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Wording question

I've come here before when I've had an issue before and I am having a minor one again and would like to know what those here think. A user called Baseball_Bugs edited the Minnesota Golden Gophers football page on December 12th - his edit changed the phrase "They compete in NCAA Division I-A and the Big Ten Conference" by replacing the word "compete" with "play". His edit comment was "Let's not overstate the situation" - an obvious joke about how bad of a season the Gophers had last year. Well, I changed it back. He then did it again, commenting "The do play in the Big 10. Saying they 'compete' is POV-pushing, especially for a team that finished 1-11" which is another joke. And the argument that using the word "compete" is an NPOV issue is completely ridiculous. Another user changed it back to "compete". Well, Baseball_Bugs has persisted in his quest to make the change and I have kept changing it back. I noticed that he has also started going to other pages to make similar changes such as Michigan Wolverines football - I think "compete" is a better term and is more accurate than "play" and was just wondering what opinions here are.

JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)I have tried talking to him on his user page but it hasn't helped. I suppose I'll have to start a discussion on the Gopher football page's talk page to try to get a consensus. Anyway, I'm just looking for input from other college football fans. Thanks! Gopherguy | Talk 15:05, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's your football team that's the "joke". So was Illinois just a few years ago, and they are competitive again. The Gophers were also competitive at one time, and that could change, too. But the use of this term as a synonym for belonging to a conference is nothing more than sales-and-marketing hype and is unencyclopedic. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:30, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that if you were to talk to any head coach in the NCAA or NAIA or NJCAA that coaches football or any other sport, they would say that taking any team at all for granted is a very big mistake. "Compete" is the right word, you are correct and the other user is not.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:21, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The fact that coaches like to use that term underscores the point that it's hype. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:32, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd also argue that "compete" has a slightly different connotation than "play." You can play by yourself, but it takes two or more sides for a competition. A competition also implies a discrete goal, rather than just enjoying yourself, as in "play." JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:35, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
I noticed the same thing yesterday in Iowa Hawkeyes football. At first I didn't think much of it — people get OCD about wording and sometimes its best not to pick a fight — but I didn't realize he had said motive. I'll change it back to "compete".
I had to revert the same edit in about seven other articles too. Grrr... Iowa13 (talk) 19:54, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
This term "compete" is marketing hype and has no business being used in this "encyclopedia". And your accusations of vandalism just because you disagree is unseemly on your part. These teams are members of conferences and they play football and basketball games. That much is factual. Professional team articles don't use that term, it's strictly a hype term used in some (not all) college team articles. "Compete" is subjective and point-of-view pushing, which is against the wikipedia rules. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:18, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
[citation needed] JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:26, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Your citation of coaches talking about it is sufficient proof that that's what it is. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:52, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
According to Wiktionary, to "compete" is "to contend emulously; to seek or strive for the same thing, position, or reward for which another is striving; to contend in rivalry, as for a prize or in business; as, tradesmen compete with one another." Justify your reasoning that college teams do not compete by that definition. Also, you admitted on your talk page that your comments are "a mixture of satire and fact". How is that not vandalism? Iowa13 (talk) 23:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
My comments are a mixture of satire and fact, not the article entries. For example, the only thing the Gophers seemed to "striving" for this year was to go 0-12, which they failed to do. And why is the word not used this way in the pros? Do they not also "compete"? Certainly the word turns up at all levels of sports, in the sense of competition for victory. But to say a team "competes" in a league rather than "is a member of", is clearly amateur-level hype. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:52, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Compete is the correct word. I believe you are POV pushing by saying otherwise.↔NMajdan•talk 00:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
No, it is not correct to say that teams "compete" in a conference, as a synonym for being members of a conference. Using "compete" in that way makes assumptions that cannot be verified. It is factually correct to say that they are members of and participate in such-and-such conference or league, as with their professional counterparts whose articles don't use that term in that way. That they are members of a conference is verifiable and factual. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 00:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

So then the question is whether competition implies intent or actual action. In this case, merely by having a football team, Minnesota is a competitor for the Big 10 title. The intent is there, and though they did not win, they still competed. Now, if they were the only team in the conference, there would have been no competition. They could have still played games -- but there would have been no competition. Intent defines competition. The end result does not define it. Is a football game still a football game if the score is 222-0? The NCAA thinks so, and so Georgia Tech is awarded a win over Cumberland. JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was still a game at 222-0. And anyone writing about it would likely say, "Cumberland could not compete." Just for the fun of it, I went looking for some examples of how "compete" is used in practical application. [1] [2] [3] Check out this excerpt from that last one: "Minny just like all the other schools in the Big Ten other than OSU and Michigan, simply want a team that can occassionaly [sic] compete and sometimes win a Big Ten Title... Mason wasn't going to get them there." I can hear you now, saying that that's not a "valid source". Not as a formal citation, perhaps, but it undercuts the notion that "compete" equates to "being a member of". It doesn't. To compete means to have a reasonable chance to win. The Gophers don't, at present. They do not "compete" in the Big 10. But they are certainly members of it, and that's the proper way to word the articles about teams. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 01:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. Certainly, "compete" has a different meaning in casual usage than formal usage, but we're talking about that formal usage here. In the cite you've given, compete has a meaning more along the lines of "compete to win", or "have a good chance to win". That's not the formal definition of compete. To Webster, myself, and most of the editors here, just showing up and participating in the games is enough to qualify for competition. It doesn't matter how well you did -- just that you participated. Modern, informal usage is somewhat different, of course; your links show that much. I'd tend to err on the side of formal usages of words, however. My articles aren't perfect in that respect, I know -- but I think it's a good idea to stick with the more formal usage wherever possible. JKBrooks85 (talk) 01:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I grant you the fact that saying that teams compete in a conference is based on assumptions that cannot be verified. But, then again, isn't everything based on assumptions that cannot be verified? At the risk of making too broad an analogy, consider science. All science is based on a number of assumptions that are very rarely, if never, examined, simply because they are so established and seem so obvious that to question them might be perceived as ridiculous. Take, for example, the law of gravity. By the law of gravity, if I let go of a rock in midair, it will fall until something stops it. I can't, however, be completely sure of that. The rock might remain floating in midair, it might begin to spin around, it might turn into a peacock. The fact that no rock that has ever been let go of in midair has failed to fall does not prove anything. It would be the same thing as if I painted a rabbit on a quarter and flipped it, and, as it came up heads, claimed that all quarters with rabbits painted on them also come up heads. That took way to long to say, but, in essence, as humans we have to make certain assumptions if we ever wish to make any progress at all. In my opinion, your microscopic criticism of the word "compete" is simply not worth this trouble, and that opinion seems to be the consensus — I have yet to see anyone side with you. I'll end my lesson in figurative language with a metaphor: we have bigger fish to fry. Iowa13 (talk) 01:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
It's more important to be clear than to insist upon using a term that contradicts common usage of the term. By that strict dictionary definition, Cumberland "competed" against Georgia Tech, which is a pretty funny idea. Meanwhile, obviously not everyone agrees with your last comment, or they wouldn't get so worked up about replacing the dubious and misleading term "compete in" with the factual term "is a member of". If you have bigger fish to fry than this, why won't you let me change it? Obviously, this is a "big fish" to you. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 01:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
First, common usage of the word "compete" would agree with the fact that competition may yield success or it may yield failure. If Team X played Team Y in football, and Team X won 7-6, the fact that Team Y lost does not mean that Team Y did not compete. To insist that Minnesota did not compete because they failed to have a good season claims either that every team that has ever failed to have a good season did not compete, which is obviously ridiculous, or that you know what the Minnesota football team intended to do in 2007, which, unless the account Baseball Bugs is held by the Minnesota football team, I very much doubt is true. Second, your "fish" is big enough that you have chosen to cause headaches for a number of people, on Christmas of all days, while those good people's "fish" are simply to protect the integrity of Wikipedia and to respect the hard work of the teams in question. Finally, I'll remind you that the resolution of this issue comes down to a consensus, and you seem to be on the short end of that battle. Iowa13 (talk) 02:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

This is absolutely ridiculous. The dictionary definition of compete is "To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory." Whether or not one team was only able to put up a lackluster effort, they still competed. Merely showing up and playing qualifies as a competition. So far, I have not heard of a single editor who agrees with you. Therefore, I believe the article should reflect this apparent consensus.↔NMajdan•talk 02:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It is more important to be clear than anything else. Why is that the professional teams don't use this term? "The Boston Red Sox compete in the AL East"? No, because that sounds silly. It sounds, in fact, like college hype, such as you are perpetuating with your insistence on this misleading term. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 02:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
"The Boston Red Sox compete in the AL East" does not sound silly to me. It sounds normal. As far as I know, you have no right to make changes to Wikipedia because something "sounds silly" to you and you only. If you have anything worthwhile to say, please say it, or else let's put this stupid debate to rest. Iowa13 (talk) 03:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Getting through to you die-hard fans is proving very difficult. "Compete in" is a subjective term. "Member of" is objective and factual. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 03:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, did this ever get ridiculous today! Bugs, I think you're wrong. "Play" implies the possibility that there is no victor or victory. "Compete" is much more clear that there will be a victor and a loser. And no, it's not a "marketing hype" term. The do a google search phrase "athletic competition" and see for yourself what you get! The words "competition" and "compete" are widely accepted among not only industry peers (in this case, college-level foootball) but also on those who report on in it in the media. It is by far the most accurate term.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:48, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It is possible to have a game end in a tie (at least in the NFL), yet those games constitute competition. Individual games could be said to be "competitions". Teams are members of a conference or league. They are competitors once they square off in a game and play the game. To say that so-and-so "compete" in such-and-such conference is marketing hype and is less clear and factual than the neutral statement that they are members of that conference. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Bugs, the reason they are in the conference is to play the game. I hate the word "duh", but I'm really tempted to use it right now. Also, college games under NCAA rules cannot end in ties, and college teams are the point of discussion here. Even if this debate concerned high school/NFL teams, ties would hardly alter the picture. Your arguments are completely spineless, and, frankly, it's sad to see a three-year Wikipedia vet self-destruct his rep over such a trivial issue. Iowa13 (talk) 05:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
College games used to be able to end in ties. One of the most famous, as I recall was an Army vs. Notre Dame game many decades ago. Yet that game constituted a competition. I maintain that the word "compete in" is marketing hype. But you fan-boys won't stand for anything else, so you win this semantic "competition" by brute force rather than by good sense and clarity. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 06:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Ahem...fan-boys? WP:NPA please. The dictionary is how this dispute is won and it clearly comes down on the side of everyone here but you Bugs. See here. To compete is simply to step on the field of play (in the instance of a single game) or to field a team (when competing for a conference championship) as Minnesota certainly does. Your offer of members is insufficient since there are members of conferences (Big East, Sunbelt) that do not compete in football. Minnesota fielded a football team, scheduled games in order to compete for the conference championship and competed in each individual game; their success or failure is immaterial. That you personally choose to place a certain connotation on the word compete does not mean everyone else does or should. AUTiger » talk 07:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
"Fanboy" is a personal attack? As opposed to "stupid" or "spineless"? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 07:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I see where the debate is called stupid and your arguments are called spineless, but I don't see any comment saying you are either stupid or spineless. Fanboy is generally known as a pejorative and you clearly meant it that way. AUTiger » talk 07:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe the best word with the best definiition should be used. "Compete" is obviously at least a proper choice, if not the best choice. "Play" is obviously a lesser choice based on the definitions givien. THe teams "compete" in the conference but the word "play" could be used from time to time.

