Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian rules football

Michael Voss stats

If someone could pop over to Talk:Michael_Voss#Coaching_stats_in_infobox and take a look that would be awesome. Commander Keane (talk) 06:25, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

AFL player lead sentence

Hi. Totallynotarandomalt69 recently made a change [1] at Oliver Hayes-Brown regarding the handling of "Australian" and "Australian rules football" in the lead. There has recently been a big discussion at WP:NFL (see here) regarding how to handle nationality in the lead for American football players, specifically former players. The supported proposal was: PLAYER NAME (BIRTHDATE – DEATHDATE) is a[n] NATIONALITY former professional football player in the National Football League (NFL).

I recognise that "Australian rules footballer" in the lead sentence is the considered norm across this project, but the same principal should apply to AFL players to comply with WP:NATIONALITY and MOS:CONTEXTBIO e.g. an Australian football player. Across the Australian soccer project, most player pages have an Australian soccer player, so clashing with association football shouldn't be a barrier.

I'm not a regular at this project so I am keen to hear from others.

Thanks. DaHuzyBru (talk) 07:53, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I wouldn't be totally opposed to changing it to "Australian football player" but like you I'd be keen to hear from others before any widespread change comes in Totallynotarandomalt69 (talk) 07:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

This could work so long as we continue to consistently apply WP:NCFIA to stop soccer players being described as Australian footballers. HiLo48 (talk) 08:46, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Look, I don't really mind what goofy calls the Americans choose to make about their football articles, that's their prerogative – but I'm sorry, they got this one wrong here. "American former professional football player" is just an ugly, ugly way to write. Four consecutive adjectives is too many. The sentence trips over itself. It's a perfect example of the kind of Wikipedia-ese you get when you're "writing by committee", trying to standardise and cram in every aspect of the subject into a single lead sentence. You lose sight of brevity and the result is this awful word salad. Let's not copy-paste this approach here.

I have several objections to "Australian football player" in particular:

• "Footballer" is more concise than "football player" and means the same thing.
• "Football" is an ambiguous term in the Australian context and different codes of football dominate in different areas. The nice thing about "Australian rules footballer" and "Australian soccer player" is that they unambiguously denote which code a footballer belongs to without editors having to make a messy and invariably contentious call on what "football" really means in the Australian context. Let's not disrupt that equilibrium if we can avoid it.
• "Australian football player" introduces unnecessary ambiguity about whether the subject is an "[Australian] [football player]" or an "[Australian football] [player]". Plus, there are [Australian football] [players] who aren't Australian by nationality and there are [Australian] [football players] who play a different code from Australian rules football. Because there is no such thing as an "[Australian] [rules footballer]", the term "Australian" in "Australian rules footballer" makes clear we're referring to the code, not nationality.

– Teratix ₵ 10:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I've seen ambiguity deliberately introduced in the past e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Barnes_(Australian_footballer)&oldid=732092552 for an old example, so that doesn't seem to be a thing</nowiki> Local Potentate (talk) 20:56, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that title is less than maximally unambiguous, but I'm okay with it because the code of football is immediately clarified in the first sentence, there's no other Australian footballer of any code named John Barnes, and I'm happy for article titles to trade off unambiguity for concision slightly more aggressively than lead sentences. – Teratix ₵ 05:09, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the response.

Can I just ask, if Mason Cox has an American-Australian professional Australian rules footballer... and Zach Tuohy has an Irish professional Australian rules footballer..., why do we not do an Australian professional Australian rules footballer... for Australian players? DaHuzyBru (talk) 12:21, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Because not all Australian rules footballers (who have articles) are professional – AFLW and state league players, for example – so there would still be a lot of "Australian Australian rules footballer"s if we went down that path without further rewording the phrase. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 14:39, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd say it's Cox and Tuohy's introductory sentences that should change somehow, not other Australian rules footballers' articles. – Teratix ₵ 04:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

