't read enough US sources). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

1. If a player finishes runner-up in the FA Vase then that should be listed in honours. If a competition has it's own wiki page then any appearance in a final should be listed in a player's honours section unless they are have an extraordinarily long list of major accomplishments and it looks silly putting a Birmingham Senior Cup runners-up medal next to a Champions League winners medal for example. Also every promotion is an honour (unless its part of a big league system reorganization).

2. Use the most common names; so it is La Liga, Cope Del Rey, Serie A and B, Bundesliga etc. So yeah "Vasco please stop". Even if it was the Verbandsliga, I would say write "player played for a season in the German Verbandsliga (6th tier)" rather than "player played for a season in the German 6th tier. I say you call a competition by the article title that it has.--EchetusXe 09:51, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• I will most definitely comply, i respect the "project"'s work, overall and without hesitation :) However, not my fault if folks from now on consult the honours of several Portuguese footballers, see Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira and ask: what on earth is that tournament? - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:17, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about it because if the reader wants to know what the competition is all he/she has to do is click the link!--EchetusXe 22:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

User:Struway2 has pointed out my recent comment on this matter, but just to reiterate: we don't need any "consistency" that means we don't use the common name for tournaments. English adoption and usage of foreign terms is inconsistent - we should be consistent with its inconsistent usage, as it were. When referring to tournaments, use the article name; if you believe that isn't the common name, then start a WP:RM discussion at that page to have it changed. It also should be noted that in two of the cases mentioned (DFB Pokal and La Liga) there have been extensive move discussions with usage evidence which established that the current article names are actually the common names in English. Knepflerle (talk) 23:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you please help expand West Yorkshire Derby?

I am calling upon all users with knowledge on the West Yorkshire Derby(s) so that the article can be expanded. Any help or co-operation would be much appreciated. Regards IJA (talk) 14:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

RfC on WP:ATHLETE

Is WP:ATHLETE an appropriate way of gauging notability for association footballers? WFC (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Given that the well-meaning but mismanaged WP:NSPORT has now failed, I think there is a need for individual sports to attempt to write their own guidelines, although such guidelines will only be valid if later accepted by the wider community. To that end, this is the first step in what I hope will be a three-stage process:

Stage 1: Gauge the extent to which this project feels WP:ATHLETE is working for footballers.

If the project feels that WP:ATHLETE is insufficient...


Stage 2: Brainstorm ways in which this project believes it can improve the process, and attempt to come to some sort of consensus on broad steps forward.

If that actually produces something...


Stage 3: Amending WP:ATHLETE to take this consensus into account. If there is significant opposition, proposing it centrally as a stand-alone guideline, and if successful, later merging it back into WP:ATHLETE.

Explanation of this stage

At this point, we are not attempting to rewrite anything, nor are we even claiming that it will be possible to do so. We are merely discussing what we like and dislike about WP:ATHLETE. The rationale being that where there is a will, it's worthwhile trying to find a way.

The case for sticking with WP:ATHLETE

Comments by...

Comments by...

The case for changing from WP:ATHLETE

Comments by WFC I do not disagree with the way this deletion discussion (on this guy) was closed. Clearly, he does fail WP:ATHLETE, and while I disagree with the argument, there was a case that he failed the WP:GNG. My argument, which was rightly void during AfD, was that his career is far more noteworthy than these three fellows. But the problem is that all three of these examples would pass a deletion discussion, by virtue of passing WP:ATHLETE. It's an institutional problem. Sure, no system is perfect. But is anyone here going to tell me that a substitute in the Football League trophy is more notable than Shelbourne's leading scorer who subsequently played for the League of Ireland leaders at the time? WFC (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments by...

Discussion on changing from WP:ATHLETE

Perhaps the key question is do we need any additional criteria beyond WP:GNG - is that not the over-arching policy relating to notability? Does GNG need amending, and if so, is that the first point to address? If Athlete is agreed to be worthwhile as a follow-on/additional to GNG then do any discussions on it need to be made at a more central level? Eldumpo (talk) 17:28, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

It's an excellent question. While this response is not really relevant to football, I think ultimately the answer is yes, we do need something on top of the GNG. Otherwise you could have otherwise completely unknown Olympic medalists being deleted as WP:BLP1E. WFC (talk) 18:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

BLP1E is a policy and trumps your local policy and sitewide N but I really fail to see how any Olympic gold medallist will not have a substantial reported history to base a proper bio on. Anyway, best to stick to real examples rather then unrealistic hypotheticals. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

With regards to your point about central discussion, I agree that we cannot simply decide what we want and add it to the notability guide. But my belief is that this project better understands the shortcomings of ATHLETE. It works very well for American sports, where Major League players, professional second level baseball and gridiron players (in leagues covering areas and populations still comparable to our major leagues), and college gridiron players are eligible for articles. It works less well in football, where players who once played 20 minutes for a small town club are deemed notable, yet players known by most football fans in medium sized countries are not. I'm doing my best not to steer anyone in a direction on what we should do, but surely I can't be the only person that finds this an untenable situation? And if we believe we can do things better, surely the logical thing is that we discuss it, attempt to improve it, explain to the wider community why we think ATHLETE alone is unsuitable for our sport, and see what they think? WFC (talk) 20:45, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• I think that there is an elephant in the room that you need to deal with. ATHLETE is a sub-guideline to N/GNG. N is the overriding notability guideline and you cannot set up a local guideline to say that someone is not notable when the overarching guideline says that they are. ATHLETE is is extremely flawed in the way that so many users seek to use it to limit the range of bio-articles and - if nothing else - this suggests that it needs to be deprecated. Recent developments of BLP policy are starting to make this moot as there is now a clear site-wide consensus that unsourced BLPs are a bad thing and should be deleted if sources cannot be found. This is obviously a significant movement for sports bio articles as it largely does make ATHLETE moot as, if there are sources, then the article meets N and can be keep and, if there are no sources, its fails BLP and will be deleted. Now I accept this may be seen by some as an extreme position but I do believe that is the way that policy is shifting and that a lot of local guidelines are no longer accurate and need updating to reflect this new reality. BLP is a policy so it can will be enforced over guidelines any day. Anyway, just some thoughts to try and help shape this discussion. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:36, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• But do you not agree that if the three examples I gave in the previous section were to be taken to AfD today, they would probably survive, rightly or wrongly? WFC (talk) 23:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• At this stage I'm not arguing that the notability threshold for footballers is either too high or too low (yet ;) ). At this point I'm merely trying to see if people agree with my position that WP:ATHLETE is a far too inconsistent yardstick by which to judge a footballer's notability. WFC (talk) 23:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

