Talk:2019–20 snooker world rankings

Requested move 15 January 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page not moved because no consensus reached (due to confusion over the correct year span format to use in this and related articles). Re-opening discussion on project page prior to new RM. (non-admin closure) Rodney Baggins (talk) 23:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

---

• Snooker world rankings 2019/2020 → Snooker world rankings 2019–20
• Snooker world rankings 2018/2019 → Snooker world rankings 2018–19
• Snooker world rankings 2017/2018 → Snooker world rankings 2017–18
• Snooker world rankings 2016/2017 → Snooker world rankings 2016–17
• Snooker world rankings 2015/2016 → Snooker world rankings 2015–16
• Snooker world rankings 2014/2015 → Snooker world rankings 2014–15
• Snooker world rankings 2013/2014 → Snooker world rankings 2013–14
• Snooker world rankings 2012/2013 → Snooker world rankings 2012–13
• Snooker world rankings 2011/2012 → Snooker world rankings 2011–12
• Snooker world rankings 2010/2011 → Snooker world rankings 2010–11
• Snooker world rankings 2009/2010 → Snooker world rankings 2009–10
• Snooker world rankings 2008/2009 → Snooker world rankings 2008–09
• Snooker world rankings 2007/2008 → Snooker world rankings 2007–08
• Snooker world rankings 2006/2007 → Snooker world rankings 2006–07
• Snooker world rankings 2005/2006 → Snooker world rankings 2005–06
• Snooker world rankings 2004/2005 → Snooker world rankings 2004–05
• Snooker world rankings 2003/2004 → Snooker world rankings 2003–04
• Snooker world rankings 2002/2003 → Snooker world rankings 2002–03
• Snooker world rankings 2001/2002 → Snooker world rankings 2001–02
• Snooker world rankings 2000/2001 → Snooker world rankings 2000–01
• Snooker world rankings 1999/2000 → Snooker world rankings 1999–2000
• Snooker world rankings 1998/1999 → Snooker world rankings 1998–99
• Snooker world rankings 1997/1998 → Snooker world rankings 1997–98
• Snooker world rankings 1996/1997 → Snooker world rankings 1996–97
• Snooker world rankings 1995/1996 → Snooker world rankings 1995–96
• Snooker world rankings 1994/1995 → Snooker world rankings 1994–95
• Snooker world rankings 1993/1994 → Snooker world rankings 1993–94
• Snooker world rankings 1992/1993 → Snooker world rankings 1992–93
• Snooker world rankings 1991/1992 → Snooker world rankings 1991–92
• Snooker world rankings 1990/1991 → Snooker world rankings 1990–91
• Snooker world rankings 1989/1990 → Snooker world rankings 1989–90
• Snooker world rankings 1988/1989 → Snooker world rankings 1988–89
• Snooker world rankings 1987/1988 → Snooker world rankings 1987–88
• Snooker world rankings 1986/1987 → Snooker world rankings 1986–87
• Snooker world rankings 1985/1986 → Snooker world rankings 1985–86
• Snooker world rankings 1984/1985 → Snooker world rankings 1984–85
• Snooker world rankings 1983/1984 → Snooker world rankings 1983–84
• Snooker world rankings 1982/1983 → Snooker world rankings 1982–83
• Snooker world rankings 1981/1982 → Snooker world rankings 1981–82
• Snooker world rankings 1980/1981 → Snooker world rankings 1980–81
• Snooker world rankings 1979/1980 → Snooker world rankings 1979–80
• Snooker world rankings 1978/1979 → Snooker world rankings 1978–79
• Snooker world rankings 1977/1978 → Snooker world rankings 1977–78
• Snooker world rankings 1976/1977 → Snooker world rankings 1976–77

– To match renaming of snooker season articles, with same reasoning. See Talk:2019–20 snooker season#Requested move 3 January 2020. Rodney Baggins (talk) 14:01, 15 January 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• support - I didn't even think about these pages when I requested the original moves. Similarly Snooker world ranking points 2018/2019 Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:45, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
• @Rodney Baggins: is there a reason why it's Snooker world rankings 1976–77 and not 1976–77 Snooker world rankings?

