Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of participating nations at the Summer Olympic Games

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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 21:00, 15 March 2008.

List of participating nations at the Summer Olympic Games[edit]

I believe that this list meets the criteria, and I've had no comments in two weeks of peer review, so I'd like to subject it to closer scrutiny to become a featured list. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment

  • You might want to briefly explain the "gaps" in the years the Games were held (i.e. during the two World Wars), for those who aren't already aware of them.
    • Do you think that requires some formatting to each table (e.g. a thicker vertical bar at those gaps), or just a statement in the introduction? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I was thinking of a statement in the introduction, but the thicker bar might also be useful to draw a bit of attention to the gap. So both, I guess! MeegsC | Talk 23:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Added explanatory legend at the top. I did not edit the 24 tables, as the wikicode to put gaps for the three cancelled Games was a bit excessive, and the list is already 49K. I think the legend is sufficient. Added columns for cancelled Games, shaded dark grey.
  • What's the "Code" used for?
    • Good point. I'm so close to the trees that I can't see the forest. The code is used frequently to report event results, at the Games themselves (e.g. you'd see "JPN" on a scoreboard next to a Japanese athlete's name) and in the official reports. I have recently updated List of IOC country codes, and I will nominate that soon as a featured list, but a short explanation might also help on this article. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think just a brief explanation (what you said above is probably sufficient, for example). While a reader could easily figure out that it's a code for the country, the need for that code isn't immediately clear. MeegsC | Talk 23:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
 Done added note and link to legend — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other than those two small things, this is a great looking list! MeegsC | Talk 18:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Matthew

Comments

  • Hi. My first comment relates to what MeegsC said about the Code. The note provided still doesn't explain why it's there. Simply linking to List of IOC country codes isn't enough, I think.
  • While the explanatory comments are linked to the footnote section in the tables, it's a little annoying not to have the ref links to the external references not included in the tables. The way it is now, any of those references could apply to any entry and if I wanted to see the reference for Botswana, for example, (a) I wouldn't know if there was one; and (b) if there is, I don't actually know which one it is.
    • Looking closer at the references, it appears each external link is per event, not per country. So I guess the ref link needs adding next to each year in the header.
    I struggled a lot trying to figure out the best way to reference this list, so any suggestions would be welcome. The problem is that the references are per-Games, instead of per-nation, so you would have ~200 incoming links to the single reference for the 2004 Games, if I was to put one next to each bullet in the table. Putting a reference in each table header section is also awkward (see below). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I don't have any suggestions of how. Sorry. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrwsc (talk • contribs) [reply]
  • Per WP:SEASON, years shouldn't really be abbreviated to two digits except where absolutely clear, and since the dates span three centuries, I'm not sure if it is absolutely clear. While I realise this may mess up the table width, and send it veering off of the edge of the page, personally I could deal with seeing the first instance of each century in full (1896, 1900 and 2000) and the others kept abbreviated.
    That's precisely the problem — the table formatting is much uglier with any of these possible styles:
Nation Code 1896 1900 04 08 12 20 24 28 32 36 48 52 56 60 64 68 72 76 80 84 88 92 96 2000 04
 Greece GRE H • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • H
Nation Code 18
96		 19
00		 19
04		 19
08		 19
12		 19
20		 19
24		 19
28		 19
32		 19
36		 19
48		 19
52		 19
56		 19
60		 19
64		 19
68		 19
72		 19
76		 19
80		 19
84		 19
88		 19
92		 19
96		 20
00		 20
04
 Greece GRE H • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • H
  • ..and it gets worse if references are added to the table header too! (I've tried.) Another option might be to have a new section with a per-Games table before the alphabetic list of nations, showing the number of nations at each Games with references there. I shall explore that idea. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • You should probably consider Wikipedia:Self linking each instance of "see Russia", "see Soviet Union", "see Yugoslavia" to if not the country in question, then the section containing that country. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 06:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And that's it from me. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 06:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More comments

