Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports

Implementation of consensus infobox changes for current seasons

At Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_172#Designating_current_seasons_in_infoboxes, I read clear consensus to use text rather than images to designate the current season. I went ahead and made the change at {{Infobox award}}, but since I'm not a sports person, I'll leave the implementation for sports templates such as {{Infobox football league}} to you all here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I've added a DNAU tag to this thread; feel free to remove it once you have finished implementation. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Infobox guidelines

While working on lists of notable people connected to cities and schools, I have expanded sports biographical articles or at least taken them beyond the stub level. I have also created an infobox if needed. Several times, my infobox work has been criticized. For example, I didn't know that sports infoboxes are the one place in Wikipedia where abbreviation are standard, and I didn't know that minor league teams are not listed in the infobox. I am not a sports person, but want to get this right because so many that I come across need sources and cleanup. Where can I find the standard guidelines for sports infoboxes. And also, if their only pro team is in the minor leagues, does that mean their infobox is empty? What about players who are more famous for college play than the pros? Thanks. Rublamb (talk) 22:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

There's no one-size-fits-all across sports. With that, heck, anything can be criticized on Wikipedia. There's just no way to immunize yourself against that. Ravenswing 21:36, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

If you need advice on sport infoboxes, this link would give you a little bit help. SarahTHunter (talk) 18:35, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

When do school sports become notable?

This is a genuine question: I'm not into editing sports articles, but it's my understanding that sportspeople need good press coverage or achievements at quite a high level to be considered notable (appearing at the Olympics isn't enough, you need to win a medal). So I'm wondering whether the sport section of an article on a school such as Rice_Lake_High_School is sneaking through the sports barrier by being a school? Is the list of achievements in boys basketball in the Big Rivers Conference really notable? I don't know enough to judge, and would appreciate a more informed opinion. Elemimele (talk) 20:48, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Sections within a page do not necessarily need to hold to the same standards as an entire article on the same subject. That being said, that's a rather large and somewhat-excessive list, so I'll convert it to prose and see if that helps. Primefac (talk) 10:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

High school sports teams and their achievement need to be summarised to include only the most noteworthy details, and it's very unlikely any non-notable individuals will warrant mention. We certainly should not be detailing almost everything, as was the case here before it was cleaned up. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:56, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Cork Junior A Hunting Championship

Any thoughts on 2021_Cork_Junior_A_Hurling_Championship and similar articles, going back to 2015? The championship itself seems to pass GNG, but I'm ambivalent on the suitability of individual year results. Ovinus (talk) 19:43, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

The sixth tier in a county's competitions? Not remotely, for individual seasons. Ravenswing 21:34, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah okay. Bulk AfD is appropriate? Ovinus (talk) 21:38, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

1921 Cardinals NFL team

Would somebody (who knows better then I) fix the 1921 Racine Cardinals season page. It's in a state of confusion over whether it's the Racine Cardinals or the Chicago Cardinals. GoodDay (talk) 08:04, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Template: Start date and age

Howdy. Do we need Template:Start date and age added to the founding dates in the infoboxes of Sports team pages? GoodDay (talk) 02:30, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

From what I can see - NFL & MLS teams are using it, but NHL, MLB, NBA & CFL teams are not using it.

Sport results notability

I'm wondering if there is such a thing as a notability guide for sport results. I've noticed that most of the sports' individual events in the Paralympic Games haven't been done i.e. redlinked. If there's anybody who does sports results for other competitions, I'd like some advice or tips on what to do as I've only done sports pages for 2020 & 2024 Summer Paralympics but not done any specific event pages e.g. 100m sprint and 50m freestyle. Thanks. SarahTHunter (talk) 18:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Commonwealth Games intro & infobox

Should we use just "city, country" for the intros & infoboxes of Year British Empire/British Empire and Commonwealth/British Commonwealth/Commonwealth Games (with the exception of the 2026 Games) pages? GoodDay (talk) 00:10, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Over-capitalization of tournament article titles

See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_College_Basketball#Over-capitalization, where we're talking mostly about college basketball tournament articles, but also a similar pattern in volleyball, soccer, and ice hockey; maybe a few others? Please join there. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Infoboxes