At this point of debate, and regarding sources, I will like to say that the biographies that I consider most valuable here on WP are exactly the ones about great footballers from decades ago (some cases, century), that are exactly the ones that have less sources, being WP in these cases, and because of dedicated editors, the most wide and complete "source" found online for them. That is why I find the parameter about the number of reliable sources missleading and posibly harmfull. There are still many players, geographical areas and historical periods that simply lack good sources, but that should not be a reason for those articles not to exist... FkpCascais (talk) 05:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Using only the GNG would be hopelessly biased towards players who have had the good fortune to play in the last ten years or so in countries with highly active sports media. Dean Bouzanis had enough coverage to survive an AfD when he was only 17 and had never played professionally, yet if we relied solely on GNG we'd probably wind up deleting Pedro Cea, who played in both the World Cup final and the Olympics, but had the bad luck to do so 70 years ago....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

That isn't strictly true. There will be tens, if not hundreds of sources covering Pedro Cea and other similar players. It's just that finding them would involve scouring through newspaper archives (and I don't mean the nice kind of archives that you can find on the internet). Not many people can be bothered to do that, and I don't blame them. But rest assured that the sources for these people do exist and if the worst came to pass, and GNG was all we had, the articles about these older players would not necessarily be deleted. For what it's worth I think that the ATHLETE guideline as it currently stands is probably slightly too lenient. If I were to change it, I would at least stipulate that a player had to play one full match in order to meet the criteria, mainly due to the fact that before the 1960s there were no substitutes so it is easier nowadays for a player to make a fleeting appearance in professional football before disappearing from the radar forever. BigDom 08:01, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Basically, we need something to reduce the number of articles on modern non-league players and increase the number of articles on historically notable but harder-to-source players. Whether WP:ATHLETE is the right method is debatable, but it does manage to do both. I doubt that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve McNulty would have ended in a delete outcome if it wasn't for ATHLETE, for example, while articles such as Alf Young (footballer born 1900) couldn't exist without it as, despite being 100% verifiable, they would fail GNG. Perhaps we should be looking at tweaking the existing guidelines slightly rather than proposing whole new ones? Alzarian16 (talk) 10:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

McNulty had done nothing notable. Main problem with this whole debate is the faulty premise that a couple of articles in some two-bit local rag that mention someone and quote their response to a couple of questions makes the individual encyclopaedically notable. If article creators would first ask "what has this individual done that is truly of note" rather than than simply plug in any kid's name because they want to create an article and have found one that once played football in the n^th tier of some football league system or an over exuberant apprentice gossip columnist claimed that 2nd rate club might be interested in signing them, then half the issues would go away. McNulty's GNG claims for example (per his AfD) are nothing more than the standard crap that appears in every newspaper about the local team. Outside his local club(s) no-one has heard of him and 5 years down the track no-one will remember him.--ClubOranje^T 11:48, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I should clarify: I wasn't challenging the close, and I wasn't suggesting that the guideline was too strict, but merely using it as an example of where ATHLETE can lead to a result that perhaps wouldn't have happened otherwise. Where there's no specific guideline keep-per-GNG opinions are frequently based on local sources and are sometimes in the majority, such as here and here (I've used examples that I was involved in becasue I can find them easily but I'm sure there are others). ATHLETE does a good job of deleting articles on modern-day players that are borderline notable under GNG, and an equally good job of keeping artices on historical players that would fail it. The question is, is this what we want? Alzarian16 (talk) 14:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It is what we want if it means that players from the early 20th century can have articles without a constant threat of deletion. Guidelines are meant to be inclusive rather than exclusive after all. Don't get me wrong, I've used ATHLETE as a reason for deletion as many times as the next editor, but I wouldn't propose a player for deletion if he clearly passed the GNG. The thing is, despite all the coverage players get nowadays, very few would pass the GNG as they stand as most coverage is deemed to be routine per WP:NTEMP. As an aside, a good source of information for older players is club Who's Who books, which certainly cannot be considered routine and are generally quite comprehensive. BigDom 15:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

But Dom, the GNG provides for players with that sort of non-trivial coverage, particularly when the Who's Who is unofficial. If anything, ATHLETE means that some subjects of non-trivial coverage in such books can be deleted. This is a particular issue for clubs that didn't play in England's de-facto Northern League until 1920, such as Watford, West Ham, QPR, Palace, Portsmouth and Southampton. They played in the Southern League, which is deemed non-notable on the basis that it didn't subsequently become a national competition. WFC (talk) 16:58, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

That's very true, I hadn't considered that seeing as it isn't a problem I've ever come across due to me concentrating on the players of Burnley and Nelson. I've seen articles on many players who represented several of those Southern clubs in the early 1900s and never thought of deleting them because I know the GNG covers those players in club history books, that's why I brought it up. When those clubs played in the Southern League, was it a fully professional competition like the Football League was? I'm assuming it wasn't or else we shouldn't even be having this conversation, but I'm intrigued. BigDom 17:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

When we entered it we were amateur (turning professional circa 1897). By the time we won the title in 1915 it was predominantly professional, although I know that Croydon Common folded as amateurs and have no proof that everyone else was fully pro. WFC (talk) 17:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