  • First I just wanted to say I understand the problem with adding refs and using full dates for the table headers, so unless any other reviewers object, it's fine with me now to leave it as it is.
  • Every note regarding a name changes of a country should be referenced.
     Done
  • From "Participation notes"
    • [C] thru [G], and [I] thru [X] all need references
    • [D] and [G]: "Some sources consider": remove.
    • [L] - Are there any reasons why they didn't compete in the main part of the games?
    • [R] - What boycott?
    All  Done

-- Matthew | talk | Contribs 06:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

      •  Working Now that I've re-written all the footnotes to use {{ref label}}, I can properly reference them. Maybe by today I should have that complete. (I was in China last week and unable to edit Wikipedia even when I had Internet access, due to the oppressive censorship policies of the PRC government...) As for the partial boycotts in 1956 (Suez crisis) and 1976 (African nations, due to the South African rugby team competing in New Zealand), I can explain those in an improved intro. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        now  Done

Comments

  • "Therefore, the Swiss might also be considered to have competed in every Games to date." - simple fact is they did compete as they took place in the equestrian sports.
     Done — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead needs expanding for me. It kind of deterioriates into a {{main}} template, a legend and some bullet points. Untidy.
     Working — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    now  Done. The introduction is now rather large, so this has become much like an article than a list! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The notes/refs both using numbers is confusing to me.
     Done I've fixed the section footnotes (using {{cref}}) to use an abbreviation instead. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The notes all appear to need references as far as I'm concerned.
     Working The biggest problem I have here is that I'm using <ref>...</ref> for footnotes, which would conflict with using it for references. Also, I can't nest refs, so I wouldn't be able to reference a footnote automatically. Would a combined "Notes and references" section at the end be a bad thing, or should I stick to separate sections for each? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    If you use {{ref label}} and {{note label}} for the notes you would be able to use <ref>...</ref> to reference the notes. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for that! I was looking around today for some techniques to handle this, but hadn't seen those templates. Before I deconstruct and reassemble this list, using these templates, any comment about the best way to reference the per-Games sources? Shall I put a table of Games (referenced) before the alphabetical list? I am reluctant to add references to each of the table cells (> 3000 in total), or even to add 25 references to each of the 24 table headers (600 total). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    A table of games might suffice. Put one in and then we can take a look at it. Other than that I don't know. Sorry. -- Matthew | talk | Contribs 21:55, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
     Done Notes are now referenced. I wrote a fairly large History section to handle the per-Games set of refs, by mentioning them all at least once. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A good list but some concern for me over the lead and the referencing. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Okay, I think that after expanding the lead a little more, you should head for a level 1 heading which turns your bullets into prose (to explain what the following tables are about to explain). I reckon that'd work. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    That's the angle I'm pursuing now, using introductory prose to describe the growth of the Games in terms of number of nations etc. and attaching references to every instance of each Games mentioned in the text. I'm worried that it might come across as too "forced", since I need to mention all 25 Games at least once within the prose in order to get all the references covered, but we'll see how it looks when I'm done in a few hours. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
     Done — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
    • The table is inconsistent as to which former countries it includes. It includes the Soviet Union, but not the two Yemens. I don't know if I want all of them in it (especially since the history isn't as complex as Germany's, and I rather like the Germany section), but maybe a note as to what warrants inclusion.
      Yeah, that's true. I also did not include distinct table rows for Serbia and Montenegro (instead attached notes to each of Serbia and Montenegro for 2004 only), to the British West Indies (notes for Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad-Tobago for 1960 only), to Australasia (AUS and NZL for 1908 and 1912 only), for Malaya (1952-1956) and North Borneo (1956), for the Unified Team in 1992, etc. I felt that the footnote approach was more effective in most cases, especially for the "combined team" cases where the individual nations are listed far apart, alphabetically. Germany works because they are all listed together, and the United Team of Germany years (1956–1964) are best shown merged as they are. Is this "inconsistency" a deal-breaker for you? What kind of note would help you? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't know. It's just jarring to have some former countries but not other, when the only difference appears to be length of time. However, then we run into focus creep - is this a list of participating nations, or a list of participating organizations? ANZ was not a nation, but it was a single olympic organization for those two olympiads.