@2603:7000:2143:8500:1D57:F56F:F459:8F5E: has raised concerns about lack of info at the bottom of infoboxes, see 2017 Maccabiah Games as an example. Should we include or add the previous year & next year or not? GoodDay (talk) 19:21, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I didn't even know there are cases where edition number is used instead of the year. I think year numbers are more informative. "← 19th Maccabiah" is a weird choice in many reasons. Usually there is just a year number and an organizing city for multi-sport events. For 2019 European Games, there is "← Baku 2015" not "1st European". Pelmeen10 (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Notability of Country at Event articles

I came across a large amount of very stubby articles along the lines of <country> at <event>, such as Cambodia at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics and Upper Volta at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics. Do these fall under WP:NSPORTS or WP:NEVENT, and has there been any previous discussion about bright line rules for these types of articles? Ljleppan (talk) 10:06, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Itxia, who appears to have authored most (all?) of the ones I've noticed. Ljleppan (talk) 10:09, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Speaking entirely for myself, if I come across country pages like those with nothing more than stats and raw data, I generally redirect it to the <country> at <games> summary article, since the information is likely already collated there. I have done (but am less comfortable with) redirecting pages without an overview page to the relevant edition of the games. In this particular case, for example, you would lose which athletes competed (whereas if you had a Cambodia at the World Championships in Athletics they could still be listed there). Primefac (talk) 12:40, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I think for Multi-sports events at a level of the Pan American, Commonwealth, Asian or Olympics, will almost always be notable. Throughout my 9 years here, I have yet to have worked on an article of a country at x event without finding coverage for the above mentioned events. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I would also agree with this; turning a page into a redirect might be okay in the short-term, but someone more(?) interested in the subject will likely be able to flesh it out to a suitable length. Primefac (talk) 15:27, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

The truth is that I don't know if there has been any previous discussion about bright line rules for these types of articles.

What I do know is that <country> at 2022 (and 2019, 2017 and so on) World Athletics Championships articles are made for all countries. Why won't there be any of the first championships? My goal was to complete wikipedia with that data, but if there is no interest, I don't gain anything by doing it either.

Why should there be a United States at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics (not only that, there are 1980 and 1976 articles, when they are not even World Championships per se) but not an article about Benin at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics? I agree that if Benin, for example, has only sent one or two athletes to each World Championship, you could redirect all their articles to Benin at <games> summary article, when there is one.

And another thing I don't understand is that if links to all those articles appear in the {{Infobox country at games}} template, it's because there's an interest in their existence, right? Or we prefer to see them in red (only the old ones, of course, because the new ones are all in blue)?

Anyway, I will continue doing those articles, at least from the countries with the most athletes (it remains to be seen who decides what is the appropiate number of athletes to be worth have an article). If I see that it continues to cause problems, then I stop doing it. No problem.

PS: Sorry for my English. Itxia (talk) 09:55, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it's a question of whether we should or not (I think we'd all agree the answer is "should"), but whether there is enough information. I raised a similar question at WT:OLYMPICS (permalink) about Haiti at the 1936 Summer Olympics, which at the time was a one-line stub. It's now an ITN candidate and looks pretty good!

In other words, by all means continue to create these pages - the more there are, the more interest will hopefully arise in filling out the rest and "turning redlinks blue". If a page is a redirect, such as the Cambodia page, think about why that was done - if there can be more information added, then it can likely be converted back into an article. If all that can be said is "XYZ country sent two athletes" then it might be more appropriate to save it for the summary/overview article. Primefac (talk) 10:04, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Just to expand on the first message here, my intent was not to make an accusation of these articles should not have been created, but a honest question w/r/t where they fall in the rather labyrinthine mess of various Wikipedia policies, guidelines and non-codified consensuses (I guess that's how one pluralizes consensus?). Ljleppan (talk) 10:11, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I think there's too many of the "X at event Y" articles. Outside of the Olympics, most of them aren't going to be notable, or ever provide any more information than a couple of lines of text. e.g. not sure why Luxembourg at the 2022 World Games and Mongolia at the 2022 World Games exist, they had one athlete at a Games that's less well covered than the Olympics, so doubt they would actually pass WP:GNG. It seems there's a lot of recentism with these articles too, as they're created for every country for an event this year, but don't exist for the same event 20 years ago, for the notable countries i.e. the ones that had 100+ participants. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:08, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Yea those are good examples of low quality articles. For the most part Pan Am Games, Asian Games, European Games and the Commonwealth Games will draw enough coverage for WP:GNG Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 18:38, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Brackets

