Talk:Sam Billings

Level of detail in article

So, there appears to be some doubt as to the level of detail required in this article. I'll point at Adam Gilchrist as an example of a featured article. This article summarises most of Gilchrist's performance in, say, the 2003 World Cup (a tournament in which he played 10 matches, with the following two sentences: He finished the tournament with 408 runs at an average of 40.80 at a strike rate of 105. He scored four half-centuries, and was run out against Sri Lanka in the Super Six stage just a single run short of a century. It has a touch more about two more significant events - his walk and his performance in the final. But that's it - 8 matches worth in two sentences without having to list every innings he played.

If that's OK in a featured article - the very best we have on wikipedia about cricketers - then we don't need to do the same thing here. There is absolutely no need to have endless detail about each innings Billings has played for any team. That does not constitute something encyclopaedic - it's something I can look up on CricketArchive or CricInfo if I want to.

I'd like to think we can keep this sort of article clean of some of the munchkinisms that occur on other sports projects. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:32, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Adam Gilchrist had a very long career and so for him not every match would be needed. However, Billings has only played a handful of international matches and so a few individual games hold more significance. If there is an agreement that the changes should be altered then I modify what I have written, but until then I will leave the changes in place. I would appreciate it if we could come to an agrrement here before you revert my edits again. Englandcricketteam (talk) 17:21, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I was specifically directing you to the World Cup 2003 section of that article. The article here already has a bunch of sections - once you establish the precedent that an overkill on detail is acceptable in one section you'll get it in other sections - so let's have details of each of his IPL and PSL innings shall we? There's certainly scope for more detail on his Kent career if you want to get into detail - and then you get into the ridiculous position that articles such as Robert Snodgrass are in (look at the sections about his Leeds career and then compare them to the sections on his other clubs - here's a hint: look for the difference between an objective summary and a massive amount of detail).

You're adding way too much detail. It makes the article difficult to read and breaks up the flow of prose and fails fairly epically at being an objective summary. In three years time it'll all have to come out and a summary replace it. It'd be easier to create that summary as we go along - then no one will have to take a knife to articles and cut out all the crap. I'm serious about this - we need to be aiming for summaries and overviews; you're currently killing the article with detail.

While you're looking at the article do you think you can a) source it (with prose sources - not scorecards: it's a BLP article), b) check POV and c) correct the slight written English errors and style errors you've introduced. Thanks. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:29, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

After looking at other players articles, I don't think this goes into too much detail. In other players' article there is deep analysis of warm up games players have played in, even though they are experienced international players. As Billings hasn't played much for England, I would argue the innings against Pakistan are significant, although this could be condensed if he plays more games. The section is for his international career, not his bio, so for now I think it should remain as there is much less detail than other articles which, as previously mentioned, list tour games and interviews. I am adding references to the information I added, and I am also condensing it slightly. Englandcricketteam (talk) 20:58, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, articles such as? Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:14, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I am very much in agreement with Blue Square Thing on this subject. The Robert Snodgrass example is an excellent case of what we need to avoid, in which each section is written very differently and hence damages the readability (and objective credibility) of the article as a whole. To list every innings is far too detailed for the requirements of any article, with the possible exception of some kind of epic, historically notable, run (e.g., 5 consecutive centuries in an ODI series or World Cup, that kind of thing). The innings detailed here are not exactly noteworthy. As a Kent supporter, I might want to look up his record in more details using one of the usual two archive sources, but most general cricket fans would benefit more from a summary including only the key details. Bs1jac (talk) 09:30, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll look to come to some sort of middle ground perhaps. It depends on what ends up working and what I can source - last night's programme (the thing that comes with the scorecard) had an interview with him in it and that could well be a helpful source that avoid the use of numerical sources such as scorecards. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:14, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I first started editing Wikipedia because I wanted to find out something about an England cricket player and found the article was very much out of date. It went into extensive detail up until a certain point and then just stopped, and as I looked into it I found this to be the case with several articles associated with England cricket. I have kept the articles up to date since then, and have tried to write about what they have done in series without going into excessive detail. In several articles I have reorganised information and removed unnecessary detail so that they are easier to understand and the events are in chronological order. What I would recommend is to leave the article as it is for now and to develop it as and when he continues to play international cricket, as there could be the chance to use subheadings to break down the information as is the case with other players who have had longer careers. I was going to expand the IPL section but I take it this would cause more controversy. As for sources, I often use match reports. Englandcricketteam (talk) 19:50, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

I think you've hit the nail on the head: articles get out of date easily. I took "currently plays for Kent" off of two player's articles the other day who haven't played a match since 2010. That's a significant benefit of the summary approach - if there's a little less detail it's both easier to update the article quickly and less intimidating. The article is much less likely to end up on some sort of timewarp as a result - and the details of performances can be had elsewhere. You can find out about all the matches Billings has played in the last year on CricInfo or CricketArchive; can you find out that he thinks he's slept in his own flat about 17 times in the last 6 months? That summary sort of information (which I can source using a reliable, third party source by the way) might have a role here. When we have too much detail - too many "and then he did this, and then he did that, and then this happened and then it was the weekend and..." (as in the Snodgrass article) we end up with precisely the problem you're describing.

I think there's scope for a middle ground of some sort. That's a compromise. I don't know precisely what it might look like - I'll see if I can have a think over the next couple of weeks perhaps.

You should probably read the stuff on summary style in the MOS by the way - if there are v long articles they need to be split into sub-articles as appropriate. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:53, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

And the same problem again - please see sections of articles such as Anquan_Boldin#Detroit_Lions as to why this level of detail is totally unnecessary. To do so without an edit summary is poor form; to do so whilst actually removing a significant fact about the subject of the article is actually quite unbelievable. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

And again - in an article which is already starting to become really quite long. This is an article about Billings, not various England teams. There's too much detail already really - but I've worked to produce a compromise for the 11 months of the year when not many other people edit it. Have a think and have a read please. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:30, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, hideously out of date and still full of detail. Discussion happened a while again at the project talk page about too much detail on England players pages. I'll try and find time to edit this stuff down at some point if I get the chance. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Done this now - well, a bit anyway. I still feel it needs more culling of detail. Per this discussion at WP:CRIC. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2017 (UTC)