Talk:NFL draft

Title

Here is a very helpful link that shows proper grammar for this situation.

http://grammartips.homestead.com/caps.html

Or perhaps you can go to the 78 other individual draft pages and see how it is written there.

If you want to change this letter to a lowercase so badly, in keeping with consistency, you will have to go change all the individual draft pages as well. But that point is besides the fact as you are supposed to capitalize it. Zdawg1029 (talk) 00:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are right that there are many more pages that should be fixed. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). In Wikipedia, we use sentence case for title, not title case as is the style in some other publications. The article is already correctly titled -- just need to use the same sentence case in the opening sentence. Also notice that lowercase is overwhelmingly most common in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 03:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

On the contrary, in Wikipedia, we use title case for proper name titles, per WP:NCCAPS, which states that "Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name", which this is. The NFL Draft is an official, NFL-designated, proper name title of a specific event, and thus should be capitalized. The NGRAM results being used to support lowercase are wholly flawed evidence, because it includes descriptive rather than titular mentions. For example, compare the NGRAM results for Space Shuttle, which show that lowercase "space shuttle" is more widely used than capitalized "Space Shuttle", but the Wikipedia article is at capitalized "Space Shuttle", because that is the official name of the vehicle; that is a similar case showing the difference between a descriptive phrase and an official title. Sources that use lowercase are referring to it descriptively (referring to it as an "NFL draft" in the sense that it is a "draft sponsored by the NFL", in the same way that the "space shuttle" is a "shuttle used in space", but there is also an official "Space Shuttle", the formal term for it designated by NASA), but that does not change that event itself is a proper name title. —Lowellian (reply) 17:29, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the concept of "titular" has a role in WP styling issues. But let's look at what the n-grams show. On the Space Shuttle issue, n-grams show that most of the lowercase uses are for "space shuttle Challenger" and "space shuttle Columbia", in which "space shuttle" is treated as descriptive. Even NASA does that sometimes, e.g. here and here. In some of the other contexts, it's generic, too, as you say, but yes it's the proper name for NASA's Space Shuttle program. On the draft, caps are much less common in all contexts, as you can see here and here. Really no hint of treatment as a proper name in reliable sources independent of the NFL. And our articles are all about the draft process and results, not the "event" that they sold tickets to and/or put on TV. For 3 years we had it correctly at lowercase, and then a corrupt RM process was interpreted as a consensus to cap it. This needs to be revisited. Dicklyon (talk) 19:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: If you believe the previous RM process was "corrupt", please feel free to start a new RM discussion. The closer at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2016 July#2016 NFL Draft said "endorse closure but allow fresh RM". Eagles 24/7 (C) 19:45, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I do feel free. Just haven't thought the time was right, with all the other things going on, not to mention that ridiculous MR close. Dicklyon (talk) 03:47, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Definition of "proprietary"

In the "compensatory pick " section, it says:

"The placement of picks is determined by a proprietary formula ..."

That is not the proper use of this word. Something that is proprietary have been created by a particular person or organization, or could be owned by or licensed for use only by such a person. But it does not necessarily mean secret or confidential.

https://wikidiff.com/proprietary/confidential

https://www.stairstepconsulting.com/practical-proprietary-and-confidential-information-handling/

The league wants to keep the formula secret, probably so that different teams will not game the system. Any NFL employee who leaks it would probably get fired. But it's not the same as a trade secret, that someone might steal and sell to a competitor. The formula itself has no monetary value to any other organization.