I'm looking for some advice on how to use brackets for sport competitions' final rounds. Thanks SarahTHunter (talk) 14:54, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Marathon champion footers

Do we really need templates for winners of marathons that are not World Marathon Majors? There are 85 winners templates listed in Category:Marathon champions navigational boxes, and lots of them seem like winning those events is not a defining part of someone's career, and half the people listed on them are non-notable e.g. Template:Footer Istanbul Marathon Champions Men or Template:Footer Belgrade Marathon Champions Men. Is there a sports Wikiproject guideline for which of these should be kept or not, as I don't believe that many of these templates need to exist. And some people as a result have way too many marathon winners templates on their pages e.g. Eliud Kipchoge has 7 of the "X marathon - men's winners" templates, which would only be 4 if we only had them for World Marathon Majors. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:57, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Does a template wrapper solve half your issue? Pelmeen10 (talk) 20:50, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

The answer is no. Classic case of WP:TCREEP. See WP:NAVBOX. Although they are clearly defined group, the reality is that this sort of navbox generally fails item 2 there: "The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent." The people are not really related except in winning this particular event. The reality is that these are used for decorative purposes, not as "a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles in Wikipedia." Nigej (talk) 06:48, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Paintball and Paintball Equipment

I noticed some articles (such as paintball equipment) had very few sources (and what was there wasn't great to say the least), and a bunch of what looks like advertising. Sections on equipment maintence and reusable paintballs got nuked entirely, and it looks like the promotional material had been in the article for over a decade. I removed some of it after confering with people on the discord, but I am not too versed in paintball (just found the article after looking up a trivia thing), so was wondering if it might be possible for others to also give articles about paintball a onceover as well? I plan to keep looking into it, but I figure the eyes of more experienced editors and some people who actually know stuff about paintball might be useful. OmniusM (talk) 12:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

Airsoft Guns

Airsoft Guns seems to be in much the same state as paintball equipment above, and could prolly use some extra eyes, though I will try my best to improve the article as well with my very limited knowledge. OmniusM (talk) 12:31, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

National teams - naming conventions or not as the case may be

Is there a naming convention for national teams, specifically in terms of men's, women's etc. Some articles seem to be going for XXX national men's foobar team and XXX national women's foobar team whereas others are XXX national foobar team and XXX national women's foobar team with the implicit understanding that unless otherwise specified assume it's the men's team. Which is desirable? Nthep (talk) 11:47, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Edition number column of results summary table in sporting event article

Recently, I added edition number column in List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League finals as below.

• Current version

List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League finals

Season	Winners		Score	Runners-up		Venue	Attend
	Nation	Team		Nation	Team
1955–56	ESP	Real Madrid	4–3	FRA	Reims	Parc des Princes, Paris, France	38,239
1956–57	ESP	Real Madrid	2–0	ITA	Fiorentina	Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain	124,000
2018–19	ENG	Liverpool	2–0	ENG	Tottenham Hotspur	Metropolitano Stadium, Madrid, Spain	63,272
2019–20	GER	Bayern Munich	1–0	FRA	Paris Saint-Germain	Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal

• My version

List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League finals

Edition	Season	Winners		Score	Runners-up		Venue	Attend
		Nation	Team		Nation	Team
1	1955–56	ESP	Real Madrid	4–3	FRA	Reims	Parc des Princes, Paris, France	38,239
2	1956–57	ESP	Real Madrid	2–0	ITA	Fiorentina	Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain	124,000
66	2018–19	ENG	Liverpool	2–0	ENG	Tottenham Hotspur	Metropolitano Stadium, Madrid, Spain	63,272
67	2018–19	GER	Bayern Munich	1–0	FRA	Paris Saint-Germain	Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal

But Some user reverted my version and discussed at talk page of the article]

But participants are few. So I would like to hear various sports article editor's opinions

1.

