Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1107 articles are assigned to this project, of which 133, or 12.0%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:

{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription}}

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Well I added this, I don't see that it could hurt. The result should appear at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis/Cleanup listing - rst20xx (talk) 23:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the redirect problem, give it a few more days :P - rst20xx (talk) 22:41, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, there we go! rst20xx (talk) 16:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Useful! if slightly depressing. I recently cleaned up Guillermo Canas, an article I thought was pretty bad, and that page, somewhat ominously, wasn't tagged. I'll try cleaning up the Youzhny (someone mentioned this one below) and Myskina articles; if we clean up the articles of highest importance first, the ones lower down will follow. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 18:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Project Template change?

I would like to help change the Project Portal to a template more like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Microbiology; check them out.... - Mjquin_id (talk) 05:04, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Largest Tennis Centers

There appears to be a conflict in articles that mention size ranks of tennis centers. See Talk:USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Apparently there is no consensus (or even a discussion yet) on how to qualify such claims. Number of courts? Spectator total seating? -newkai t-c 01:14, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Guillermo Coria

I'd be grateful if one of you tennis experts would review the comment about Corria in our article on Yips and either cite the comment or remove it; as his biog article does not mention yips, I'm concerned about WP:OR. --Dweller (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I took it out. It is unsourced. --HJensen, talk 20:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

That's great, thank you. --Dweller (talk) 08:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Illegal moves

As we can see here ,here, here , here , here here and here, User:Tennis expert has involved himself in a huge "anti-diacritics" with no any support just renaming the pages independently. In some the moves he is calling this thread as referrence. --Añtó| Àntó (talk) 10:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

That's a complete fabrication and outright distortion of the facts. The moves were in accordance with consensus, as demonstrated in this discussion. Tennis expert (talk) 01:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I would like to make a recommendation here: there needs to be a creation of a Style guide here at WP:Tennis which will deal with this issue as well as other stylistic issues to do with tennis articles. Initially it could simply deal with this issue as this seems to be the most recurring one. The style guide should be built on consensus, and any disputes can simply be resolved by referring to it instead of to past discussions - rst20xx (talk) 16:27, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The "consensus" is that 1 user made a statement and couple guys said "Well, you are right..." . Yeah, very funny.--Añtó| Àntó (talk) 16:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't make fun of the process. That leads nowhere. Do you have a productive suggestion to make, or do you just want to make sour remarks from the sideline? (BTW: It is better to use ":" to make indents in discussions.)--HJensen, talk 19:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Rst20xx, there already is clear consensus about the naming of Wikipedia articles. See WP:UE. But some people personally don't like that consensus but are unable to change it. So, they edit war and go around Wikipedia being incivil and making false and inflammatory statements to promote their personal agendas. Tennis expert (talk) 20:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert, I'm saying that it might help prevent arguments like this if this is repeated here at WP:Tennis as WP:Tennis policy - rst20xx (talk) 21:03, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

That's already been tried. Tennis expert (talk) 06:58, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

(reset) Sorry, what? As far as I can see, the only thing you can be referring to in that thread is Aradic-es' reference to the failed proposals here, here and here. But I have no idea what that has to do with what I'm suggesting. I'm simply suggesting you create a page, oh you could use this one: Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis/Article Guidelines. And in there, you could create a section about diacritics, and this WikiProject's consensus on their (dis)use in tennis articles. And then in the future, when this debate crops up, you'd only have to point to that, and it'd be better proof of consensus than some past thread. The only reason you could possibly have for not doing that is if you don't really have any consensus here in the first place - rst20xx (talk) 23:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you actually read the discussion? A consensus was reached there to examine each tennis biography to determine whether the article names should be changed based on WP:UE, which itself requires editors to see what verifiable, reliable, English-language sources say about the names of tennis players. What else do you need to know? Tennis expert (talk) 06:32, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I have told so many times:what is the difference between tennis player, politicians, scientist. How is that their names should be different??--Añtó| Àntó (talk) 06:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

There are, of course, no differences. This is, however, a talk page on the Tennis Project, so it is natural here to dicuss the format for tennis bios—not those of, e.g., politicians or scientists.--HJensen, talk 12:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, and tennisExpert is try to impose spelling from tennis related websites that never use diacritics. Such as :Atp , ITF , Davis cup , Tennis hall of fame--Añtó| Àntó (talk) 14:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Tournament names

New-comers to the discussion Yosef1987 (talk) 23:43, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

In the bios, should it be like Miami Masters or Sony Ericsson Open etc?? Taking it to the right place from the wrong place Yosef1987 (talk) 15:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

In deciding on this, we should also take into account that ATP has planned a change in tournament structure from 2009 and onwards. So, it would be great if we could reach a decision that could "be ready" for this. Also, I think we should strive for some consistency such that we should not need to change tournament names whenever a new sponsor takes over (as of now - or at some point in time around now - Federer is listed as winning the Sony Ericsson Open in 2005; but the Miami Masters was the Nasdaq 100 that year), or whenever a new tournament structure is implemented (it would in my opinion be silly to make changes to the Agassi article if tournaments change status and/or name).--HJensen, talk 16:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Lindsay Davenport and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario should be the standard we follow. Those articles use the name of the tournament at the time it was held, and the name is linked to the corresponding Wikipedia article (which does not change). In addition, the tables have separate columns for tournament location and tournament name, and the tables are sortable. Finally, the tables have small numbers to indicate how many times the player won the tournament or was runner-up. All these features minimize the chances of confusion while faithfully reflecting the historical facts. Tennis expert (talk) 19:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the same dude that uses the 62.57 ips and reverted tennisexpert lately reverts like a half dozen times. Just didn't want to mix into this, but i got bored finally. First of all, I will remember my 2 points:

1st) The "Master Series Miami" MUST, must, M U S T appear on the table. It's the tournaments reference.

2nd) The "Key Biscane" information is irrelevant here. The only important thing is USA and maybe (I think not) "Florida".

Now, I would like to ask tennis why are u telling us to follow a standar which like everyone finds wrong cause we want all-time references and not old or soon-old tournaments names. Yeah lately you and a few more have changed all historical tennis player articles to this style and now you clain they're the reference. Thats not true, they are not, cause you didn't make any consensus with the rest of people to get into this. Everyone here but a few of you wants easy info and just the relevant one. In this case this info is "Miami Master Series", thats the info someone in 10 years will need, nor "Pacific Open" or the name it had 3 years ago or will have in 5 years. You are wrong on that position, because we want useful info. And no, you're an expert and maybe you memorized all the tournaments names the last 10years but someone who comes to an encyclopedia to get info is because he doesn't know the same than you. Wikitestor (talk) 20:06, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, after a single post tennisexpert think he has a lot of people supporting him and changed back everything, so reverted again. This will take years if he keeps being so preopotent. Wikitestor (talk) 20:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Tennis Expert is entitled to his opinions. Here and below you are being quite rude and personal; please read WP:CIVIL. Such argumentation is ad hominem and is not acceptable. I don't think writing the word "must" three times in different ways is a way to present your arguments. It surely doesn't convince me. And declaring a war as you do further down has never helped here on Wikipedia. It is really a dead end.--HJensen, talk 21:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I dunno if this will ever end, here it is again http://masters-series.com/, sponsors' names change, tournament names do not, each tournament's name is there under each box on the official site, I am with the non-sponsor names, eg: Madrid Masters NOT Mutua Madrileña Masters Yosef1987 (talk) 20:27, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm also with the non-sponsor names, if anyone didn't notice it. I tell this because tennisexpert said on roger federer's history page (when he put again the key biscane thing for 8th time) that I was alone defending my position and he had 3 people with him, when at least 3 people were defending me and I dunno if anyone defended him... Just make sure about a thing. If this never ends, it will be because someone like him doesn't want to have any consensus, if you don't trust me go to Rafael Nadal's and Roger Federer's articles and check how while this discussion is opened he made the changes 3 or 4 times, everytime saying he had reason when no consensus was taken and moreover no one supported him yet. If there's a war, I'm gonna fight till the end. Wikitestor (talk) 20:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Since I started a while back I am with the non-sponsor naming, I won't have an edit war, I'll have my last words said again here, if there is one good explanation that says the following is non-sense, I will apologize and stop talking about it

"http://masters-series.com/, sponsors' names change, tournament names do not"

Also it is better to follow this: Wikipedia:Edit_war and see how such things are settled, I'll do my part and read it soon, all I ask is PLEASE let's cooperate for a better information delivery, no matter how small or big the topic is, thank you all very much Yosef1987 (talk) 20:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The link you provided uses the sponsors' names. Enough said. Tennis expert (talk) 21:33, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The ATP calendar for 2009 also uses the sponsors' names. Tennis expert (talk) 21:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you see? he is kinda prepotent "enough said". Enough time, going to revert your last changes again. 62.57.212.101 (talk) 21:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Tennis expert: Did you look carefully at the site? Look at the bottom of each box please, sponsors change, that's what they normally do actually Yosef1987 (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Josef1987 there is no point trying to talk with someone like him, as you see he wont ever answer to anything, just be prepotent to the rest. So there will be a long war. 62.57.212.101 (talk) 21:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Playing "tit-for-tat" does never work on Wikipedia. If you think someone is behaving in a wrong way, you will not achieve anything by copying that behavior. It is just childish, and nobody takes such behavior seriously in the long run. (For example, this intervention after Yosef1987 direct reply, is ruining the discussion.)--HJensen, talk 07:18, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert, please hear me out, this is not my reference, I've already gave you a link and you refused to check it out carefully, so here's what I'll say, check this out, and this here, also you'll find out a page says: "The 2008 Miami Masters (also known as the Sony Ericsson Open for sponsorship reasons)...", it is a de facto as well as the site I gave you that sponsors change, like when Miami MS was called: Nasdaq 100, I don't know how else to explain, you don't try to explain it to me what you think, which I am willing to hear but not like this: The link you provided uses the sponsors' names. Enough said, because The link I provided uses the sponsors' names and the tournaments names as well !!! Thank you Yosef1987 (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

One more thing please to "Tennis expert", Official calender, let's see what it says: "Pacific Life Open – Indian Wells", but a few years back it would have been "Another sponsor – Indian Wells". Same for Miami/Sony/Nasdaq and the whole gang Yosef1987 (talk) 22:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

....also, all the templates, every where on tennis articles, do not mention sponsors, because they change, copy and paste from Indian Wells Masters, the ATP Masters Series Tournaments template: Indian Wells · Miami · Monte Carlo · Rome · Hamburg · Montreal/Toronto · Cincinnati · Stockholm/Essen/Stuttgart/Madrid · Paris. Please refer to all my replies before replying, because definitely this reply is not a reference, just proving a point, because consistency is mandatory to Wikipedia Yosef1987 (talk) 22:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Dude, stop trying, check down: he has replied to the other discussion about the 500s etc changes on 2009 and he even made a comment totally irrelevant there, with a single line (like here) ignoring all of us. He replied there and can't reply here, he has no point to win this, he had no consensus to change it and he wont put it again, slowly we are going to change all the tennists articles to a consensed style, not the style HE, and ONLY HE, wants to impose. 81.184.38.161 (talk) 23:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Please don't refer a discussion that is less than 24 hours old as a "war". It is in extremely bad style, and damaging for the project.--HJensen, talk 07:18, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Yosef1987, please refer to the Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Lindsay Davenport articles for the best way to handle the official names of tennis tournaments that can change every few years. (I referenced those articles earlier in this thread and explained my reasoning.) Tennis expert (talk) 08:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this should end like this, I am not mad at anyone, I am proving my point for a better Wikipedia. Oh forgot to say, the sponsor name for Monte-Carlo MS is Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters not just Monte-Carlo Masters :):):) I have asked for a support, should be on the way from the Tennis Project members hopefully, that is extra opinions, 3 won't do it Yosef1987 (talk) 23:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Guys, remember that edit warring is a blockable offense. I recommend that we stick to resolving this matter before deciding to change this naming convention. Personally, I feel that the historical name (with a piped wikilink to the current name) of a tournament should be used. The Gdansk Vote is an example of where it was determined that the historical name of a geographical entity would be used in articles written about an era in which the historical title was prevalent. For example, articles which refer to Saint Petersburg from 1924–1991 would be piped as [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]], since Leningrad was the official title of the city during that era. I believe the same naming convention should be applied with tennis tournaments. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 23:08, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I haven't taken part in the edit war except in the talk page, the right way to do it, thanks for joining us and please stick around for a while, about your suggestion of piping(?), I dunno, still will confuse readers and won't help the consistency, like the Nasdaq 100 problem and many other like it Yosef1987 (talk) 23:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Nishkid64 for the reasons I've already provided in this thread. Tennis expert (talk) 08:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think it's natural that readers click or scroll over links to clarify their confusion. Besides, this encyclopedia isn't designed to make things as convenient as possible for the present-day reader; we're here to make sure everything is written with historical accuracy. Piped links are historically accurate and clarify any confusion a reader may have over the tournament name. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 23:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Once again, I agree. Tennis expert (talk) 08:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

With the many players' bios and the tournaments, and the eras, it will be a nightmare, inconsistent, and pointless, we are here for the tournaments not the sponsors and sponsors' history, don't you agree? Yosef1987 (talk) 23:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm totally with Yosef1987. Mixing the sponsorships names here will just go in one direction. But you could improve even more in that direction: just delete all tennis-related articles. It's the same way, but faster. I am sorry but If I need help (because that people enters wikipedia..) and I find names not related to the original tournament names, im leaving wikipedia and going google. That's the truth. 81.184.38.161 (talk) 00:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, lots of debate here. Why don't we formally settle this with a vote, ala Gdansk Vote. --Armchair info guy (talk) 08:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

See WP:POLLS. Voting/polling is not a substitute for discussion and achieving consensus. I am opposed to a vote on this particular issue. Tennis expert (talk) 08:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously because you are alone on that role.81.184.70.220 (talk) 15:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Erh, no. I oppose a vote as well.--HJensen, talk 19:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

For new-comers

For new-comers to this discussion, here is what's going on: each tournament has 2 names, a name that doesn't change over time and is basically the host city's name (e.g. Miami) and we have the sponsor's name, which changes whenever a new sponsor takes over, now which name to use in the biographies, remember that a player's career can witness sponsor changes, and it is good to point that templates here and the tables and the statistics use the simple name (e.g. Miami)

Example:

• Monte Carlo Masters / Masters Series Monte-Carlo presented by ROLEX
• Cincinnati Masters / Western & Southern Financial Group Masters
• Madrid Masters / Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid

Consistency and accuracy is the target, thank you Yosef1987 (talk) 23:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

---

Only skimmed the debate, but my two opinion: I would see things continue as they currently are at Canada Masters and 2004 Canada Masters, i.e.

• Lead of main says "The Canada Masters (also long known as the Canadian Open), currently sponsored as the Rogers Cup...
• Lead of 2004 says "The 2004 Canada Masters (also known for the women's event as the Rogers AT&T Cup for sponsorship reasons)"...
• Main has a section explaining the event name at various times.

Additionally (and this is where the debate seems to be focused), I think the tennis player articles should avoid sponsorship names as well. Now, as for why: the ATP seem to often use the sponsorship title, but not always (e.g. here). If the ATP consistently used the sponsorship names, I'd agree with Nishkid64, but sometimes they use non-sponsorship (because sometimes it's less confusing!), hence in my opinion both are acceptable, and hence I'd go for the less confusing option, i.e. the non-sponsor names. As for the "1000 Series", well that's a different matter... rst20xx (talk) 23:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm semi-new to tennis (like 3 years), and when I see sponsor names I get totally lost. I know the masters for Miami, Madrid, Indian Wells, etc. If someone comes wikipedia needing help and find the sponsorship names, we won't help him at all, he will confuse and go search for help on other page. 81.184.38.161 (talk) 00:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Whenever you are confused, all you have to do is look at the tournament location, which is the column right next to the tournament name. Really, how difficult is that? And if you find that too difficult, just hover over the name of the tournament to get the name of the linked article. So, you have two easy options to remedy your confusion while preserving historical and factual accuracy. Tennis expert (talk) 08:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

What if it was really old? Why dig out the sponsor's history for that particular tournament? Yosef1987 (talk) 12:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not difficult to do. And the task is necessary to have an accurate encyclopedia. That's something you want, right? Tennis expert (talk) 18:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Just one thing, I don't have to know that the Miami masters is held on Key Biscane, I don't have to know it, it's not relavant info. 81.184.70.220 (talk) 12:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It is utterly irrelevant what a two-edit anonymous user has to know.--HJensen, talk 13:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm sure the MILLIONS of visitors (obviously 99% of them anonymous) doesn't deserve any knowledge. Then why would they search on wikipedia if they're not welcome? 81.184.70.220 (talk) 15:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, you just argued against getting certain information, and now you sarcastically say 99& doesn't derserve knowledge. What are you getting at? I never implied anyone was not welcome.--HJensen, talk 22:43, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert: Won't say much so my point becomes very simple: Sponsors change over time, so to maintain accuracy and factuality would be impossible in all bios bec of the different eras and we saw that happen even in the recent era (the Nasdaq 100 thing) Yosef1987 (talk) 10:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not hard at all. In fact, it's a very simple task. The Internet is full of information about past tournaments, including their former sponsored names. And their are newspaper archives on the Internet that would show those names. Tennis expert (talk) 18:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure it's that easy. I've looked for names for a few men's tournaments, and while you can find a few years here and there, it's far from complete. For women's tournaments, it's easy: there's a PDF file on the WTA website with basically everything. Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 21:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

There are newspaper archives that make it easy. I use them all the time. Tennis expert (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert: in Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Lindsay Davenport: are you referring to the piping? Actually there isn't much on those articles, mainly only the grand slams...am not against piping, but here's a question, since the articles themselves here are non-sponsor named, why use a sponsor name to link to a non-sponsor named article? Example: 2006 Miami Masters - Men's Singles...I guess if we settle this it'll be over... Yosef1987 (talk) 12:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

We're talking about tables here. See these tables in the Arantxa Sanchez Vicario article and this table in the Lindsay Davenport article. These are perfect examples of what we should be doing in all tennis biographies, for the reasons I've already stated. Tennis expert (talk) 18:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Something everyone has forgotten is that using the official sponsored names of tournaments is something we've been doing for a very long time. I did not just "invent" the idea. See List of tennis tournaments, for example. So, what's the big deal? Tennis expert (talk) 18:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I find it interesting, Tennis expert, that you're completely ignoring the fact that I pointed out above that the ATP doesn't always use the sponsor names itself. "Historical accuracy", yeah right. Either are acceptable, you just find yourself entrenched behind one and not the other, and that one just happens to be the less logical, more confusing and harder to maintain - rst20xx (talk) 19:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

dead on, Rst20xx, and I don't know how to go further, I have said all I've got, and the replies are never direct to my simple questions, and I'd yet ask it again, just C&P:

but here's a question, since the articles themselves here are non-sponsor named, why use a sponsor name to link to a non-sponsor named article? Example: 2006 Miami Masters - Men's Singles, for Wikipedia...not for me, please please consider Yosef1987 (talk) 20:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it because sponsors change? and city names are actually official as shown under each box on the official site, but they show the sponsor, because they need the $$$...That answers my question, why complicate matters? And have flaws all over the biographies? Yosef1987 (talk) 20:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the triple replies, trying to make a point, Rst20xx summed it in: less logical, more confusing and harder to maintain Yosef1987 (talk) 20:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Simple. Wikipedia is not a sponsored website. It is an encyclopedia that reflects facts. If the real world fact is that a tournament has an official name with the sponsor in that name, then Wikipedia should reflect that fact. I don't know why you believe that showing facts is a "flaw". And I've tried to answer all your questions. Your disagreeing with my answers does not mean that I've failed to be responsive. Tennis expert (talk) 21:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Rst20xx, see this, where the ATP provides the locations of tournaments and then the official names of those tournaments. That's good enough for me. How is using the official names of tournaments in an encyclopedia "illogical"? How is having a column with the official name right next to the column showing the location "confusing," especially given that the official name will the linked to the appropriate Wikipedia article? Finally, you really should WP:AGF and not presuppose anything about my internal thought processes. OK? Tennis expert (talk) 21:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

How about this: add the sponsored names (where available) to the tournament pages (like the French Wiki does, but leave them off the player biographies? IMO, it's interesting information to have on the tournament profile, but who the sponsor was doesn't really matter when looking at one player's results. Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 21:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

TennisExpert: LOOK! The ATP uses both. What do you have to say to that?!? Anyway, I would support Spyder_Monkey's suggestion, which is funnily enough what we were doing before TennisExpert decided to change a few things - rst20xx (talk) 22:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Spyder Monkey as well. —M.C. (talk) 01:22, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's do a brief survey of what the English-language news media does around the world. And let's use the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida as the example.
(1) New York Times: uses the official sponsored name (and Key Biscayne, Florida not Miami)
(2) London Times: uses the official sponsored name (and Key Biscayne, Florida not Miami)
(3) Sydney Morning Herald: uses the official sponsored name
(4) International Herald Tribune: uses the official sponsored name (and Key Biscayne, Florida not Miami)
(5) Times of India: uses the official sponsored name (and Key Biscayne, Florida not Miami)
(6) Dawn (Pakistan): uses the official sponsored name
(7) Reuters: uses the official sponsored name
(8) USA Today: uses the official sponsored name (and Key Biscayne, Florida not Miami)
(9) Tennis.com: uses the official sponsored name
(10) Xinhua (People's Republic of China): uses the official sponsored name
(11) The Star (South Africa): uses the official sponsored name.
(12) Pravda (Russia): uses the official sponsored name (and Key Biscayne, Florida not Miami).
Tennis expert (talk) 06:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's do a brief counter-survey of what the English-language news media does around the world. And let's use the Miami Masters as the example again.
(1) New York Times: uses "Miami Masters"
(2) The Times: uses "Miami Masters"
(3) Sydney Morning Herald: uses "Miami Masters"
(4) International Herald Tribune: uses "Miami Masters"
(5) Times of India: uses "Miami Masters"
(6) Dawn (Pakistan): uses "Miami Masters"
(7) Reuters: uses "Miami Masters"
(8) USA Today: uses "Miami Masters"
(9) Tennis.com: uses "Miami Masters"
(10) Xinhua (People's Republic of China): uses "Miami Masters"
(11) The Star (South Africa): uses "Miami Masters".
(12) Pravda (Russia): uses "Miami Open"?!?
I have to say, that is the most pointless activity I have ever been forced to carry out - rst20xx (talk) 14:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

What we're actually talking about doing here

Here are two tables based on the Roger Federer article that illustrate what I am advocating. The first table is the status quo. The second table is my proposal. As you can see, what I am advocating is neither radical nor unreasonable.

