This is an archive of past discussions about Football. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I thought it a bit unfortunate that the request above was closed after only about a week. I would at least would have liked to see the discussion progress beyond mere misunderstandings of the intentions of the request. From what I can tell, though, there's no need to hold straw polls concerning one part of this request, namely to create a separate history article. The history info is already over 60k and is in dire need of a summary. If people keep adding info here, then more effort should be made to redirect them to the separate history article.
I have moved "Present day codes and families" from the bottom to the top. If someone comes here and wants an article on a modern game we may as well put the links near the top. However I don't think the history should be moved out of this article as there was no consensus to do so in the requested move. Further as the major part of the edit history of this article is for editing the history section, I do not think that the history section should be moved out of this article, rather if after six months there is a consensus to do so this article should be moved to "history of football" (or whatever) and a new article created here. There is no hurry over this issue as the history part of this article has been here for many years and six months is neither her nor there.
I suggested to Peter on his talk page that one way forward would be to create a Football (disambiguation), with a hatnotes on Football, leave it six months (the usual minimum time between requested name changes) and then try again when people are able to see what is being proposed. Perhaps then there will be a clear consensus for the move that was recently proposed. --PBS (talk) 22:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify: this is about going half-way by establishing a proper history article for football to allow this article to concentrate on something other than just history. It's of rather limited relevance to the somewhat confused straw poll about making this a regular dabpage.
Does anyone think this page should be divided into a few articles and 'Football' be turned into a disambiguation? I'm not sure. Just want your opinion. Cheers!
And the proposed move that was spawned by that discussion in August/September. Short answer is yes, several people think so, but not enough people to be a consensus. —JAO • T • C18:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Or rather, enough people consistently oppose, usually with reference to the previous vote, to effectively obstruct the issue.
Although I don't disagree that in a majority of the world thinks of football as the one with the round ball, it seems like there is a serious lack of NPOV in this article if there is no minimal subsection for American football under "Present day codes and families", especially since there are subsections for Irish and Australian varieties which have little similarity to their round ball cousin as well. --63.175.18.130 (talk) 23:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
The information on gridiron versions of the game is there in the section 'Rugby school football and descendants'. I'm not sure that there is a case for moving it as at the moment the games are arranged based on their origins. It doesn't look like a neutrality issue though, or anything to do with Association football.ReadingOldBoy (talk) 09:10, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Cicero
Does anyone happen to know where specificially Cicero talks about the guy getting killed by a football in the barber shop? The two references don't seem to help (actually, pg. 777 in Smith is about music...). Adam Bishop (talk) 02:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
The first sentence of the article, "Football is the name of several similar team sports, all with similar origins which involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot in an attempt to score a goal." and the section "Etymology" both imply that the name of the sport is due to the interaction of the human foot and the ball. But this is not the case for all sports under discussion in the article. In particular, the amercian sport "football" (AKA American football, gridiron foot) is so named because the name of the ball used in play is "football" (the sport's name is taken from the ball and not the other way around), and the ball is called a "football" not due to any intended interaction with the foot but rather because, in it's original form, it's major axis was 1 foot in length.
Since the sections may be relevant for some or even most of the sports being discussed, simply changing it doesn't work, but I'm not entirely sure what the best solution is. Perhaps removing the mention of kicking in the first sentence and add breakdown by sport or class of sport for the etymology secion would work. What do others think?
24.16.51.120 (talk) 23:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
1. Football in the USA does involve attempting to score a goal by kicking. This is not the main aim of the sport, but then neither is it in rugby - hence 'to various degrees'
2. Do you have any evidence for that name etymology for football in the USA? Surely it is more likely that it is known as football because it evolved from other forms of sport already known as football?
3. The first line in etymology actually states that "While it is widely assumed that the word "football" (or "foot ball") references the action of the foot kicking a ball, there is a historical explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot". This seams pretty clear and also applies to American football. --Pretty Green (talk) 11:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
OK - it would be nice if you responded to my other concerns with discussion rather than just throwing links at me. It's interesting that that etymology for American football is not mentioned on Wikipedia anywhere, even as a theory- it should be mentioned at History of American football. I'm still not convinced it makes sense, by the way: it sounds like urban legend to me. These sources contradict the 'foot length ball' claim ([http://www.library.georgetown.edu/special-collections/archives/essays/football[1]) and seem much more likely; I'd be surprised if American football developed a name shared by other sports in related nations, for entirely different reasons. Given the similarity of American football to, say, rugby league, it seems much more likely that these are all different developments of one sport. And your argument about the source of the name still doesn't take away from my first and third points: that American football does involve kicking the ball to score a goal; and that the article itself suggests that the name football may not be related to 'kicking the ball' anyway Pretty Green (talk) 09:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Actually, that makes a lot of sense if you look at the etymologies of other sports that have developed in the United States. Specifically, baseball and basketball are each compound words comprised of terms for specific (inanimate) elements used in gameplay.
And as long as we're entertaining speculation here, I should point out the term soccer is suspiciously similar to a name which might be used to label something by those silly Canadians (hockey anyone?), so we may as well blame them for that one. ;-) --K10wnsta (talk) 18:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Ancient Greeks and Romans
"The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played many ball games, some of which involved the use of the feet." smacks of OR, because it suggests that football is derived from a game played with feet, yet we have in the section "Etymology" a suggestion that this may be a false etymology. Unless a source can be provided and attributed in the text, that these were "football" games not games played with feet, (or hands or some other part of the body), then quite frankly they could be included in the history of article on hand ball, basketball or net ball. If they belong anywhere it is probably in an article called ball games or archaic ball games or something similar not an article on football and the history of football. -- PBS (talk) 05:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Edit request from Nattyish, 14 June 2010
The following sentence looks like the result of layers of muddled vandalism:
"These games and others may well go far back into antiquity and may have felt the growing pains of the elected officials also influenced which later affected football games."
I haven't checked if there's a better original sentence to revert to, but you can at least just edit it down to
"These games and others may well go far back into antiquity."
Since editing this article is currently not allowed while not being logged in, I have a request. Football is not just a sport, but also an object. Please add to the article:
I think the sentence "The various codes of football share the following elements in common:" (at the beginning of the section "Common elements") should be rewritten to "The various codes of football share the following common elements:" --132.199.97.100 (talk) 08:52, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
If you take look at the collage of pictures, you will see that actually one sport is being palyed with the "feet" and in all others the ball is being carried with the hand.
So why American rugby, and all the others are being called "Foot"ball when most of the game is played with the hands?
Latest research has shown that football was first played in Germany. When the Romans unsuccessfully tried to conquer Germany they were shot at with footballs from inside the German defence. It is historically proven that the first German football club was established in 50BC in the Rhine Valley region. Roman coins from around 120AD show Germans playing football and defeating a Roman football team during a friendly played at the Roman-German boarder near Cologne. This is the final proof that football was established in Germany and not over 1,500 years later in the Roman province of Britain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.126.149 (talk) 17:48, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
The word "football" does not originate from the fact that a foot makes contact with a ball, it owes its name due to the fact that a game is played on foot, because it was coined during medieval times when most sports were played by aristocrats on horseback. In that light, all sports referred to as football in their respective dialects are all accurate. 74.249.88.98 (talk) 15:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
The Mark or Fair Catch
"players receiving a free kick after they take a mark or make a fair catch" is described as being a common feature among several codes. To the best of my knowledge this is only the case in Australian Rules and the seldom-played International Rules which is an Australian/Gaelic hybrid. I'm removing the claim. --Eamonnca1 (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
It is allowed in both American football (though almost never used), Canadian football (likewise) and both Rugby codes. I am pretty sure that removing it is a bad idea. --Jayron3201:10, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Canadian football has not had fair catches or kicks from mark for several generations, but, yes, they were a feature of the game at one time. Indefatigable (talk) 19:38, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
I can't speak for Canadian football, but the mention of fair catches shouldn't be removed from American football. Marks can be separate from fair catches. Doc Quintana (talk) 23:26, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what the current rule is in the NFL, but it used to be that a fair catch at the end of a half allowed for a free kick with the time expired. I recall a Bears game where they took a free catch at about the opponents' 40 yard line, and with the NFL goalposts at that time positioned on the goal line, they were able to make a field goal. The fact I can recall such a detail might suggest how rarely the situation comes up. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 21:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
And even if the option isn't exercised often, the option exists (at the NFL and high school levels, at least). Likewise, an Australian rules player who takes a mark may play on rather than take the free kick. I think rugby union is the only code that requires the free kick to be taken after a mark. —C.Fred (talk) 15:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Under the crossbar versus over the crossbar
One historical divergence between association football and rugby football is that in association you score by kicking into a goal, and in rugby you score by kicking over a goal. The article mentions that the crossbar itself was an innovation of the Sheffield Rules, but it doesn't say who first started scoring by kicking over the bar, or when. Does anybody know? Indefatigable (talk) 19:52, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
The novel Tom Brown's school days gives an account of the early Rugby school football game and even back then the ball had to be kicked over the posts.GordyB (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Facts sustained by ground on the words 'soccer' and 'association football' - Please.
I found amusing how the terms ‘soccer’ and ‘association football’ are being pushed as official and widely known in the world by a partial group…
Reality is that the game that is called ‘football’, simply ‘football’ all over the world with the exception of a few countries (USA, Canada, partially Australia and New Zealand…) is about using your feet controlling a ball to score a goal. I have looked all over the place, even on a visit to the UK in Cambridge, looking for records of the so claimed… origins of the word ‘soccer’… There is none – Zero.
I have traveled and lived in different parts of the world, and with confidence can say that translations and the term used to refer to what is called ‘football’ is football (Calcio, fussball, futbol, futebol…), not soccer… contrary to claims I see in some of these discussion posts. There is plenty of evidence (facts and grounds - <UK Schools, Early European and South American Football clubs, Official football organizations worldwide - newspapers and media, FIFA oficial documents>) that support the fact that it has always been called football. The terms ‘association football’ and ‘soccer’ have been forced, and for quite some time now strongly advocated by media organizations and fans of sports with a similar name to justify them… Those are the only 'facts' I see in all these discussions and I have grounds to sustain them... (see for yourself, simply read them)
So, it make sense to ask – Can you please provide facts and grounds to sustain those claims? In simple words - why should the world consider and accept terms such as ‘soccer’ or ‘association football’ as a name for what the majority of the planet consider to be football?
Britain is the only Anglo country that does use football to mean soccer and even over here that usage is not universal. That France, Italy etc talk about "football" isn't the point, we are talking about English wikipedia not French or Italian wikipedia. The policy is parity of esteem between British and American (as well as other) forms of English.
FIFA means "International Federation of Association football" so this hardly something forced on the game. If you want a reference for the word "soccer", I would suggest picking up a book on the history of rugby - most will explain.GordyB (talk) 11:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Agree with GordyB, although I would point out that there are some smaller English-speaking places where football = the association version. And while the use of football to mean the association code may not dominate in countries like South Africa or Ireland in the way it does in Britain, it does exist. Tameamseo (talk) 19:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
In many parts of Ireland, football refers to Gaelic Football (http://www.gaa.ie/about-the-gaa/our-games/football/), and soccer is widely used for association football. In other parts, Gaelic Football or GAA is used to refer to Gaelic Football, and Football refers to soccer. Confusing I know, but it's not as clearcut as you suggest. --HighKing (talk) 13:21, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm familiar with that situation, yes. In what way is that less clearcut that what I suggested? Surely none of what you say contradicts my commnents: in fact it tends to support them?
English being the de facto international western language, it would be wise to consider it in a broader view than the british/american battle of their shared language. This is after all an encyclopaedia and it is a noticeable fact that 'football' is used by other country in the meaning 'association football'. Otherwise you might have to take a fair share of the english words out for their foreign origin.62.30.167.58 (talk) 00:18, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
Actually it's less clearcut too than what you suggest given that, while regional differences due exist, it's often a case of different people using different terms within the same region. Even with different contexts the terms may change. A person might use "football" for both, neither, only one, or according to context.
Tameamseo (talk)
Tibre, soccer is short for 'Association football'. It's not an official name for Association football; it started as an English nickname. Calcio is also a nickname; it means 'stone', and only came to mean 'Association football' later. Soccer is formed similarly to rugger, a nearly obsolete nickname for Rugby football. Football is a general name for both Association football and all other kinds of football. Soccer is a more specific name; it applies only to Association football, and not to any other form. It doesn't even cover Sheffield or Shrewsbury Rules football, which are very close cousins of Association football. Grassynoel (talk) 07:44, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
There is not exist the term "football association" . There is only "football" and it is ruled by FIFA. FIFA is the acronym of french "Fédération Internationale de Football Association" but today it is synonyn of "Intenational federation of football associations". So, do not confuse. Every country have a institution created to rule its football, and that institution is called "national association of football". FIFA is conformed by the association of all "national associations". Football was created in england many years before that Americans invented "American Football". So, I think its wrong to use the world "soccer". by the way, only americanas use "soccer", because in England, in South Africa (where the last FIFA WORLD CUP took place), Europe, South America, and all over the world people say football, fútbol, futebol, etc. Americans are wrong, they should adapt to the world, and not the world to them.--190.8.147.50 (talk) 22:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Don't be silly. Canadian fooball, rugby and Aurstralian rulles football all use "eggs" too, and no one calles them "hand-egg". It's a derogatory term aimed at Americans only to put them down. Rugby is arguably a larger sport worldwide rhan Amercian football, but you don't attack them. Grow up, - BilCat (talk) 18:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
afff the photo has nothing to do with US ! ok? it s clear?,if you want u can use the photo that you want to underline the difference..a rugby photo or whatever--Dng23 (talk) 19:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
The photo is not a free image, so we can't display it on talk pages. It's a legal issue, so please stop making it show on the screen. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 16:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Naming Standardization In Different Codes
This has been a problem for awhile, and it needs a solution. I have two options that I'd like to offer to the community.