"Bugs" -- you are being belligerent in my eyes--there is no place for name-calling in this forum. Please stop. If you have something constructive to add, please do so. But obviously this discussion is no longer anywhere near constructive.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

"Bugs" is POV pushing and not better than the common vandal and should be treated as such. MECU≈talk 13:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Compete 7, Play 1. Case closed, I should think. Iowa13 (talk) 16:55, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Fanboy majority tyranny. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Can something be done to stop this abusive user?--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

So far I've been called a stupid, spineless vandal, for expressing my honest opinion. That's 3 personal attacks to 1. You all win again. Would that your Gophers had shown such spunk. Maybe they would have won more than 1 of the 12 games they "competed" in. If I were really a "vandal", I would be continuing to change the pages back. You've already won the edit war. I have the right to express G-rated frustration at obtuseness when I see it. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I really don't think Bugs is a vandal. I just think he has one and only one mindset on this issue, and he's not willing to change it, despite the large consensus that has formed against him. I'm siding with the "compete" side on this one. To me, "compete" means to strive for a common goal, whilst to Bugs (correct me if I'm wrong on this one, because I'm quite new at this), it means to achieve that common goal. I could definitely see the word "play" in an article, but "compete" seems more encyclopedic to me. Just my point of view. CrdHwk (talk) 19:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with this. The editor is not a vandal, but is having issues accepting the consensus reached here. I agree that when talking of athletic organizations, competes in should be used. The Oklahoma Sooners football team competes in the Big 12 Conference. As opposed to the actual educational organization. The University of Oklahoma is a member of the Big 12 Conference.↔NMajdan•talk 19:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
My specific complaint is the use of "compete in" as a synonym for "member of". Some of the articles talk about competition in specific games or series, traditional rivalries, etc. That's OK. Its use as a synonym of "member of" is incorrect usage. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 19:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
"Compete" is not a synonym" of "member of". But it is possible to be a member of a conference and to compete within it as well. For the record, I did not call you stupid or spineless, Bugs. I called this debate stupid and your arguments spineless. I do not consider you a vandal, but I do believe that you are in the wrong. You have stated your opinion multiple times and there is an overwhelming consensus against it. Majority is not tyranny, at least not here. If you believe that someone else out there agrees with your mindset, encourage them to support you. Otherwise, I see no reason to continue this discussion. Iowa13 (talk) 19:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
But that's how it's being used, and that's my complaint. Nmajdan has offered two wordings, neither of which is quite right. The first, you already know my opinion on. The second, that the school is in the conference, may or may not be true, or may be misleading. For example, the Gophers football and basketball teams are in the Big 10, but the hockey team is in the WCHA. The correct wording, as I see it, would be The Oklahoma Sooners football team is a member of the Big 12 Conference. If a given team of a given sport is in a conference, it's also a "given" that they will "compete" in that conference, or at least try to. Would there ever be a case where you would say so-and-so team is in such-and-such and conference but does not "compete"? Of course not, assuming the games are being played honestly. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 19:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
So what's the problem? You say that if a team is a member of a conference, they compete in that conference, so, within this context, you acknowledge that both the term "compete" and the term "member of" are valid. Currently the use of the term "compete" is employed. What you basically just said is that the current term works, and another term would work equally well, so we should use the latter in place of the former. That does not make sense. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Iowa13 (talk) 20:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
To say they are a member of the conference is a fact. To say they "compete" in the conference is fan-boy hype. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, agree to disagree. We all feel that compete is synonymous with member. Now, if the article said The Oklahoma Sooners football team dominates the Big 12 Conference. then yes, we'd have an issue. But your interpretation of the definition of compete differs from ours. If you want to bring in other outside opinions, feel free to. But I consider this matter closed until such a time.↔NMajdan•talk 21:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
You consider it closed and I consider it hopeless. I thought wikipedia was supposed to be about facts, not about hype. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 21:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
The use of the word "compete" is not hype. You have no support, Bugs. A one-versus-seven situation on Wikipedia is, indeed, hopeless. Cased closed. Iowa13 (talk) 21:37, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Now I know how the Gophers felt for most of this past season. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 21:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Its comments like this that you have made throughout this debate that make me think you have more of an agenda than anyone else.↔NMajdan•talk 22:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I find it intolerable to give up when I know I'm right. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 22:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Bugs, you are the only one who "knows" you are right on this topic. So if you are right, and everyone else is wrong, then why bother having a consensus? Go out on the web and create your own encyclopedia and use whatever words you want. Have at it! Heck, let me know and I'll check it out... but the consensus HERE is that "compete" is the proper word. By the way, I don't give a rip one way or another about Minnesota or even Big Ten football at all, I still think that "compete" is the correct word.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Using "compete" as a synonym for "member" does not make logical sense. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 03:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
You are right, Bugs. "Compete" is not a synonym for "member". However, that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not "compete in a conference" is a synonym for "member of a conference". Seven have said it is and one has said it is not. 7>1. Give it up! Iowa13 (talk) 03:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I think "play" was in there somewhere as well. But back to the topic. I can see where you're coming from, Bugs, and understand your argument. I just don't think that anyone here is intending the use of "compete" to purposefully connote any sort of NPOV statement. JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Your argument is certainly understood, Bugs. It is simply too miniscule an issue to require revision. I don't believe that your comments about the Minnesota football team have anything to do with your reasoning, but they definitely did not help your case. Had you employed a little more diplomacy in the first place, we would have been able to debate this issue logically from the start, rather than having to first get past the idea that, to quote NMajdan, you had an agenda. Regardless, we can consider this discussion finished. There is nothing more to be said. Iowa13 (talk) 04:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
It boils down to the dichotomy between the dictionary definition of "compete", which is your argument, vs. the way the term is actually used, which is why I claim it is inappropriate, because the Gophers were virtually non-competitive all year. However, I am pleased to note that some of you are finally understanding my argument, even if not agreeing with it. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I understand the argument, I just don't care. This is taking away from my editing work on small colleges. Stop it, everyone! (me included)!--Paul McDonald (talk) 06:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I am getting VERY IRRITATED at being accused of being on a one-man crusade. Read the various ways "compete" is used in this set of articles [4] before you bash my opinions further. The term "compete" can be used to mean "striving to win" (as you all want it to mean exclusively) and is VERY OFTEN used to mean "capable of winning". It ain't just me. And, FYI, I'm a Cubs fan, so I know from losing and not being competitive. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 16:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, if this upsets you this much, maybe you need to take a little wikibreak. Honestly, if there was something I firmly believed in but I was the only one that felt that way compared to several others who disagreed, I would let it go. Let it go. Like I said earlier, feel free to invite someone else someone else outside of this WikiProject to voice their opinion.↔NMajdan•talk 16:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Being outnumbered by the 7 others who happened to edit this page does nothing to contradict the frequent media usage of "compete" to mean capable of winning. And your patronizing comments (a veiled way of saying "get lost") are unbecoming of you as an admin. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 17:04, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
In no way am I asking you to "get lost." I am asking that, for your sake, move on. Obviously you have no interest in pursuing this to the next level as I have invited you to bring more outside parties into the discussion and you have not. Unfortunately, this discussion is not getting anyone anywhere. The consensus by members of this project is that the usage of compete in is perfectly acceptable, as is member of, participate in, play in, etc. So, we feel there is no issue in leaving it to the editor's discretion on which usage to utilize.↔NMajdan•talk 17:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Your response indicates part of the issue; one may compete without being competitive. You are conflating the two words (as other people sometimes do per your link) but the big problem is that you are stridently insisting on your particular connotation of compete when it is perfectly acceptable as NPOV to the vast majority (and proper by authority) when used in its ordinary definition here. Your digs at Minnesota in your summaries and comments have made it appear you have an agenda; it's hard to recover from that history once it's out there. AUTiger » talk 18:45, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Earlier, someone cited wiktionary's definition of "compete" as a defense for using that term. Your citation's definition of "compete" is similar to wiktionary's, but your citation's definition of "competitive", curiously, is at some odds with the wiktionary definition of "competitive": [5] Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Besides this, it is time you stop frequently alluding to "media hype" and "media usage". This is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper — Wikipedia is not bound by media definitions. A newspaper editor reviewing an unbiased account of a football team may not wish to use the word "compete", for, as you said, it may have biased connotations when it appears in a newspaper. When the word "compete" appears in a place which is required to be completely unbiased, such discretion is not necessary. AUTigers also makes an excellent point — the ability to compete is not synonomous with the ability to be competitive. Iowa13 (talk) 21:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't care anymore. I thought this discussion was dead and archived. Tell you what, if I agree with you and we change "compete" to "play" can we end this topic and move on?--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
No, change "compete in" to "member of". Then you've got it. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 00:34, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Ummm.. no, it's already been explained that those are not synonyms. Western Kentucky is a member of the Sun Belt Conference, but their football team does not (yet) compete in the Sun Belt conference. Notre Dame, Villanova and Georgetown are all members of the Big East, but none of their football teams compete in the Big East. AUTiger » talk 01:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Or play, for that matter. :) JKBrooks85 (talk) 02:30, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
The Iowa Hawkeyes football team, for example, is a member of and participates in the Big Ten conference. The fact that they "play" (or "compete", as you prefer to say) football games is understood by their being members of the football aspect of that conference. If a football team is a member of a conference but somehow does not actually play any games in that conference (a concept you would need to explain to me in more depth), then that fact could be added. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 03:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Colorado is a member of the Big 12. They do not play against any other Big 12 school in Skiing. A member of the Big 12 but yet, they do not compete against the Big 12? That's excatly what you asked for. Football/Skiing are interchangeable (except for the fact that Colorado does compete in football in the Big 12). This actually is explained on Colorado Buffaloes. (BTW, the Big 12 doesn't offer skiing as a sport.) MECU≈talk 04:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Western Kentucky joined the Sun Belt as part of their transition to the FBS; however, they have yet to begin formal competition within the conference. The move from FCS to FBS is usually cluttered with complications like that. Iowa13 (talk) 04:17, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
In another example, the Gophers football and basketball teams are members of and participate in the Big Ten. The Gophers ice hockey team is a member of and participates in the WCHA. So if you want to look at it from the perspective of the school itself (for schools without individual sport pages, although that's not the case with the Big 10 football teams), the U of M is a member of both the Big 10 and the WCHA. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:19, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Another example is the Illinois State University Redbirds, whose basketball team participates in the Missouri Valley Conference and whose football team participates in the Gateway Football Conference. Thus, ISU itself is a member of both conferences. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:30, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
The article on Oregon Ducks says they are "part of" the Pac 10, a colloquial way of saying "member of". They talk about "competing" on the University of Oregon page, where they discuss the perennial intra-state rivalry with Oregon State University. That is a proper use of the term "compete". I could change "part of" to "member of", though they convey the same non-POV, non-hype message. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 08:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of this "consensus" vote (7-1), the term "member of" more accurately and unambiguously describes the situation than "competes in". The continued insistence on using that ambiguous and hype-laden word, along with threats to somehow get me banned for refusing to back down, amounts to bullying on the part of at least some of those seven users. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

However, I would welcome the chance for a wider audience than just these seven to weigh in on this semantics issue. So if they want to bring it up for a more general review, that would be fine. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 19:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Look, the truth is that the consensus is so overwhelming that many people probably didn't even bother to add their voices to the discussion. I think we all consider the matter closed and don't see much need to go elsewhere. A school is a "member of" and a sports team "competes". The burden is really on you at this point. You made more of your changes earlier today. You should stop making changes that go against this consensus opinion. Gopherguy | Talk 19:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

If we're counting votes, then make it 8-1. If we're trying to arrive at a rationale in support of of the eight, I'd say it's simply that when two teams get together to play a formally sanctioned football game, they are competing. This is true whether or not one of the two teams has any reasonable hope of success in that competition. "Playing" without "competing" is called a scrimmage, or perhaps an exhibition. JohnInDC (talk) 19:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with that usage, and I left it alone when it appeared in that context. The problem I have is with using "compete in" as a synonym for "member of", which it is not, and even some of the seven have agreed with that fact. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 19:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

"The Golden Gophers football team is a member of the Big Ten" is clear, unambiguous, and factual.