An interesting discussion. For readability, it does feel undesirable to try to cram Australian, Australian rules footballer and (for recent players) Australian Football League into the same single-clause opening sentence. My read of MOS:OPENPARABIO is that it doesn't strictly require the specification of nationality – it states that there should be context (location, nationality, etc.) for the activities that made the person notable. So I think when we're talking about an Australian person known only for an Australian rules football career, the pragmatic approach would say we meet the context objective without having to explicitly re-state Australian as a nationality – that's probably neater than insisting on adding another adjective between the first two mentions of 'Australian'. Dual sportsmen (which is where this started with Hayes-Brown) can be handled by taking the approach of "...is an Australian sportsman, who played Australian rules football and... to space the repetitions of 'Australian' out into separate clauses and make it a bit more readable. Aspirex (talk) 22:18, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the further detail. I appreciate all that. The "Australian sportsman" suggestion is a good option. Totallynotarandomalt69, are you ok with this? DaHuzyBru (talk) 02:38, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

For the Hayes-Brown page? Yeah that sounds fine

"Oliver Harry Hayes-Brown (born 28 April 2000) is an Australian sportsman who currently plays Australian rules football with the Richmond Football Club. He previously played basketball..." is probably how I'd lead but overall yeah sounds good Totallynotarandomalt69 (talk) 02:50, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

AFL season template

I want to discuss the colours on the new Template:Infobox AFL season. I put forward for an all-blue colour scheme, replacing the top box (red, white text, blue border) with the same blue with white as the other boxes. Reasons are: consistency with AFL general branding which is blue with white trimmings and red/white/blue logo (seen on website brand and premiership flag colour); consistency with other project infoboxes such as player stats which are blue; in recognition of 1990s AFL logo which was mostly blue unlike today's mostly red logo and would have less argument for a red top box; and a little bit of disliking the inconsistent box colours between the top heading and the subsequent ones. Alternative to blue and white would be adopting the same colour scheme as Western Bulldogs of all blue (of the appropriate shade), white text, red border. Aspirex (talk) 05:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

How the template is now looks mighty similar to the logo, so I didn't quite understand the issue? --SuperJew (talk) 07:41, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The logo is not the full brand. The logo on a blue background is the predominant brand for the league. Aspirex (talk) 07:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Hence why all of the headers and 'below' are blue with white text, and in the absence of a logo, 'above' is designed to match the logo. I don't understand the issue either, it really just sounds like you don't like the look/use of the red. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 10:23, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I mean, I wouldn't have raised a discussion if I liked it. Aesthetically speaking, having the same colours for each heading would be preferable, and a lot more consistent with Wikipedia sports project norms. (I've gone looking – and I'm yet to find an infobox with more than one colour of heading in it, except where one of the neutral greys is used for a subheading). Aspirex (talk) 22:01, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

AFL finals series articles

Hey guys – hope everyone's doing well. Now that we've reached the AFL finals, a new finals series article has been created, but I wanted to weigh in and get other people's thoughts on these. I remember this popping up either in an edit summary or perhaps even a thread on here around this time last year, but my stance at the time hasn't changed, and that's that most or all of these finals series articles are poorly sourced, written and formatted, and I don't think that they add that much beyond maybe a paragraph or so that could just be added to the prose of the relevant season and grand final articles, with the only sourced parts either copied from AFL finals series or AFL final eight system (when covering how the finals work), or adding little more than useless trivia. I think that if we were to keep these articles, they would require a serious going over, but have a look at last year's, for example – we can't accept something of this quality. Anyway, would love to get some input, that way if we get rid of them, we don't have to worry about putting time into updating another article, or if we keep them, we can do this one right. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 12:55, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd be more than happy to get rid of them. I agree with everything you've said, these article are poor. It's just duplicated information, the unnecessary venues photocollage, and the "this is the xth time these teams have faced each other in a final" comments which have no encyclopedic value. Even if we worked hard at it, I don't think they serve much value being split. I'd happily redirect them all straight back to the season articles (no merging because there's nothing useful to merge).