• My opinion:
  

All results summary table in sporting event articles can have edition number column or competition order column.

• Reason:

I think that edition information is a really basic information in all sporting competition articles, even if generally many people would not mention the edition information. If there is edition number column in all competition articles, This is very useful function.

Firstly We can intuitively recognize that the number of edition until now. Also We can intuitively recognize the many additional information.

For example, Which season is 20th or 30th anniversary season, Within 10th edition, Which team is most successful or Within 20th Edition, Which team is most successful and so on.

I am convinced of these functions and conveniences after check out List of Super Bowl champions and Copa América articles which have so many editions.

2.

• Opposition's opinion:
  

Only some results summary table in sporting event articles can have edition number column or competition order column.

• Reason:

Super Bowl or some competitions frequently mention edition number. So Super Bowl or some competitions can have Edition column or competitiion order column. But In some competitions like UEFA Champions League, generally press and fans would not mention something like "Chelsea won the 57th edition of the CL", but rather "Chelsea won the 2011/12 edition of the CL". So Results summary table in these competitions can't add edition column or competitiion order column.

3. Point vs Point:

• My point: Edition number column or competition order column can provide convenience to readers. Please consider in terms of functionality in the table. I thinks convenience for readers is more important than mentioning of edition number or not.
• Opposition's point: Mentioning of edition number in reality is more important than convenience for readers.

Footwiks (talk) 07:50, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose Unless reliable sources are often talking about the edition number (and not just when it's a round number eg, the 50th or the 100th), we shouldn't be including it. Clearly the Super Bowl is often referred to by the edition number and sometimes even the Olympics (eg Games of the XXXII Olympiad) but unless this is the case I can't see any justification for including it. Nigej (talk) 18:53, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose even in the above example the Superbowl is named by the event entry, rather than the edition being significant. It's incredibly rare for the event edition to be relevant and that's also not a reason to include. Saying in an article lede that the event is the 37th staging of the event is fine (if sourced), but hardly necessary for a table. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

  We can read the below phrase in 2022–23 UEFA Champions League and 2021 Copa América.

  • 2022–23 UEFA Champions League

  The 2022–23 UEFA Champions League is the 68th season of Europe's premier club football tournament

  • 2021 Copa América

  The 2021 Copa América was the 47th edition of the Copa América,

  Every association football season articles have upper phrase. Ordinal number of seasons or editions is also important information to association football competitions.

  You look misunderstood that Ordinal number of seasons or editions is only important information to American sports like Super Bowl and only American sports talking about ordinal number of seasons or editions.

  In your logic, Do we have to delete upper phrase in every associaition football season articles?

  Because reliable sources don't talking about the ordinal number of seasons or editions

  I don't understand your opinions. Every association football season articles have phrase about ordinal number of seasons or editions.

  So Just I added this ordinal number to the table for convenience.

  Why do only main article have ordinal number of seasons or edition information?

  I really can't understand it logically.

  I think that terminology Edition cause misunderstanding and confusion. Generally UEFA Champions League don't use terminology Edition. I know that and I don't adhere to terminology Edition.

As belows, # or Ordial number is OK in Every results summary table in sporting event articles

List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League finals

#	Season	Winners		Score	Runners-up		Venue	Attend
		Nation	Team		Nation	Team
1	1955–56	ESP	Real Madrid	4–3	FRA	Reims	Parc des Princes, Paris, France	38,239

List of European Cup and UEFA Champions League finals

Ordial number	Season	Winners		Score	Runners-up		Venue	Attend
		Nation	Team		Nation	Team
1	1955–56	ESP	Real Madrid	4–3	FRA	Reims	Parc des Princes, Paris, France	38,239

Footwiks (talk) 18:02, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

• Footwiks (talk) 17:50, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand where you got the idea that we would delete prose? Why would we want this in a table? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:02, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

