Talk:Frogman

Generalization

• If "The term preferred by scuba users [i.e. all of them...] is 'diver', but the word "frogman" persists in usage by non-divers" then why do "A few sport diving clubs have included the word "Frogmen" in their names."? Unsigned comment —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.40.0.49 (talk) 20:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
• As the diving clubs involved, not me, about why their choice of name. Anthony Appleyard 22:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
• this is simply an issue of preferrence on the part of said clubs, or it may be the same reason that some nerds refer to themselves as such. Llama (talk) 01:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No reference is given to support the claim that the term preferred by scuba users is diver, though it is apparent that the term most commonly used is diver. The absence of references to support many of the claims in this article remains a problem. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:54, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

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B-class assessment

B

The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional. It has a long way to go. Many challenged claims outstanding. There are still in-line external links and editorial comments which must go.N The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing. Covers the topic fairly extensively, though it is difficult to make out the limits of the scope as there appears to be some out of scope content. This may be partly due to the term being poorly defined and partly scope creep. Significant work may be necessary to tighten up the content so that it is clear what the scope is and that it is what it should be. N The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind. The lead does not summarise the content. The term remains poorly defined. Scope may need to be defined before it is possible to decide.N The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but it does not need to be "brilliant". The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously. Somewhat unencyclopaedic in tone in places. N The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams and an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content. Adequately illustrated. Y The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. Although Wikipedia is more than just a general encyclopedia, the article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible. Does not seem to be a problem. Y

Not ready yet. The two most apparent problems are many outstanding requests for citations, and the unclear scope of the article. There seems to be a great deal of vagueness about what a frogman is, and attempts to define by what a frogman is not and uncited examples of frogmen. A great deal of the content is plausible, but unsupported by references, and references are not easily available on the internet. No authoritative text seems to exist. There are occasional contradictions. Dictionary and E Brittannica definitions are rather vague and often contradictory to parts of the article. It is not clear how this article can best be fixed, but a restructuring with a section on terminology may be a good start, and it may be necessary to discard much of the unverifiable content. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:12, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Keep "The frogman in popular culture" section?

User:Harizotoh9 has today deleted all of the Frogman#The frogman in popular culture section on the grounds that it is "Not notable. Pop culture trivia". This may well be the case, it certainly could be better referenced, but I think it only right that others should have their say first. Note that there are numerous other pages with "in popular culture" sections or indeed stand-alone articles, see this list. I have taken the liberty of reverting his deletion, pending the results of this discussion. Alansplodge (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I have no strong opinions on a section on popular culture, but do consider that uncited trivia are fair game for deletion, so am deleting all the unreferenced claims that have been tagged for over a month. Please do not replace without adding a reasonably reliable reference. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:51, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

The pop culture section adds nothing. It amounts to "there was a movie. It had frogmen". Remember, what is the goal of Wikipedia? It's not just to disseminate random facts of no relevance. It's to explain to readers about particular topics. It's an encyclopedia. To be notable, this pop culture has to have had some significant impact on the topic. For example: The term "mole" supposedly comes from a novel. Therefore, that novel should be mentioned in the article. That doesn't mean that the article should have a big list of media that include moles. If it did have an impact on the topic, it would work better integrated into the body of the article, rather than just part of its own section.

If the information does not have significant impact on the topic, it is by definition, trivial information. WP:TRIVIA.

The "In popular culture" sections were born out of a compromize after removing Trivia sections. However, they're poorly thought out and become magnets for non-notable pop culture. Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:00, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• Often one man's trivia or cruft is another man's important relevant matter. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:42, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Well if that's the case then, just re-instate the old Trivia sections, and just let people add in whatever they think is cool. I have a counter proposal. A question. What does adding a list of media add to the article and how does it further Wikipedia's goals? Already, Wikipedia has a problem with treating fictional universes in an unencyclopedic manner and giving them too much weight. Can you imagine opening a real encyclopedia, flipping to some serious topic in history, and they start talking about video games or anime? Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:48, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Also, the "Errors about frogmen found in public media" looks like Original research. Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a collection of random facts. The content of an article is not determined by notability, but by relevance and verifiability. It also is no place for original research. In the case of "In popular culture" sections, it is not enough that a film or a novel merely mentions a topic. It is not even enough that the pop culture had an impact on the topic. It is necessary for an account of that impact to be published in a reliable source. So in the case of the mole (espionage), it's not enough that the term was "supposedly" derived from a novel. It is necessary for a third-party to have discussed that – and in the "mole" article, there are indeed two sources that shed light on Le Carré's introduction of the term. So it should be here. If one man's trivia or cruft is actually another man's important relevant matter, then there will be independent reliable sources that show that. In the absence of such reliable sources, any such trivia is fair game for removal. It should also go without saying that the existence of trivia in other articles is no justification for trivia here. --RexxS (talk) 10:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

That appears to be an accurate and concise summary of relevant policy, to which may be added that a reference should be an unambiguous description of where the information has been sourced, with enough information that it is possible for a third party to verify the information if they have access to the source, and should not be a bare inline link to an image on a website of unknown provenance, or a claim that something can be seen in the movie, without actually citing the movie. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:42, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your input one and all. As I see it, we have two options.

• Option 1) Delete the whole section.
• Option 2) Delete the unreferenced items but retain those that are properly sourced, in the hope that improvement can be made in the future. Votes below please... 17:37, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

To start the ball rolling, I support option 2. Alansplodge (talk) 17:37, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I would prefer option 1, but am willing to accept option 2 as a compromise. Properly sourced according to WP:INLINECITE being an absolute minimum, and the onus is on the poster to provide the citation. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:43, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I would also prefer option 1 for the reasons I gave above, but I am also willing to accept option 2 as a compromise, with exactly the same caveats as Peter. --RexxS (talk) 14:54, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

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Origin of the term "Frogman"

The first paragraph says this:

"The word frogman arose from Italian "uomo rana" around 1940 from the appearance of a diver in a shiny drysuit and large fins.[citation needed]"

The idea that the American military borrowed the word from Italian (Italy was an enemy in 1940) is simply ludicrous and somewhat typical of Wikipedians who want to take the United States off center stage at any cost, even if the facts have to be subverted. I hate to think of the thousands of people who are being misinformed on a daily basis because of basic negligence and apathetic disinterest. However, don't take my word for it. The refutation of the lede para is in the article itself. This from the History section:

First frogmen[edit]

The word frogman appeared first in the stage name The Fearless Frogman of Paul Boyton, who since the 1870s broke records in long distance swimming to demonstrate a new invented rubber immersion suit, which inflated hood had a frog-like shape. As a stunt show hero in that suit he played a military diver (attaching mines to ships etc.) long before such divers existed.[citation needed]

It's time to change the opening paragraph. Dynasteria (talk) 17:35, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

It is also a good time to provide references for all of these claims, Simply transferring unsourced material from the content to the lead does not remove the need for sources. It all qualifies as original research if no source can be found. One instance of an unsourced claim in the article is sufficient while waiting for a challenged statement to be referenced, adding them all to the lead is perpetuating dubious information. I will assume good faith here, and allow a reasonable period for this material to be sourced, but if this does not happen soon it will all be deleted as original research. Dynasteria, how much time would you consider reasonable to source these claims? I have tried, without success to find reliable sources on the internet. It may be necessary to consult paper. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:11, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, Peter (Southwood). I hadn't got as far as sources in my thinking, though it is glaringly obvious that they are needed. I was merely trying to fix something in the lead that seemed not only counter-factual but somewhat beyond belief. I'm not much of a Wikipedian so I had thought that others more qualified than I had had already checked the article and approved. I think one generally assumes that the article is good enough to be its own source.(!) However, I certainly hope you can assume good faith on my part as I can conceive of nothing untoward about making the article internally consistent. Anyway, your criticism about sources and references is entirely valid and as far as I'm concerned unsourced material should just be eliminated to avoid the danger of misinforming the public, of which I consider myself one.

BTW, there is also a footnote link somewhere to an article in German that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with frogmen.

Thanks again. I'll wait to see what happens and perhaps take it upon myself to remove the entire passage if no one else does the proper research. Dynasteria (talk) 18:11, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Good luck Dynasteria, this article has been extremely difficult to purge of unsourced material, as it is usually replaced after a while, without references and without replacing the previous challenge tags. As a result the quality remains dubious and difficult to improve. You may be lucky and find off-line sources, but most of the tagged material has been researched and no reasonably reliable references found online. Much of it is plausible, so I hesitate to arbitrarily delete, but when a claim has remained unsourced for a significant time after being challenged it may be deleted without further discussion. I consider a month a generous allowance, and the tags are dated by month, which helps.

On the point of using Wikipedia as a reference: That is specifically disallowed in the citation policy. You can use Wikipedia to find an external reference for a claim, but should then check the reference to make sure that it does actually support your specific statement, which makes re-use of off-line references difficult if you cannot access them yourself. You can restate a point made in the body of an article in the lead if it is properly referenced in the article, and the requirement for citation of such repetition in the lead is relaxed, but the claim must be technically verifiable. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 03:53, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

I looked at the German blog link. As you say, it has nothing at all to do with frogmen, so I removed it. The problem with bare urls is that they may link to a valid reference when first inserted, but the page content may change, and if there is no proper identification of the content there is no way that the original material can be found after it changes. In this case it is now unverifiable and another reference must be found, or the claim may be deleted. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:23, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

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Definition and scope

I always thought that "frogman" was a (rather old-fashioned) term for a SCUBA diver. This article is the first time I've heard that it just means a military diver or "combat swimmer". Not only that, but the article includes numerous dictionary definitions that treat it as a general term for scuba-diver. Would it not be better to rename this article to "combat diver" (or whatever military term covers all military frogmen), and update Frogman (disambiguation) to link to both here and Scuba diving? Iapetus (talk) 10:40, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Seconded. I think this article would be better off as a redirect to combat diver rather than t'other way 'round. --173.180.86.252 (talk) 23:05, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I also agree. It seems the primary sources (special operations units) tend to use terms like combat diver, or the like. These are already listed in the introduction, but given "Frogman" is an informal term, it's more logical for frogman to redirect to combat diver. I5-X600K (talk) 00:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I think the disambiguation page is OK as is, but we could define the scope of this article and limit it to uses of the word in the context of diving, as a summary style article with links to the relevant usages where those articles exist, and move the bulk of the material on combat diving or special forces diving or whatever to a new article. I don't know offhand what all might be linked from Frogman with the new scope, but it should be possible to eliminate much of the vagueness currently infesting the article. Some input from Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history could be useful. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 09:13, 11 September 2022 (UTC)