       Done I have added a "Description" section to explain that the list is arranged by the current 205 NOCs, with URS, YUG, TCH and FRG/GDR being the only obsolete NOCs mentioned, and only for clarity reasons. Hopefully this works, as I see the two alternatives (put all historic NOCs into the list, or replace those few by a string of footnotes) as much less clear. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Some mention should be made that the country names are the ones used by the IOC, not necessarily official or international names.
      That's not precisely true. For example, the IOC currently uses "Islamic Republic of Iran", "Lao People's Democratic Republic", "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", etc. The only "unusual" names on this list are perhaps "Great Britain" (instead of United Kingdom) and "Chinese Taipei" (for Republic of China - Taiwan). The latter is explained in a footnote, but perhaps needs to be expanded. I could add a footnote for GBR too. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      And "China" instead of "People's Republic of". Maybe to be consistent, we should use the IOC names?
       Done for China. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • What was the code for North Borneo?
      There is none. The codes were introduced in the 1960s-1970s, and North Borneo only ever appeared in 1956. The 1956 official report sourced in this article does not use country codes. But now that you mention that, I really ought to remove "SAA" from Saar for the same reason. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Yay, I helped! Be sure to include a footnote explaining why those two lack codes.
       Done by only mentioning Saar and North Borneo in the footnotes, not the main table
    • Perhaps an extra table should be included, showing all of the obsolete names/codes. I would very much like to have this information outside of just footnotes.
      That kind of table is already included at List of IOC country codes#Historic NOCs and teams. Do I really need to replicate that here? Anotehr idea would be to collect all the content references for previous names into a distinct section, instead of placing them at the end of each individual section. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Hrm. I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and work on a table for this.
    • You're going to hate me, but I think the WW2 columns should be included, and shaded out, and showing the host nations.
      (sigh) Yes. I do hate you. I will work on it...  ;) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
       Done
    • The names of the country notes are rather jarring; can't you just use single letters?
      This is the first time I've used content references with {{cref}} and {{cnote}}, and the examples listed there use words and phrases, so I assumed that was the accepted style. One thing to consider — if I list all of those references together in a single section per the previous suggestion, then those would be effective identifiers in what could also be seen as a standalone sub-list. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Ah. I'll work with it a little.
    • That's all for now. I like this list, let's see if we can make it great. --Golbez (talk) 17:53, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for the feedback. Check back in a few hours and tell me what you think! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      And thanks for your response! --Golbez (talk) 18:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - should Bohemia be included with anyone else after 1912? Was it part of Czechoslovakia? --Golbez (talk) 18:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
     Done Bohemia removed from list; added as footnote for Czech Republic participation prior to Czechoslovakia. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - An impressive table.
    • However, I find it incongruous that the font size in the legend and notes is larger than the font size of the content in the table. If at all possible, I'd like to see the font size increased in the table. I haven't tested it on a truly small display, but I think that font size could be increased to at least 95% without significantly degrading viewability on small display screens. The "Nation" column could be made somewhat narrower without loss of quality. (However it looks like the IOC code inserts nonbreaking spaces in multi-word names, thus preventing line breaks in the longer names.) Regardless of the font size in the table, the article would be more aesthetic if the legend and notes had the same font sizes as the references. --Orlady (talk) 04:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
