Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Watford F.C. seasons/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 15:23, 17 August 2010 [1].

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List of Watford F.C. seasons

List of Watford F.C. seasons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured list candidates/List of Watford F.C. seasons/archive1

Nominator(s): User:WFCforLife, User:HornetEd and User:Bazj

In short, I think this is the best list I have ever been involved with. Although I have made the most edits, I can only take credit for reducing redlinks, writing the lead and minor cleanup. The true credit for this gem should go to HornetEd, for his collosal effort in creating the thing from scratch. I've also listed Bazj; he added the scorers and did the lions share of the sourcing. I believe that this is only the second fully sortable seasons list, building upon the good work done in List of Nelson F.C. seasons. I humbly submit this for review. Regards, --WFC-- 07:48, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support Can't see any problems; the list appears to meet the FL criteria. Always good to see some more football lists, and I especially like the sortability present here (although as the creator of List of Nelson F.C. seasons, I would do). BigDom 08:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments Pity you didn't take it to peer review first, most of this is trivial stuff that could have been cleared up there.

In my defence I nearly did. I changed my mind because I felt any issues, however numerous, would be relatively minor. That and a hit-miss experience of PRs for lists in the past. Sometimes FLCs fail due to lack of reviews, but never due to none.

Resolved comments from Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

*Elton John appointed Graham Taylor as what? Done. "remained in English football's second tier for 8 seasons" should be eight, per WP:ORDINAL Done 1999–00 should be 1999–2000, per WP:YEAR, which is why the articles are called 1999–2000 in English football etc. This applies in the table also Done There's a space missing between League Cup and semifinal Done AFAIK, semifinal is one word, not two. Whether it's hyphenated depends on your choice of dictionary:OED has a hyphen, Chambers doesn't. Hyphenated. First table prose. Sorry, but could you rephrase "purchased the local newspaper" as something like "became proprietor of..." to remove my mental image of him nipping down the paper shop before board meetings... Well, at least someone bought it in those pre-internet days! I've rephrased it. The 1893 bar says "renamed as West Herts", and doesn't have a full stop, while the 1898 one says just "renamed WFC" (no as) and does have a full stop. They're now consistent. I'm trying to think of an improved phrase though. I do like the pink and (what I've always assumed to be) green colours and their up-and-down arrows moved to the division column. Pity no-one had the brains to think of it before... Thanks. I've seen some strange conventions in the past. Short of removing the colours altogether, I can't see why anyone would do it differently. Tommy Dixon and William Law should be redlinked Redlinked Dixon, albeit with difficulty due to a lack of D.O.B. This guy is no less notable than the footballer at Tommy Dixon, so creating an article at Tommy Dixon (footballer) would cause needless admin work. As for Law, I've left him delinked. His only professional appearances were in 1939–40. And in the four Watford books I have, he gets half a sentence in one of them, and trivial, tabulated references in one or two other places. If Watford consider him that unimportant, I'm certain he could never pass the GNG. Mr Law appeared in the Football League for Bradford PA and Stockport (albeit only 3 apps between them) according to Michael Joyce, so FL apps for 3 different clubs would make him rather more notable than your Watford books might have you believe. Struway2 (talk) 21:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC) I've linked him. I've also changed that row somewhat, which should help with the wraparound issue noted above. Were the Southern Charity Cup and Southern Floodlit Cup first-team competitions? Yep. Jones is very specific about when a game is a first team game or not. For instance, in 1907/08 he specifies that Watford treated two of the reserve team matches as first team ones. He therefore lists them in the table, whilst making clear that the competition itself was a reserve one. Given that attention to detail, I completely trust his judgement with these competitions. Although it's somewhat irritating, as I'm now going to have to consider adding them into the list of players... Are you sure "All competitive football" was suspended? The FL, SFL and FA Cup were, but the wartime competitions were pretty competitive. I've made the appropriate adjustments. Although that this has resulted in the creation of another colspan. (Sorry!) Where there are multiple top scorers, if you put them on separate lines rather than separated with ampersands, that column would take up much less screen width so there'd be less wrapping elsewhere Agreed. Footnotes. #12 looks like it needs a reference Done (now #13) References. Could you supply work and/or publisher rather than domain name. Done, except for bsad, which I intend to replace later, and statto, which might otherwise be ambiguous. Soccerbase is a work published by Centurycomm, rather than a publisher Done. Lead. Watford Football Club is an English football club. It takes the singular if it refers to the entity or business, as here; Watford the team are plural. I believe I've fixed this throughout. I'll leave this one showing in case anyone questions the inconsistent usage Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC) Table. Were the Bucks League and United League first-team competitions? If so, I'd have thought their details should appear in the main table, not demoted to footnotes They were first team competitions. Given our success rate, demoting them is not a decision I took lightly. But I'm being consistent with the Watford Season by Season book, which displays the "main" league (the Southern League) as a full table, and the supplimentary leagues as footnotes. Again, I still disagree with your opinion on this matter, but have implemented the change and am happy to leave it to wider consensus. --WFC-- 10:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC) For those top scorers who were also top scorers in Watford's division, would it be possible to add a non-Watford source for that? The relevant RSSSF page would suggest that Dai Ward wasn't leading Div3 scorer in 1962/63. My gut feeling is to use the RSSSF as a source, remove the diamond/colour next to Ward, but state in a footnote that Jones asserts his 29 goals to be "Division 3's highest tally". Does that sound about right? That'd be fine Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC) Done. --WFC-- 05:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC) Don't know where to reply, sorry, the discussion having been split so much. You've improved this list immensely since I first reviewed it. Couple things: If you're not sorting the FA Cup, then do you intend to go back to splitting the table between pre-league and league eras? if so, it'd get rid of all the intrusive dashed rows from the sortable part. Convention these days is that the key goes above the table. Also, the division levels probably need to appear in the key. Even if the reader doesn't read the key, they probably notice there was one, so when they suddenly come to a (3P), they know where to find what it means. You don't fancy adding a bit of detail re the 1984 Cup Final (opponent, score)? cheers Struway2 (talk) 17:34, 7 August 2010 (UTC) All done. Sorry about the mess on this page! --WFC-- 19:09, 7 August 2010 (UTC) Might be just me being dopey, but could you make it clearer that Watford Season by Season and Statto are the general sources for the entire table apart from the recent scorers. A sentence above the table, or something. I genuinely wondered what the sources for the cups columns were, till I realised it must be those references cited at the top of the season column. I think it's clearer now.