ATP Masters Series singles finals (23)
Wins (14)

Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Hamburg	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Indian Wells	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Hamburg (2)	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Toronto (Canada)	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Indian Wells (2)	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	Miami	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Hamburg (3)	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Cincinnati	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Indian Wells (3)	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	Miami (2)	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubicic	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Toronto (Canada) (2)	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Madrid	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Hamburg (4)	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Cincinnati (2)	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

ATP Masters Series singles finals (23)
Wins (14)

Year	Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Masters Series Hamburg	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Pacific Life Open	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Masters Series Hamburg (2)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Rogers Cup	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Pacific Life Open (2)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	NASDAQ-100 Open	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Masters Series Hamburg (3)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Pacific Life Open (3)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	NASDAQ-100 Open (2)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubičić	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Rogers Cup (2)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Madrid, Spain	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Masters Series Hamburg (4)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (2)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

Tennis expert (talk) 06:40, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a news delivering agency, sponsors should be mentioned as they are at the top of each tournament's article (or in the history), otherwise, no, and I am glad many agree with me, I don't have time to go any further on this, but I hope, I only hope for Wikipedia, that what's logical, and less confusing and easier to maintain is chosen and done, thanks all for your time and I'll look here every now and then, and oh yeah, comparing the two tables, a player wins a championship, not a tournament name. Yosef1987 (talk) 12:44, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

(1) I agree that Wikipedia is not a news delivery agency. But I don't see how that makes a difference. (2) You've already stated your personal preference several times. But then you throw in the logic argument without ever saying what makes the proposed table illogical. Actually, there's nothing illogical about it. (3) I've already addressed the maintenance issue, which is a red herring. (4) No where does the table say that a player "wins a tournament name." Geez.... Tennis expert (talk) 17:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I know it is over, but what does the "red herring" expression mean? and about the "wins a tournament name", isn't it the wins/runner-ups tables we are talking about? Tennis expert, through out the discussion I meant nothing bad and I know you are doing a good job to Wikipedia, like changing the names of the players to English letters, again thanks for your time Yosef1987 (talk) 11:37, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert, consensus is clearly against your opinion here. Several editors have voiced opposition to your opinion, presenting well reasoned arguments that both names are acceptable, but the latter is preferable as it is simpler. If you do not respect consensus, I will be forced to take this issue to some kind of higher body - rst20xx (talk) 14:55, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this is a discussion and you're already threatening me with taking the "issue to some kind of higher body." What would satisfy you? My shutting up and leaving the discussion? Please let me know what would make you comfortable! I definitely don't want to cause you Wikistress by just talking about things.... Tennis expert (talk) 17:25, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Several times have I pointed you to the fact that the ATP uses both types of name themselves, and yet you consistently ignore this, instead repeating your argument that only one name is "official". More recently you tried to demonstrate that several news agencies use the sponsor name, however I counterdemonstrated that those news agencies also use the non-sponsor name. That whole exercise was utterly pointless as you really should have checked whether they used both names or not yourself when you were initially constructing the argument.

This discussion has been going in circles for ages now due to your consistent refusal to acknowledge that the ATP and other bodies uses both names, and as a result I feel that the whole thing is becoming utterly pointless. So yes, if you choose to continue arguing for your position against demonstrated logic (the logic is simple: Both names are acceptable, one is easier) and also against consensus, then I will seek broader consensus, and leave it up to a higher body to decide which argument makes the most sense - rst20xx (talk) 17:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Go for it! The more people who participate in the discussion, the better the ultimate consensus will be. And please cite me the Wikipedia policy which says that people are not allowed to make their arguments on a discussion page, even if their arguments are in the minority. Tennis expert (talk) 18:15, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I was more saying that I think consensus has already been established, and that you are refusing to acknowledge this - rst20xx (talk) 18:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Another reason in favor of the proposal is that it helps with sorting. The proposal would allow people to sort by official name or by tournament location while the status quo allows sorting only by location. This is especially useful in the career results tables (not shown above). Tennis expert (talk) 18:20, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is a third possibility that preserves sortability and data that many of us would like to see:

ATP Masters Series singles finals (23)
Wins (14)

Year	Tournament Name	Sponsored Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Hamburg Masters (1)	Masters Series Hamburg (1)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Indian Wells Masters (1)	Pacific Life Open (1)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Hamburg Masters (2)	Masters Series Hamburg (2)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Canada Masters (1)	Rogers Cup (1)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Indian Wells Masters (2)	Pacific Life Open (2)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	Miami Masters (1)	NASDAQ-100 Open (1)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Hamburg Masters (3)	Masters Series Hamburg (3)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Cincinnati Masters (1)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (1)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Indian Wells Masters (3)	Pacific Life Open (3)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	Miami Masters (2)	NASDAQ-100 Open (2)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubičić	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Canada Masters (2)	Rogers Cup (2)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Madrid Masters	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Madrid, Spain	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Hamburg Masters (4)	Masters Series Hamburg (4)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Cincinnati Masters (2)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (2)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

Tennis expert (talk) 18:39, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I would be willing to compromise on this, however only if the links are on the Tourney and not Sponsored Tourney names. After all, this is where the articles are - rst20xx (talk) 18:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

And also I'd want the (3)s etc on the Tourney names as well (though I see no reason why they couldn't appear on both names) - rst20xx (talk) 18:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Good! See above revisions. Tennis expert (talk) 19:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I think linking the sponsored tournament name constitutes overlinking, but this is minor and otherwise I would be happy with this compromise (or with not including the sponsored name at all) - rst20xx (talk) 20:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

a) I think this is too big a table. I think one title should be enough. And I would go with the "X Masters" name. The sponsored name need not be there (that can be read about in the tournament article; the table is about a given player's performance), and location need not be there either (that can be read about in the tournament article, and mostly it is a repetition of tournament name - except for the particular case of Miami/Key Biscane :-) ).

b) I have never understood why bios should be plastered with repetitive tables. A summary table with the Slams, olympics and Masters in terms of W, SP, and so forth is fine. But I never understood the need for having a special section for detailed Slam finals performances, Masters Series finals performances, in additional to one for all finals (where great care is made into singling out - yet again - slams from masters and so forth). A lot of repetitions. --HJensen, talk 19:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem with relying on the sponsored name of the tournament being in the text is that the next proposal undoubtedly will be to substitute "X Masters" for wherever the sponsored name appears, which means that the sponsored name would disappear completely. That's not acceptable, in my opinion. As for repetitive tables, I agree with you to some extent. But I also believe that the consensus for including the various tables is overwhelming at this point. Tennis expert (talk) 07:32, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean the text of the players. But only on the touurnament page itself. As for repetitions, maybe it has never been properly discussed? Sometimes consensus just grows out of passivity. I think it is silly when looking at it now: all those things being repeated.--HJensen, talk 10:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I do like the new table, the official and the sponsored names appearing is a good idea. But I think that the LOCATION column should be taken out, like:

ATP Masters Series singles finals (23)
Wins (14)

Year	Tournament Name	Sponsored Tournament Name	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Hamburg Masters (1)	Masters Series Hamburg (1)	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Indian Wells Masters (1)	Pacific Life Open (1)	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Hamburg Masters (2)	Masters Series Hamburg (2)	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Canada Masters (1)	Rogers Cup (1)	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Indian Wells Masters (2)	Pacific Life Open (2)	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	Miami Masters (1)	NASDAQ-100 Open (1)	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Hamburg Masters (3)	Masters Series Hamburg (3)	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Cincinnati Masters (1)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (1)	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Indian Wells Masters (3)	Pacific Life Open (3)	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	Miami Masters (2)	NASDAQ-100 Open (2)	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubičić	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Canada Masters (2)	Rogers Cup (2)	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Madrid Masters	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Hamburg Masters (4)	Masters Series Hamburg (4)	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Cincinnati Masters (2)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (2)	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

But I find a problem with this: When Madrid masters place was taken by another masters and when Canada changes between Toronto/Montréal... But I don't think a location column should be there since in mostly case it's replicated information. 81.184.38.52 (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The tournament location column is not repetition. For example, the Rogers Cup is held in Montreal and Toronto in alternating years. Without the location column, the table would not say in which city that tournament was held. Aside from that, not everyone will know that the "Hamburg Masters" is held in Hamburg, Germany or that the "Indian Wells Masters" is held in "Indian Wells, California". (How many people actually know where Indian Wells is?) I still don't understand what you're saying about a Masters event "taking the place" of another. As I have said before, there is a difference between a Masters tournament moving from one city to another and a tournament losing its Masters status at the same time that another city receives Masters status. In the latter case, there is no "taking the place" of another. And in the former case, it's merely a change of location. Tennis expert (talk) 07:32, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I think location is mostly repetition but also not needed for the purpose. If people don't know where Hamburg is, they click on Hamburg. That's the beauty of wikilinks. Also, when clicking on Canada Masters they will learn that it alternates between cities. And so forth. Nice information, but information that I think is secondary to the player whose results are being described.--HJensen, talk 11:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I really like this new table, but if I may ask a question, I was meaning to improve Nadal's article and maybe, just maybe, it turns out to be good, otherwise reverted, in the article itself (not tables), the name used would be the non-sponsor, right? Thanks everyone and I hope it was a helpful discussion for Wikipedia. Yosef1987 (talk) 11:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the discussion can be declared as over (as you almost seem to imply). This is about major changes, so some time should be allowed to pass, and other editors whould have their words.--HJensen, talk 12:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, but atleast we are getting somewhere now, just a Q please, I do like the new table, because it has both names and thus solves problems, but, here's the catch, I am not a table editor, won't it be hard to modify all tables in case we settle on this? Yosef1987 (talk) 13:06, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

HJensen, the last table above does not have a direct link to "Hamburg, Germany". The links are all to the Hamburg Masters article. So, anyone who wants to know something about that strange Hamburg (or Indian Wells) place would have to go through multiple links and possibly get lost in the vastness of Wikipedia. That's why there should be a location column. It costs nothing, really. Tennis expert (talk) 19:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I would oppose the current table while the sponsor names are wikilinked, as this constitutes overlinking - rst20xx (talk) 14:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

First you were OK with it: "I think linking the sponsored tournament name constitutes overlinking, but this is minor and otherwise I would be happy with this compromise...." Now, you're opposed to it. Flip-flopping gets us no where. Tennis expert (talk) 19:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh and also, it appears this debate has spilled over to Talk:German Open (tennis). I'd appreciate if we could keep the discussion of that away from here, though, as otherwise things here are going to get even more complicated - rst20xx (talk) 14:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

You are the person that linked the two, through postings on that discussion page and a completely inappropriate and incivil message on my talk page. Now you want to keep that discussion over there.... Tennis expert (talk) 19:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Half joke

Or well, if you want we may have a completed info table (this is a half joke)

ATP Masters Series singles finals (23)
Wins (14)

Year	Tournament Name	Sponsored Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final	Match Time	Aces	Doubles Faults	Spectators
2002	Hamburg Masters (1)	Masters Series Hamburg (1)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Indian Wells Masters (1)	Pacific Life Open (1)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Hamburg Masters (2)	Masters Series Hamburg (2)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Canada Masters (1)	Rogers Cup (1)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Indian Wells Masters (2)	Pacific Life Open (2)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	Miami Masters (1)	NASDAQ-100 Open (1)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Hamburg Masters (3)	Masters Series Hamburg (3)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Cincinnati Masters (1)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (1)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Indian Wells Masters (3)	Pacific Life Open (3)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	Miami Masters (2)	NASDAQ-100 Open (2)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubičić	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Canada Masters (2)	Rogers Cup (2)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Madrid Masters	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Madrid, Spain	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Hamburg Masters (4)	Masters Series Hamburg (4)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Cincinnati Masters (2)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (2)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

As you see, the info on the table should be minimal, otherwise we can put something like this. 62.57.197.139 (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Aren't you supposed to be blocked for a week? Tennis expert (talk) 19:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Are u blind? I've answered that question 5 lines under this one. 81.184.38.42 (talk) 20:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to break the news to you, but people who are blocked are not allowed to edit or otherwise contribute to discussion pages. Tennis expert (talk) 03:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Finally a solution? Maybe / No, "mistakenly saw something"

Check this out everyone, from from the french wiki, where tennis is a featured article, this is Federer's career, you'll need to expand the tables, it uses both names in the table, I like that, and I guess that's great for everyone, even Nadal is like that on wiki fr and everyone else, ha? What do you think everyone???

Leaves out the career details, which I guess we'd go for non-sponsor name, for all the reason's I've discussed Yosef1987 (talk) 13:04, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

What are you talking about, it only uses the the sponsor's names in the "Titres et finales" tables... rst20xx (talk) 14:57, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

My bad, very sorry, I mistakenly saw something, forget about the above (sorry for the bold, doesn't mean shouting) Yosef1987 (talk) 11:25, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Wait, I just read Spyder_Monkey's reply, that's what I have been saying, so what is it gonna be? Yosef1987 (talk) 14:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

This is even worse than tennisexpert table's, only the sporsorship names and even no location. I find perfect the first table tennisexpert put here and not the second one. But this is taking so long and a decision should be made. 81.184.38.52 (talk) 15:49, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, check this edit on the FR version of the page someone put there: http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palmar%C3%A8s_et_statistiques_de_Roger_Federer&diff=32724016&oldid=32697725

they changed the names to the sponsors this week............................ 81.184.38.52 (talk) 15:50, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Aren't you blocked for a week? Tennis expert (talk) 17:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyways I'm able to edit on talk pages, but as ever, im kinda doggy to log in. 81.184.38.52 (talk) 21:32, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Where are we now?

Hey everyone, it is getting confusing now, where are we now please? Thanks Yosef1987 (talk) 20:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

See below - rst20xx (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Straw Poll

Right, well I think the consensus is either to have both sponsor and non-sponsor names, or to just have non-sponsor. I'm going to set up a straw poll on this, as despite some opposing such a move, I think it would demonstrate clear consensus for one and not the other, thus concluding the argument; I think the fact that we haven't done this is part of the reason that this discussion has dragged on for so long - rst20xx (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

So, to be clear:

Candidate a)

Year	Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Hamburg Masters (1)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Indian Wells Masters (1)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Hamburg Masters (2)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Canada Masters (1)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Indian Wells Masters (2)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	Miami Masters (1)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Hamburg Masters (3)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Cincinnati Masters (1)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Indian Wells Masters (3)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	Miami Masters (2)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubičić	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Canada Masters (2)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Madrid Masters	Madrid, Spain	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Hamburg Masters (4)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Cincinnati Masters (2)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

Candidate b)

Year	Tournament Name	Sponsored Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Hamburg Masters (1)	Masters Series Hamburg	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Indian Wells Masters (1)	Pacific Life Open	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Hamburg Masters (2)	Masters Series Hamburg	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Canada Masters (1)	Rogers Cup	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Indian Wells Masters (2)	Pacific Life Open	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	Miami Masters (1)	NASDAQ-100 Open	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Hamburg Masters (3)	Masters Series Hamburg	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Cincinnati Masters (1)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Indian Wells Masters (3)	Pacific Life Open	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	Miami Masters (2)	NASDAQ-100 Open	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubičić	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Canada Masters (2)	Rogers Cup	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Madrid Masters	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Madrid, Spain	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Hamburg Masters (4)	Masters Series Hamburg	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Cincinnati Masters (2)	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

Candidate c)

Year	Sponsored Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Masters Series Hamburg (1)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Pacific Life Open (1)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Masters Series Hamburg (2)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Rogers Cup (1)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
2005	Pacific Life Open (2)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Lleyton Hewitt	6–2, 6–4, 6–4
2005	NASDAQ-100 Open (1)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–7(4), 7–6(5), 6–3, 6–1
2005	Masters Series Hamburg (3)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–3, 7–5, 7–6(4)
2005	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (1)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	6–3, 7–5
2006	Pacific Life Open (3)	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	7–5, 6–3, 6–0
2006	NASDAQ-100 Open (2)	Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	Ivan Ljubičić	7–6(5), 7–6(4), 7–6(6)
2006	Rogers Cup (2)	Toronto, Canada	Hard (outdoor)	Richard Gasquet	2–6, 6–3, 6–2
2006	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Madrid, Spain	Hard (indoor)	Fernando González	7–5, 6–1, 6–0
2007	Masters Series Hamburg (4)	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Rafael Nadal	2–6, 6–2, 6–0
2007	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (2)	Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.	Hard (outdoor)	James Blake	6–1, 6–4

Survey

Please state your position below - rst20xx (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Note: To be completely clear, the intent of this vote is basically just to see whether we should have just a "Sponsored tournament name" column, just a "Tournament" column, or both. Nothing more, nothing less - rst20xx (talk) 23:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Support for Candidate a)

• Support a) - I wouldn't oppose b), but I think it's a bit too unwieldy, and all the information it provides can be found by clicking through on b) anyway. It's been demonstrated that the ATP uses both names, so any arguments that one is more legitimate than the other are, in my opinion, rendered moot - rst20xx (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support a) - Sponsored names are superfluous info on wikipedia. And what's with all this "Key Biscane" nonsense from TennisExpert. Most everyone knows it as Miami and if you apply the same convention the Cincinnati Masters is held in "Mason, Ohio" but nobody ever feels the need to mention that. --Armchair info guy (talk) 16:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support a) - Vote from Wikitestor, I know unknown Ips doesn't usually count on a vote, but remember I was the one that started all this. There's no need to have the sponsored names. 81.184.38.42 (talk) 16:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC) / Wikitestor (blocked but im talking on the discussion I started).

• Support a) - Same as rst20xx, but I suggest losing the location Yosef1987 (talk) 17:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm also with Yosef1987's idea of losing the locations. 81.184.38.42 (talk) 17:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Support for Candidate b)

Support b) When I am looking up information about a tennis player, I find it very useful to be presented with the tournament they won and the name of the tournament at the time they won it. It would be possible to find this information using the wikilinks, but table b) displays the information I want at a glance. Coyets (talk) 08:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Neutral/Comments

I realise that straw polls are not a substitute for establishing consensus through discussion, but I hope that support for a) will be so overwhelming that it will demonstrate that there is broad consensus, and that opposition is small (one?) but highly vocal vocal - rst20xx (talk) 19:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

62.57.197.139 kinda brought it up with the "joke" table, but I just don't see the need for separate columns for the tournament name and location. The only reason I can come up with for having two is for sorting separately, but the names and cities are usually the same. The exception is Montreal/Toronto, and sorting by city could cause confusion there, since they are the same tournament. Only one column seems just fine:

Year	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
2002	Hamburg Masters, Hamburg, Germany (1)	Clay	Marat Safin	6–1, 6–3, 6–4
2004	Indian Wells Masters, Indian Wells, California, U.S. (1)	Hard (outdoor)	Tim Henman	6–3, 6–3
2004	Hamburg Masters, Hamburg, Germany (2)	Clay	Guillermo Coria	4–6, 6–4, 6–2, 6–3
2004	Canada Masters, Toronto, Canada (1)	Hard (outdoor)	Andy Roddick	7–5, 6–3
etc.

Another thing: is this only for the Masters table, or for the complete results table as well? Because most of the regular tournaments' articles are the sponsored names, do we care about putting the tournament name in that table, too?