On re-reading GNG it does appear that articles of notable players from the past could suffer from over-eager 'deletionists' if the existing text is taken literally. There is some merit in having an approach whereby certain leagues have been classified as notable, and thus if someone has played in them they are generally deeemed notable/worthy of an article. I would prefer the focus to move away from whether the league was 'fully professional' to whether it is regarded by the (football) community as being 'notable', although there should be a degree of correlation between these two approaches anyway. On a related point I notice that wording has been added under WP:Athlete to the effect that further sport-specific information is available at N:SPORT. Eldumpo (talk) 18:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that people otherwise notable under WP:GNG should be deleted for failing WP:ATHLETE. As things stand, however, I think that the association football section at WP:NSPORT could be expanded somewhat to give more guidelines. The problem at the moment with WP:ATHLETE is that it is very unsubtle, resulting in some players being included who are otherwise not notable, and siwnging the axe for others who might be much closer to notability. Taking the example above, I argued for deletion of Steve McNulty, but, as a former player of the year in the Conference North and a record signing for Fleetwood Town, he's much closer to notability than, say, Mike Pearson (footballer), whose notability is based on 42 minutes of football over two now-forgotten matches. The problem, in a nutshell, is that the current guidelines defend players who have made a handful of appearances at professional clubs on that ground alone, whilst making it more difficult to introduce articles on players who have significantly influenced football at certain clubs, regions or nations but have never made that all important professional appearance. I think a change needs to be made to toughen the number and/or level at which professional appearances give you a 'free pass', and to introduce guidelines for influential players (I'm thinking club's top scorers/most appearance holders, multi-trophy winning players/managers as examples) outside of the professional game. Pretty Green (talk) 08:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that Pearson would fail ATHLETE if Dom's proposed change (at least on full match) was enacted, which is perhaps another point in its favour. Looking at the BBC sources he might almost meet GNG anyway (I'm sure someone would argue as such anyway), which could confuse the issue even further. Alzarian16 (talk) 11:43, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

True, though I'm not overly keen on differentiating between starting a match and playing a match though. How is a player with 1 start more notable than someone with fifteen sub appearances? If you wanted specifics, I'd like to see a higher appearance threshold where the professional appearances are outside of a top-tier* (could include some major second-tiers, perhaps defined by attendance levels), of perhaps 10 or 20 appearances; this would equate to around half a season's worth so is still not a huge ask. I'd then also add a condition allowing the creation of articles on most capped, most goal-scoring or multi-trophy winning players/managers for some non-professional - precise definitions of what 'multi-trophy winning' means and which non-professional levels would qualify to be left to another day.

As for players such as Pearson and WP:GNG, there's an interpretation issue there - I'd argue that many footballers 9including Pearson) would fail WP:GNG as the coverage of them is routine sports journalism. Yes there are plenty of references but that doesn't automatically generate notablitity. I'd liken footballers to local counicllors here - lots of writing about them does not mean inherent notability. This is why WP:ATHLETE exists - to provide criteria beyond WP:GNG to help make a decision. Pretty Green (talk) 12:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, as strongly as I am against ATHLETE, I agree that if it is to go there needs to be a replacement. WFC (talk) 13:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I made the case for keeping ATHLETE as a common-sense supplement to the GNG at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Relationship with more specialized notability guidelines. I reckon the current setup as argued there works well for us. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Worth noting that WP:NSPORTS has passed its RfC and replaced ATHLETE as the guideline, which makes this discussion somewhat moot. Alzarian16 (talk) 12:45, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Autonomous football teams

Teammates: User:Satesclop has been removing the infobox data on Catalan footballers regarding their appearances for their autonomous football team - and apparently ONLY for that one, not for Basque Country, Andalusia, etc, no, just Catalonia.

I have exchanged a few ideas with him, and he bluntly said he WILL NOT ALLOW for any comparisons to be drawn with pertaining to a national team proper and an autonomous one, he will NOT ALLOW IT, period! To avoid any edit warring, i told him i would not re-insert any such data, but i would like to know the project's view on this matter. Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:15, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that they need to be referred to as Spanish in the lead (with Catalonia becoming relevant if they have played for the team). However, I agree with you that an appearance for that team is worthy of mentioning. The last time I checked he wasn't the boss, so he's not in a position to ALLOW or NOT ALLOW anything.

You've done the right thing by coming here first, and if there is consensus here, I'll be happy to help reverting the edits. Regards, WFC (talk) 20:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• For sure, i am only referring to the box situation, in the lead they should always appear as only Spanish, in my opinion. My doubt is if the data in the infoboxes is to be shown or not. Thanks for the help W! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:29, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

As a completely neutral observer (who had never heard of autonomous football teams until I read this) I can see this from both points of view. It could become a slippery slope. Would we add teams like Aragon national football team to Álvaro Arbeloa and Andalusia autonomous football team to Jesús Navas' infoboxes. I expect not. There are alot of autonomous teams in Spain and while Catalan is more notable – mainly because a higher proportion of Spain's team come from there – it shouldn't a rule for Catalan and something else for the others. There are quite a few List of non-national representative teams in men's football and maybe others not listed there. Maybe the simplest thing is to keep it to FIFA teams. I should point out I am not advocating the way Sateslop went about this. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 20:45, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I am all for including players' appearances for Catalonia/Andalucia/Basque Country in the infobox. These are representative honours that these players are earning. The only difference between someone playing for Wales or Scotland and someone playing for Catalonia is that Wales and Scotland are regarded as separate nations by FIFA. – PeeJay 21:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I would maintain that representative football for regions that are not recognised as national FAs by FIFA could validly be included in the article, and perhaps tabulated in the main body of the article, but should not be in the infobox. Kevin McE (talk) 21:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)But it has already been mentioned that one wouldn't put "... is a Catalan football player ..." in the lead but we would put "... is a Welsh football player ..." so it can't be the only difference. If it goes in the infobox it needs a new section. The section clearly says "national team" and these autonomous teams are not national teams. In my opinion, you should only be representing one nation at a time (i.e. not Spain and Catalonia). While it is an honour, so is playing in the UEFA Champions League and that doesn't go in the infobox. By all means mention it in the prose but I don't believe it should go in the infobox. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 21:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