• Sorting. Nominator and I differ on the value of sorting a season list. However, if it is to be sorted, it should work, and it should be helpful to the reader per FL criterion 4.
  • You make some fair points below. As for criteria 4, I question how a sortable table could be failed on that point by a reviewer who would not object to a completely unsortable table.
    • Don't get me wrong, If consensus is that sorting a season list is a good thing, I wouldn't oppose on WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT grounds. But until the Wikipedia sort function can cope with a complex table like a seasons list, including content like secondary league detail appearing in the league tables section, or multiple cup competitions in one season (which Watford haven't got, at least in the league era, but many clubs have), I genuinely don't see that adding sortability is helpful to the reader. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Having the pre-league and league eras in separate tables means the club's FA Cup achievements can't be sorted together.
    • In an unsortable table, a pre-league/league split would be both logical and aesthetically preferable. To do as you suggest in a sortable table would mean introducing a lot more of those dashes, for a minimal benefit that your next comment calls into question anyway.
      • "logical and aesthetically preferable", not convinced, sorry. But this point is independent of my next comment. If you think it helpful to the reader to make the FA Cup column sortable, then it doesn't seem particularly helpful to split that column into two bits depending on whether the club was playing league football or not. Though I do see that combining the tables might make sorting some of the rest of it rather messy. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
        • The dash issue has been fixed, so this is technically possible. I'm still firmly of the opinion that it would be undesirable though. Once the FA Cup and division issues are sorted I'll demonstrate this with an edit, enabling other reviewers to look at both versions and express their preferences. --WFC-- 16:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
          • Answered at the bottom of the page. I still disagree with you, but I'm happy to leave this to wider consensus. --WFC-- 10:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
  • The same would apply to name of Division. You've gone part-way on this, sorting the Premier League to the top by value rather than alphabetical name. But Division 1 until 1991/92 was the top level of the system, and between 1992/93 and 2003/04 it was the second level, yet you sort them together.
    • This I agree with. Furthermore I agree that this is exclusive to sortable tables, as non-sortable tables can use one footnote in the 1992/93 season to cover it. I'll have a think about how to do this, but rest assured that I'm on it.
      • I think this is resolved now. --WFC-- 05:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
  • It's genuinely irritating that the full-width colspanned lines come to the top as soon as you try to sort something
    • Answered below.
  • There are some peculiarities in the sorting. E.g. if the table is initially sorted on Division ascending, with the colspan lines at the top, and you then sort on one of the league table numeric columns, say Goals For, the 1945/46 row comes to the top, then the colspan rows, and only then the first row with any numeric content in Goals For. Sort again, so the Goals For is in descending order, 1945/46 with its emdashes stays at the top and the colspan rows disappear down the bottom. Sort again, so the Goals For returns to ascending order, the colspan rows return to the top, but 1945/46 disappears to the bottom. Stabilising at these last two orderings. Except, sometimes you start with Division ascending, sort on Goals For, and it brings the first row with numeric content to the top, and then goes through the cycle described above... This behaviour is the same on 3 different browsers: IE6, Firefox3.6 and GoogleChrome5.0
    • In mathematical logic, we would describe the colspan and emdash rows as "don't care states". In plain English, provided that they do not interfere with our main aim, we disregard them. Aesthetically questionable? Perhaps. But they would still look ugly wherever they went. For the values that matter the sort function is robust here.