Also, to raise a broader issue, do we need a separate table to Masters/Tier I events? The information in any of the tables discussed would just be repeated in that table. The Masters and Grand Slams are already highlighted in the full table with color and (in some cases) bold text. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 20:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)ç

I also raised that point above. It is silly to discuss the format of a table that just repeats a lot of information from the career tables. Masters and slams are singled out anyway at the end in the performance timeline. The table should be deleted in my opinion--HJensen, talk 22:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Those all sound like good ideas to me. The intent of the vote above is basically just to see whether we should have a separate "Sponsored tournament name" column, nothing more, nothing less. In summary: Delete the separate Masters/Slams tables, merge the name and location columns. To answer your questions, firstly I think for both Masters and other results, and secondly, for the name, I think generally we should use the space that the tournament is located at, in other words don't use any piping. Some tournaments don't have non-sponsored names, and so we have to use the sponsored. Most that DO have non-sponsored names are located in the non-sponsored place. As for those that DO have non-sponsored names but are in the sponsored place, I would like to try to move those one by one, but that's a subject for a later debate - rst20xx (talk) 23:56, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I still don't find the location necessary but anyways it would fit a lot like this table instead of a separate column. Btw the idea is to adapt this format for all the tables (MS+career) but Grand Slams, which is currently fine actually. 81.184.38.42 (talk) 21:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I refuse to participate in a poll (straw or otherwise) that violates Wikipedia policy because it is being used as a substitute for and early terminator of discussion and the subsequent establishment of consensus. Plus, b) is not even my proposal; so, this "poll" doesn't allow people to choose from among all the available proposals. Finally, even if polling were a valid method, which it is not, 81.184.38.42/Wikitestor and all his sockpuppets are not allowed to vote because he has been blocked from editing Wikipedia. Tennis expert (talk) 06:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Try to see straw polls just as a means to bring the discussion forward. I don't like a) and b) either. And I am certain that everybody discounts the "votes" of 81.184.38.42/Wikitestor (can't we get the guy kicked completely?). My general worry is that so few are participating in something that could have consequences for all (at leat male) tennis bios. Should be put out "alerts" on talk pages on player talk pages?--HJensen, talk 07:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

But it doesn't bring forward the discussion. Rst20xx has artificially limited our choices to a) and b) without bothering to explain that those are the two he finds most acceptable to himself. This gives the totally false impression that the only two choices we've been considering are a) and b) or that somehow, we've already narrowed the possibilities down to a) and b). Neither is even remotely true. And no real consensus is going to be reached here given that only 4 or 5 editors have bothered to participate when there are hundreds of editors who regularly edit tennis biographies. As for alerts, that would be fine so long as there is no canvassing in violation of Wikipedia policy. Tennis expert (talk) 08:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, we have both commented on this. So that is a step forward (big or small). I can't see that anyone could think that a) and b) are the "final contestants". Never mind, let's get more onto this issue. How can we avoid canvassing? Isn't it permissible to just write something like "On the Tennis Project page a discussion has been started on the tournament names and table formats for tennis player bios. Hopefully as amny tennis editors as possible will join in, so a broad consensus can be reached"?--HJensen, talk 09:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert: I shall quote what I wrote above, right at the start of the survey: "To be completely clear, the intent of this vote is basically just to see whether we should have a separate "Sponsored tournament name" column, nothing more, nothing less". These are not meant to represent what we are going to go with, this is just a poll on whether we should have a sponsored name column at all. I accept that most people wouldn't be happy entirely with either of the tables, but we're not picking the tables here, we're picking whether to have a sponsored name column. Once we have done this, we can move on to other parts of the tables.

Now, as far as I can tell, no-one has suggested so far that they would have just the sponsored name column, even you were in favour of both before. Hence my excluding just the sponsored name column as an option. If you think this is wrong, I would happily add it as option c), but to be honest, I can't help but feel you're kicking up a fuss mainly because the results are showing strongly against your positon - rst20xx (talk) 15:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

No one can help you with your internal thought processes or what you infer from others. The fact is that your so-called poll does not show any opposition to my position because your poll does not reflect my position. You left out my position when you unilaterally chose a) and b). It's weird that you think you can somehow direct this discussion toward your predetermined outcome. But that's the inherent problem with polling instead of discussion. Tennis expert (talk) 19:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Why can't you just assume good faith, since you're an experienced editor, and come up with your preferred suggestions instead of just saying that you don't like a) and b)? I don't support them either, and I will soon present my own suggestion. Call it a poll, call it a discussion, call it anything but get things going. That's my intention, and we are actually discussing here! (Did anybody care to invite others in? Cf. my proposal above.) --HJensen, talk 23:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert: But I explained how this is just meant to be about the sponsored name, not the rest of the design, and pointed out there are 3 positions on this: include both, include one, or include the other. And seeing as how you yourself were the one that proposed both, I didn't think that just sponsored was still under consideration. So you've completely failed to explain what's wrong with my poll, instead just saying that you "don't agree with any of the options", despite the fact that the only option it doesn't include is one that I had good reason to believe no-one would support. I have added option c) now, so vote for it if you like, but if you're still not happy then I can only assume that you do not understand the clearly stated intent of this poll. To state it again: To be completely clear, the intent of this vote is basically just to see whether we should have just a "Sponsored tournament name" column, just a "Tournament" column, or both. Nothing more, nothing less - rst20xx (talk)

I've already explained what's wrong with polling. But I'll WP:AGF and just assume you didn't read it yet. Tennis expert (talk) 07:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok. You have now told that you don't like the discussion here. Could you instead please state what your opinion the the matter discussed here is? You want the status quo, or?--HJensen, talk 07:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I already have stated my preference, here and here. Tennis expert (talk) 08:07, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

(reset) Soooo... that's candidate c) then - rst20xx (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not participating in your poll that's in violation of Wikipedia policy and designed to short-circuit discussion and force consensus in the direction you want. Tennis expert (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Future (2009) changes on tennis players articles.

I mean the changes from the Master Series and International Gold Series to the new 1000series and 500series.

This will knock-out completely the info we actually have organized and I think we may do a line and make new tables for that. Please expose here your arguments. PD: please tennisexpert, don't post something similar to "It will be done like xxx article." because i'm not the only one tired of your prepotency here. Wikitestor (talk) 20:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess for 2009 the solution won't be hard, going from Master Series to 1000 Series won't affect the tables, even the singles performance timelines. "Hamburg has been displaced by the new clay court event at Madrid", so? The table might read Hamburg/Madrid Yosef1987 (talk) 21:19, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

BTW, the calendar is now out http://www.atptennis.com/1/en/2008news/calendars.asp —M.C. (talk) 21:29, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a big difference between a tournament moving from one location to another and a tournament replacing another tournament on the tennis schedule. Madrid is a completely separate tournament from Hamburg, i.e., the Hamburg tournament is not moving to Madrid in 2009. Tennis expert (talk) 21:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Madrid is already a Master Series (like Hamburgo), moreover, Madrid will become a 1000 series and Hamburgo a 500 series... you said a obvious thing but you didn't said anything to solve this problem, your comments has not anything relevant, really. 81.184.38.161 (talk) 23:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

What is the relevance of your comments? Please cool it down a bit. HJensen, talk 13:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The top level tournaments will be known as "Masters 1000" tournaments in 2009 according to the official ATP calendar. Tennis expert (talk) 21:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

So? we are asking what to do when this changes not this small detail, and remember MS hamburgo will be a 500s not a 1000s so this will not fit. 81.184.38.161 (talk) 22:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll spell it out for you. The 1000 tournaments will still have "Masters" in their names, which is not much different from their names in 2008. Tennis expert (talk) 09:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

For the performance timelines, I'm sure we'll end up doing something like what some of the women's articles have - see this diacritic-named article for an example. In fact, generally looking at the women's stuff would be good: See also this - rst20xx (talk) 23:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean? the giant blankspace with "No Tier I" on it? I am sorry to say it, but this is the worst option you could've used for that. Moreover its a chaos: half of the tennis women articles have that and all the tournaments on the same side and the other half has like 2 sections of the table. 81.184.38.161 (talk) 00:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

TennisPortal -> Hey, I fixed up {{TennisPortal}} to include on pages related to Tennis (for 2009) - Mjquin_id (talk) 04:52, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Tournament tables

I suggest that we eliminate having separate Tennis Masters Series, Tennis Masters Cup, and WTA Tour Championships tables in all tennis biographies and instead have a "Career Finals" table with appropriate color coding. (The Grand Slam tournaments tables would remain.) Here's an example of what I am talking about using the data for Rafael Nadal:

Wins (31)

Legend Grand Slam Tournaments (5) Tennis Masters Cup (0) Olympic Gold (1) ATP Masters Series (12) ATP Tour (13)

Titles by Surface Hard (7) Clay (22) Grass (2) Carpet (0)

No.	Date	Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1.	August 15 2004	Orange Prokom Open	Sopot, Poland	Clay	José Acasuso	6–3, 6–4
2.	February 20 2005	Brasil Open	Costa do Sauípe, Brazil	Clay	Alberto Martín	6–0, 6–7(2), 6–1
3.	February 27 2005	Abierto Mexicano TELCEL	Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Albert Montañés	6–1, 6–0
4.	April 17 2005	Masters Series Monte Carlo	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Guillermo Coria	6–3, 6–1, 0–6, 7–5
5.	April 24 2005	Open Sabadell Atlántico	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Juan Carlos Ferrero	6–1, 7–6(4), 6–3
6.	May 8 2005	Internazionali BNL d'Italia	Rome	Clay	Guillermo Coria	6–4, 3–6, 6–3, 4–6, 7–6(6)
7.	June 5 2005	French Open	Paris	Clay	Mariano Puerta	6–7(6), 6–3, 6–1, 7–5
8.	July 10 2005	Swedish Open	Båstad, Sweden	Clay	Tomáš Berdych	2–6, 6–2, 6–4
9.	July 24 2005	Mercedes Cup	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay	Gastón Gaudio	6–3, 6–3, 6–4
10.	August 14 2005	Rogers Cup	Montréal, Canada	Hard	Andre Agassi	6–3, 4–6, 6–2
11.	September 18 2005	China Open	Beijing	Hard	Guillermo Coria	5–7, 6–1, 6–2
12.	October 23 2005	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Madrid, Spain	Hard (i)	Ivan Ljubičić	3–6, 2–6, 6–3, 6–4, 7–6(3)
13.	March 4 2006	Dubai Duty Free Men's Open	Dubai, United Arab Emirates	Hard	Roger Federer	2–6, 6–4, 6–4
14.	April 23 2006	Masters Series Monte Carlo	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Roger Federer	6–2, 6–7(2), 6–3, 7–6(5)
15.	April 30 2006	Open Sabadell Atlántico	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Tommy Robredo	6–4, 6–4, 6–0
16.	May 14 2006	Internazionali BNL d'Italia	Rome	Clay	Roger Federer	6–7(0), 7–6(5), 6–4, 2–6, 7–6(5)
17.	June 11 2006	French Open	Paris	Clay	Roger Federer	1–6, 6–1, 6–4, 7–6(4)
18.	March 18 2007	Pacific Life Open	Indian Wells, California, U.S.	Hard	Novak Djokovic	6–2, 7–5
19.	April 22 2007	Masters Series Monte Carlo	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Roger Federer	6–4, 6–4
20.	April 29 2007	Open Sabadell Atlántico	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Guillermo Cañas	6–3, 6–4
21.	13 May 2007	Internazionali BNL d'Italia	Rome	Clay	Fernando González	6–2, 6–2
22.	June 10 2007	French Open	Paris	Clay	Roger Federer	6–3, 4–6, 6–3, 6–4
23.	July 22 2007	Mercedes Cup	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay	Stanislas Wawrinka	6–4, 7–5
24.	April 27 2008	Masters Series Monte Carlo	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Roger Federer	7–5, 7–5
25.	May 4 2008	Open Sabadell Atlántico	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	David Ferrer	6–1, 4–6, 6–1
26.	May 18 2008	Masters Series Hamburg	Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Roger Federer	7–5, 6–7(3), 6–3
27.	June 8 2008	French Open	Paris	Clay	Roger Federer	6–1, 6–3, 6–0
28.	June 15 2008	The Artois Championships	Queen's Club, London	Grass	Novak Djokovic	7–6(6), 7–5
29.	July 6 2008	Wimbledon	London	Grass	Roger Federer	6–4, 6–4, 6–7(5), 6–7(8), 9–7
30.	July 27 2008	Rogers Cup	Toronto, Canada	Hard	Nicolas Kiefer	6–3, 6–2
31.	August 17, 2008	Summer Olympics	Beijing, China	Hard	Fernando González	6–3, 7-6(2), 6-3

Tennis expert (talk) 20:32, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with eliminating the separate tables. They're just repeated information. However, as above, I don't really see the need for two separate columns. I also don't see the need for the sponsored tournament names in the player articles (I do think they should be added to the tournament articles), as they don't really add any further understanding to the player's biography.

(legend omitted for brevity)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1.	August 15 2004	Sopot, Poland	Clay	José Acasuso	6–3, 6–4
2.	February 20 2005	Costa do Sauípe, Brazil	Clay	Alberto Martín	6–0, 6–7(2), 6–1
3.	February 27 2005	Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Albert Montañés	6–1, 6–0
4.	April 17 2005	Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Guillermo Coria	6–3, 6–1, 0–6, 7–5

Granted, this is basically what we have now, except that the piped tournament link contains both the city and country. I think that adding the sponsored names here, in addition to not improving the quality of information, would be too hard to find and maintain, especially before 2000 or so. It also may cut down on mistakes; for example, in the proposal above, the 2005 Barcelona event is named "Open Sabadell Atlántico", when it was actually "Open SEAT". I'm not trying to call you out, Tennis_Expert, I'm just saying that those types of mistakes are easy to make and hard to find. To wit: I spent about 45 minutes last night moving a bunch of "Next Generation Adelaide International" articles to just "Adelaide International", because the sponsor didn't exist before 1999. If we do decide to go with sponsored names in these tables, I would favor something similar to how the French Wiki and my earlier proposal do it. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 21:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with one column including both the name of a tournament and its location is that the location is no longer sortable. This is a huge hindrance, in my opinion. And, no, it's not hard at all to find the sponsored names of tournaments before 2000, as I've said before. But if mistakes are made, correct them. That's what editors do on Wikipedia. Tennis expert (talk) 07:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the sorting function is a nuisance that should be eliminated (when one sort under one criteria, one gets, by unsorting, often not back to the beginning; i.e., the chronological order). Maybe tournaments could be interesting to sort, but as long as the sort function also makes the table sortable for dates (in strange formats), results, I think it should be dropped. Does anybody know if it is possible to make only some columns sortable?--HJensen, talk 10:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

When sorting messes things up for you, all you have to do is reset the table by sorting by number (the first column). Couldn't be easier! Tennis expert (talk) 15:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

For tables that do have the number that works. I think I was aware of that. For the others we are looking at here there are no numbers. In any case what is the argument of sorting on scores, dates and so forth? And to everybody else: Does anybody know if it is possible to make only some columns sortable? It is not a good thing to present a sorting option on everything in my opinion. I dare not say it, but I have reverted the sorting facility in many bios, and it was not challenged. Isn't it consensus then?--HJensen, talk 18:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

My last suggestion includes the number column. I sort tables constantly by date, tournament name, tournament location, surface, and/or opponent for research and other purposes. Having all these columns is invaluable and crucial to my work on Wikipedia and costs nothing to people who don't care about having all that sortable data readily available. I simply do not understand the opposition, other than the "I don't like it" argument. The French-language Wikipedia has got the sponsored name thing exactly right except that the tournament location needs to be in a separate column instead of combined with the tournament name. By the way, sortable columns is everywhere in tennis articles now. It appears to be the consensus to allow it. Tennis expert (talk) 19:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I like Tennis Expert's Idea and am completly 100 percent behind him; however, I also think that I am against Spider Monkey's idea with only having the city it is located. I am pretty sure that most people will not realize what tournament it is if they only have the city and country there. I know that there are many tennis stadiums in Paris and it will be hard for newcomers of tennis to differ between French Open and the Paris Intl. Championships. Reply to my talk page for any more ideas or comments! Hurricane06 (talk) 18:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC).

I like Spyder_Monkey's table, but would prefer to still have the (non-sponsored) tournament name visible, as it makes the tournament much easier to identify. So, in an ideal world, I would have this:

(legend omitted for brevity)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1.	August 15 2004	Orange Prokom Open, Sopot, Poland	Clay	José Acasuso	6–3, 6–4
2.	February 20 2005	Brasil Open, Costa do Sauípe, Brazil	Clay	Alberto Martín	6–0, 6–7(2), 6–1
3.	February 27 2005	Abierto Mexicano TELCEL(2), Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Albert Montañés	6–1, 6–0
4.	April 17 2005	Monte Carlo Masters, Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Guillermo Coria	6–3, 6–1, 0–6, 7–5
5.	June 15 2008	Queen's Club Championships(4), London, England	Grass	Novak Djokovic	7–6(6), 7–5

Note not Artois Championships, but Queen's Club Championships - rst20xx (talk) 23:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, you do have sponsored names in there: Orange Prokom and Telcel. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 02:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes I know, but as far as I can tell, those two tournaments fall into the small category of those with no clear non-sponsored name. There are some tournaments like that, and in those cases I feel that we have to settle for using the sponsored name - rst20xx (talk) 14:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hence, I think the simplest way to do it would be to make sure all tournament articles are moved to the non-sponsored name, if possible, and then we can avoid piping as much as possible - rst20xx (talk) 14:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That's completely ridiculous! Let's have sponsored names for some tournaments but outlaw them for others. And who exactly will determine whether a particular tournament has a "clear non-sponsored name"? Oh, that's right. You will. See the Qatar Telecom German Open naming fiasco you initiated and have perpetuated. Tennis expert (talk) 15:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, actually, whatever consensus is, when there's a survey for each proposed move. Oh, and it looks like consensus is for German Open (tennis), not Qatar Telecom German Open, so maybe it wasn't me that decided after all, but the community :) rst20xx (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your proposal, Tennis Expert. Why do you mix sponsored names with non-sponsored names? E.g., in 2005 Nadal won the "Synsam Swedish Open", but you only write Swedish Open. Why is that? (I hope not that it is a "naming fiasco" :-) ).--HJensen, talk 18:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not my intention. The sponsored name should appear in the table whenever there is a sponsored name. Tennis expert (talk) 19:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Table legend

(split from the above general discussion --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 02:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC))

Also I think the colours could be a little bit stronger, as they're hard to see on some monitors (except of course the Olympic colour). Not intrusive though, more like this:

Legend

Grand Slam Tournaments (5)

Tennis Masters Cup (0)

Olympic Gold (1)

ATP Masters Series (12)

ATP Tour (13)

Chars, rst20xx (talk) 23:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The Slovak Wiki has a dedicated template for this legend (sk:Šablóna:ATP legenda) and for each of the colors, e.g. sk:Šablóna:ATP legenda/ATP International Series, to place within the table. Check it out, and you'll see what I mean. That would help keep the colors consistent across all articles. We could add the number of tournaments to it as well.

Whatever colors are used should be commonized as much as possible across both men's and women's tables (e.g. the Masters Series color would be the same as Tier I). We should also consider Accessibility and Colo(u)rblindness compatibility. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 02:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a really good idea. It kind of mirrors what I recently did with Template:Draw key, but is even more sophisticated because of the colour thing - rst20xx (talk) 14:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia already has one that integrates the number of tournaments: fr:Modèle:Titres simple joueur de tennis. So I think it should be gone ahead with - templates were made for this kind of purpose. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 22:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I see tennisexpert keeps IGNORING EVERYONE and just posting the tables with this style, I will post how the tables were BEFORE they started changing them all, like they are now:

Legend Olympic Gold (1) Grand Slam Tournaments (5) Tennis Masters Cup (0) ATP Masters Series (12) ATP Tour (13)

Titles by Surface Hard (7) Clay (22) Grass (2) Carpet (0)

No.	Date	Tournament, Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1.	August 15 2004	Sopot, Poland	Clay	José Acasuso	6–3, 6–4
2.	February 20 2005	Costa do Sauípe, Brasil	Clay	Alberto Martín	6–0, 6–7(2), 6–1
3.	February 27 2005	Acapulco, Mexico	Clay	Albert Montañés	6–1, 6–0
4.	April 17 2005	Masters Series Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Guillermo Coria	6–3, 6–1, 0–6, 7–5
5.	April 24 2005	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Juan Carlos Ferrero	6–1, 7–6(4), 6–3
6.	May 8 2005	Masters Series Rome, Italy	Clay	Guillermo Coria	6–4, 3–6, 6–3, 4–6, 7–6(6)
7.	June 5 2005	French Open, Paris, France	Clay	Mariano Puerta	6–7(6), 6–3, 6–1, 7–5
8.	July 10 2005	Båstad, Sweden	Clay	Tomáš Berdych	2–6, 6–2, 6–4
9.	July 24 2005	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay	Gastón Gaudio	6–3, 6–3, 6–4
10.	August 14 2005	Masters Series Montréal (Canada)	Hard	Andre Agassi	6–3, 4–6, 6–2
11.	September 18 2005	Beijing, China	Hard	Guillermo Coria	5–7, 6–1, 6–2
12.	October 23 2005	Master Series Madrid, Spain	Hard (i)	Ivan Ljubicic	3–6, 2–6, 6–3, 6–4, 7–6(3)
13.	March 4 2006	Dubai, United Arab Emirates	Hard	Roger Federer	2–6, 6–4, 6–4
14.	April 23 2006	Masters Series Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Roger Federer	6–2, 6–7(2), 6–3, 7–6(5)
15.	April 30 2006	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Tommy Robredo	6–4, 6–4, 6–0
16.	May 14 2006	Masters Series Rome, Italy	Clay	Roger Federer	6–7(0), 7–6(5), 6–4, 2–6, 7–6(5)
17.	June 11 2006	French Open, Paris, France	Clay	Roger Federer	1–6, 6–1, 6–4, 7–6(4)
18.	March 18 2007	Masters Series Indian Wells, USA	Hard	Novak Djokovic	6–2, 7–5
19.	April 22 2007	Masters Series Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Roger Federer	6–4, 6–4
20.	April 29 2007	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	Guillermo Cañas	6–3, 6–4
21.	May 13 2007	Masters Series Rome, Italy	Clay	Fernando González	6–2, 6–2
22.	June 10 2007	French Open, Paris, France	Clay	Roger Federer	6–3, 4–6, 6–3, 6–4
23.	July 22 2007	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay	Stanislas Wawrinka	6–4, 7–5
24.	April 27 2008	Masters Series Monte Carlo, Monaco	Clay	Roger Federer	7–5, 7–5
25.	May 4 2008	Barcelona, Spain	Clay	David Ferrer	6–1, 4–6, 6–1
26.	May 18 2008	Masters Series Hamburg, Germany	Clay	Roger Federer	7–5, 6–7(3), 6–3
27.	June 8 2008	French Open, Paris, France	Clay	Roger Federer	6–1, 6–3, 6–0
28.	June 15 2008	London Queen's Club, United Kingdom	Grass	Novak Djokovic	7–6(6), 7–5
29.	July 6 2008	Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom	Grass	Roger Federer	6–4, 6–4, 6–7(5), 6–7(8), 9–7
30.	July 27 2008	Masters Series Toronto (Canada)	Hard	Nicolas Kiefer	6–3, 6–2
31.	August 17, 2008	Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, China	Hard	Fernando González	6–3, 7-6(2), 6-3

This means, NOT SPONSORED NAMES, like we talked in the discussion above, the tournament names and the country, theres not more info needed. 81.184.39.254 (talk) 17:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Aren't you blocked for a week? Or does blocking not matter to you? Tennis expert (talk) 19:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, well, look

It seems the sponsored names in tables thing is somewhat going in circles. My reading of the discussion so far is that every editor except Tennis expert would prefer not to have sponsored names, but have non-sponsored names instead, where possible. Tennis expert claims that the fact he opposes non-sponsored names means there's no consensus for non-sponsored names, but I think almost all editors would consider that one voice opposing something is not enough to override consensus in favour of that something, and that's really the crux of the issue we're having here - rst20xx (talk) 20:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion is ongoing. There is no consensus yet for anything. And we need to get more people involved. Four or five opinions are hardly enough for such an important and far-reaching decision. Tennis expert (talk) 20:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, bloody Hell, can we at least stop changing pages whilst this discussion is ongoing?