(for the record, I'm withdrawing my offer to revert the edits, because I have an opinion and it seems as though consensus is less clear than I had expected). WFC (talk) 23:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

While it's clear that playing for Catalonia is not comparable to playing for Spain, the same argument seems a lot more flimsy when compared to Spain under-16s or under-17s. WFC (talk) 23:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Recognizing Catalonian players is essentially supporting a nationalistic movement inside the country. It's my understanding that unless the region is recognized as distinct by FIFA it would not be correct to recognize them in this way. I have an "enjoyable" discussion with a Catalonian shortly after the match who said that the winning team was mostly from Catalonia and without them Spain would have lost. I'm not sure we should inflict this sort of debate on the Wikipedia community. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:47, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

We had the Kosovo national football team appearances in several players biographies, but for exemple, I, a Serb (suposedly an "enemy" of Kosovo independence) have not been oposing the introduction of the stats for those non-FIFA NTs in the national team sections in the infobox. Despite these non-FIFA national teams being obviously not comparable in importance to the FIFA ones, their stats are appreciated, and excluding them has no actual benefit... FkpCascais (talk) 04:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

On reflection, I agree with Rambo's comment: "If it goes in the infobox it needs a new section." Unlike Rambo I think it does belong there, but it would be wrong to represent it as a country. Walter: surely the fact that some of those players have played for Catalonia AND Spain says something about that player's opinion of his identity? I.e. that he sees himself as Catalonian and Spanish, in the same way that someone from Scotland might, or might not, consider themselves Scottish and British? WFC (talk) 17:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I forgot to mention: regarding Kosovo, the solution found was to use Kosovo in the infobox in Italics, so it can be differenciated from possible other FIFA recognised NTs. I don´t know who started this, or if there is some agreement about it, but it has been widely used for Kosovo exemple. See Kristian Nushi, just as one exemple. FkpCascais (talk) 18:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's setting yet another unique-to-WP precedent, but I think this italics idea might be a winner. It's either that or remove the appearances in question entirely because they're meaningless friendlies. I think this is worth a proper RfC as it's got fairly heavy repercussions. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

South American club football winners

South America is one of the most important centers of world soccer or football and it definetly merits being a feauture topic. It has been, mostly, me being a one-man army building this thing with the assistance of Digirami and MicroX. I am well aware that I still need some more things but I would like to ask any and every editor here whether this can potentiallly cut it and, if not, what can I do to improve it.

CONMEBOL club competition winning clubs, Lists of

6 articles

Copa Libertadores

Copa Sudamericana

Supercopa Sudamericana

Copa CONMEBOL

Recopa Sudamericana

I recently went over every competition's winner list in order to synchronize the coloring, symbols, identification markers, etc.

Thanks. Jamen Somasu (talk) 02:33, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, you won't be able to use the symbols for copyright reasons, as simply making the box look good is not a strong enough fair use rationale. Note that current featured football topics (such as Gillingham) don't use their logos, and the laws are no different for South America. WFC (talk) 02:13, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the logos as they are not allowed outside of article space, per WP:NFCC#9. BigDom 07:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Season Start/Finish "dates"

I have had a discussion with User:PeeJay2K3 on Talk:2010–11 Manchester United F.C. season regarding season start/finish dates. he has advised me that apparantly it has been decided on here that the English season articles run from "1 July to 30 June the following year". I have raised with him that this makes no sence at all as there are things that happen in the preseason of the next season, say 2010-11, such as transfers that end up in the season 2009-10 article. The events have no bearing on the season that they are being recorded in. As posted in Talk:2010–11 Manchester United F.C. season, if you see Transfer window and Page 150 of the Premier League Rule Book, the transfer window of the new season commences from the day following the completion of the previous season. 'Season' articles should conform with the events of that season. There are 2 transfer windows in a season and the new season article should apply immediately following the end of the previous season. Why should events of the the Summer transfer window of season 2010-11 appear in the 2009-10 article???? Especially when it is widely reported as occurring THIS season not last, such as Sky Sports which lists the transfer of Ben Foster as occurring in 2010-11, however for whatever reason there has been a decision made such that this is to be recorded in 2009-10. I think this needs to be revisited. Ck786 (talk) 13:05, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

PeeJay is correct about there being consensus to do it that way. And despite being one of the more radical editors on here, it's something that I've never felt the need to challenge. Nonetheless, you raise a good point. Perhaps there is a case for duplicating transfers that take place between the final game of the season and 30 June? WFC (talk) 17:06, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I've been here well over 4 years now and I know nothing of this 1 July to 30 June rule. When writing season articles I have almost always started from the last match of the previous campaign, so I would agree with Sky Sports and the thread originator that the Foster transfer, and indeed all this summer's transfers, should go in the 2010–11 season articles.

And WFC a radical? God knows what that must make me then ;) BigDom 18:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I was also unaware of such a consensus. PeeJay's comments in the talk section of the 2010-11 United season article suggest he is also in support of a change. How do we get this moving? Ck786 (talk) 23:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

By being the first, and then converting other people here. WFC (talk) 02:51, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Strange indeed

Can anyone understand why on earth was this page moved (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tiago_Miguel_Ba%C3%ADa_Pinto&diff=372562457&oldid=361115489). Does the user include himself as the other TIAGO PINTO? And what about the "a more and more obscure player each day that passes"?!?

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 13:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I was looking for others and got confused. I'd found another Tiago Pinto at Vitória F.C. but it turns out that it is the same one[1] and his profile just hasn't been updated yet. Judging by the username that performed the move I suggest this may be some form of self-promition (especially as Tiago Pinto was left as a redirect and not a disambig). However, assuming good faith, would Tiago Viera Pinto Carneiro qualify as reason to make Tiago Pinto a disambig? Rambo's Revenge (talk) 13:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Crystal Palace F.C.