"Compete" is asserted as meaning "striving to win" by dictionary definition, although many sports fans take it to mean "having a reasonable chance to win". Either way is good, in its usage in specific games or rivalries. "The Golden Gophers football team strives to win in the Big Ten" sounds like rah-rah, sis-boom-bah, media hype. How is that "encyclopedic"? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Since Bugs has not made an effort to bring in an outside opinion, I have. I do want to resolve this situation and I think to best do that, we need the opinion of somebody outside this discussion and preferably with little knowledge of these articles. Only they can tell us if using compete the way we have is in any way confusing or POV.↔NMajdan•talk 20:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Excellent. And I'll go with the judgment of a larger audience and cease discussion on this semantic point if they don't agree (even though I'm right). Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc?

Outside opinion: I don't see what the problem is with "compete". It seems to be the more accurate term. Baseball Bugs point seems based on POV logic. BB, would you mind restating your position (in like 3 sentences or less?) Phyesalis (talk) 21:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Soitenly. They are using "compete" as a synonym for "member" and claiming it's a better term. They are also saying that "compete" means "strive to win", whereas the public and fans often interpret it to mean "capable of winning". So, I ask you, which of these three sentences sounds the most "encyclopedic", factual, neutral, and unambiguous:
[team] is a member of [conference]
[team] strives to win in [conference]
[team] is capable of winning [conference]
I argue that the first is factual and neutral, the second sounds like media hype, and the third is obviously true only of contenders. That's my complaint, in a nutshell. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 00:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Outside opinion

  1. This discussion is entirely based on ridiculously asinine debate over word choice. "Compete" is a perfectly acceptable word choice in general. Whether they have a prayer of winning (or are competitive) is another matter of debate, but one relegated to talk pages or professional sports opinions. A football game is, by definition, a game in which teams compete for victory. This should not be something to argue about.
  2. Each use of the word should be tempered by its unique situation: "Notre Dame competes in the Big Ten" is inaccurate since they play games against others in the NCAA. However, "The Gophers opened up their football schedule competing against Ohio State." Is perfectly acceptable as is "Texas A&M opened Big XII competition with a victory against Baylor".
  3. Bugs, please read WP:CONSENSUS and WP:POINT. You have an overwhelming majority against you and no one agrees with you, at least not completely. This should be dropped as a point of contention between yourselves and other editors, period.
  4. Candidate for WP:LAME? — BQZip01 — talk 04:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Kindly explain how "compete in" can not only be considered a synonym for "member of", but somehow better than "member of". Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 04:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  1. I never said that
  2. It depends on usage (as do all words in the English language): "As a member of the Big XII Conference, Texas A&M has 14 varsity teams. Home games for the football team are played at Kyle Field while the baseball team play at Olsen Field. Other facilities/venues where the teams play include..."" Is accurate, but uses "play" way to much. Throwing in "compete" for "play" makes the sentences less redundant with regards to word usage, yet remains accurate.
  3. While it is 100% accurate that they "compete in" the Big XII, it is more complete to claim they "compete in" the NCAA, since they don't play teams exclusively from that conference. Both statements are still accurate. If you are trying to state they are a member of a certain conference, then you should talk about their membership, not competition. If you are trying to show teams they play in the conference, "compete" is certainly accurate, but avoid usage that suggests they ONLY compete against conference foes.
— BQZip01 — talk 17:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't question that they compete in individual games, as per the strict dictionary definition of "compete" (as opposed to the colloquial usage of "having a prayer" to win). The problem is that using it as a synonym for membership, as these articles do, is improper usage. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 09:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, you did (if not indirectly):
"Actually, it's your football team that's the "joke"...the use of this term as a synonym for belonging to a conference is nothing more than sales-and-marketing hype..."
Furthermore, your comments are very patronizing/rude/uncivil:
"College games used to be able to end in ties. One of the most famous, as I recall was an Army vs. Notre Dame game many decades ago. Yet that game constituted a competition. I maintain that the word "compete in" is marketing hype. But you fan-boys won't stand for anything else, so you win this semantic "competition" by brute force rather than by good sense and clarity." Implication that others opinions are not valid due to their associations is a violation of WP:AGF and further comments violate WP:CIVIL
"The fact that coaches like to use that term underscores the point that it's hype" That anyone uses it proves nothing other than they use it.
"My comments are a mixture of satire and fact, not the article entries. For example, the only thing the Gophers seemed to "striving" for this year was to go 0-12, which they failed to do. And why is the word not used this way in the pros? Do they not also "compete"? Certainly the word turns up at all levels of sports, in the sense of competition for victory." Violations of WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:NOT, etc.
etc.
In short, please try to tone it down a bit. — BQZip01 — talk 10:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
We're talking about football teams here, not religious affiliations (right?) It is perfectly fair, and American tradition, to make fun of teams that perform poorly. As a Cubs fan for decades, I have suffered many slings and arrows. But you still have the right to make fun of the Cubs, and I have the right to make fun of the current Gophers, the recent (and yesterday's) Illini, and so on. Meanwhile, I am still waiting for someone to explain how "compete in" qualifies as a synonym for "member of". Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 11:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Bugs said he'd go with the outsider's assessment and end discussion of the point, so why do we continue to beat on it? It's all so, so - 2007. Surely we can find newer windmills at which to tilt. JohnInDC (talk) 12:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

One new opinion: to say that a team competes in a division sounds a bit like they compete only in a division. I have no problem saying a team competes in the NFL or NCAA but I don't hear that the New York Jets compete in the AFC East because they also compete outside the AFC East. Food for thought. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:41, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a perfectly valid argument. Kinda ironic, Bugs may get his wish but for a completely different reason altogether. A team can compete in the Big 12, as they are competing for that conference's championship but does saying that imply they don't have other games outside of that? Is a better phrase "The Oklahoma Sooners compete in NCAA Division I FBS and are a member of the Big 12 Conference"?↔NMajdan•talk 14:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Personally, yes, I like that better. After that, you could still wind up back at the "compete" vs. "member of" argument. Count me as an "abstain" vote on that front. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
To further parse matters: It is probably correct, or at least not a stretch, to say that the Sooners also "compete" each year for the Big 12 title - but for some of the lesser teams in that conference, that particular phrasing is perhaps a little too optimistic. Baylor competes with teams in the Big 12. Baylor competes in the Big 12. But to say that Baylor competes each year for the Big 12 title is kind of heavy lifting for the word. JohnInDC (talk) 15:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Wknight94 makes the best case so far for "member of". I second NMajdan's adjustment, which shows that Oklahoma does not compete exclusively in the Big 12. However, keep in mind that sometimes FBS teams also compete against FCS teams. In that sense, it may need to be shown that (i.e.) Oklahoma is, as with the Big 12, a member of NCAA Division I FBS, while not limiting competition to it. Just something to think about — I personally would suggest avoiding such an obstacle. It would be a very sticky situation, as not all FBS teams have competed against FCS teams. Michigan's 2007 game against Appalachian State, for example, was their first ever against a non-FBS opponent. I also second the suggestion that this ridiculous discussion become a candidate for WP:LEW. I think we're nearing 100 posts. Iowa13 (talk) 16:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
What I'm seeing in the outsiders' comments is that "competes in" is ambiguous and misleading, which is exactly what I've been saying all along. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 16:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps, but the outsiders' observations have largely focused on the denotative meaning of "compete" (i.e., to play against, strive toward) rather than the connotative meaning (e.g., "... with some reasonable prospect of winning") on which your complaint seems largely to rest. JohnInDC (talk) 17:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Either way, the outsiders' opinions reinforce the fact that "compete" is not, in fact, the best term to use here. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Where are all of these "outsiders' opinions" that back you up? I see four outside opinions - one completely against you, two mostly against you but asking that care be taken with the wording to not imply that teams only compete within their own conference/division and one who agrees with your point about bad teams not "competing". By my count, adding to the already existing 8-1 consensus, it is now 11-2 against you. Why don't you consider it a victory that we'll all take a look at the wording associated with using "compete" to be sure that it doesn't seem to imply that the competition is limited and move on to doing constructive work instead of keeping this tedious, pointless discussion going? Gopherguy | Talk 18:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
You are personalizing this into a voting bloc, ignoring the issues that have been raised. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it's not about number of votes - Wikipedia is not a Democracy. It would be easy to sign up for multiple accounts to inflate vote totals. I'm just pointing out those numbers because they're so overwhelmingly against you. Gopherguy | Talk 18:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
That doesn't make you all right, and me wrong. You need to address the issue raised. You need to explain why "compete" is superior to "member". There are no ambiguities in "member", and there are several in "compete". Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
First of all, the overwhelming consensus is that "compete" is correct, so I don't need to explain anything. However, I do need to point out that there are also ambiguities with "member"... I am a member of the American Diabetes Association, but I do not "compete" in the ADA, so simply being a member of something does not mean you compete with other members. The Minnesota Vikings are a member of the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce as well as the NFL and the NFC North Division. They don't compete in the Chamber of Commerce, but they do in the NFL and their division. Gopherguy | Talk 19:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, no, that doesn't follow. Just like the "best" team in the Big 12 may still have suffered a loss or two, the "best" term here may not be perfect. It simply needs to be better than the alternatives. JohnInDC (talk) 18:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
And "member" is better than "compete". Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
First of all, that problem could be avoided by saying that "the New York Jets compete in the NFL and in the AFC East Division". For example, on the Gopher football page, the phrase that BB changed which started this whole issue says "they compete in NCAA Division I-A and the Big Ten Conference" which is perfectly acceptable (and yes, I realize that the Division I-A reference should be changed to the FBS, but I've avoided changing it until this editing issue quiets down). Furthermore, college football is different from pro football because only conference games count toward who wins a conference, so Michigan's loss to Appalachian State was not relevant when they were lining up against Ohio State for a share of the Big Ten title. Gopherguy | Talk 18:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
If you have to start coming up with ways to word the sentence in order to still use the word "compete", then the issue is clearly with trying to use "compete". Also, every major team presumably also "competes" for the BCS championship, which includes non-conference games. Further, using "compete" is a redundancy because it's a given that teams will "strive to win" no matter who they're playing against. Using "compete" as a synonym for "member" does not work. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Eh. If you have to start coming up with qualifiers to the term "member" ("Notre Dame is a member of the Big East Conference - but not in football") in order to still use the phrase "member of", then the issue is clearly with trying to use "member of". JohnInDC (talk) 18:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Notre Dame University is a member of the Big East. Notre Dame football is independent. I have made this point several times but it keeps getting ignored. U of M is a member of both the Big Ten and the WCHA. The football and basketball teams are in the Big Ten, the hockey team is in the WCHA. It's a given that they "compete" in their respective games, so stating it is silly. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The deletionists have zapped one of the two illustrations in Minnesota Golden Gophers football and are about to zap the other one. Good luck "competing" with the deletionists. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Someone else has restored the deleted or to-be-deleted items, presumably with a valid FU rationale now. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Are we done yet? Somebody wake me up when this is over and we can have our talk page back... can someone be a "member" of WikiProject College football but then be "competing" for attention on the talk page??? Anyway, I'm going to take a Wikinap until this is over... --Paul McDonald (talk) 18:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
You really help your side of the argument by throwing pointless, unrelated items into the debate. Gopherguy | Talk 19:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Gopher! You have attacked my argument and still managed to prove my point all at the same time. This discussion IS pointless! But as a side benefit, I've now coined the term Wikinap for all of us to use and enjoy...--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if you misunderstood - I only indented my comment once because it was a reply to Baseball Bugs, not to you. I agree that this debate has gone on WAY too long and should end ASAP. We just need to convince Bugs of that. Gopherguy | Talk 19:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
What you need to do is convince me that you have addressed all the issues raised. You have not. Every "answer" you give raises new questions. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 19:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