  indeed, it should be at the start. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:40, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Gonnym: yes I suppose the date range should come first to be consistent with the season but the word "snooker" would not have caps: 1976–77 snooker world rankings, as it no longer sits at the start of the title. Rodney Baggins (talk) 18:55, 15 January 2020 (UTC) P.S. Please don't forget to sign your comments with four tildes ~~~~

• Oppose, given the above confusion. And because this is not consistent with the previously-cited RM (which moved to a particular word order but did not change YYYY/YYYY to YYYY–[YY]YY; I can't think of a valid reason to use conflicting formats for seasons and for rankings within the seasons, and doing that would verge on intentionally confusing. These constructions are not actually equivalent and should not be mix-and-matched. The / style indicates a one-year span (usually, though in a few contexts it could be shorter, e.g. the Winter 2019/2020 issue of a quarterly) which crosses a calendar-year boundary, as is thus common with many corporate fiscal years as well as sport seasons. The – style indicates, depending on context, either exactly a two-calendar-year span, or unspecific dates somewhere between 1 Jan. of the first year and 31 Dec. of the second year (a range which could be anywhere from two days to two years long). Oppose also because 1999–2000 is not WP:CONSISTENT with all the rest of them listed above, even if there's a valid reason for the / to – switch. While it is sometimes permissible under MOS:DATERANGE to use YYYY–YY abbreviated year ranges in some two-contiguous-years contexts, it is never required (except in the title of a published work or other proper name exclusively using that format in reliable sources giving the name). The short form generally is not used except in tight-space circumstances like a crowded table (and it shouldn't be done at all for 01 through 12 cases, because the year-month date 2002-03 and the year–year range 2002–03 are indistinguishable in many fonts, though tables could be an exception when it's very clear from the context that all the entries in the column are YYYY-YY year ranges; but such contextual clarity cannot possibly apply to stand-alone page titles). As another aside, short-style ranges are especially problematic in article titles, because we're expected to redirect one to the other. That is, if we're obligated to redirect Snooker world rankings 1979-80 and Snooker world rankings 1979–80 to Snooker world rankings 1979–1980, etc. that is actually an error for cases of -01 to -12, redirecting a YYYY-MM (which may be nonsensical in the context or may not be) to a YYYY–YY. By contrast, YYYY-YYYY with hyphen has no ambiguous meaning, so redirecting to YYYY–YYYY with the proper en dash is no form of problem. This principle matters even in a context where we would have -20 in a title, because of WP:CONSISTENT; that is, if other event/season articles (including for Snooker specifically) are going to have full YYYY–YYYY dating when they have any 01 to 12 second-year values, then they should all use YYYY–YYYY for consistency. If these were to move to – style ranges, for some good reason, it should all be in consistent and full YYYY–YYYY format, for at least these several reasons. But everything suggests to me it should remain YYYY/YYYY format, regardless of word order.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:41, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: Thanks for all that Mac. Are you saying we were wrong to change Snooker season 2019/2020 → 2019–20 snooker season, which was the outcome of the previously-cited RM that I referred to? The original suggestion was to just change the word order but during the discussion it was revealed that sports seasons consistently use the YYYY–[YY]YY format so the result was in favour of that change. Maybe the correct procedure would have been to start a new RM, but it was closed on the understanding that the date range format was being changed as well as the word order. Rodney Baggins (talk) 17:11, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

  Whether that was a good idea or not would depend on source usage and the actual meaning of the range. Whether many/most sports conventionally use YYYY–YYYY format isn't really relevant. What matters is what snooker-specific sources (and more general reliable sources when they're writing about snooker) do with regard to snooker in particular. This came up many years ago, and the conclusion was that YYYY/YYYY format dominated in the context. Maybe that has changed in contemporary RS, but I get the sense that YYYY/YYYY was moved to YYYY–YYYY simply for false-consistency reasons with some other sports. If that's the case, that was an error. If it really is true that YYYY–YYYY now dominates in snooker coverage, then it's not an error, and that element of my opposition above is void.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: That's very intriguing. Maybe this needs to be looked at in more detail via an RfC... Thanks for your input. It's a shame you didn't see the previous RM as it would have put a whole different slant on things! Rodney Baggins (talk) 14:03, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

To continue with the possibly unintended /slant pun: If I'd seen that RM I would've dashed right over. Given the rather narrow topical focus, we might not really need an RfC, just some source digging to see what range style is usually used for snooker, both in snooker-focused publications and in news sources that cover snooker. That is, I doubt that editors focused on football or software companies or medieval Polish history are going to have much useful input besides doing the same kind of "what're the sources up to?" looking around.