      • If you want to take the last two comments together, I'll answer here. In plain English, if a row comes to the top when a column is sorted ascending, and stays at the top when the same column is sorted descending, then the sort doesn't work. That is what happens with the 1945/46 row in the cycle described above. We're not presenting to logicians. We're presenting to the general reader, and if the general reader sorts a column and gets presented with a wodge of colspanned text bars when they're expecting goals scored, they're not going to be overly impressed with what purports to be Wikipedia's best work. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
        • I'm 80% sure that the irregularities with 1939/40 and 1945/46 are now fixed. I can only vouch for that on Firefox though; I didn't try this earlier due to this being a live DYK, and having no way to test it on Internet Explorer. As for the colspans, it is possible for me to configure them so that they display as the lowest or highest value for any given row (i.e. I can make it sort as A in one row, Z in another, A in a third and so on). AFAIK, the only way to truly exclude them from sorting would be not to have a year next to them, which would in turn mean that once you started sorting they would never return to their original position.
        • It seems that with some homework on my part, and potentially third party input on the 1896 split, we can achieve consensus on all of your other points. But I think that four or five colspans sorting in an irritating way would not on its own be a good enough reason to scrap sortability. --WFC-- 16:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
          • class=sortbottom sorts one or more rows to the bottom, but again, they won't come back unless you refresh the page. Struway2 (talk) 17:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
            • That's the issue. While I do understand your point, sortbottom would do more harm than good, due to the colspans not sorting by year. I've made them less prominent, and am doing some work to mitigate how annoying they are (for instance ensuring that when sorting by goals scored, they sort as the lowest tally), but unfortunately they'll have to remain sortable. --WFC-- 18:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
• If the point of sorting the FA Cup column is to compare achievement in different periods, sorting by name of round doesn't do it, because it takes no account of what that round actually was. E.g. in 1904/5, there were four rounds between QR6 and the final, in 1919/20 there were five. In 1905/6, Round 2 was the round of 32, so there were three rounds between it and the final; today, the round of 32 is Round 4, and there are five rounds between Round 2 and the final ...
  • I understand how sorting has brought this issue to the fore, when it might not have been thought of in the past. But surely that would be an issue for all seasons lists?
    • Indeed. And it has been thought of in the past, to some extent: e.g. at List of Darlington F.C. seasons, not a featured list, where note D clarifies Darlington's best FA Cup progress was to the last 16, linked from rounds of different names. But in an unsortable table, it's easier to accept that those are just the names of rounds; when sorted, it heightens the perception that all Round 2s are the same thing, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in sorting them together. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
      • Obviously from the quarter-finals onward this isn't an issue. Further back, perhaps "Round of 16", "Round of 32" or "Last 16", "Last 32" would be better terminology, with some introductory or supplementary prose to explain the situation? That said, I would need to verify this in some way. At the moment I have verification that Watford reached the fifth round in 1995, but not that this was the last 16. --WFC-- 16:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
        • The FA's FA Cup archive will verify each season. Thing is, today there are 40 teams in the Second Round proper and 80 in the First, the Round of powers-of-2 only comes in at the Third Round proper aka Round of 64. In the very early days of the competition, numbers of teams in any given round was pretty random. In between, I've no idea. So calling rounds Last 128 is probably more misleading than calling everything Round 2..... Don't know where that gets you. Input from more voices would be nice :-) Struway2 (talk) 17:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