Tennis expert is still going about changing the tables from sponsored to nonsponsored, citing the edit summary as "copyedit". Look at this edit he made today. I would expect editors involved in the above discussion to cease all changes directly related to it until its conclusion, and I think this is seriously disruptive behaviour - rst20xx (talk) 00:09, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

You mean from non-sponsored to sponsored :S I dunno what to say Yosef1987 (talk) 00:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, that's what I meant - rst20xx (talk) 00:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, let's work out a consensus here before changing articles. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 02:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hear, hear. --HJensen, talk 10:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, Tennis expert's edits are continuing, but he's changed tack slightly. Looking here for example, he appears to instead be (1) removing tournament locations and (2) carrying out the bizarre practice of linking to the French Wikipedia, where no English article is available. I still think these edits are somewhat disruptive - (1) is directly under discussion, and I think any changes to the tables at all now should clearly be brought about through consensus, which there is not for either (1) or (2). I have taken the preliminary step of notifying Tennis expert of this discussion on his talk page, here, and if his edits continue, then I feel we need to report him - rst20xx (talk) 18:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Bizarre? Hardly. See this. It should be obvious to you that there is no consensus in this discussion about anything. So, the pre-existing status quo about editing tennis articles still exists. I didn't remove any tournament locations from the Manuela Maleeva article. More misrepresentations of fact by you. Was that intentional or just pure negligence? Either way, stop doing it. Tennis expert (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

While I think consensus is forming to be against your opinion, whether consensus is established yet or not is irrelevant, the fact of that matter is that while a discussion is ongoing, all activities related to the subjects of the discussion should be suspended, as they may end up to have been made in the wrong direction - rst20xx (talk) 20:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not the way Wikipedia works. Should consensus form, any edits not in conformance with that consensus can be reversed or changed appropriately. No edit is irrevocable. Tennis expert (talk) 20:08, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

You didn't get the point yet: he doesn't care about this discussion, he keeps doing the things he wants, look up: we have been like 2 days on the discussion and like everyone doesn't want sponsored names, and now he opens a new discussion for the general table with the same sponsored style again. He should be taken out of this discussion since he is not interacting with the other people. 81.184.39.254 (talk) 17:35, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Aren't you supposed to be blocked for a week? Tennis expert (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Tennisexpert is changing all the old articles to his sponsored style

... even when we are trying to get a consensus and mostly everyone doesn't want his style.

I don't know if we can do anything about this because instead of being quiet and talk properly on the discussion, he is changing old players articles to sponsored styles (and probably later he will use this to reason to put the new ones like them). I think this should be reported since he is thinking that he owns the wikipedia or something, ignoring all the rest of us. 81.184.39.254 (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. Besides, aren't you supposed to be blocked for a week? Tennis expert (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I just know you've nothing to say because I can find the same thing 4 times on this page lol. 81.184.39.254 (talk) 21:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know but maybe it is rst20xx pointed to? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jim_Courier&diff=prev&oldid=235782913 Yosef1987 (talk) 21:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Wider Input on Sponsored Names

As this page is under semi-protection, IP users may not be able to add their comments to this discussion. If you would like to, please feel free to place comments on my talk page and I will transpose them here (provided they're not from the offending user that caused the block. Gnowor (talk) 17:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I have invited wider input [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], and notified all WP:Tennis members, and request that the conversation moves to this section.

To reiterate, this discussion is about the tournament tables found on tennis player articles (i.e. this type of table). The dispute is over the "Tournament Name" column, with the options being to either use the "sponsored tournament name" - in other words, the name involving the sponsor, for example Internazionali BNL d'Italia - or the "non-sponsored tournament name" - in other words, Rome Masters. I shall now attempt to provide a brief summary of the arguments made so far:

• Pro-sponsored says that the sponsored name is more official, pointing out that it is the one the ATP uses in most cases, however anti-sponsored has pointed out that sometimes (e.g. here) the ATP uses the non-sponsored name, for simplicity and to avoid confusion.
• On that note, anti-sponsored argues that using sponsored names makes tournaments harder to identify, and also that as sponsored names change regularly (e.g. see here), this further compounds the identification problem. They also point out that the name changes mean that editors are more likely to make mistakes when editing the tables.
• Pro-sponsored has tried to argue that sponsored names are more common in the media, but anti-sponsored has so far been able to demonstrate that most media sources use both names.
• For some tournaments there is no clear non-sponsored name, in which case, all editors agree that the sponsored name must be used.
• One related thing worth thinking about is where these articles are actually located, for example, at Rome Masters, not at Internazionali BNL d'Italia (which is a redirect). It seems to me that most tournaments that have non-sponsored names are located at the non-sponsored name. I would imagine that most anti-sponsored people would advocate moving any articles that have a non-sponsored name to be located at that non-sponsored name (e.g. if Rome Masters redirected to Internazionali BNL d'Italia, they would want to see that reversed).
• Both sides seem to agree that the articles being linked to should themselves mention both names (a la 2008 Canada Masters says: "The 2008 Canada Masters (also known as the Rogers Cup for sponsorship reasons)...").
• There was a discussion about simply including both names in the table, but most seemed to agree that this made the table too unwieldy.

Thanks for any input you can provide - rst20xx (talk) 21:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to have to vote anti-sponsored. This is based on standardization from other sports, i.e. the Bowl Championship Series of NCAA Football, as well as being more concise and easier to follow based on changing names. I'd vote for Anti-Sponsored on player tables, Anti-Sponsored article names (w/ sponsored redirects) and a history (table?) on the tournament articles indicating sponsor tournament names/years. I agree that sponsored sounds more official and may be what's used in some cases, but taking a page from someplace I can't identify, shouldn't a goal of an encyclopedia be ease-of-use/reading?(Debate this last statement on my talk page as I'm sure we won't have room here.) Gnowor (talk) 22:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The goal of an encyclopedia should be factual accuracy, based on verifiable, reliable sources. The problem with using any tournament name that is not the official sponsored name is the lack of verifiable, reliable sources for the unsponsored name. Needless and energy-sapping disputes among Wikipedia editors would arise whenever the official sponsored name is ignored and editors are searching for an alternative. There is no question that the organizations running the professional tennis tours for both men (Association of Tennis Professionals) and women (Women's Tennis Association) far more frequently use the official sponsored name. There is no reason to ignore their usage, especially given that the news media also uses the official sponsored name most of the time. Despite what others have said or implied in this discussion, the short-hand names preferred by them, such as "Indian Wells Masters", are not generic, either. The word "Masters" is itself a trademarked, commercial term. So, the opponents to using official sponsored tournament names are completely inconsistent in their reasoning. They're willing to use "Masters" and similar commercial terms but balk at using the full sponsored names. That is irrational and faulty thinking. Aside from all these problems, many men's tournaments that are "Masters" today existed before tournaments started being designated "Masters" events, e.g., the Italian Open, now known as the Internazionali BNL d'Italia. What should we call those tournaments? The irrefutable fact is that tournament names change from time-to-time, just as their locations occasionally change. There is no easy solution to this. Ignoring official sponsored names does not fix this problem in the least. Tennis expert (talk) 08:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

See reply below - rst20xx (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

this issue annoyed me for quite a while and I'm glad there is some discussion raised right now, I certainly would prefer the name of tournament to stay non-sponsored as those names could constantly be changing and they are highly unfamiliar with Tennis fans and people interested in Tennis, I believe leaving the names as "Canada Masters" or "Rome Masters" is better and more encyclopedic IMO. Habibko (talk) 23:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The term "Masters" is a commercial term just like the official sponsored name of a tournament is. Why do you believe it is OK to use one commercial term but not another? Tennis expert (talk) 08:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and so is "Wimbledon". It is the name of a commercial tennis tournament. I think the difference is that "Masters" is not closely related to a product I can buy. Neither is "Masters" a firm that produces a product I can buy. I cannot buy a Wimbledon either. But "Pacific Life", e.g., is the name of an insurance company that provides services I can buy. Indian Wells Masters is a commercial tennis tournament, but it doesn't sell products (aside from merchandise). So I guess there is a difference between sponsors and the name of commercial tournaments. Probably you can come up with borderline cases where the tournament name originates in a sponsor's name; in those cases I think common English usage should be the deciding factor. As for "Canada Masters" or "Rogers Cup", both are used by the ATP, and if we should chose only one, I would go with the first, as it indicates clearly what series of tournaments it belongs to. Also it is probably more stable than the sponsored name.--HJensen, talk 17:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, you can buy the product of a "Masters" tournament! When you buy a ticket to the event or a souvenir t-shirt, you are buying something from the tournament. And "Canada Masters" is not a stable name for the event. It's not even the name of the tournament. The tournament has been a "Masters" event only since the Masters Series was started. The tournament itself is far older. Aside from those facts, on what basis do we choose "Canada Masters" over "Rogers Cup"? In other words, what are the criteria that English-language Wikipedia should follow? Are the criteria based on our squeamishness with commercial activities? In other words, is it the "smell test" or "I'll know it when I see it"? We appear to be OK with the official sponsored name of a tournament if that is the only name available. But I guarantee that for every tournament that's ever existed, I can find (probably accidental) variation in the news media about how they referred to the tournament. So, the "only name available" criterion will fail in every case. The only viable alternative, to avoid endless debates, is to use the official names of tournaments. Tennis expert (talk) 19:12, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Rst20xx, there are several problems with your summary. (1) Your summary should include a very brief disclosure about your position on these issues so that people new to the discussion can determine for themselves whether your summary is accurate and impartial. (2) Please don't censor the request for discussion by prematurely denigrating one of the options, as you did in your last bullet. That option is still on the table. (3) A big part of this debate is whether the separate tables for Tennis Masters Series tournaments, the Tennis Masters Cup, and the WTA Tour Championships should be deleted in favor of having just one table that covers all kinds of tournaments plus one other table that covers just Grand Slam tournaments. (4) Your summary fails to disclose that the official sponsored names of tennis tournaments is already frequently used in English-language Wikipedia articles and is the standard in French-language Wikipedia articles. Therefore, the current consensus appears to be that whether official sponsored names is used in a particular English-language article is up to the editors of that article, which makes perfect sense to me and avoids widespread and unproductive edit warring.

Aside from the problems with your summary, I have the following additional comments. (1) The most directly relevant article to this discussion, List of tennis tournaments, has long used the official sponsored names of virtually all current tournaments and for most tournaments from the past that are no longer being held. An English-language Wikipedia ban on official sponsored names would require a complete rewrite of that article, which is one of the most useful tennis-related articles on Wikipedia. (2) See my previous comment here, which emphasizes how important official sponsored names are to some editors and how including them is costless. (3) See this perfectly reasonable suggestion. (4) I have said before, "The problem with one column including both the name of a tournament and its location is that the location is no longer sortable." That's a huge problem for frequent tennis editors. Tennis expert (talk) 07:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

See reply below - rst20xx (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

One addition to this correction of the summary. I have raised the issue that no tournaments should have special tables. I favor no repetition. So, Grand Slams should in my opinion also just be in the big tournament table. (They get special treatment in the infobox and performance timeline in any case.).--HJensen, talk 17:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

That's true, I left that out though as I think it's unrelated to the sponsorship discussion and also no-one seemed to be arguing with it - rst20xx (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

As I have said, there is substantial disagreement about whether Grand Slam tournaments should continue to have a separate table. Tennis expert (talk) 19:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm quite happy to see it decided on a case-by-case basis - I don't see the need for either a uniform endorsement or ban of sponsor names. In similar situations in football articles, sometimes the sponsored name is by far the most common (Veikkausliiga, Tippeligaen, Setanta Sports Cup, Emirates Stadium, FC Red Bull Salzburg) and in other cases it is not (Baltic League not Triobet Baltic League, Copa Sudamericana not Copa Nissan Sudamericana, CAF Champions League not MTN CAF Champions League, Premier League not Barclays Premier League). Just pick which is the most common over all media in each case separately. Knepflerle (talk) 09:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I would say that non-sponsored names are (without exception) more common, though no doubt Tennis expert would dispute that til the cows come home - rst20xx (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Knepflerle about there not being a ban on sponsored names. But I would go an additional step. In all English-language Wikipedia articles about tennis, the current official name of the tournament should be used except in articles that are describing a particular historical period about a tournament (such as an article about the 1957 Italian Championships). Whether the official name has a sponsor in it should be wholly irrelevant. Determining the official name of a tournament should be based on verifiable, reliable, English-language sources. Tennis expert (talk) 19:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

And that's where we disagree with each other, and where your proposal disagrees with policy. There is nothing in policy to prefer official names over common ones if they differ - WP:NAME, WP:OFFICIALNAMES and WP:COMMONNAME are unequivocal that the single binding factor is frequency of usage if there is no ambiguity. Any notions of officialness are deprecated. Knepflerle (talk) 00:29, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Here I ask again, since the articles themselves here are non-sponsor named, why use a sponsor name to link to a non-sponsor named article? I am with the non-sponsored names. Yosef1987 (talk) 14:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that having both sponsored and non-sponsored names in the table would make it a little large. How about non-sponsored name being the standard for the "tournament name" and another column simply listing "sponsor".

Regarding the list of tennis tournaments, although you don't appear to be a "main editor" for that article, I do see quite a few of your fingerprints on it from back in February and previous.

Another proposed resolution I'd have is that if we go "non-sponsored" we drop a link at the bottom of the table out to this list, so people have a reference for sponsored name.

Final new proposed compromise would be to use non-sponsored names for Masters series (and slams of course), and use sponsored names for all other tournaments. It seems that all the articles on the masters series are listed under non-sponsored names, where-as sponsored names becomes much more frequent after that. I'd also agree to this compromise.

I am definitely in favor of only having two tables per article (one for grand slams, one for all others). Hope I didn't bring too many more options to the table. Gnowor (talk) 17:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This is really quite simple

I was pre-warned that this was "a long and muddled discussion", and I have to agree. The answer is very simple: Use the non-sponsor version, per WP:SPAM (we're not here to provide free advertising), WP:NOT (WP is not a commercial billboard, in this case), WP:UNDUE (the commercial sponsor has no direct relevance to the sport or the nature of the event), etc. And simply (per WP:SENSE) because the commercial sponsor can change again and again and again, in the space of a quite short span (see Premier League Snooker for a wild but real example), not to mention that many events have more than one sponsor. The only draft guideline specifically on this topic so far (initially written for cue sports but intended to eventually be genericized to an all-sports style guide, since we badly need one), WP:CUESPELL#Naming of tournaments and other events, spells this all out pretty clearly. The commercial-sponsor-name-of-X-time-period version of the event's name is not important in a table or list like those above. Simply enumerating the sponsor versions of event names in the event articles and making sure redirects exist from those names to the articles is entirely sufficient. PS: I am not watchlisting this, as the discussion here has been too noisy and circular to be productive, and we have guidelines for a reason; I don't see any WP:IAR-actionable reason to ignore them at play in this case, which isn't special. If I'm needed for a clarification of this rationale, please drop me a note at my talk page. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I think Tennis expert's point is valid regarding the name of some sponsored events being the only heavily documented name of those events. In talking about player performance tables, if we were to eliminate certain common sponsored names, people might miss the info they're looking for, as they might miss the tournament since they don't know the non-sponsored name. I would think readers being able to easily find information they're looking for should be a reason to possibly ignore all rules if that's where consensus lies. Gnowor (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you give an example of a tournament with both a sponsored and non-sponsored name where the sponsored name is much more heavily documented? rst20xx (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The SAP Open, Mercedes Cup, Tennis Channel Open, and Heineken Open (tennis) are all tournaments for which I was unable to locate a non-sponsored name. My search was only cursory, but it's in situations like this where I think the above names should prevail. Gnowor (talk) 18:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Most tennis tournaments have only officially sponsored names. And for those tournaments that some editors here want to rename in English-language Wikipedia, e.g., substituting "Indian Wells Masters" for "Pacific Life Open", the problem is colloquialism and determining the most widely used name based on verifiable, reliable English-language sources. More fundamentally, this would become an article-by-article exercise, which really is the status quo. So, why are we having this discussion at all? The reason is that some editors here want to ban officially sponsored names for tennis tournaments throughout English-language Wikipedia except for perhaps one sentence in each tournament article. In tennis biographies and lists, they would prohibit officially sponsored names. Why we would want to do that is beyond my comprehension. Tennis expert (talk) 18:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(reset) Ah, Gnownor, I see what you're saying now and I'm sorry but you misunderstand the anti-sponsored side slightly. To quote my opening post: "For some tournaments there is no clear non-sponsored name, in which case, all editors agree that the sponsored name must be used." You just gave four examples of such tournaments. So, I repeat my question: "Can you give an example of a tournament with both a sponsored and non-sponsored name where the sponsored name is much more heavily documented?" rst20xx (talk) 19:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Was trying to keep this as civil as possible on my end, despite the general leanings of this argument. I apologize if my comments here start to stretch those bounds. First off, I did understand your initial statement and had difficulty, outside of the masters series events, finding examples. The reason why I didn't include the masters series events is due to the fact that for the most part, the masters series are already listed under the non-sponsored name, despite the fact that they are more frequently known by their sponsored name. (See numbers below from Tennis expert.) Additionally, from personal experience, I know that I hear and refer to the masters series tournaments by their sponsored names more frequently than the non-sponsored names. If you feel that the ticket sites are the cause of the discrepancy, I suggest you get some numbers to that effect.

