Talk:Steve Davis

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NPOV

Nice article, I expect it will be getting a few hits given that Davis has made his 100th final.

I'm always a little troubled by statements like "widely considered to be one of the greatest players of all time". They're so difficult to get NPOV, and many articles - especially about musicians - are just cringeworthy in trying to portray their subjects as great, influential, legendary etc. OTOH, we can be too coy, and actually distort the facts that way too. Is there any body of opinion at all that doesn't consider Davis to be "one of the greatest players of all time"? Isn't the debate merely whether he is the greatest? After all, this is a guy who was so awesome and dominating in the 80s that he almost bored us all to death! --kingboyk 02:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about the musicians, but the great thing about individual sports is that you have an objective means of comparing players. You can easily justify "one of the greatest players of all time" simply by mentioning the number of world championships he's won, the number ranking finals, the number of years ranked number one, and his total prize money. --Auximines 14:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

In this vein, I said a while ago that he is widely considered to be in the top two or three players ever but this was subsequently removed, although "remains one of the world's leading players well into the 2000s" was allowed to stay.

Snooker is sth I know a lot about. No one with a real knowledge of this sport can reasonably assert that Davis' achievements do not mark him out as one of the very best and most successful players ever. Saying that he is in the top three is incontrovertible, even allowing for the styles and pressures of different eras. Does anyone agree or disagree? Bigpad

Please read carefully what I wrote. Is there any body of opinion at all that doesn't consider Davis to be "one of the greatest players of all time"? Isn't the debate merely whether he is the greatest?. I was actually saying that in an attempt to be NPOV and neutral the article was watered down. Davis is indisputably one of the greats, on statistics alone, and the article should not be afraid to say so. --kingboyk 02:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It is actually misleading not to include this information since he was unquestionably the best of his era. Whenever there is a discussion regarding the greatest player of all time the same four or five names crop up and his is always one of them. To refer to him as "one of the greatest" is a subjective opinion, but it's a genuine reflection of how his fellow professionals regard him and therefore should be included here. The crucial point is that it is not the sole opinion of the author of the article - it is the recording of a general consensus within the sport. 213.122.29.250 14:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't matter whether it's popularly held to be true, it is a subjective determination that cannot be measured, is not encyclopedic but journalistic language, and very definitely violates WP:NPOV. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Depends on how you look at it - statistically Stephen Hendry could be considered to be the best of all time as he won the title seven times to Davis' six, but the game underwent many changes - it still does so, hence why there has not been a pre-dominant player in the 2000s. On the Sunday Express's 2002 video "The Story of Snooker", Steve Davis ststes that Alex Higgins and Ronnie O'Sulliavn are the two most naturally talented players of the game, and Jimmy White the best matchplayer.. He also quotes "If you're very good, you may just becaome the best player of your era - a Joe Davis, a Ray Reardon, or even a Steve Davis. But in my opinion, there is one man who is out there on his own. And he is... Stephen Hendry". This is always going to be a matter of opinion as to who is the gretaest of all time.

Remove flag

Resolved

 – Wrong venue.

To cut down the size of this and other snooker player articles, I propose to remove the country flag as the subject's picture is there. The flag only needs to appear if a suitable usable picture of the subject/person can't be provided (e.g. there isn't one of Tony Meo). The article also specifies their nationality. Other sports don't automaticaly add the flag, e.g. see David Beckham or Johan Cruijff Patrick.

I agree about the flag and the photo. It looks messy and pointless. I removed the flag from Paul Hunter's page since there is no good reason for it being there but someone keeps putting it back in. 213.122.112.103 22:18, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Any further discussion of this issue belongs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Davis's ranking

Resolved

 – Answer provided.