• As I see it, with the resources we have there are three broad options:
• 1. Do nothing in the table, explain where Watford entered the competition in a footnote: At first glance the lazy option, although I do think that a case can be made for it. In every season that we reached the fifth round, the sixth round was the quarter final. In every season that we reached the fourth round, either the fifth round was the quarter final, or the fourth round was below the fifth round (in other words, they belong alongside one another, albeit one was slightly closer to winning the competition than the other). The footnote would have to be very carefully considered, but this is potentially the way to go, and should not be dismissed out of hand.
• 2. Sort by distance from final The FA Cup archive does not allow me to say that Watford were one of the last 32 teams, for the reasons outlined by Struway above. However, it does enable me to say that Watford were four rounds from the final. Instead of a footnote stating where Watford entered, the footnote would outline how far they were from the final. I believe this is the most precise option, although it will be more confusing to the reader than approach one.
• 3. Sort by how many rounds Watford progressed through This is not really an option, because putting 1931–32 on a par with 1983–84 defies all logic. But I am stating it as an "option" for completeness. --WFC-- 06:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

that'll do for now, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I have moved the FA Cup conversation downwards, both to encourage other opinions, and because my previous edit made the whole conversation look very confusing.--WFC-- 06:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

After much thought, I've made the FA Cup column unsortable, added a brief note to explain that achievements are not necessarily equivalent and that 1984 was our best year, and will leave it there. Stru and Sandman were right to raise this point, but all the solutions I've seen on this page would either be misleading or overly confusing to the reader. It may require further tweaking, but I think this edit tries to strike the appropriate balance. --WFC-- 00:33, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

• Comment—no dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 15:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

• Nominator comment In response to a couple of Struway's comments, I have merged the two tables to graphically demonstrate the pros and cons of doing so, and have also added the second leagues. I'm still unsure as to whether it's a help or a hinderance though. Split version, combined version. Comments welcome, regards, --WFC-- 10:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Resolved comments from Sandman888 (talk) Latest FLC 16:34, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

* Cmt Stru is so thorough. A pleasure to get his reviews. Sandman888 (talk) Latest FLC 19:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC) "Goal tallies are for competitive fixtures only." might make a note of which fixtures. Fair point, although I'm not sure how to phrase it; it's for all competitions mentioned in this table, but not friendly matches. Done. --WFC-- 18:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC) I vote for merged & prop 2: because it is precise, and that's what encyclopedias do. My point about it being "precise" but "confusing" is that sometimes Round 2 would sort alongside Round 4. If they're the same distance from the final then they are equal achievements, but no footnote or combination of footnotes would help all readers get their heads around how counterintuitive that is. I took an alternative approach to the FA Cup. What do you think? --WFC-- 18:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC) what is "Bucks & Contiguous Counties League" ? I know very little about it, other than that our first team competed in it. It probably doesn't warrant an article, so I'll do some research and either create one, or add a footnote (same for the other unlinked competitions). All done. --WFC-- 18:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC) Isn't there a better picture for the lead? I have access to a lot of pre-1940 pictures. The problem is that the burden is on me to prove that where the author of known (which in a lot of cases he is), that he died before 1940, and whether he is known or not, that the original date of publication was before 1940. And while the likes of Ipswich and Leeds have statues of Robson and Bremner, we have this. As for a current one, I don't have a good camera, sit in a terrible place for getting a team photo, and I've seen nothing more suitable on flickr. Great to have you back! --WFC-- 09:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC) Sorry, what is the current system for the FA cup? Sandman888 (talk) Latest FLC 16:34, 6 August 2010 (UTC) I see FA doesn't sort now. A strange hybrid you've created :) however it seems to be a strange system of citing you're using. Why isn't it "Trefor, Watford season by season p. 69" ? I believe that is the way to do it. Sandman888 (talk) Latest FLC 20:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support Unsure whether it should be sortable or not, as Struway I'm not keen on it, but apart from that the list certainly has its merits. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 15:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The above is quite messy. For the benefit of people who are interested in the list but might be put off by such a long review:

• We're looking for input on whether the sort function is a good thing at all, and whether the way the colspans sort is appropriate.
• We need input on whether the current solution for the FA Cup is appropriate.