However, on that basis we could include many more pieces of information, eg the scorers, half time score, etc etc. A table like the one above should contain the most important information, there's no need for it to include everything. Seems to me that the edition number is one of the least useful/interesting things that could be added. Nigej (talk) 18:02, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

OK. Now just 60 seasons. So you can think that ordial number in the table is least useful information. Suppose that 100 seasons, 200 seasons in the future. Is Ordial number in the table still least useful information? Footwiks (talk) 18:16, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Even less useful. The reality is that people talk about the 1968 European Cup Final (or whatever) not the edition number. Its an obscure fact about the event, something that could perhaps be mentioned in the article but not useful in a general table about the competition. (Also see MOS:HASH) Nigej (talk) 18:24, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

You're right! The reality is that generally people talk about the 1968 European Cup Final (or whatever) not the edition number. By the same token, Do we have to delet the prose - "The 2022–23 UEFA Champions League is the 68th season of Europe's premier club football tournament" in the main article?

Can you answer logically?

The reality is that generally people don't talk about 68th season for UEFA Champions League. But every season article of sports competitions have prose about ordinal number of seasons or editions information including UEFA Champions League.

Because ordinal number of competitions is basic information like human's age.

Many users in Wikipedia are conservative and only interested in keeping the current status. Some users contributed the article, But Some users immediately reverted and just commented "not needed" or not necessary. Therefore contribution become waste of time immediately.

If I delete the prose "The XXXX–XX UEFA Champions League is the XXth season of Europe's premier club football tournament" in the every main article, Probably some users will immediately revert. Footwiks (talk) 19:00, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Personally I'd be happy if it was deleted from the article. However you've failed to answer the question as why this stat should be included and not other ones (eg the half time score, the scorers, the referee, etc etc) which are often mentioned in reliable sources, while this one is hardly ever mentioned. Nigej (talk) 19:05, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

lots of information is pertainant to an event - as Nigej says, scorers, attendence, prize money for winning the event, broadcasters etc. These aren't all things you need to include in an table outlining the history of the event. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:55, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

US sports teams abbreviations

US sports teams are often referred by a 2 or 3-letter abbreviation. Those abbreviations are used in some templates (e.g., {{NFL staff footer}}) and some disambiguation pages (e.g. BAL), but there's no mention of them in the teams articles themselves.

How about adding it to the infobox? WDYT? --Angus (talk) 11:21, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Why are we using abbreviations in templates? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:57, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

I'd say it's to save space. That aside, what about adding the abbreviation to the infoboxes? --Angus (talk) 14:18, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

There's no need to add them to the infoboxes unless you can justify their use elsewhere. Otherwise it's just an "other stuff exists" sort of argument. Why are they necessary at all? Are they widespread enough to need adding to the infobox? If they're just used in the "staff footer" I'd suggest removing them from that template and then we don't need anything else. Nigej (talk) 18:01, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

They are extensively used. For example, go to espn.com, foxsports.com, si.com or sports.yahoo.com: all have a ticker at the top of the page that uses them. It's an important datum akin to companies' NASDAQ code or national teams' FIFA codes (both of which have a place in their respective infoboxes). --Angus (talk) 15:17, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

I meant is their use widespread in Wikipedia. Generally abbreviations are undesirable in an encyclopedia where we're aiming for the general reader. Nigej (talk) 15:25, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not talking about using abbreviations instead of teams names in articles. I'm talking about adding a missing datum to the teams articles, which happens to be their abbreviation. Why's that undesirable? (?) --Angus (talk) 15:31, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

See MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. "the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article". If the abbreviation is not a "key fact" that appears in the article then, generally, it shouldn't be in the infobox. As MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE notes, there are exceptions ("where a piece of key specialised information is difficult to integrate into the body text") but personally I don't see these abbreviations as "key", so wouldn't make them an exception to the general rule. Nigej (talk) 15:45, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

It's quite key, since it's one of the team's handles, and it's quite difficult to integrate into the text, except maybe parenthesized right after the name, so I think it qualifies. You went from "undesirable" to "not key", so I think with time you'll end up agreeing anyway (j/k) ;) --Angus (talk) 16:37, 17 October 2022 (UTC)