And if we're in the mood for getting rid of low value spin-off articles, let's merge back all the post 2013 preseason articles similar to how this year's articles look. Aspirex (talk) 13:09, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Just to expand further, I can't really imagine an article structure where the finals page would add great stand-alone value. If we wanted to treat finals with greater prominence, we could use full scorecards and one to two sentence game summaries, but that can all still fit in the main season article. And actually list the Gary Ayres Medallist. Aspirex (talk) 21:59, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Agree with all this, I wouldn't be opposed to stand-alone finals series pages if they had a lot more detail/value but evidently they do not and as you say, could definitely still be placed on the main AFL season page with full scorecards Totallynotarandomalt69 (talk) 22:24, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with all the above. And while we're at it, I expect that no matter what we say here, there Will be an article on the Grand Final, and it will include all sorts of useless trivia, such as who all the commentators are. That's not about the GF, but about a TV station's choices. HiLo48 (talk) 23:25, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm wary of making calls based on how well articles tend to be written, rather than how well they could be written. There's usually enough material to merit separate articles on a season and its finals series – the question is more over whether this material is actually used. However, given a particular season article hasn't yet been expanded to its full potential, it makes sense not to have a separate article on its finals series until it is. – Teratix ₵ 01:37, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

It's a fair caution; and if I'm honest with myself, I'd agree that each finals series does meet GNG in its own right and would probably fail an AfD. But I lean on the side that even an enhanced version would fit organically inside the season article, and would be more comprehensible to the average reader in its season's context than as a standalone article. Aspirex (talk) 09:38, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding adding the scorecards to the season article, see 2023 AFL Women's season#Finals series for an example of how this would look. Not sure summaries would be neccesary, though – any further content on finals progression, stories, statistics, etc. could just go in the prose or (if applicable) game notes. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 16:30, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I am seeing this discussion and want to put my input in it but would taking inspiration from other pages such as NBA playoffs or NBL finals work? On both pages you have exactly when each team qualified, updates to postseason appearances and also all the games played in the finals series as well as the ladder and ladder progression. There could also be a paragraph or two on what happened in the game if necessary. Flipstatic Energy (talk) 05:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I've always thought the NBA or NHL playoffs serve as good examples of the 'finals/playoffs' articles, but also by comparison highlight why the AFL doesn't benefit the same – in particular, the fact that there are around 80–90 games in those playoff series compared with only nine in the AFL is why I feel the AFL finals are a lot more easily mergable with the main season article; and the fact that the NBA and NHL do genuinely put a lot of stock in segregating playoff statistics from regular season statistics, which the AFL does not, tells me there's not a lot of standalone content beyond game results which can be merged. Aspirex (talk) 06:54, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I am also wondering maybe for finals we could include as a game note "this is the Xth time that team Y has played team Z following the 2023 Semi Final, 2022 Qualifying Final, 2021 Elimination Final, 2020 grand final and 2019 preliminary final" (fake games of course) Flipstatic Energy (talk) 01:42, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I would strongly opposed it. To my mind, those comments are the weakest feature of the finals article as it stands; barely notable if at all, and they serve no lasting encyclopedic value. Aspirex (talk) 01:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Flipstatic Energy, I'm gonna give it to you straight: that is exactly the kind of unsourced, trivial and unencyclopaedic dribble that we're trying to get away from, and one of the main reasons I started this discussion. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 02:03, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

nvm I misread that as the only thing that is different is that fact. Flipstatic Energy (talk) 05:32, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