The article is written as if he dropped out of the top 16 at least once. When was this?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.156.33.151 (talk • contribs)

Davis was out of the top 16 in 2000/2001, 2001/2002 and 2002/2003. That's the only time in the past 25 years that he has been. SteveO 20:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Quality of photo

Could a better photo be used? He is almost unrecognisable, or, at the very least, there are hundreds of better photos of him that could be used. --WeAreSilver 13:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"Interesting"

Resolved

 – Sections re-merged.

I think the story of the origin of the nickname needs to be linked to the ironic book title in the prose. Not suggesting a particular edit, but it seems that the book mention should follow the nickname origin-story, pretty much immediately. I don't know if that means just move some stuff around or if it means have a whole subsection about the nickname. I'll leave that to other editors. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The story of the nickname and the book were originally together, but it seems someone split it into two sections. I agree with you, and I've merged them again. SteveO 13:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

GA?

Is this article good enough to be nominated to be a Good article yet? - Nick C 16:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Still needs some work, though I think it is getting closer and closer. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:51, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The "Outside snooker" section still needs work. At the moment it seems a bit disjointed and there are too many lone sentences. But imo it's not that far away. SteveO 15:15, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, and I didn't not intend to imply that the article was far away from GA; it is probably the best candidate so far. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Section problems

The "Later years" section sound like end-of-life for a deceased article subject. Needs to be renamed. Not sure what to, though. The "Outside snooker" section is also misnamed, as much of it does in fact have to do with his snooker career, and the section named thus would also need to include the pool section since pool isn't snooker. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:51, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps "Outside snooker" can be split into several sections? One for "Other sports/games" (inc chess, pool and poker), one for personal life, if enough info can be found to justify a section; and one for television. SteveO 15:26, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Something like that. I wouldn't relegate pool to this section, I don't think, since it follows naturally from snooker; anyone good at snooker can become good at pool, since the former is generally harder than the latter, but the skillset and most of the strategic thinking are the same (cf. Allison Fisher, Kim Shaw and Karen Corr dominating women's international nine-ball after leaving the snooker world.) Davis's founding of the Mosconi Cup is a big deal. I'd prefer to see either pool be final subsection under snooker, or its own section immediately after snooker, and before tv/poker/etc. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay that's fair enough. He's had a much bigger pool career than I first thought. In which case I think it should have it its own section, since it is still a distinct sport. SteveO 18:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

My preference too. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:46, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Snooker and pool player

The article describes Steve as a snooker and pool player. To me, that's misleading as it suggests he makes his living from both when, in reality, he's a snooker player who sometimes plays pool (unlike, for example, Mark Selby who is the world 8ball champion and, even then, maks his main living from snooker). Would people object to a rewording along the lines of "a professional snooker and occasional pool player" or words to that effect. bigpad 19:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not incorrect - he has competed professionally in pool. "Occasional pool player" sounds like amateur. I'll try futzing with it to get what you are getting at without giving that kind of impression... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Good edit Stanton. Gets the point across bigpad 08:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced he's a professional pool player - he certainly doesn't earn a living from it. Does he belong a professional body? He has to be a signed up professional to play in WPBSA professional tournaments, does anyone actually know what his official status is with regards to pool? It seems to me the article is making an assumption. 88.104.38.242 00:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

He could not have competed at that the level he did without being considered a pro by the "governing body" in question. I suggest we not wander into hair-split land over what "professional" means. Make-one's-living-at is one but not the only definition (cf. Olympics reform, after enough noise was made about "kept" Soviet athletes.) If he was permitted to compete in a pro pool event, I say that's enough to say he's a pool pro, even if he hasn't won a WPA World Nine-ball Championship yet. And the Mosconi Cup thing... I can't stress enough that this is a huge honkin' deal in the pool world. This stuff is front-cover material every year for both Billiards Digest and Pool & Billiard magazines. To not have his formative role in this intercontinental event mentioned up-front (I've reverted that deletion twice now) is pretty much an insult to the "Steve Davis Legacy" if I may get uncharacteristically breathless for a moment. It was fargin' brilliant, and it stuck. What would really kick some butt is if snooker itself became part of the event. Like, oh, it's not going to just be nine-ball this year. Heh. I think such a "multiathlon" attitude is going to be a major factor in years to come when the IOC finally says "okay, OKAY" and gives cue sports the green light. Nigh, it is, yes, as Yoda might say, hmm. I almost forget where I was going with all this, but I remember now: I think Davis will be recognized as a pioneer here, along with the total "ship jumpers" like Corr and Fisher; cf. also our favourite Irish champ talking about doing the pool circuit. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm open to being corrected on this, since I don't know much about Davis' pool career, but he must be a pretty serious player if he has competed in the world championship and the Mosconi Cup. SteveO 01:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Steve - is he 'Steven' or 'Stephen'?