I'm fine with either. and if someone else has another universal, standardized option, i'm fine with that. But this has to be standardized in the MOS somewhere. Doc Quintana (talk) 18:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Obviously the names you list were merely examples. But given that option 1 would involve either banning or compelling use of the word "soccer", I can't see that ever garnering support. Option 2 should in theory already be happening. --WFC-- 8:03 pm, Today (UTC+1)Unexplainedly removed, and restored at --WFC-- 21:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Query – why does it have to be standardised across the 6 sports you have mentioned (plus 2 versions of Rugby (league and union)) and dozens of countries? Might there not be places where the name 'football' is ambiguous and is not used without an adjective? I don't agree with Option 1: football means soccer in many countries where the others are not played at all, eg in most of Africa, where 'association football' is scarcely used. (Eg 41,000 hits and 7,000,000+ if you omit association; and these are not rugby hits.) Occuli (talk) 19:14, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Basically due to regional bias and to avoid edit warring. If the ENGVAR route is best, then New England Patriots or Super Bowl should be football rather than American Football because in those areas, that's what it's called. Likewise, Manchester United or Real Madrid should then also be football, since that's what those teams play according to their fans. If there's a place that doesn't favor a specific code or uses different terminology, then that terminology can be used. Doc Quintana (talk) 19:29, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure that I agree there is much of a problem but just in case, here is my suggestion: in a single code article, the introductory sentence should state the exact football code but the rest of the article can use whatever the editors there feel is best. In an article mentioning two or more codes editors should avoid ambiguous use of 'football'. Doc Quintana, as you want to clear up use of the word 'football', please note that rugby football is now only a style of football, the terms for use in current articles should be rugby union and rugby league football. You mention the Barrassi Line in Australia, a place with four strong football codes, and declare it would mean Australian Rules - odd. LunarLander//talk//19:44, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
No, I mentioned the Barrassi Line in terms of the Barrassi Line, named after Ron Barrassi, an Australian Rules player, but thanks for your comment, it seems like you prefer the first option. Ultimately I don't care either way as long as edit wars can be prevented over going back and forth from "football" to say "American Football". Doc Quintana (talk) 19:58, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
IMO, "football" should be treated like an abbreviation: the full name of the code should always be the first reference in an article, and thereafter "football" can be used elsewhere in the body text. Zzyzx11 (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
For Australia the generic term "football" can't be used. For reasons I have never been able to discern, some Australians follow AFL, rugby union or soccer. Regrettably, there's no clear geographic distinction any more - there will soon be two AFL teams in Queensland :(. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the term "football" cannot be used at the first instance of the sport's name appearing in the article. However, once it's been established which form of football is being referred to (by using the wikilinked full name), I don't see why it can't be referred to as "football" later.--Jeff79 (talk) 06:48, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Obviously the names you list were merely examples. But given that option 1 would involve either banning or compelling use of the word "soccer", I can't see that ever garnering support. Option 2 should in theory already be happening. --WFC-- 8:03 pm, Today (UTC+1)Inexplicably removed, and restored at 21:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC) --WFC--
Amendment to Option 2
How about this -- In places where there is no clear cut favorite code, such as Australia, the full code name is used. I guess it's kind of a hybrid between the two alternatives. Doc Quintana (talk) 20:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
This amendment option 2 seems like the status quo. Could you be a bit clearer about what you mean please? E.g. full code name throughout all articles, just articles mentioning more than one code, introductions etc. LunarLander//talk//20:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
I was browsing one day when I saw most of the NFL teams played American football rather than football while English football clubs played football rather than Association football. It seems that the two types of teams should be equal one way or another.
And when it comes articles relating to Major League Soccer teams, I think the term soccer is absolutely appropriate, because that's the terminology used in the United States to refer to the sport. However it's inappropriate on an article such as Manchester United or Andy Gray or what have you, because in the United Kingdom, what is known as Soccer in the US is known as Football.
There shouldn't be a bias towards American users or British users or users of any nationality. There should be one standard one way or the other -- either by using the code (either throughout the article or just in the beginning) or using the local terminology for the particular code.
I'm not sure I see this as a major problem. I assume you are referring to piping whereby, for example, some players are being shown as a 'footballer' when the wiki link is pointing to American football or whatever? References to football should depend on the main usage of football in that area of the world, thus it would be appropriate for 'soccer' articles to just refer to football in most of the world, whereas in North America/Australia it would seem appropriate for 'soccer' to be mentioned at the start of the article, even though in all parts of the world the actual link should be to Association football. Eldumpo (talk) 08:15, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure why this needs central discussion. We already use ENGVAR except for in the case of American football; it would thus seem that the problem lies with whoever is editing our American football articles, as everyone else is already getting it right. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk10:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if it's really an ENGVAR matter. It's true Americans typically call American football just "football", but if there's some reason to specify it as "American football", they do. I think the fact that this is an international encyclopedia is a good enough reason to clarify. On the other hand people in Britain for instance do not normally call football/soccer anything besides "football". Additionally "American football", "Canadian football", etc., clears up which type of football is being discussed well enough for non-American or non-Canadian readers, whereas "association football" does not automatically make it clear to Americans or Canadians that the article is talking about the sport they call soccer.
In other words, I think "American football" ought to be used at least in the first instance in American football articles, whereas football/soccer should just be called "football" in (for example) British articles.--Cúchullaint/c21:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I've never heard Football called as "American Football" within the United States. But if that's the case, then Soccer should be called Association Football in all articles if we're going by the proper names. Doc Quintana (talk) 23:08, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The difference is that no one really calls football/soccer "association football", it's "football" or it's "soccer". In contrast Americans and others call the American type of football "American football" whenever there is a need to distinguish it from other types of football, or just to make it clear which type is being discussed. There are tons of examples, as a quick google search reveals.[2][3][4]--Cúchullaint/c02:34, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I don't see an issue with stating American (Canadian) teams play "American (Canadian) football - it's simply clarity, especially in the first mention in the article Lead. There's no arguing that the original use of the word "football" in English in tha lst last few hundred years refers to Association football/soccer, so it's natural to have clarifications on other articles. Americans genrally just say "football", but certainly understand it's AMerican fittball that's being referenced, and they know what it means. I really don't see this as an issue at all. Also, the user has been piping Sports league as "football league here. I'm not sure the point on that - either use sports league, or {{Canadian football]] league. Odd. - BilCat (talk) 21:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
BilCat, you say in the last 100 years there's no arguing that the original use of the word "football" refers to Association football/soccer? You're terribly wrong. LunarLander//talk//00:31, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid its not that simple. It isn't like at soome magic date in the past, there was only Association football, and then all of the other sports called football branched off of it. It didn't happen that way. There have almost always been a hodgepodge of sports of varying types called "football". Some looked more like association football, some looked more like rugby, some looked a bit like both, and some looked like neither. While the Cambridge rules date to 1848, Rugby's first written rules were drawn up in 1845, see History of rugby union. Both games were being played in parallel, and there is ample evidence that both were called "football", often unqualified, in their early years. In America, games called football have been played for a long time. Some, like Old division football, more soccer-like date from the 1820's. Others, such as the so called "Boston game", which was more rugby-like, date to the 1860's. Its just not feasible, or correct, to say the oldest use of the term "football" refers unambiguously to association football. In some places, and at some times, it means association football. In other places and at other times, it meant something different. --Jayron3203:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the explanation/clarification. I was trying to be gracious to association football, but it looks like the Rugby-ites like LL won't have have it. Therefore, I'd support the full name of the football code being used at first mention in these articles, not just "football", even piped, for all foootball codes. - BilCat (talk) 04:06, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
That wasn't the point of my post. It isn't a contest, one code doesn't "win" by proving it came first. Its just a convoluted history, there isn't a "winner". Also, the point of the post isn't to back one option or the other, or to get you to concede your opinion to that of others. I was merely pointing out an inaccuracy in your statement; you are free to maintain your previous opinion, its just that if you do so, please do so in light of the actual history. --Jayron3204:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Now you're being a bit condescending. You've clarified the history, though I expect a soccer proponent to dispute it. But what you did primarily was explain LL's objections, and that show's no deference to soccer will be accepted by rugby proponents like him. Hence my clarification of what I support. Is that all, or do you need to insult me further? - BilCat (talk) 04:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
Sorry for the snarky comment, but I was more than a bit put off by the tone of the second response by Jayron. I was always under the impression that soccer dated beck to at least the 18th century, and even if the current rules weren't codified until 1848. If I was mistaken in that view (which I will determine through my own research), then so be it. My first statement was essentially support for what I'm assuming is the status quo (it not really being clear above), based on an assupmtion that it probably used the name "football" longer in England then any other code, and that it worth leaving it at the status quo, rather than trying to disrupt a current practice in WP association football articles. Obviously, as that view is not acceptable to some vocal rugby proponents, I see no reason to stick my neck out. That was the reason for adopting a stricter view, not because of Jayron's "history lesson" per se. I can live with either the status quo (mention specific code of football for all codes ecept for association football articles that don't already use "soccer", or the consistent in all articles view. However, I do not support the piping of "American/Canadian" football to show only "football", as this is an international encyclopedia, and the clarity is not disruptive or confusing. I hope that makes things clearer. - BilCat (talk) 07:58, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
See, I think the confusion is that my statements on the dates of rugby and soccer were not meant to be definitive, merely illustrative. Yes, you can find references to games called football dating to the 17th century, or maybe even earlier. However, the games that this word refer to was not necessarily soccer. In fact, it likely wasn't, since soccer (association football) didn't really exist till much later. There were games where people kicked the ball only which were called football. There were games where people carried the ball and ran with it that were called football. There were games where you could catch the ball, but not run with it, that were called football. Sometimes handuse was allowed, sometimes not. There were different rules regarding deciding a winner; regarding scoring; regarding the number of players or the goal of the game. And all of these hundreds of different, unique games were all called football. The name football, to identify a game, predates the existance of any of the modern codes of football, be they Gaelic, Australian, Association, Rugby, American, or Canadian. Thus, the word football means different things depending on the context. So, as with any application of WP:ENGVAR, use the context of the article to decide on word usage. --Jayron3202:17, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I wasn't confused, I merely went in my own direction. I understand your point on ENGVAR, but WP:COMMONAME is probably a better guideline to cite, though ENGVAR certainly amplifies it. Both eliminate American Football being moved to Handball (the name of at least 2 other sports) or Handegg (a town in Switzerland). - BilCat (talk) 02:38, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
It seem to me that the only code using football on its own is soccer. Most article I've randomly searched for say X is a code footballer'. Is this a fair understand of the situation? Gnevin (talk) 21:29, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it is, in the United States it's not known as football, it's known as soccer. Football in the United States refers to what foreigners call American Football. Doc Quintana (talk) 23:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
I would say it's certainly true that football/soccer is about the only type where a qualifier is almost never used. Non-Americans will know the American type of football as "American football" or "gridiron football", and Americans call it "American football" if it needs to be distinguished from some other type of football. The same is true of Aussie rules football, Canadian football, etc. However, football/soccer is almost never referred to as "association football", it's called "football" or it's called "soccer".--Cúchullaint/c02:34, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes in general day to day conversation Americans don't use a qualifier . How ever on Wiki the only articles that seem to use football without a qualifier is soccer articles Gnevin (talk) 12:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
That appears to be the whole reason for these posts: someone objected to the fact that all the football codes use qualifires except association fooball articles, so his solution is to make them all the same by removing the qualifiers from the articles of the other codes, even before a clear consensus is reached on the issue here. If anything, the consesus here seems to support the status quo. As to Cuchullain's last point, that used to be reflected in the article's previous title, football (soccer), but we all know what happended to that one! - BilCat (talk) 12:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
There's no consensus for Doc Quintana's sweeping changes to American football articles, and it needs to stop now until consensus has developed one way or another. The fact that the issue is somewhat confusing for football/soccer does not mean we should make articles on other forms of football even more confusing.--Cúchullaint/c12:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
FWIW here are some additional American sources which use the term "American football" that I found during a discussion at Talk:Houston Texans. These include three news sources[5][6][7] and three books[8][9][10], not to mention past and present organizations that use it in their names, such as the American Football Coaches Association and the World League of American Football. There are surely many more. I think it is clear that Americans do use the term "American football" when there is need to distinguish this type of football from other sports called football. As such there is no need to avoid, let alone remove, the phrase "American football" from American football articles on POV grounds. It is at best unnecessary, and at worst, counterproductive.--Cúchullaint/c02:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Don't be citing AFCA as somehow indicating the usage "American Football". It's the coaches that are the "American" referred to there. "Football" is understood to mean the brand of the game that's played in the USA. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 20:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
In America we call it soccer, and calling it just plain "football" in articles is confusing. You need a consistent approach. As for your citations, I note the lack of the term "American football" in the titles. Their target audience knows that "football" means "American football". Just as the average wikipedia looking for Pittsburgh Steelers knows full well that they don't play soccer. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 21:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Clearly Americans primarily call their sport "football". However, as I've shown, Americans themselves use "American football" when there's a need to distinguish it from other kinds of football, for instance, if they're talking about it in terms of other football sports or speaking to an international audience. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia, and covers all types of football. Calling it "American football" in the first instance in articles clarifies what sport is intended not only for international readers, but also for Americans who are confused that Wikipedia has different naming standards at different articles. Piping it from just "football" would only be preferable if Americans never called the sport "American football" and might be confused by the phrase, but that's demonstrably not the case. The fact that soccer articles are confusing is no reason to make other football articles confusing too.--Cúchullaint/c13:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Lack of Consensus Against Anything Here
This conversation has become convoluted, so i'm going to try something to better organize things here and show that there isn't any real consensus for anything here. Please feel free to edit the "synopsis" section of the edits if you think i'm incorrect, i'm just trying to clean this up. I will refrain from assuming the opinions of those who support what I see as a POV status quo against American football here. Doc Quintana (talk) 01:23, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
"Football" alone clearly shouldn't be used at first mention in any article.
