Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts

UFC / WEC Bantamweight merger in List of UFC champions#Bantamweight Championship

This dispute (Talk:List of UFC champions#BW Champion) needs a little help with the decision. Should the championship be marked as if it was won at WEC 53 or should it be marked as if the fight was only for the WEC belt and he was later promoted to a UFC champion.

So should the table look like this:

No.	Name	Date	Location	Defenses
1	Dominick Cruz (def. Scott Jorgensen)	December 16, 2010 (WEC 53)	Glendale, Arizona, US

or like this:

No.	Name	Date	Location	Defenses
1	Dominick Cruz (promoted to undisputed champion)	December 16, 2010

--Tuoppi gm (talk) 14:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be the first one, because Dominick Cruz fought for the inagural/vacant UFC Bantamweight Champion unlike Jose Aldo who was given his UFC Championship. Joe712 (talk) 20:10, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the first should be used.--Phospheros (talk) 10:13, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed on this page that Frankie Edgar only has 1 win against B.J. Penn listed, not two. He took the belt from Penn the first time and then won a title defense with Penn a second time before his title defense against Gray Maynard. This needs to be fixed and I'm not sure how to do so. (Meaning: I don't want to screw up where I should put that information) Also, I noticed some of the names you can click on to take you to their respective pages, and some you cannot. Not sure if this is by design or if it was just not caught. Again, I won't change it and let others decide what to do there. Just thought I'd point this stuff out.Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 20:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but Edgar's title defense against Penn is already listed. :P

I think the links for some names are missing by design, but could be added because WP:REPEATLINK allows for repeated links in tables. —LOL ^T/_C 20:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

My apologies. I guess I read it wrong somehow. Thanks for the prompt response. UPDATE: Oh, I see why it looks wrong. Underneath Frankie's name it should say: <def. B.J. Penn> and it doesn't. This is what I think I saw missing. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 21:22, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on the list of champions, but I think the "def." line underneath one's name is only supposed to exist for special cases like interim or vacant titles. —LOL ^T/_C 21:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Well then I get a gold star for epic fail then. Again, my apologies and thanks again for setting me straight. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

MMA record table problems

I've been noticing recently that several editors like to put bouts in the record list before they are officially announced, for example, dos Santos vs. Velasquez. Since all fights not officially announced are speculation and rumor and, therefore, not encyclopedic, it is my opinion that it should be avoided altogether putting future fights until they are officially announced. With this in mind, I would like to change the "Record" section in this project to emphasize that future fights should not be added to the record until they are officially announced.

Another problem I've noticed is that Sherdog's record have a problem that is copy-pasted in several records: capitalization for non proper names, acronyms and initialisms. For example, Sherdog uses incorrectly "Submission (Shoulder Injury)" instead of "Submission (shoulder injury)" or "KO (Punch)" instead of "KO (punch)". The Wikipedia's Manual of Style for capital letters is quite clear that this is not accepted. I also want to add a text in the "Record" section to encourage editors to use the correct capitalization instead of copy-pasting the info from Sherdog.

Related to the previous point, several editors like to ignore the result stated in Sherdog's records without offering a reference to prove that the result in Sherdog is incorrect, or they simply don't like how the results are expressed in Sherdog. For example, with Mirko Filipović instead of "Submission (Punch)" editors insist on changing it to "Verbal Submission (Injury)", "Submission (Impaired Vision)" and even "TKO (Injury)". Once again, I want to add a text that specifically discourages editors from changing a result without backing it up with a reference.

I have also noticed that flag icons are abused in the record tables. As stated in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (icons), icons should not be overused, particularly not when the country is already mentioned in text. Just take a look at Mirko Filipović record table to see what I mean. I want to add a text in the "Record" section of this project where it is specifically stated that adding flag icons for anything different from opponents is forbidden, as well as changing the example record box to remove flag icons from the "Location" column.

And finally, I think it would be better to have a template for the record table instead of having to manually generate it because editors regularly break the format, add unnecessary parameters, change the order of columns and other things. Has anyone tried to create a template for this?

Please share your comments and thoughts about these issues that I see with records in MMA biographies. Jfgslo (talk) 15:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I decided to be bold and make changes to the record section to add additional instructions about how it should be used. Please check it out and share you comments to improve the text. Jfgslo (talk) 17:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Judging from this diff, Paralympiakos seems to have missed this section, so I'm copypasting one of his recent talk page comments[1] below. —LOL ^T/_C 19:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's not do this please. Even Sherdog has KO (Punches), for example. Using "(punches)" just looks ugly, so please quit it. It's clear that it's only you two who disagree with me and others. Paralympiakos (talk) 19:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

We're discussing a matter of style, so "Sherdog has KO (Punches)" doesn't support your case. Claiming that something "just looks ugly" is completely subjective and just as convincing as an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. It's not clear that only us two who disagree; I think it's more accurate to say that too many users are accustomed to Sherdog's style even though in general, Wikipedia's MoS overrides others on Wikipedia articles. We can take it to WT:MOSCAPS if you'd like. —LOL ^T/_C 20:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

@Paralympiakos It's also clear that many editors simply ignore the manual of styles and guidelines. As LOL pointed out, your argument is merely an WP:IDONTLIKEIT instead of a valid reason why WP:CAPS, WP:ICON WP:MOS and other guidelines must be ignored. Your other argument is a logical fallacy (argumentum ad populum.) If a majority of editors do not use the correct style, that doesn't mean that it's appropriated for an encyclopedia or that it's the best way. If you don't like it, then go to the manual of style and give a good reason why it should be ignored. Jfgslo (talk) 22:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't care about any BS involved in stupid wikipedia "policies" and essays like IDONTLIKEIT. Frankly, it looks hideous and I don't care what a few people wrote with regards MOSCAPS and all the MOS nonsense. Stop changing it now, please. Do something normal like writing and contributing instead of getting involved in silly matters such as this. Paralympiakos (talk) 14:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not that simple, Paralympiakos. The Manual of Style rules aren't just there because someone was bored and wanted to boss others around. They have common sense reasons: for example we discourage the use of flag icons because images increase load time which can be significant for people on slow internet. (Remember dial-up? Lots of people still have it.) If you have a disagreement with MOS guidelines you can take it to WT:MOS, or if you disagree in particular with the way they are being interpreted here, you may open a request for comment. However, opposing guidelines simply because you believe they are "ugly" then being argumentative and borderline rude to others is not an mature way to conduct yourself. l'aquatique[talk] 00:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

To add to that, the MOS wasn't written by a "few" people. Just MOS:CAPS alone has been edited by 174 unique editors since it was forked half a decade ago, and WP:MOS has been edited by over 2,000 editors since its creation nine years ago.[2] Your persistence in arguing chiefly with personal opinion does not benefit this discussion, and your "I don't care" attitude opposes Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision-making, WP:CONS, particularly when you are insulting them with terms such as "BS" and "stupid" against Wikipedia's code of conduct (WP:CIVIL). I would write more if so many articles weren't in such shambles in terms of style, as the MOS is part of WP:FACR. —LOL ^T/_C 01:21, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I am in favor of this new style due to reasons mentioned by Jfgslo and LOL. So far I see no reason why Paralympiakos' style should be favored instead. --Tuoppi gm (talk) 14:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur with Tuoppi. The MoS is broadly consensus-driven and its guidelines make sense. Not that it's particularly relevant, but I disagree with Paralympiakos' assertion that camel-case syntax is 'better looking' - if anything, I think it looks considerably worse than standard English syntax. The first letter of the term should be capitalised, and the rest should be lower-case as it would appear in most respectable sources. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm new to Wikipedia, but I am just now getting into making edits for MMA related articles. I was following Paralympiakos's style of MMA Records and updating other articles to reflect that style. Now I'm reading here that there are some issues with how it's being set up. I don't know all of the people involved in this, but it would be great if there were a page or somewhere where we could all get together and discuss what the MMA record box and records should look like and agree to it. Otherwise, contributers like myself will continually either follow outdated examples, or forever run into people who don't like the changes we're making. Believe it or not, some of us really think we're following a "set in stone" example of what things should look like when we make changes. I don't know if this kind of thing is achieveable, but there it is. I'm lost now in terms of how to update/maintain MMA records at this stage and don't really know who I should listen to regarding it. Sorry for the long rant, but I'm just looking for some sort of guidance regarding this. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 02:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

This is the page and section to discuss what the record box should look like. The problem here is that most of the editors here (myself included) agree that MOS:CAPS should be followed and Paralympiakos main argument against the consensus style is "he doesn't like it", which isn't a valid reason. We have a set of guidelines to refer to in this case (the MOS) and there is no reason not to follow them. ZephyrFox (talk) 02:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the prompt response, being that I'm new here I suppose I'll perhaps wait until I see an example of what everyone is talking about in terms of changing the MMA Record box as I'm still a little confused about what's being argued here. (It looks like the argument is over capital letters or not and too many flag icons) Once we get this all ironed out, I'd love to see a small example of what people want to have done so that I can start changing record boxes to reflect that style. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 19:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the argument is mainly over capital letters, flag icons, and other stylistic details in record tables (not {{MMArecordbox}}); compare [3] and [4]. I appreciate your will to help standardize the tables.

Just a note to anybody who intends to do the same if the Manual of Style prevails: Jfgslo has helped me develop a couple of scripts to assist in changing tables in favour of the MoS. I intend to use them if the MoS prevails. Brief instructions for one of them are here. For the other, here is an example of how your skin.js should look. —LOL ^T/_C 20:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I haven't read the standard format for MMA records yet but there are a couple patterns I'm curious about: 1) For the location of where a fight takes place the flag icon AND the name of the country is on there. ex. Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Doesn't the United States at the end seem redundant? Isn't that why the flag is there? I think it would be most ideal to use the flag icon of the country at first, then the city, then the state or province where applicable. Doesn't it make sense?