Also, is his real name 'Stephen Davis' or is it 'Steven Davis'? 88.104.38.242 00:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It should stay as plain 'Steve' unless his real name is confirmed. SteveO 01:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

According to Ray Reardon's 1991 book 'Enjoying Snooker' it is "Steven Davis". {194.63.116.72 12:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)}

I wouldn't mind seeing a corroborating source. It's not like snooker pros actually write their own books; a ghost-writer does it for them based on interviews. A hilarious case in point is Willie Mosconi's (nominal) two books, in which "he" gives radically contradictory basic advice on fundamentals. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with defining a point like this is that unlike other players who have acknowledged their full names (Dave Harold used his full name of David Harold and Chris Small was Christopher Small at amateur level for instance, but both have used short forms since turning professional), Steve Davis has always been known by that name. Is there a way of contacting him (a fansite perhaps) to confirm this? {D-Weaving 12:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)}

Blackball

Stanton, re Davis' dislike of "8ball": your use of "blackball pool" is not really accurate. 8ball played under World rules also uses a smaller white. I have revised this to read "8ball pool as played in British pubs and clubs." bigpad 10:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Which "world rules" do you mean - WPA or WEPF? It was my understanding that WEPF permits (but does not advise) the mini-cueball, while WPA forbids it. But I may be getting that backwards. In the interim, I think your DAB edit gets at what I was getting at, that "eight-ball" (numerals and hyphens aside) can mean two radically different things in the same overall field, and Davis's concern doesn't apply accross all of them. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Six UK Championships

The hidden note states that it doesn't jog with the infobox, yet there's no reference to the UK Championships in the infobox. - Dudesleeper · Talk 11:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that note may have been a reference to the exact number of titles won by Davis, rather than just the UK. The infobox notes 45 non-ranking titles, but Davis' trophy list at the bottom of the page lists 58. SteveO 18:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It is regularly stated that Davis has won 'a record 73 professional titles from 100 finals'. As you can tell from the list at the bottom, he has clearly won more than that. The total tally of snooker singles events comes to 75 which takes us over by two. I suspect there may be a couple of pro-am titles in that lot which would preclude them from official inclusion. It would help if we could separate his non-ranking titles into pro/pro-am, to make that clearer, but I don't know which ones would be omitted from his official tally. I have my suspicions - in the Irish professional championship last year, some amateurs were invited to compete alongside established pros, so this may have been the case with Davis's 2 English pro titles, so while called the English pro it would technically be a pro-am and precluded from his list of pro wins, but I don't think it should be removed unless we can can confirm that. 88.104.82.118 01:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

Resolved

 – Needed edits were made.

...does not make sense (obviously missing something!): but I am not the one to fix it...Grahbudd 05:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Please be more specific. Someone edited it recently; did that resolve the issue for you? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes!  :-) Grahbudd 18:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Chess

It says he is a keen chess player and co-authored a book on chess. Anyone know how good he is (i.e his rating, does he have a FM, IM, GM title etc).

Snooker/Pool triathlon

The mention of a snooker/pool triathlon is obviously a contradiction in terms unless, say, two types of pool were played. Can some further explanation be given of this or should it refer to a biathlon? --WeAreSilver 22:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The Steve Mizerak article mentions that he, Davis and also Jimmy White competed in this 'triathlon', so maybe the name comes from that rather than the two games? Either way, some clarification is needed. I'll try to locate a source. SteveO 22:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Misc issues listed here

• Some of those nicknames need referencing in the article. (I have to say, some also look a little less notable, if not spurious) --Dweller (talk) 10:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
• His support of the band seems a little trivvy for an encyclopedia article to me. IIRC, an interview with Q magazine once revealed that he had a truly enormous collection of records and CDs, which might be a more encyclopedic factoid that could include a reference to which band he likes most, if that's citeable. --Dweller (talk) 12:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
• Put tournaments into tables, so can be sorted alphabetically or by year or number of wins. --Dweller (talk) 12:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
• I cannot give a web citation for the assertion that the bookies made Davis the favourite for the World Championship in 1981, but I specifically remember David Vine on BBC Television stating that to be the case.

Major Revision

My Talk page has a reply on this issue. I'd welcome wider views, as I'm not convinced it's needed bigpad (talk) 13:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I presume you're querying the need for citations for claims in the article. They certainly will be required at WP:FAC. And for good reason. Otherwise anyone could add any old nonsense claim to the article with the blanket cover of the references at the foot. See Adam Gilchrist for an example of a sports biog FA and how all the claims are referenced. (Or should be, anyway.) Doesn't affect readability a jot, and certainly does impact on credibility. --Dweller (talk) 13:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, IMHO the Gichrist article is virtually unreadable and what Wiki should *not be about! As to your point about people adding nonsense, that doesn't happen due to the array of knowledgeable people that keep watch on it and other impt snooker articles. If an unfamiliar claim is made, the "citation needed" tag is always added, quite quickly. Maybe I'm too fond of a number of these snooker bios but it's a question of consistency within that genre. Doesn't wiki allow any "house style" for particular sports? Are we to become a homogeneous community with no respect for difference? And who judges if a particular article is up to scratch? Anyhow, I wish you well in your wider endeavours within Wiki but the imposition of rules on major editors is depressing. All the best, bigpad (talk) 21:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Can't really see what rules are being imposed on which major editors. The Davis article is a B-class yet there's stacks of information around which could, if used correctly, provide the Cue sports project with their first Featured Article. I'm a little surprised by the lack of enthusiasm by some members of the community here. Nobody is suggesting we dilute the article or make it a list of citations, what we are saying is first and foremost, claims must be cited, that's a given. Secondly, once the facts are in place, we have scope for making more elegant prose. And elegant prose can and must be neutral in tone. Finally, featured articles need to be accessible to all. That means a certain amount of de-jargoning or explanation of snooker-specific terminology.

The majority of the edits so far have been to comply with the manual of style (e.g. en-dashes between frame scores) and referencing. While we have an "array of knowledgeable people" watching, perhaps they could explain where they get their detailed statistics from (e.g. starting prices for Davis/Johnson at the beginning of tournaments, world rankings on a year-by-year basis) as these don't seem to be easy to find. I hope some of the Cue Sports project will work with us on improving the standard of this article to where it deserves to be. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

BP made me aware of this discussion, and I am happy to add my input. Obviously for FA status citation is required, but I guess as long as it doesn't go too daft with things it is fine (citations for every tiny detail, especially patently obvious ones always annoy me in an article). The only point I guess I would add is from Dweller's comment that "I need to remove wordiness, abbreviations that aren't explained...". Content should be in an encyclo style, but not to the extent that any individualism of the article is lost such that a find and replace could be done on Adam Gilchrist for Steve Davis. Abbreviations that aren't explained should be explained, and wikilinked to the appropriate Snooker article - if the content read "Davis made a spectacle at the malta cup when 15 "foul and misses" were called on a snooker he was in, when he only needed the green to win the tournament" then it shouldn't be removed because it contains snooker jargon - he is a snooker player, notable only as a snooker player, and snooker shouldn't become marginalised. Anyway, I am just exaggerating to make the point, but I guess that it moves towards not wanting the article to become too homogenised - a debate I am ironically having elsewhere with regards to the degree that large parts of wikipedia are becoming creative deserts, "fill in the blank" articles, as it were. I am happy to help out if there is a move towards FAC with this article, whether it being tracking down refs (notoriously difficult for snooker - a game played in, and for a large amount of time run from, smoke filled rooms) or read through content to help with copy editing or Snooker terminology. Regards, SFC9394 (talk) 22:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