No, bugs. What you need to do is realize that the consensus is against your idea. Right or wrong, that's the consensus. Wikipedia does not exist to make any one person 100% happy, but to build a consensus resource. (Dang, I just woke up from my Wikinap).--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

My goal is to make things clear to a reader who might not understand how you all are using the term "compete". That is more important than we-win-you-lose votes on the matter. Maybe when the term "compete" is used in this ambiguous way, you need to include a footnote that points to the wiktionary definition. It was that ambiguity that brought me to this issue in the first place, and you all have not fixed the problem. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
That is, is the article written just to serve you 7/11, or the die-hard football fans, or is it supposed to be written in an encyclopedic way, using terminology that is plain and unconfusing to the more general reader? When I landed on the Gophers page, looking for info, when I saw that word "compete" following their disastrous season, my immediate reaction was, "Compete? Ha!" How many hundreds or thousands of other readers might have similar reactions, but just didn't or don't bother raising the issue and just snicker to themselves about both the article and its fan-oriented editors? In short, Who are these articles really written for? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 20:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't matter whether someone might get a bit of a rise at the wording - it only matters whether it is the proper way to describe it and the consensus is that it is. I might have a bit of a chuckle when I look at the Keanu Reeves page and see that it refers to him as an "actor", but whatever my personal opinion of his acting ability is, "actor" is a proper term to describe what he does for a living. Gopherguy | Talk 22:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it does. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a rah-rah-sis-boom-bah fansite. And there is no ambiguity in calling Keanu Reeves an actor, because that is his profession, he gets paid for it. If you were to say "Keanu Reeves competes for an Oscar in every role", that would be POV-pushing. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 22:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Wow, thanks! You have nicely painted yourself into a corner! How do athletes earn their money (or tuition in the case of college athletes)? They COMPETE on the field against other athletes! Therefore, since the vital part of their profession is "competing", it's absolutely proper to use the term in describing what they do. We can finally end this discussion... there's nowhere else for you to take it. Gopherguy | Talk 22:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, and I'm OK with that wording when it pertains to individual games and players. It emphasizes the heightened level of interest in particular games, etc. Using "compete in" as a synonym for "member of", as you all insist on doing, is not proper usage. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
OK - here's where you seem to be having a disconnect. Nobody is claiming that "compete in" is a synonym for "member of". There's no question that they mean different things. We're claiming that "compete in" is a more accurate way to describe a sports team's membership in a conference/league/division. As I said elsewhere, teams can be "members of" many organizations that have nothing to do with the games it plays, so saying that a team "competes in" a conference is a more complete way to describe it than simply to say they are a "member of". Besides, I'd argue that the way you use "member of" is inaccurate. The Gopher football team is not a "member of the Big Ten", it "competes in the Big Ten". The University of Minnesota, however, IS a "member of the Big Ten" whose sports teams (other than hockey) "compete in the Big Ten". Gopherguy | Talk 23:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

You say that your goal is to be more clear, but it seems your only intent to ridicule the University of Minnesota's football team in light of their most recent season. Oh, and I have no idea how many hundreds or thousands of other readers had the same reaction as you and yet didn't bother raising the issue because they... well... didn't bother to ... raise... the ... issue...

...But if you want, I'd be willing to grant that thousands of people agreed with you but didn't think it was worth mentioning.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Reacting with "You've got to be kidding" was the starting point, and it occurred to me others might think the same way. If anything, I am trying to reduce the likelihood of ridicule of the sacrosanct Gophers football team. I have yet to see any evidence that "compete in" is better than or even as good as "member of", be it for the Gophers or the Buckeyes, nor that any of the 7/11 care about making things as clear as possible to the general audience beyond the hard-core football fans who are apparently supposed to inherently know that "compete" precisely means "striving for" rather than "capable of winning" as it is widely used (and which an "outsider" spoke of in the same way, earlier today). Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 21:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised by all the letters spilled on this topic. My opinion: "competes in" is synonymous with "plays in". The question of if they effectively compete/play is something else entirely. This shouldn't be wasting as much otherwise productive time as it is. Why not move on? --Bobak (talk) 22:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I was about ready to give up, but the "outsiders" raised new questions that have yet to be properly addressed. "We've outvoted you" does not address these questions. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 22:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not that we disagree with you, it's just that we don't care! And neither do the alleged thousands of others who saw the page and didn't think it was worth mentioning either. This argument has been dead so long it's decomposing...--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

That you don't care is plainly evident. As an editor, you should care about the wording of the articles. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
This is now officially interfering with our project. I check my "watch" list and there's a new edit here almost every time... and it almost always points to this discussion. THere are other college football project related discussions of more importance, at least to me. Can we find someplace else for this? Maybe a Controversy: "Member Of" vs. "Competes in" page? But the bottom line is that I'm sure I and most likely others are now missing critical discussions about our related topics on College Football because the "Watch" gets updated to this. Can something be done?--Paul McDonald (talk) 23:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I see that the USC football page words it this way, and I think this is a good model for the Big 10 football pages to follow: "The USC Trojans football program, established in 1888, is a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-A and the Pacific Ten Conference (Pac-10) under head coach Pete Carroll." Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break #1

BB, Since my post I've been reading the feedback and throughout the discussion something always bothered me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it until someone mentioned it above. The football teams are not "members" of a conference, but the school is. Accordingly, there shouldn't be any mention as the team belonging to a certain conference, but that the school is a member of the conference. A "team" or individual can "compete" in any venue it chooses to compete, but conference affiliations are between schools, not football teams. Accordingly, I support the general consensus of this subset of the Wikipedia community that "compete" is an appropriate word choice.

Additionally, please read WP:CONSENSUS. It states that a vote, while not binding, does help establish a baseline for claiming consensus and shows where everyone stands. Furthermore, the general tone from the quantity of editors is that they don't support your opinion (as another editor stated, "right or wrong" is irrelevant...especially when one takes into account that an opinion about word choice cannot explicitly be "right" or "wrong"). I've been "outvoted" before and yielded to consensus. It really shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Then I reckon you need to contact the user who wrote the University of Southern California Trojans football description 2 1/2 years ago [6] (and cited in previous section) and slap him around for his "incorrect" usage. That might be about the only way for a Big Ten team to beat USC this season. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 12:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll refrain from voting, so the Big Ten can go undefeated. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 18:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
You won't "compete" in this vote? Just a joke to brighten the mood :-). — BQZip01 — talk 23:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

38-24 in the BCS championship, somewhat of an improvement on last year's 41-14 rout. If this is the best the Big Ten can do... if this is your idea of "competing"... maybe the Big Ten should give up football and take up something they know how to do. I'm thinking they could easily beat the likes of LSU and Florida in Competitive Snowplowing, for example. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 10:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, was this all a discussion on the comparative merits of the two conferences? You should have been clearer, Bugs. I would have said SEC from the get-go and we'd have saved ourselves quite a bit of angst. I will try to read more carefully in the future! JohnInDC (talk) 12:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Ironically, the statement that they "compete in the Big Ten (BUT NOWHERE ELSE)" turns out to be TRUE. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 16:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Once again Bugs, you're showing why no one has taken this discussion seriously. You have continually shown yourself to be a disruptive contributor here by making comments that clearly show you are in no way looking for a POV solution as you yourself have made numerous comments such as this. This matter is closed.↔NMajdan•talk 17:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
And you all have continually betrayed far too much "fan-boy" sensitivity in defense of your prescious sports teams. You have adequately demonstrated my original point, that you all are guilty of OWNERSHIP and POV-PUSHING. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 17:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I was going to ask before taking action, but given the last comment, I don't think it is necessary. I am going to manually archive this discussion after my lunch unless there is a reason not to.↔NMajdan•talk 17:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Vote

In order to clarify everyone's position, please state your support or opposition to the following statement:

The phrase "competes in" may be used when describing a football team's conference affiliation

Support

Oppose

Comments

Baseball Bugs warned

I have warned Baseball Bugs that he is being destructive, that future such behavior could result in blocking, and that if he wishes to continue the matter that the proper venue should be RfC.[7] Johntex\talk 17:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This has already been through an RfC and at least two outsiders have sided with the majority.↔NMajdan•talk 17:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Woops, I should have realized that is where the outside comments came from. Johntex\talk 17:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Mascots

I've been going through and adding WP:CFB tags to the talk pages of college football articles that need them, and I've run across a few college mascot pages that aren't part of the Wikiproject. That brings up an interesting argument -- should mascots be included in this Wikiproject?

My initial thought is no. After all, they're not specific to football alone, and represent the entire athletic department and school, not just the football team. But we've also got two in our list of high-rank college football articles. So I ask you all -- should mascots be included in this wikiproject? JKBrooks85 (talk) 02:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

  • I believe all mascots should be included. The pageantry of college football is one of the big attractions for many people and the mascots are an important part of that. Yes, mascots do show up at other sports, but most people see them in connection with football. This is especially true for live mascots like Bevo and Ralphie. You won't often see them supporting the baseball or football or swimming teams. The mascots should be included along with other school traditions that relate to football. Johntex\talk 16:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
    • It's hard for Ralphie to support baseball and swimming when Colorado doesn't have those sports. But true, Ralphie only does football. Probably doesn't get good traction on the hardwood of basketball and volleyball. But if CU did have baseball, I would think running her across the outfield would be cool. But back on topic, I think mascots should be under the project. MECU≈talk 16:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
      • No baseball at CU, eh? I didn't know that. Mark that down as something new I've learned today. Good luck in the 2007 Independence Bowl today. After the Aggies let the conference down yesterday we're counting on CU to put us back above .500 for the bowl season. Johntex\talk 17:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
      • By the way, I proposed some time ago that traditions such as Aggie Bonfire and college marching bands such as Fightin' Texas Aggie Band should be included in the project.[8] The small amount of discussion that occurred supported the idea that the Bonfire is in the scope of this project. There was no consensus on the band. Both of those articles are FA and the Aggie Bonfire was on the Main Page yesterday. I think that is the first Main Page FA for the project. Johntex\talk 18:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree they should be part of the project.↔NMajdan•talk 18:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Agree they should be part of this project; I believe that was the consensus when this came up previously. As JohnTex indicates, the pageantry is part of what separates this game from the pros. AUTiger » talk 21:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone have a link to the previous discussion? JKBrooks85 (talk) 18:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I just checked the very first archive of this page, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive-Jun2006 and there is a mention there. Also, back in August 2006 we created Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Team Articles. That page is a handy reference to what teams are still missing football articles. There is also a column for mascots and football stadiums. Johntex\talk 06:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Selected Image on Portal

Why is the portal asking for an image for 2007/1? It should be looking for 2008/1, which already exists. Can someone fix this? JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Done.↔NMajdan•talk 23:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Assuming too much with the automatic "®" on team pages?