Regardless, I've input my two cents, and I'm going to leave this discussion for the rest of you all to duke it out. In the meantime, I'm going to actually start editing some player pages and finishing the succession box chains for the ATP Awards. Oh, mind editing and correcting the spelling of my name above? Gnowor (talk) 20:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's assume just for purposes of this little exercise that "Indian Wells Masters" is the non-sponsored name of the tournament in Indian Wells, California. For the English-language only, Google shows "about 293,000" hits for "Pacific Life Open" but only "about 9,480" hits for "Indian Wells Masters". Tennis expert (talk) 19:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's extend this exercise. "About 48,400" hits for "Rome Masters" versus "about 41,000" hits for "Internazionali BNL d'Italia". "About 259,000" hits for "Sony Ericsson Open" versus "about 18,300" hits for "Miami Masters". "About 42,700" hits for "BNP Paribas Masters" versus "about 43,400" hits for "Paris Masters". "About 509,000" hits for "Rogers Cup" versus "about 17,400" hits for "Canada Masters". "About 126,000" hits for "Western & Southern Financial Group Masters" versus "about 181,000" hits for "Cincinnati Masters". "About 77,200" hits for "Mutua Madrileña Masters" versus "about 65,000" hits for "Madrid Masters". Tennis expert (talk) 20:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

We both know that search engine tests don't necessarily work, for example in this case the sponsored names are the one used by ticket vendors, and ticket vendors make up about half the results of "Pacific Life Open"/"Western & Southern Financial Group Masters"/etc. And this isn't even looking at official ATP pages. But if you count just the news and fan comments then you'd probably get a different picture painted - rst20xx (talk) 20:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I know no such thing, and please quit speaking on my behalf. OK? As for your "half the results" statement, what is your source? Did you actually look at all 293,000 hits concerning the "Pacific Life Open" and 126,000 hits for the "Western & Southern Financial Group Masters"? For some reason, I doubt you did ... but I could be wrong about that. Tennis expert (talk) 22:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

[Reply to Gnowor's "I think Tennis expert's point is valid regarding the name of some sponsored events being the only heavily documented name of those events...", copied here from my talk page] If it's the only name, then it's the only name. The point isn't "hate sponsor laden names, for they are the work of the Devil", but rather, "prefer non-sponsor-laden names as more neutral and less likely to 'break' over time". Agree in part with the rationale in your final sentence; if an event is not commonly known by its generic name, then having the more common but spammy could arguably be good in the table. But I don't think this generalizes to an "always use both" maxim. Partly for the same reasons you give yourself, in a sense: If an event has had 5 different major sponsors over the last two decades, it is a certainty that some subset of readers are familiar with it under particular names, but we should not include all 5 of them, plus the generic one, in a list of tabular data. The way out of this seems to me to remember that we have articles and links to them, so if something were known as the Marlboro Bowlin' Shootout for sponsorship purposes but was really the ABA Charleston Bowling Masters Tournament, there's no practical problem referring to it as the latter, or even a shorter version like Charleston Masters. We can't account for every possible name someone might know an event by and have to trust that they know something about the event (e.g. where it is held), since it isn't realistic to include every possible name in a table. If the reader has really no idea about any detail of the event other than "Marlboro", they probably wouldn't have gotten as far as they had already anyway, and would instead use the search feature for "Marlboro bowling", and found the article, at ABA Charleston Bowling Masters or whatever. Short version: Don't try to navigate for the user in articles, especially summary list/table articles; we have categories and search functions for a reason. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This is really not simple

No, it is not a simple issue. The bottom line is that this issue depends on what editors want to do. For many reasons, including verifiability and reliability of sources, the official sponsored names of tournaments should be used. This is common practice on English-language Wikipedia and appears to be almost universal practice on French-language Wikipedia. Also, I do not understand the squeamishness with using official sponsored names. Tennis tournaments are business enterprises that rely on sponsorship (and certain other revenues) to survive, which makes the sponsorship directly relevant (your criterion) to the tournaments. When we refer to a tournament's official name that includes a sponsor, we are reflecting real world facts. For example, it is an irrefutable fact that the official name of the tournament in Indian Wells, California is the "Pacific Life Open". To ignore that name in favor of something like "Indian Wells Masters" is unencyclopedic because that name is not factual. Do you also object to the name of the ExxonMobil article? If so, what should we call it? Something like Biggest oil company in the world or Corporation responsible for the big oil spill in Alaska? If you don't object, then what is your criteria for saying that business names are fine for some article names but not for others? By the way, no tournament has more than one sponsored name. We are obviously not talking here about listing all the sponsors for each tournament. Tennis expert (talk) 08:22, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, this is long. Tennis expert, in reply to your various comments: I think HJenson dealt with your comments about "Masters" sufficiently, but I'd add an apt comparison in that the use of the name "Masters" is like how it's called the "Premier League" nowadays and not "Division 1" (ironically this change happened around the same time, too). As for what to call the Masters tournaments before they were Masters, we should just call them by their non-sponsored name at that time. For example, 1987 Paris Open already does this. Yes, this does require a name change, but it is just one name change, and it is easy to know when the name change occurs as the Masters were started in 1990 and so that's the end of that. And hence using non-sponsored names is still a damn sight simpler than using sponsored names.

Right, onto the numbers. (1) (the first no (1)) Yes, okay, I do support non-sponsored, but if we're going to have full disclosure, let's look at exactly what everyone's opinions were in the discussion that occured before I invited wider input. Against sponsored names were myself, Armchair info guy, Wikitestor (admittedly banned at the moment), Yosef1987, HJensen and Spyder_Monkey. In favour of sponsored names was... you.

(3) Yes, removing duplicate tables was also being discussed, but my aim here in this "Wider Input on Sponsored Names" section was to separate out the issue of sponsored names, and deal with that first. I would rather we dealt with the sponsored names first, and then move on to the tables, and that was my intention with this section (I thought quite clearly, considering the name of it).

(4) You say that sponsored names are more common on en.wikipedia, but I would refute that, as I think the overwhelming majority of articles that have a non-sponsored name are at the non-sponsored namespace. Further, I would say that consensus can change, and that if there is an implicit consensus through repeated use in favour of sponsored names, then in that case, this discussion is looking to overturn that implicit consensus.

(1) (the second no (1)) The List of tennis tournaments article is a special case, and I think most editors would probably be in favour of seeing both sponsored and non-sponsored names being recorded there. It could actually become a good reference for how names have changed over the years, if we allow it. (3) and (4) See my reply to the last (3). On ExxonMobil: I can't believe I'm having to say this, but ExxonMobil is not the sponsored name of the company, it is the name of the company!

Right, to finish up: You say "The bottom line is that this issue depends on what editors want to do". Well, with the addition of opinions from new editors, I would say that consensus is turning against the use of sponsored names even further - rst20xx (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Hope I'm not trampling on toes here, but to put a little bit more concisely. The name of the company ExxonMobil uniquely identifies that company, and is a vital piece of factual information about that company. The name ExxonMobil in the name of a sponsored tennis tournament, although factual, would not be the most important, nor a vital piece of factual information for most readers looking at that article regarding the tennis tournament. Gnowor (talk) 18:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but, as has been pointed out above, "Wimbledon" is the official name of a tournament and no one would argue about that name being needed when readers are looking for the article about the tournament. So, we're apparently in agreement that many English-language Wikipedia articles should refer to tournaments by their official names (sponsored or otherwise). Yet, some editors here would make exceptions for other tournaments and prohibit, Wikipedia-wide, the use of their official names, which often includes sponsorship information. This would be completely illogical. Tennis expert (talk) 19:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it is simple. We are choosing the non-sponsored official name over the sponsored official name. Wimbledon has no sponsored name in the first place - rst20xx (talk) 19:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

However, Wimbledon is the trademarked name of the tournament, just as the "Pacific Life Open" is the trademarked name of that tournament. Whether a sponsor appears in the official name should be irrelevant. What we should be concerned about is the official name, not colloquialisms that only lead to endless debate and confusion. Tennis expert (talk) 19:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

What was, for example, the official name of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia tournament before 1969? That's right, tournament names have changed (and tournaments have come and go) since tennis became an organized sport, not just in recent times. What should be the name of the Wikipedia article for the tournament in Rome? "Italian Championships", "Italian Open", "Rome Masters", "Internazionali BNL d'Italia"? All these possibilities except "Rome Masters" have been the official name at some point. So, why would an encyclopedia, which is supposed to reflect fact, choose "Rome Masters" over the others? Obviously, "that's not the end of that".

(1) List of tennis tournaments is not a special case. It is a Wikipedia tennis-related article just like all the others.

(3) "I can't believe I'm having to say this, but", for example, the Pacific Life Open is the name of the tournament! As for duplicate tables, this apparently is a controversial issue as not everyone agrees on how many tables there should be, more particularly whether Grand Slam tournaments should continue to have a separate table. So, this needs to be discussed now, too.

(4) This is neither a "vote" nor a "poll". See WP:POLLS. Five or six people here cannot overturn the consensus of hundreds of tennis article editors. And I would appreciate your not attempting to influence the outcome of this discussion with ongoing observations like "consensus is turning against" whatever. You've repeatedly done this, and it's totally unconstructive, especially for someone who has professed to summarize what everyone has said already. Also, the point of this discussion is to have a discussion about important issues, not to "overturn ... consensus". Whether this discussion results in the overturning of consensus remains to be seen.

(5) Please don't reorganize this discussion again, i.e., do not move people's comments from one place to another. You are not the moderator, and your last reorganization has resulted in everything being hard to follow. Tennis expert (talk) 18:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

"Rome Masters" is an official name, it is used by the ATP. It is also the common name, which is much more important. And finally, I would say the main article should be positioned at the current non-sponsored name, e.g. Rome Masters, and then the year articles at the non-sponsored name that year.

(4) I never said "vote", or "poll". And if you don't think this discussion is possibly going to overturn the consensus of articles, then why the hell are we even having it?!?!?

(5) Well I found my moving of two posts from one place to another made things much easier to follow, and you're hardly one to talk as you continuously change indents of other people's posts, and oh see [17] too. But I'm not going to comment on this any more as it is completely irrelevant to the discussion and therefore should not be being discussed on this talk page - rst20xx (talk) 19:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

How do you know that "Rome Masters" is the common name? What are your sources?

(4) I'm all in favor of ending this discussion now and pretending it never happened. It's pointless and, as you know, I didn't initiate it. Tennis expert (talk) 19:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Quote from you: "...we need to get more people involved. Four or five opinions are hardly enough for such an important and far-reaching decision." So much for that, eh? rst20xx (talk) 20:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion is pointless because it goes around in circles, gets expanded, gets contracted, gets "summarized" by an editor who is advocating a particular outcome, gets reorganized by that same editor, etc. No one can keep track of it. Tennis expert (talk) 22:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

So are you saying that you won't respect the result of any consensus that comes out of this discussion? rst20xx (talk) 21:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should spend some time studying WP:AGF. Tennis expert (talk) 22:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:NAME seems to explicitly support naming Wikipedia articles after the most easily recognizable name, the commonly used name. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 19:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely correct. Knepflerle (talk) 00:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Tennis Expert, you write "Five or six people here cannot overturn the consensus of hundreds of tennis article editors". Where are all these editors? You appear to be saying that as long as you oppose something, then a new consensus cannot be formed. How many people would it take to make you accept a new consensus (as you know, consensus can change)? Well, for the record, I am not against sponsored names per se, and does not fall into a hypothetical group of squeamishness people having some inherent preference against sponsors. I just want to foster recognizability and continuity in tables. And in terms of the Masters Tournaments that started it all I find it unsatisfactorily and confusing for non fans that the same tournament (in terms of location, ATP-status) changes name in tables (Nasdaq 100 some years, Sony Ericsson the next, and so on). I am all for verifiability, and looking at the official calendar from the ATP for 2008, here, wee see that the ATP names the Masters Events by their sponsor (and, incidentally, they place Sony Ericsson Open in Miami ;-) ), but a Masters tournament held in Indian Wells doesn't have a name; what do we do there? In any case, for a given year the sponsor names will of course be used by the ATP. When they show results for players, however, they identify tournaments without sponsor names: (Nadal 2008). So by ATP logic, when presenting player results, we should use the non-sponsor name? I think it is a matter of choice, as both kind of names can be verified, and I would favor the way ATP presents the player's results (Google counts are particularly poor here; if they did not "favored" the sponsored name, it is time to find a new sponsor!). The performance tables would become much more easily readable. Moreover, I think a player should only have one table for wins and finals, with tournament types appropriately distiguished by color. No seperate Slam or Masters tables. And let us, in accordance with recent wikipolicy, get rid of the ugly wikilinked dates in first (or second) column. Whether there chould be a separate location column, I am indifferent towards. I can live without it, but it doesn't harm. --HJensen, talk 22:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I agree with all of that (though see below) - rst20xx (talk) 23:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(1) I have no idea what editors are doing every second of the day. They don't check-in with me. (2) It's absurd to infer from anything I've said that a consensus cannot exist without me. But a handful of people on one side of an issue versus a handful of people on the other side cannot change or create consensus. This leaves us with the status quo, however undesirable certain editors may believe that to be. (3) You and I agree about wanting to foster recognizability and continuity in tables. I also want to promote and preserve research tools for longtime tennis editors like you and myself. That's vital for Wikipedia. (4) Lots of things are confusing in life, and Wikipedia is not responsible for most of them and should not be in the business of trying to resolve them. Sure, tennis is confusing because tournaments come and go or change names or locations. And Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, should reflect that state of affairs by recognizing the official names of tournaments at the time they were held. This is what French-language Wikipedia does, for example. There hasn't been a meltdown over there, to my knowledge. (5) I'm glad you are willing to accept a separate location column. That is very important to me (and probably others). (6) I'm also glad that you believe this issue is a matter of choice, presumably decided by interested editors article-by-article instead of through some sort of cross-Wikipedia prohibition created here by a handful of people. (7) I am happy to read that you would not support a cross-Wikipedia ban on sponsor names in tennis articles. (8) I don't understand your point about Google. It's an Internet indexer/counter that doesn't favor tournament sponsors. Tennis expert (talk) 22:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

On the Google issue: It is a high priority of commercial sites to design them so as to get noticed by Google search robots. So good sponsors are those who are good at making the product they sponsor visible on the internet; i.e., being picked up by Google bots. Others, like fans sites, often don't have those ressources, so they will often be lost by Google robots. Hence, all things equal, there will be more hits to terms involving sponsors than terms without (unless, as said, the sponsors are poor advertisers on the net).--HJensen, talk 14:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Even if what you're saying were generally true, you're making a big leap to say that this has had a huge effect on the Google numbers I've found for the tournaments I listed. You're merely assuming it has without citing any evidence. Tennis expert (talk) 09:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

On the "hundreds of editors": Sure you can't track them. Neither can or should I. My point was that some of them inadvertably "reach" a consensus as something they do are not challenged. Look at the Ferrero article. A fairly stable one. Note how the Masters are presented there: Juan_Carlos_Ferrero#Masters_Series_singles_finals. This must also reflcet the consensus of hundreds of tennis editors of Wikipedia. Or? --HJensen, talk 18:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

As for the tournament in Indian Wells, Pacific Life no longer is sponsoring the tournament beginning in 2009 and no substitute title sponsor has yet been found. That's probably why the ATP is not showing a sponsor for that tournament. Tennis expert (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

My point was that they don't show a name at all.--HJensen, talk 14:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what I said, HJensen, and I explained why nothing is shown. Tennis expert (talk) 09:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

(2) Sorry, who else is there on your side apart from you? There are a couple down the middle, but I don't see anyone else for example advocating that Masters tourneys should be under sponsored names - rst20xx (talk) 23:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Unlike you, I don't attempt to summarize the posts of other editors. I let them speak for themselves. I invite you to re-read what they have said so far. Tennis expert (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) HJensen, you and I are pretty much on the same page. I'm also not against sponsored names entirely, just in the player biography tables. If an editor wants to refer to the "Pacific Life Open" in the body of the biography, have at it. I like our current naming structure for tournament articles, and I think each year's sponsored name should be added to the results page on the tournament articles (á la Français), because it provides context about the subject of the article (the event itself). In a player's title summary, having a sponsored name for each tournament doesn't contribute to the understanding of the player's career; it provides no context. I believe that sponsored names would be confusing to anyone who wasn't intimately familiar with the tournaments at hand. To give an example: Agassi won Miami in 1990 (Lipton Int’l Champ’s), 1995 & 6 (The Lipton Champ’s), 2001 (Ericsson Open), 2002 and 3 (NASDAQ-100 Open). If all of those, in addition to his many other titles, were in his title table, and one were to sort by the sponsored name, his 6 wins at that one tournament would be spread out all over. If only city and country (linked to the tournament article, like here) were in the table, it would make it much more straightforward. The fact that the ATP does it this way should carry some weight, too.

Also, as a general note to everyone, let's discuss the issues, not the discussion.--Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 23:12, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this is that then there's no wikilink to the location, or if there is, it truly is just a repetition of the tournament. Hence, we should have location, and something else, be it sponsored, non-sponsored or article location (the last of which I am now advocating below) - rst20xx (talk) 23:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I do not see the evidence of "consensus" which "a handful of editors" are breaking. Tennis expert does not present any Wikipedia policies that favor his support for using obscure business-sponsored titles. Wikipedia is intended for everyday readers who usually has never heard of "Internazionali BNL d'Italia." Apparently the amount of edits that did not attempt to rename the article is evidence that the majority of users are in support of his idea. Well then I guess this means that editors should simply edit as much as they like to show their stance before discussing to form consensus to avoid edit war. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 23:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

They're not "obscure business-sponsored titles," as the Google counts plainly show. Tennis expert (talk) 09:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment: Tennis Expert, frequently mischaracterizing debate opponents' views as extremist when they are not is known as a straw man fallacy. Repeatedly referring to editors who prefer that non-sponsor event names be used when possible as trying to "ban" or "prohibit" sponsor names in event article titles across the entire encyclopedia is precisely such a handwave exaggeration. Knock it off please. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I already knew what the straw man fallacy is, and it doesn't apply to anything I've said. The fact is that some editors specifically have said here that they dislike official sponsored names because Wikipedia shouldn't be an advertising vehicle. Sorry that you missed those comments. Tennis expert (talk) 09:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

A simple proposal

Tennis tournament articles should in theory be located at their common name location. If they are not, they should be moved there. (Obviously, any such moves would have to be via formal proposals.) Similarly, the links in the tables should show the common name.... see where I'm going? Howsabout the links just reflect the location of the tournament articles? And then if any articles are located in the wrong place, we simply need to propose the moving of the articles, and then the links can be updated too. This would be a much more sophisticated way of doing things, as it would handle things on a case by case basis, whilst at the same time it would remove any need for piping - rst20xx (talk) 23:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It's the same proposal, just repackaged, and with the same problems we already have discussed. I oppose the ambiguous references to "common name" and I don't understand the opposition to piping, which is a normal procedure in Wikipedia. As for moving tennis articles, are you willing to promise, without exception, that you will follow the "controversial moves" procedures prescribed by WP:RM? And are you willing to undo the move of the Qatar Telecom German Open (and associated articles) as a good faith measure? Tennis expert (talk) 23:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

1. In saying "it would remove any need for piping", I wasn't opposing piping per se, just raising the point that it's easier to edit when you don't have to pipe than when you do. 2. Yes, I am promising to follow the "controversial moves" procedure from this point onwards if you are. 3. No, I am not, as Talk:German Open (tennis) shows it's 3 to 1 against moving it back. Thus, it would breach the "controversial moves" procedure to move it back (and further, even if I did switch my vote it'd still be 2-2 and so no consensus, hence, it's out of my hands).

Now, are you against this proposal? I think it is very reasonable, as surely by the logic you have been applying thus far, you would also see the tournament articles moved, and I am simply deferring the decision to the location of those articles, with the decision to be made on a case by case basis - rst20xx (talk) 23:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(Sorry that this is response is out of date/time order, but putting it here seemed to make more sense given that you specifically asked me a question.) Of course I'm against your ambiguous proposal, Rst20xx, for the reasons I've already given. And you are perfectly free to propose moving back the Qatar Telecom German Open articles, based on changed circumstances or whatever other reason you would like to give. Your refusal to even propose it is telling, in my opinion. Tennis expert (talk) 07:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

No, I am not free to lie and say it shouldn't have been moved, both due to my conscience, and also as any proposed move back would have to go through the controversial moves procedure, and like last time it would fail. I cannot believe that you are proposing I try to undermine the system in such a manner. And I don't see how proposing that there is no piping is ambiguous, but I feel that you are not going to change your mind on this so I shan't try to explain it to you any more - rst20xx (talk) 00:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that you lie, and to infer that I said anything of the kind is disingenuous, just like your repeated misstatements and mischaracterizations of facts in this discussion. I'm suggesting that you try to undo the damage that you initiated. Obviously, if you don't try, it won't happen. Tennis expert (talk) 09:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

And eqaully obviously, as I was in favour of the move in the first place, so if I were to do this move back, it would involve me lying - rst20xx (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd hate to go down the same road that the French Wiki did (I sure do mention them alot) with their tournament naming. Everything is at sponsorless names like "Miami Open", "Amelia Island Tournament", "Indian Wells Open". I think this just creates more problems than it solves (try to figure out, at a glance, which Tokyo tournament is which). If we do go towards a naming scheme that uses names like these, it kinda removes the need for any separate tournament name column; "Indian Wells Open" would always be next to "Indian Wells, U.S.". --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 23:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This proposal didn't suggest doing that, it suggested deferring the decision to the location of the articles! rst20xx (talk) 23:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Also no offence but that's slightly misleading. A slight clarification: They call them Masters for the men's - rst20xx (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to mislead anyone. I picked the women's tournaments because there were more of them. They use separate pages for men's and women's events, even if they're combined. IW and Miami could just as easily be "Masters" here, but I think you get my drift - the non-sponsored names there often have little to do with the actual tournament names and, in my experience trying to navigate those pages, only serve to make things more confusing, especially when more than one tournament has been in they city.