The standard for has always been Las Vegas, Nevada, having United States in there is definetly redundant and shouldn't be used.(Justinsane15 (talk) 05:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC))

2) The flag icon fighters use to say where they're from... shouldn't it be where they're born? That's what is always used in the tale of the tape. It's very distracting to me when I see a guy like Krzysztof Soszynski with the Canadian flag just because he trains out of there or maybe currently lives there. I have plenty of other examples of this and some use where they're born, some use where they live now. It seems to me where they're born makes most sense. Thanks everyone.

Hey, thanks for joining the discussion. (1) I'm almost positive that country flags cannot replace words because that would pose a big problem when a bout takes place in a country whose flag isn't familiar to the reader. (2) Flags for birth place are strongly advised against. An argument can be found at WP:FLAGBIO; while they emphasize "a biographical article's introduction and/or infobox", the same argument can be applied to record tables. —LOL ^T/_C 23:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Flags in general are just plain bad- you're completely right about the issue of a flag being used to replace a country name entirely. Perhaps in the case of Las Vegas most people would recognize , but without checking- do you recognize this country?

In general, I oppose the use of flagicons. They add to server load (maybe not a lot, but it adds up, especially for people on slow connections), they're obnoxious to people using text browsers and screen readers, on and on. They have their uses, but I believe (and the MOS is relatively supportive of this position) that they should be curtailed when possible. l'aquatique[talk] 21:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Coming from someone who edits lots of other sports articles when I saw all the flag icons in infoboxes and tables I thought it was pretty impressive that so many MMA athletes fight for their country at the national level. Turns out that wasn't the case. Yet another reason to follow WP:ICON is to maintain consistency throughout Wikipedia with respect to what the flag icons are supposed to mean. SQGibbon (talk) 21:04, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Flag icons should be left in and so should capital letters. It used to always be like this but now all of a sudeen evereyone is ruining all the wiki pages. I don't understand how you guys think your way is better. It looks absolutely awful after you edit it this way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by K22UFC (talk • contribs) 15:35, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

U.S. states

I'm surprised nobody's brought this up yet, so I guess I will. I'm proposing that we make the United States a special case for the "Location" column by displaying U.S. states. Because there are so many U.S. cities that share their name with another U.S. city, such as Las Vegas, New Mexico, I think it's better to display the state and avoid any ambiguity. We can't rely on readers being able to hover over the link, especially when an article is printed. —LOL ^T/_C 21:39, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we should not do this. I couldn't find a policy page about this, but I am under the impression that Wikipedia tries to avoid being biased towards any country and information should be presented from an international point of view. Also the US is not the only country with multiple cities of the same name. Either we have the state (or equivalent) for all countries or we don't have it for any country. --Tuoppi gm (talk) 12:15, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I do not think that we should make an exception for the U.S. cities, but I also think that adding the state in location makes it clearer. I particularly have encountered the problem that some cities have the same name, so, although they look similar, it is not the same to say "Hollywood, U.S." than "Hollywood, U.S.", Hollywood, U.S." or "Hollywood, U.S.", although the last one is not a city. And I remember having encountered a similar situation with some British cities. So, I have three counter proposals to suggest:

1. We include the full location for all countries e.g. "Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan", "Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands", "Las Vegas, New Mexico, U.S.". The advantage of this is that it eliminates ambiguity, but it becomes a more difficult work for editors to add locations.
2. We include the full city title according to how it is named in Wikipedia e.g. "Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan", "Amsterdam, Netherlands", "Las Vegas, New Mexico, U.S.". This also eliminates ambiguity and it's easier for editors, but the format becomes broken since some cities will not have the state in the article title. To address that problem, I'm sure that most cities have a full redirect like New York City, New York, so, for the sake of standardization, we could include those redirects for cities that don't have the state named in the article title.
3. We name only the country in location. MMA events that have relevancy are already linked, so the full details, like location, are already there, and people can also check Sherdog information with the Sherdog link in all biographical articles if they are interested in minor events. I suggest this because locations aren't that necessary since the focus of the record table is not locations but fighter careers, so locations shouldn't take that much attention.

Personally, I favor the second one, but I also think that the third one is a good option. Jfgslo (talk) 15:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Tuoppi: When we're dealing with geographical names, the MoS actually does give country-specific guidance; see WP:PLACE.

Jfgslo: If we were forced to use any of the three, then I would go for #2 with redirects displayed. #3 is definitely bad because we'd constantly have other users adding cities to the column. —LOL ^T/_C 18:27, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I looked at that page (WP:PLACE) before posting, but I don't think it's not directly related to this issue because it doesn't deal with how locations should be presented in lists. Anyway, I think #2 is the best choice out of those. It removes ambiguity and it is not US centric. --Tuoppi gm (talk) 19:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Flags for nationality

A user has begun removing flags for nationality,[5] arguing that "In the case of these wrestlers, they are not wrestling for their countries but only themselves, therefore the flag icons do not belong."[6] Of course they're not exactly wrestlers, but is everybody okay with the removal? —LOL ^T/_C 03:30, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree in removing them from infoboxes. Removing flag icons from infobox is in accordance with MOS:ICON. In fact, there is a section called "Avoid flag icons in infoboxes". Let me quote:

• "As a rule of thumb, flag icons should not be used infoboxes, even when there is a "country", "nationality" or equivalent field: they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many. The guidelines for a number of common infoboxes (eg. Template:Infobox company, Template:Infobox film, Template:Infobox person) explicitly ban the use of flag icons."

Removing them from the tables, on the other hand, is more of a gray area because it depends on one's perspective in the phrase from the guideline "they are useful in articles about international sporting events to show the representative nationality of players." While this really doesn't happen in American promotions, Pride and Dream did emphasize the nationality, going so far as to play the national anthems in championships bouts. But, despite this, I'm inclined to remove them because the editor's reasoning make sense. On the other hand, MMA fighters are also similar to boxers and boxers do represent their countries, like Manny Pacquiao, Joshua Clottey or Juan Manuel Márquez, so an argument in favor of flag icons in tables could be made as well.

As a side note, if there is a consensus to remove flag icons, I believe that for a long time we will be facing several IP editors who will add them again when they are removed. Jfgslo (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

As I understand MOS:ICON, flag icons are supposed to be used to indicate when an athlete is representing a specific country in national competitions. Using them to indicate nationality in general is not supported. Using them to indicate the location of a fight (as I see in some tables) definitely is not supported. For a good example of the use of flag icons look at the Lionel Messi article. No flag icons in the infobox and the only place they are used are the tables that record his national team goals. If MMA articles are going to break with WP consensus on this issue there really needs to be a good reason. It's also rather distracting to see flags peppered all over articles. I've stopped removing flags for now as I've asked several editors who disagree with me to join the discussion but unless a consensus to ignore WP:ICON is reached then the default is to accept WP:ICON and remove the flag icons. As for the Pride and Dream point from above, was this an actual national competition? I mean were there national bodies involved in choosing who represents their countries in competition or was this just a promoter adding the nationalistic music and such on his own? I think the difference makes a big difference. SQGibbon (talk) 21:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually shouldn't those flag icons in the Messi article be removed also, because the text right next to them says the country? The MOS:ICON example on how they should be used has icons like that though. Actually that confuses me, why many times locations are accompanied with a flag icon, but they shouldn't be there in locations in MMA records.

I don't mind if flag icons are removed though. --Tuoppi gm (talk) 15:34, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The way I read MOS:ICON is that including the country name and icon is required but that you may omit the country name if it has already been used nearby. As for the World Nine-ball Champions article that is an interesting example. I guess because it is an international championship the players could be seen as representing their countries but I have to admit that I don't quite follow the reasoning. But that would qualify as a legitimate grey area. As for the location flags, it took a minute, but going through the history of the two articles the location flags were added after the article was linked to from MOS:ICON. One of the dangers of not linking to a specific diff when linking to an example. SQGibbon (talk) 21:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

@SQGibbon Actually, the problem is that that MOS:ICON does not specify national competitions. The only thing it's specified for sportspeople is that flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality and that when are used in a table, flags should clearly indicate that the flags represent representative nationality, not legal nationality. In the case of boxing, it is representative nationality, so the same applies here. Boxers that did not compete at Olympic level still represent their countries and this can easily be verified in the ratings of the different boxing organizations. You will note that MOS:ICON does not specify that nationality must be determined by national competitions or national bodies, only gives some examples using sport governing bodies. It is this lack of specificity that allows different interpretations of the text and the over usage of flag icons. Pride and Dream are promotions, not governing bodies, but both used nationalities in a sporting sense so it could be argued that fighters had representative nationality despite the lack of a governing body. The closer to a governing body in MMA was the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts. As MMA is right now, it's closer to the NFL than to the FIFA, but that doesn't mean that reliable sources do not distinguish the athletes nationalities, so it could also be argued that reliable sources show the representative nationality.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with your reasonings, particularly with the similarities to professional wrestling promotions, and I also don't think that flag icons are necessary in record tables, but I do believe that the consensus must be as solid as possible because several editors like the aesthetic of flag icons and most likely they will try to re-add them if the consensus is not solid over such a gray area topic. Tuoppi gm gives an excellent example of these gray area issues and why I believe we should try to address all possible arguments when building the consensus. Jfgslo (talk) 16:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think MOS:ICON does make it pretty clear that it's only national competitions that determine the use of flag icons. Take the line "Flags should never indicate the player's nationality in a non-sporting sense; flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality." What this says is that even if we have a reliable source indicating what someone's citizenship is (or is it where they're born? Another quagmire if we allow for flag icons) that's not good enough. What matters is the nation they've represented by being part of the national squad/team (e.g., football Worldcup) or by "representative nationality" like Olympic boxing (as opposed to a World Heavyweight Boxing title). I know nothing about Pride and Dream but are the athletes from the same country all part of the same team and that nation's team receives points for wins which go toward a final standing based on team performance? Without that I don't think it's a legitimate example of "representative nationality" and more just a way to drum up nationalistic excitement among fans. Also, I think the boxing project is wrong to include flags the way they do. A quick search through the project and its archives indicates that consensus was never reached on that issue but I don't think they've discussed it at this level of detail either.