I just noticed that all the base team pages have the "®" automatically added to the end of the image. While most schools have registered their trademarks, there's always a possibility that a school might be ™ for whatever reason (especially if its new). I just tend to lean away from blanketing, sight unseen, any and every image with the "®". As a lawyer, I wouldn't do it unless I knew it was certain. --Bobak (talk) 22:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused. What is your main concern here as a lawyer? That Wikipedia will be sued for declaring an official logo as being a registered trademark? Or that the logo may be unofficial? So far as the first issue goes, I doubt that would happen. On the second, from my experience over the past few years of editing on WP, there are enough editors on here to police falsehoods or spoofs that I doubt very highly that anything left to stand for a few weeks would be anything less than an officially recognized logo. I'm not a lawyer -- not that one's profession should be a basis for anyone's credibility as an editor -- but it would seem reasonable (as well as consistent) with today's culture of brand marketing (not to mention our societal tendencies towards hyper-litigation)that a logo would not be used by an entity the size of a college or university unless it was trademarked. I doubt highly that a commonly recognized logo for any team would not be trademarked. An assumption, yes, but in this case I'd say it's likely a safe assumption. Ryecatcher773 (talk) 23:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Bobak. We are here to inform and to be as accurate as possible. We should not be making blanket alterations of these images under an assumption that they are all reserved trademarks. Does anyone know if any rational was provided before this change, or how the change was carried out? Johntex\talk 06:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Yep ... we definitely shouldn't be adding the R when we have no idea what the logo's trademark status is. Also, even if we did, a good number of them have the R built into the logo itself, so our addition of the R is merely an unsightly addition. And even if we know it is registered and the image doesn't have it built in, we are under no obligation to put it there so it doesn't really help anything. --B (talk) 15:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Huge jump in article count

Ok, I'm confused. Yesterday, when I left, we had slightly over 4400 articles in this project. I get here today and we have nearly 9400? Where did these 5000 articles come from? I requested a both go through a list of 2000 articles and tag any that were not part of the project but a) I don't know if that was done yet and b) I was expecting maybe 20% of those 2000 to not be tagged. Does anybody have any clue where these 5000 came from?↔NMajdan•talk 14:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that a LOT of the LSU articles on my watchlist were tagged last night by User:BetacommandBot. I'm guessing this happened to a lot of other teams articles as well. Seancp (talk) 14:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I assume you mean a "bot". This much I can tell you - several names and stadiums I'm watching were all tagged by BetacommandBot between 06:48 and 07:06 today, UTC: Jackie Robinson‎, Jack Buck‎, Hayward Field‎, Harry Caray‎, Forbes Field, Exposition Park (Pittsburgh)‎. And they all have some connection to college football. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 14:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I guess as long as the articles tagged are connected to the project, then there isn't an issue. Which begs the question, how in the world did we have 5000 articles that should have belonged to our project that did not? Unfortunately, this kills our FA/GA/B-to-article count ratio. I did ask that BCBot go through the subcategories or Category:College football and tag any untagged articles cause I was doing it with AWB and noticing a lot of untagged but I had no idea it would be this many.↔NMajdan•talk 15:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The bot isn't even finished tagging yet so there is more to come.↔NMajdan•talk 15:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Currently, Betacommandbot is tagging every current NFL player (under the presumption that they played college football at some level, somewhere) with the college football project according to my watchlist of several NFL players. Keeper | 76 17:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Not just current; a lot of retired players on my watchlist are being tagged as well. Wizardman 17:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
This is partly my fault. I did ask that articles under the college football category be tagged. So, of course, that also went through Category:College football players and all subdirectories. I guess, technically, these articles should be part of the project but maybe there was a reason they were not before.↔NMajdan•talk 17:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess what might be the problem is how far do we want to go in terms of tagging. While tagging Vinny Testaverde makes perfect sense, given his role at Miami, is tagging Ken Clark (running back) necessary? That kind of stuff will apparently need to be decided. Wizardman 17:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

If you look at a couple of the recently tagged sample pages, Talk:Ray Edwards, Talk:Aundrae Allison, Talk:Tarvaris Jackson (think maybe I'm a vikes fan?:-) you'll see that the first box is now for college football, then usually a BLP box, then NFL, and then Vikes. Not sure if I like the order of it, or the confusion of belonging to so many groups. And I'm guessing that adding 5000 players (probably more) to your "to-do" list isn't exaclty appealing either. Keeper | 76 17:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Thats just how the bot works. It can't order them, so it just adds the banner to the top of the page.↔NMajdan•talk 17:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you could have restricted the bot to articles where the word "compete" appears. >:) Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 17:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

A bunch more showed up a little while ago. [9] Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 19:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
A lot are probably showing up from my work creating small college coach stubs. Lessie... I've done coaching histories for:
  1. Southwestern College
  2. Washburn University
  3. Wichita State University
  4. Northwest Missouri State University
  5. Eastern New Mexico University
  6. University of Texas at Arlington
  7. Emporia State University
  8. Malone College Athletics
  9. Saginaw Valley State University
  10. Southern Illinois Salukis
  11. Dickinson College
  12. Colgate University
  13. Frostburg State University
  14. Mount Ida College
  15. Lehigh Mountain Hawks
  16. Drake University
  17. Temple Owls football
  18. Lindenwood University
  19. Tabor College (Kansas)
  20. Bacone College
  21. Avila University
  22. Illinois State Redbirds

...I'm sure I'm missing some, plus I've completed several schools of coaches without pages for every coach (Kansas State, Kansas, Temple, etc). At an average of 20 coaches per school, that works out to be about 440 new articles from my work in small colleges. It's my fault!--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

New WVU Head Coach

Bill Stewart's page is brand new and could use some help. With some great editing work I think it would be a perfect candidate for "Did you know...?" on the Main Wikipedia page. I already added his entry to the "New College Football articles" on the main page. Please help is you can. Thanks! Seancp (talk) 14:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Boston College Eagles football

The page, Boston College Eagles football is in poor shape. I have been trying do make it better, but particular season's may help it, A Post of Each Season's Record, and a More In-Depth History. --IAMTHEEGGMAN (talk) 21:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

"Attempt"?

OK, I've made this comment to others in the past. I don't get this "attempt" wording. If this is a project, then it has an objective. It shouldn't be worded so tentatively. It should say "this project's objective is..." Keep in mind the following credos:

"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." -- Vince Lombardi
"There is no substitute for victory." -- Douglas MacArthur, also the motto of Red Blaik and his assistant coach at Army, Vince Lombardi
"There is no 'try'. Do, or do not." -- Yoda

Template:WikiProject College football

Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 11:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I favor changes as well. Something a little less tentative. JKBrooks85 (talk) 16:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

BCS Stadium Templates trough 2018

I have noted on the pages that the Bowl Championship Series contracts are up in 2010. However the location templates of the [[BCS National Championship Game go on to 2018 on the pages of Louisiana Superdome, Dolphin Stadium, Rose Bowl, and University of Phoenix Stadium. With the possible addition of the Sugar Bowl being added to the rotation. Are those venues all confirmed for those years of the BCS. If they are not confirmed then they should be removed from those pages immediately. Sawblade05 (talk to me | my wiki life) 21:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the links that you're talking about. Where on the pages are they? JKBrooks85 (talk) 22:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
He meant the overzealous addition of succession boxes on those articles. AUTiger » talk 23:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah. Yes, there were quite a few of those. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I assume you mean the Cotton Bowl and not the Sugar Bowl, which is played at the Superdome. Anyway, it wasn't an issue on the Superdome article and you could have just fixed it on the others as I just did. AUTiger » talk 23:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Yea that is what I ment Cotton Bowl Sawblade05 (talk to me | my wiki life) 01:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Season article question

I've been working on 2008 Iowa Hawkeyes football team for awhile now, but I've come across a question that I think should be brought up here. In the schedule, I linked the opposing teams to the university page, rather their respective 2008 season pages. I did this for the sake of not being repetitive, as the 2008 season pages will be linked in the game notes (or in my case, the season) section. I know I might be fretting about nothing, but I thought there should be at least some consensus in how I do this.

I was also wondering about the possibility of someone just going through the article just to give me things to improve on (such as NPOV issues) as we reach a "dead" period in college football. I'd very much appreciate any outside input on this article; I've pretty much been the only one working on it. Thanks in advance. CrdHwk (talk) 04:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest inserting the 2008 season pages. I don't think it's repetitive, and it's a more appropriate link. The university pages won't help a reader if (s)he's looking for college football information, and I think it's a good idea overall. In addition, I'd suggest creating a space for the Spring Game (if Iowa has one), since that's usually covered pretty well in major football markets. JKBrooks85 (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with JKBrooks, but I also have the following fall-backs if there isn't a 2008 season page available: If there isn't a season page, I move to the general football page (i.e. Duke Blue Devils football); if there isn't a football page I'd go to the general athletics page if available (i.e. Duke Blue Devils); if there's no separate athletic page, I'll to the general university page. --Bobak (talk) 20:32, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I second that. A lot of the smaller schools may not have separate season pages (Maine, FIU). JKBrooks85 (talk) 21:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Those seem like good ideas. I was going to add the spring game section in April when Iowa usually has one (it's more like a spring open practice, so I'm not sold on naming the section "Spring game" yet, but I'll figure it out). If you had time to read it, what'd you think of the article so far? Thanks for your suggestions. CrdHwk (talk) 22:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Or just use Template:Cfb link. But only when you need to. That is, if you know the season article exists, then use that link and not this template. Using this too many times on a page will cause errors and the page might not load correctly. This is because of an imposed limit on the number of times on of the functions can be used. The discussion about it may still be above. Otherwise it would be in the December archives. MECU≈talk 14:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I just want to go on record as saying that I think including the Spring Game in the schedule on team pages is not a good idea. It's not a real game and it does not count in the team's record. All spring game info should be in the "Pre-Season" section of team articles, IMHO. Seancp (talk) 22:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I would have put the "Spring game" subsection in the "Leading up to the season" section. It would probably go under the recruiting class subsection for my article, unless something especially noteworthy happens before that. I like to keep everything in chronological order in the "Leading up to ..." section. CrdHwk (talk) 22:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I think the thing I like the most about the article is the use of things like the Wisconsin helmet to illustrate key points. I absolutely love illustrative photos like that, and need to try to use them more. They're an excellent way to express key points in brief form and attract the eye very well.JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
My opinion is that the link should go to the most precise link available. It is easier for the reader to go "up" from the football team to the university if they want to read about the school than it is to travel "down" from the university to the football team or program. I also think the spring game should not appear on the schedule but should appear in the "Leading up to the season" section. Good article overall. Johntex\talk 17:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for all the suggestions and comments. Good to know that my fanatical support for the Hawks has not leaked into the article. :) CrdHwk (talk) 22:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Short article policy

What is our policy/Wikipedia policy on incredible short articles? I'm tempted to either prod or AfD articles that have no prose whatsoever such as 1999 Rose Bowl, 1894 Oregon Ducks football team, 1994 Oregon Ducks football team etc. Should we make it a rule that an article can not just contain a schedule or a result but must contain some form of prose? I'd even be more inclined to keep some of those season articles if they contain a bit more information like the coaching staff and roster. But in the current state of just a schedule, I think they should go. Any thoughts or should I go ahead and prod these types of articles? Going through the list of unassessed articles will probably yield many of these types of articles.↔NMajdan•talk 15:32, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

  • They are not very good articles, that's for sure.
However, I don't think a "prod" or an AfD is the best way to go. I think that the fact that someone thought these topics were important enough to start an article is an indication that someone may care enough to come along and expand them. We might as well preserve the starting point for them to build upon.
If the article contains no prose and if it has been in that state for a long time (E.g. 6 months) I would encourage making it a redirect to the appropriate article (E.g. the overall team article or bowl article) and putting a note on the Talk page. That way, if anyone does want to expand it in the future, they can at least find the previous content in the history.
Going through the deletion process just takes time and makes it harder on future editors, in my opinion. Johntex\talk 17:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I do agree with part of what you say. I disagree with your time frame. 6 months is a long time to leave such an inadequate article alone. The 1999 Rose Bowl article is already almost four months old. I will use my own judgment on time frame but I do like your suggestion of merely redirecting to, in this case, Rose Bowl (game) and leaving a note that is has been merged but leaving the article's history alone in case somebody does come back and wants to improve it. Any other comments?↔NMajdan•talk 17:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd agree with Johntex here. Even a poor article is better than no article at all. We should discourage people from creating more articles on this level, but not go out and fight them actively. After all, it's a lot less intimidating for a new/inexperienced user to expand an article than it is to create one from scratch, and at least some information is out there for any reader that stumbles across the page. JKBrooks85 (talk) 18:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Johntex says that after a certain time frame, say 3-6 months, where an article such as those posted with no prose has not been expanded, it should then we redirected to a broader article. Are you saying the article should be left alone, even with no prose?↔NMajdan•talk 18:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, is it hurting anything to leave them alone? I know it's technically against Wikipedia policy, but I'm really reluctant to delete good information, even when it's on an article like 1950 Oklahoma Sooners football team. JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Anytime a legitimate article gets deleted, it discourages new content getting created. If 2008 Rose Bowl is notable enough to warrant an article, then so is 1999 Rose Bowl. Just because it's a stub at this point doesn't mean it needs to be deleted (or redirected). It only means it needs to be expanded upon. In fact, the official Wikipedia:Deletion policy states, "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion. A variety of tags can be added to articles to note the problem." Seancp (talk) 19:17, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

screwed-up Navbox editing???