I realize, this text comes from the NFL website itself. But there's no reason that Wikipedia has to participate in this bastardization of the language. Marzolian (talk) 08:49, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Text copied straight from NFL website

A lot of this page is taken straight from the NFL's own website, here:

https://operations.nfl.com/the-players/the-nfl-draft/the-rules-of-the-draft/

What is the point of copying it? Just summarize it here, and include a link to the NFL's site. Marzolian (talk) 08:53, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

an article for "List of penultimate NFL draft picks"

How about creating an article for "List of penultimate draft picks" to compliment the existing articles " list of first overall NFL draft picks" , "second overall picks " and "Mr. Irrelevant " ? Since the 2nd overall picks get their list, it'd make sense for the 2nd to last ones to get one, too. 2603:6000:8740:54B1:DD35:6940:24B1:219 (talk) 23:25, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

RFC on title of capitalization of Draft

An RFC at VillagePump on whether "Draft" should be capitalized in NFL Draft articles, including this one, has been opened. Frank Anchor 14:14, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

For convenient reference, the RfC was moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Capitalization of NFL draft article titles.—Bagumba (talk) 09:24, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Many editors feel that this is an opinion survey, as actual name changes (even more so given the magnitude and scope of the moves seemingly being attempted to circumvent it) are requested and decided at WP:RM. Other editors think that this RfC might be used to change the article titles without doing an RM. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:43, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I want to be clear to those reading who may not want to chime in; I will revert the move(s) from "Draft" to "draft" until a proper RM takes place. This is not a non-controversial move and needs to follow the proper procedures in order to be downcased. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:58, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@Hey man im josh: the page was moved to lowercase, without going the RM route. I presume that means you're going to revert? GoodDay (talk) 06:12, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

You've read my question & haven't responded. I'll take that as a 'no'. GoodDay (talk) 14:22, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

@GoodDay: I wrote something very long winded up this morning and decided not to and figured I’d come back to respond to you. In short, no I will not be. I will be respecting the close even if I do not personally agree with it. I have a lot of thoughts on the discussion, which I think may be best summarized in point form, and I’ve noted some of them below in rough form.

• When I originally said this, I was set in the idea that it was the wrong venue, and I had no expectation of an admin closing the discussion. I said it with the expectation that it was going to be an inconclusive discussion that some people may try to use as reason to move the page without a proper discussion.
• Wordsmith has since evaluated whether it's an appropriate location for that discussion and has determined that it was. This is a belief that they weren’t alone in.
• Not to the extent that others did, but I think I also discouraged discussion with comments like this. I did not expect it to be an appropriate venue and obviously I was wrong. I’m not involved in a lot of RfCs and this is something I’ll be learning from. I feel partially responsible because of this.
• The validity of the discussion wasn’t established early on. There were a number of users who thought it was an inappropriate forum, which I parroted with the same belief. I think as a result some people didn’t participate or comment as much.
• I wish the articles for the drafts had been tagged, I probably would have done so if I knew that this RFC would be binding.
• I would have weighed things differently (obviously) and viewed it as no consensus, but that’s not a valid reason to request the close be overturned since Wordsmith established that the venue was appropriate. They did their best to weigh the arguments and made the close that they believe was right. As a result, and due to inconsistencies in press, this result will likely stick for a decade plus.
• Wikilawyering and bludgeoning the conversation to death was a significant reason why the discussion ended the way it did and I wish MOS discussions were better moderated to avoid these types of outcomes. “These type” being ones that are won by sheer number of comments and wearing people down.
• Based on signatures in this discussion, the top three commenters had 72, 63, and 57 comments. They all supported downcasing.
• NFL Draft is absolutely (and clearly) a proper name of an event (in relevant sports sources, aside from ESPN, who is looking into their style guide based on an email I sent) but bludgeoning and wikilawyering has prevailed, which is disheartening.
• Wikipedia defaults to downcasing when sourcing is inconsistent, but you’ll almost always be able to find enough sources to argue that capitalization is not appropriate when the word “draft” is involved. Especially when you pick sources that are not familiar with the subject. This is why I believe it’s more important and relevant to evaluate the capitalization used by national publications or websites focused on national coverage (as opposed to coverage of a specific team) of sports.
• There are inconsistencies in sources because most sources don't have a style guide they must adhere to, but that doesn't mean that downcasing is actually the proper result.
• It’s sometimes downcased in sources because sources themselves, which often consist of dozens of different writers, are not necessarily aware that it’s a proper name. This is a common problem for events, drafts particularly, that have self descriptive names which are also nouns.
• Inconsistency in sources doesn't mean that something’s not actually a proper name, despite what some are screaming from the rooftops.
• Many of the comments in the discussion were focused on the premise that a lack of consistency in sources means that something is not a proper name instead of considering that sources may not be aware (or even care). Discussion should have been focused on whether it’s a proper name, not just based on a tally of what irrelevant sources and publications use while using a couple instances of downcasing (mistakes) on relevant sources that overwhelmingly uppercase to Draft as a reason to discount said source. This is akin to WP:NOTAVOTE, but due to inconsistencies, it’s defaulted to downcase.
• We shouldn’t use counting stats to determine what’s a proper name and doing so is silly.
• Some people refused to even consider the possibility of a proper name once the ngrams, which are notorious for lacking meaningful context, came out and showed an inconsistency (again, context is key).
• It felt as though the discussion had a lot of bad faith arguments and like some refused to consider the possibility that uppercasing may make sense, while I tried to approach with an open mind but ended up playing devil’s advocate because so many people had been pushed away. Several people reached out to me privately to say that the discussion was such a trainwreck and drama filled that they weren’t participating, so I felt like I had to.
• This discussion left me drained, discouraged, and considering a Wikibreak (over the capitalization of a single fucking letter). It brought me to a point I haven’t felt with Wikipedia and I had to leave the discussion. These discussions are why MOS is a ctop and why people don’t want to participate in MOS related discussions, it’s a genuine problem and not the first time I’ve seen it, but it was the worst I’ve felt from it.
• I’m not sure I ever want to deal with MOS again based on the interactions that are routinely allowed.

In summation, sometimes Wikipedia gets it wrong, this is just one of those times. The closure, however, was policy based and Wordsmith took the time to evaluate whether it was a proper venue or not. I know how hard that is to do and, absent a challenge and overturning of the close, which won’t be coming from me, I must accept that we’ll have it wrong for a while. I just don't have it in me to relitigate when the same argument about inconsistency is going to be used to ignore all other points made. The reality is there will always be inconsistencies, and that can be used to downcase pages that are proper names. I don't agree with it, I think it leads to us getting things wrong sometimes, but it's what we have as policy. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:30, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I just hope that a precedent hasn't been set, that an RFC can over-ride RMs. GoodDay (talk) 22:08, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Just saw this. How can a precedent have been set when WP:RFCNOT is still in place? Moving pages because of a name-changing RfC shouldn't stand, as the next step to overriding the recent RM at 2024 NFL Draft would be a move review (which was never done). But more importantly, to Hey man im josh, of course you, or anyone, is not to blame for simply sticking to their viewpoints. Nothing wrong in that, and yes, a moderator would have done well to reign in the comments but in a way that wasn't needed because many of us assumed that no closer would ignore WP:RFCNOT. So this is actually a case of WP:IAR, and the only question then should be: does lowercasing NFL Draft improve the encyclopedia. The more important point you made in your comment above, thank you very much for giving ESPN data for their option of changing their casing. I hope that occurs. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:26, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