AFLGameDetail vs AFLGameDetailed template

(Note: I'm breaking this discussion about resolving an agreed format for Template:AFLGameDetailed vs Template:AFLGameDetail off from the above 'AFL finals series articles subsection, as it's turned into somewhat of a separate discussion) Aspirex (talk) 22:49, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of this new AFLGameDetail template compared with the old AFLGameDetailed template we've been using for many years. Seems superfluous and counter to the usual reporting of scores to list Q4-Q1-Q2-Q3-Q4 rather than Q1-Q2-Q3-Q4. I suggest we stick to the old template. Aspirex (talk) 23:58, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Aside from the improvements to the formatting/coding (makes it easier to edit, and does away with less important information like injuries and reports to still keep it reasonably compact), it keeps the teams and final score on the same line so that the top line is formatted exactly the same way as AFLGame (keeps the formatting consistent rather than transition to team-Q1-Q2-Q3-Q4 – don't see the need to separate the bold elements) while still including a full score progression for completeness. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 02:36, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Putting the question to everyone as we should resolve this, since we really shouldn't have competing detailed game templates in the project. I do think we can (and should) agree not to include reports and injuries in this context, regardless of chosen template. Aspirex (talk) 04:15, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I created it to replace AFLGameDetailed, not to compete with it – gradually introducing it to the season articles (as a starting point) will take a while. Otherwise, if we can't have a "scorecard" template that improves on the existing template's flaws/is closer in formatting to AFLGame, then as far as I'm concerned, we get rid of it along with the finals series articles, stick to just AFLGame in the season articles like we have been and omit the template from grand final articles. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 04:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that you created it to replace AFLGameDetailed. My point is that we should agree project-level which template (or combination thereof) to use now and get it into the existing AFLGameDetailed name (and subsequently PROD AFLGameDetail), rather than ending up with different templates and having them appear inconsistently across the project. When comparing the pair, my objections to the new template are: the inclusion of the final scores on the top line, since it creates a non-chronology above the Q1–Q3 scores and an unnecessary repetition; and the elimination of the option to include injuries and reports in a full-detailed scorecard – since these have been features of standard Australian rules football boxscores/scorecards for many years (I would just keep it as having the option to include those rows, but then developing the practice of using those options only in game articles, not season articles). Aspirex (talk) 22:47, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

AfD for VFL Women's seasons and more

Interesting that an editor here has decided this was a good idea:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 VFL Women's season
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2017 TAC Cup Girls season
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1993 TAC Cup season

Rather than discussing here about improving these articles, especially about women's sport.

If this is the path chosen, there's a whole swathe of articles on Australian football that will soon to vanish into the ether due to this interpretation of WP:GNG. Storm machine (talk) 23:20, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

If this "whole swathe of articles on Australian football" can't meet the reasonable standard of having a few independent sources that give their topics some decent coverage, then we'll never be able to meaningfully improve them and it's doubtful they're worth keeping. If a series of articles lack decent sources and you can't find any on your own search, it's perfectly fine to put them up for deletion. – Teratix ₵ 02:49, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

But they can be improved. A bulk AfD for every single season article for the VFL Women's, TAC Cup (etc.) and TAC Cup Girls (etc.) seems extremely destructive without at least first making some type of effort to improve any one of ~40 said articles. I am confused as to the willingness of some individuals here to wave the AfD or GNG wand like it is nothing. There is so much more that can be done in WP:AFL than deleting the comparatively small amount of information that we do have online. Gibbsy^spin 10:34, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

But they can be improved. Well, that's the very point in question, isn't it? If there's no good sources out there, then there's no prospect of genuine improvement. wave the AfD or GNG wand like it is nothing. The GNG isn't a particularly demanding standard, really – there's an abundance of sources that cover past and present Australian football. If we can't find a couple of decent sources covering a particular topic, then how are we supposed to write a decent article on it? That's all GNG is. – Teratix ₵ 14:05, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Whether they're right or not, I would have at least discussed it first so as to be more collaborative than destructive and not put some people (evidently) off-side. As we've done with plenty of topics before, would have been nice to discuss potential improvements here as a project rather than via mass deletion discussions; given the amount of time/effort put into the VFLW season articles, for example (even contributing photos for the 2024 article), I'd be pretty pissed off too if I was Storm machine. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 11:34, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:WAFL Cla

Template:WAFL Cla has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page.

as well as all other WAFL & WAFLW team shortcut templates. The-Pope (talk) 14:28, 9 September 2024 (UTC)