If there's "no consensus" to support your proposals, then that means the status quo is the consesnus. Thus, the NFL pages shoudd continue to use "American football", and the Assciation pages should continue to use "football". - BilCat (talk) 01:27, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
If there's no consensus that means this RFC is meaningless. If you're not going to be constructive here, you shouldn't participate in the discussion.Doc Quintana (talk) 01:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
How am I not being constructive? You raised a question with a solution,and there was no consensus to support it. Therefore you should not make any changes to what existed before until you gain a clear consensus to support you. That's how it works. - BilCat (talk) 03:51, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
There was no consensus not to support it either. That's how a consensus works -- unless a consensus exists one way or another, there is no consensus on the issue, and it is inappropriate to use it as a reasoning in an edit. What you're doing is just wikilawyering here to enter edit warring rather than find a compromise. Doc Quintana (talk) 12:57, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
No, it's not how consesnus works, nor am I going to extend you the courtesy of taking back words you already wrote. But as long as you think that is what I am doing, there's no point pretending to discuss anything with you, as you aren't listening anyway. That is especially true when you show up on urelated articles and start reverting my edits there too. Apparently this is now personal to you, and I don't play that game. I edit beceause I enjoy knowledge, and when that joy is gone, there is no point continuing. But, football is a game to be watched and played, not get into fruitless edit wars. So you win. I will now stop editing all football related articles on WP. Have fun, but it will no longer be at my expense. Good-bye. - BilCat (talk) 14:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that is how consensus works. The encyclopedia is what matters, not individual editors, and I don't understand why you want to put yourself at the center of the discussion; I don't care about your edits, I care about making the encyclopedia better. But if it's your wish to stop editing football related articles, I won't stop you. Doc Quintana (talk) 20:45, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, your understanding of consensus is incorrect. You make a proposal, and if it finds support you go with it. If it doesn't find support, you don't go with it. If someone doesn't agree with the conclusion, they seek dispute resolution. You are of course free to make bold moves at any time, but if you get reverted, you head right back to discussion, you don't edit war and insist that you're right.
Your proposals have not found sufficient support, so you should not be trying to enforce them across Wikipedia. Time to move on. You can continue the discussion and see if things change at this RfC before it closes, and if not you can seek further dispute resolution. However, if you continue edit warring, we're going to have to seek administrator intervention.--Cúchullaint/c12:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Both BilCat and Cuchullain are on the ball with consensus. As for the issue, people are not stupid. So long as the article makes it clear that it refers to a particular code then what issue can there be? The conversation seems to revolve around making a simple discussion a convoluted one in the same way the "we must add FC to every infobox" did. Koncorde (talk) 22:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
And how do articles make it clear it refers to a particular code apart from saying X football. As per below this seems to be a issue with Association football Gnevin (talk) 22:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Why must we presume that people are confused to which code Anquan Boldin is associated? It's explicitly defined within seconds of the article starting, and it has worked without notable fail for years. Do we have any evidence that there is any such confusion, at all, anywhere? Further, what harm is there in such a convention of X football in the case of ambiguity? Koncorde (talk) 23:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't make WP look stupid, but look as if it's not assuming everyone knows exaclty what's being referred to (unless its US/UK related, in whhich dace we can't link to those country articles). Remember, it's not just adults reading WP but kids from all over the world, and their not expected to know everything yet. That's why we want them to come to WP, so they can learn. Why make it difficult for them? I know that can be taken to extremes, but no one (else) is advocating that either. Just mention the full code once in the Lead sentence, and then use "football" (or related terms such as soccer or rugby) in the rest of the article. I really don't see why it's such a problem to mention it once. That said, I'll support the consensus, whatever it turns out to be, when a clear consensus is actually reached. - BilCat (talk) 05:43, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. We should be trying to make things easier for the reader, not engaging in a linguistic turf war. The National varieties of English guideline specifically implores us to seek seek opportunities for commonality between varieties. "Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms". "Terms that are uncommon in some varieties of English, or that have divergent meanings, may be glossed to prevent confusion". And especially "use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences."--Cúchullaint/c13:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
My two cents: We definitely need to standardise the name of Australian rules football. Note that the present article has a lowercase 'r', whereas you are using an uppercase 'R' above. I'm not sure which should be preferred. One should assume when writing any football article that readers from outside that country who are unfamiliar with that code may read the article. It is entirely appropriate to refer to 'American football', since 'football' does not default to American football. - Richard Cavell (talk) 07:29, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
For once I agree with WFC. Its pretty damn obvious that the Dallas Cowboys play American football, so in the lead it would be appropriate to say The [[Dallas Cowboys]] are a [[American football|football]] team. Its equally obvious that Manchester United F.C. play football/soccer, so in the lead it would be appropriate to say [[Manchester United F.C.]] is a [[Association football|football]] club. Also teams in countries where 'football' refers to American football or Australian football or whatever then soccer should be used, thus: The [[New York Red Bulls]] are a soccer club.
If that means setting up a bot to change [[American football]] to [[American football|football]] except in articles like American football in the UK then so be it.
In terms of DABs then (American football player) and (footballer) should still be used simply because the status quo works and it is the simplest solution.--EchetusXe10:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't buy that it is obvious. We don't assume that readers of a particular article are going to be from a particular country. Else we wouldn't have the commonality guideline.--Cúchullaint/c13:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
RFC: Association football
This sort of a carry on of the RFC which I think raised a valid point but came at it from the wrong angle. The vast majority of articles for the other football codes will WP:DAB the first usage of football. The only code that currently doesn't do this to any great degree is Association football. Should football be WP:DAB'd for all codes when the code is first mentioned in the intro? Gnevin (talk) 21:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
It would certainly seem sensible for articles relating to code of football to make it clear which code they mean early on. The current move to remove this information in a quest for some sort of parity seems to be a move in the wrong direction; better to look at making all articles clear rather than making them all equally unclear. ReadingOldBoy (talk) 08:08, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
The Chinese news agency. Have a look on Google news (search for "football location:China"). It's easy to get carried away with local variations, but there are more English-as-a-foreign-language folks than native speakers (or readers). Angus McLellan(Talk)22:04, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
In general I am in favour of making which code is meant clear near the beginning of the article and then using whatever the author prefers. The fact that "everyone here just says football" is a red herring. The article is largely written by "everyone here" but we should cater to the vast number of people elsewhere. This problem of treating an article as a monument to how "we" say things is by no means confined to football. Dingo1729 (talk) 02:49, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I Concur with mentioning the full code once in all "football" articles, including association football/soccer, for clarity's sake. Not all our readers are familar with all the world's other cultures and sprots, especially students. We don't nee dto go to extremes in catering to them, but a single mention in the Lead is not extreme. - BilCat (talk) 05:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to disambiguation per-se. But I don't think that mandating the use of "association football" on the first occurance will be considered acceptible unless it is applied uniformly (i.e. unless it is also applied in countries where "soccer" is common parlance). To state that all articles may use either "association football" or "soccer" (but not "football") on first occurance would be to apply ENGVAR in the likes of the USA and Ireland, but not Britain. —WFC— 07:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Consistency is desirable, but there's no reason why articles on other codes of football should be made less user-friendly simply to bring them in line with soccer articles. If soccer is the problem, focus on that, don't just replicate the problem at other articles.--Cúchullaint/c12:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Eh, we are focusing on soccer and we are not talking about replicating the problem or making other codes less user-friendly. Perhaps you should reread the RFC? Gnevin (talk) 13:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't see why it shouldn't require a change to other codes if that change is to move to less ambiguous first usage of the word football. Most of the other football codes article already do this anyway Gnevin (talk) 14:06, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
These two encyclopedias clearly make a conscious effort to distinguish which type of football is being referred to, and don't refer to any one sport as "football" without disambiguating it in the text. I suppose one could argue that in Columbia, it is Marino, Elway, et al who are "American" and the sport is being referred to as "football", but it's really immaterial since they are both U.S. citizens and play what Columbia calls "American football". Additionally Mia Hamm, the only American soccer player to have an article, is called a "U.S. soccer player" rather than "American soccer player". The only player of any type of football besides soccer and American to have an article is Warren Moon; he played Canadian football for several years, but was actually American and played in the National Football League too. Columbia calls him an "African-American football player" and then refers to the leagues he played in.--Cúchullaint/c15:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
Very interesting Cuchullain seems to support what we are saying .As there seems to be agreement here on this. Should I inform the football projects about this? Gnevin (talk) 08:55, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I think the RfC is going to have to go longer to allow other users to weigh in. Additionally it will be a good idea to tell the relevant projects that it's taking place (though if i recall correctly they were alerted about the initial RfC.) Regardless of whether there appears to be consensus here I don't expect that any decision will be carried out without much wailing and gnashing of teeth.--Cúchullaint/c12:29, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
English Wikipedia is not US Wikipedia or UK Wikipedia, and there should be no linguistic imperialism of using the undisambiguated term "football" to refer to the kind that some editor prefers and requiring a disambiguating adjective only for "the other kind." When there are multiple versions of a sport, each with a large following, indifferent countries, none should be taken by the encyclopedia to be the "natural" or "unmarked" version. Edison (talk) 15:48, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest that the disambiguation can often be done via piped links. For example, David Beckham currently begins as follows: "David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English footballer ...." One can see just by mousing over the word "footballer" that the code he plays in is association football. That's fine; that's all that is needed to disambiguate "football" in this context. We don't need to rephrase the sentence to spell out that his football code is soccer as opposed to American football or Australian rules or whatever. However, if there are any players whose pages only link to football and not to a particular code thereof, those pages should be disambiguated. --Metropolitan90(talk)02:40, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't think asking readers to hover their mouse over links to get clear information would be a very satisfactory solution for them. LunarLander//talk//04:28, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Well, I should probably have noted that the sentence begins at further length: "David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English footballer who currently plays in midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer ...." So one doesn't even need to hover the mouse to figure out what code it is if they just read to the middle of the sentence. Admittedly, other biographical articles may be more ambiguous than that. --Metropolitan90(talk)06:04, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Good point. I don't think the "hovering mouse" solution is sufficient. Our readers don't particularly know to hunt for easter eggs to find the information they're looking for.--Cúchullaint/c12:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
On the one hand, Metropolitan90 brings up the point that context may clarify which meaning of football is used as well or better than an explicit disambiguation of football. However, even that requires some prior knowledge; yes, the first sentence for Manchester United F.C. says they're in the Premier League, but it isn't immediately clear to a reader with no prior knowledge what sport the Premier League plays. Accordingly, I think it's reasonable for the type of football to be disambiguated on first mention—with that rule being granted exceptions if the first sentence includes an explicit mention of a code such as FIFA, Major League Soccer, the Canadian Football League, or the Australian Football League. —C.Fred (talk) 15:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
That's still not clear. Not everybody is going to know what code the CFL uses. I had to go look to see which of the codes the AFL was. So saying that the "Edmonton Eskimos are a football team currently playing in the Canadian Football League" or that "Collingwood Football Club are a football team currently playing in the Australian Football League does not inform the reader which codes are being talked about. By the way the Collingwood Football Club article clearly states what code but the Edmonton Eskimos does not. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 15:46, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
This argument doesn't really make sense to me on a very basic level. Links, including piped links, and including clicking on them (not just hovering over them :), is an integral part of Wikipedia. The readers must know that links help clarify article text by providing an easy way to access additional information, which may actually be required to properly understand the original article. Everybody knows they're not just there to make text appear blue and underlined :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:58, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
The ENGVAR issue needs to be addressed. I do get the argument against "football" being used alone, but unless a solution that cannot be perceived to favour a certain POV can be found, the status quo will inevitably remain. —WFC— 09:56, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
ENGVAR is addressed. The term football is DAB's using Association football and the the local var is used
Most of the world uses the term "football" for Association football. The fact that one country decided to use something different should not force us to go through and change anything. Sure, that country is the United States, but in all reality, we're a tiny minority. Recommend doing nothing. If you're on the page of an association football player, you should already know what sport he plays. If not, the teams, clothing in the images, heck the country should be a giveaway for most of them. Sven ManguardTalk22:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
"The fact that one country decided to use something different" is a gross and inaccurate over-simplification. Association football has never been the only football code, and certainly wasn't the first game called by that name in English. Also, the US isn't the only country to call a code other than association fooball by the name "football",but also Canada, Australia, and Ireland. So please, stop with the "blame America first" nonsense! - BilCat (talk) 22:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Sven Manguard you'd have our user play guess the code ? If you don't know anything about Rugby union in Ireland and you see someone plays for Lansdowne Football Club. If you guess the code, chances are you'll guess wrong.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnevin (talk • contribs)
Says who? If a reader wants to know what kind of football it is, they will probably click on the link. There's no need to interrupt the flow of prose as well. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 21:05, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Remember that wiki is intented to be printed as well as being an online encyclopdia. Also having the user sent to a different page will certianly interrupt the flow of the proseGnevin (talk) 21:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
I've just reverted two attempts by Gnevin to use "association football (footballer)" in David Beckham[13] and Wayne Rooney[14]. These were made citing this Rfc, but I see no support for it here, and it makes no sense as clear writing anyway. The terms "English footballer (association football)" or "English footballer (soccer)" makes more sense per the arguments in here, but again, I see not nearly enough support for even that yet. I've left another change, to call Manchester United an association football club, alone, but I doubt it will last long. MickMacNee (talk) 22:12, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Clearly it's inappropriate to refer back to an RfC that isn't closed when making a major change. Is there a problem with just calling them an "association footballer", and then just "footballer" after the first instance? Or "association football (soccer) player" in a case like Beckham, who currently plays in North America as well?--Cúchullaint/c22:36, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
(ec) I don't know how you can't seem support since nearly everyone here is supporting it . Also all you've done is question the WP:CON here and haven't gave a reason for you reverting. Cúchullain some times you just have to rattle a few cages Gnevin (talk) 22:40, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
I see no support for the specific terminology of "association football (footballer)", which you only appear to have even mentioned just a few posts earlier. And as Cuchullain said, this whole Rfc has not even been closed yet, so I would be cautious about even claiming there is a general support for the general principle, whatever specific arrangement is used. This would affect a huge number of articles with a huge number of interested editors, and there is what? 8 editors talking in here, max, not all of whom support any dabbing. If I hadn't reverted, someone else would have, no diggity no doubt. At the very least, it would have to have been as he suggested, "English association footballer" for me not to revert, (and leave others to worry about AmE articles), but again, I think someone else would have if they came here and read this. MickMacNee (talk) 23:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
There is support for WP:DABing here, all the relivant wikiprojects have been informed and {{CENT}} notified, if users don't wish to comment that is their issue. If you prefer "English association footballer" then i've no objections. Do you opposing disambiguation and is so why ? Gnevin (talk) 23:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
The Beckham thing made me think of a possible exception for biographies. Do any other sports use the term "footballer" besides association football? American football does not but I wasn't sure about the others. Cptnono (talk) 23:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Well, many or most of our articles on Aussie rules football use "footballer" (generally "Australian rules footballer" in the first instance). For instance Gary Ablett, Jr. is a "footballer" on Wikipedia as well as in outside sources such as[15].--Cúchullaint/c23:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Metropolitan. Disambiguation can be (and has been) done through piped wikilinks. Adding text within parens to DAB is duplicative and makes the first use of the word football more cumbersome than is necessary. Jogurney (talk) 01:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
That runs directly counter to WP:EGG, as well as WP:COMMONALITY. We shouldn't rely on readers knowing and caring enough about the technical aspects of Wikipedia to determine what type of football is meant via Easter egg links. Instead, we ought to be looking for what is commonly known internationally. This is what was done at fixed-wing aircraft, better known as an "airplane" or "aeroplane". It's even worse here, as neither the term "airplane" nor "aeroplane" mean anything else in English, while "football" can refer to any number of sports.--Cúchullaint/c03:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Much of this discussion seems to be based on the premise that the phrase "association football" is in widespread use in UK English: it is not. For all that some people might dislike the word "soccer", it is far more commonly used in England than "association football", including in the UK media and even by the Football Association. Kevin McE (talk) 06:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
No one one has assumed that "association football" is in widespread use in UK . However association football is the official name of the sport and the best way to DAB it . Gnevin (talk) 08:52, 19 October 2010 (UTC
The problem with using "association football" is that a lot of people wouldn't know what it means and would have to follow the link to find that out. It was commonly used a long time ago but not anymore. I don't think there is an easy solution for this problem Cattivi (talk) 09:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Then use association football (football) or association football (soccer) or Football (association football) or Soccer association football or (association) football Gnevin (talk) 09:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Arbitrary heading
The term "association footballer" is not in widespread use anywhere. This whole business appears to be predicated on the assumption that our readers are stupid, which is never a good thing. Oldelpaso (talk) 09:37, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't assume that our readers are "stupid" any more than Britannica and Columbia assume their readers are stupid when they disambiguate which type of football is meant on every article, as I showed above. It assumes that using the word "football" without clarification other than an Easter-egg hyperlink is potentially confusing to the lay reader, which is true. Obviously "association football" is not in particularly wide use, but it's an opportunity for commonality that provides some consistency at Wikipedia articles. The fact that it's used by FIFA shows that it is also universally used in all forms of English, even if it's not the most common term in any particular form of English. As I said, this common ground approach is what was done at fixed-wing aircraft, and that article has been at that location for years. Also, keep in mind that the article on the sport itself is already located at association football.--Cúchullaint/c13:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Opportunities for commonality are only necessary when there is a phrase that is not in use in some parts of the English speaking world. No-one in England does not know and understand the word "soccer": it is in widespread use in the media, there are popular programmes called Soccer Saturday, Soccer a.m. etc, World Soccer magazine is a London publication. The aversion to the word is frankly an arrogant rejection of the vocabulary of those who do not share the sport as a priority (rugby fans, who until fairly recently would have typically called the 11 man game "soccer") and "foreign types". An Englishman, speaking to an American (or Irish GAA fan/Aussie/South African etc etc etc) wishing to confirm that he is speaking about the game supervised by FIFA would be most unlikely to use the phrase "association football" to make the clarification, no matter how averse he is to the "s-word". Kevin McE (talk) 19:58, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
On reflection, people in England who are already familiar with the Football Association could probably make the right guess as to what 'association footballer' meant, if not by just seeing the word 'footballer' and applying the English (England) common usage. However, as a 'no prior knowledge/out of area' disambiguator, it's not very useful, because it excludes non-English people and non-English VAR football people. So to be totally correct, I think it would have to be something like association footballer (soccer) even on English articles, and I really don't think that is going to fly with the wider editorship or even casual gnoming readers, so I foresee years and years of active corrections against the tide. Which is not the sign of a good solution. MickMacNee (talk) 10:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, players are a bit trickier. I note, however, that "Association footballer" gets over 67,000 Google hits, so it's not exactly unheard of. What's more, "Association football player"-Wikipedia returns 1,890,000 hits. I don't believe that "association football" is so uncommon as to be discredited as a disambiguator.
Another suggestion might be to follow the lead of our Gaelic football articles, which often call players something along the lines of "an Irish sportsperson" in the first sentence, and then note that they play Gaelic football subsequently.--Cúchullaint/c13:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm getting about 40,000 hits for "Association footballer"-"Football writers' association", which is still not exactly uncommon. And of course there's still the million+ hits for "association football player". And there will be even more when you add all the other references to individual positions, such as "association football goalkeeper", "association football forward", etc.--Cúchullaint/c15:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I find 116000 hits when I google "association football player" (including wikipedia) When I search for "association football" in the Guardian/Observer digital newspaper archive I find 11 hits in 2000 , 12 hits in 1980, 415 hits in 1970, 425 in 1960, 226 in 1940 This suggests it went out of fashion more than 30 years ago. Cattivi (talk) 19:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
This is seeking a problem where one doesn't exist. By trying to change "football" to "association football", you're more likely to confuse readers than do the opposite. As Cattivi says, the phrase "association football" went out with the ark and so countless readers won't know what you're on about when you say "Joe Bloggs is a Xian association football player". Brad78 (talk) 22:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
As I said before, there is an argument for expanding on "football". But the DAB argument is flawed, and as far as I can tell primarily comes from the Irish perspective. In Britain (the island), France, Italy and Argentina, rugby codes are known as either "rugby" or their longer names. Bearing in mind that there isn't a professional association football league on the island of Ireland, association football is the dominant code in all other European countries with a professional league, plus Brazil, where a very high proportion of notable footballers spend their careers. In these countries, there is no ambiguity. In Australian, American, Canadian, Irish or South African contexts, the use of football is quite well established to mean something else. To summarise, nobody has given a convincing argument against Oldelpaso's comment that this proposal assumes that our readers are stupid. In response to the one valid point made on that subject, if it is fair to assume that 100% of British readers understand the word soccer, it is equally fair to assume that 100% of Americans and Irish are aware that the British call it football. —WFC— 06:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Columbia Encyclopedia and Britannia DAB the codes and no one is claiming either publication considers it readership is stupid. Also the national sport of Wales is RU and in parts of the UK the primary meaning of football is RU. Gnevin (talk) 09:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
P.S To try to pin this on a single nationality is crazy, what of our readers for whom ,English is a second or third language and aren't aware of the complexity of such as simple word ? Gnevin (talk) 09:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
You missed the key point Columbia Encyclopedia and Britannia DAB the codes and no one is claiming either publication considers it readership is stupid.. This is not about who calls what football. Its about the fact they different people at different times will call different codes codes football and to make it clearer Soccer or Association football your choice should be said in the intro just once. I think the majority of people here agree with this the only stumbling block I can see is how to to expand the wiki link to Association footballGnevin (talk) 09:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, most other codes have a uniform description of the sport, followed by footballer or football player depending on the variation of English used in that particular article (Australian rules football player, Rugby League footballer, American Football player etc). Association football, on the other hand, tends to go by local usage. I think the status quo is okay, but let's say for arguments sake that it isn't. To deal with soccer player in a different way to footballer would be to maintain that WP:ENGVAR is okay for some countries but not others. That is the real stumbling block, and one that I believe makes any solution unworkable. In fairness you did provide a solution, but are "association football (soccer) player" or "association football (football) player" really preferable to "footballer" or "soccer player"? —WFC— 23:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
To be honest WP:DAB doesn't care about what is preferabl or what sits nicely with you and other WP:FOOTY members. WP:FOOTY and it's members have a serious case of ownership of the word football. If any other footballing code tried this nonsense they would be laughed and and told to get real Gnevin (talk) 16:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Well, we shouldn't ask them - that project title definetely need to be changed, whether they like it or not. - BilCat (talk) 17:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
And that's an incredibly stupid response to an obvious tongue-in-cheek remark. The real arrogance is in insisting that a project called "Football" can only be about one particular code of football. - BilCat (talk) 17:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I guess that's the difference between the American and British senses of humour (or should that be "humor") - I can't see that your remark was obviously "tongue-in-cheek". Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Honestly I'm not seeing the asymmetry you're referring to. The asymmetry that bothers me is that association football players are qualified with footballer, not specifying what sort of football, whereas American football players are disambiggeened with American football player. This seems to suggest that association football is real football, and American football isn't.
In general I find that naming in sports articles is biased towards British usage. Examples include
that ice hockey consistently refers to the sport as ice hockey, whereas field hockey immediately drops the field (admittedly that one's not the Brits' fault; it's more a matter of unilateral disarmament on the part of the Canadians)
Wikiproject Football is the soccer project simply because it started first (as a result of the efforts of a Swede). In the five years the project has been going I've never heard about anybody from any of the Wikiprojects for the other codes having a problem with that. To decry it as British bias is nonsensical. Oldelpaso (talk) 12:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Is it fair enough to say we've consensus that football should be DAB'd and the only stumbling block is how we do it ? Gnevin (talk) 09:49, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I think it is the only code that the term "football" doesn't need DAB 99.99% of the time (and minority .01% is so insignificant to even consider changing things for them). Here in the US, even though we use the term "football" for our code, we also know it's called "American football" (never used/heard the term "gridiron football" ever). It therefore makes using the term "American football" understandable, even though it's not used the most of the time. The same is true for all the other codes, except (for the sack of clarity in this talkpage) soccer. I've never heard the term "association football" 'til I got here and I guarantee you the overwhelming vast majority of everyday users never heard of the term either. Using it this extensively can only cause confusion; adding the terms "football" or "soccer" in parenthesis is only going to make people think "damn, why didn't they just say that from the beginning?". Digirami (talk) 12:56, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure where you pulled that 99.99% figure from but football is ambiguous in many countries including the UK. While in the UK football has a primary mean of soccer its not the only meaning while in countries football has a totally different primary meaning . overwhelming vast majority of everyday users never heard of the term either. really ? Prove it. The parent article is at Association football without major issue Gnevin (talk) 13:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I think the broad consensus is that "football" should be disambiguated, though several editors don't agree that anything need be changed. Sooner or later, however, some change will have to occur - the word "football" simply has too many meanings for us to use it without explanation. Our readers should not have to have a working familiarity with all local varieties of English, and start out with a strong knowledge of worldwide sports, to be able to read our articles. And they should certainly not have to know Wikipedia's idiosyncratic and inconsistently applied manual of style and hyperlinking practices in order to get the information they want.
Case in point: a Canadian wanting to know about Pele, whose notability goes far beyond sports, should be told straight away what kind of football he played. A kid from Los Angeles who keeps hearing about David Beckham around town should not have to click an Easter egg link to see that he doesn't play what everyone in that city calls football. An Australian planning a trip to Toronto and New York City and wanting to learn about local sports will probably assume that the Toronto Argonauts and the New York Giants do not play football (or football), but he should not have to start out knowing all subtle dialect variances to see that while the Argonauts play football, the Giants play football, and neither play football.--Cúchullaint/c13:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
99.99%? I'm guessing you've never engaged in a bit of hyperbole. Regardless, the point I was making is that the using the term "association football" is not going any greater level of clarity to the everyday user because it is rarely, if ever, used. So while you may achieve your goal of disambiguation, you're going to cause an unwarranted level of confusion. A very vast and significant majority of people football understand as football (i.e., soccer) with any qualifier or disambiguation. It's the other codes that need it more often than not and that is reflected in everyday usage. Digirami (talk) 16:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
So use Soccer or Football (association football) or association football (commonly known as football) or association football (commonly known as soccer) Gnevin (talk) 20:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but that's just not true. People in Canada and the United States do not understand the word "football", unqualified, to mean soccer. People in Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland also do not generally understand "football" to be soccer. That's over 370 million native English speakers right there. For whatever reason soccer has the best marketing campaign, and a lot of people think it's "the" football, but it's hardly a "very vast and significant majority" of English speakers that do.--Cúchullaint/c17:58, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
If anyone has, the football/soccer world has taken ownership of the word football not WP:FOOTY members. If anyone said football without any context, anyone in the world would know you were either or might be talking about football/soccer. Brad78 (talk) 19:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Clearly you mean anyone in the world with the exception of when your talking to anyone in Ireland, parts of Wales , parts of England, parts of Scotland, USA ,Canada , New Zealand, South Africa and Australia basically what we consider the English speaking world ?
Sorry how is it rubbish it's clearly ambiguous in the countries listed. might be talking about football/soccer.. Might is the key word. So you ask the question did you like football match? So the follow up question from them is Sorry which football ? Too which you DAB the code . in your reply. Correct? Gnevin (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes might is the key word. If you're in America, and you say football, then it's either American football or football (soccer), in Ireland, football or Gaelic football, Australia, Aussie Rules or football. If you say American football, Gaelic football, Aussie Rules football, anyone knows exactly what you mean. If you say association football, a lot of people will look at you blankly as if you've just invented a term. This is a debate created by one or two people, which will confuse more people than it will make it clearer to. An argument, for argument's sake. And does nothing to make the encyclopedia clearer. Brad78 (talk) 23:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
If you say association football, a lot of people will look at you blankly as if you've just invented a term. Then use Soccer simple Gnevin (talk) 08:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
I have far less objections to the word soccer. I've used it myself on articles where the player may cross different cultures, particularly one English player in America, where I think the term "footballer (soccer player)" is far more preferable to "association footballer". Everyone knows what you mean then. However, I would be less inclined to try force the term soccer on all football articles where it's less relevant. Brad78 (talk) 17:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Yet this article, football, is not about association football. English WP is an international encyclopedia, and the word "football" is not exclusiv e to soccer in English. The project title should not be either - its just commont sense. I have no issue with WP:FOOTY being a redirect to WP:Association football, or WP:Football (soccer), but some of the other code supporters may. - BilCat (talk)
Arbitrary heading 2
Going back to your US/Canada example, if there is a need to distinguish between two codes of football in those countries, football (soccer) is never (if ever) qualified with the appropriate adjective. One is most likely to say "football and Canadian/American football". The same applies when it comes to disambiguating football (soccer) and the other codes. The chance of anyone saying "association football and football" (to mean any other code) is extremely rare because "association football", as a term, is rare in usage. That's why "football club" and "football association/federation" widely refers to organizational bodies of football/soccer. We should not apply a term in articles that is very rare in usage to something as common as this sport; the other codes don't have that "problem". This is reflected not just in usage by native English speakers, also speakers of English as a second language. Digirami (talk) 21:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure where you make this stuff up from but it's not true. In the US/Canada they call it Soccer so the DAB is generally done, if soemone does say football meaning the Association type and there is confusion the will most likely say soccer. In the US/Canada football to them is one of the gridiron codes . The parent article of all these articles is at association football so its clearly not that uncommon.
We should not apply a term in articles that is very rare in usage to something as common as this sport then use soccer to DAB Gnevin (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
P.S all these typos of arguments where made and rejected when association football was moved to current location . Attempting to reheat them here is not helpful Gnevin (talk) 21:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Your last point is moot. There is a difference between the naming convention of an article title and the rewording of one term in thousands of others.
And I can guarantee you I'm not making this stuff up. While Dan Marino is known as a football player, saying he is an American football player won't lead to any confusion. Americans know their code of football to be properly known as American football. With DAB, its still clear in the end. The same does not apply to association football. Common vernacular does not disambiguate this code of football; its the others, way more often than not, that do. Prose should reflect that. Digirami (talk) 06:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes there is a difference but people are using the same arguement which where proven incorrect.Arguments such as Football (meaning soccer) is the most common usage it should be called football.
he same does not apply to association football. Common vernacular does not disambiguate this code of football; Really I would say Association football has a very very common DAB . Soccer. This term is used all the time and in fact is the main way the code is referred to in North America
Can I just make the point that canvassing has taken place during this discussion. Insofar as that projects that would be 100% unaffected by this discussion were notified, presumably on the assumption that consensus for this proposal could be claimed, and/or that nobody would notice the inappropriateness. And, indeed, that Gnevin came close to engaging in edit-warring on this very issue yesterday (before, to his credit, self reverting [16]). —WFC— 06:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
What about it? The fact that one correct project was informed means that Gnevin is free to invite as many projects that share his POV as he likes, despite the fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with articles on those codes? —WFC— 13:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Original RFC Should football be WP:DAB'd for all codes when the code is first mentioned in the intro? thus all codes are affected by this RFC and as such it has nothing to do with my POV. You where already actively involve when I said I would notify the projects so I have no idea why your crying foul now. I find this line of discussion pathetic and and act of desperation.Gnevin (talk) 13:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
This is a football not soccer related issue and as such the other football projects are entitled to be informed in a neutral fashion about this RFC . Lifted directly from WP:CANVASS 'An editor who may wish to draw a wider range of informed, but uninvolved, editors to a discussion might place a message at one of the following: The talk page of one or more WikiProjects (or other Wikipedia collaborations) directly related to the topic under discussion.
As pointed out the Soccer project has been notified 2 times. Since the main impact is on that project and the first notice wasn't heeded in any great way
Also if anyone was incorrect in that revert it was User:Brad78 who should not of used the undo button like they did.
But enough wiki lawyering. RFC can I ask why your views have become so hard-line since this RFC begun, considering you agreed at the start and your main concern was ENGVAR. Now your reduced to inventing phantom WP:CANVASS and WP:EDITWAR? Gnevin (talk) 08:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Let's venture back. I said that I could see why the discussion was worth having, and that association football might be the best solution. I also stated that any solution should be universal throughout the sport, and that the status quo was better than failing to achieve that. Regardless, to say that WikiProject Gaelic Games has anything whatsoever to do with this is utter rubbish. I was aware of your canvassing from an earlier stage, but thought it better than to let the discussion fizzle into nothing (which most discussions on the matter do), than to make the point unnecessarily. Once the votestacking a) gave this momentum, but more importantly b) you have as near as makes no difference told those raising the ENGVAR point to shut the hell up and stop whining, I've decided that it is worth mentioning. —WFC— 13:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
When have I told as near as makes no difference...people to shut the hell up. If anyone is ignoring ENGVAR it's you by demanding universality where none could possibly exist. I've always stated that ENGVAR should and could be respected by offering several alternative to Association football. I've always said use what ever DAB works.
There was no vote so how does one vote stack when there is no vote?
WP:GAA has a sport Gaelic football that is within it's scope. It is a code of football, the project was entitled to be informed
WFC, I think your accusation of canvassing is inaccurate. From what I can see, Gnevin just posted notices (several weeks ago) at the projects that cover football sports. Since this discussion revolves around the question "Should football be WP:DAB'd for all codes when the code is first mentioned in the intro", notifying the relevant projects of the discussion was appropriate.--Cúchullaint/c15:06, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Can I suggest setting out statements of opinions, agreements and disagreements? This debate has already reached a length of complexity and dispute which means that people coming in will find it difficult to contribute usefully. For what it's worth, I think there are two separate things going on here. I think the soccer v association football portion of this debate needs to be set aside from the 'disambiguation' portion. Firstly decide if disambiguation is necessary, then worry about the terminology.
On the latter I have little to no preference and I think that the majority of anti-'soccer' complainants are probably making quick reactionary decisions, as well as not appreciating the widespread use of the word soccer within England prior to any sort of Americanizaiton issue. On the former - I really don't think insisting on removing the word 'footballer' from any sort of football related article for the sake of consistency or clarification is necessary or desirable. There are usually a number of contextual pieces of information on a page which indicates which code of football that a subject plays (goals/points scoring achievements, club names, position names, etc). Also, is there any evidence of anyone ever failing to work out pretty quickly which code of football an individual plays? Pretty Green (talk) 20:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
Your final point is the most important. No is my answer. This is merely a debate for debate's sake and that's why I've said above will cause more problems than it could potentially solve. Brad78 (talk) 22:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
That is a very sensible approach, Pretty Green. As to whether using "football" without qualification actually confuses readers, I would say yes, definitely. I noted above that Encyclopaedia Britannica, which uses British English, always uses the qualifier "football (soccer)" the first time they mention it in their articles. Clearly they find that enough of their readership would be confused if they just said "football" to warrant some explanation. And Wikipedia has another whole layer of confusion, in that we don't use only one variety of English, so we can't just rely on readers coming in saying "oh, Wikipedia uses British English, when they say "football" they mean soccer". We use many different varieties of English, and the word "football" refers to different things in different places, so we need to recognize that.--Cúchullaint/c01:41, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
DAB options
Here is a list of what I consider realistic DAB options. I don't know why but it took me a month to realise the word soccer doesn't need to be DAB'd just football. If you've any other options please add them . Please comment on each option in the section below Gnevin (talk) 14:42, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
As usual, this discussion has degraded into "we have to call it soccer!" "No, it's football!", with no novel solutions presented. I don't think ENGVAR is the perfect solution, merely the least worst one that we have. —WFC— 08:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
And what of WP:DAB. I'm not sure what novel solution you think could be presented there are a limited number of options . What is wrong with footballer (soccer player). This surely is the fairest compromise with the DAB after the code rather than before it like every other football code Gnevin (talk) 11:12, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
If an article has a strong tie to a country using British/American/whatever English, it should use it. Otherwise, the form first used in the article should be kept, per WP:ENGVAR, the longstanding compromise for such situations. Simple as that. The suggested alternative is like putting "Vinegar is condiment commonly used on chips (french fries)". As an aside, WP:DAB refers to article naming and when disambiguation pages should be used, not links. Oldelpaso (talk) 11:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Do you genuinely think that our editors are that stupid? And for the record, in that instance the appropriate word would clearly be soccer, as the article would use Irish English. —WFC— 12:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Flavoring for potato chipsThis serves as a DAB — many American, Canadian and British manufacturers of packaged potato chips and crisps This serves as a DAB feature a variety flavored with vinegar and salt. Gnevin (talk) 13:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
ENGVAR says that "The English Wikipedia does not prefer any major national variety of the language". It does not say that we stick to one national variety of English rigidly, even if it may confuse speakers of other varieties. The WP:COMMONALITY section specifically address this problem. "Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms". "Use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences". "Terms that are uncommon in some varieties of English, or that have divergent meanings, may be glossed to prevent confusion. Insisting on a single term or a single usage as the only correct option does not serve the purposes of an international encyclopedia." Disambiguation is necessary here.--Cúchullaint/c12:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
By definition, to disambiguate is to come up with a single term or single usage that claims to be universally understood. You are simply wikilaywering with cherry-picked phrases now. I'd speculate that this is because without finding a technicality, it would difficult to justify the continuation of this discussion. —WFC— 14:34, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but that's nonsense. How does using an ambiguous word disambiguate what is meant? That's been the issue all along, and your hand-waving dismissal does nothing to change that.--Cúchullaint/c01:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
All the above options are only for players. What about all the other pages written about football, including clubs, divisions, competitions, seasons, managers, etc, etc? Instead of disambiging on its first reference, how about a hatnote, similar to those used to explain some names such as Spanish or Portuguese, something along the lines of "This entry is about the football code of association/American/Gaelic/etc football". Brad78 (talk) 23:03, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
That makes sense as a workable alternative, so there si probably a policy or guideline somewhere that prohibits it! :) - BilCat (talk) 01:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't think sledgehammer and nut does a hatnote justice, but I do like the way of thinking. A hatnote itself would be too problematic to consider. Firstly because WP:FOOTY alone has over 125,000 articles, not to mention all the other articles from all the other codes. It would also be visually intrusive, and would have ongoing problems in implementation. Sure, a bot could do the initial run, but what's to say that no-one would remove them en-masse? What's to say that it would be wrong to remove them en-masse if articles are using the phrase "appropriately" (whatever the hell that means)?
If it were possible to do something along the lines of this gadget, no maintenance would be needed, as the hatnote could then feed off of the wikiproject assessments on the talk page to determine what code the page references. It would have the added benefits of universality between codes, and not intruding on the lead and infobox. If there were any mileage in this, I suspect that it would also be of interest to hockey editors, for distinguishing between field and ice hockey. —WFC— 06:42, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't see the need for a single term to be used everywhere. Where confusion is possible or where national variations of English hold it as standard, then 'soccer player' is the best option - I'm against unnecessary uses of qualifiers in brackets. Where an English footballer plays in the USA, for example, we can use common sense - David Beckham would remain a 'footballer' because he has a sufficiently high profile for people to know that he plays association football; I think Jason Griffiths should probably be described as a soccer player. Similarly, I'd think it reasonable that Brad Friedel remains a 'soccer' player. I agree, essentially, with the title of this subsection and the comments that unnecessary standardisation helps no-one when it creates phrases and sentences that are counter-intuitive. On a pragmatic note, too, if we go through all English footballer's articles changing the phrase to 'association footballer' or 'soccer player' then we'll set ourselves up for never-ending vandalism/well-intentioned edits back to 'footballer'. Pretty Green (talk) 09:15, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
@Gnevin - I don't want to answer for WFC but no, I don't think that the word footballer is ambiguous when it appears in a paragraph alongside a variety of other words associated with association football. The only case where it would be ambiguous would be in short stubs which don't go on to clarify which form of football is being described. --Pretty Green (talk) 09:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Surely that argument could be made for every code at the end of the day if I say football , you've no idea what code I mean. That is why this article is about football as a generic whole and Association football is about that particular code Gnevin (talk) 10:38, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree that a contextless 'football' is ambiguous. But, with the exception of a very short stub article, the word football does not appear in Wikipedia without that context - images, phrases, points scoring statistics, which should identify what is being discussed (there might be an exception of potential confusion between Ozzie Rules and Gaelic football). This is the principle that ENGVAR works on; the meaning should be apparent in most articles from the wider context. If it isn't, it's probably a failure in the article, not the use of the terminology. If someone can't identify which football is being discussed from all of these clues, they probably need to be reading the football article anyway! Pretty Green (talk) 10:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
So you'd have no issue with every other code using football without disambiguation and have the user just guess the code from the context? Sure why have any disambiguation for any term on Wiki , it can be like a game guess what the hell we are talking about Gnevin (talk) 10:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I think it would be fine. We have disambiguation for article titles. We have no policy for disambiguation for phrases within an article: we have context and wikilinks. Understanding is developed by reading a sentence, then a paragraph, then article, not of a word in isolation. Pretty Green (talk) 17:29, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
That would be a massive backwards step. We've no policy to disambiguate phrases because it's common sense to do so. Gnevin (talk) 19:38, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
No-one's denying that there are some circumstances where disambiguation is necessary. Indeed I'd go further than Pretty. For instance, in my opinion this guy shouldn't be described as an "Australian-born footballer", and the same goes for Irish players. They should either be described as soccer players, or with one of the forms used above if their career was predominantly spent in countries that call it football. But as a general rule, Pretty is correct; context is the important thing. There's certainly a debate to be had on what constitutes sufficient context, as I have said all along. But to insist that you are right, that the solutions that you have put on the table are the only viable options, and that everyone who disagrees is lacking in common sense is a surefire way to kill this discussion without resolution. I suggest that you cease doing so. —WFC— 14:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
I never said my options where the only options in fact I've asked users to put forward there suggestions
I meant that per WP:UCS there was no need for a policy on WP:DABing in article as we don't need a policy on every single thing. I never intended to imply or infer that anyone who disagrees with me was lacking in common sense and if by means of poor choice of words I accidentally conveyed some other meaning I apologise.
I think the best idea is to use the hatnote as maintained by a bot. ENGVAR satisfied ? Check. DAB satisfied ? Check. Hockey issues unintentionally solved? Check Gnevin (talk) 16:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
First two points duly noted. But a physical hatnote maintained by a bot will not work. People will remove them, and shut the bot down if necessary. Sometimes with the justification that the context is abundantly clear from the opening paragraph, sometimes because the article actually uses the phrase association football (or soccer throughout), sometimes because neither of the above have happened but authors simply hate the look of it. I believe this would end up either with the bot operator refusing to continue, or at arbcom if they continued in spite of widespread calls to cease or mass disruption on the parts of all concerned. If a manditory header is the route we're going down, it would need to be technical in nature, along the lines of the gadget I mentioned above, and would need to be universal across football codes.
But even that is far more complicated and controversial than simply requiring that the word "football" only be used alone if sufficient context is provided, for instance "Joe Bloggs (D.O.B.) was an English footballer. During his career he played in the Premier League for Foo Town, before moving to Spanish club Athletic FuFu, with whom he won two La Liga titles, as well as the UEFA Champions League." Footballer alone is a big clue, as is nationality, and the second sentence removes any possible remaining doubt. —WFC— 04:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
If we never try we will never know. At the moment the consensus here if for a hat note. I'd suggest the approach I take with WP:FLAG I remove them offering a link to the correct part of MOS . If the undo revert I revert asking for an explanation if none is forth coming and they revert again I just leave it be. I've no problem with it being universal a gadget can't work but a bot can do that job. As for context, there is no context there if I've no idea about the vagueness about the word football or any of does leagues.
<indent reduced> Open a new RFC if you want, but there have been three people on this article support a hatnote, which is not consensus. I think we need more views, though, because at the moment I'm just not convinced that this is an issue which requires cross-wiki policy or legislation. Pretty Green (talk) 12:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
WP:FOOTY has been informed three times and has largely ignored this discussion, something I have to say that as a project it's members are awfully fond of doing. Maybe you can encourage more input, perhaps a change of venue to WT:FOOTY is needed? Gnevin (talk) 14:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
"Footballer" isn't as good of a clue as it's being made out to be. In Australia it is also used for Aussie Rules Football players.[17] The second sentence only works for disambiguation if you assume that the reader has a working familiarity with sports and terminology in countries outside their own (and would have absolutely no reason to read about other countrys' clubs and players unless they did). Let's agree that it works in in the cases such as WFC's suggested one. Most English speakers will know that the English use "football" for association football, and anyone interested enough to look it up will probably know what the Premier League is or catch on quickly. But what about Japan? Samoa? Papua New Guinea? In these cases there are limited clues for the unfamiliar as to the sport being described, we're simply assuming that in a vacuum, the English-speaking reader will understand the word "football" to mean soccer. This is obviously not a safe assumption to make.Cúchullaint/c12:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
@ Cuchullain And I wouldn't say that in these situations the editor shouldn't do more to consider the appropriate phrase. As I pointed out, Ozzie rules and Gaelic footballers might have to be differentiated from each other, because of the similarity in vocab. Similarly, it might be/is more appropriate to use 'soccer' for Irish or American players, which is largely the case as things stand. But these are issues with the quality of writing in individual articles ,rather than cause for imposing cross-wiki standards. I'm confused by your examples above - are you referring to the article titles or the text in the articles? If you're talking about the article titles then that's a different issue of article naming and should be put aside. But within the article - well each of the three has a large image of a soccer-ball on the right hand side and uses the word 'FIFA'. I'd say that we're not assuming that it is identifiable in a vacuum at all; and if an article is a vacuum then it's a flawed article, which is not a reason to alter well written articles. An example of an improper use of 'footballer' is Erroll Bennett (if this article is notable, which I suspect it might not be). This could be improved by altering to soccer player or association footballer, but the best solution is to improve the article
@Gnevin I think that given the issue here is readability, rather than what word to use, you're as well going for a generic RFC, or maybe to a copyediting wikiproject (which I think we have somewhere).Pretty Green (talk) 15:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
To Pretty Green, I was referring to the text in the articles. And an image with a little soccer ball in it is not sufficient, nor is one link to FIFA really sufficient. Adding other context clues is all well and good, but the easiest way to fix those articles and others, plain and simple, is to add a simple disambiguation in the first sentence indicating exactly which sport is meant. In the examples I gave, none of those countries speak English, and soccer is not particularly popular in any of them (indeed, in Samoa, it is probably significantly less popular than either Aussie Rules Football or American football, let alone Rugby). It's not a stretch to think that we shouldn't be applying British English standards to those articles.--Cúchullaint/c17:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
I've nothing against using soccer if that is the appropriate terminology for that nation; I just don't think that we should be using association football or soccer for nations that use British English, or an equivalent word in its own language eg Fussball, football, Fútbol, etc. --Pretty Green (talk) 09:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
As I've said before, ENGVAR doesn't prescribe that we should stick unwaveringly to usage in one variety of English even if it's confusing for speakers of other varieties. And it certainly doesn't say we should expect readers to know what something is called in another language to read an English-language encyclopedia article. For instance, in German, soccer is Fußball, but the American game is... Football. All Wikipedia articles should be readable by anyone who knows the language without having to jump through hoops, and the simplest, clearest way to do that is to say right off exactly what sport is meant. It's what Britannica does, and I've never heard anyone say that Britannica less readable than Wikipedia. Sooner or later, this practice will be adopted at Wikipedia as well.--Cúchullaint/c14:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Random break
Green remember wiki is meant to be be printed. Someone prints out a soccer players article and all the info I have access to is they they where as footballer of some kind and they played in a couple of leagues I've never heard of before Gnevin (talk) 15:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Can you clarify this? If you're referring to printed from the web, then that implies that someone has access to the full website as is and can thus gain further information. Furthermore, its unlikely that someone is going to print a page, at random, if they are so unsure about the topic that they don't know which code of football is being discussed. If you're referring to the published versions of Wikipedia, then any article matching the publishing criteria would have to be written to a sufficient standard as to make it clear which code of football was being discussed. I just think that this is a question of article quality. If articles fail to make clear what it being discussed, that is a reason to improve that article. It is not a reason to edit other articles which do make it clear. --Pretty Green (talk) 16:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
Sorry guys, have been a bit busy this week. A specific RFC on a hatnote/technical equivalent might be a good idea. But WT:FOOTY would be an inappropriate venue, because my understanding is that this would apply to all codes of football, freeing up the likes of Gaelic football, American Football, Aussie rules and southern hemisphere rugby league to use the word football where appropriate. Incidentally, if my understanding is incorrect, the only appropriate wikiproject to inform would be WP:FOOTY, which would make the chances of consensus in favour of a hatnote nil anyway.
Gnevin: I would urge you not to take the same approach as you take with flags. With flags, policy is clearly in favour of removing or expanding upon flags where there is no key or other explanation (albeit some editors had legitimate reservations on the way in which these changes were applied, and there are logistical issues in some instances that cannot be ignored). By contrast, this discussion has shown that there are policy-based arguments backing up both sides of the debate. You may feel that your argument is stronger; you may be right, you may be wrong. But this is a completely different situation to unaccompanied flags. —WFC— 09:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Just got alerted to this. Not sure about the 'printed' bit above as a core tenet. My intial preference is to keep using ENGVAR currently. Everything else strikes me as somewhat artificial and awkward. I'll alert some other editors. Casliber (talk·contribs) 13:50, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Hatnote
The primary meaning of the word football in this article refers to . Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
The primary meaning of the word football in this article refers to association football. Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
The primary meaning of the words football or rugby in this article refers to rugby union. Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
The primary meaning of the words football or rugby in this article refers to rugby league. Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
The primary meaning of the word football in this article refers to American football. Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
The primary meaning of the word football in this article refers to Canadian football. Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
The primary meaning of the word football in this article refers to Gaelic football. Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
The primary meaning of the word football in this article refers to Australian rules football. Other codes will be disambiguated as required.
I'll reiterate my belief that a physical hatnote is very unlikely to happen. That said, I do welcome your acceptance that if we are to have a hatnote, it should be applied to all codes. Nonetheless, I'll offer constructive feedback. The top one is inappropriate. If your argument is that ENGVAR is not applicable to the word "football", you should use Wikipedia's phrase for the sport, rather than the phrase used in some variations of the English language. If you believe that the article title is incorrect, by all means have that renamed, and then update the hatnote accordingly. Secondly, hatnotes are generally italicised. Thirdly, the rugby codes should probably include rugby in the hatnote as well as football. Regards, —WFC— 13:36, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Your response appears to confirm my previous suspicions. When it comes to football, your response to my first point suggests that you feel we must disambiguate so as to abide by Irish usage. When it comes to rugby, your response to my third point suggests that you believe that it is fine to assume that the reader knows whether we are talking about union or league. Worthy of note is that Ireland is the only English-speaking Six nations, Four nations or Tri-nations country where "rugby" is unambiguous. —WFC— 14:23, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
My apologies, I should add Wales to the extensive list of countries where "rugby" is understood to mean one code. —WFC— 14:29, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
I've no problem stating as some one who Irish, I am no doubt coming at this with a little bit of Irish POV , however I think we all approach issues with a bit of POV and I always try to be mindful of my own POV. I feel we must disambiguate so as to abide with WP:DAB and WP:ENGVAR to make the usage of the word football clear. Something I've repeated dozens of times. I'm still not sure what the issue with Rugby is, I never use rugby on it own ,I use league and union ? Feel free to edit the template Gnevin (talk) 14:33, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Not that these templates will ever come into wide use, but it may add to their usefulness to have "rugby" as well (as in "The primary meaning of the terms 'rugby' and 'football' in this article is rugby union[or rugby league]. Other codes will be distinguished as necessary.") As someone from the United States, it's certainly ambiguous here. I gather that rugby union is in general more popular in the US, but not enough so that simply saying "rugby" is automatically unambigious, and most people wouldn't know the difference anyway. As an anecdote, I have a friend who used to play intramural "rugby" at the University of North Florida. Not too long ago I asked him which kind he played, and he had no idea; we had to go over the rules (15 players, 5-point tries) to figure out that he played rugby union. And even still, the local "rugby" team in our area plays rugby league.--Cúchullaint/c15:48, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
That sounds a lot like most WP:FOOTY closures I've experienced, yes there is a problem , yes we should do something about it but since we can't get 100% agreement we will do nothing where as at this stage we should be looking for the least objectionable solution Gnevin (talk) 19:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Well I actually think they're well worded and I can see their use. I'd happily support their introduction for articles which can be demonstrably shown to have confusion: for example where more than one variation of English might be relevant eg an Irish soccer player at an English football club. But I'd still reject their universal implementation, on the various grounds expressed above; as such an article like David Beckham, even though he plays for an American soccer team, would not require the note. Pretty Green (talk) 09:34, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
There is no need for two unambiguous prhases. And if we are using one unambiguous phrase, it should be the one that wikipedia uses. Besides, if an article uses a variety of English where soccer is appropriate, why would there be a need for a hatnote in the first place? The word "football" shouldn't come up at all in such articles. —WFC— 13:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
<noindent> RE point one, I fundamentally disagree. We can make reasonable assumptions of levels of information that exist about different people and institutions. These articles are not read by hypothetical visitors from Mars, they are not read in isolation; rather they are read by socially located and constituted people who have certain levels of interest, information and knowledge. Now clearly there is no objective point at which a person or institution's level of fame or notability reaches a certain level at which we can presume no disambiguation is required; this is why I'd consider the hatnote as appropriate where: a. the article introduction does not provide sufficient terminology or imagery to identify the code played; or b., more than one version of ENGVAR can apply to the article AND the the subject of article is not regularly represented as a player of their code. By that definition, Beckham's regular appearances as a footballer in news, popular culture etc would mean that no disambig is required (I'd say the same for Roy Keane). David O'Leary, on the other hand, would probably need it, not least because the article is much less explicit as to which code is discussed.
As for point two, I'm not sure. I'd rather have one term and in that sense 'association football' is the most universal, precisely because it avoids national variations and because it is the name of the wiki-article. --Pretty Green (talk) 11:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
Pretend I'm a 10 year old Australian girl with no interest in sport. My teacher has clicked random article and printed off the Beckham article ,now all the so called indicators you think identify the code mean nothing to me. I know he's a footballer and that's about it.
I think this is a reasonable assumption of levels of information that could exist , articles are read isolation. I do it all the time. Clicking random and seeing where I turn up or following link after link till I'm at a completely unknown topic. In fact going back to our 10 year old girl again. She looks up the number 1 on the date of her birth ->Spice girls ->Posh Spice ->David Beckham. I've now got to this article in total isolated from any thing that would indicated his code.
Beckham is a case in point example of a usage that needs to be disambiguated. We should not be making readers jump through hoops to get the information they want, we should just tell them up front. "Footballer" does not automatically imply "soccer player" for North American readers; in fact, it's more likely to confuse the uninitiated than to clarify things for those in the know. Beckham has spent a noteworthy little segment of his career playing in a country that doesn't call the sport "football". And moreover, he's such a prominent figure that North Americans, Australians, etc. who don't know the slightest about soccer have plenty of good reasons to want to know about him. They shouldn't be made to play guessing games in order to do so. Much easier just to tell the readers what we're talking about.--Cúchullaint/c15:56, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I remain opposed to a physical hatnote. Although I can't complain with the concept of a trial run (provided that there is not a mass implementation until consensus has been clearly established), I would note that based on the principles for which this was devised, adding it to articles such as association football does not add anything. Mandating its use in such circumstances would serve only to deface the article. —WFC— 15:37, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with the template, though I regard it as more complicated than just explaining what we're talking about in the first sentence. I agree "association football" does not need any further explanation.--Cúchullaint/c15:56, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
My objection wasn't just with the sports themselves having the tag. The reason is that the lead made clear beyond any doubt what code is being talked about. David Beckham's lead, as of the time of this post, reads as follows:
The belief among proponents of this template is that this doesn't provide sufficient context. I vehemently disagree, and believe that the consensus is to maintain the status quo. But if I work with your logic, making clear that the article is an association football article would suffice. Therefore, any articles that do make it clear should not have a defacing template. That said, if this isn't manditory, it's completely unworkable. I've maintained for a while that I don't agree with this change. But if it is to be brought in, it should be along the lines of this gadget, outputting as shown below (but with less of a space between article title and the following text; I don't know how to get rid of it manually): —WFC— 17:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Let me make it clear what being clear is . Being clear is saying Association football at least once some where near the start of the article . Expecting the users to know leagues and clubs which don't include the word soccer in them is not clear Gnevin (talk) 22:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Equally informative if there were any readers who genuinely wouldn't have otherwise known the code, far less patronising to those who felt the context already made it obvious, far more discrete as far as article layout is concerned, and in a form that couldn't possibly be the subject of endless edit wars (as a template would be if not applied universally). —WFC— 17:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
One minute you object to the template being applied universally the next you want it universal? If you could make you position clear it would be helpful. The widget while a good idea is simply not possible , the next best option is a hatnote Gnevin (talk) 22:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Sorry to back track a bit, but, ummm... Your 10-year-old Aussie girl example is faulty to begin with. How would a girl with no interest in sport know that there are other codes to begin with, let alone know how to indicate which code a person plays? Regardless, give people some credit for their basic level of intelligence. People are going to look at those hatnotes and think "thank you captain obvious" or "duh". That, or think "what is association football?" If it's the latter, progress is not made. Again, this goes back to one of my original points. If the term "football" needs to be disambiguated from another type, "football" referring to association football is rarely, if ever, it. And if it does, it can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Digirami (talk) 22:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
How would a girl with no interest in sport know that there are other codes to begin with exactly we need make the word football unambiguous. Why would she need to indicate what code a person plays? Regardless, give people some credit for their basic level of intelligence its not about intelligence its about knowledge something we cant assume our users have of cultures half way around the world. Am getting tired of this obstructionism Gnevin (talk) 22:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Gnevin: It shouldn't be universal, because there isn't a universal problem. However, if not applied universally it's unworkable and will cause more problems than it solves. The solution is therefore either to not do this at all (my preferred option), or to do it in a discrete way that cannot be the source of edit wars. A manually or bot-applied hatnote, as I have said several times now without anyone disputing the merit of the point, will be the source of large-scale disruptive editing, or the precursor to an Arbcom case along the lines of BetaCommandBot. Frankly, I see mildly disappointing four people an extremely small price to pay to avoid that. —WFC— 19:10, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Can you tell me the difference between you widget idea and the template in practice or are you supporting an idea you know is impossible? Gnevin (talk) 23:36, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm a little surprised it's come to this. I don't think the hatnotes are necessary (for reasons which I'm sure have all been mentioned already). When I noticed them popping up, (nowhere in National Rugby League is rugby league referred to as 'rugby' by the way) rather than thinking "thank you captain obvious" or "duh", I thought it was just a textbook case of trying to fix something that wasnt broken. Let's just leave it as it has always been and deal with problematic cases as they arise shall we?--Jeff79 (talk) 04:36, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
There also exists numerous off-beat rugby shows on Fox Sports, typically on the Monday/Tuesday after the round. In fairness that is the only example I could find . The rugby part could be made optional. Gnevin (talk) 23:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
If you want to continue use these hatnotes (which I think is not such a good idea), you should improve the last part, "Other codes will be disambiguated as required.". Before reading this discussion, I had no idea what it should mean, and after reading I still don't know if is meant to the reader or to potential editors. --EdgeNavidad (Talk · Contribs) 22:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I note that the template has not yet gained consensus, and is facing some opposition, yet has already been applied on some articles. I have removed it from those articles where the football code is linked in the first sentence as it is unnecessary and against WP:Overlink. There may well be a use for it on some articles where the code is not immediately clear - indeed, I have left it in place on Dublin GAA and Wayne Jackson (footballer) as neither of those articles are clear as to which code is being discussed. I feel there may well be some use for the template, though it would need to be applied with care, and guidance as to its appropriate use would be valuable and welcome. As there is potential for conflict using the template at this stage, I feel it would be appropriate and sensible to iron out any problems before using it. SilkTork *YES!17:29, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Not really, a bunch of regular contributors agreed that your approach wasn't the best way forward. No-one ignored all rules, apart from you rolling out your hatnote without consensus to do so. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I suggested many ways forward but as per normal, each idea was torn apart by nit picking from WP:FOOTY members , who often offer up Catch 22's or contradicted themselves and despite numerous attempts by me to have them engage only ever engage after weeks or months of discussion and then only to nit pick Gnevin (talk) 23:46, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I thought you'd closed this discussion? Anyway, I saw no consensus to roll this out into mainspace. "Experiments" have shown that many of your edits have been reverted by multiple editors. I think that's sufficient to draw a line under this episode. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Close note
A discussion was opened on 11 September by Doc Quintana on the feasibility of standarising the term "football". By 27 September there was no consensus for changes to the status quo, so a new RFC was started by Gnevin on a proposal to DAB the first usage of the term "football" in articles. This proposal has also failed to gain consensus. As part of maintaining the CENT template I closed the discussion with the following comment: "There has been an admirable attempt to provide useful clarity to the ambiguity of the term "football"; however, after much discussion and the putting forward of several alternatives, there is no consensus on standarization. The preferred state is to continue using WP:ENGVAR. Conclusion: No change." Gnevin feels there is still valid and useful discussion taking place and has reverted the close so discussion can continue. Please note that this discussion is no longer linked from CENT, though can be linked from there again if a new and feasible proposal emerges from the ongoing discussion. SilkTork *YES!09:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Consensus: Per WP:ENGVAR all codes can use football without explanation
Dude, way to beat a dead horse. The only thing that probably gained the least bit of consensus in this discussion was that disambiguation will be used if needed in a case by case basis and that a universal method of disambiguation is only going to cause problems/confusion. Digirami (talk) 06:45, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Seems fine to me. FWIW I like the hatnotes and can see articles that we might want to use them on. But not as a universal method. --Pretty Green (talk) 09:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Hello Yimby and welcome to this debate, on your 17th edit. No, you're right, it's ambiguous out of context. But in the lead of an article with heaps of other corroborating evidence, it would most likely not be ambiguous. Cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Most likely not ambiguous once you knew all about football ( soccer, league, union, aussie rules) in Australia, which most user don't Gnevin (talk) 00:36, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
The example was meant to be an in context example based on the Man U example. If the Strathmore FC article just used "football" in the first sentence the reader would really need to use their wits to know just which football that Strathmore played. Not to put a simple clear statement in the first sentence, as the Strathmore article actually does, assumes that the WP editors are so good that they can foretell the cultural knowledge of every reader thus avoiding ambiguity in every case. Yimby (talk) 20:00, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I think that we'd all agree that this article is better for using 'Australian Football'. However the best solution here is not to react to such a situation by placing hatnotes over thousands of articles, but to improve articles so that they are sufficiently well written for the variation of football to become clear. Pretty Green (talk) 21:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
I conclude from the above that the consensus is that hatnotes on every page is not a solution to the problem. But is there consensus on whether there is a problem at all that needs to be solved? I think there is a small problem. For example: the current DYK-article 1887 Michigan Wolverines football team seriously had me puzzled for a while. The hook says that they taught their opponents "how to play the game of football". It did not say which kind of football, so I went to the article. It did not explicitly say it. I know Michigan is a US town, so I expected it to be American Football, but the image in the infobox does not show the familiar protection used in that sport. My guess was that in 1887 they played American Football without protection, but it could as well be rugby that they are playing. I had to follow three links before I could confirm it was American Football that they played. Other readers could run into similar problems.
These problems would be solved if every article on football had a hatnote indicating which kind of football is meant, but as written above, this is not an acceptable solution. In most articles, people will know the context, and then it is not needed. Action is only needed when readers come to an article without knowing the context. Is is therefore perhaps an idea to require DYK, FA's and GA's to show which kind of football is used (not as a rule, but as a guideline)?