On crystal palace's page it says on the right side under where it says what league they are in it says 2010-11:The Championship,21st. How can they be in 21'st when they haven't played a game yet?Gobbleswoggler (talk) 20:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe that means that it is Crystal Palace F.C.'s 21st championship. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't mean anything of the sort. It's meant to say that they came 21st in The Championship last season but someone has changed the season parameter to 2010-11 for some reason -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW has anyone seen the table of contents for History of Crystal Palace F.C.? Sheesh! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:42, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Section 26.2 is particularly compelling.--EchetusXe 21:44, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

And there was I, thinking that PFA Team of the Year was long. Argyle 4 Life^talk 22:10, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit confict x 2) {{sofixit}}. Oldelpaso (talk) 20:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Now corrected. Mattythewhite (talk) 20:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Oldelpaso, have you missed this editor's recent deluge of posts here? There's no point telling Gobbleswoggler to actually perform an edit himself. There's more chance of Robbie Blake being the Premier League top scorer this season. BigDom 21:51, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

If Gobbleswoggler asking for help bothers you, then perhaps you might consider reading WP:CIVIL before reacting. Struway2 (talk) 20:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Gobbleswoggler's requests are at times irritating and often simple to fix. But by the same token they almost always result in a net positive outcome. That's more than can be said for a lot of people's queries on here, myself included. WFC (talk) 21:32, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Category:Association football seasons by year

I wanted to let everyone know that we now have distinct season categories for leagues and clubs. So if you want to find a club's season article or see how many club season articles exist for a given season – along as it exists and is categorized correctly – you should be able to track it down through the category tree here, though as editors I most importantly wanted to let you know of this new category tree so that new club season articles can be categorized properly.

The "Association football seasons by year" category had previously only been populated by league seasons – which are now the contents of the "Domestic association football league seasons by year" sub-category. I then created a new sub-category of "Association football club seasons by year" and populated it, creating many club season categories along the way. We are still in need of a category for "Domestic association football cup seasons by year" (or some approximate title) if anyone wants to tackle it, but I'm a little tired of this type of project for right now. This project took me almost 500 edits and two days to organize and implement. I know that this whole thing was very CreatorElf of me, but what can I say. Happy editing. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 21:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I have done the domestic cups category, see also Category:Domestic association football cup seasons by year.

Unfortunately, the creation of the categories is only the tip of the iceberg. The next step would be the re-categorisation of any domestic league and cup articles which are currently sitting in any of the "[year] in association football" categories. I had started to do this a couple of months ago, but ran out of time after the 2005 category or so. Since the re-organization is a really time-consuming job to do, assistance from several editors would be welcome. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for creating those categories, and you're right about all of the work that still needs to be done. I'd be glad to help work on all of that re-categorization work. I actually started doing some of these a few days ago in pre-1900 "xxxx in association football" categories. A few more takers? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 11:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

User:Sam thompson

Can someone please take a quick look at this guy's contributions, and possibly give him a bit of a steer? As a precautionary measure, I have my reasons for not doing this myself. Regards, WFC (talk) 15:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Categorisation of domestic cup final articles?

We currently have quite a couple of domestic cup final articles such as 2010 FA Cup Final, either in the "[year] in association football" or in the "[season] domestic association football cups" categories. Since this is a little inconsistent, where should we collect these articles? There are three possibilities which probably would make sense:

1. Listing in "[year] in association football" as these are the most important matches of the tournament
2. Listing in "[season] domestic association football cups" as these belong to the respective main articles in this categories"
3. Listing in a dedicated category for final matches named "[year] domestic association football cup finals", which would again be put in one of the categories mentioned under 1. or 2.

Opinions, ideas, comments? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Prefereably option 2. It's part of the cup season, so I'd say to include them in the "[season] domestic association football cups" category. I'm opposed to option 3 because if the yet-to-be-created "[year] domestic association football cup finals" is created then there are also qualifying rounds to consider. Create yet another new category for "[season] domestic association football cups qualifying rounds"? Three categories per season just to categorize cup season articles seems a bridge too far. I think that main cup season articles, qualifying rounds articles, and cup finals articles should all go in the same cup season category. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 13:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

What to make of this?

Found this at Carsten Ramelow - not available anymore because i reverted it - (please see here http://www.rhein-berg-online.ksta.de/ks/images/mdsBild/1124874092453l.jpg). Clearly the picture, which was the entire content of the reference, can be a hoax, and to have a song with the same name as that of Robbie Williams?!? Hhmmmmmm....

In the German version of the article (here http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carsten_Ramelow), there is a reference to his music endeavours ("Sonstiges"), albeit, how to say...unreferenced! That, coupled with the fact that it is irrelevant for his career/article overall (as if we were to refer to ONE charity soccer match R.Williams appeared in), makes me have serious doubts about the aforementioned "addition".

What is your opinion? Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 18:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems as if the anon contributor who added that fact made mountains out of mole hills. Ramelow did in fact record that "album", featuring three cover versions from songs by the Backstreet Boys, the No Angels and Lionel Ritchie, but the record was for his family and friends only, it was never released for sale in any store. The source for this is here (German, try Google Translate for an English version if you like). So it was not a hoax, but it is nothing that belongs in the article with its own section either. Perhaps a sentence under "personal life", if at all, but definitely not more. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 18:58, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

POV or not POV

Again me teammates, looking to wiki-score...

User:Active Banana has been on my case on several articles, removing stuff he deems as POV, as: writing a player is "an automatic first-choice" or an "undisputed starter" when player appears in 95% of more of the team's matches, that is POV; wins and/or goals in matches against bigger clubs, that is POV; saying that player battled for first-choice status with a player known worldwide (not POV when it becomes clear both players were in this or that roster in this or that season), that is also POV. I always thought POV was another thing ("great dribbler", "his team won the championship because of him", "unfortunately he was injured", etc, etc, not the above.

