User talk:3sdanog/Football

Yaya Touré

Looking on the Man City official website, it wouldn appear he hasn't been assigned a squad number yet and people are just assuming he'll take number 22. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 23:22, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Jumped the gun a little. Lesson learned. Removed a duplicate reference and squad number reference from that article. Gonads3 (talk) 23:28, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Blowerb

The edits were well meaning, but mistaken, so using a template like {{needsource}} or whichever variant you used was the right thing to do. Doesn't look like any further action is required at this point. Oh, and thanks, but its not all that impressive when you consider that I've been here five years :) Oldelpaso (talk) 09:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

MCFC stats and squad numbers

To be honest, mate, I only stumbled on the MCFC 2010-11 article by chance. I'm having enough trouble preventing people from adding unsourced squad numbers to Javier Hernandez and Chris Smalling's articles and the MUFC article. I'm getting sick of people thinking a number is official just because a player wears it in a friendly! – PeeJay 21:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I know the feeling. gonads³ 21:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

WPF

The quickest place for getting a decent response to queries on football topics with a potential effect on multiple articles is the WiiProject talk page at WT:WPF. Not many people have template pages on their watchlist. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I may try this in future. gonads³ 16:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

re: City season article edit war and such

Not a problem. It will probably be modified soon, but whatever. I've always advocated the common sense approach, and frankly making a section for the 25-man squad is not common sense - neither is listing Brazilian players' full names instead of the nicknames they are internationally known by, etc etc. I'm all for innovation in my articles, but they have to be sensible innovations. On top of this, I consider the City season articles "my baby" and can get a little possessive of them ;) As far as I see it, the way the squad is listed at present is the best way I can think of, and changing the system - especially blanking the section under a "wait and see" approach - is just pointless. As for the edit war debate, good luck with that - I generally stay out of that side of Wikipedia, but largely just because I rarely get into such arguments. If you need a supporting word then I'll throw one in there for you though. On the plus side, if the rules haven't changed since the last time I checked, the edit war guidelines say no more than three reverts per day, so you only have another hour to wait ;) Falastur2 ^Talk 21:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

haha, thanks. I had rather taken the approach that my work was becoming a lonely art, so I appreciate the compliments, although of course I ultimately do it for the love of the club rather than personal glory. Incidentally, there's all kinds that you can jump in on if you really want, though did you have anything specifically in mind? Were you, for instance, thinking particularly of the season article for this year? Falastur2 ^Talk 22:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking deeper into the issue and really it seems like these are issues you guys are best fixing yourselves - for reasons I will explain in a minute, and elsewhere. Yes, there are valid points to raise and yes your points over what is verifiable are the ones I agree with and probably the ones you could get an arbitration ruling to support, but the issue here is so minor that I can't say that it needs taking to arbitration. Watch for Mancini's Lasagna's talk page, where you've been discussing the matter, because I'm going to post there in a minute with my take on the matter and I really think that the issues here are something you guys should talk over civilly and agree upon. There's no reason to call in teacher to break it up here and I'm going to try to help you guys solve the issue peacefully with a few reasoned points of my own - no patronising tone intended. In the mean time, chill out about the issue. I get as worked up as the next man, and I love a good go at someone - take a look at my edit history to check out times I've just laid into people because I was frustrated - but at the end of the day when you step back, it's really, really not a big thing, especially in cases where you guys could co-operate (that is to say, fighting trolls is one thing, and they are the main subjects of my ire when I basically shout at people in the edit summary, but this thing really isn't the same and need not escalate).

Anyway, keep your eyes peeled. I'm hoping we can resolve this quickly and just put it behind us, no? Falastur2 ^Talk 23:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your input. gonads³ 07:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Hello, 3sdanog. You have new messages at SlimVirgin's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

TFOWR 18:30, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

2010–11 Season Squad Numbers

The reserves (as the "Elite Development Squad") is now an under-21 only team...although in football, under-21 usually includes up to 22-year olds. Thus, any older players such as Etuhu and Logan (IIRC), who might otherwise not be considered first team now must be considered first-team because they can't play in any other squad. If they get no games, fine, but they're still first team. I kept a few players in from last season - Cunningham, Boyata etc - because Mancini has been playing them still in the pre-season and I reckon that he will consider them first-teamers. Honestly it's not an exact science, and I wouldn't react to anyone removing certain players from the list, but that's my logic. If any other youths get given a debut, they will be added to the list also, but I'll wait for the competitive games for that to happen. Falastur2 ^Talk 19:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Makes good sense. Thanks. gonads³ 19:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Your recent edit to Boateng's transfer

Incidentally, re: your comment "Reliable Source?" goal.com is not usually considered a reliable source on it's own, precisely because it is the kind of website which publishes "exclusives" and breaking transfer reports which tend to then be proved wrong. It's acceptable enough to cite it for the transfer fee but if you do so you're better adding it as a second citation and using either mcfc.co.uk/BBC Sport/Sky Sports (SS is the worst of the three but acceptable) as a kind of a "character reference" reliable source to prove that the deal is real. In other words, cite BBC or the official site to prove the transfer, cite goal.com to prove the price. (Even then you can probably find other sources which are equally reputable and disagree on the fee). Falastur2 ^Talk 19:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I did wonder, but it is a second citation. The first being mcfc.com. I altered it because, I noticed that the fee was edited to 10.4m but without any reference that mentioned that or any other figure. Neither mcfc.com or the bbc quote a figure. What do you think? Revert back to undisclosed or leave for now? I'm happy either way. gonads³ 19:43, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Moving forward

Hi. Let's try and salvage and move our relationship forward. I would sincerely like to hear your feedback on the new "EPL Squad Registration" section I posted in Falastur2's Talk Page earlier today. Particularly from the perspective of defensibility via citable resources. Also, on whether you found it useful. Post your comments on Falastur2's Talk Page; let's keep the discussion all in one place. If the suggested PST enhancement doesn't fly with either of you guys then it probably won't require even being discussed on the main MCFC page. In my experience it is better to present "scrubbed ideas" to win general agreement, not "half-baked" ones ... which, for right now, is what this is.

