Talk:2019 Monte Carlo Rally

Table formatting

Given some of the regulation changes that have happened—namely the new numbering system—I think we need to reconsider how we format tables in the article. I know we just went through some major changes starting with 2018 Wales Rally GB, but I did not see these rule changes coming when I started that article.

My main concern is balance. For a while now I have been concerned that we are putting too much emphasis on the WRC. Contextually, it is important, but we risk excluding privateer entries if we just focus on the WRC. Conversely, if we work the privateer entries in, we wind up with lengthy tables all over the place.

I quite like @Pelmeen10's idea (at least I think it was yours) of having a collapsible table for non-championship entries. This got me thinking: what if we did a radical overhaul of the entire article? Rather than having separate report and classification sections, we could integrate them and divide them up by class. Each sub-section would have a text-based report and a results table, stage wins table, retirements table and championship standings table (and would also break the tables up instead of dropping them all in one section together). Penalties could be woven into the text as needed, and the "point scorers" table needs to go because it is an absolute mess on mobile and tablet devices. This would allow us to give due weight to each class and be more discerning in what is presented.

What do you think, @Pelmeen10, @Unnamelessness, @Kovpastish, @Tvx1? 1.144.111.141 (talk) 01:22, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm also thinking we can do a short-form stages table, like this:

Overall classification
Stage	Name	Length	Stage winners	Car	Time	Class leaders
SS1	Orara East 1	8.77 km	Lappi / Ferm	Toyota Yaris WRC	4:45.5	Lappi / Ferm

So much of this table is duplicating infomation found elsewhere that we can trim it down. 1.144.111.141 (talk) 01:31, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I would perfer subpage rather than subsection just like tennis pages, which they have a main page, Mens' Singles, Womens' Singles, Mens' Doubles, Womens' Doubles, etc. We can have a main page (background, entry list, top finishing crews of each class, etc.), several subpages (WRC, WRC-2(Pro), possibly J-WRC and private crews). Then in each subpage, put these tables in. (a text-based report and a results table, stage wins table, retirements table and championship standings table) I would say this is more organized. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 02:59, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I think that's going to create way too much work and it's going to lead to a lot of duplicated content. We're also going to wind up with uneven articles because the WRC article will have lots of content and a privateer entry will have comparatively little—maybe so little that it cannot be justified and winds up as an AfD. 1.144.111.141 (talk) 03:38, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Then what about this. Put private crews into the main page and make them collapsible. The text-based report into main page as well. Making WRC, WRC-2(Pro) and J-WRC have their subpages, but the subpages only contain statistics. Speaking of the workload, don't worry, copy-editing will make it easy. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 03:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Then you get issues with attribution. Besides, the WRC-2, WRC-3 and J-WRC have gotten considerably less coverage than the WRC in third-party sources before. I see no reason why that would change now. I would suggest keeping it all on one page for the time being to see how it goes and consider splitting secondary articles out in future if need be. It's much easier to split articles than it is to merge. 1.144.111.141 (talk) 04:00, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I understand. When the rally begins, hopefully you can put your effort on this page to make the page an example for future rally pages. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 04:20, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't support the idea of a subpage, neither do i think private entries should be included. What about examples how collapsible table would look like? I think we managed the articles pretty good until 2018 Rally Turkey; from GB onwards, the focus kind of scattered. Pelmeen10 (talk) 18:15, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I think the proposed design looks good, although I would prefer a dash instead of a slash to distinguish driver and co-driver. Looks better when there are shared stage winners.

Overall classification
Stage	Name	Length	Stage winners	Car	Time	Avg. speed	Class leaders
SS1	Orara East 1	8.77 km	Lappi – Ferm Mikkelsen – Jæger	Toyota Yaris WRC Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	4:45.5	110.6 km/h	Lappi – Ferm Mikkelsen – Jæger