Finally, how do we determine consensus here? As far as I can tell the only argument in support of keeping the flag icons is that some people like the way they look whereas the counter arguments use various points taken from MOS:ICON as well as not liking the way they look. If this were an AfD discussion I'm pretty sure I know how an admin would determine consensus but that doesn't necessarily apply here. SQGibbon (talk) 21:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

We determine consensus precisely as we have done here, we arrive to a general agreement of the participants in a discussion. The purpose of this particular discussion is to address all those points that may be raised against this proposal. For example, editors may argue that other sport-related project do use flag icons, like boxing, and therefore they are acceptable for this one. So far, your argument is pretty solid and convincing and I agree with it since you have shown that there is no real reason to keep the usage of flag icons. It would help if more editors expressed their opinions to make it a strong consensus. Since you mentioned AfD, you should be aware that sometimes a consensus gets trumped if the reasons expressed on it are not valid or based in Wikipedia policies, and sometimes the contrary happens when no valid reason is given to keep an article but a strong consensus forms against the deletion. Theoretically, a consensus with no valid reasons should not be considered as an acceptable determination, but in an AfD it depends on the opinion of an administrator, which is why there is another process called deletion review when editors can express their disagreement if they have a valid reason. Therefore, it is my opinion that we should strengthen this consensus with more opinions and solid arguments, as you have done so far.

There is another sport that may be raised as an opinion in favor of flag icons. With the Formula One World Drivers' Championship, despite that it is not a national competition and that athletes from the same country are not part of the same team, the related articles use flag icons for drivers and teams, as seen here. How is the Formula One World Drivers' Championship different from the UFC?

A question to other editors in this discussion. Is it fair to say that LOL, Tuoppi gm, SQGibbon and me are in favor of removing flag icons? Jfgslo (talk) 17:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

My point about AfD was exactly the point you made -- regardless of which side has the majority opinion the admin would close based on Wikipedia policy and guidelines. Anyway, the F1 situation is interesting. The discussion rages on over there see here for a comment made today on their talk page and for a lengthy (and bitter) argument see here (initially just about infoboxes but it seems to reflect a wider range of issues). It is true that at F1 competitions they play the national anthem of the winning driver (but not the where the team is based/licensed) but again it's clearly not a national competition as points are never awarded to nations but only to teams (constructors) and the individual drivers. Most of the people in support of their use of flag icons seem to agree that it is in contradiction to MoS but want to use it anyway because of how F1 seems to act like the nationality of the driver is important (even if it's only for show). I have to admit that I disagree with that line of reasoning as it does have the effect of watering down the meaning of flag icons. Looking at a small range of sports and comparing how team sports are treated vs. individual sports, it appears that the general practice on Wikipedia is to associate athletes in individual sports with a nationality (and thus a flag icon) but not so for individual athletes in team sports. Personally I don't see the difference -- in tennis a player sometimes represents a country and at other times doesn't but putting the flag icon in every tournament result seems to indicate that it's always about which country wins and less about the individual. Glancing through various archives for these sports I see a strong sense of national pride being argued for while not addressing issues like consistency across Wikipedia. My point is that at the very general level consensus was reached in the form of MOS:ICON whereas in specific sports (especially it seems individual sports) consensus contradicts the MOS. That's just an observation; general practice in other projects is not a good argument for contradicting MOS in another project. Anyway, I guess at this point it might be helpful if someone were to summarize the arguments and see how it goes from there. If consensus is reached then perhaps it can be added to the text at the top of this discussion page for future reference. SQGibbon (talk) 19:23, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I know they were originally used for national competitions. However I do not nor have i ever had a problem with the flag icons for MMA Athletes. As a matter of fact i have never given it a thought. I think it is a good idea. I believe some users are making it into a big issue and being too technical about this. Solidmemory (talk) 22:03, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Obviously the aesthetic value is one that's never going to achieve unanimous support. I for one find the overuse of flag icons to be distracting and ugly. When I look at a table I want to see the results and not have my eyes constantly drawn to the flags. But aesthetic concerns rarely make for a compelling argument. As for being "too technical", the Wikipedia Manual of Style exists for many reasons: consistency, readability, bandwidth concerns, neutrality, and so on. Ignoring the MoS potentially creates problems in all these areas. This flag icon issue being an example with at least respect to consistency (across Wikipedia) and bandwidth concerns. If there are no compelling reasons to keep the flags (e.g., improve readability) then they should go. "Making it into a big issue" goes both ways -- those who want to keep them and those who want to get rid of them so we should fall back on what the MoS states. SQGibbon (talk) 02:54, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I missed this conversation entirely and unfortunately reverted (probably SQGibbon's) someone's changes and re-added the country flags for the opponent. Now that I have had a chance to read this conversation, I'd like to agree with SQGibbon's eloquent statement above. I don't care one way or the other, I just want to go by whatever the MoS says we should do. When the concensus has been reached, let me know one way or the other so I can start adding or removing the flag icons. In the meantime, I won't touch them for opponents. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 19:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

This is K22. You guys must be blind if you think it looks better without the flag icons and with TKO (punches). It looks awful. Why cant you guys see this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by K22UFC (talk • contribs) 20:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it's funny that you reverted a change I made where you removed the flag icons from the opponents that I had put back in and then come in here and complain that removing flag icons looks ugly. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 20:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

As suggested by SQGibbon, I will attempt to summarize the arguments so far:

• As pointed out by SQGibbon, per MOS:ICON, the consensus in Wikipedia is that flag icons aren't meant to be used to emphasize nationality without good reason.
• The interpretation on the text of the Manual of Style is that flag icons for sportspeople should only be used in a sporting sense, that is, only when they are representing a national squad/team or for representative nationality in a competition, not legal nationality. A sport governing body is the one to determine.
• Since there is no sport governing body in MMA, MMA fighters do not represent their countries in a sporting sense, and, as such, flag icons do not serve an encyclopedic purpose. SQGibbon's main argument is that, since MMA has no governing body and it's mainly composed of individual promotions, representative nationality does not apply as fighters are not representing a nation in an international competition sanctioned by an international or national sport governing body and in those few instances where anthems are used in MMA, they are used only for show and do not constitute a valid example of representative nationality.
• Some examples were given of other WikiProjects which ignored Wikipedia's guidelines in favor of the usage of flag icons in articles overseen by them. A quick analysis showed that there was no real consensus to overrule Wikipedia's guidelines, editors decided to ignore them because the entity related to that sport seemed to emphasize nationalities of the athletes or they simply ignored the guidelines for aesthetic purposes. Because of this, it is believed that they are unreliable in regards to flag icon usage and, therefore, they do not represent a good source for arguments in favor of keeping flags for nationality in this discussion.
• Arguments in favor of keeping flag icons usage for nationality are all related to aesthetics and, therefore, they are not valid arguments since none of them cite Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, or some other reason different from aesthetics.

• Editors who have expressed their support in favor of removing flag icons for nationality: LOL, SQGibbon, Jfgslo, Tuoppi gm, GoodDay.
• Editors who have expressed their support in favor of keeping flag icons for nationality: Paralympiakos, Solidmemory, K22UFC, Falcons8455, Ppt1973, Justinsane15, IWGP, WölffReik, Moosh88, DaveMir, Devotedness, GavinBrash, Eidetic Man.
• Editors who are abstaining from this discussion: Dachknanddarice

It is my opinion that, since no valid arguments have been given in favor of keeping flag icons for nationality and ignoring Wikipedia's related guideline (MOS:ICON) and a majority of editors in this discussion have expressed their support towards SQGibbon's argument, the current text in this guideline should be changed to reflect this new consensus. I suggest that we wait two more days for more editors to express their opinions before changing the current text. Jfgslo (talk) 00:17, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I came late to the party again. I want it known that I like the idea of having flag icons on the record table. I'm pretty sure I've made that clear before like on the RFC/U for Paralympiakos, but that I'm willing to go with whatever the consensus is. Since the consensus is to remove all flag icons, that is what I'm going with. It does not mean that I support the removal of them. I simply don't have an arguement for keeping them since the MoS states we should discourage using them. Like others have stated, I like the way it looks... but I simply cannot think of an arguement for keeping them. Therefore, I'm abstaining from either side. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 18:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I had no idea about this "consensus" on the flag icons until I noticed them showing up on various biographies. Yeah, obviously it looks ugly. But I think the reasoning to remove them is because they don't represent the countries (they represent themselves) therefore the flag icons should be removed. But I'd say that they may not represent their country directly but it shows their nationality. Shouldn't that be taken into consideration? And a lot of this fighters in a way represent their country and have some national pride. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mont3818 (talk • contribs) 22:51, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

There is a spot in the infobox for nationality and of course a fighter's nationality can be discussed in the main body of the article. The flags were originally intended to show which nationality a sportsperson represents in national competition and the decision here (along with other reasons) is that we should stick to that. Of course many of them have national pride but that's not what the flags are supposed to demonstrate. Read MOS:FLAG for a longer discussion about the topic and for the general Wikipedia consensus. SQGibbon (talk) 23:14, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey guys, I love to edit MMA wikipedia aricles all the time because of how much I love this sport. I would like to say that I think the flags should be next to the person. Before every fight they announce what country they are from and it seems that it is a huge part of MMA. I don't think it matters if someone is saying they arent representing their country or not, they should still have their countries flag next to them. When I see where someone is from I don't automatically go, "Oh, so he is representing Brazil, looks like I should cheer for the guy from the US." No, I think oh cool he is from Brazil and thats it. I love fighters from all over the world. I'm not cheering for someone just because they are representing my country. I think not only do the flags next to them look better, but they also are always shown on the tale of the tape before the fights start. Now, if the consensus says there shouldn't be flags then I say we try and get it to where flags should be used because I feel that they are needed. Falcons8455 (talk) 21:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Are they needed or do you just prefer them? Wikipedia guidelines discourage the use of flag icons in the way we've been using them in MMA articles so unless there is a compelling reason to include them we should follow the guidelines (just like we do for writing references, punctuation, formatting, article organization, etc.). Aesthetics is not a compelling argument as many people find this particular use of flag icons ugly and sometimes confusing (if you know what the flags are supposed to mean then you might think that that's how they're being used in these articles when in fact they aren't being used in that way). SQGibbon (talk) 22:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