To me, showing which kind of football does not have to be directly with a hatnote or in the prose. Manchester United F.C. says they play in the Premier League and won the UEFA champions league, both of which are clearly "association football" as can be read in their article. For Strathmore Football Club, if it wasn't for the explicit mention in the first sentence, you'd have to follow at least two links before you know which type of football they play. I know that "how many links you need to follow before you find out" is not a good basis for a rule, because there might be people reading a paper version. I just put it here because somebody might improve this thought into something that does work. --EdgeNavidad (Talk · Contribs) 16:25, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Hi Edge - yes, I think it should be clear from any article what version of football is being discussed. I imagine for any GA or FA then this would have been achieved without people necessarily noticing, but for DYK's then it seems a relevant criterion. I'd have no problem with the hat-notes being an option - we could create a subpage for them at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football link to them from the various relevant Wikiprojects - but two alternatives would also be to use the formalised term eg 'American Football' or to rewrite the article to provide sufficient context. --Pretty Green (talk) 09:33, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
I see we use Polo as an example of a european medieval sport, yet the polo article makes clear that game only left Asia in the 19th century? Can someone come up with a better example of a game played on horseback in medieval times? If not, this rather questions the theory that football was used to describe games on foot as opposed to on horse back. Markb (talk) 11:56, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Removed reference to Polo. Now all we need is for someone to tell us what 'horse-riding' sports the article refers to. Markb (talk) 07:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
These are certainly activities that can take place on horse back - but the claim is the word football arose out of a need to distinguish between games that took place on horseback and those on foot. I am not aware of foothawking, or footjousting? Markb (talk) 07:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Forgive me for not trawling through the entire archive if this has already been covered, but can I take out the part about in some countries this form of football also became known as "soccer"? AFAIK, it became known as soccer in all countries, with that form becoming dominant in countries that developed their own codes. But “soccer” is an English coining, and, as I understand it, only fell out of favour later when it came to be perceived as an Americanism (sort of like -ize). —Wiki Wikardo01:52, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't say the use of soccer has fell out of favour because of the perception it is an Americanism; there has always been a class-based preference to use it or not, and of course it is used by those who want to distinguish between other codes (e.g. Rugby). I would argue that the use of soccer and football for the same game is long established in England, and whilst people understand that the two words can refer to the same sport, there is a push back at attempts to impose the sole use of the word soccer by foreigners. Markb (talk) 11:48, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Wiki Wikardo is right. "Soccer" (or "socca", "socker", etc.) was certainly in use in Britain from the 19th century, so saying it was only used in "some" countries is a little off. It's also certain that both the terms "soccer" and "association football" are in decline in Britain and in other countries as well. There are likely a number of reasons for this, but yes, one of the big factors is definitely the misconception that it's an "Americanism" (or at least a "foreignism").Cúchullaint/c14:22, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
What? I don't know which part of the Universe you live in, but Football is definitely not falling out of favour. And the term 'Soccer' isn't really used any more in England, we call it by it's name, Football. And I don't know how Football can be mistaken as Americanism, as it is an English sport. Eden1023 (talk) 20:20, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Let's not descend into farce shall we? I grew up in a part of England where people regularly talk about "the football" and "the soccer". This isn't about making claims to who has the correct word. I agree, we can remove 'in some countries' without any problem from this sentence. There's no need to start to make any claims about any word becoming more popular or falling out of favour... Pretty Green (talk) 08:13, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Uh, Eden, you entirely misread my post. I said the terms "soccer" and "association football" are in decline in Britain and other places. I also said that one probable reason for this is the incorrect notion that "soccer" is an Americanism, which it's not. In terms of this article, it's enough to say that the term "soccer" is a British term in origin and is widely attested there since the late 19th century. This isn't really an arguable point.Cúchullaint/c17:36, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Requested move
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the move request was: Overwhelming consensus to not move. I, as the nom, am rescinding/closing this proposal due to unanimous opposition and because I have been convinced this article is properly titled in accordance with WP:CONCEPTDAB. Born2cycle (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
– The only conceivable primary topic candidates for "football" are Association football and American football, but neither one of those qualifies because the other one is too commonly referred to as "football" as well. In any case, no way is this broad and obscure (if not invented by Wikipedians) usage the primary topic, and it should definitely not be treated as if it is primary. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is clear about what to do in this case: "If there is no primary topic, the ambiguous term should be the title of a disambiguation page". Hence this request. Born2cycle (talk) 23:31, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Oppose This page explains the distinction between various sports all called football quite well. I see no reason to change the status quo here. This is a treatment which isn't quite suited for a disambiguation page, and this page is informative and well written with regards to explaining the similarities and differences between all of the various sports all called "football". I don't see where the proposed move improves Wikipedia in any way, except shuttling good information off to an obscure, unlikely to be linked page and replacing this good information with a DAB. No, this isn't a good idea. --Jayron3223:36, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Not specifically, excepting that IAR is the only rule I live by at Wikipedia. In this case, this is a decent article under a good title. I see no reason to change the status quo. You invoked IAR specifically, not me. I was invoking "This is what I believe to be the best situation". Which is also probably the best reason to support or oppose anything at Wikipedia. --Jayron3201:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Comment. Why do you need to "invoke" IAR? It's a fundamental pillar of Wikipedia. It's really quite amusing that you're suggesting that an invitation to ignore all rules if it improves Wikipedia is a rule that needs to be invoked. There's a splendid irony there that is perhaps lost on Wikipedia's sadly growing band of resident rulesmongers! -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
I presume that we all try to follow consensus about how we decide titles in WP when reasonably possible, yes? And consensus is supposed to be reflected reasonably well in our rules, and we use IAR only when the rules fail and we can improve WP by ignoring those rules. Are we still okay? If that's the case here, I'd like to know, because maybe the rules can and should be updated to reflect this type of situation in general terms, which does appear to have consensus support. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Oppose This article seems to be a clear example of the broad-concept article described by WP:CONCEPTDAB and, as Jayron32 notes, it does the job reasonably well. Anyone looking for Association football or American football will find those articles linked in the opening paragraph. If this is deemed insufficient, perhaps they could be added to the hatnote. But the proposed page moves would not, it seems to me, bring any clarity to an admittedly difficult situation.--ShelfSkewedTalk04:29, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Oppose For starters, Football (broad) is a crap title. I'm also not entirely sure why this concept is described as either made up or obscure? For comparison, the online version of the academic encyclopedia britannica (ie the version I can quickly access!) contains an article with the title 'Football' which opens with the following text: "Football, any number of related games, all of which are characterized by two persons or teams attempting to kick, carry, throw or otherwise propel a ball towards an opponent's goal...". Furthermore, I think that if we're invoking rules all over the place, then we should remember WP:TITLECHANGES. I see no advantage in making this move. --Pretty Green (talk) 09:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Oppose; I'll invoke IAR here. While it is likely that readers are searching for one specific football code or another (without any single code being dominant), putting the overview article at this title is an elegant alternative to showing the disambiguation page first. WP:AT cannot possibly account for every possible case we might encounter in article naming, and at some point, common sense must prevail even if there isn't a rule for it in a policy document. PowersT17:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Edit request from 221.201.68.25, 20 September 2011
Why is this being used as the term for the codes of football played primarily in the USA and Canada? I understand there is some difficulty in finding a term as it's only really known as "football" where it's played; however, gridiron, at least in the part of the world where it's actually played is far more often used to merely refer to the field the game is played on or as a descriptor (e.g. "gridiron greats"). Rarely is the term ever used alone.
It seems that North American/American football would be a better term. The regional moniker is both fitting (the two countries wherein it is primarily played make up the majority of North America) and used to specify other codes (Australian Rules Football, Gaelic Football).
I do understand that it is referred to as "gridiron" by the Australians and New Zealanders, but I'm not entirely sure that this would be a proper "world view" term for the sport... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.178.21 (talk) 02:09, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
It may not be ideal, but surely you don't contend that "North American football" represents more of a "world view"? PowersT02:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
You know, I think I actually would. While I wholly admit to having only what could be generously described as limited discussions with Europeans concerning sport (and admit to this being anecdotal as well), in each case, when the topic of football came up, it was described as some variation of "American football" and clearly understood. That phrasing even seems to be clear to those in the Southern Hemisphere where "gridiron" is the preferred, again, from my experiences.
It just seems an overly non-intuitive manner of referring to the sport and an almost ham-fisted over-correction in the name of "world view" that seems to take that to mean avoiding reference to "America", even when it would be logical.
I looked into it a little more and want to direct you to: International Federation of American Football which seems to be an international body headquartered in France that takes the name "American Football", along with some associated non-American national organizations that also refer to it as American Football. Membership in GAISF (detailed in that article) also seems to make the name more officially internationally recognized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.178.21 (talk) 04:05, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Eh, "The IFAF includes Canadian football in its definition of the term American football, despite differences between the two; in international competitions, the Canadian teams play by American rules."
The differentiation between the two is fairly well overblown. A Canadian team and a States team of comparable level could take the field against one another under either set of rules and compete effectively against one another. Could you say that of an Aussie Rules side and a Rugby side -- or really any combination of the codes.
While it is true there are other variations such as Arena and x-man teams (typically played by smaller population areas that can't field a full team roster), these are variations of the sport just as the other major codes have variations such as sevens, five on five, etc. etc. Rugby football is still rugby football even though there are variations of the time played, the number of players per side, and other various incidental rules that while changing certain aspects, still share much.
Add into this the fact that as much as they sometimes don't like to admit sharing a continent with us, Canada is also on the continent of North America. While I'm sure our esteemed neighbors to the North often bristle at our hogging of the term "American" to mean from the USA, that still doesn't make calling it "American Football" any less correct, nor does it affect the recognition of the term "American Football" to refer to that game kinda like rugby but with pads.
This just reeks of "do everything possible to avoid using 'American'" -- try an experiment: go to the google site for various English speaking countries (e.g. google.co.uk). Once there, search for "american football". Take note of the topics of the results. Then do the same for "gridiron". Then do the same for "gridiron football". You'll find that the latter most search with only two exceptions (and even then they're not terribly strong: NZ and AUS) will *not* be as strongly related to the sport.
Well gents, it's been a fun discussion. However, bed calls. I wish you the best in your decision.
No doubt that it's more popularly called "American football", but we still need a way to distinguish "Football as played in the U.S." from "Football as played in the U.S. and Canada". PowersT12:20, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
"Gridiron" for football has been well attested in the US since the early 20th century, and may have originated there. In some other areas, such as Australia, "gridiron" (or "gridiron football") is what the sport is primarily called. The real issue here isn't the term itself, it's whether it's actually used for both American and Canadian football. It is in some sources, (eg here) but other sources apply it to American football only. The real problem is that there's no widely used term inclusive of both American and Canadian football (besides just "football", which isn't workable for other reasons).--Cúchullaint/c18:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
It's certainly not a made-up word, though in the U.S. it usually refers to the field on which the game is played (or, more accurately, the markings on such a field) rather than to the game it self. But players are sometimes colloquially called "gridders" and I think most Americans who follow the sport would recognize the reference fairly quickly. PowersT18:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Text inaccuracy or unclear point
The text says the following:
In 1314, Nicholas de Farndone, Lord Mayor of the City of London issued a decree banning football in the French used by the English upper classes at the time. A translation reads: "[f]orasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large foot balls [rageries de grosses pelotes de pee] in the fields of the public from which many evils might arise which God forbid: we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in the future." This is the earliest reference to football.
The last statement ("This is the earliest reference to football") seems inaccurate, as several prior references immediately precede this paragraph, including "Football was played in Ireland in 1308, with a documented reference to John McCrocan, a spectator at a "football game" at Newcastle, County Down being charged with accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard."
Why would it be American football? A sport that's only really played in the USA and Canada and elsewhere pretty rare except for amateur matches. For the rest of the world football refers to Association football (soccer to the Americans) except for a few countries where both rugby and association football may be known under that name. This is English language Wikipedia not American Wikipedia.--ЗAНИAtalkWB talk] 14:25, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
But hundreds of thousands of people play "association football" (common name: football) and only a few thousand play "American football" (at a professional level). And "native speakers" is a meaningless statistic. Our own article says that up to 1.8 billion people can speak English, of whom around fifteen percent are American. And American football is played where else outside the Americas? Hmmm.... The Rambling Man (talk) 15:31, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
Looking at native speakers isn't a meaningless statistic. And I highly doubt 1.8 billion people can speak English, let alone read it. The real number of people who can actually read English is almost certainly less than half that number. And non-native speakers of English will usually not be reading the English Wikipedia, but rather their own native language Wikipedia. So the English Wikipedia is primarily for native speakers of English, of which Americans make up the vast majority. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Not true. English Wikipedia is for all speakers and readers of English, not just "native" ones. If you think the page should be moved, I would suggest you go to requested moves to initiate a centralised discussion. I'm not sure how many Americans/Canadians etc will be watching this particular discussion, so it's better to move it to a wider audience if you really believe this needs to be renamed. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Actually I don't think it should be moved. I think the status quo is the correct outcome. I was merely stating why I believe that American Football is one of the 2 potential primary topics (Association Football being the other). And the main audience for the English Wikipedia is native speakers of English. Of course anyone can read it if they want, but most people will be reading the Wikipedia of their native language by default. I can actually read Spanish pretty well, but I never read the Spanish Wikipedia because it isn't my native language. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:53, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
But you are aware that in 90% of the world, "football" means "association football" and that in almost all cases, is simply referred to as "football", right? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:55, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay, this conversation is a non-starter. I know you know that football means soccer (or association football) to most of the world. You want it to be something else. I won't discuss this further, it's pointless, not helping WIkipedia, and until you request a move (which you don't want to do), I see no further point in debate. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
This article should be moved to soccer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.117.193.67 (talk) 15:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Done -- /DeltaQuad|Notify Me\ 20:21, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Done Sounds much better yes. BritishWatcher (talk) 09:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