To start off the looking, I see that WST.tv (ex-WorldSnooker.com) predominantly uses YYYY/YYYY or, more often, "news expedient" YYYY/YY abbreviations, and seems to largely reserve YYYY–YYYY or YYYY–YY format for television match-airing schedules, as in the prominent "Click here for the 2019-20 calendar" links (though like most news-style publishers they pretend that en dashes do not exist and use hyphens not en dashes in such constructions, and use em dashes for other uses of dash, such as parenthetical and set-off clauses—like this). WP isn't going to care at all that they mis-use hyphens or abbreviate dates when inclarity might result; we can do better. But the preference for YYYY/[YY]YY in reference to snooker seasons in particular seems strong in snooker-focued material. I don't know if it's mirrored across the majority of snooker coverage, though, and aim to find out as I write this post [which took a couple of hours, though about half of that was Internet-connection downtime and calls to the ISP, argh!). BBC News [7] and The Guardian seem to prefer YYYY–[YY]YY, mostly short-form YYYY-YY [8] (again with the damned hyphen). The latter newspaper sometimes veers into the hyper-compressed YYYY-Y format [9], yet sometimes they also go the other direction and use full YYYY-YYYY style [10], albeit rarely. The public version of The Guardian and Observer style guide [sic] doesn't actually address date ranges at all [11]. The BBC Academy style guide [again with the weird mixed case] at "Numbers" says: "When writing about any sporting season, or tax or financial years etc, our preferred style is 2010-11." (with annoying hyphen again) [12]. Assuming that their pedagogical "Academy" material for communications students matches what their staff actually does on the job, BBC (like The Guardian) would appear not to care whether there's a particular convention in a specific sport or other context, nor whether what is meant is a two-year 2019–2020 range (which is what that format tends to imply) versus a single-year 2019/2020 boundary-crossing range (or whether all readers already know one way or the other for the case in question), nor that "2001-02" is obviously ambiguous with a YYYY-MM date in many contexts. So, it's data, but I'm not sure how dispositive it is. In particular, the instruction to use YYYY-YY even in reference to fiscal years defies most other style guides that aren't news style. Curiously, The Economist Style Guide [written by people who know how to capitalize titles of works] also goes for YYYY-YY (at least as of 2015) [13], which seems like an especially poor choice for a finance-oriented publication, though it does not specifically mention doing this to fiscal-year data. I'm not sure they ever cover snooker anyway.