They are needed. Every MMA event I've ever seen always states what country they come from. It doesn't matter if the fighter says thats who they are representing or not. I think putting the flag icons where they are in the record box is just some more useful information. Why get rid of good information? I'm always interested in where someone is from. Like look at the UFC 129 card. Its basically Canada vs. USA. That isn't a coincidence. This issue is a big deal. People always will look at where someone is from and thats who they root for. I don't think it would make much sense to go around and getting rid of all the flags. It just offers more information that in my opinion, and im sure others, think is a great tid bit of information. And i find it funny that I'm always looking at a fighters record box and I'm like "Hes fought all brazilians or look at all the different fighters from around the world he faced." I'm a nerd and look at stuff like that. Overall I think it is a small bit of information that would just be dumb to get rid of. I understand its not in the consensus but I really do think it should be in it. Falcons8455 (talk) 23:36, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

That all MMA events indicate where a fighter comes from is interesting but in no way does that compel us at Wikipedia to follow suit. If an outside source presents information in a way that we find useful then we can certainly do the same but we are in no way required to do so. Also, I don't quite get how putting flag icons in the record box is "useful" information. Why not put fighting styles, or ages, or handedness (right/left), reach, weight, height and so on? The table needs to list the most relevant facts and not overload readers with stuff that while interesting does not quickly get to the point. Flag icons do not help readers understand the result of a fight. The opponent, the location, the length of the fight, and the decision are all relevant to that specific fight -- where someone was born is not. The rest of your argument seems to come from a fan's perspective which while understandable is not really the point of Wikipedia. I would find it surprising if as a fan that Wikipedia would be your first or even third destination for information about a fighter. There are much better resources out there for fans. Wikipedia is not here to be a fan resource even though it can serve that purpose. Instead we just try to provide encyclopedic information for general readers. Finally, it's not always clear what a person's nationality is but by putting a flag icon in we are asserting something as fact. In the case where someone has multiple nationalities which icon do you use? All of them? It's easy to deal with that issue in the main body of an article (Person A was born in country A to a citizen of country B and a citizen of Country C but grew up in country D where she/he became a citizen but now lives and works in country D which is where she/he is working and most identifies with) but flag icons ignore what can be complicated issues. That said, the purpose of flag icons is to indicate which nationality a person represents in an official manner (like being a member of the Spanish football team) which is easily verifiable and objective. Even when that person changes to a different national team it's clear that this has happened and the flag can be updated as needed. When dealing with people in a non-sports related way it gets messy and can lead to all sorts of nationalistic battles over which flag should be used to represent someone. There's enough opinion pushing going on in these MMA articles, do we really need bring in issues of national pride as well? SQGibbon (talk) 17:17, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The flags provide a great deal of information if you know how to read 'em. It can tell you in a glimpse of an eye if someone has fought overseas, or only in his region. For example Geronimo dos Santos. When his fight with Barnett came up, i got a pretty good picture from his whereabouts just by seeing the flags.

Saying that a flag should only be used if you represent your country, would mean you have to remove all the flags from association football club articles, since their players play for a club and not a country. Nobody is editing those, bec it would be insane. Boxing records also have the flags.

Look at a tale of the tape from an ufc event. They allways display a flag (born in). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loxoman (talk • contribs) 05:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure, flags provide information but as I said above (and on your talk page) there's lots of interesting and useful information that we're already leaving out. If we packed in every single thing that someone might find useful or interesting then the tables would get out of control quickly. Instead we only include that information which is relevant to the outcome of those fights: winner, round, time, method of win, and event. Where someone was born might provide you additional insight into the professional careers of the fighters involved but tells you nothing of a particular bout. Also I'm not sure what point you're getting at with association football, when players represent their clubs the flag icons are not used, when they represent their nations in international competition then the flag icons are used in those specific tables. I'm sure there are some football articles that don't respect that guideline but the players I just spot-checked bear this out (Leo Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Wayne Rooney to choose three of the better known players in the world right now who are all of different nationalities). That UFC events include flag icons is also interesting but there is absolutely no reason why we have to do everything exactly the same as they do and I'm positive that their manual of style differs from Wikipedia's in many, many more ways than just that. SQGibbon (talk) 06:02, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Since UFC events use the flag icons I don't see a reason to change all the fighters pages and take the icons out. True we don't have to do everything exactly the same as they do but you could ask that question the other way. Why not show it the way the events do? I think we should keep the flag icons because they are used just like the tale of the tape is used. In MMA it seems that the flags are used almost always so wikipedia not using it would be very confusing. Flags are used MUCH more than most other big sports and I still think it should be used in the record boxes. I'm a huge editor in all MMA type articles and try to make all of them the best they could possibly be and this is an essential piece to making them as good as possible in my opinion. I'm sure any MMA fan agrees with me. I'm not sure if you are a MMA fan or not but I feel that all fans of mixed martial arts would think the flags are definitly neccessary in the record boxes. It just gives it the tale of the tape feeling. Falcons8455 (talk) 03:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

You ask "Why not show it the way events do?" OK, but ignoring the flag issue we still don't show it the way UFC does in its tale of the tape. We don't include the age, height, weight, or reach. One possible reason we don't include those items is that they are not relevant to the outcome of a fight. They are relevant to the fighters themselves (and should be included in their articles) but not to the specific results of a bout. How does the fact that one fighter comes from South Korea affect the result of the match? Either he won, lost, or drew, whether he's from South Korea or Australia in no way affects that result. So if I understand your argument your claim is that UFC includes a flag therefore so should we and that they are "definitely necessary". The second part I'm confused about, why is it "necessary" to include a flag? The result is necessary. The name of the opponent is necessary. In order to distinguish one fight from another the date and location are necessary. How the fight ended and in what round are not strictly necessary but at least they have a direct connection to the result of the fight being recorded. A person's place of birth is not necessary just as their hair color isn't. If by "necessity" you mean only because UFC includes it in their tale of the tape then why isn't all the other information necessary as well? SQGibbon (talk) 01:17, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. They are needed.Ppt1973 (talk) 14:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I also agree, flags are definetly needed.(Justinsane15 (talk) 05:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC))

Anonymous IPs aside, there seems to be a lot more people opposed to this change than for it. Being that the biggest reason most of these people oppose the change is because "It looks better", maybe we should get a non-involved admin type or someone who can perform a mediation to try and get this resolved. It's clear in MOS:FLAG that we should discourage the use of flags when they are clearly not needed, as has been argued here, but regardless, it seems to be an unpopular opinion. I just find it hard to say we have a "consensus" now that it seems there isn't one, or that the consensus seems to be on the other side now. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 18:51, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify something in case it needs clarifying, "consensus" is not about what position has the most votes, see WP:VOTE for more on that. Of course it's also helpful to read WP:CONSENSUS (of special interest to this debate is WP:CONLIMITED). Consensus is about the quality of an argument not the number of people who prefer a certain position. My position is that since the use of flags being discussed here clearly runs counter to Wikipedia guidelines then the people who want to include them need to provide compelling reason to ignore guidelines. Without such a compelling reason then the default should be to stick with the guidelines. Are "because it looks better" or "because UFC does it" compelling reasons to ignore community-wide consensus driven guidelines? In any case, I agree that another outside opinion might be helpful (though I should say that I was an outside opinion when I first became involved). SQGibbon (talk) 19:17, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I apparently did need that clarification, and I appreciate you giving it to me. I will strike through my comment that says consensus has changed, as clearly I was not correct. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 19:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Flags should be kept because the various MMA orgs use them, many fighters often come out with their countries flag, and during MMA matches, especially in the USA, the fans will chant USA! USA! USA! to show support to the American fighter. Furthermore, it provides a nice visual element which also lets the reader know what country a particular fighter hails from without the said user having to click on the fighters name to find that info.--Moosh88 (talk) 02:02, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The "various MMA orgs use them", "many fighters often come out with their countries flag", "the fans" and "lets the reader know what country a particular fighter hails from without the said user having to click on the fighters name to find that info" arguments have already been used and countered; see Falcons8455's comments and SQGibbon's responses to them. Furthermore, "fans chanting" is not a reason to include flags; if it were, then we could take any sport that shouldn't have flags, wait until some fans for that sport chant a country's name, and then people would argue that the chant warrants flags for every participant in the sport. Stating that it is "a nice visual element" is completely subjective. Thank you for giving your 2¢ on this "pointless discussion". :) —LOL ^T/_C 08:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Project page update

I have rewritten the project page to reflect the consensus regarding flags for nationality and city names in the location column. Please check it out and let me know if I omitted something or if there is something that needs to be changed. Jfgslo (talk) 07:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any problems. Nice job. SQGibbon (talk) 17:57, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Flag icons should be left in and so should capital letters. It used to always be like this but now all of a sudeen evereyone is ruining all the wiki pages. I don't understand how you guys think your way is better. It looks absolutely awful after you edit it this way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by K22UFC (talk • contribs) 15:35, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The reasons why are explained in exhaustive detail above -- if there's a specific line of argument you don't agree with or think is wrong I'd be more than happy to address it. As for the aesthetic argument, you have to realize that not everyone has the same tastes as you. Personally I think using flag icons like this makes the page look gaudy and like what happens when you give a child a book of peel-off stickers who then goes around plastering those stickers everywhere. While it's cute and funny when a child does this, it's just plain ugly and unprofessional when adults do it to an encyclopedia. With the capitalization it Just makes No grammatical Sense. It's the Sort of capitalization Usually Used only with book Titles. Using It elsewhere gives the Impression that something Important is being stated Or that Some Kind Of formal Title is being used. The fact that none of that is being implied means it just looks unprofessional and quite frankly makes us look like our grasp of the English language is less then stellar (apologies to everyone for making my point So crassly Above). Please don't take any of that as an insult, my point was merely to illustrate that we all have differing aesthetic ideas and as such appeals to aesthetics don't make for a very good argument. Instead what the discussion should come down to is Wikipedia policy and guidelines and whether this is a compelling situation where we should ignore them. Because some people think it looks better or because UFC does it does not seem to be a compelling case. SQGibbon (talk) 15:52, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive edits by user Eyriq86