I can't say hand on heart that everything else raised above is resolved, but I believe these are the two points that will require wider scrutiny. Regards, --WFC-- 18:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support – I can see alot of effort has been put into this. The sort function looks better than I thought it would. Argyle 4 Life^talk 14:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments –

• "the club entered the FA Cup and Herts Senior Cup for the first time in the 1886." Excess "the" at the end.
  • Done.
• Early history: "The teams met on eleven further occasions, with Rovers/West Hertfordshire winning six times, St. Mary's four times." I assume there was a draw as well? Also, the Manual of Style usually discourages slashes like the one seperating the team names.
  • Good spot. Indeed an important one, because the tally of six wins included the first match, contrary to what the wording probably suggested.
• Sorting is nice to see in a list of this type, but I did notice a small issue in the goal-scorers column. The 1977–78 leader (Ross Jenkins) is sorting by first name, not last. This runs counter to the rest of the column. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 21:21, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Done. I was fooled by the fact that there were four of them; at Vicarage Road I'm constantly told that there are only two ;) --WFC-- 23:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Support – Meets FL standards. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments (late, as ever, and with a view that I haven't seen any comments above, so apologies for repeats...) "Formed as Watford Rovers in 1881, the club entered the FA Cup and Herts Senior Cup for the first time in 1886. The team reached the final of the Herts Senior Cup six times over the next ten years." could you merge these two? The quick repeat of "Herts Senior Cup" is a little grating, and possibly unnecessary. And perhaps it's worth noting the significance of these cups are vastly different... (or reword accordingly - having been engulfed in Bristol Rovers fans taunting Forest with "Who needs the Euro Cup? We won the Watney Cup!" endlessly, a non-expert may be confused...!) Done Image caption is not a complete sentence so no full stop needed. Done Is there a link for "professionalism" that links to pro football? Just a question really, as "adopted professionalism" could maybe need explaining? Couldn't find a link, so I've rephrased the sentence. "including the Southern League First Division in 1914–15.[2] After missing out on a second consecutive title in 1919–20" confusing if you don't explain that consecutive titles were possible five years apart because of the inconvenience of the First World War... Done "After missing out on a second consecutive title in 1919–20 on goal average, Watford joined the Football League Third Division in 1920–21, and after its subsequent..." replace second after with "following" perhaps to avoid quick repetition. Done "as they remained in the Third Division South throughout" (sorry, this is super picky) perhaps they could have won the FA Cup? Maybe don't make causality between scarce success and D3S, maybe say the club were rooted in D3S, and experienced little success...? Removed causal link. "mid way" could use a hyphen perhaps. Done "tarted to progress following the reorganisation" are you implying the success "followed" the reorganisation? Or that it simply happened "after" the reorganisation? Picky again, but just asking. Done "in 1938–39 " etc. Another picky one, but I'd prefer "in the ... season" It takes that form on the first occurance (1896–97, or 1999–2000 if you count the picture), to ensure that the reader is left in no doubt over the meaning. I think that given the frequency with which it's used, adding "season" after every occurance would make the prose more repetitive, so after the first occurances I've done so sparingly. "first FA Cup final" no need to relink FA Cup, maybe just link the whole "FA Cup final" to the relevant final? Done "a further season in the Premier League by virtue of winning " not strictly true. They could have spent ten further seasons by virtue of winning that game. Maybe, "a further season ... after winning..."? Done "One match of note.." dangerous ground, hand-picking a "notable" match. Can you justify it, other than say it was a "vs Luton" fixture? I'm not against removing it, but I'm not sure how I would go about replacing it with something else on the first five years. On page seven of Season by Season Jones states: "The earliest report of an organised match is of that played on 21st January 1882, but there is nothing to suggest that it was the first fixture the club had undertaken," which weakens the obvious option. I'm not familiar enough with club's former names to be sure, but I think that Luton are the first future Football League team we ever played. That coupled with the fact that the rivalry has an article made it the logical choice. --WFC-- 22:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC) FA Cup linked for the third time in Early history... Delinked in prose, but left in the table. You have Hennessey Cup in the table but don't mention it at all in the leading section? Added reference to the Hennessey Cup to the early history section (which I believe is what you meant by "leading section"). Sorting (in my mind) is excellent. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC) Thanks. I don't think I've converted Struway to its value (yet: as a Watford fan you have to remain optimistic!), but unquestionably his tough review of the sort function has made it much better. --WFC-- 22:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC) Interesting effect in Safari, 1893 row in Early history, the note spans way out wide to the right, starting in the centre of the column.... My best guess is that it's not an issue here? I can't implement that change permanently because it would cause issues for other browsers, but if that would solve it on Safari then I can at least be sure of what the problem is. --WFC-- 20:51, 9 August 2010 (UTC) Correct, it's not a problem in the article you linked to. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC) I haven't forgotten about this; I'll have access to a Mac on what you would call the early hours of Friday. --WFC-- 16:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC) Is this still causing problems? I didn't get an opportunity to use a Mac, but it seems okay on Safari in Windows. --WFC-- 16:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC) No, looks good now, cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