Maybe we also can revive the average speed during the stage? I think readers would find that interesting. Collapsable tables for the subclasses sounds good, the tables for the 2018 rallies are a little to long.Kovpastish (talk) 10:52, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I think "average speed" defeats the purpose of the proposal: to streamline the table. 1.144.111.54 (talk) 11:23, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I really can't see the purpose of having average speed. That's just trivial.Tvx1 12:29, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, maybe we can trade stage length for average speed? Stage length is already listed in the itinerary - if itineraries are included in the report. Time and average speed is something that is achieved in the stages. I don't necessarily see it as trivial, if it is then time is trivial too since the time is a result of the average speed it took to complete the stage. Kovpastish (talk) 12:32, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

We don't need the average speed. At all. 1.144.108.197 (talk) 22:08, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

About the average speed, if we get over 130km/h, we can expect consequences. At 2017 Rally Sweden, the Knon1 stage had too high average speed, so Knon2 was cancelled. Just saying. Pelmeen10 (talk) 01:19, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

That's not an issue to be discussed in the table. It should be discussed in prose. 1.144.108.197 (talk) 04:34, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

I feel like we're over-thinking this, structuring things around joint leaders in the class, but this happens rarely (especially after the first stage). This is what the table should look like for multiple winners:

Stage	Name	Length	Stage winners	Car	Time	Class leaders
SS1	Orara East 1	8.77 km	Lappi / Ferm	Toyota Yaris WRC	4:45.5	multiple[a]
			Mikkelsen / Jæger	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC

We can use footnotes to indicate who the class leaders were. We should also investigate the timing in the event of a dead heat—most championships time cars to the thousandth of a second (and some to the ten-thousandth) to avoid dead heats. Others have a rule whereby if two or more drivers set identical times, the first driver to have set the time is considered ahead of the other. 1.144.108.197 (talk) 22:08, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Your last comment is completely ridiculous. No, we should not use footnotes. And the other part makes me wonder how much (less) you know about WRC. Only at Power Stage the timing is to a thousandth of a second. And we do have sources that show shared win or lead. Pelmeen10 (talk) 01:19, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

wrc.com and the televised coverage of the rallies only show timings to the tenth of a second, even in the power stage. So we need to ask a) if more precise timing is used across the whole event, b) where we can find sources that use the more precise timing and, failing that, c) if two timing systems are used, one for the power stage and one for everything else. 1.144.108.197 (talk) 04:34, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

You may wanna read the rules https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/119 Click on the sporting regulations, the most recent was published on 12 Dec 2018. It says 36.1 TIMING For special stages, timing will be to the tenth of a second. For the “Power Stage”, timing will be to the thousandth of a second. - this is also mentioned at World_Rally_Championship#Power_stage and Power stage. But there are more rules you may need to know, some that reading a few internet sites won't tell you. Pelmeen10 (talk) 14:10, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

National flags

According to WP:INFOBOXFLAG, I can understand the edit that removes the flag icon in the infobox. But the entry list as well? -- Unnamelessness (talk) 07:24, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

We can still use the flags in the entry list. About the entries, this source https://www.wrc.com/en/wrc/news/december/monte-entries/page/5971--12-12-.html should be enough to include them. Pelmeen10 (talk) 14:15, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Per WP:MOSFLAG:

"Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country or nationality – such as military units or national sports teams."

And per WP:SPORTFLAG:

"Flags should never indicate the player's nationality in a non-sporting sense; flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality."

In other words, flagicons should only be used to indicate the nationality of someone representing their nation in competition. 1.144.107.255 (talk) 00:40, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Are you actually trying to say this is not a sport or competition? Seems like you are editing drunk or just gone insane. Pelmeen10 (talk) 01:55, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

It is a sporting competition, but the competitors are not representing national teams. Sébastien Ogier is French but he is not competing on behalf of France the way that he would at the Olympics. The Race of Champions and A1GP are really the only motorsport events where drivers compete on behalf of a country. 1.144.108.116 (talk) 04:25, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:MOSFLAG and WP:SPORTFLAG are MOS. "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow", not have to follow. The flags have been used for decades in almost all sports-related WikiProjects including WP:WRC. Removing flags need consensus. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 07:58, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

And I am attempting to follow it. I say "attempting" because I am not being helped by a pair of editors who wantonly ignore the policy. Give me one good policy-based reason why we should continue to include the flags. And no, "we've always done it" is not a good reason. None of the competitors here are representing a national team. The only valid reason I can see is in the case of a driver like Nico Rosberg, who hold dual Finnish and German citizenship but competes under a German licence, but even that is a detail for his article rather than a race article. So tell me, how does knowing that Martin Jarveojä is Estonian or that Guillame de Mevius is Belgian contribute to the article? 1.144.108.227 (talk) 09:30, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

"Give me one good policy-based reason why we should continue to include the flags."

Per WP:SILENCE, adding flags into motorsport-related article is a consensus because there was no controversy at all until you chose to remove it.

"So tell me, how does knowing that Martin Jarveojä is Estonian or that Guillame de Mevius is Belgian contribute to the article?"

The contribution is with flags, it is very easy to update this page, List of World Rally Championship event winners. Simple and clear. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 10:16, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

"The contribution is with flags, it is very easy to update this page"

So that's it? It benefits one page? The flagicons could be cut from that article as well, since there is nothing about wins by nationality there (and nor should there be).

Anyone who has been following the sport for any amount of time will know the nationalities of the drivers and co-drivers. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the sport can check the driver or co-driver's individual articles. Look at Sébastien Ogier, for instance: his nationality is the ninth word of the article and established before his career as a rally driver. Likewise Esapekka Lappi, Teemu Suninen and Dani Sordo (eleventh word, but only because of his name). How exactly is removing the flagicon beneficial when it is saving a single editor all of three seconds when updating a low-traffic article, assumimg they need the assistance in the first place? Just ten IP editors have updated that article since its creation, and that's assuming they know nothing about the sport. 1.144.108.65 (talk) 11:00, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

It is beacause of the low traffic that we need to add flags. Currently, we have no problems. But what about ten years, twenty years later? We all know that it is extremely difficult to find the scources about the driver who live in ancient. Likewise, decades later, if somebody wants to find a today's driver's nationality, but no sources are found. What could he do? Go to the driver's individual page? What if the page is not created or delated? Decades years later, will you remember Guillame de Mevius is Belgian without the flag icon? Currently, just the driver and co-driver's pages, there are huge to be created or updated. We should write an article with a long-term view. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 11:50, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

"Decades years later, will you remember Guillame de Mevius is Belgian without the flag icon?"

Will it matter decades later? If the only notable thing about him year from now is that he is Belgian, is that worth remembering? Arguably having this conversation will be more meaningful decades from now. Don't assume that things are notable just because they happened. What is more relevant to the article: that de Mevius entered the rally, or that he is a Belgian that entered the rally? He is not representing a Belgian national team, and being Belgian does not help or hinder him in any way, so why is it relevant? Because it might be worth remembering for reasons that are never specified at some indeterminate point far in the future? 1.144.108.165 (talk) 13:16, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Go to find some official entry lists. Are they listing the nationality? Yes.

Join any podium celebration. Is it raising the national flags that represent the top three? Yes.

Focus on any motorsport. Is it standing the national anthem for the winner? Yes.

So, how do you see "The Race of Champions and A1GP are really the only motorsport events where drivers compete on behalf of a country" ? -- Unnamelessness (talk) 13:29, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

None of that is the same as representing a nation. To represent a nation, you must be competing for them. Did Finland score 25 points when Latvala won Rally Australia? Was France declared champion of nations when Ogier won the title? 1.144.108.211 (talk) 20:08, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

To represent a nation, you must be competing for them. - where did you get this idea? Facts please. Was the flag of J-M Latvala's face raised and his favourite song played? Pelmeen10 (talk) 20:42, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Except he wasn't competing for them, because Finland didn't get anything. No points. No trophy. No recognition in the record books. Latvala was competing for Toyota. If he was competing for a nation, that suggests he was competing with a national team in a tournament that was structured around nations. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 20:48, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Every sports article uses flags, eg 2018 Australian Open – Women's Singles. Finland didn't get anything. No points. No trophy. No recognition in the record books. - Bunch of recognition in the record books List_of_World_Rally_Championship_records#Nationalities http://juwra.com/driver_wins_by_nationalities.html Also the possibility to make Finns proud, get support from his government (or pay part of his salary to taxes), nominated sportsperson of the year or whatever. You aint gonna get consensus to remove flags anyway, so just leave it. Pelmeen10 (talk) 21:04, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

"Bunch of recognition in the record books List_of_World_Rally_Championship_records#Nationalities"

Those articles and records can be maintained without using flagicons in this article. Indeed, the use of flagicons is far more appropriate in that article than in this one.

"Also the possibility to make Finns proud, get support from his government (or pay part of his salary to taxes), nominated sportsperson of the year or whatever."

None of which is our purpose in writing an encyclopaedia and all of which will happen with or without us including flagicons in this article. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 21:09, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I have raised this issue at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons to try and get a wider range of opinions (there is no need to comment there; the discussion just links back here). 1.144.108.211 (talk) 22:50, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

It is completely inappropriate to be posting comments there. The purpose of starting that discussion was to inform editors of a discussion elsewhere. To continue a discussion there when there is another discussion herr may be considered consensus-shopping—you don't get the result you want in one discussion, but you do get it in another, so you ignore the first and rely on the second. Case in point, you cite the MOS as a guideline here and suggest that editors are free to follow as they see fit, but here you voice opposition to the proposed change, citing the scale of the changes that would need to accomodate it. If, as your comment in the this discussion suggested, editors are free to observe or ignore the MOS as they see fit, then we are free to stop using the flagicons without worrying how it affects other articles. You cannot argue it both ways. At the very least it is very poor etiquette because it looks like you are trying to influence the course of the discussion separate to it. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 07:32, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Of course drivers and co-drivers represent their nation. So do their fans, why else would they bring flags with them? Representing a nation has a much wider meaning than just competing against each other (eg Finland vs Sweden). Did you know that from 2019, FIA starts a "FIA Junior WRC Trophy for Nations"? Pelmeen10 (talk) 13:23, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

If that is the case, then using flagicons in the JWRC article would be appropriate because a "Trophy for Nations" would be competition where nations are directly competing with one another. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 20:08, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

MOS specifically tells us "the infobox may contain the national flag icon of an athlete who competes in competitions where national flags are commonly used as representations of sporting nationality in a given sport." Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:11, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click) — so the question is what "representation" entails. Per WP:SPORTFLAG:

"flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality"

In this case, they are of a nationality, but they not representing their nationality. There is no national team, and no trophy, points or rewards offered to the nationalities in question. In many cases there are multiple nationalities involved; Sébastien Loeb is a Frenchman partnered with a Monegasque co-driver, driving a car built by a Korean manufacturer for a team which operates out of and is registered in Germany.

By comparison, A1GP was a racing series where drivers and teams represented specific countries. A win for a German driver in a German team was considered a win for German. When Jari-Matti Latvala and Miika Anttila won the 2018 Rally Australia, it was a win for them and for Toyota, but not for their native Finland or for Japan. They were competing as a Finnish crew in a Japanese car, but they were not competing for Finland or Japan and so were not representing them. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 01:54, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

There was a huge rfc awhile back. And confirmed in various discussions in archive 15. The key was ''where national flags are commonly used as representations of sporting nationality in a given sport". I'm not really into auto racing so I don't know about the fine details of how often flags are use in all the press summaries. The rfc was specifically about auto racing and also tennis. In tennis, flags are used all the time, the countries are talked about all the time, you must register with the tennis authorities with a specific country. No register with country and you can't even play. So each article like Roger Federer af an icon for spots nationality. It works very well. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:18, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click — it works a similar way in motorsport. You have to register to get the apprpriate licence through the national sporting body, and that's the nationality that appears on your licence. Most of the time—and definitely in the top levels of the sport—you have to register with the sporting body of a nation for which you hold citizenship (although you do occasionally get some oddities, like New Zeland driver Marcus Armstrong, who raced with an Italian licence in Formula 3 this year). It's really only an issue when a driver has dual nationality and has to pick one. As such, I feel that this is an issue related to the driver's individual article and has no bearing on this article.

Whatever their position on the subject, I think everyone in this discussion can agree that this is excessive. If flagicons are to be included, then surely they only need to be included the once.

Just did a quick experiment. One flagicon such as this adds 18kB to an article. There are over 160 flagicons in the table that I just linked to. That comes to 3,312kB of unnecessary data in a single table. Last year's Monte Carlo Rally had 73 entries, so assuming we have a similar size field this year, we're looking at 4,000kB in flagicons in the entry list. Add that to the special stages table and we're sitting at around 7,000kB; allowing for all the tables that we would normally include, I'm estimating somewhere around 12,000kB given over to flagicons and maybe as many as 15,000kB. That's more than 10% of the article size right there. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 05:47, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

That should have been directed to @Fyunck(click). 1.144.108.211 (talk) 07:32, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Then I said seperate the pages like tennis pages at here and here. But did you agree? Size is not the reason that causes us have to remove the flagicons. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 08:46, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Moreover, this is not excessive at all. The only person who thinks it is excessive is you because you don't like it. Just as you mentioned at here and here. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 08:54, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

You don't think it's a little bit redundant to include forty-six flagicons? Let's say Ogier and Ingrassia win all twenty stages in a rally: by the time the reader gets to SS20, the French national flag will have been repeated thirty-eight times. What could a reader possibly hope to learn from the thirty-ninth flag that they had not learned from the first thirty-eight? Or do you think there is a chance they would change their nationality between SS19 and SS20? So far I haven't heard any actual arguments from you other than "we have always done it that way" and "other articles do it", which aren't arguments. They're excuses.

If flagicons are necessary, then the only place they are needed is the entry list. If you're worried about readers misidentifying a driver, the combination of driver, co-driver, car, entrant and number makes for a unique combination, so misidentificatuon is unlikely. 1.144.108.211 (talk) 10:05, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

That's more like it. But I would also suggest adding flagicons at the "championship standings after the rally" section because of no combination of driver, co-driver, car, entrant or number at there. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 10:52, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Moveover, repeated links to drivers and co-drivers can also be reduced to where the names first appear at each section. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 10:57, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not terribly sure that including flagicons in the championship standings table is necessary. The article really should be written in such a way that the reader already knows who wins; the real value of the table starts with Rally Sweden. Besides, what if the final result is Latvala-Lappi-Suninen-Loeb-Ogier? The table is going to be Finland-Finland-Finland-France-France which may actually make the table harder to read.

If the bulk of the flags are removed from the article, it would be less of a problem to keep them in the championship table. But I still think it would be more decorative than anything else. 1.144.108.233 (talk) 21:26, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

No, no, no. We need to keep the page consistent. If we use flags from Sweden, they also have to be used in Monte-Carlo. Moveover, the probability of your hypothesis is very low, so I think we should not over-think on this. Let's just put it down temporarily and resume it when the rally ends. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 02:31, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

@Unnamelessness — I meant the value of the championship standings table as a whole, not the use of flags within it. Because Monte Carlo is the first round, it really just duplicates content elsewhere in the article. But from Sweden, it adds the Monte Carlo results to the Sweden results. 1.144.108.91 (talk) 04:46, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

So, you mean removing the championship table from the page of Monte Carlo? This is unacceptable. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 08:47, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

@Unnamelessness — where did I say that? I said no such thing. I just pointed out thst because this is the first round of the championship, the championship tables simply duplicate the content of other tables in the article and thus they are not as valuable to this article as they will be in every subsequent 2019 rally article. Hence, I am not convinced that flagicons are necessary for identification here—the championship leaders will be mentioned in the infobox, article lead, results table and prose report before the reader gets to the championship standings tables. 1.144.108.116 (talk) 09:05, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

OK. I understand. -- Unnamelessness (talk) 09:25, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Obviously, some nother editors still want to use flagicons in the entire page. So, still limiting to the entry list only? @Prisonermonkeys, Tvx1, Pelmeen10, Kovpastish, Klõps, Johannes275 -- Unnamelessness (talk) 04:32, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I see no reason why they should continue to be used after the entry list. 1.129.107.106 (talk) 13:22, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Stage cancellations

If a stage is cancelled, it is no longer a part of the rally. You cannot lead the rally througha stage that does not exist anymore. 1.144.105.6 (talk) 20:08, 25 January 2019 (UTC)