I guess I don't really understand what your proposal is. If the articles are at names like "Indian Wells Masters" and "Los Angeles Classic", the table would look like:

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1.	August 15 2004	Indian Wells Masters, Indian Wells, U.S.	Hard	José Acasuso	6–3, 6–4
2.	February 20 2005	Los Angeles Classic, Los Angeles, U.S.	Hard	Alberto Martín	6–0, 6–7(2), 6–1

...or if using the two-column format:

No.	Date	Tournament Name	Tournament Location	Surface	Opponent in Final	Score in Final
1.	August 15 2004	Indian Wells Masters	Indian Wells, U.S.	Hard	José Acasuso	6–3, 6–4
2.	February 20 2005	Los Angeles Classic	Los Angeles, U.S.	Hard	Alberto Martín	6–0, 6–7(2), 6–1

Correct me if I'm wrong; that's how I interpret it. It just seems repetitive to me, and since we aren't referring to the city, but to the tournament, do we even need to link to the city/country? --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 01:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well take the Masters case in your table. How is that any different than using the non-sponsored name there, something you were earlier supporting? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your problem is more with their being a separate link for the tournament from the location, and the repetition that results from this. But I think the repetition that results is more visual than actual because the links go to different places - rst20xx (talk) 16:28, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

A case-by-case evaluation based purely on predominance of usage in reliable sources is exactly what I and all our naming policies support. The predominant name should be chosen whether it contains a sponsor name or not. Knepflerle (talk) 00:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

IMO, WP:COMMONNAME would seem to support using just the city. When talking about a tournament, I rarely find myself saying "He did well last year at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters", or even "He did well in the Cincinnati Masters", but most often "He did well at Cincinnati". Obviously we can't use just the city name as the article's title, but we could add some necessary identifier, like "ATP Cincinnati", "WTA Charleston", etc. I would favor doing all the tournaments a similar way to keep things consistent and less confusing. I'm envisioning 150 different arguments discussions on each article's talk page going on all at once.--Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 01:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Dutch wiki did something similar. See this archived discussion. —M.C. (talk) 19:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Like another editor who already has posted here, when thinking of or talking about a tournament, I use the official sponsored name. That is the "commonname" to me. Tennis expert (talk) 07:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

No, the common name is the one predominantly used in a range of sources. As far as WP is concerned, the common name is not merely name which comes first to one particular editor's mind. WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NAME explain this unambiguously. Knepflerle (talk) 11:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going to restate my proposal because I think it's got a bit muddled above. It's basically that the tables should in theory use the common name, and the articles should in theory be located at the common name, therefore the tables should be the same as the article location. And if anyone disagrees with any article location, because they think it's not at the common name, then they can request the article be moved through the usual WP:RM controversial moves process, and if the move is carried out, the tables can be updated to reflect the new article location. (Correct me if I'm wrong but) I think Spyder_Monkey finds for himself that the common name for most tournaments would just be its geographic location, but I think others disagree. As Tennis expert says, he sees the common name as the official sponsored name. I myself see it as the non-sponsored name, where one exists, and the sponsored name were there isn't one, and this isn't always just the location (at the very least, it would include "Cup", or "Open", or "Masters", or "Championship" or something) - rst20xx (talk) 16:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal. Do it article by article, without any unneeded a priori notions of what the common name should or should not contain. Common usage is varied and inconsistent with regards to sponsors and other matters, and the naming will reflect this per WP:NAME. Knepflerle (talk) 18:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

And what exactly would you do with a tournament that does not have a non-sponsored name but that has gone through many sponsored name changes over the last 37 years? This is the ultimate flaw in your proposal. It is historically accurate for the tables to reflect the name of the tournament at the time it was actually held, with piping to one (and only one) Wikipedia article about that tournament for the last 37 years. This would be supplemented with a separate "tournament location" column in the tables to allow readers to sort by location (which has not changed) if they get confused by the tournament names (despite the uniform piping). This is a simple proposal and far less complex than the singles performance timelines that are virtually impossible for inexperienced editors to edit correctly. Those timelines get more complicated by the week, and arguments against increasing complexity based on editing difficulty or error frequency were rejected in that context and should be rejected here. Tennis expert (talk) 09:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no such problem. You use the most common name for the time-period in question. Still no a priori assumptions about sponsors' names are required. This is exactly the same as any other subject in Wikipedia where the naming has changed over time. There is nothing special or distinguishing about tennis in this regard which means special rules running contrary to WP:NAME are required. Knepflerle (talk) 15:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Yep, exactly - rst20xx (talk) 19:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, Knepflerle. The women's tennis tournament in Los Angeles started in 1971 and has morphed through several name changes. The most common name of that tournament in each year of the last 37 years is the official sponsored name of that tournament at the time it was held: Billie Jean Invitational, Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Avon Championships of Los Angeles, Virginia Slims of Los Angeles (second time), Acura Classic, estyle.com Classic, JP Morgan Chase Open, and finally East West Bank Classic. The results tables should reflect these common names. As for the name of the one-and-only Wikipedia article concerning this tournament, that is something for interested editors to agree upon through normal consensus-making processes. Tennis expert (talk) 23:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Right. Would anyone apart from Tennis expert have any problems if we declare this consensus that:

1. articles should be positioned as per WP:COMMONNAME
2. no piping should be used in tables, as WP:COMMONNAME should apply here, too

If so, we can move on to other things, such as whether there should be a separate location column - rst20xx (talk) 23:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I would. For (1), I think we need consistency more than anything. If each tournament is decided on its own, we're probably going to end up with a mish-mash of sponsored names, tournament names with the sponsor removed, names that closely resemble the tournament name, and maybe even something else. It would just be a mess to try and navigate. Further, I can envision 150 discussions similar to this one spread out across as many talk pages.

As for (2), I still don't see the need for having the tournament name in addition to the city, particularly if we go with some common name. It just seems too repetitive to me. But, if I'm alone on that point, I'll let it go. Also, let me make my position on sponsored names clear: I don't think they should be used in the player bios (it doesn't make any difference who sponsored the tournament that that player won), but I do think the should go in the results tables of the tournament articles (as on the French Wiki), regardless of what the article is ultimately named. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 02:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

But don't you see? (1) is Wikipedia policy, so we don't really have much choice in it, and with a few exceptions it's actually already implemented now! As far as I see it, this is effectively the same as the non-sponsored proposal, the results will be the same, the proposal is just reformulated to remove any inherent bias against sponsored names, i.e. it makes it clearer that where there is no non-sponsored name, the sponsored one is used. Arg, holding up the whole damn thing - rst20xx (talk) 17:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

How does my proposal for consistency go against WP:COMMONNAME? Where in COMMONNAME does it state that each article in a series must be discussed separately? Why do you not think we should strive for consistency? And, I am terribly sorry about expressing my opinion and making you miss your deadline. --Spyder_Monkey (Talk) 01:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, if we follow WP:COMMONNAME on each article, then there won't necessarily be consistency, will there? So consistency clearly goes against WP:COMMONNAME - rst20xx (talk) 18:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

So, I guess my opinions don't count after all.... There is no consensus, Rst20xx, for your very ambiguous proposal that could have severe unforeseen consequences, as can plainly be seen by re-reading everyone's contributions to this discussion. By the way, I would still like to hear your solution to the naming of the Wikipedia article concerning the women's tennis tournament in Los Angeles. Tennis expert (talk) 05:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

East West Bank Classic for the main article, as it is the common name for the tournament at this time. The individual year articles should use the name that year - rst20xx (talk) 17:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

A new issue

First off, I don't know why the persistence on the sponsor name with no strong reasons, but here is a new issue, the sponsor names like: Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid and Internazionali BNL d'Italia are not English names, I cannot even pronounce them, and that is for sure against some policy of the English Wikipedia and I guess from all my posts my English level is clearly not weak and yet English is not my mother tongue

We need a poll of 4 simple choices, not about the table format, but about the information it self

• Sponsor alone
• Non sponsor alone
• Both names

...and some how we decicide on the location column (which is extra useless information) Yosef1987 (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Nope, those are not the only options. We don't have to pick unsponsored for all or sponsored for all - we can just pick the more common of the two for each article individually. Which incidentally is exactly what WP:NAME and WP:COMMONNAME say we should do. Quite fortunate really. Considerations of ease of spelling or pronunciation don't come into it. The articles on Jászfelsőszentgyörgy and Chkhorotsqu are in exactly the right place; those are their names, and sometimes names are hard for speakers of other languages. Knepflerle (talk) 16:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

ATP Uses "Common" City Name in Tables

The ATP site itself uses the City Names to refer to tournaments in tables: [Andy Murray's Ranking Breakdown Page at ATP Site] ShabbatSam (talk) 08:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Masters Series tournaments

I think that there needs to be a project to create articles for each Masters Series tournament, in the same way as the concise Grand Slam articles. I have started to create articles for tournaments such as 1999 Indian Wells Masters but most only have articles stretching back to 2006. 03md (talk) 22:34, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. We should make this a Masters and WTA Tier I project though. There are about 440 Grand Slams, and there are 9*19 = 171 Masters/Tier I events (obviously the events that aren't both Masters and Tier I won't constitute double the workload of the events that are both Masters and Tier I, as they're just single sex, so I think the 9 is still right). Having said all that, I'm not sure I'd have any time to help such a project - rst20xx (talk) 18:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

One request: Can you tag the talk pages of any new articles you make with {{WP-Tennis|class=|importance=}}? Importance should be mid for e.g. 2006 Indian Wells Masters and low for e.g. 2006 Indian Wells Masters - Men's Singles. I know this project doesn't have a history of tagging its articles well but I'm in the middle of a bit of a tagging spree, and when I finish soon then hopefully all articles should be tagged. But any that have been created since I started, like those bourne out of this project, are liable to get missed - rst20xx (talk) 18:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and any categories should be tagged with {{WP-Tennis|class=Cat|importance=NA}}, and templates with {{WP-Tennis|class=Temp|importance=NA}} - rst20xx (talk) 21:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Semiprotected Talk

Since semi-protection of Talk is rare, I'd like to beg your indulgence. An IP editor who has been evading his block is continuing to post here. His main interest is tennis articles. Please let me know (at User talk:EdJohnston) if anyone objects to a short period of semi-protection. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 03:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The World's Biggest Tagging Spree

Over the last few weeks I've been on the World's biggest tagging spree, tagging all tennis articles that I could find as being part of WikiProject Tennis. Further to just basic tagging, I also gave importance levels to all non-player, non-coach pages, and gave classes to lists and all other non-article pages.

The tagging spree took WP:Tennis from this:

Tennis articles		Importance
		Top	High	Mid	Low	None	Total
Quality
	GA			1			1
	B	3	22	19	7	4	55
	Start	7	12	29	41	83	172
	Stub		2	15	66	112	195
	Assessed	10	36	64	114	199	423
	Unassessed	1	17	7	2	888	915
	Total	11	53	71	116	1087	1338

to this:

Tennis articles		Importance
		Top	High	Mid	Low	None	Total
Quality
	GA			1	1		2
	B	4	24	16	8	4	56
	C			1			1
	Start	11	13	33	53	62	172
	Stub	1	5	24	72	92	194
	List	5	50	3	14		72
	Assessed	21	92	78	148	158	497
	Unassessed	54	121	1024	2367	1927	5493
	Total	75	213	1102	2515	2085	5990

And, additionally:

• NA-importance = 0 -> 1918

and:

• Image-Class = 0 -> 56
• Template-Class = 0 -> 343
• Project-Class = 0 -> 27
• Category-Class = 0 -> 1314
• Disambig-Class = 0 -> 145
• NA-Class = 70ish -> 0 (all went to Template-Class or Category-Class)
• Portal-Class = 0 -> 36

I'd call that successful! 4652 articles newly tagged, and before I tagged the players, Unknown-importance was down to 327 articles, so I gave importance levels to most of the articles originally in there.

Now, if the rest of you can just maintain pages as tagged in the future, I'd be most happy! (Seriously, if you creates a page, please tag it.) Also, if anyone wants to go on an assessment drive, now they can find all the articles to do so - rst20xx (talk) 21:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinking years

Tennis expert claims that the linking of standalone years (1991, 1992...) is permitted in tennis articles (against the Manual of Style), but I haven't seen a mention of it in the WP:Tennis archives. If someone could point me to a discussion, I'd appreciate it. - Dudesleeper / Talk 10:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot indiscriminately attempts to change tennis articles against the pre-existing consensus for tennis articles. This is a longstanding problem. It's also a problem that editors in other areas have noted about Lightbot. This is not a simple bot that just goes around correcting errors. Tennis expert (talk) 10:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Individual years should most definitely not be linked. Can you provide specific examples of what Lightbot has actually incorrectly edited please? The Rambling Man (talk) 10:57, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Editing against consensus concerning tennis articles is "incorrect". Tennis expert (talk) 11:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Where's this consensus? And linking dates now is deprecated per the MOS. Please familiarise yourself with this. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. But I've already read it, and the issue is far from settled. Aside from that, there is no consensus there to go around Wikipedia making changes in subjects for which there is a preexisting consensus to do articles in a certain way. The consensus for tennis articles is demonstrated in the articles themselves, which there are hundreds of. I invite you to take a look at them. Tennis expert (talk) 11:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that's rubbish, consensus is not inherent because everyone is doing it wrong. The MOS clearly states autoformatting is deprecated. Job done. So the unlinking of dates and in particular individual years should go on. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's not rubbish. As has been proven time and again concerning the naming of tennis articles (diacritics versus not using diacritics), a general policy like WP:UE can be overriden through a more specific consensus for particular types of articles. Maybe we should revisit the naming of those articles given that you are so convinced that a general policy always prevails, regardless of a more specific consensus. Tennis expert (talk) 11:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry once again but there are a number of inconsistencies within tennis articles themselves, as you are well aware, and in general they are poorly formatted in terms of meeting the WP:MOS. Quite why you feel it necessary to link individual years is beyond me. It's counter to the MOS and is unhelpful. As you know, the articles you are working on right now doesn't link the individual years. I've seen plenty of articles which don't. So there is no consensus as you describe it. In this case it's best to follow the MOS. And please do not breach WP:3RR again. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

(1) Where exactly did I do that? (2) Tennis articles are, in general, poorly written, and I disagree with much of the consensus that is demonstrated in those articles. But I'm not free to just go around changing them to my preference in violation of consensus, with a bot or without a bot. Neither are you. This is why wholesale changes need to be discussed first, preferably here. Tennis expert (talk) 11:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, you made three consecutive reverts on Beverly Baker Fleitz, as I pointed out to you on your talkpage. Just be careful. Given the poor state of most tennis articles, I find it surprising that you feel you can derive some sort of consensus from them. In these cases where it's unclear, you should follow the MOS. Is there a reason why you think linking individual years is of any benefit to anyone? The Rambling Man (talk) 11:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I am always careful. In answer to your question, I do not unilaterally decide these things, and neither should a bot. My purely personal opinion is that year links serve no useful purpose except when individual years are linked to something like "year in sport" or "year in tennis", which some people are trying to implement but it's going to take time. I believe that deleting the current naked year links will not help this effort because the deletion makes it less obvious what needs to be done. And before you say there are better ways to trigger reform than keeping naked year links, let me say that tennis is a very dysfunctional area and not everything we do on the road to making things better is necessarily the way Wikipedia should work generally. Tennis expert (talk) 12:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The intro to the Manual of Style interestingly says this, "This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article." Tennis editors, therefore, are free to make exceptions by consensus. Tennis expert (talk) 12:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

And how does linking individual dates occasionally make "common sense" or "improve an article"? The Rambling Man (talk) 12:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it does. But, as I've said, one-person-does-not-a-consensus-make. Tennis expert (talk) 12:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

But nor does a bunch of half-baked, inconsistent articles either, right? In unclear cases, the common sense approach would be to follow the Wikipedia guidelines, right? The Rambling Man (talk) 12:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is that wikilinking of dates and years should be abandoned in all tennis-related articles. The wikilinks serve no purpose, except for the autoformatting feature, which is irrelevant for most readers. So let us just get rid of those links—the sooner the better. --HJensen, talk 16:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

An example

Right now, Billie Jean King is a useful example of why this so-called consensus to link individual years is simply not working. You undid Lightbot's attempt to make the article uniform and in its current state it is itself inconsistent. For example, why isn't 1968 linked in the prose? And 1961? But yet suddenly, 1969 and 1970 seem to take on more relevance and are linked in the prose. And then from 1971 they're not linked. Then you have a few sortable tables where the years are not linked each time when they should be. And finally grand slam summary tables which go on and relink the years individually once again (in bold). If they were piped to say Year in tennis then I'd buy it, but not to just the year - what's the relevance? It's a mess and all Lightbot was trying to do was clear it up. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I undid it to preserve the status quo. That's all. No one is claiming that any tennis article is perfect, are they? The Billie Jean King article is very much a work-in-progress and has some significant faults, but it is much better than most tennis articles. Tennis expert (talk) 12:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. The status quo is inconsistent and unhelpful in the extreme. Making it more consistent is surely a good thing. The article is in a really poor state - it's surprising how this project could allow such a significant figure to have such a poor article. Work-in-progress but making little progress - half a dozen content related edits in the last three or four months. Unlinking the odd individual year was the right thing to do. I haven't heard a good reason why not. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Just out of interest, I clicked on a few other tennis bios, including Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Nikolay Davydenko, David Nalbandian, Marat Safin and Andy Roddick, none of these have your "consensus" applied? The Rambling Man (talk) 12:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Nor does Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters, Ana Ivanovic.... am I missing something? There's no consensus. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Read Serena Williams and Andy Roddick more carefully. Andre Agassi and Ana Ivanovic don't have naked year linking only because Lightbot or Lightmouse (the owner of Lightbot) just eliminated it. (How's that for circularity?) And while you're browsing, why not take a look at just a few articles that begin with "C" or "D" to see naked year linking: Conchita Martinez, Coral Buttsworth, Cedric Pioline, Dája Bedáňová, Daniela Hantuchová, Daphne Akhurst, Darlene Hard, Dianne Fromholtz Balestrat, Dominik Hrbatý, Dominika Cibulková, Doris Hart, Dorothea Douglass Lambert Chambers, Dorothy Cheney, Dorothy Head Knode, Dorothy Round Little. But if that doesn't satisfy your thirst for exploration, let's pick another letter from the alphabet. Let's try "M". Yeah, that would be fun. See Margaret Court, Margaret Osborne duPont, Margaret Scriven, Maria Bueno, Mariano Puerta, Marie Toomey, Marjorie Cox Crawford, Martina Hingis, Martina Navratilova, Mary Browne, Mary Joe Fernandez, Mary Pierce, Maureen Connolly, Michael Chang, Mima Jaušovec, Molla Mallory, and Monica Seles. By now, you're probably canceling all your social engagements because this little exercise is so engrossing. What letter would you like to try next? You want "R", you say? OK. Enjoy: Records held by Roger Federer, Renee Schuurman, Renáta Tomanová, Richard Krajicek, Robby Ginepri, Rod Laver, Rosemary Casals, and Roy Emerson. Everyone has their personal perculiarities, don't they? One of mine is liking the letter "H". I hope you do, too: Hana Mandlíková, Helen Gourlay, Helen Jacobs, Helen Wills Moody, Helena Suková, Helga Niessen Masthoff, Henri Leconte, Hicham Arazi, and Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling. I can tell you're getting sleepy and need a nap. When you're ready, give me your next letter of the alphabet. Cheers (and always take care not to violate WP:3RR)! Tennis expert (talk) 22:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm wondering what list you're reading your script from that lists players alphabetically by first name. No need to reply, just wondering... - Dudesleeper / Talk 02:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your enthusiasm for articles, Tennis expert. One of the primary features of Wikipedia is articles should be changed. Can we work together to change the status quo? Lightmouse (talk) 12:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I've asked for comment from the guys at WT:MOS. Knepflerle (talk) 15:32, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

One of the primary features of Wikipedia is that articles should conform to consensus. Changing articles in violation of consensus is not a feature of Wikipedia. You are certainly welcome to try to change consensus here. Tennis expert (talk) 22:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Tennis expert, perhaps you could, from all of the variety of ways these articles seem to approach this matter, explain precisely what the consensus is regarding wikilinking of individual years? The Rambling Man (talk) 15:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The consensus exists. Why, I have no idea. Tennis expert (talk) 22:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

What is missing from this debate is a clear statement from Tennis expert as to why s/he would want to take a stand against a long-standing movement in WP from scattergun linking to smart linking; the deprecation of date autoformatting is merely the most recent important change in practice that is part of this movement—not something that a few hair-brained editors thought up overnight. I certainly hope that our readers aren't having to put up with bright-blue blizzards of useless links in tennis-related articles. Tony (talk) 16:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to WP:AGF and assume you didn't read what I wrote above. I am against naked linking of years. I invite you to read what I've already written about this. If you need further explanation, let me know. Tennis expert (talk) 22:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Can I be slightly cheeky here, and refer the various very experienced editors now partaking in this conversation to the very long conversation above, spanning from section 5 to section 9? It is along much the same lines, only this time, it is about the use of sponsored names in player performance tables, instead of linking years. There, nearly every editor partaking in the discussion has come out against sponsored names (to some degree, often completely), and yet Tennis expert still refuses to accept that there is consensus against them, as he is citing the articles (which again, use a mixture of sponsored and non-sponsored) as his consensus - rst20xx (talk) 19:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Yet another misrepresentation of fact by Rst20xx. "Nearly every editor", huh. But you're right about one thing. There is no consensus in that discussion (yet). Tennis expert (talk) 22:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a change in policies as explained clearly by Tony. So we need no new consensus. Just get rid of the links.--HJensen, talk 22:57, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but you apparently missed the points I made earlier. (1) The Manual of Style is a mere guideline, not a policy. (2) The Manual of Style itself provides that exceptions can be made. (3) As you and I have seen concerning diacritics, a general policy can be overriden by a consensus concerning a specific issue. (This is the well-known concept of the specific prevailing over the general.) So, consensus concerning tennis articles is completely relevant and should be respected (by humans and bots) until that consensus is changed. Tennis expert (talk) 23:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

"It's a guideline" not policy is a silly argument, especially in this context. The guideline is clear, Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#Dates. Don't link years that aren't relevant to the content of the article, just we don't link every non-relevant word in an article like sun or wind. Please follow the guideline, and don't revert those who do. 2005 (talk) 00:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

My advice to you is to respect this discussion (and pre-existing consensus concerning tennis articles) until this discussion reaches a consensus. And it is entirely valid to distinguish between a "guideline" and a "policy", especially when the guideline itself makes it clear that exceptions to the guideline are allowed. And just to reiterate what I've said numerous times already, I am not in favor of naked linking of years. But we all have to respect tennis article consensus until it changes. Tennis expert (talk) 00:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

My question to you is, when will you consider this discussion to have reached a consensus? rst20xx (talk) 01:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

When the consensus happens. There is no deadline. You apparently believe that 24-hours is enough time for a longstanding consensus to be overturned. I believe that's completely unreasonable. Tennis expert (talk) 05:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