User Eyriq86 keeps editing MMA records despite that I have already pointed out to him the appropriated Manual of Styles related to that. He simply ignores them and marks them as minor. I have already warned him three times and I was about to report him to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, but I may be overreacting. I would like to request that other editors verify his edits in the articles of Alistair Overeem, Kazushi Sakuraba, Junior dos Santos, Brandon Vera, Todd Duffee, Ricardo Arona and Georges St-Pierre. I'm under the impression that, although he appears to be trying to improve articles, he makes unreferenced changes, removes referenced text, ignores policies, guidelines and manual of styles, and also always marks his edits as minor without summary despite that they rarely are minor and several times they include the removal of some reference. I believe that he is not acting in good faith as he simply ignored the warnings and keeps doing changes the way he likes. I would like to read more opinions before I take further actions. Jfgslo (talk) 05:46, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on dealing with anti-MoS rebels, but it seems to me that you'd be justified in reporting the user to ANI. The user hasn't made a single edit on any talk page,[7] and I'd state this fact if you do report them. It doesn't appear that they've made any attempt to communicate with you or resolve the conflict. —LOL ^T/_C 06:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I have reported Eyriq86. But since his edits aren't technically vandalism and administrators have their hands full at the moment, could someone else revert his edits? I don't want to give the impression that this is something personal by being the only one reverting his edits. Jfgslo (talk) 22:34, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed that Eyriq86 is at it again. This time attacking Keith Jardine's page. Twice today I've had to undo changes made to Jardine's MMA record. One was by an anonymous IP address and the other was by Eyriq86. I suspect the anonymous IP was him also because the changes to the record were similar. Both times today, there was no explanation for the changes and no reason behind them other than, what I believe, to stir up trouble. Maybe Eyriq86 is just an individual looking to subvert the MMA Wikiproject? In any case, I think someone smarter than myself should probably start looking into an "RfA" (I think that's the proper term?) for this guy? I don't think he'll give up and quit on his own. Could use some input, please. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 20:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we definitely need to take the next steps regarding Eyriq86 and his non-constructive editing. However, since he has never responded to anything on his talk page, I'm not sure what the best solution would be at this point. I'm going to see if there is someone that can give us an outside opinion on how to handle this. ZephyrFox (talk) 03:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I really think we should do something to notify the admins of this guy's behavior. Twice today I've had to revert this guy's changes on Keith Jardine's page again. He always marks them as minor, and he never provides an explanation. It's clear to me that this guy just wants to cause trouble and I think it's high time it got addressed by people who have the ability to do so. Is there anyway we can notify the admins that this guy is causing problems? Someone more experienced than myself should take whatever steps are necessary to see this through... I simply don't know where to begin and don't have the time to gather up "evidence" here at work. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 00:58, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

TUF 13 Articles

I was peeking in and noticed that there are two separate TUF 13 articles: The Ultimate Fighter: Team Lesnar vs. Team Dos Santos and The Ultimate Fighter 13. For those of you who are still actively involved in editing, someone may want to re-direct one to the other. --TreyGeek (talk) 20:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't the one to do it, but I just checked and both links now point to the same article, so I guess we can consider this closed. Thanks to whoever linked them.

Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 19:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Picture Out Of Place

Now I've only looked at recent UFC events, and UFC 1, but I can assume all the ones in between are messed up as well, the picture is on the left side and above everything else, also the TUF wikis are having the same issueTmt2393 14:28, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any pictures "on the left side and above everything else" in the UFC 1 article. Perhaps your browser is having issues? What are "TUF wikis"? —LOL ^T/_C 18:32, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

"TUF" is the abbreviation many MMA fans use for, "The Ultimate Fighter". I assume Tmt2393 was talking about those articles related to various "The Ultimate Fighter" seasons as well. Not for nothing, but I checked the UFC 1 article and also some of the "TUF wikis" and didn't see the same problem as Tmt2393. I have to conclude that LOL is correct and Tmt2393's browser might have been minimized or somehow distorted in such a way where the pictures appeared on the left side instead of the right. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) Dachknanddarice 02:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

List of MMA Wikiproject Guidelines and Rules

Hey everyone. I'm pretty new to this sort of thing, and have essentially just kept myself busy by changing MMA records to reflect a certain style (which has now become a bit of a debate, but that's not what this is about). I'd like to start taking on a more active role perhaps by expanding articles and maybe even creating a few. I've read the MMA Notability which is listed as a "guideline" to making articles regarding MMA. (I'd like a little more depth in that too, but I'll put my concerns on that talk page) What I'd like to hopefully see, being a new guy here, is a list of links to actual Wiki Rules that must be followed when it comes to MMA articles, as well as a list of links to actual Wiki Guidelines (Such as the MoS, MMANOT, etc. etc.) that we should be looking at following so that new people to the MMA Wikiproject will have a list of things to look into before making changes. The only reason I know about the MoS is simply because I've heard people mention it in regards to MMA. Is it possible for people who are more knowledgable about Wikipedia to add these links? I'm not talking about links to general Wiki rules regarding civility and such... I'm talking about links to rules and guidelines specifically geared toward the MMA Wikiproject. I'm also willing to create this list myself here on this article if anyone wants to give me some links to look at in regards to adding it. I appreciate your time, thanks for reading this giant wall of text. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 18:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Judging from this list, the only pages that appear to be worth checking out are Wikipedia:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/Event pages format and Wikipedia:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/quickbio (the latter is already linked from WP:MMA). —LOL ^T/_C 22:16, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh man, my apologies once again. I'm so new to this that I didn't know that page existed. I will be sure to look at those in detail before expanding or adding any articles. I appreciate you showing me this, and I hope we can keep this little section up so that other new folks can use this as a bit of a guide. Thanks again. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:27, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry, you don't have to apologize for everything you don't know. You seem new, and we understand that. I'm just glad to have a new fellow showing enthusiasm in article maintenance according to consensus-driven styles and formats, because we could always use more. —LOL ^T/_C 23:10, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Self-promotion?

What do you think of the article about Kevin Howell and similar edits by its creator?--Razionale (talk) 17:11, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The sources are definitely insufficient to establish notability. victorybelt.com and fightzoneusa.com are affiliated with him, the "Orange County Judo Training Center" appears in no other Wikipedia articles, the "Kid Peligro" page only mentions Howell under a schedule, and the others are blogs (see WP:SPS) or other non-notable media. —LOL ^T/_C 17:28, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

What caught my interest in the connection to the article subject was this edit that I don't how how to deal with.--Razionale (talk) 17:41, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The addition is entirely unsourced, does not have a neutral POV and contains peacock terms, so I would be in favour of simply removing those sections. —LOL ^T/_C 19:10, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I have cut it down to this. Just go ahead if it's not enough.--Razionale (talk) 19:50, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

ShoMMA

This has come up on the ShoMMA discussion page and I figured I would bring it over here to get a consensus from the project. Strikeforce is currently at 15 events for this show and the page is getting crowded. Someone proposed individual pages for each show, which I agreed with. Basically, they are like Strikeforce's version of UFC's Ultimate Fight Nights and those get their own pages. Also, Showtime appears to have dropped the ShoMMA name and lists them on their website now as Strikeforce Challengers. I would be more than willing to do each individual page if the MMA project agrees it is worth doing. Udar55 (talk) 22:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the ShoMMA article is definitely becoming unwieldy, especially with the large amount of duplicated heading titles. The only thing I worry about is whether individual ShoMMA events are notable enough to have their own article, as Strikeforce still seems pretty far from being as big as the UFC. —LOL ^T/_C 14:33, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, I think the shows should start getting their own pages. I'd like to make sure we don't forget to intersperse links to them from the other major Strikeforce events in the infobox for "previous and next events". Meaning, the UFC on Versus event links can be found in the info box in between UFC PPVs... I'd like to see the same thing (in date-correct chronological order) for the ShoMMA (Which we should rename, Strikeforce Challengers 1, 2, etc. etc.) events that happened in between major Strikeforce events. I'm willing to help Udar55, if he wants it, create these pages and make sure they link up properly with other Strikeforce events.

@LOL: Strikeforce is currently the number 2 MMA organization in North America, and with its co-promotion with Dream in Japan, makes it a well-known organization overseas as well. Considering they put on the most shows other than the UFC, I'd like to think that makes it notable. There are no reports of Strikeforce having financial issues like FEG has had with Dream and K-1, and there's no reason to believe Strikeforce is going away any time soon. There's lots of reasons to believe Strikeforce is notable enough to add their ShoMMA events as seperate articles, especially since they continue to put them on. Just my .02. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 16:30, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I figure if smaller shows like Bellator, MFC and KSW can get individual events pages for their small shows that these should be okay. Thanks to everyone for the input. Udar55 (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

That those MMA events have their own article is not a good measure by itself. The real problem is that there isn't a consensus on how notability applies to MMA events, at least as far as I know. That is to say is, how do we define when an sport event related to MMA is notable and when is not? Per the general notability guideline (GNG), there needs to be significant coverage in reliable secondary sources independent of the subject. That is, there must be at least two non-local media that covers an event in detail and that media must not be related in any way to the event itself. For example, a publication dedicated to UFC related media, even if it's not affiliated to Zuffa, would not be good enough to verify the notability of an UFC event since it is not independent of the subject. Any fansite or publication that does not have editorial integrity would also be meaningless for notability. Under this criteria, the event reviews given at Sherdog, MMAFighting or any of the other major MMA websites should work for notability, and I believe that all the events discussed here would qualify for the GNG. If there is no significant coverage for individual ShoMMA events, those events can be covered in a single article.

However, there is another guideline, notability (sports), which has a different criteria for that and the problem is that MMA events are not included there. Not even boxing is there. The major objection that I see is routine coverage and the interpretation of it.

With that said, as far as I know, no one has contested the notability of UFC events or argued that they fall into routine coverage, so it would be a matter of proving the notability of events from other organizations with reliable sources and citations when creating an article of an MMA event. Of course, UFC shows are also TV shows and they are also covered by other guidelines that other MMA events are not. But I assume that, since WrestleMania and similar wrestling events have not had objection from routine coverage, the same would apply to MMA events that have significant coverage.