What should i to? Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:31, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not what you're saying, that's good information. The problem is that the way you're say it appears to be taking side, even though it is true. For instance, instead of "undisputed first choice", consider "missed only 2 of 46 games". Instead of "battled with (world class player) for a starting berth", consider "(this player) faced competition in his position from (world class player); making ABC appearances compared to (world class player)'s XYZ.". WFC (talk) 20:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, reformulating the sentences in the way WFC proposed should deny anyone the right to remove the info with the POV reason. FkpCascais (talk) 20:47, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

To reinforce what WFC said, it appears Active Banana has a good point here and you should try and find sources for these statements, and replace subjective analysis with objective facts. That's WP:V in a nutshell. Knepflerle (talk) 23:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

• Please see Alan Osório da Costa Silva (where his reversions included renaming the player from "ALAN" to "OSÓRIO"!): could you folks tell me where i went wrong? Thanks a million in advance. - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:49, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

• Nevermind. ALONE, i duly rephrased the storyline removing and/or replacing some contents, although User:Active Banana still says it needs to be improved, because it needs a third-party reliable source, UEFA.com (which has two refs in Alan's article) being a main party. Can anyone please explain me what a third-party source is? Thank you in advance. - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 01:56, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Vasco - your style of writing is close to journalese. Its easy to do and sometimes difficult to overcome, but remember that the aim of Wikipedia is to report and describe facts - numbers, appearances, achievements - and to let these stand for themselves. For example, there's no need to use 'triumph' when 'win' will do. Not all of AB's changes were correct, but many were.

As for third-party sources - this is a source independent of the individual(s) discussed in an article. I'd argue that UEFA.com is third party concerning player biographies, but not tournaments and competitions. Nevertheless, you should attempt to have multiple sources where possible. Try searching in Portugese news sources (it doesn't matter if the source language is not English, but that would help). If you want, I'll remove the header tag on the article and replace it with {{cn}} at points which need referencing to show where further verification is required. --Pretty Green (talk) 08:36, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Transfer-listed players

Earlier today, a player from my club was told that he would be allowed to leave when they receive an offer for him.[2] Nothing has happened as yet, he is still under contract and therefore a part of the squad, but some IP's don't seem to understand that. Am I right or wrong? I reverted one earlier, explaining why, but the player has been removed again and I'm aware of the three-revert rule. Should I just let it go? Its nothing serious, I just get tired of constant pointless edits from random people. Argyle 4 Life^talk 03:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The player should not be removed until he has actually left the club. I hate IPs. – PeeJay 11:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Now trialists have been added to the squad! I'm just going to ignore it for a while because if I do revert then it'll get changed again and my blood pressure will go up. Argyle 4 Life^talk 14:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Featured topic question

Hello footies. I'm trying to make Barcelona a featured topic by making all main articles in the navbox featured. I have here a question of merging/3.b (stand alone list criteria).

There exist 3 articles which cd be merged:

1. FC Barcelona in Europe
2. List of FC Barcelona records and statistics
3. List of FC Barcelona honours

• I have merged 2 and 3 here: User:Sandman888/Sandbox (55 kb)
• I have merged all 3 here: User:Sandman888/Sandbox2‎ (110kb and ugly)

What do people think: Merge all, some or none? I prefer 3 seperate because it makes a nicer layout and keeps focus on topic. Sandman888 (talk) 09:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You could merge List of FC Barcelona records and statistics with List of FC Barcelona honours, but I would leave FC Barcelona in Europe as a separate article. It definitely needs a big cleanup though, and all those succession boxes are extremely ugly. – PeeJay 11:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

So merge 2&3 and remove succession boxes in the Europe article? Or do you just want different colouring/layout? Sandman888 (talk) 11:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

No, the layout of the Europe article is fine (although I would merge the European Cup/Champions League, UEFA Cup and Cup Winners' Cup tables to create something similar to the table in Manchester United F.C. in Europe). What you really need to do is get rid of those succession boxes, and sort out a bit of decent prose. – PeeJay 11:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll remove succession boxes. By decent prose, do you then mean as much text as in the manutd article? As to merging I'm slightly in favour of seperation. Perhaps I should add a list of how they faired in the continental cup/Fifa CWC? Shd I add a "overall record by country"? It wd really be neat if we cd form some form of guideline to the layout of this type of article. Sandman888 (talk) 12:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

League season templates

At some point, somebody decided to move all the league seasons from the format Moravian Premier League 2008-09 to the format 2008-09 Moravian Premier League. This should have resulted in the templates all being edited so that they link directly to the new form - otherwise the bolding of the current article doesn't work. This has not happened. It is both annoying and unprofessional for a template to link to a redirect, but it's obviously an enormous task. Could a bot be designed to do this? john k (talk) 22:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably, but why can't you do it yourself? – PeeJay 22:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think he meant that there are not only one or two templates where links lead to redirects (see any of the non-recent templates in Category:Years in European football (soccer) navigational boxes, for example). So I would deem the bot request to be a good idea in general and would propose to request it at WP:BOTREQUEST.

By the way (and out of interest), are there any from our regular contributors who maintain bot accounts? It would probably save time if we had one or two people who could receive and deal with these requests directly (see also WP:CREATEBOT and the related pages) instead of going the "detour" over BOTREQUEST for every single task. For example, I would also like to see a bot which automatically moves every season article to the "[year] [league name]" format as most articles still are named the other way round. *desperately needs time to hone his own programming skills* --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I can't blame him for not wanting to do it himself, but to be honest fixing redirects is a complete waste of time. BigDom 23:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Hm, the idea of replacing redirects in templates by a bot has been requested before (here and here, for example), so chances might be good that there are some digital helpers out there who are designed for this task. If you have some time available, check Category:Approved Wikipedia bot requests for approval if there is something useful available. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how to create bots, and it would, indeed, be an incredible amount of effort to get this in shape. But it would have real benefits to do so - in properly constructed templates, the page one is currently at is bolded and unlinked, which makes it easier to navigate through the template. I don't really understand why it was agreed to conduct a massive change in how articles were titled for no particularly clear reason that I can see (how is "2009-10 La Liga" so much superior to "La Liga 2009-10" that it's worth such a massive effort?), and then not actually go about and do it right. At any rate, I've never done a bot request, either, and I'm not sure how to word it to people unfamiliar with the problem. I'd also have some concern that, if the format hasn't universally been adopted yet, changing the templates might create even more problems. john k (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 33#Formal petition to change the naming conventions. We knew it would be a massive undertaking, given the number of articles that have already been created, but things do not have to happen overnight here. As long as it gets done, that's all that matters. We made the right decision by choosing to move the articles. – PeeJay 12:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