No prior tennis discussion matters, even if there was one. This is a clear, longstanding, plainly common sense encyclopedia-wide guideline supported by very broad consensus for years. Please do not wikify meaningless dates or other words in articles. It just makes ugly, worthless clutter for other editors to clean up. Frankly your lone fanaticism opposing a common sense consensus is hard to fathom. Wasting another second on something so wildly trivial is crazy. Just move on. 2005 (talk) 02:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

That is incorrect. And apparently you have not understood anything I've already said. I am against naked year linking but more importantly, I am in favor of upholding consensus until it is overturned in accordance with Wikipedia procedures. The consensus for tennis biographies concerning naked year linking is quite clear, and I am not free to say here that just because I disagree with the consensus, it is OK for some of you to ignore it and bulldoze through your views about the narrow issue of naked year linking, tennis biography consensus notwithstanding. Tennis expert (talk) 05:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

This has all become rather silly. To contravene the MoS, you need to demonstrate "common sense" or good reason. But I see neither put up here as a reason not to nuke these frightful little year-links in tennis articles. Tony (talk) 02:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Contravening the Manual of Style guidelines can be done in either of two ways. First, demonstrate common sense or good reason, as you pointed out. Second, through consensus for articles concerning a particular subject matter. This latter method is supported by the recent precedent where WP:UE was specifically ignored in favor of a local consensus concerning the use of diacritics in the names of tennis biographies. As I said then, it's an unfortunate precedent, but now we're stuck with it unless, of course, that issue is reopened and the result is reversed. Silly? I think not. This whole issue is vitally important to how Wikipedia functions, especially concerning the interplay between general guidelines (or policy) and contrary consensus that applies only to a limited group of articles. Tennis expert (talk) 05:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Enough of this. If you oppose naked year linking, stop doing it. Consensus is not to do it, period. Honestly this is the silliest wikidrama I've ever seen, and that is truly saying a lot. I don't edit in this area regularly so I don't know if you just being deliberately contrary, but naked years will continue to be delinked throughout the encyclopedia. 2005 (talk) 06:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you still do not understand the concept of a specific consensus regarding articles that all relate to a particular subject matter versus a general Manual of Style that itself says it is a mere guideline and can be overridden. I've tried to explain these important concepts in several different ways already. Hopefully, you'll understand this slightly different explanation. "Contrary", huh? Perhaps you should assume my good faith. You have no reason to doubt it. Tennis expert (talk) 07:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I've wasted enough time on this, but you are the only one talking contrary. It's true exceptions can be made, but wiki projects do not have the ability make a consensus that overides a general one. The tennis project for example can't say every word and every , should be wikilinked. here it's the same. It's a nonsense idea to link unrelated dates. Please stop beating a dead horse, and don't revert edits that follow widespread consensus, common sense, and your own strange insistence that you agree with the edits! 2005 (talk) 07:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I am baffled as well over this thing. I think it is fair to ask Tennis Expert again, when you think consensus is reached? I acknowledge it is hard to define, but at least every editor must have a private idea about it. Here, we have a situation where as far as I can see nobody wants the links (including Tennis Expert) and a situation where they are against guidelines. In such a situation I think it would be of interest to know how long we should wait until you feel a consensus is reached? For me it has been reached on this issue. Very clearly indeed. I don't think we would be setting a dangerous precedent for fast decisions if we stopped the whole thing now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HJensen (talk • contribs) 09:56, September 7, 2008

We've all wasted plenty of time here. Tennis expert, can you answer one simple question - what is the consensus on linking individual years in tennis articles? I can't see it. Some articles link all instances all the time, some link all different years once, some link just the odd one or two and some link none of them. Which particular consensus are you attempting to enforce by restoring articles to their former states? I heard something about "maintaining the status quo" - now quite why would you do that? I think this discussion here thus far has adequately demonstrated, as a minimum, that your idea of consensus is incorrect in this case. So, can you answer the question posed above, since you're the only one who wants to "maintain the status quo" and the rest of us are aiming for a more consistent approach, at what point will you consider a (new) consensus to be reached? Oh, and please don't patronise me with " I can tell you're getting sleepy and need a nap". Resorting to this kind of childish remark doesn't do your viewpoint any favours. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The silence is deafening. Not much more can be added to this. - Dudesleeper / Talk 16:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

What's the rush? Not everyone has the time to be on Wikipedia 24-hours per day. Real life interferes occasionally. Tennis expert (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Rambling Man: (1) I've already gone through several letters of the alphabet concerning tennis biographies to prove that the consensus exists. What other letters would you like to see? (2) I've already explained about 10 times in 10 different ways why the status quo should be maintained until consensus about tennis articles changes. (3) If you can cite a Wikipedia policy imposing a deadline for consensus to be reached, then I'll be happy to accept it. But I'm not aware of such a deadline. (4) Sorry that you couldn't or wouldn't accept my little stab at humor in an otherwise dry listing of articles. I promise to be more drab and serious in the future when responding to you. Tennis expert (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you, for one final time of asking, tell me what the consensus is? All I can see is that it's a random distribution of linked and unlinked years. Is that it? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

(1) There was no consensus (and probably still isn't given how short a time we've been discussing it) for delinking naked years in tennis articles. The consensus is for naked years to be linked the first time they are used in each section of a tennis article. (2) There is no consensus for delinking months-date-years (or any variation thereof) in tennis articles. The consensus is for months-date-years (or any variation thereof) to be linked. (3) There is no consensus for delinking a term the second or subsequent time it is used in a tennis article. The consensus is that a term is linked the first time it is used in each section of a tennis article. That covers many of the types of edits that the Manual of Style people have been making the last few days. Tennis expert (talk) 18:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

"The consensus is for naked years to be linked the first time they are used in each section of a tennis article" - wrong. Several articles you have pointed to do this, several I have pointed to don't. Several I have pointed to just link randomly. You said a consensus could be achieved by some kind of existing status quo. Clearly it isn't the case in these articles as there's no consistency from article to article. Until you can point me to a discussion between editors at this wikiproject which advocates either (1) what you're saying or (2) the actuality i.e. no consistent linking across tennis articles, it's clear to all here (except you it appears) that a consensus does not exist. So, being sensible, non-controversial and with only the improvement of the tennis project pages in mind (and goodness do they need help), we should now do something which is clear for all i.e. follow the MOS. And by the way, please remember this is a wiki and "your" idea of consensus is clearly not everyone else's. Anyone can edit any of those articles - claiming an "invisible consensus" is inappropriate. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:59, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

(1) As WP:CONSENSUS plainly says, there does not have to have been a "discussion between editors at this wikiproject" before the consensus I'm talking about could exist. I'm very surprised you would believe otherwise. (2) You are very unfortunately confusing what I'm saying about a preexisting consensus with WP:OWN. (3) At no time have I said that there is an "invisible" consensus. The consensus is very visible, as I have pointed out already. Tennis expert (talk) 20:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Um, I'm going round in circles now so this is all I have to say as it's abundantly clear that you, Tennis expert, are on your own. You say " I'm very surprised you would believe otherwise." re: consensus - once more I have to state that you have not adequately pointed out a consensus. There is no evidence of a coherent approach to wikilinking in these tennis articles. You are trying to own, not only these bios, but, it seems from the discussions of plenty here, this project. It's a shame that you can't turn your "expert"ise to improving the poor state of the bios rather than go on a crusade which is only confusing and inconsistent (note, most important here - confusing and inconsistent for everyone - you're the only person here who seems to think there is a consensus). As you've pointed out before, I'm now tired. I'm now very happy to edit with the consensus that has clearly been demonstrated here, i.e. that your bizarre concept of a consensus which is not consistent from one article to the next, which is not recorded anywhere and which is in contravention of the MOS is incorrect. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

On my own in which way? As for your highly conclusory statements, I'm not responsible for and cannot control what you believe, concerning my alleged "ownership" of tennis articles, this project, or anything else you want to allege. As for everything else you've said, it's a repeat of things I've answered before (some many times). Tennis expert (talk) 22:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Replying to Tennis Expert's call for discussion

Hi, I've been reading up a lot on the various discussions about wikilinking dates and came across your invitation to join the discussion regarding the linking of years in tennis articles. I'm a bit confused, as I came here expecting to find Tennis Expert giving examples why the linking of years in tennis articles is a good thing. Instead, all I can see is that a lot of articles have year links, that Tennis Expert agrees are redundant and don't refer to anything about tennis (if they linked to [[2006 Tennis season|2006]], that is fine, but linking to [[2006]] is pointless. We all asgree on that. I'm just wondering whether anyone else from the Tennis Project supports the inclusion of these links, for reasons other than "I've seen years linked in other tennis articles, so thought I would, and assumed consensus". If the years do get unlinked and members of WP:TENNIS then think "hey - where have our lovely blue links gone", then this discussion can continue. It seems like Tennis Expert is standing up for editors (against his own preference - an admirable quality), regardless of the fact that a) the editors don't realise this discussion is happening, b) that the year linking is pointless and against the MOS guidelines, c) probably wouldn't notice the difference and couldn't care less.

I would suggest that delinking continues, until other WP:TENNIS members come forward, and that Tennis Expert hops off the fence, is WP:BOLD and tries to reflect his own views and wishes. If WP:TENNIS (not just Tennis Expert) can actually come forward and prove (or create) consensus (other than "this is what we've always done so lets continue without taking a look to work out why we do it") then this discussion will carry more weight.–MDCollins (talk) 00:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

My answer to your question "I'm just wondering whether anyone else from the Tennis Project supports the inclusion of these links" is that nobody, including Tennis Expert, support the inclusion of years links. My opinion is that we are just wasting time here, and that the Tennis Project recently has come forward as looking particularly silly. --HJensen, talk 05:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC) (corrected years to links --HJensen, talk 11:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC) )

Yes, and it's a great pity for the readers of these articles, as well as a slap in the face to those who are trying to improve them. It's not for the good of our health that several people have been improving tennis articles WRT dates; I see that Tennis expert has run around reverting their efforts in quite a few cases—even to the extent of reinstating wrong date formats into Australian-related articles. Tony (talk) 06:15, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Slap in the face? I'm sorry you take disagreement so personally. And what "wrong date formats" and which Australian-related articles are you talking about? Tennis expert (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks HJensen - so in fact "consensus" is likely to form in favour of de-linking? If so, this discussion is probably over.–MDCollins (talk) 10:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Whether a consensus is "likely" to form does not mean that the consensus actually has formed. Tennis expert (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing silly about honoring Wikipedia processes, HJensen. I'm rather shocked that you would claim otherwise. Tennis expert (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think honoring Wikipedia processes are silly. I think it is this very process that is being silly in the sense that the lack of common sense is striking. I think we should follow WP:IAR and that you should adhere to Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Your insistence of keeping some vague status quo you don't approve of for some undefined amount of time is rather disturbing, and makes the Tennis Project appear, well, silly. You are effectively creating a situation where we should all sit back and wait for your acceptance on when to do things like everybody wants. --HJensen, talk 19:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

(1) Now you're invoking WP:IAR. I would accept that except that then anyone could invoke WP:IAR to reimpose naked year linking, etc. Where should we stop? (2) I am not trying to make a point, unless you believe that anyone (including yourself, I might add) who tries to uphold Wikipedia policy (WP:CONSENSUS) is violating WP:POINT. Is that what you believe? (3) Thanks for once again putting words in my mouth. This has nothing to do with my "acceptance" of anything. In fact, as I've said about 15 times already, I am opposed to naked year linking. How many more times do I have to say it and in how many more different ways? (4) The real silliness is the state of tennis articles and the misguided consensuses (plural) that exist for so many of them. I am all in favor of improving them. But this has to be done in accordance with consensus. If the consensus is for the articles to continue to be substandard, there's not much we can do about it. (5) Give this some time. Why are you in such a rush? 24-48 hours is not enough. There is no deadline. Let the discussion continue so that the new consensus, if there is one, becomes clear and irrefutable. Tennis expert (talk) 20:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for answering my invitation. But when did I ever say that consensus should stay the same and that we should never reexamine it? The answer is "never". However, I believe that when there is overwhelming evidence of a consensus and someone comes along and makes an edit that's inconsistent with consensus and then the edit is reverted, then there needs to be a discussion about the consensus and the edit to avoid needless edit warring. See WP:BRD. Lightbot and some humans that agree with Lightbot's actions have ignored the "discussion" part of WP:BRD and instead resorted to edit warring, threats, mind-reading, and other disagreeable conduct to enforce their conception of tennis article style. That's unacceptable, in my opinion. Tennis expert (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The parallels between this conversation and the one above about non-sponsored names are astounding. In both cases, consensus is against Tennis expert's point of view, but in both cases he is refusing to acknowledge that - rst20xx (talk) 15:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus there. And your unilateral and biased declaration of consensus (and other misrepresentations of fact) does not make it so. Tennis expert (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Attempt to gauge current thinking

Okay, I think we're in a position now where we have (at least) two clear ways ahead. I'd like to understand who is in favour of which approach. Please indicate your support under the relevant summary. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I am assuming that this is an effort to develop a new or changed consensus concerning tennis articles and not an effort to make edits without the new or changed consensus. My comments below are provided under those assumptions. Tennis expert (talk) 20:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess your assumption to be correct. As per my opening sentence, I wish to understand who is in favour of which approach to take regarding the obvious confused minefield of erratic and inconsistent year, year-month and year-month-day linking from one tennis article to another, including those articles which you have worked on in the past week. Hope that clears it up for you. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not a "confused minefield of erratic and inconsistent year, year-month and year-month-day linking from one tennis article to another," as I already have demonstrated. Tennis expert (talk) 21:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is. I've adequately demonstrated that there are many, many articles which do not follow your consensus. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(a) Status quo

To quote Tennis expert : "The consensus is for naked years to be linked the first time they are used in each section of a tennis article." and "The consensus is for months-date-years (or any variation thereof) to be linked."

(b) Proposal

To follow the WP:MOS guidelines, in particular Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context#Dates.

• Support (b) but Tennis expert won't like this, I warn you, as again, we tried this in the above discussion about sponsored names, and despite every single person voting against his position, he refused to recognise it as "polling is not a substitute for discussion" - rst20xx (talk) 19:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• • Yeah I saw that. But in amongst this chaos, a decent summary of people's opinions is useful, to me at least. Cheers for your time! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• • • Not surprising that you (rst20xx) are wrong again. Despite my saying this in about 15 different ways, I have never been in favor of linking naked years. I was merely saying that naked years in tennis articles should not be delinked until the consensus for those articles is changed. I am assuming that you understand my position now and that you will not continue misrepresenting it. Thanks. Tennis expert (talk) 20:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support it's clear to me that no viable and, most importantly, consistent and intelligible approach is to follow MOS while tennis articles are devoid of a unified way of dealing with date linking. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. See Proposal (c). By the way, tennis articles are "not devoid of a unified way of dealing with date linking," as I already have demonstrated. Tennis expert (talk) 21:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Your demonstration was inadequate I'm afraid as I have already demonstrated. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support. I see no use of naked year links or naked links to any dates in whatever format.--HJensen, talk 21:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(c) Proposal

(1) Do not link naked years. (2) De-link naked years wherever they already appear. (3) Do not delink existing months-date-years (or any variation thereof) until there is clear consensus to delink them. See the ongoing discussions elsewhere about the controversial delinkings that people are doing under an alleged WP:MOS mandate. Tennis expert (talk) 20:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose (c)(3) I form an opinion (I fail to see a proposal in just saying: Do not violate consensus.): Delink months-date-years.--HJensen, talk 21:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
• Question - why are you willing to poll this time? rst20xx (talk) 22:20, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose (c)(3) delink where appropriate for consistency. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot: delinking solitary years and other non-autoformat dates

Many of you will know of the activities of Lightbot with respect to delinking dates that are not autoformattable, adding unit conversions, and other janitorial edits. It has touched over 160,000 articles with edits relating to dates and units. I've made a new request for bot approval that is largely a clarification/extension of two previous approvals. The wording has been revised to make it more explicit and easier to read and check by people who encounter the bot for the first time.

One editor from Wikiproject Tennis has already written opposing the revised approval. I would be grateful if other editors could comment at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 17:12, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Not only will Lightbot not allow naked linking of years, it apparently won't allow the linking of a year to the corresponding year-in-sports, such as 2008 that is used in the Rafael Nadal singles performance timeline. See this discussion on Lightmouse's talk page. Do we really want a bot to be doing this kind of editing without prior notice or discussion and without bothering to obtain consensus from tennis editors? I think not. Tennis expert (talk) 06:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not the case; there's a separate function for the removal of "hidden" year-links that is treated very cautiously and not usually applied. That doesn't stop my believing that such links should be recast so that they're no longer hidden under what looks like a useless year-link to the readers. Tony (talk) 07:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

What is the criteria for Lightbot to recast "hidden" year-links? Where and when was the general decision made to allow Lightbot to recast them? Who makes the decision for Lightbot to recast the links in particular cases? Is any advance notice given before Lightbot recasts them? Why is a bot needed at all to do this when recasting essentially is a case-by-case decision? Tennis expert (talk) 07:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

New WTA season

I think we are going to have some problems with singles performance timetable for women, because there are big changes in tournament categories (there are no Tier I, II, III, and IV). [18] We have 3 mounts to design new disign for singles performance timetables! Does someone have ideas! :) --Göran Smith (talk) 12:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have ideas (see sandbox), whether they're any good... obviously, looking at what I've done there, the "Premier" and "International" colours would have to be made a bit less abrasive. I added a link to WTA Tour, hopefully so that people can find out about the changes that went on (there's nothing at the moment). Yohan euan o4 (talk) 19:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thats easy to add! I meant Singles performance timetable, because there are too many premiere tour., and only four "special" premiere tournaments. --Göran Smith (talk) 19:52, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Tournament	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	Career SR	Career W/L
Current WTA Tier I Tournaments5
Doha	Not Held	Not Tier I							QF	0 / 1	2–1
Indian Wells	A	2R	A	1R	1R	2R	2R	4R	SF	0 / 7	7–7
Miami	A	LQ	A	1R6	3R	2R	2R	3R	F	0 / 7	10–7
Charleston	A	A	LQ	A	2R	1R	1R	W	QF	1 / 6	8–5
Berlin	A	A	A	A	A	SF	1R	QF	QF	0 / 4	8–4
Rome	A	A	A	1R6	LQ	2R	QF	W	W	2 / 6	15–4
Montréal / Toronto	A	A	A	A	2R	1R	3R7	F	QF	0 / 5	9–4
Tokyo	A	A	A	A	A	1R	1R	QF		0 / 3	1–3
Moscow	A	A	A	A	A	1R	A	A		0 / 1	0–1
Former WTA Tier I Tournaments5
San Diego	A	A	A	A	2R	3R	3R	3R	Not Held	0 / 4	6–4
Zürich	A	A	A	A	A	2R	2R	2R	Not Tier I	0 / 3	2–3

I guess just the four get continuation in the 2009 column (with the rest saying NH or Not Held or nothing at all), and then younger players would only have 4 columns to start with. Maybe the four special tourneys should also get a special colour in the legend, too - rst20xx (talk) 19:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should wait until the points structure is issued, to see if the four mandatory premier events award more points than the other premier events. If those events award more points, then I would be in favor of singles performance timelines tracking the results of only those four events. If that is not the consensus view, then the timelines will either have to track 20 events (ugh) or we will have to come up with criteria (original research?) for determining which events to track. The following is my suggestion if we're going to track only the four mandatory premier events:

Tournament	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	Career SR	Career W/L
WTA Mandatory Premier Tournaments
Indian Wells	A	2R	A	1R	1R	2R	2R	4R	SF		0 / 7	7–7
Key Biscayne	A	LQ	A	1R6	3R	2R	2R	3R	F		0 / 7	10–7
Madrid	Not Held										0 / 0	0–0
Beijing	Not Held				Not Tier I						0 / 0	0–0
Former WTA Tier I Tournaments that are not WTA Mandatory Premier Tournaments
Charleston	A	A	LQ	A	2R	1R	1R	W	QF	Not MP	1 / 6	8–5
Berlin	A	A	A	A	A	SF	1R	QF	QF	Not MP	0 / 4	8–4
Rome	A	A	A	1R6	LQ	2R	QF	W	W	Not MP	2 / 6	15–4
Montréal / Toronto	A	A	A	A	2R	1R	3R7	F	QF	Not MP	0 / 5	9–4
Tokyo	A	A	A	A	A	1R	1R	QF		Not MP	0 / 3	1–3
Moscow	A	A	A	A	A	1R	A	A		Not MP	0 / 1	0–1
Zürich	A	A	A	A	A	2R	2R	2R	Not Tier I	Not MP	0 / 3	2–3
San Diego	A	A	A	A	2R	3R	3R	3R	Not Held		0 / 4	6–4
Doha	Not Held	Not Tier I							QF	Not Held	0 / 1	2–1

Tennis expert (talk) 21:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Well broadly speaking that looks good, except for the all-too-predictable attempts to substitute in sponsorship names, and Key Biscane for Miami - rst20xx (talk) 22:22, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

As I've said many times before, the Sony Ericsson Open is held in Key Biscayne, Florida, which is a separate legal entity and is not part of Miami, Florida. For someone who is so squeamish about official sponsored names, I'm surprised that you are in favor of saying in an encyclopedia that this tournament is held in Miami. Tennis expert (talk) 06:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't be surprised. On the WTA homepage (which you should refer to as the Sony Ericsson WTA page), they place the tournament in Miami (and don't call it Sony Ericsson Open): http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/2/players/playerprofiles/PlayerActivity.asp?PlayerID=311710 So it is verifiable. I have said it many times before, but the defunct ATP tournament Copenhagen Open was not held in Copenhagen, but in Frederiksberg, a different legal entity. I would do WP:OR if I wrote that it was being held in Frederiksberg instead of Copenhagen. Because practically nowhere it says so. In this WTA case, many sources place Miami in Miami; so don't be surprised. --HJensen, talk 07:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Current consensus is Miami as well, and we all know how important that is to you, Tennis expert - rst20xx (talk) 14:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

HJensen, it's not WP:OR to reflect the fact, which is noted in countless news media around the world, that the Sony Ericsson Open is held in Key Biscayne, Florida. I have no idea whether the media is as factually correct about the Fredericksberg tournament. Rst20xx, just because you say that consensus exists does not mean it in fact does. Tennis expert (talk) 16:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It was never mentioned to be held in Frederiksberg. So I would do OR if I changed that (I wasn't talking about the Miami tournament, just mentioning that WTA and ATP "place" it in Miami, Fl.). As for consensus, I guess we have all understood that we all have to wait for you to declare one. So I am pulling out of the Tennis Project in the meantime.--HJensen, talk 16:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

This table seems appears to be the best solution. Points scoring may present itself as a suitable qualification, but I think that the wisest option would be to only include the mandatory events - they're mandatory to ensure a higher quality field, and removing five or six from this category will likely see a degradation in quality, or varying levels compared to the madantory four (And the main performance timeline is meant to show a player's performance at the highest levels of competition). There's also the much higher prize money (the $4.5m is an aggregate prize money with the men's, but so are most others that are $1m+). I assume the current Tier I tournaments, like the men's Masters Series, are mandatory (the Williams sisters always seem to have a reason to excuse themselves). If they aren't mandatory (I don't know, but think it unlikely) that would seem to show that players follow points and that that qualification should be continued. I'll strike this if I find out they are mandatory; are they? Yohan euan o4 (talk) 12:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a very complicated subject. Tennis expert (talk) 06:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

External link www.informationtennis.com

This user has taken up the issue of using the aforementioned link as a genuine external link. You may find a background of this discussion at my talk page. Since he feels that my intentions of removing these links is biased, I'm hoping that a discussion here, with multiple editors, should help clear some air on the issue. Thanks. LeaveSleaves (talk) 03:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

That's funny, User:Tennis Expert5 has exactly the same editing pattern, and I swear I've seen a third. Get them checked out at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser, they may be sockpuppets. And while you're at it, also get them checked against User:Lman1987, almost every other "User:Tennis..." account was registered by him. Oh, and err yes, I agree that those links are basically spam - rst20xx (talk) 19:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I have raised this question to the user. The point is s/he hasn't exactly done any sock-puppetry action. LeaveSleaves (talk) 20:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Well that's true - rst20xx (talk) 22:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Tennis

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement - Nicolas Kiefer

Hello all...