All this is speculation, though. Perhaps it would be a good idea to request for comments at Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard to know for sure how to qualify the notability of MMA events or to generate the criteria ourselves. Jfgslo (talk) 22:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Appreciate the feedback. It should be noted that ShoMMA (Which should really be referred to as Strikeforce Challengers Series now) is actually shown on Showtime all the time, and has always been since Strikeforce Challengers 1. Sherdog.com routinely covers their events with upcoming information, weigh ins, and event results. Even MMAJunkie covers the events, here, and here. I think notability for Strikeforce Challengers shouldn't exactly be too tough to prove. What does everyone else think? Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 23:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Strikeforce: Feijao vs. Henderson disruptive edits

User:86.176.98.229 (talk | contribs) has been repeatedly changing the results of the main event from TKO to KO. Per our guidelines here, the results should be those listed at Sherdog: http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Dan-Henderson-195 which is listed as a TKO. This is my first 'edit war' as they say and I'd like a little input on what the proper steps to take at this point would be. I thought about putting this up on a noticeboard but was also worried that doing so over the addition of one letter was a little silly. The articles in question are:

• Strikeforce: Feijao vs. Henderson
• Rafael Cavalcante
• Dan Henderson

If someone can go through and make sure my change to TKO was warranted I would appreciate it. Thanks! ZephyrFox (talk) 01:30, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, your change was warranted since most reliable sources state that as the official result. These type of edits are quite common. Several random editors tend to change results to how they see a fight, particularly in the following days after an MMA event. If editors do not add a source to back up the changes, you can basically treat their changes as vandalism, because they aren't adding sources to back up their claim. Whenever that happens, point them out to WP:V "the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth". Since they rarely are regular editors, the easiest way is to ask other editors to help you out with those articles during a few days. If a particular IP editor keeps doing edits like that, you can use one of the templates from here on the editor's talk page depending on the offense and after several warnings you can take it to the noticeboard. If that happens with multiple IP editors on a single article or with multiple vandalism from a single IP, you can request protection for that page here. But it's normally unneeded, as regular editors will assist you and random IP editors will rarely keep their edits after a few days. Since this particular editor doesn't even try to back up his claims, I'd suggest you to warn him first with one of the templates if he keeps doing them. He probably is a fan that doesn't really have much experience editing. Jfgslo (talk) 04:41, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I requested temp semi-protection for all three pages. Rafael Cavalcante was protected but the other pages have not been approved or denied yet. As it stands, all three pages currently have incorrect information on them. I'm getting close to, if not already over 3RR so if someone could revert those changes, I would appreciate it. Additionally, User:Eyriq86 reverted all the results on Rafael Cavalcante back to caps. ZephyrFox (talk) 02:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

How can we add a request to edit protect Dan Henderson's page? I hit the 3RR limit yesterday and have already had to reverse yet ANOTHER edit again today.... all from the same IP: 86.176.98.229. This guy is persistant and may have already gone passed the 3RR limit himself. Dan Henderson's page is officially an edit war and the IP won't respond or make any comments. We have some people who've made it a game now to revert changes on purpose away from the MoS using anonymous IP addresses rather than, I suspect, actually logging into their wiki accounts so that their wiki accounts won't be punished. Someone is extremely pissed off that we're trying to go by the MoS and is trying to subvert the entire wiki project, IMO. Please, it appears we're going to just have to start edit protecting fighter pages because I get tired of playing the edit war game with these anonymous IPs. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 20:14, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

For requesting protection, see WP:RFPP. For violations of 3RR, see WP:AN3. Since this is a single IP, I believe AN3 would be the better option. —LOL ^T/_C 20:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there anyone who has the time and the knowledge to file a AN3 for 86.176.98.229? I'm about to make my third revert to Dan Henderson's page today for this guy whose already been doing this over and over again. I don't know how to file a AN3, as I am relatively new here. I'll need help watching Henderson's page however because I've already made 3 reverts today and I simply don't want to be put on blast for violating the 3RR rules myself. Quite frankly, I'm too frustrated with this guy to keep reverting his changes as he declares "War on the MoS" (as I'm calling it). I don't mean to shove this problem on someone else but I'm just too inexperienced on Wikipedia to put together a proper AN3. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:27, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to help you out with this. However, the edits done today aren't from 86.176.98.229 but from 86.177.185.133. I'm sure that this is the same user, but the IP is not the same and it would take blocking a range. I think that page protection would be better here. Jfgslo (talk) 22:54, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Strawweight Notability

User Justinsane15 and I are having a disagreement as to whether or not several fighters who lack Wiki pages should be included on Strawweight (MMA) under "Notable strawweights in MMA". I contend that if he wishes to include them he should first create pages for them. That should be a bare minimum for inclusion on a notable list, not to mention it kind of defeats the point of the list as jumping off point to other articles. --Phospheros (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't really want to turn this section into a different discussion, but now that I'm reminded of them, I strongly believe the lists of "notable fighters" in any weight division shouldn't even exist. They're all derived from original research, as it's impossible to objectively draw the line between who's especially notable enough to be on the list, and who's only notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. These kinds of lists were eradicated from another WikiProject a long time ago after being discussed here. —LOL ^T/_C 18:34, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I don't disagree, but in the interim listing fighters without wiki pages is even worse than original research, it's that plus a lack of verifiability that the person in question is even a fighter.--Phospheros (talk) 01:29, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Wp:notability deals with this issue. Although, I do agree that having notability lists does border on original research. However, a fighter does not HAVE TO have a page to be notable. Should we remove all the bouts that have fighters with no wikipedia pages from the scheduled UFC and Strikeforce events?(Justinsane15 (talk) 03:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC))

Those bouts are sourced it's not the same thing.--Phospheros (talk) 05:09, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems a little awkward to have a list of fighters who are given special attention but don't even have an article, but this doesn't fit under WP:REDNOT. I think the simplest solution is to just remove all lists of "Notable fighters" from weight division articles, which I intend to do soon if a good reason to keep them isn't given. —LOL ^T/_C 05:57, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I have no problem with a total removal, as it stands there only real purpose is a jumping off point for more articles in project MMA. Which linking to nonexistent articles fails to serve. --Phospheros (talk) 06:31, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Zuffa purchases Strikeforce

I think we should make note of this somewhere... this is insanely big news. The number 1 MMA organization in North America (Zuffa/UFC) just bought and now owns the number 2 MMA organization in North America (Strikeforce). This is insane news. Here's the link.Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 18:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The Zuffa article is probably a good place. —LOL ^T/_C 19:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Legend Fighting Championship / MMA rules page rewrite

On the Legend Fighting Championship wiki page it states: intentional fouls result in a one-point deduction from the judges’ scorecards. but on the Mixed martial arts rules wiki page it reads: Intentional fouls result in a two-point deduction from the judges’ scorecards Neither claim is sourced. Also does anyone else think the Mixed martial arts rules page could use a bit of a rewrite?--Phospheros (talk) 10:55, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I checked the Legends web site and couldn't find any indication of those special rules. According to the site the rules seem pretty much standard unified rules. So I removed that information from that page. I also removed Legends section from the Mixed martial arts rules page. I also removed Cage Rage rules from there because they are so close to the Unified rules anyway.

I agree that Mixed martial arts rules page could use a rewrite. The unified rules should be emphasized imo and list top tier organizations that use them. Then have a list only top tier organizations that have differing rules and list differences compared to unified rules, not the whole ruleset unless it's radically different. The page also seems out of date because DREAM and Strikeforce are not mentioned at all, except the part about the type of ring/cage. --Tuoppi gm (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Brendan Schaub

As I was working on a few MMA records, I got to Brendan Schaub's. I noticed that on his talk page, there was no banner stating he was a part of the MMA Wikiproject. I took the liberty of adding the banner to the page and classifying it as a "stub". Also curious to see if I have the classification correct. I believe "Stub" is the very first classification an article receives, correct? If I have this wrong, please let me know and I will be happy to correct. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 01:54, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Removed some topics

I hope no one minds, but I removed a few of the topics on this talk page that seemed legitimately resolved/closed. There are a few more I think we could probably do away with, ShoMMA (which has already had articles created for each event) seems to be closed unless anyone else has any concerns/objections that haven't been voiced, I vote we remove this topic. Also... the Eyriq86 disruptive edits topic I believe is closed for now. I finally got cranky and put up an ANI and admin Eye Serene put a block on him for a bit. I vote we remove this topic until such time that Eyriq86 becomes disruptive again. Finally, I wasn't aware if we should archive discussions or just remove them. I have no problem with anyone reverting my removal of the discussions if I did the wrong thing. Just trying to clean up a bit. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 02:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

You shouldn't manually delete topics. They are automatically archived by a bot after 60 days of no activity. Check the top info box for the archives.

I restored the discussions you removed. --Tuoppi gm (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. It appears I still have a lot to learn about Wikipedia. I'll be sure not to do this again. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 15:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Bushido FC & K-1 Hero's

The Hero's page could really use some sourcing (it currently has none) specifically it states: Hero's Return in Bushido FC on 2008. [sic] The Bushido FC page also has no sourcing and states: The Bushido FC(Lithuania Bushido Federation) (LBF) is the largest, premiere Lithuania-based mixed martial arts promotion. The article was clearly written by a non-native english speaker and needs major copy editing.--Phospheros (talk) 11:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive edits by User:K22UFC

Fyi, K22UFC (talk · contribs) has ignored both my messages[8][9] on his talk page and continues to re-insert flags.[10] I think somebody else should try to message him before I report him to ANI. For what it's worth, he also ignored the warning[11] for personal attacks,[12] as he told the issuer of the warning to "Get a life".[13] —LOL ^T/_C 18:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The guy constantly runs around reverting my changes to pages like Brendan Schaub and Lyoto Machida. Not content to just switch back changes, the guy also adds little comments in his Edit summaries. The latest one, after changing something on Machida's page was "You don't know MMA" after reverting one of my changes. I don't believe he really wants to have an actual discussion on MoS or anything else. I've refused to talk to him at all, because it appears he just wants to be argumentative when he doesn't get his way. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 19:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I just now came across this discussion after having left another message for the user to participate in the flag icon discussion above. SQGibbon (talk) 20:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

We've been ignored once again.[14] Do we agree that WP:ANI is the way to go? —LOL ^T/_C 19:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with any action. He finally came in here to talk about the Record table issues but reverted one of my changes where I added flag icons to the opponents (as no concensus has been reached yet to my knowledge) and removed them only to come here and complain that removing flag icons looks ugly. I don't know what kind of action you can take against an editor that doesn't seem to really know how to edit on Wikipedia and doesn't seem to check his own work before coming to complain about people doing exactly what he just did. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 20:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The welcome message on his talk page should cover the basics, but I doubt he read many of the linked articles. —LOL ^T/_C 20:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

And here's strong evidence that he didn't even read the welcome message. —LOL ^T/_C 21:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Anyone interested in collaboration project?