Hmmm... when I view Vince DiFrancesca, I see there are two coach's navboxes--ISU and Western Ill... so when I view/edit the page for Coach DiFran, I see that Western's navbox is "LeathernecksCoach" -- but when I click on "edit" it takes me to "Template:MSUBearsCoach" ... can anyone repeat this and offer a solution?--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Click here: Template:LeathernecksCoach then edit it appropriately. Be sure to fix the links in the top left corner. Seancp (talk) 16:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind, it was an easy fix so I just did it myself. Seancp (talk) 16:20, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! What happened? I've seen it once before but don't know what to do to fix it...
Check the edit history of Template:LeathernecksCoach and you'll see the change that I made. The template was basically "named" the wrong thing in the code. Seancp (talk) 18:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Assisstance tagging articles

So apparently, there were a lot of articles in the college football categories not tagged with our banner. I'm using AWB to go through and add them to the project but I'll have to go back and add ratings when I can. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Check out Category:Unassessed college football articles for the list. Thanks.↔NMajdan•talk 17:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Man, where did all these new articles come from? I'm not even through the Bs and I've added over 200 articles to the project. If it is somebody on here that is creating a lot of these articles, I beg you, please add the WikiProject banner to the talk page and maybe even rate it. Also, if its a person, add it to WPBio as well.↔NMajdan•talk 18:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah... I was going through Virginia Tech articles not too long ago, and kept running across things that didn't have the project tag on them. I'll pitch in after I get home from work. JKBrooks85 (talk) 18:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Confession--a lot of the coach articles are mine. I've been going back through and adding the tag manually, but I'm very grateful for the bot that's been running. It's been a big help!--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I figured as much when I saw that a lot of them were from smaller schools. As I mentioned above, it would a great help if you could tag newly created articles with out banner ({{WikiProject College football|class=|importance=}}) and for people, also add the Biography WikiProject Banner ({{WPBiography|sports-work-group=yes|living=|class=|priority=}}).↔NMajdan•talk 14:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Help needed

Ok, some serious help is needed getting all our new articles tagged. The bot that assesses articles that already have an assessment from another project has ran, so all that is left is unassessed articles. Any help would be appreciated.↔NMajdan•talk 15:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you do help tag articles, please look for other issues. Including, whatever the outcome of the discussion below regarding our short article policy is, add articles about people to the Biography Wikiproject ({{WPBiography|sports-work-group=yes|class=|living=}}), if the article has no references, add {{unreferenced}}, and if the article is about a living person with no references, then add {{BLPsources}}.↔NMajdan•talk 15:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm running across quite a few articles that have assessments from other Wikiprojects but don't have one for ours... wasn't the bot supposed to correct that? JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:13, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It should have been, yes.↔NMajdan•talk 19:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that, yes, the bot did run. Unless, of course, everyone on this project assessed 4,000 articles between January 3 and now. Unfortunately, we still have 6,400 to go.↔NMajdan•talk 21:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Gah! I was only seeing 9,400 articles on our assessment page... guess I should've checked the updated statistics. Wonder why it didn't catch a few, then. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, finished the 1s. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
E is done. I also added the capability to the tag to classify pages as "Redirects" and "Dab" (Disambiguation). MECU≈talk 19:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I made a bot request yesterday to assess as stub any article with a stub template but nobody has picked up the request yet.↔NMajdan•talk 19:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
That'd be really helpful if someone picks it up. JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

CFB award

I'd like to suggest that if anyone gives out our CFB barnstar award, that they publicize the fact here. This would help increase the benefit of getting such an award and we can all pile-on our thanks and see some more of the good works going on around the project. MECU≈talk 19:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I gave one to Paul McDonald not too long ago for all his work on the small college articles. JKBrooks85 (talk) 21:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, he has done a great job expanding Wikipedia's coverage on the oft-ignored part of college football.↔NMajdan•talk 15:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Aw, shucks... thanks gang!--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Now, Paul, I'm hoping you're remembering to tag your new articles with our banner.....It will save us a lot of work in the future.↔NMajdan•talk 15:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I've been tagging, but it's tedious... hence my "request for bot" below...--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for Bot

Hey gang, I have a request for a bot. I've been doing lots of work on small college coaches and recently have found myself "filling in the blanks" for coaches that don't exist on major colleges. Example, I just made stub articles for all the missing coach articles for Iowa State University.

Anyway, it takes some manual work to do that because sometimes the artilces exist and need to be merged--other times I just copy up my standard layout stub article.

What I'd like is a BOT that can run through a template (like Iowa State's {{CyclonesCoach}} below) from my user page and hit every coach's talk page to put templates on the talk page

{{WPBiography|sports-work-group=yes|class=stub|living=}} {{WikiProject College football |class=stub |importance=low}}

Template:CyclonesCoach

Can anyone take that on??--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I can tackle this when I get time. You may also want to look into WP:AWB - its what I'll probably use to handle this. I think the guys at WP:BOTREQ are getting tired of me.↔NMajdan•talk 16:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, AWB seems to be having some issues.↔NMajdan•talk 18:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Season naming convention

We currently name our season articles 2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season. I believe this is mostly accurate (FBS stands for Football Bowl Subdivision, so is the football really necessary?). However, several articles have been created for prior seasons (see 1957 college football season through 1975 college football season). I was looking at the history of the NCAA from the NCAA website trying to figure out the best naming convention. Just having college football season brings in a lot of ambiguities. Should we rename these articles 1975 NCAA Division I football season and 1960 NCAA football season? It looks like the NCAA as we know it was formed in 1910 (might need to check around to be sure of this), so these articles, when they are created, would just be 19xx NCAA football season. In 1973, it split into NCAA Division I, II, and III. In 1978, the football side further split in Division I-A and I-AA (now FBS and FCS, respectively). I'm working on a new template and wanted to get input before getting too far: User:Nmajdan/Test. Thoughts?↔NMajdan•talk 20:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see a season naming convention worked out, but I'm really hesitant about changing names of existing articles very much. The season articles have lots of links to them, and all the affected articles would also have to be changed as well. In regards to the pre-1973 seasons, were there NAIA or other leagues running collegiate football programs? If not, we might be able to get away with leaving it at just college football. JKBrooks85 (talk) 21:01, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Not really, when you move a page, it automatically creates a redirect so all the articles would simply point to the redirect. Also, understand that there is American college football played in other countries (whether there was in the 50s, 60s, etc, I'm not sure). According to the NAIA's website, they added football in 1956.↔NMajdan•talk 21:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking more about double redirects that might be created with a renaming. It's a fairly minor fix, though. JKBrooks85 (talk) 21:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Eh, there are bots that fix those.↔NMajdan•talk 21:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
NMajdan apprised me of the discussion concerning the naming convention. I've been drawing up articles for the pre-1978 seasons (before I-A and I-AA), and it's my hope that we can refer to a "college football season" rather than a more awkward title, like "NCAA university division football season" or "NCAA Division I football season" (Division II and III playoffs began in 1973). When one refers to any book, almanac or encyclopedia article about "college football", it generally discusses the major schools, with an acknowledgment that there are smaller programs that play as well. Just as people tend to think of the "1966 pro football season" as NFL and AFL rather than the Continental Football League, a particular year's "college football season" brings to mind the larger schools-- Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC, Alabama, Nebraska. It's not an insult to the smaller programs for us to acknowledge that the big crowds and television audiences were following the big programs. I think that while we should acknowledge the littler schools, the events that made news in any college football season were from the games between the big universities. Mandsford (talk) 23:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know about that, NMajdan. I guess I'd support a move to 19XX college football season, then. It seems like it makes the most sense out of the available options. JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
How does it make the most sense? If we have an article like 1956 college football season, we should have sections for NCAA and NAIA. And since I really doubt the NAIA section would get much coverage, it would be mostly NCAA, so why not simply rename the article 1956 NCAA football season and remove any ambiguities? And Mandsford, the articles you are creating are great and I would hate if any change dissuaded you from continuing your effort. But, we are not here to appease the egos of the smaller schools. Having just college football season may be too confusing or generic for our readers that know nothing of college football or American football. For a European reader, college football season may be interpreted as college soccer. Having the NCAA in there removes any question.↔NMajdan•talk 15:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the "19XX NCAA Division I football season" is the best. We can have NAIA and other articles then as needed, but it both fits in line with our current naming standard (yes, we need the F in FBS, otherwise it's just BS!), and also accurately describes the topic. Leaving the redirects and creating others for possible variations as described above I'm fine with as well. Redirects are cheap and easy, and with the sorry search engine here, can be useful. Though Google generally nullifies any need for redirects. MECU≈talk 19:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
So, you're ok with the naming convention 19xx NCAA football season for seasons from 1910-1972, 19xx NCAA Division I football season from 1973-1977, and, of course, xxxx NCAA Division I-A/I FBS football season from 1977-present? I, too, am iffy on removing the football from the last category as that would add confusion, but, as I said, FBS stands for Football Bowl Subdivision so the football is redundant. This is far from a consensus right now, so hopefully more editors will chime in.↔NMajdan•talk 19:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes. And "19xx NAIA football season" when appropriate. "19xx college football season" is too generic and would have to include *all* colleges everywhere then. If someone can prove that the NCAA/NAIA/US was the only place college football was being played, then perhaps we could have another discussion and I'd likely change my mind. MECU≈talk 21:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I concur. Rename 1976 college football season to 1976 NCAA Division I football season, and so on… ––Bender235 (talk) 22:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I would like to caution against over-thinking the name and trying to be too precise.
The Wikipedia guidelines prefer simpler titles where there is no risk of confusion. For instance, Wikipedia:Naming conventions states "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."
For that reason, 1956 college football season may actually be the best title. Johntex\talk 21:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Do you not think it is too overly generic and maybe more confusing to non-American readers?↔NMajdan•talk 21:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I think it is example of the 80-20 rule. >80% of the time, if people are talking about college football in 1956, they are talking about NCAA football in the United States. The other small fraction of the time does not justify complicating our lives 100% of the time by using convoluted titles.
College football and High school football are both about the US versions of the game we all know and love. This is true despite the fact that some high schools in Mexico are starting to play American football, and despite the fact that colleges outside the US have soccer teams, etc.
Also, United States is at that title, not at the more cumbersome United States of America. This is true even though some other countries have "United States" in their name. Johntex\talk 22:14, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
That's true. This issue isn't worth getting into a drawn out argument over. I still think the NCAA title would be more accurate and remove any ambiguity, but college football season is easier. I don't mind leaving it that way unless there down come more opposition toward it. I have modified {{NCAA football seasons}} to include all years and have added to the pre-1978 articles. Mandsford, again, great job with these articles. I look forward to you completing more of them.↔NMajdan•talk 22:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I support 19XX college football season for the reasons that Johntex has stated. If there's enough demand for NAIA/other coverage, we can include that as a section in the season article. If there's enough demand, we can split off coverage into a separate article and keep a stub section in the umbrella season, just like we have an umbrella article for Virginia Tech football and then individual season pages as well. I could see it growing out from 19XX college football season to 19XX NAIA college football season and so forth. Right now, there isn't a demand for separate pages, but in the event that there is, we can easily create child pages from the parent. JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
In all fairness to the smaller schools (ATTN:Paul), an article such as 2008 college football season may not be a bad idea. It could have separate sections for Division I FBS, I FCS, II, III, NAIA, etc with a paragraph or two writeup for each. Of course, the I FBS section would have its {{main}} link. The question is, which would be the main article linked in the navigational box, the college football article or NCAA article? Might be something to pursue in the off season.↔NMajdan•talk 20:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Hmm... good idea. I guess my fear would be that we'd just end up repeating most of what's in the FBS articles without much added for the smaller schools. Then we'd be making things worse... putting another layer between the user and the FBS content while not adding much for the smaller schools. That's my main fear. I like the idea, though, and if we can get enough small-school coverage, I think that's the way to go. JKBrooks85 (talk) 21:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
You're right. I wouldn't condone the article being created unless there was at least a solid paragraph for two divisions other than I FBS as well. Also, I wouldn't want more than three-four paragraphs for the I FBS section. It would be in summary form. Kinda like right now in our season articles, we have a section for a specific game and then a whole article for that game.↔NMajdan•talk 21:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