My take on all of this is (I hope) a balanced one. I agree that snooker jargon cannot be willy-nilly stripped from snooker articles (this is a major reason behind Glossary of cue sports terms and {{Cuegloss}}), but also feel that the bulk of snooker bios on WP as they stand right now are or until recently (after judicious use of {{Cuegloss}} have been nearly impenetrable to someone not already steeped in snooker. Worse yet, they are in the vast majority of cases written in an entirely non-encyclopedic style, and read more like magazine articles, especially in their constant overuse of emotive and often hyperbolic adjectives and substitute nouns (e.g. what should be described as a narrow victory ends up being called a "nailbiter blow", and other such claptrap). It is my suspicion that the most of the snooker bios here have begun as outright copyvio ripoffs of World Snooker bio pages, and that it takes them a very long time to shed the sports-journalist style imported from the WS bios. Another problem is the constant dwelling on minor scandals; this has been especially problematic at Ronnie O'Sullivan. Yet another major problem is all of the unsourced alleged nicknames that keep getting added to the articles right and left. I picked 5 of them at random to investigation, and in 3 cases no sources of any kind could be found and in the other two cases, they were not nicknames at all but (as I had long suspected) simply cute journalistic turns of phrase that only appear in one article, and for which there is no evidence whatsoever of their use as a nickname (neither adopted by the player in question, nor applied to him by others in a positive or pejorative manner).

On the sourcing matters, everything does in fact need to be sourced, other than the truly obvious. We needn't even debate this here; WP:FA (even WP:GA for that matter) will simply enforce it, because it is a matter of policy. And yes, the problem with using blanket citations to a handful of sources instead of using inline citation style is that in very short order it is impossible to tell what in the article is in fact actually sourced by the claimed sources (without really studying both the sources and the article), since people insert new material all the time, and some of it is complete nonsense. Some of it isn't, but is most often added without any sources for it, which simply compounds the problem.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

PS: From a Wikipedia standards perspective, there is nothing "unreadable" about the Gilchrist article at all. If someone finds inline citations by their very nature to be a readability issue, they should take that up at the Village Pump as a Wikipedia-wide issue; we are not in a position to ignore standard practices here for personal preference reasons, and it doesn't have anything to do with the Gilchrist or Davis articles. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the constructive comments folks. I see where the problems lie. Certainly the points about hyperbolae and jargon, esp. in in the snooker bios, are impt, more so, I'd say, that the citation issue. And they require constant vigilance (esp. Ronnie O'Sullivan!) bigpad (talk) 09:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Billiards player too

David has played in the occassional billiards tournament --194.125.110.75 (talk) 18:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Meaning what? English billiards? Three-cushion billiards? Pocket billiards (pool)? We already knew about the lattest, as he helped start the Mosconi Cup. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

English billards as was somewhat obvious already and as was reflected in the edit I made to the article after posting the previous comment. --78.16.207.57 (talk) 17:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Master of the Baize

Not sure about this. Davis' record makes his status in snooker history obvious and doesn't need this credit. Looks a bit self-promoting to me, but I AGF. --Dweller (talk) 15:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Cite error

There seems to be a problem with one of the references and I can't sought it out. Can anyone else? Samasnookerfan (talk) 18:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)