As a part of helping myself become a better contributor/editor to Wikipedia, I'm interested in taking an existing article and improving it to a better class. Unfortunately, I am not able to do this alone. While my knowledge of MMA is (what I consider to be) somewhat extensive, my internet here at work does not allow me to travel outside of Wikipedia for referencing and such. And, due to having a wife and kid, editing from home is almost completely unlikely. What I'm looking to accomplish is to get more articles into higher quality such as the UFC 94 article which I think is excellent. Would it be worth adding more sections to other past UFC events such as an "Aftermath" section like in the UFC 94 article? I don't know, I'm just trying to make some of these articles better and kind of lost about how to do it or where to begin. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 21:58, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Answering you question, I believe that it may not be necessary to add more sections because UFC 94 is a particular case since it is the controversy and consequences that followed that give the article such good look, but I think it is a good idea to give some pointers on how an MMA event related article should look. Perhaps not all MMA event articles will be able to hold such a structure as UFC 94, but I think that it's worth a try. A Background section may be added to other articles without much problem. With the Event section, this is related to WP:Sports event and theoretically they should have a well-sourced prose. The Aftermath section is the one that most likely would be harder to measure since there are no guidelines related to that, but we could try to use common sense in its construction, taking the UFC 94 article as a base.

In short, Background, Event and Aftermath sections should be added to MMA event articles, along with the proper references, to improve their quality. That is my personal opinion. What do other editors think? Jfgslo (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I was using the UFC 94 article as an example, and likewise, the "Aftermath" portion as an example as well. But what do people think about adding some more background information regarding upcoming fights such as trash talking between fighters to establish grudge matches (like Rashad and Rampage had), information regarding possible number one contender fights (like Lil' Nog and Phil Davis tomorrow), information such as this is easily sourceable (MMA Junkie, Sherdog and the likes are always reporting this stuff) and it could possibly fit into the encyclopedia "theme". Many is the time I remember something like when Tito Ortiz was arrested during a domestic dispute with Jenna Jameson (just an example), but I noticed it wasn't written in Tito's wiki page, or maybe it's something that isn't easily found on the internet and we can add the information and the source so that other MMA fans visiting wiki can find these sources easily by looking at certain articles. I know Wikipedia is one of the first places I check for all things MMA. I'm just looking for way to improve some articles to bump up their status from start or stub class and don't really know what's the best way to go about it. Hence, why I was wondering if anyone wanted to collaborate on a page so I can be schooled on how the process works, what I need to do, or maybe we can learn the process together, etc. Dunno, just saw how many pages need to be upgraded in class and thought I could start doing so if I had an idea where to begin and how to get the process started. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 18:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I can try to help out with copyediting, templates and MoS, but my time is limited so I want to avoid writing prose. I don't have access to past fights, so I definitely can't write fight summaries. —LOL ^T/_C 19:37, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

@Dachknanddarice Is there any particular UFC event that you would like to improve at this moment? I suggest that we pick one UFC event and try to work on it to make it similar to the structure and quality of UFC 94 and, from that experience, we establish which parameters work, which don't and then we can establish a proper guideline for MMA events. For example, I'm not quite sure how adding much information about trash talking would be useful, but I cannot know until we start working with the sources and see how they treat it. Depending on how that turns out, we can decide what to do next. Jfgslo (talk) 06:45, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Sherdog.com pound for pound

The Sherdog.com pound for pound wiki page was deleted, does anyone think we should add the P4P table into the Sherdog page? --Phospheros (talk) 02:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself, but pound-for-pound lists are always so subjective. No one ever agrees on who should be on the p4p lists, and the discussions always break down into arguments. Is there a reason we should be adding a list such as this in an Encyclopedia? Maybe if we catalogued every single p4p list they ever released, but even those can be found (for the most part) using a Google search and aren't relevant to MMA in the long run. Maybe I'm just playing Devil's Advocate, here, but I really think p4p rankings are useless. I'm far more interested in actual ranked fighters based on weight class vs. a pound-for-pound list. To summarize, I say no. I think p4p lists aren't relevant enough in MMA to warrant them being in an encyclopedia, and I can imagine what kind of discussions might happen on the Sherdog talk page if we include it. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 15:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't say I really disagree, that said boxing's Ring Magazine pound for pound has it's own page. The Ring list can also be easily found online. --Phospheros (talk) 15:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Can't say I disagree with you either. However, why do we have to follow the boxing precedent? Also, why Sherdog's p4p list and not, say, MMAJunkie's or Inside MMA's? I say we see what others think regarding this. I'm not particularly opposed to adding it, I'm just not sold on the idea of adding it either and I'm kind of a "less is more" kind of guy. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 15:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Dachknanddarice pretty much nailed the problem with pound for pound rankings. From experience, I am positive that no agreement will be reached satisfactorily because pound for pound ranking are subjective by nature, but also because it pretty much depends on how much an editor likes a publication that he expresses his support for a specific ranking, so it is a double subjective issue. In my opinion, this project does not need an article for Sherdog.com pound for pound because, by having it, we would be favoring a specific ranking/publication over others with no evidence that it is favored over other rankings by reliable sources. The fact that the boxing project has one, only shows the shortcomings of Wikipedia's content policy in regards to following it in some articles. I really doubt that it meets the WP:GNG. Jfgslo (talk) 17:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding my post, I'm not saying we should recreate the Sherdog.com pound for pound wiki page. I was asking if we should add the info to the Sherdog wiki page. It's not favoritism to add it to the Sherdog page, it was favoritism/value judgment for it to have its own page. --Phospheros (talk) 17:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I was the nom for the Sherdog P4P page. For those of you that are interested in the discussion that led to deletion, you can view it here. I agree that there are two separate issues here: (1) Should a separate page exist? and (2) Is the content encyclopedic? The page deletion answers the first question. Phospheros has raised the other. I agree with the others here that the content is not appropriate, even for the Sherdog article. Yes, the Ring magazine rankings exist on WP. But, one could just as easily argue that the page for People Magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People doesn't even include the actual list. I contend that this information is just as subjective as Sherdog's P4P rankings, and therefore no more worthy of inclusion. There is just no way to provide this information with a neutral POV. Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 19:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

"There is just no way to provide this information with a neutral POV." ..... This I believe speaks to the heart of the issue on why p4p lists and discussions shouldn't even be put on Wikipedia. I understood what you were asking for Phospheros, and I understand that putting the Sherdog list on Sherdog's article page isn't favoritism per se, but considering the controversial nature of p4p lists in general, and in specific Sherdog's (which quite frankly is practically full of Zuffa-only fighters), makes me believe there would be nothing but edit-warring, vandalism, and nasty discussions on the Sherdog talk page regarding the list itself. Something about p4p discussions always sends people into a vocal outburst, and I feel it might add some undue work for admins who would need to be involved in protecting the page, ANIs, and other infractions. Again, just my opinion. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 20:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

"There is just no way to provide this information with a neutral POV." Nor is there a need to be, anymore than there's a need to on the Malcolm X wiki page where it says that "white people are devils" a neutral POV is necessary from the editor not the subject. --Phospheros (talk) 22:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

In this case, though, the subject is a list that is the sole creation of editors (that happen to work for Sherdog). Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 04:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that there is no evidence of notability for Sherdog's pound-for-pound list to warrant the inclusion of the actual list. It is only one of many lists, it is subjective by nature, its usefulness is quite limited and it will probably cause unneeded edit wars. In my opinion, it could be mentioned in Sherdog's article that Sherdog, like many other publications, publishes a pound-for-pound list without including the list itself within the article. Other than that, I do not see any need to include the list in Wikipedia. Jfgslo (talk) 05:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

"it could be mentioned in Sherdog's article that Sherdog, like many other publications, publishes a pound-for-pound list without including the list itself within the article." I like this idea a lot. Again, my biggest argument with including the list itself is that it could lead to a lot of edit warring. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 15:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Pound for pound lists are subjective, meaningless, and change frequently so I see no reason to include these rankings anywhere or for any sport. However, I think that stating that a publication has such a list is OK as a one line addition to the publication's main article. Papaursa (talk) 15:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Done, the article now reads:

Sherdog was created by photographer Jeff Sherwood (Nicknamed "Sherdog") in 1997 and was later refined with the help of Garrett Poe. Sherdog features MMA news, individual records of fighters, reviews and previews of MMA events, interviews with fighters and referees, user forums, divisional and pound-for-pound fighter rankings, and original radio programs. --Phospheros (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Mixed martial arts & Vale tudo

The Legality of professional competitions section of the Mixed martial arts article could really use some improvement & sourcing, for instance the section on Brazil states:

Vale Tudo is Brazil's version of MMA, Vale Tudo holds the largest shows in the country with monthly competitions. Vale Tudo also precedes MMA, with Vale Tudo being established in the late 1800s. Brazil has had the second most UFC champion's after the United States. Brazil also is the birth place of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu the preeminent MMA style which was made popular by the Gracie family. In the early years of MMA, BJJ dominated all other styles, a fighter simply needed to be a master of BJJ in order to beat a striker or wrestler, but as the sport evolved it became much more difficult if not impossible for a pure BJJ fighter to defeat a striker or wrestler because of the wrestler/striker's learned knowledge of BJJ.