College player infobox / color help

There has been some well-intentioned confusion over the naming conventions of the USC Trojans. Right now the college player infobox will only show the Trojans' colors if the "|school=" line reads "Southern California Trojans", a combination that's never used. Can we switch this to work with "USC Trojans" or simply "Southern California"? I can't figure out how that infobox works. I noticed this issue when working on Chilo Rachal, see this edit. --Bobak (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

That was quick! Thanks. --Bobak (talk) 22:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
{{Infobox CollegeFootballPlayer}}? Where did that template come from? Most athletes I've seen use {{Infobox NCAA Athlete}} which, in my opinion, looks more professional.↔NMajdan•talk 22:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Coach Names for pages

Here's the simple question: to "(football coach)" or not to "(football coach)"  ??

A Wikipedia user (or perhaps several) has been moving pages like Harold Elliott (football coach) to Harold Elliott. Traditionally it has made sense to me and others that we add the tag "(football coach)" or "(American football)" or some other identifier to the end of the name to avoid conflicts such as Harold Edward Elliott.

Naturally some coaches such as Knute Rockne and Amos Alonzo Stagg don't need the tag, and I'm not advocating going back through and putting it on everybody. I'm just opening a discussion to see if anyone objects to having a unique identifier on the page name.

Ideas??--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course the "()" identifier should only be used if there is somebody with the same name already on Wikipedia. And then, even I am confused on what to use. (football coach), (American football coach), (American football)?↔NMajdan•talk 15:15, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia guidelines are (generally) to use the shortest possible name that is sufficiently descriptive. Therefore you would have Knute Rockne and Harlod Elliott if no one person by that name has an article. It doesn't matter how famous or well-known the person is. What matters is how unique the name is on Wikipedia.
If another Knute Rockne comes along later and gets an article it gets a little trickier. Then the authors have to decide which one the reader is more likely to be looking for - and take appropriate steps for disambiguation.
In the case of Harold Elliott vs. Harold Edward Elliott, I would suggest putting the football coach at Harlod Elliott but with a disambiguation link at the top of the article to help poeple find Harold Edward Elliott if that is what they are looking for.
Concerning Nmajdan's point, I agree that there does not seem to be a standard at the moment. I think we should use "{American football)" for both players and coaches. Since most coaches will have been players, it seems simplest. Johntex\talk 17:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I like that idea as well. [Name] (American football) works pretty well, and that's a good point about most coaches having been players themselves. JKBrooks85 (talk) 18:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
To reiterate what Johntex said; parentheticals in article names are intended only for disambiguation, that is, when more than one notable article subject shares the same common name. If the person's common name is unique, there is no need for disambiguation. AUTiger » talk 07:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I think I'm the Wikipedia user in question that was doing the moves. I was doing them as a result of my understanding of WP:NAME, and didn't expect it to be particularly controversial. My apologies. I'll leave further clean-up to this WikiProject.
At very least, if you do want to continue including the parenthetic, you must create a redirect from Harold Elliott to Harold Elliott (football coach) (although, it is also my understanding that this is discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines, in preference to simply using an article name without the parenthesis). Otherwise a user looking for the Harold Elliott article, will assume it doesn't exist and could then create one. (I found a few of these duplicate articles when doing the moves I did.) No user can reasonably be expected to know that the Harold Elliott article is located at Harold Elliott (football coach). Cheers—Ketil Trout (<><!) 19:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Template question

I've recently come across some lists such as Green Bay Packers seasons and Chicago Bears seasons, and thought it would be a good idea to start one for my Hawkeyes. Well, I've gotten a decent start on it, but I can't figure out how to un-bold everything in the template. You can view the page here, and the template is just a quick scroll down. I've compared templates with the other pages but I can't find anything different about them. I would like to have just conference championships bolded with everything else in regular text. Any help is appreciated. If you know what's wrong and it won't take too long, go ahead and edit it. I wish I was more skilled in this department, because I actually just copied-and-pasted from the Packers article to get a start on it. Thanks in advance for any help. CrdHwk (talk) 21:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't use exclamation points; that adds the bold and should typically only be used for header rows. Also, its not a template, just an article (list). Looks good though. I may have to duplicate it for Oklahoma. Look what I did to year 1900 to see how to fix.↔NMajdan•talk 22:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh I see what you did. Thanks. I agree, an list like this could be useful for most college football teams. I checked out the NFL ones and it did not look too hard to get these up to featured level. Hopefully I can get the Iowa one up to that level. Thanks again for your help. CrdHwk (talk) 22:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Isn't that what Template:CFB Yearly Record Start takes care of? MECU≈talk 00:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
New comment -- I'm seriously considering nominating Iowa Hawkeyes football seasons to be a featured list. Check it out and tell me what you think. It would be great to get this up to featured status, and it could also set a precedent for similar college football lists. CrdHwk (talk) 02:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Like the general concept, just curious if you tried the CFB Yearly Record template system that Mecu mentioned? AUTiger » talk 04:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I have not tried the other template. However, NFL lists using a similar format have all proven to be up to featured list standards. I'm actually getting a bit tired of working on the same thing for so long, I think I'm more than ready to see how it fairs as a FL candidate. CrdHwk (talk) 22:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Another new comment – I have nominated Iowa Hawkeyes football seasons at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates. I am by no means asking for support votes just because you're college football fans and you would like to see more featured pages within our WikiProject. I am, however, asking for your participation in this nomination. I would like to get this up to featured status, but I am also willing to make improvements if it is not up to par yet. Once again (and I cannot say this enough), thanks in advance for any and all help. CrdHwk (talk) 03:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

College Football All-America Teams

I have created two sample articles for early College Football All-America Teams. They are:

Before rolling out further into other years, I would be interested in any feedback that folks here might have.Cbl62 (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I like those a lot. I'm so relieved there is actually prose content as opposed to a straight list. But, All-America Team or All-American Team?↔NMajdan•talk 19:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I would have gone with "All-American" team, but the convention seems to have developed to go with All-America team. See 2006 College Football All-America Team, 2007 College Football All-America Team and College Football All-America Team. Cbl62 (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I like the idea and how they're done. It also offers up some players that might warrant articles. --Bobak (talk) 23:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
It is All-America team. The only time you add the n is when you are talking about a single person as a member of the team: He is an All-American. He was selected to the All-America team. Both sentences are correct. MECU≈talk 13:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for participation

I've nominated Iowa Hawkeyes football seasons for featured list status. Please, if you have any time at all, I ask that you participate in the discussion here. Any and all votes/opinions are greatly appreciated. Thank you. CrdHwk (talk) 20:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. It's a very good list. JKBrooks85 (talk) 07:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments JKBrooks. I still need at least 2 more support votes to pass, so please, any comments or votes are appreciated, and this goes to all college football fans. I'll try improving the list on JK's suggestions. Thanks. CrdHwk (talk) 22:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Debate over Article for Deletion: Clemson University football recruiting scandal

Clemson University football recruiting scandal has been nominated for deletion per WP:AFD. This is a candidate whose debate will significantly affect WikiProject College Football. Please participate in the debate here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clemson University football recruiting scandal if possible. Thanks. --Thör hammer 08:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks like this one could get sticky. Incidentally, do we have a general article about NCAA college football recruiting violations or anything along those lines? JKBrooks85 (talk) 09:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't know of one. I think we generally have included the content in the relevant individual team articles, like Oklahoma Sooners football. (Search for "violations") MECU≈talk 13:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Are we really so far removed from the end of the USSR that people don't understand the doctrine of Mutual assured destruction any more? Thanks to all the long-standing WP:CFB members who avoided opening Pandora's box. Hopefully, everyone will continue to keep their fingers off the button. AUTiger » talk 04:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
The problem in this case is that the Clemson and USC-east fans are going at it. For the most part, we've done the impossible here - Longhorns and Sooners, Wahoos and Hokies, Buffaloes and ... whoever you guys don't like - all getting along. But the USC-Clemson fighting is getting to be a disruption. There's nothing inherently wrong with articles about NCAA sanctions. But there is something wrong with opposing fans creating WP:COATRACKs about each others' schools. If these guys can't behave (and it's clear they can't), the reset button needs to be hit on their nonsense - stub it or redirect it and start over. --B (talk) 05:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh I reviewed a good bit (as much as I could stand) of the history of this conflict and completely agree (see my comments at the AfD nom); it is amusing (and amazing) that this hasn't happened (beyond the standard anon vandalism) over some of the proclaimed "most bitter" rivalries. Kudos again to everyone keeping to the higher road. AUTiger » talk 06:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Article importance classifications

I'm going through the list of unclassified CFB articles and doing some classifying, and I thought this would be a good time to bring up the topic of article classification. I'd suggest a series of guidelines to establish a default baseline for classifying articles, which can obviously be overwritten if there's some sort of extenuating circumstances.

This is what I've come up with so far:

  • Game Fundamentals (First Down, goalpost, Touchdown, etc.): Top importance
  • National Championship single-game articles: High importance
  • National single-season articles (1957 College Football Season): Mid importance
  • Team single-season articles (1920 Oklahoma A&M Aggies football team): Low importance
  • Bowl Games: Mid importance
  • Single-game Bowl Games: Mid importance
  • Other single-game articles: Low importance
  • Single-player articles (unless Heisman Trophy winners): Low importance
  • Heisman Trophy winners: Mid importance
  • Team single-season articles (national champions): High importance
  • Team mascots: Low importance
  • Stadiums: Low importance

These are just guidelines, and obviously there's going to be exceptions to the default importance. Something like the Michigan-Appalachian St. game would probably get mid/high importance during the 2007 season, but from the 2008 season onward, it'd probably drop to mid/low importance, depending on the aftereffects it caused.

Any thoughts? JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

There's somewhat of a list here (although it's on a talk page). A few weeks ago I went through a lot of assessment for the project and used those guidelines, but it hasn't been discussed in awhile so this is probably a good time to work on it. Phydend (talk) 00:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
That's good stuff, and I hadn't seen that before. I guess my main concern, upon reading it, is that there's a little murkiness in declaring a league/team as important or not. I'd recommend using BCS Conference status, and FBS/FCS status as dividing lines. JKBrooks85 (talk) 01:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
The main change I would suggest is that Team single-season articles should not all be rated "low". I think seasons ending in a top-25 ranking should be rated "mid". I agree that national championship teams should be ranked "high".
Also, I don't think we should say only the Heisman winners can be above "low" importance. I would say anyone who won one of the major trophies for their position, Maxwell, Lombardi,... should be rated higher. Johntex\talk 06:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
My main concern with the post-season awards is that not very many people know what they are and who earned them. Everyone knows (well, most CFB fans, at least) who won the Heisman Trophy, but hardly anyone knows who won the Lou Groza Award this year. Maybe we could bump Heisman winners up to High, and the other awards at mid. JKBrooks85 (talk) 16:14, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd actually like to remove the "importance" assessment. It's fairly useless, leads to arguments over how to rank articles and no one uses it and just causes extra work. Have you ever gone to the importance ranking and started working on the "top" or "high" articles, or do you just work on what interests you? I'd love to here anyone that has done the former. MECU≈talk 16:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
What good is Wikipedia if you can't spend 80% of your time arguing about the small stuff :) Because I don't devote that much time to editing wikipedia, I edit what interests me. General125 (talk) 16:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
It's an idea... how difficult would it be to implement. I'd support removing the importance characteristic from the CFB tag. It's an even simpler idea than coming up with a standardized format. JKBrooks85 (talk) 18:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Mecu, that is some good out-of-the-box thinking there. I think it deserves serious consideration. I have always assumed that the benefit to the importance ranking would be two-fold: (1) Help us keep our house in order by ensuring that the most important articles are of good quality. (2) Help the reader who is completely new to the sport to find the key articles they should read first. It could be that common sense is a sufficient guide for both purposes, in which case the rankings may not be needed.
Since importance rankings are used by other projects as well, I think it would be useful to get wider input on this one. Perhaps a posting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject would be helpful? Johntex\talk 03:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Man, I absolutely agree with Mecu. I suprised I haven't asked this sooner. I can't remember the last time I rated an article's importance. When I created the OU WikiProject, I left that off altogether. Even the Biography WikiProject renamed importance to priority. But, yes, I wouldn't complain if its removed altogether. Also, Johntex, I couldn't tell from your post if there was maybe some confusion. Having importance ratings is each WikiProjects' own decision. We can remove the ratings and delete the categories and the bot will stop looking for it. I really should read everyone's posts before I respond. Brooks, it wouldn't be hard at all. Remove the appropriate code from the banner, delete the categories. That's about it. Check out the assessment section at the WP:OU link I posted above.↔NMajdan•talk 14:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the only reason they are there is that I copied another WikiProject when creating the banner that had them. There wasn't ever a discussion on if we should have them, and the lack of use by anyone in the WikiProject should project that we shouldn't need them. I stopped rating articles because I realized that it's useless (to me at least). As for JohnTex's idea of "list of articles for new college football fans to read through", perhaps we could come up with an "unofficial" article (or subpage off the WikiProject) that we could somehow point to for college football fans to read through? It may be a place of argument ("No, you should read about Notre Dame, not Texas!") but hopefully there is a good core consensus and list of articles (all the top and high?) that we could link to to help. Perhaps put it up on the Portal page? "List of college football articles every college football fan should read" or "List of college football articles every new college football fan should read". MECU≈talk 15:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
If/when we do remove the importance criteria, will having the importance assessment on some of the articles screw up the tag, or will the tag simply ignore that information? JKBrooks85 (talk) 16:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
The bot would ignore them, as long as Category:College football articles by importance is deleted.↔NMajdan•talk 16:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Check that, all that would need to be done is remove the parent category Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments from the importance category and the bot will stop looking for them.↔NMajdan•talk 16:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent) Okay, then. Is there a downside to this? From what everyone's saying, no one uses it, it involves more work to keep it, it's easy to implement, and has no lasting implications. JKBrooks85 (talk) 16:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we should remove the line from the tag on the talk pages, as well as delete the categories, and the associated information on the talk page (or archive it) and the discussion we previously had about how to classify (or archive). Otherwise, folks may still think they are in use and fight over them or argue over them or otherwise spend time trying to assess them when they do nothing. We could do an AWB job to remove them. I don't know exactly, but it shouldn't be too hard. MECU≈talk 18:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Who wants to take the lead on this, then? I'd definitely vote for removing the importance category after hearing all the arguments, and from what I can tell, no one has spoken up in favor of keeping them. JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I can do it if we have a consensus to do so. Won't be that hard. Mecu, I'd probably request a bot do the work of removing the importance tag that way I'm not sitting in AWB and verifying each of the 4000+ articles that we need to remove the parameter from. If we want to get started, I'll edit the banner and request the bot.↔NMajdan•talk 20:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I have edited the banner, removing all references to importance ratings. This should slowly remove articles from Category:College football articles by importance. This can easily be reverted if, for some reason, we change our minds. However, I will wait a little while before starting the deletion of the categories.↔NMajdan•talk 21:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I've updated the assessment section of the Project pages. I haven't included a link to this discussion (which it probably should have) because I'm not sure if we can make a permanent link before the page is archived. JKBrooks85 (talk) 01:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I requested a bot here. We can link to this location for the discussion for now, but you're right, when it gets archived, it will have to be updated. We definitely should do that link to provide our reasoning. MECU≈talk 14:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The categories have cleared. Delete?↔NMajdan•talk 21:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Normally, I'd say to wait, but no one's commented in favor of keeping it in the week we've had this discussion. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:35, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the CSD that covers this (R2?) says to wait 4 days as empty. Not that I care. MECU≈talk 00:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Makes sense. It'd still be less than two weeks since the change was first proposed, and we might get a few more comments from other editors. JKBrooks85 (talk) 00:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Since no one seems to have objected, can someone archive this discussion and put a link to it on the discussion page? JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to do it yourself. This discussion will be automatically archived by the bot when it meets the archival criteria (and, of course, this discussion will prolong its place on here).↔NMajdan•talk 13:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

2008 depth charts

I have noticed that User:192.60.230.113 has been adding depth charts for 2008 to school football articles. This would purely be speculation and would not be allowed, after all, this is an encyclopedia. I have been reverting them, but stopped for a minute to see if there was any discussion on this project about that, which I see there is not. Since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball I do not believe that these depth charts should be listed. Some of these players may not be in school next season due to either going into the draft or academic reasons. Also, this user has been listing projected incoming players which is definately speculation until after National signing day. --Pparazorback (talk) 01:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree 100%. Even the coaches couldn't tell you the depth chart for next season.↔NMajdan•talk 01:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. About the only way you'd be able to work that information in is if someone wrote an article or series of articles about the expected depth chart based on the end of the previous (this) season. Even then, it'd only be worth a few sentences. JKBrooks85 (talk) 03:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree also - the depth chart requires too much guesswork about who will win or keep starting positions. However, I would have no problem with an early roster if it sticks to returning players. Sure, some players may change position, be kicked off, etc, but it would be mostly correct and based on sourceable info from the prior season. Johntex\talk 03:06, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
It would still violate WP:CRYSTAL. This user appears to have registered a username as the depth charts are reappearing. Please keep an eye out for Special:Contributions/Mvaughan99 who has been recreating these charts. If this were a fan site, fine add the information, but this is an encyclopedia. The charts are pure speculation. --Pparazorback (talk) 01:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Fifth Down Game (1990)

There seems to be a problem with the Wikiproject College football banner on the talk page for Fifth Down Game (1990). It's in the code, and it appears as if the syntax is correct, but Wikipedia isn't detecting the banner. It doesn't show up in the list of GA-class college football articles, and it doesn't show up when you expand the Wikiproject shell. JKBrooks85 (talk) 07:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that was weird. Should be fixed now.↔NMajdan•talk 13:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Brandon Saine

Could anyone help me expand the Brandon Saine article? If so, if you find anything about him that could go in, feel free to put it in his article (w/ ref.). Thanks. Burner0718 (talk) 22:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm on it! Ryecatcher773 (talk) 22:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Great! :-) Burner0718 (talk) 03:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
You might consider (if you are finding it hard to find source material) whether he is sufficiently notable to have an article right now. It's the rare true freshman (full-time starter, award winner, record breaker) who really meets the criteria. AUTiger » talk 04:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
If you're looking for a good source, I'd highly suggest looking at the Ohio State media guide and/or official athletics page. JKBrooks85 (talk) 06:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
But it's better (required for notability) to find reliable secondary sources. AUTiger » talk 03:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
True enough. Most College Football articles, however, including many/most of the FA/GAs, rely upon primary sources for the simple reason that there aren't any secondary sources or because the event is too recent. With the number of CFB edits you've got, I'm sure you've had to rely on primary sources as well. They're not my first choice, but there's really no other option in most new CFB articles. JKBrooks85 (talk) 09:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I've found some stuff by googleing his name. I found the stats at Rivals.com. Burner0718 (Jibba Jabba) 06:20, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Watchlisting NCAA athletes

FYI to anyone interested, I have created a list of every page that transcludes {{Infobox NCAA Athlete}} or {{Infobox CollegeFootballPlayer}}. You can view the list at User:B/NCAA data. At the top is a list of article links so that you can use related changes to monitor vandalism and at the bottom is a raw list that you can copy/paste into your watchlist. If you are interested in monitoring college football player articles for libel, this isn't a complete list, but it's a useful start. --B (talk) 05:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there an infobox for notable college football players who go pro in something other than their sport?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 23:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Current Featured Content

We've got quite a few articles/lists up for featured reviews right now, and support is requested to get these articles and lists to featured status.

For lists, there's the list of Iowa Hawkeyes football seasons.

For articles, there's a few.

In addition, 2007 Hawaiʻi Bowl was recently up for review, but failed its first featured article candidacy. I'd encourage everyone to visit these articles' candidacy pages and offer comments or support. Several of the editors of 2007 Hawaiʻi Bowl have requested assistance before they put it up for a second round of FAC. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. JKBrooks85 (talk) 09:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the mention JK. For those who do not know already, the FLC for Iowa Hawkeyes football seasons is set to expire in less than two days, and it needs only one more support vote to pass. Get out there and express your opinion should you have an extra five minutes! CrdHwk (talk) 00:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Standardized notability criteria

While debating at the current Thomas Wilcher AFD, there has been some discussion of setting a standard for notability to lessen the number of articles that need to be debated case-by-case at AFD. The most recent comments can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#Amateur_athletes. Is there any interest in setting some standards to lessen case-by-case issues. I bring this to the fore now because although, I think the numerous active Michigan Football editors can save all interesting articles for their program, I am not so sure that all schools could do so in the face of a frenzy of AFD conservatives. Among the points I make at the link I sent you to is the following:

  1. All first-team All-Americans should be kept regardless of article development and notability unless the article is misleading or malicious.
  2. All first team All-Conference player articles (for BCS conferences at least) should be kept until their class has gone pro.
  3. Some consensus should be reached on a standard University template.

Comments welcome.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 23:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd also submit that receipients of a position award, such as the Lou Groza Award, etc., are automatically notable (though they'd probably be covered by the All-American category.) JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
We do have Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Notability, though it's not official but can provide some help. MECU≈talk 13:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems that the page is inactive and the player policy points to the general policy that will revert us to a case by case assessment, but it may have to suffice.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 19:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

All American Football League

All American Football League is starting up. Since most (all?) of the players will be college players (since they must have a degree), should this be a part of WP:CFB? My thought is no, since there could be former NFL players as well, and really it should perhaps have their own WikiProject. I'd be fine with supporting them in starting up, but since they are a professional (think minor, AAA) league, they have more in common with the NFL than CFB. At the least, information about players and coaches involved could certainly be used incorporated into articles. MECU≈talk 14:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow. First I've heard of it. But, I agree with you. This has more in common with NFL/Arena than CFB. The players will be apart of our project since they must have a degree to play in the league and will more than likely have played college ball. But, articles related to the league should not be added.↔NMajdan•talk 14:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
If anything this will make arguments for notability stronger, and more of our player articles "keeps." Seancp (talk) 16:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I've heard of the leauge several years ago. Hope it makes it. Heck, hope it starts. We should keep our eyes on it.--Paul McDonald (talk) 06:01, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
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