That's all that matters? That's a pretty bold statement. The quicker it gets done, the better. And isn't that what bots are for? john k (talk) 14:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Fooian League in [season] Atlantean competitions

Asked in a neutral way, as per the rules: Do we have any consensus about articles of this type? Rationale behind this question: this article. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Responding in a similarly neutral way, I think any worthwhile content should be merged into the league's season article, before the article is deleted, salted and page creation protected. WFC (talk) 19:27, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

For example, like in this section? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 19:42, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

My course of action would be to have the creator of that abomination strung up for crimes against Wikipedia, and then every effort made to ensure that nothing like it is ever written again. Again, in a completely neutral way. BigDom 19:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, something like that section. There's always scope to slightly expand it, particularly if a team goes on an extraordinary run ("extraordinary" depending on the context; an Irish team reaching the Champions League proper would be extraordinary, an English team less so). WFC (talk) 00:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, User:Dalymount, creator of the article, just removed the PROD tag. He did leave a message on the talk page, but I thought protocol was to leave the tag on until the debate has concluded? Invisibletr (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Not for articles tagged as PROD. It is a different story for articles tagged as AfD, however. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 14:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

While we are at it, I just stumbled about a series of articles best described as "Fooian League in Atlantean competitions by decade" (Exhibits A, B, C, D and E). Any opinions on the treatment for these? Edit: And what about the type "Fooian clubs in Atlantis"? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 14:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

1968 Intercontinental Cup

User:Jamen Somasu (yes, him again) has added a summary of the second leg of the 1968 Intercontinental Cup to the article about the match. Unfortunately, I deemed this summary to be riddled with POV and tagged it as a POV section. For some reason, Jamen Somasu refuses to acknowledge the POV nature of his addition and insists on removing the POV tag. Would someone please provide a third opinion on this subject? – PeeJay 19:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"Manchester United attacked desperately and agonishinly with everything they had" sounds pretty POV to me. I'll re-instate the tag in the article, but perhaps you should of put an explanation at Talk:1968 Intercontinental Cup (i.e. give examples of what is POV). Just saying "the way it's written" might be unclear to Jamen. I realise patience may be wearing thin but just adding and removing the tag won't really achieve anything. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 19:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd go further and remove all unsourced, controversial sentences, per WP:V. In particular, I'd point Jamen towards WP:REDFLAG. If he decides to edit war, there is also WP:3RR. WFC (talk) 19:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, no it is not POV. I sourced it from the newspaper article that I left on the reference section of that same page. Nice try, though. You are more than welcome to get any translator to translate the entire summary; I merely copied from one page to another.

On the other hand, I want to remind you that POV is "personal own view", not "let's censor anything that displeases me". You and your good buddy PeeJay have a great history of it...especially the latter. Remember: Wikipedia is not censored. Jamen Somasu (talk) 19:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Would you mind if we just rewrote it to keep the information but remove the opinions? Because that sounds to me like the obvious solution here. Alzarian16 (talk) 20:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

(At Alzarian) I copied the entire thing as it came; those newspaper articles are from the day after the match. It doesn't get more accurate than that. If you go to google and type "Estudiantes Manchester 1968", you will have a good number of links providing the ENTIRE series. Nothing on that article is false or exaggerated: as soon as the 2nd leg started, Manchester pressed hard for the equalizer. When Veron scored, anyone including Blind Willie could see the desperation on that team and they simply fell apart. I will gladly change anything that is proven false. You have my word on that. I know what I saw, I know what I read, and that is why I am confortable with this. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I would have no problem with re-writing the section; in fact, the article needed a summary of both games. But obviously Jamen Somasu is a massive proponent of South American football and would like nothing more than to make Europeans look like savages. – PeeJay 20:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah...because my daily life revolves around Europeans...get a load of this guy...Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

*sigh* While dispute tags shouldn't be removed before the dispute is resolved, nor should they be edit-warred over. {{POV-section}} mandates discussion, which wasn't even started until two reverts down the line. This should continue on the article talk, but frankly neither of you are in the clear here. That said, the ice under Jamen is considerably thinner, and he should be thinking very heavily about what his previous blocking admins would think of this before he is permanently excluded (which is imminent at this rate). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. Unfortunetly for you, I have already gave him a message to look into this and I am still awating a response. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Could someone also have a look at what is being said at Talk:Old Trafford. The same user has been attempting to add POV information about the same event to the lead section only of the Old Trafford article. Furthermore, he is using flawed reasoning to justify this addition. – PeeJay 20:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You really are sad. I provided information that is not only sourced but it also comes from a player that played that match. You really are unbelievable, you know? Your bitterness really oozes out of you. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Without lending any opinion to that discussion I should point out that POV stands for "point of view" (not personal own). Also a player from the match is a WP:PRIMARY source which (as described in that link) is fairly "original research" prone. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 20:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Jamen, Chris is right.

In spite of your confrontational style, your track record suggests that the things you write in articles are based in truth, even if they are not always neutral. On that basis, I'm willing to assume that's the case here too. But if you are unwilling to even have a civil discussion with PeeJay to deal with what he (and others) perceive to be issues, you are leaving the uninvolved with very little scope for continuing to assume good faith. WFC (talk) 20:33, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out my "horrible" record. It is still irrelevant to the subject at hand since my track record is not what is being discussed in the sources I mentioned. Please see the Old Trafford talk page to see how "civil" PeeJay is. Another user approached me on the subject, civilly of course, and I complied with his demand to move the fact somewhere else.

I have no problems discussing issues. But civility goes bothways. If you think it feels necessary to have the dispute tags on the page, ok...I will also concede that. As a matter of fact, I will put them in myself.