An image used in the article, specifically Image:Kikikiwi.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 01:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I've uploaded an image from flickr to the commons. You can consider using it. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 02:11, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Poor state of articles

The quality of many of these articles are extremely poor. So many people treat the articles like a news service, putting every single match result on there, using tabloidese language and occasionally, even using the tennis player's first name - and these terrible changes have often stayed for months and months. On the occasion that a user (myself and numerous others) has tried to take a tennis article by the scruff of the neck, giving it a scrupulous clean-up, re-writing some particularly poor parts of the article but retaining the essence of the original article, User:Tennis expert has waded in in almost every case, bullying the "daring" user into submission.

I have been working on the Maria Sharapova article since the beginning of the summer, the article has improved from C-Class to being seriously considered for Good article status. However, Tennis expert did not take kindly to having his work changed and edited, and therefore, ever since, has been embarking on a mission to try and restore his preferred version of the article, reverting hundreds of edits, and employing gutter tactics to get his way - his bringing up my past errors to discredit my present work on Sharapova despite my legitimately exercising a clean start. His trying to get someone who disagreed with him on wikilinking years banned on a petty technicality is another example of the tactics he regularly employs.

Not that Tennis expert's bizarre behaviour is limited to the Sharapova article. The Serena Williams article is another prime case - that article is poor, mountains of unreferenced statements, poor writing in many places, and most crucially, a complete misweighting in terms of the material for each season - 2002-2003 (when Williams was absolutely dominant in women's tennis, winning five of the eight Grand Slams during this period) has just a few lines each, whereas 2007 (when Williams was ranked just #7 at the end of the year) has about four times as much, listing every single tournament she played in. So, myself and numerous others tried to give the article a radical change, to make it more accessible to the average user... but each time, Tennis expert came in and tried to shout them down, reverting and reverting. When a discussion was held, Tennis expert again bullied people into shutting up, citing an apparent consensus despite himself being the only person in favour of the previous version [...]

Just to interrupt this paragraph momentarily, I followed the piped link above and noticed that I had chipped in with a similar argument to TE's, so he cannot truthfully be called "the only person" in this particular instance. almost-instinct 08:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

[...] In particular, take a look at Dinara Safina, the current world #3 and who is moving close to #1, and honestly tell me that is up to Wikipedia's standards. I would try and give that article a cleanup, but I am under no illusion that Tennis expert would not once again try and revert me incessently. There was a similar situation on Rafael Nadal (a dispute I was not involved in) - see here. On the rare occasion that someone does not give into Tennis expert's intimidation, he scrapes the bottom of the gutter in an attempt to get his own way, as I have already shown.

I have always believed that apparent "consensus" should not get in the way of improving the very poor quality of many of these articles. However, I have now personally lost patience and am not willing to just sit around putting in good work just to have it incessently reverted by Tennis expert. Wikipedia is obviously a great project, and the tennis articles have a massive potential. What a shame that that potential will never be realised, due almost entirely to the bizarre, bewildering and frankly rather disturbing overpossessiveness and control-freakery Tennis expert exercises over these articles. Musiclover565 (talk) 17:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It appears from your post that you primarily have issues against a single editor. The intention of this project is improvement of tennis articles and not monitoring user behavior. I would suggest that you take this issues personally with said editor through constructive discussion. If you feel that such a discussion hasn't been fruitful, you can use other places such as WP:RFAR, WP:ANI etc. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 18:03, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The disruptive, dishonest, bizarre, bewildering, and frankly rather disturbing overpossessiveness and control-freakery behavior over articles is entirely your own, Musiclover565, as your edits, edit summaries, and discussion page posts prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. And who did I try to get banned, Musiclover565? Either provide evidence of my supposed efforts in this regard or retract your erroneous allegations. Tennis expert (talk) 10:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I would agree that this is not the place to discuss issues with individual editors. However, if this really a project which seeks for the "improvement of tennis articles" then it really ought to work harder collaboratively. For such a hugely important topic to not have one single featured article is astonishing. A lot of regular editors here need to get up to speed with current FA criteria and work together to improve articles, not soapbox or stonewall. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

This isn't really about my personal issues with Tennis expert - I'd like to think I would've made this post regardless of whether I had clashed with him or not. It is about what effects Tennis expert's actions have - they severely cut the quality of the tennis articles, imo. Like I said, whenever someone has tried to revamp a poor article, Tennis expert has, this year, almost always come in and reverted it back, citing an apparent "consensus" even if the revamp had vastly improved the quality of the article. In fairness, he is not responsible for most of the very poor material on some of the articles (he is atleast capable of constructing proper sentences, even though I personally find his writing style quite stilted), but he is very instrumental in the prevention of this poor material being removed. And in particular, he is extremely overpossessive of articles he has put a significant amount of work into.

My main point was that I believe that the regular editors of tennis articles should agree here that, in the case of a very poor tennis article (and, like it or not, that covers a lot of articles), an editor should be permitted to take it by the scruff of the neck and make significant changes (provided they don't make completely ridiculous changes, like reducing it to like a paragraph for each season) without fear of getting their work reverted purely on the basis of an apparent past consensus, by Tennis expert or anyone else. Having said that, I personally probably won't be sticking around either way. Musiclover565 (talk) 21:23, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Well not sticking around won't really help. I've seen the "expert" at work with his magical "consensus" - you've just got to crack on and improve articles, regardless. It seems that, on the whole, this "consensus" demands all tennis articles remain the same forever. Which, as we know, is nonsense. Let's get on and improve things. I've done some work on Sharapova - there are plenty of facts which need resolving there so let's get on with it. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:24, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The thing is though, I and others have tried "just getting on with it" before, and it hasn't worked. After Tennis expert has brushed off someone who "dares" to make a significant change to an article, they are often either too intimidated or do not care enough to carry on pursuing instating their edits, meaning potentially great work is lost. Even if they don't, they will usually face a long, drawn-out battle before Tennis expert even halfway accepts a significant change. For instance, I submitted a fairly radical edit to Sharapova way back in June (an edit that elevated the article from Start Class to consideration for Good Article); TE has never been happy with it purely because it meddled with "his" work, and therefore, has constantly tried reinstating his preferred version, most recently last Wednesday (mindlessly reverting hundreds and hundreds of edits, which should really be considered vandalism), and now has managed to make his edit stick. That shows the kind of lengths anyone needs to go to to dispute with Tennis expert, and therefore, that will probably put off many, many potentially valuable editors from giving these articles the significant improvements they need.

What I am proposing is that a good number of regular editors of tennis articles agree here that fantasy "consensus" should not alone be enough of a reason against a significant edit (because like I've shown, "just getting on with it" will probably not work). Of course, if an edit is so clearly garbage, or chops the article down to a ridiculously short length, or is almost universally detested, then of course it could be reverted, but I do not think past apparent "consensus" being against it should be enough of a reason to revert a good edit. Musiclover565 (talk) 19:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

So, as I've said before, "Let's GO GO GO GO GO!" - start with Sharapova. Start fixing those fact tags. Let's reduce the overlinking. Let's improve the prose. Keep things inline with the WP:MOS. Do something to get WP:TENNIS out of the doldrums. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

(1) You guys apparently do not understand WP:CONSENSUS. If there is consensus for the current version of an article, then you can change the article only if you get consensus for the changes. One editor cannot simply announce to the world that "my edits are an improvement" and then use edit-warring tactics to force his changes to stick. This is one of many tactics, including outright dishonesty and misrepresentation, that Musiclover565 and his many sockpuppets have used for the last 4 months. (2) Your edits of the Maria Sharapova article in June, Musiclover565, were considered for GA status only because you requested it. The request was denied. Other regular editors of the article not only disagreed with GA status, but downgraded the article to "C" class precisely because your edits made the article worse. This is another instance of your constant misrepresentations of fact. (3) The Sharapova article before your unilateral edits in June was not "my" version. It was instead the work product of many editors over many months. This is another instance of your constant misrepresentations of fact. (4) Any edit can be reverted, including an edit that you (Musiclover565) believe is an improvement. See WP:BRD. Tennis expert (talk) 10:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Sharapova GAR

I have nominated Maria Sharapova for Good Article Reassessment. Please feel free to add comments here ‎or, better still, improve the article. Also, you can review my comments and concerns here.

Tennis ashes

This project has two FAs (both video games) and three GAs (one about to be demoted unless serious work is done (Sharapova)) - the football project has over 100 featured articles and lists. Is this as good as it gets? Can we please collaborate and start with saving Maria and then perhaps dare to push an article or two towards FA? I'm sure it can be done. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Anyone out there? The Rambling Man (talk) 12:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I really don't know if there's the manpower, or the will, to get many promoted to GA or FA status. Because the tennis project is much smaller than the football one, and because there's probably more to do in the way of updates, it's become more quantity than quality orientated. Maybe some fatalism has set in too: the Tennis and Roger Federer articles have both been suggested as potential good or featured articles in recent years and neither is there. I want to, but can't do, a GA or FA article on my own, and certainly can't contribute if there are conflicting forces. What does the Sharapova article need? Yohan euan o4 (talk) 00:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Well User:Tennis expert seems to think there are plenty of active participants so I think a decent run at a GA should be easy. The whole project has two FAs (both video games) and two GAs (one of which is a footballer article) which is very disappointing. Sharapova is at WP:GAR right now - there are many problems... The Rambling Man (talk) 10:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Total absence of tennis-related featured content, and current ineligibility

I sense that there's a lot of talent and diligence among the core of tennis editors at WP. This is why I find it striking that there's not a single featured item in the field, unlike the other major sports, which over the years have produced a stunning array of FAs and FLs.

My first question is whether there are plans to work towards featured content by this WIkiProject. By second question is whether people realise that under the current situation, tennis articles are ruled from of promotion because they would breach FA Criterion 2 and Featured List Criterion 5. This is because one of your number puts a lot of time into following and reverting the efforts of people who are trying to apply MoS, MOSNUM, MOSLINK and CONTEXT rules on the linking of chronological itmes to tennis articles. It's a great pity.

I can only offer my assistance (if my RL work permits) to editors who would like to identify likely candidates and polish them up for nomination. It's usually an exciting task. Tony (talk) 15:08, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Record against the top players

Is this really necessary? I see nobody put that in Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer profiles, but I see there is in many other that info. Today, I opened Ernests Gulbis to see that giant table. What to do in this case? Do we have a consensus on that issue? --Göran S (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it is OK for retied players, but for active, I think it's too much information. --Göran S (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Remove it. Excessive statistical information, and is violation of policy. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 01:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. There is quite a problem with tennis bios and WP:SUMMARY and WP:NOT#STATS. Be bold and remove these kind of things. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:04, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. The "record against the top players" is not a violation of policy and should remain in an article unless there is a consensus to remove it. Tennis expert (talk) 20:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh well. It's gone since there's no consensus to keep it. And WP:NOT#STATS. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well, you are wrong once again. You have to have consensus to delete this information from the article because the information already was in it. There is no such consensus. Tennis expert (talk) 06:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with majority, and also for Notable matches... I think there are too many statistical information in the articles.--Göran S (talk) 21:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

IMO it is absurd that a table that runs the risk of going out of date half the days of the year should be in the article of a current player. All of this information, guaranteed to be up to date, is easily available on the ATP Gulbis page we link to in the External Links. If we're searching for a consensus here, I'm on the side of the these tables not being given on the pages of active players. almost-instinct 23:20, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

There's clearly nothing absurd about information being included in an article that has the potential to go out-of-date. And no, the information is not easily available via the ATP website. Tennis expert (talk) 06:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well it appears that the consensus runs against you. Perhaps you would care to respect that rather than sneak the tables back in. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, nothing I do is "sneaky" and it is incivil of you to allege otherwise. Also, two or three people is not enough to form a consensus to delete information that many editors routinely add and maintain in tennis biographies. Tennis expert (talk) 08:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Same old story I'm afraid Tennis expert. Look at what people here are saying, please. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Same old story, I'm afraid Rambling man. You presume bad faith when none exists. Tennis expert (talk) 08:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

From the first line of the External Links section of Ernests Gulbis is

• WikiProject Tennis at the Association of Tennis Professionals

which on the page reads "Ernests Gulbis at the Association of Tennis Professionals". The invitation to compare Gulbis "Head-to-head" with any other ATP player, not just a random selection, is quite clear on that page almost-instinct 08:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The ATP allows only one head-to-head match-up at a time, which is far different from the Wikipedia table. Tennis expert (talk) 08:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Can we remember what Wikipedia is WP:NOT please? Not a collection of statistics... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Can we avoid jumping to conclusions, please? Just because Wikipedia is not a collection of statistics does not mean that the section in question is prohibited. Aside from that, a more specific consensus prevails over a more general one; therefore, if editors for a particular article have formed a consensus for something to be in that article, then that consensus prevails. Tennis expert (talk) 08:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid your information is wrong. Here's head-to-head between Gulbis and Djokovic. It further provides YTD stats of each player and stats of individual matches. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 08:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you do not understand the relevant point here. The Wikipedia table shows at a glance numerous match-ups while the ATP website allows only one match-up to be shown at a time. Tennis expert (talk) 08:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Notable matches

A number of bios have a "notable matches" section. Invariably, no neutral point of view set of criteria is provided for what makes the specific matches more notable than any other match. I believe we should remove these sections - what do the rest of you think? The Rambling Man (talk) 12:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree, for the similar reasons stated above for player records. The truly notable matches, such as title winning or runner up matches can be covered in career statistics section. Plus there also the summarizing single performance timeline table present. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 12:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. No particular factual item within an article has to satisfy notability criteria if the article itself is notable. Consensus determines the facts that editors include in an article or exclude from an article. It is not original research to include a description of a Grand Slam final but exclude what the player wore during that final. Tennis expert (talk) 20:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh well, you failed to explain precisely what "notable" means. These sections are somebody's opinion of notability. Thus they must be removed per policy. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well, you are wrong once again. Tennis expert (talk) 06:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Wrong that you failed to explain precisely what "notable" means? For instance, with Sharapova's article, you asserted the following terms were adequate for precise NPOV notability criteria : "defeated a heavily favored or much higher ranked", "upset by a much lower ranked opponent", "won a match after trailing badly or lost a match after having a big lead", "The match was long or very close, or both" and "The match was a final." - none of these terms are good enough. They are all inherently POV except for the "final", in which case I'd have expected to see many many more matches there since you asserted a final implied notability thus inclusion in your list. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Tennis Expert, please provide the discussion or policy that establishes the consensus on keeping description of these matches. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 20:49, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I, too, have qualms about the POV potential of these selections. Tony (talk) 01:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

LeaveSleaves, whether there is a consensus for a description of matches to be in an article has to be determined by the editors of that article. Tennis expert (talk) 06:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

So there still might be some prior instance of such discussion. Or was there none? Anyways, a request is made to editors to discuss this issue here and in light of the fact that this information has been added into multiple articles related to this project and discussing it on individual article is impractical, I think that a newer consensus be established based on this discussion. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 07:05, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, we are all potential editors of that article, this is a wiki. We're forming a clear consensus here I think. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus here (yet). Tennis expert (talk) 08:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing impractical about discussing this issue on individual article discussion pages. In fact, it is impractical to discuss it here because so few editors participate on this page. Tennis expert (talk) 08:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

There are plenty more editors here than on individual player's talk pages!! Unless you're referring to Sharapova which has slumped to losing GA status due to a number of issues being discussed here which you remain adamant have sufficient consensus to stay. How odd. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Then what is the use of this project? I think it's half expected for an editor interested in a tennis-related article to at least monitor (if not participate) discussions on this project and their absence here can't be an excuse for aborting this discussion. Discussing a single issue on every article talk page is a complete nonsensical suggestion. That would be a total waste other editors' time and resources and would lack coherence. ^LeaveSleaves _talk 09:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a total waste of time to discuss an issue here only for a consensus to emerge concerning a particular article that contradicts the discussion here. As I have said many times, Wikipedia precedent clearly provides that a more specific consensus concerning a particular article prevails over a more general consensus. Aside from that, the fact is that few tennis editors participate on this project page. That's the reality, regardless of woulda, shoulda, coulda. Tennis expert (talk) 19:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

If the group of editors that made the decision (there was none; I feel like you're being descriptive rather than prescriptive here) that there should be match-up results have a problem, they will come here. The fact that few come here is indicative of the general lack of adherence to Wikipedia policy on tennis articles: if some tennis editors are not aware of this page, then are even less likely to be aware of guidelines. If the datelinking thing should be down to the Tennis WikiProject (I personally believe that there should have been more consultancy with each Wikiproject), then this can be too, and particular discussions aren't necessary. After all, this could potentially affect all articles. Also, is there a problem with integrating it into the main career summary? Yohan euan o4 (talk) 19:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised that you (Rambling Man) persist in denying that a consensus can be formed based on the edits that people actually make, not just on what those people say in a talk page. The number of people who edit tennis articles far exceeds the number of people who participate on this project page. Tennis expert (talk) 20:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised that you ("Tennis expert") persist in ensuring this project goes from weakness to weakness, guaranteeing from your various edits that it will never get a featured article. After all, what is the purpose of this whole project? Not just the tennis wikiproject but Wikipedia? To develop an excellent encyclopedia perhaps? Do you want to achieve this? It's notable that you refuse to discuss this issue which, after all, is far more important than just relinking dates which seems to preoccupy your expertise. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Total lack of featured content

Tony1 raised a good point a couple of sections ago - this project clearly has keen editors (as shown in the previous two sections) but has no tennis-based featured content at all. And only one GA (as Maria Sharapova is to be delisted soon if she hasn't already and one of the other two GAs is about a footballer who had a minor role as a tennis player). Most articles are wikilink statistical nightmares. There also seems to be a driving force to deliberately not follow the WP:MOS and other guidelines such as WP:TRIVIA, WP:SUMMARY, WP:LENGTH. What do regular contributors think? Is it worth trying for a Featured article? The Rambling Man (talk) 08:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I happen to know that many editors got frustrated and left due to the particularly long discussion above. I personally don't have time to help out more at the moment (University). However, as sad as it is to say, the first thing that I feel needs doing is an RFC against the editor who caused the aforementioned rift, and I think this is the primary reason this project has problems. I hope this comment is not deemed uncivil, but it is honestly how I feel, I just don't have time to express these concerns in a more formal avenue right now - rst20xx (talk) 21:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

As an outsider, I have to agree that the statistics are excessive. Having tables covering her wins, runner-ups and all major tournament results is just too much for my taste. I actually think that these tables of ATP/WTA Tour wins could be good candidates to become featured lists with some improvements, though I'm unsure if they would be considered indiscriminate as separate lists. Just one editor's opinion. Giants2008 (17-14) 04:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)