       Done 100% font size just fits at XGA (1024x768) screen size, which is (I think) an appropriate design target. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I was just about to do something as drastic as to correct the same problem Golbez highlighted pertaining to which entries goes in and which goes out until I noticed this nomination. I am of the opinion that if we are going to have Czechoslovakia, the Germanys, the Soviet Union, etc in the list, than all other former nations with distinct borders should be added too, including Saad and North Borneo etc. I am also particularly disturbed by the way the China issue is handled, which highlights questions on where we make distinctions on the way we handle name changes of nations with borders intact, name changes of nations with different borders, and nations with different borders but no name changes. The tables fails to illustrate the fact that the "China" of 1932 to 1948 was represented as one single country, then known officially as the ROC. It seems to suggest that atheletes from the area now administered by the PRC did not participate in the game during that period, as the name "China" is greyed out from 1986 to 1948 (despite obviously in reference to the PRC which did not exist then).--Huaiwei (talk) 21:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the original intent was to only list the current 205 NOCs and use footnotes etc. to describe the past history. I still feel that is vastly preferable to listing all the predecessor nations in the same table. Certainly, this approach works well for relatively simple situations such as name changes (e.g. British Honduras→Belize) or some nation changes (e.g. Yemens, Malaya+North Borneo→Malaysia, etc.) but as you can see, there are some complications with respect to the more complex nation changes, specifically, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and perhaps Germany. Currently, only these four are treated differently. The biggest reason for doing this is that it is unclear how else to express this without implying too much. For example, we know that Armenia was part of the Soviet Union (as the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), but we don't know if there were Armenian athletes competing for the Soviet Union for all instances since 1952. Therefore, I don't think we can put a string of footnotes in the table cells for Armenia prior to 1992; the current method of a single spanned table cell with a pointer to "see Soviet Union" seems to be more appropriate. Let me write an explanatory statement in the introduction and we'll see if that works, or still needs improvement.
    As for China, I am not completely happy with the current layout either, so any suggestions are welcome. I am convinced that the history needs to be explained using only two table rows, since there are only two NOCs to consider. However, it is certainly muddy since the ROC evolved into TPE (representing Taiwan only), but represented all of China in the first few appearances. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
     Done I think? I think the new "Description" helps explain how the table is organized around the current 205 NOCs, only adding a select few number of historical ones for clarity reasons. Still might use some expansion on the ROC/PRC issue if needed. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
     Done I've also updated the CHN/TPE section to add a row for ROC, which should help explain this (also with the footnotes). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks I think that helps the resolve the issue for now. I have also amended the text slightly for more contextual information.--Huaiwei (talk) 07:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It is good that you have a table legend, but I don't like the positioning right now. And I miss any reference to the 1906 Summer Olympics. They are not considered "official" anymore, but don't you want to mention them anyway (just as they are mentioned in the {{Olympic games}}-template? Otherwise: great list!-EdgeNavidad (talk) 13:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
     Done Added mention of 1906 in the History prose text, and updated the table legend placement as part of the expanded Description section. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Would it be ideal to (perhaps eventually) provide links to all of the subpages via the bullets in the tables, or was there a reason you decided against this? For instance, United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics? Jared (t)  23:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    That would have added about ~120–140K to the size of this list, which is already currently 72K. I felt that providing links to the top level summary article for each nation (i.e. United States at the Olympics), each of which has a full set of navigation links to individual Games results pages in the respective infoboxes, was wholly sufficient. This list is not intended to serve as a massive single page navbox. Thanks — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I figured that that might be the case. It doesn't bother me any either way. It would probably make sense to keep them off. Jared (t)  23:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Awesome list! Mind you, I didn't bother reading all of the comments made above, but I can't think of any ways to dramatically improve it. My only suggestions are to add a External links section and to add a See also section, thus moving the ugly {{see also}} template from the lead. The Winter games article can be (should be) mentioned in the lead, but not with a template. Put it in some prose and make a new section at the end you're good to go. Good work! Drewcifer (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the support! Is the usage of {{see also}} really so bad? I thought is was pseudo-standard, and certainly wouldn't hinder featured list/article status...? I'll see what I can add for external links. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
 Done anyway! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:53, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - A nice job on a notable (not to mention surprisingly difficult) list topic. --Orlady (talk) 17:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I can't see where this list can be any more enriched content-wise. Great job, Andrwsc. Parutakupiu (talk) 16:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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