One more comment hopefully only one. You originally had the supplementary leagues (United etc) in footnotes, but then moved them into the table proper. On some rows, e.g. 1898-99, you've put the supplementary league above the main league, which is a little misleading, and for such rows, the league position sorts on Watford's finishing position in the supplementary rather than their main league. If we're meant to be comparing like with like, shouldn't that column sort on the main league position throughout? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• I lied, sorry. Jones's books in the General refs are missing publisher information. Struway2 (talk) 10:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Publisher done. I've had a good think about your sorting point. If 1898–99 was the worst example, it might not be so much of an issue, but 1905–06 is a problem. My conclusion was that there is enough context for the reader to judge the relative achievements of winning the leagues. Given that, sorting 1905–06 as a 14th-placed finishing position would probably not be helpful to the reader. A possible solution would be to always put the Southern League on the top line, sort based on the Southern League statistics (comparing like-for-like), but sort by the higher of the two league finishes (for the benefit of readers wanting to see league championships), and obviously add an explanation. Thoughts welcome. --WFC-- 01:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Neutral I still think applying table sorting at its current (lack of) capability struggles with the "where helpful" bit of Criterion 4 There's quite a bit of added complication, both visible (e.g. the superscripts on the divisions) and particularly in the table markup, some of which I struggle to understand, so heaven help the average WP editor coming along and wanting to fix a mistake or add something. And it still can't cope with sorting the FA Cup in a meaningful manner. However, the nominator has put in an enormous amount of work (and willingly accepted the need for some of it) to improve the list from when first reviewed, when I'd have had no hesitation in opposing. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. I think the FA Cup is something we need to think about as a WikiProject, as mentioned above. In the longer run I do intend to take your points into account, through discussion on how to denote divisions at WT:SEASONS, and through the development of a template to change input like this:

Hidden code from nominator

|- |[[1914–15 Watford F.C. season|1914–15]] |South 1 |38 |22 |{{sort|08|8}} |{{sort|08|8}} |68 |46 |52 |bgcolor=gold|{{sort|01|1st}} |[[FA Cup 1914–15|QR6]] |<span style="display:none">&</span><div>—</div> |align=left|[[Southern Charity Cup]]<ref name=scc group=nb/> |R1 |align="left"|{{sortname|George|Edmonds|George Edmonds (footballer)}} |17 |- |[[Association football during World War I|1915–17]] |<span style="display:none">é</span><div style="position:relative;width:613%;overflow:auto">Peacetime competitions were suspended during the First World War. Watford competed in the Wartime London Combination in 1915–16 and 1916–17.<ref name=WW1>''Watford Season by Season'' p. 208</ref></div> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">é</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">é</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">é</span> |align=left style="border-left:2px solid #ccc;border-left-style:hidden;"|<span style="display:none">&</span>

into input closer to this:

Hidden code from nominator

{{fs year|1914-15|South 1|38|22|8|8|68|46|52|1|QR6|—|[[Southern Charity Cup]]<ref name=scc group=nb/>|R1{{sortname|George|Edmonds|George Edmonds (footballer)}}|17}} {{fs year|colspan|[[Association football during World War I|1915–17]]|Peacetime competitions were suspended during the First World War. Watford competed in the Wartime London Combination in 1915–16 and 1916–17.<ref name=WW1>''Watford Season by Season'' p. 208</ref>}}

I think it would be inappropriate to start a "do you like sortable season tables?" type discussion during an FLC, and I think that a template should be left until most other issues have been ironed out. But rest assured, I will pursue both of these things once this has run its course. Once again, thanks for the review. In the past I haven't always taken your criticism well (and with the benefit of a few months worth of distance I apologise for that), but even where your comments are addressed without going entirely where you would like, they always result in a better list. We're lucky to have you. Regards, --WFC-- 19:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.