It should be pointed out that Vale Tudo in Brazil in modern usage refers to both old school No rules competition and modern MMA with rules in which it is still called Vale Tudo but is no longer anything goes. Also the Vale tudo wiki article itself is majorly lacking in sourcing and could also use a bit of a rewrite. --Phospheros (talk) 18:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. I think it will be somehow difficult to source them, though. Vale Tudo might be possible since I have seen some articles in English about its history. I'll try to look some info about it but I'm not confident that I will find what's needed. All the part about Mexico is original research, and therefore should not be there in the article. And the World Wide section is certainly lacking with no mention of Russia, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and others.

About Vale Tudo modern usage, do you remember where did you read that? I'd be nice to make that differentiation but at least one reliable source must be added for that.

In order to focus our efforts, in your opinion, which part should be our main priority? Vale Tudo, legality in Brazil, worldwide legality, etc? Jfgslo (talk) 06:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't really read it anywhere in regard to Vale Tudo in modern usage, it's more a case of listening to Brazilian fighters and journalists give interviews. I googled but did not come up with anything of value:

http://zinganobjj.com/programs/ "MMA or "vale tudo" as it is called in it's birth country of Brazil"

http://www.bjj-asia.com/2008/11/alex-prates.html "MMA - or Vale Tudo as we call it there - has a long history in Brazil"

The least encyclopedic of all (a response in a thread) BJJ Vocabulary in Portuguese and English "vale tudo: MMA (people call MMA as vale tudo in Brazil)"

In the Vale Tudo wiki page under Renowned Brazilian Vale Tudo Organizations we list:

• Jungle Fight
• Bitetti Combat

Both are MMA orgs. so it gets a bit confusing without clarification of vale tudo's multiple usages.

As for the legality section, this is the best english link I could find on Brazil and it's not really what we need. http://www.tatame.com/2011/03/06/Brazilian-congressman-attacks-MMA-wants-to-ban-the-sport-from-TV

I also think the section on each country under legality should look like the American & Canadian sections, just a sourced statement of legality and not a short history/commentary of MMA in each country. It might be best to just delete the Mexico, Brazil, and World Wide sections until we can properly source them.

And finally the youth section of the mixed martial arts wiki article also requires major expansion, it currently only references a single article in a Canadian publication discussing the Western Canadian Martial Arts Championship's decision to allow ground and pound in youth competition. --Phospheros (talk) 19:00, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

History of mixed martial arts by region

Just a FYI the article is up for deletion. --Phospheros (talk) 17:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I've checked the article and, unfortunately, I have to agree with the PROD nomination. There may be some information in the article that could be used in the history section of the article Mixed martial arts, but the sources are weak and aren't actual accounts of the history of MMA. Only two of them are useful for that purpose. It would require several articles like the one on German MMA to justify an individual article for all regions. I believe there are some books out there that cover this topic but, at this point in time, I see no reason to have a History of mixed martial arts by region article. Once the history section in the Mixed martial arts article is well developed, has more sources and more information, then it would be desirable to have an independent History of mixed martial arts article. But that is not the case, yet. At least that's my personal opinion. Jfgslo (talk) 06:18, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Mikazuki Jujitsu

This style article is newly created and in need of a bit of help. There is a related thread at AN/I here. The creator, in the past few days, has shown signs that he might have WP:OWNership issues, so be on guard. Cheers, and happy editing. lifebaka++ 14:10, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

This falls under project Martial arts not Mixed martial arts, I have changed the template on the talk page for the article in question. --Phospheros (talk) 16:02, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Gotcha'. Postin' over there. Cheers, and thanks for sending me to the right place. lifebaka++ 19:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Bot request for biographical articles.

I would like to make a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests to ask that a bot removes all flag icon templates from MMA biographical articles. Is that okay with other editors of this WikiProject? Jfgslo (talk) 22:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It's fine with me, since consensus says we should remove them all, and because there's as many people putting flags back in as there are taking them out, it seems that a bot would be helpful in helping make this happen. There are a couple of things I'd like to make sure we consider.

• • 1) How will the bot know to pick the right articles? (Will it check all articles with the WP:MMA banner?)
  • 2) It needs to be robust enough to pick out flag icons specifially in the infoboxes and MMA record tables only, and not just remove them from the entire page. Also, to make sure it doesn't remove flag icons from the portion of the infobox that contains medals, etc. from Olympic performances or other achievements (if it's even part of the infobox)
  • 3) It needs to be sure it doesn't remove flags from Kickboxing records or Boxing records, as we don't know what the consensus is for these Wikiprojects.

There may be other things to consider but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 00:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I was hoping we'd get an administrator's opinion on how to handle the recent edit war before going large-scale. In response to Dachkn:

1. It's easier to iterate through Category:Mixed martial artists by nationality and its subcategories.
2. I'm not sure where all flags for international competitions are used, but I think restricting the changes to sections that contain the word "Record" should suffice.
3. Before excluding other records from changes, I suggest going to WP:BOXING to see what they think about flags. The kickboxing wikiproject is inactive.

—LOL ^T/_C 02:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm with LOL in that I'd rather see what an admin or other experienced and uninvolved editors have to say about it all first. Flags can be removed from infoboxes; it looks Olympic records use their own kind of box so that should be easy to avoid. And I would also like to see what the boxing folk think of all this too. I went through their archives once but couldn't find any kind of definitive discussion on the subject. Obviously it would be nice to have all these sports on the same page. SQGibbon (talk) 03:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

If you want to request an opinion from an administrator, try placing a question with {{adminhelp}} on your talk page. Alternatively, you could post the request at WP:ANI, but it is my understanding that the board is for incidents, not to request opinions. I have no idea how to phrase the question with {{adminhelp}}, but perhaps someone else could try it. Jfgslo (talk) 05:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

• I vote yes on the bot, I also agree we should ask for project boxing's take on the flag issue. --Phospheros (talk) 19:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I hope no one minds, but I've gone ahead and made this request on our behalf. Hopefully some WP:BOXING participants will come and express their opinions. As for admin, I'm not sure what's the best way to get a hold of any of them besides an ANI, but as was stated earlier, that is for incidents only. Maybe we should contact a few of the more active ones from ANI on their talk pages and ask them to come take a look at this? Dachknanddarice (T‖C)19:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Removal of the flags, is acceptable to me. GoodDay (talk) 20:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'm happy to remove flags per MOS, but if there are "as many people putting flags back in as there are taking them out", then dividing editors into two groups and automatically undoing the edits of one half based on the "consensus" of the other half seems to be rather... unconsensual. It might be worth inviting the folk you disagree with back to the conference table, to try to establish a better compromise or consensus. bobrayner (talk) 21:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I've personally invited many people to participate in this discussion 1, 2, 3, 4, and several IPs. They might all be ignoring me at this point. Perhaps if you'd invite them they might actually participate? SQGibbon (talk) 22:03, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Sourcing styles

The style section of infobox's seems very arbitrary and I'm not sure how to go about sourcing a mix martial artists various fighting styles, in modern MMA everyone trains boxing, kickboxing, BJJ, and wrestling making it some what superfluous, perhaps we should develop criteria for inclusion. --Phospheros (talk) 20:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

You're right. Style seems like the kind of thing that's just as susceptible to Original Research as genre is in music articles and influences/influenced in articles of artists in general. Unless the person states specifically that they use a certain style (in an interview, official homepage, etc.) then it shouldn't be included. SQGibbon (talk) 21:49, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Is it time to request a mediation of sorts?

Despite the fact that there is a consensus on removing the flag icons and not capitalizing a portion of the Method column on MMA record tables, the edit wars continue. I'm pretty sure everyone is getting rather tired of reverting each others' edits and I don't see an end to this regardless of consensus. Attempts to discuss the issue usually de-evolve into BITE-y comments, and even some the edit summaries become BITE-y regarding all of this. Even though there are no compelling reasons to keep the flag icons, there are still atleast a handful of editors and anonymous IPs that continue to revert these changes. Some of them seem to have been interested in discussing the issue, but give up after they're told their personal opinions of "how it looks" have no bearing on the consensus already given. I've even seen an editor ask how they can change consensus.

No matter which side you are on, the edit wars continue on multiple BLPs for fighters. Is it time to get an uninvolved admin into this for mediation? Should we consider an RfC on this issue? I feel like this issue is becoming a distraction, at least for me, to contributing more important things to fighter articles. I feel like we've come to a dead end with the discussions, and the edit warring continues round and round. It's pretty frustrating, and I would very much like to see an end to it all. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:49, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I messaged an uninvolved admin[15] recently but he hasn't been active for a while. I suppose mediation would be worth a try by now, even though the previous RfC didn't really attract any outside opinions or resolve anything. —LOL ^T/_C 16:10, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly I don't know how best to go from here. Anything you come up with I'll support. SQGibbon (talk) 20:12, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Demian Maia

Does anyone know the black belt degree of Demian Maia? The internet is no help to me.--Razionale (talk) 19:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Wanderlei Silva

Can I get someone else to watch Wanderlei Silva's page? Chuteboxestomps and I are already at 3RR regarding this page. He keeps adding the flag icons. I'm starting to think we need to just start using ANI to report all these disruptive editors. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 21:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I think SQGibbon is doing the right thing of talking to the user. Chuteboxestomps hasn't reacted yet and perhaps didn't know about the arguments for removing the flags. Chuteboxestomps has never edited a talk page.--Razionale (talk) 22:16, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)SQGibbon is a far better person than I am. I've been ignored before by people when I try to explain why we do or don't do things. Dachknanddarice (T‖C) 22:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I left a note on the editor's talk page explaining the MOS view and the current consensus at MMA. In general it's best to try to engage other editors in discussion before even contemplating 3RR and ANI. Meanwhile, any movement on the mediation front? There's always the informal mediation cabal here which might be of some help though I've never personally dealt with them before. SQGibbon (talk) 22:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC)