Talk:Football in the United States

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no move. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

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Football in the United States → Football in the United States (disambiguation) — This should redirect to American football in the United States, as the WP:COMMONNAME for "American football" is "football" in the USofA, so per WP:ENGVAR, this is a US-topic and should use US-English. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 17:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support. There's no reason to expect an article about soccer to be titled Football in the United States. All Americans know the sport as soccer. The United Kingdom is the only major English-speaking country that doesn't use this term. Georgia guy (talk) 18:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Um, this isn't an article about soccer, it's currently a disambiguation page... GiantSnowman 18:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - there are many codes of football played in the US, and four of them have articles. The name of the sport you want to redirect to is American football, and not "football," so having this as a disambiguation page is prefrable to having it as a redirect, IMO. GiantSnowman 18:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - who's to say a European reader doesn't try to look for "soccer in the United States" by typing "football in the United States" in the search box? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Clear ENGVAR issue; the term "football" in US English unambiguously about the gridiron variety, and is clearly the primary topic when talking about "football in the United States". Any concerns that someone might search for the article on association football in the US (or one of the other forms) can be accommodated by hatnotes, and will be quick to learn the distinction from that. oknazevad (talk) 18:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - "Football" isn't a single sport. Football is a group of sports played under different codified rules - Association football (aka soccer), American football, Canadian football, Rugby football (both Union and League), Gaelic football, Australian Rules football, etc etc. ALL these sports can be, and are, legitimately called football. The disambig is needed to differentiate between them. JonBroxton (talk) 18:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Disambiguation pages are to assist with direction of readers to the correct article. This page does that well and a move would be more confusing than it could ever be helpful.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. An ambiguous term like "football" should never be used without explanation in an international encyclopedia. That soccer fans have succeeded in appropriating the term for their preferred sport in other articles is no reason to spread their confusion to articles that currently do it right, like this one.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:58, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support: An article with "...in the United States" in the title obviously falls under MOS:TIES, which says to "use the English of that nation". The English of the United States uses "football" to refer to American football. So it makes sense that this page would redirect to American football in the United States. –CWenger (talk) 01:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support: This is essentially a two-pronged dab between football and soccer. So redirect to the more commonly used in the home country, and hatnote to the other. Still won't be anymore clicks for a non-American person looking for soccer in the US...they just have to go through the Am Foot page instead of a DAB page Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 00:43, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• The main argument seems to be that an American editor searching for "American football" has a bigger right to find their article before a European editor searching for "association football" - that is disgustingly biased. Keeping this page as a disambiguation gets rid of any of those problems. GiantSnowman 18:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
  • What's "disgustingly biased" about acknowledging that "football" has a very specific meaning in American English? If you're searching for any article with "in the United States" in the title, you should expect it to reflect American English usage. Indeed, the implication that Americans are somehow "wrong" for limiting the term to American football is frankly more offensive. As soccer and rugby (in both forms) have their own, common names, there's little chance of confusion. The plain truth is soccer is never called football in common US English usage. oknazevad (talk) 19:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Because you're completely dismissing the fact that "football" has a very specific meaning in British English! GiantSnowman 19:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• WP:TIES oknazevad (talk) 19:16, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not personally think thats true. Since Americans refer to Football differently than the rest of the World it seems completely reasonable to direct the query to the disambiguation page so that the searcher can determine which one is appropriate. Regardless of that American football is a hugely popular sport in the United States, much more so than Soccer/Football (in the US) and most would not consider looking for American football. The Dab page is the best route in this case. --Kumioko (talk) 18:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, "football" is used in different ways in different countries. As this encyclopedia is (or at least should be) written for an international audience, we should never use an ambiguous term like "football" without an explanation ensuring it will be understood by all readers. We should not rely on readers being familiar with our inconsistent WP:ENGVAR guidelines to be able to get the information they seek. That soccer fans on Wikipedia refuse to accept this is another matter.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - regardless of the move proposal, this page needs to be reworked. As it says in the little box that appears when editing a disambig page, "The full article name should be visible; do not pipe entry names." Yet every one of these entries is piped, and frankly some of them are lousy pipes. The entry "American football in the United States" pipes to the general entry on American football, which implies that it's only played in the US (It's not, it's actually quite popular in Germany.) And the Canadian football one pipes to an article on the CFL's short-lived US expansion, a very misleadingly labelled pipe. (I also question the need for the entry; Arena football has more of a presence.) And the other two are just unneeded pipes. So I think the piping should go. oknazevad (talk) 19:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I cleaned it up a bit.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Really? I expected this page to disambiguate to gridiron/soccer in the United States but Gaelic? Rugby? I’m sorry, those are never called “football” in the United States and unless someone screams real loud I’m getting rid of Gaelic/Aussie rules/rugby. —Wiki Wikardo 05:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

On a disambiguation page, it doesn't matter a that title is used in a particular country. This is an international encyclopedia, what matters is whether any reader might use that term looking for a different article. Conceivably an Irish person might be looking for information on Gaelic football in the United States and not knowing exactly where to look, type in or click on "Football in the United States". Thanks to this disambig page, they'd get to the desired article easily enough. Leaving the links there does no damage to the page; but removing it removes some functionality.Cúchullain ^t/c 13:29, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I should’ve articulated that better (but I didn’t think anyone was paying attention)—regardless of usage in the U.S., the American meaning is gridiron, the international meaning is soccer… You really think some Australian is going to come here looking for rugby? Conceivably, yes, an Irish person might come here looking for Gaelic rules… but likely? On an island where football is just as likely to mean the FA game, they’re going to go to that page looking for Gaelic? I… guess… —Wiki Wikardo 01:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really worried either way, but again, I feel that removing the links removes some of the disambiguating functionality of the page, while leaving them there does no harm at all.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:06, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

• Regarding the heated discussion above, keep in mind that while the gridiron code is commonly known as "football" in the United States, that doesn't mean that association football is by default known as "soccer" among Americans. The association code was called "football" before Walter Camp developed the gridiron variety. There's proof the sport was called "football" back in those days. Also, keep in mind that the word is subjective to the individual. To redirect this article to American football in the United States would be redundant and ironic coming from a website based in a country that has "freedom of speech". In short, Americans can also call soccer "football" as well even if they have played the gridiron variety. Hitmonchan (talk) 14:03, 23 August 2013 (UTC)