That's interesting. I wasn't aware of WP:RFCNOT. Looks like it was added in 2019 after a brief discussion on the talk page involving 3 editors. The page WP:DR is policy, and says "It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus." But WP:RFC is not policy, and has no such guideline on it. It's not clear what it reflects. In any case, I agree that RM is usually the right forum for page moves, and it usually works OK. But in this case, it had failed to reach consensus, so a larger scope of participation was needed. It didn't actually get a lot larger participation, but had time to thoroughly air all the arguments on both sides, which is good. It's just a drag that it took so long; now we're back to where we were 5 or 6 weeks ago and can start to make progress again on fixing overcapitalization. The RFC did not override an RM, since the previous RM did not reach a consensus (unless you mean the one-article RM in 2016 with tiny participation, which needed to be overridden, as it had been inappropriately generalized to so many articles). Dicklyon (talk) 08:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Dicklyon, I think you've got it backwards, in good faith. WP:DR#RfCs says, boldfaced not in original: "Request for comment (RfC) is a process to request community-wide input on article content. RfCs can be used when there is a content-related dispute, or simply to get input from other editors before making a change" which links to WP:Rfc. WP:RFC is where WP:RFCNOT exists (which tells us not to use an RfC to change page titles). Just above WP:DR#RfCs is the policy section "Requested moves" which states "Requested moves (RM) is a process to request community-wide input on the retitling of the article." The conflict does not concern holding your RfC and collecting comments, but in solely using the close to implement titling moves. The conflict then shifts to the first page that was moved based on that RfC (I don't know what that was), a page which should be moved back to uppercase without complaint. You or some other editor could now use the results of your good faith RfC as a pertinent piece of evidence at a new RM, hopefully on this central page, but moving page titles based on it, as Hey man im josh is doing, seems an overstep of policy. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: This may be a point better made to @The Wordsmith. As Dicklyon mentioned, WP:RFC is indeed not policy, just a best practice. While WP:RM may be the preferred and ideal location for discussing page moves and title renames, I haven't found anything that states, outright, results from an RfC may not be used to change article titles.

GoodDay made a point of asking The Wordsmith on their talk page about whether this RfC closure was meant to downcase the titles. They replied that that was their determination. Regarding the first page that was moved, that was this article here, roughly 14 hours after the RfC was closed. I waited just shy of 24 hours after the initial move and no one had signaled or stated an intention to challenge the closure, so I began to start implementing it. As I mentioned, I do believe that these belong at the capitalized version, so I sympathize with you, but I don't believe this is actually an overstep of policy. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Hey man im josh, GoodDay, and Randy Kryn: If you like, I'd be willing to start a close review. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: Dicklyon's response above is mostly correct, but I can clarify some points that weren't. I did touch on WP:RFCNOT in the closure as the strongest argument from participants to why the venue might not be legitimate, and was largely the reason why that part was closed as no consensus that the venue was inappropriate instead of consensus that the venue was appropriate. The "Good Venue" arguments weren't based on WP:DR#RFC, which I didn't have on my notes and I don't believe was cited by participants. The GV arguments were largely based on existing practice/precedent, WP:CONSENSUS#By soliciting outside opinions and to a lesser extent WP:NOTBURO. RM is almost always the right venue for page moves (or even just boldly doing it without discussion), because most are pretty uncontroversial. In this case, between the previous moves, lack of consensus, and discussions across multiple pages and projects the argument that an RfC at a central location to pull in outside opinions was a compelling one. As far as a close review, I welcome it and look forward to seeing whether other uninvolved admins would have closed it differently. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:47, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Very well. Meanwhile, I've left messages at WP:HOCKEY, CFL Draft, WP:CFL & NHL Entry Draft, concerning (what I see) by-passing the RM route. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@BeanieFan11: It's up to you if you want to do so, but I'm not sure it would be successful. Wordsmith cited several examples of RfC being used to determine proper naming conventions and those have stuck, establishing a history of RfC not being labelled an inappropriate venue. Ignoring whether the venue is appropriate, as that's a whole separate issue, the close itself was policy based, even if I don't agree with the outcome.

I can see why you might be concerned that other league's drafts are at risk of being downcased without discussion, but this RfC shouldn't have any bearing on those. What may be different in the NFL Draft's situation is that there was an RM that was closed as no consensus, whereas I'm not aware of RMs for the related draft. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:25, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Hypothetical question. Are editors permitted to open an RM for this & related pages, to have them moved to "upper-cased"? GoodDay (talk) 17:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

That's a good question @GoodDay, one which I don't feel comfortable answering myself, but I'm leaning towards it not being a great idea due to it being interpreted as an immediate challenge to the recent close. Perhaps @The Wordsmith would be willing to chime in. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:02, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll just open a close review at some point in the next few days - better than starting up a whole new RM. BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Opening an RM just days after an RfC which concluded the opposite could run into WP:CONLEVEL issues, and could be accused of WP:IDHT. As an example, if somebody created an RM proposing Kyiv be moved to Kiev just days after that RfC was closed, it would likely be seen as disruptive. If you think my assessment of consensus was defective, WP:AN is the best way to seek consensus on overturning it. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 21:28, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be agreement on where the next step should take place. As I said, the first page moved should be moved back due to WP:RFCNOT (the RFC information page is linked from the Dispute Resolution policy page, at WP:DR#RfCs) which uses explicit language to say that an RfC cannot replace the RM process - RfCs should not be used to move page titles. This seems a major point. The Request for Comments was fine, and collected comments. But to use that close, even if the closer agrees, to move any page, ignores established policy. So, in essence, the first page move following the RfC was an WP:IAR move. IAR seems to be the question or solution here. Anything else, even the page moves which came afterwards, trusted in good faith (for better or worse) that moving these "draft" page titles had policy backing. They didn't. At least that's an arguable point of view. In summary, the RfC was fine, for comments, but using its close to change a page title meant that the policy WP:IAR was applied. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: For what it's worth, I think the clear next step is a challenge at WP:AN if so desired. I held up on further implementing the downcasing due to a couple people signaling an interest and possible intention of challenging. Page moves are easy to reverse, which is why I took care of all of those already. I also figured folks may see the page moves and suddenly take notice and be interested. The downcasing of text in articles is not as easy to reverse due to "draft" having times it was appropriately downcased in context (such as NFL draft pick), which is why I'm holding off for the moment on using AWB to implement some downcasing. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know, the situation can be seen many ways. The concept I'm putting forward is that the RfC was fine and educational, as was most of the close. It was only when an editor thought those things meant that a page could actually be moved, and then used WP:IAR, either knowingly or unknowingly, to ignore WP:RFCNOT (which is linked from a policy page regarding dispute resolution). What to do about an IAR move? Discuss if these moves improve or maintains Wikipedia, which is the criteria called for to invoke IAR. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: Are you referring to the person who initially moved the page post-RFC, or the admin who closed the discussion and later confirmed that the close was meant to result in the pages being moved? While I do support uppercasing and believe it to be a proper noun, regardless of how Wikipedia evaluates proper nouns, I don't think that this is a case of WP:IAR. With that said, Wordsmith has expressed that they would welcome and look forward to a close review. I'd encourage anyone to do so sooner rather than later if you're going to. I don't like the outcome but I want to get things consistent, which means begrudgingly implementing the RfC. If you're successful in overturning the close it'd be nice to not have to undo as much to restore the pre-downcasing state. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:32, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be an interesting discussion. Hopefully somebody will start it, but which of its many aspects will the board be asked to review? The breaching of WP:RFCNOT? I don't know enough about AN language and style to start it but will gladly add a comment. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@The Wordsmith:, It was a hypothetical question. If others 'do' object to the RFC decision (in any form)? I'll let them decide as to whether or not to challenge the close, at WP:AN. The latter method would be the best route to take, if anybody chooses to challenge an RFC closure. GoodDay (talk) 02:15, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Since WP:RFCNOT's central role was not addressed in the RfC question, which reads like an opinion survey, and the language at RFCNOT has not been changed to allow RfCs to move page titles, all of this seems moot. But as of now these moves are being allowed to stay, setting a drastic precedent: any title can now be the subject of a binding RfC. This either replaces WP:RM and its appeal process or creates another route for a requested move with a different appeal process. One invites the input of page readers, the other doesn't. One lasts a week, with relistings and a move review if needed, and the other either lasts a month or can be stopped at any time. Both are now equally valid, even with that pesky WP:RFCNOT present and supposedly accounted for. Given all that has occurred, what question should be brought at AN? Randy Kryn (talk) 04:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I reckon a question would be, "Can an RFC replace an RM". What should've occurred on this page & related pages, is an RM. GoodDay (talk) 05:05, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Frank Anchor, GoodDay, Randy Kryn, Dicklyon, Hey man im josh, and The Wordsmith: I have opened a review of the closure here. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Additional pings to several others I'm aware of who were involved in the discussion: @Bagumba, @SMcCandlish, and @Conyo14. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)