I predict [and will below add links showing what I find, as I find it] a fairly clean split between general news sources and snooker-specific ones, since the news sources do not appear to entertain the idea that two styles of date-range expression (for different purposes) even exist. And they're riddled with style oddities that are either endemic to British and sometimes broader Commonwealth news-style writing (e.g. dropping of full points after non-contraction abbreviations, which is contraindicated by non-news British style guides like New Hart's Rules and Fowler's Modern English), or are simply idiosyncratic house-style vagaries like "Dates that require AD or BC should be set as one unhyphenated word (76AD, 55BC), with the letters in small capitals after the number", which is different from what academic and other non-news-style guides want to see, in one to two different ways – spacing for sure, and the small-caps thing is only favored by a few of them). Anyway, The Independent also uses YYYY-[YY]YY style (usually abbreviated and with a hyphen, as we'd expect for the genre) [14]. However, even some general news sites use YYYY/[YY]YY formats for snooker seasons, including The Metro [15] and News Now [16].On the snooker-specific side, the organizations that actually define these seasons, WST/World Snooker [17],[18], WPBSA [19], and WWS [20] all rather consistently use YYYY/[YY]YY format (as shown on those links to their own websites and by what's aggregated from their feeds by Pro Snooker Blog, the editor of which also uses that format in his own material, including via @ProSnookerBlog on Twitter [21], though you have to load several screenfuls to find results with year-range strings). WST/World Snooker in particular sometimes uses full YYYY/YYYY format, even in tabular data [22]. SnookerHQ [23] use YYYY/[YY]YY formats. Inside Snooker mostly uses style [24],[25],[26],[27],[28], but not with 100% consistency [29]. Same goes for Snooker Hub [30],[31],[32],[33] (versus some YYYY-[YY]YY instances [34], and even at least two weird cases of the aberrant YYYY – [YY]YY [35], with an en dash but a needlessly spaced one); that seems to be a content aggregator with multiple sources, so many not have its own house style. Snooker Canada uses YYYY/[YY]YY [36]. I can't check EuroSport because of this nonsense, without using a VPN. IBSF amateur snooker uses seasons that don't cross a year boundary, so they just use YYYY [37][38]. Snooker Central uses [YY]YY/[YY]YY [39] (including sometimes the extra-lazy YY/YY variant, which is rare [40], since it looks a lot like DD/MM, especially common in the US, or MM/DD which may be more common in Canada, etc.). Grove Leisure's GroveSnooker uses YYYY/[YY]YY frequently and consistently (e.g. [41]). Snookerbacker uses YYYY/[YY]YY including the long form [42], and the short form in tabular data [43]. I found one case of YYYY/Y at Pro Snooker Blog, which seems simply to be a typo since the rest of the material by the editor uses YYYY/YY. Snooker USA is the only snooker-centric site I can find taht consistently prefers YYYY-[YY]YY [44], but what they write generally appears to be following AP Stylebook, the overwhelmingly dominant style guide for American journalism (and widely divergent from other US style guides like Chicago Manual of Style), and American snooker isn't the same game, nor does the competition system related in any way to the originally British and now world-rules game, so it may be off-topic. Firmly on-topic, Snooker.org uses full YYYY/YYYY ranges consistently [45].

Splitting the differences, there are some sites that are sports journalism broadly, neither general news nor snooker-specific. SportsMole inconsistently uses YYYY/[YY]YYYY in a snooker article [46] but YYYY-[YY]YYYY in some other contexts like football/soccer [47]. I didn't find any snooker-specific hits with season year ranges at Eurosport [48], though I didn't drill down into all the article-body content (the site blocks US visitors, so I would need to use a VPN to get into it).

In conclusion, there really does seem to be a pretty consistent convention to use the / format in snooker-specific material, it's just ignored by various everyday, broad news sites because they insist on - across all topics and usage, as their house style, regardless of any clarity consequences it can have. To get at these results above, I used built-in search functions at the sites in question when they produced useful results without grueling effort, and otherwise used Google Advanced Search narrowed to specific domains. I avoided cherry-picking (even accidentally) to the extent possible, and have annotated above when I found inconsistencies. If the RS review had suggested that snooker material had largely abandoned the / approach in the intervening years since we last looked, I wouldn't argue against dropping it here too (despite it being a less ambiguous format for year-boundary-crossing single-year seasons). There is a general MoS principle to use a specific style (even if not MoS's default or the most logically sensible) for a particular thing if that style is overwhelmingly dominant in RS for that specific subject. And for WP:CONSISTENT purposes, we try to be consistent for "like" cases within a category first and foremost, rather than try to make everything consistent across categories if it contradicts all the sources (and thus reader expectations). Here, I think YYYY/YYYY format is what to use for snooker seasons (at least the pro ones), with the /, and with full four-digit years in all cases so that we don't have YYYY/YYYY in some titles and YYYY/YY in others in the same category.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:34, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Wow, that's some mighty digging you've done there! No, I did not intend to make the slant pun, as I would always call it a slash myself, but thanks for spotting it. And thanks for all the other info. When I mentioned a possible RfC, I guess what I really meant was a more localised discussion at Wikiproject Snooker, which I still think might be the best idea considering the scope of your searching and what you have uncovered. It wouldn't be a huge headache to change all the snooker season articles back to the YYYY/[YY]YY format, but with the year range incorporated as a prefix rather than as a suffix, as it was prior to the recent move. In any case, it would be an independent reviewer who would have the tedious task of moving all the articles again after closing the RM. I might bring this up with the snooker team tomorrow. Cheers for now and thanks again. Rodney Baggins (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Just to help this move along and be clear. Support ####–#### (or ####-##, whatever the consensus is) snooker world rankings. So for 2010–11 snooker season you'd have 2010–11 snooker world rankings. --Gonnym (talk) 21:24, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Gonnym. It makes sense for the articles to use a consistent year span convention, but the problem is we're not sure we did the right thing changing the snooker season articles to ####–## in the first place. I think I'm going to have to close this RM and move the discussion over to the project page. Will do tomorrow. Rodney Baggins (talk) 22:49, 22 January 2020 (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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Merge discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I'd like to suggest merging the two articles for the ranking points. The Snooker world ranking points 2019/2020 article doesn't cover anything that we can't also include in this article. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:40, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thoughts on merge above