But now that we are on the subject...if I provided video evidence of the happenings (I have both matches of the IC on my computer) can I use that as a source in wikipedia? The second leg clearly demonstrates how the British fans threw everything but their clothes on the field before and, especially, after the match. You can't get it better than that. So much crap was thrown by that mob on the field that Estudiantes only managed to do a half lap of honor. That's how bad things were which is a very direct contrast to how Manchester was received in Ezeiza and Buenos Aires. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No, you can't. Video would be a primary source. The closest you could get would be to find commentators or other reporters who gave the opinions in question, and to reference them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it says I can use a video as evidence, source or reference as that is a historical document. Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It does nothing of the sort. "Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources". This includes videos of the game. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

And if you click on the link footnote right next to the sentence you mentioned (funny how you missed it) it says that "Further examples include archeological artifacts, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, VIDEOS, and television programs..." Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It will take me 2 hours tops to upload but it will be up for all to see what really went on in this series. Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes that confirms it is a primary source. We knew that. Read on "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." That is stopped the victory lap etc is interpretation. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 21:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

If by that you mean a reliable author, then no problem. :)Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

If Jamen Somasu has indeed copied this directly from a source ("I copied the entire thing as it came") then WP:POV is a secondary issue; our main concern should be that this infringes WP:COPYVIO! GiantSnowman 21:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

LOL Someone already brought this up earlier so I will have some fun with this lol. You tell me if what I written is a copyright violation and where. All WP:COPYVIO says is that copyright issues are taken into account in wiki. Nothing more, nothing less.

Where is the copyright violation in what I wrote? Jamen Somasu (talk) 22:09, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Moving from the specific and personal, this illustrates why we should be exceedingly careful about descriptive match reports, even if they are based on contemporary newspaper reports. This is an encyclopaedia, and so our emphasis should be on facts; we are not a journalistic enterprise, and so perceptions and judgements (even those of journalists) are not our concern. We should remember that journalists are employed to produce the material that sells newspapers, and therefore under pressure to write that which the prospective readership of that paper wishes to read: perception and interpretation which resonates with an anticipated POV is their trade. So we should stick to the facts (Manchester United had 12 shots on goal, 8 of which were on target and they hit the woodwork twice) rather than commentary upon them (Manchester United attacked desperately and agonisingly with everything they had). Frustrated would-be journalists probably do not make the best encyclopaedic editors. Kevin McE (talk) 06:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

For anyone interested, I have a compact video of the second leg on the IC68 page. You will be surprised at how cynical the British thinking is. When they said that Estudiantes played like savages, I went through hell and back to find a good, clear video of the match itself. Unsurprisingly, Estudiantes played smart, efficient, rough when needed but fair. On the other hand, Manchester thought they were in a boxing match as the video clearly shows two British players punching the Argentines. The last punch, after the final whistle, was a real thing from a coward. Disgusting, really.

Manchester had a good and talented team, yes. But their mentality was weak. They instigated the deragatory actions of the match and they, themselves, lost it when Estudiantes didn't give in to their provocations; thus, they fell apart on their own doing. Estudiantes clearly won the tactical and physical matches in that game.

Now I see why the British created those wild rumors during the match and tried to hide what really happen with exagerrated claims and even solid lies: the crap I saw on that video is embarrassing to the sport! Manchester was then, right down to their bones, a really dirty team with a bunch of neanderthals disguising themselves as fans. Jamen Somasu (talk) 17:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

That last sentence is near enough outright racism. I politely request that you retract it. WFC (talk) 18:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. And anyway, Jamen seems to be conveniently forgetting that the Estudiantes players were equally dirty during the first leg in Buenos Aires. Nobby Stiles was kicked all over the park and even headbutted, and according to my sources, his sending-off was simply for waving his arms at the linesman who called him offside in the 79th minute! – PeeJay 18:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with racism (I don't even see why you pulled the race card out. Talk about polarism). Everyone on those stands were all neanderthals! Estudiantes couldn't even perform a lap of honor because the team was being thrown crap for a good part of the game and, especially afterwards. Good thing they lost. That tournament actually meant something back in those days, and it would be too much prestigue for a dirty team like Manchester to have it.

As for PeeJay, I would have you know that Nobby Stiles was a hack; the only reason he never got sent off in 1966 was because the world cup was hosted by England; in the first leg, he spent his time going after Veron and Malbernalt's ankles and got rightly sent off. Are we so desperate that we are trying to pull the race card, now? Jamen Somasu (talk) 18:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Website with historic kits

I just chanced across historicalkits.co.uk Perhaps it would be worth adding a link from each club's page, to the relevant page on that site for example the page on West Bromwich Albion. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

A bit too much?

Just wondering folks,

Should FILIPINO FOOTBALLERS be included in David Silva's article? I think not, since not even his mother is from than nation, she is Spanish of Filipino descent. Of course, i did not remove it again (after removing it once, it was reinstated), sorry if i did it wrong last time.

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 02:39, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Definitely should be removed. It would be fine if he were Filipino, but he is Spanish so he should in the category "Spanish footballers" only. BigDom 06:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

List of Albanian football players playing abroad - Afd?

Per old discussion such list should replaced by category. And the list itself did not cite and had some hoax/red link player. Matthew_hk tc 05:44, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Category = OK; list = no place. GiantSnowman 07:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, but why is America a special case? WFC (talk) 17:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Current squad list

An enthusiastic IP has changed the format of the players section here. I believe a consensus was reached that the style shown there wasn't the way to go but I couldn't find the discussion on it. Am I Correct? I didn't want to revert it all without providing a reference to my reasoning. I probably need to take the article in question off my watchlist for a while because its been a magnet for petty IP changes recently and its been getting on my nerves. Argyle 4 Life^talk 12:19, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

That definitely isn't the style, because it's not using the specified template for a squad list. I've reverted. пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Well I thought the Port Vale F.C.#Players type of squad list was the way it was and the way it always will be. Is there some sort of better template? What is the consensus on this topic? Also the sub-categories being 'Current squad', 'Out on loan', 'Trialists', and 'Notable former players'? Am I right?--EchetusXe 13:04, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

It's the template used in the club MOS, so yes, you're correct. Invisibletr (talk) 16:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)