The new article looks very clunky and some of the tables are unsortable. Been going through the ranking articles year by year and this one looks very strange. I can't make much sense of it (20 October 2021) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.198.7.9 (talk) 18:11, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Care for any examples? Which tables aren't sortable, or what would be an improvement? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:20, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

They seem to be fixed now since your last edits and is sortable now :) (21 October 2021) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.198.7.9 (talk) 22:55, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, apologies. I got called away partway through doing some WP:ACCESS fixes. :) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:43, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with the anonymous editor on this issue. I was not even aware of this discussion. I don't disagree with the merge in principle but this isn't the way to do it. It is part of a series of articles and just redirecting one article makes no sense. It breaks the continuity in the series. The question should be whether we should merge all the articles, and if the decision is made to do so then all the content should be merged before any of the articles are redirected, otherwise you lose the continuity between the points articles. Betty Logan (talk) 12:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

That is kind of irrelevant. Considering the merge discussion was up for plenty of time, and got no input. I only really care about this article, as it's part of a plan for a good topic on this particular season, where this is the only article left. I'm happy for a wider discussion to happen, but I don't see how it particularly effects the suitability of this article. I suspect the answer to merging them all will be "too much work". The individual articles have zero chance of being FL level on their own, and if you were writing an article on the rankings for the season, you would write one article, not two. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Was this discussion promoted at WT:SNOOKER? The problem here is that the merge discussion related to two historic articles that editors no longer actively work on. While I think there is a credible argument for merging the two series of articles due to the similarity in content I do not agree with the view of redirecting a single article in an established series. The snooker points article series is a well maintained fully sourced series of articles, and the continuity is now broken. Betty Logan (talk) 12:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I have added a navigation box to the points section of this article: [49]. This addresses my main concern of navigation between the articles (for readers who follow the navigation links in the points series), so I hope the compromise will be acceptable. I did not intentionally choose to not participate in the discussion above, I was simply unaware of it because I don't actively monitor the older season articles, so if you decide to merge any more articles in this series I would greatly appreciate it if a discussion notice is posted at the main project page. Betty Logan (talk) 12:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

All notifications for deletion/merge etc are automatically posted to Wikipedia:WikiProject Snooker/Article alerts. If there is a full scale merge discussion, it would be posted to the WT:SNOOKER. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:02, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: What are your intentions towards other articles in this series? I appreciate the merits of your argument that given the overlap in content there is a strong argument for merging these articles, but it still seems slightly weird to have a single-article gap in an established series. At the same time I appreciate that the workload has a prohibitive effect on merging all of the articles, which would be the preferred solution. However, an elegant compromise would be a "reverse fork" i.e. merge 2020/21, 2021/22 and then just create a single article for all subsequent seasons? The standalone "points" series would come to an organic conclusion. Betty Logan (talk) 13:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Ideally, I'd prefer if all articles in this series were one, rather than two. However, if it was to be a lot of work (we are talking about merging 50 odd articles), then your solution of doing seasons later than this would be a good one. It is quite a bit of work to turn the articles into one that looks like this one, but actually merging the tables wouldn't be a terrific amount of work. I think we are both in agreement that it's a little bit overkill to have two articles for the ranking points lists each season.

I'll add something to WT:SNOOKER about this suggestion in a mo. I think the argument that we shouldn't make changes unless we do it unilaterally is a poor one, and is usually used to keep a status quo, and the argument that is most often used to retain CRUFT in articles. Thanks for talking about this one with me. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

This is now live at WT:SNOOKER#Merge ranking point season lists Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Snooker world rankings 2021/2022 which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:37, 7 June 2022 (UTC)