On other matters, I noticed that you recently reverted someone's allocation of the #16 shirt to Kolarov for lack of citation? Why? Do you have a citable source to prove him wrong? Even the most recent source for squad numbers that I added to the PST states that that number is unallocated and available for such an allocation. Maybe that editor knows something we don't but didn't know where, how or why he had to give such a citation for something he knew was obviously true (such as he had just purchased a Kolarov shirt with that number on from the Official MCFC store at the stadium). OTOH it might also have been wild speculation. We just don't know.

IMO that instant reversion was only merited for a stupid squad number assignment such as the ones that have already been established for this season. Because in that instance, that person could never cite a reliable reference to back up his edit. I think what you really should have done in this case is add "citation needed" to his update, contact him as you did, tell him what you had just done, and request that he furnish his citable source (either directly to you in the discussion, or by adding it to the PST entry update) within some reasonable deadline (e.g., 3 days) otherwise you are going to revert it. That way, you would be treating other editors (particularly new ones, who you will possibly scare away from Wikipedia for good) with a lot more courtesy that you are currently showing them. Because courtesy to others goes much deeper that just being polite.

Of course, if you know from past experience that that person frequently makes speculative and stupid updates, then everything I just wrote is moot. I also wouldn't put too much faith in someone that edits material anonymously (i.e., via just an IP address with no Wikipedia handle). It is the principle of this issue that I want to address with you here, and not the actual edit, because it goes right to the heart of our own dispute. Besides, Kolarov will probably get his first team debut tomorrow night and then we will all know for certain what his new shirt number is. But if someone then goes and edits that number into the PST without adding a citation for his edit, since you will know from the evidence of your own eyes that it is correct (if possibly not yet citable without reference to video evidence for the citation) then this time just add "citation needed" to the change so as to encourage other editors of that article to furnish some more "standard citation" (for what by then we will all know to be true and accurate) as, and when, they later come across it. Just my two cents worth.

Namaste. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 00:09, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

re: Barnstar

Many thanks, Gonads. I wonder if you read the comment about a barnstar on my talk-page, which was of course tongue in cheek, but it's much appreciated - the work I've put into those articles probably tops 100 hours total already and it's only 1/3 of the total work to be done. But the barnstar is greatly appreciated - as I've mentioned before I sometimes feel like I'm labouring in isolation, and to receive such praise is immense. I have to admit however that I find the "Tireless" part of the barnstar somewhat ironic, as in recent weeks, combined with other real-life issues draining my energy, I've been feeling near to hitting burn-out on Wikipedia. But receiving that barnstar has had an unexpected effect on me, and I feel somewhat encouraged to get back into my season articles project now - we'll have to see about the other articles I edit. Whatever happens, I will be back - I just need a break and a chance to sit back and tinker with my unmade season articles - I always found tinkering the most relaxing part of Wikipedia. Anyway, thanks once again. It really does mean a lot. Falastur2 ^Talk 15:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

No worries. I've been reading them lately and I'm impressed with the level of work involved as well as the content. If you're willing I would like to offer my services to assist with any new additions. I'm not sure what I can bring, maybe just copy editing if that helps. Anyways, please lookup the tireless barnstar as I do think it's most applicable. All the best. gonads³ 16:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You'd be most welcome joining me on creating those articles. And don't worry about "just copy-editing". Copy-editing isn't exactly a glamorous job, but it essentially is my project. Creating the articles largely involves copying the season before, then going onto mcfcstats.co.uk and replacing the data bit by bit with corrections for the season in question. The most time-consuming bit is taking notepad and then tallying everyone's appearances from the line-ups page - I won't begrudge you not wanting to do that task as it is tedious and one lapse of concentration can invalidate all your hard work. At my peak I can churn out a full new article in about three hours, just to give some perspective, but I do of course have a lot of experience with the templates I'm working with. If you want to join in you're welcome to just throw yourself in and start where you want. I recommend that you draft them in their entirety in a user sub-page before posting them, but that's only because I personally have a pet peeve against articles that are put up with incorrect data and then gradually corrected in the public domain. I've already got a link to every single season article on my user sub-page if you want to use that to go from - or even use my sub-page if you are really lazy ;) You can also use this page for updating the little kit boxes - it's not complete but I'm slowly filling it all in. When you've made a page, don't forget to stick the relevant categories onto the article (check the existing articles for an example) and to change the link in Manchester City F.C. seasons to link to your new article - although I'm happy to do that if you want. Different people are more or less comfortable with editing certain things - some people don't understand categories, others can't work out how to modify a table, etc etc - so if anything confuses you at all just shout and I'll either clue you in on how to fix it or do it for you, whatever is best for you. Of course, the code involved in this project is pretty light and really doesn't involve any modification of the tables or templates so really it's not a problem.

By the way - if you come up with any innovations I'm all ears - I'm a fan of anything that enhances the experience for readers and especially anything that makes the articles longer and thus more in-depth. If you come up with anything I'll try to retrospectively update all the old articles to apply the new ideas.

Any other questions just shout - on this page instead of mine if you want - but I'm sure you'll get on fine. As I mentioned before, I tend to go through phases of sudden activity making articles and then a couple of months of downtime and currently I'm in downtime, but you'll probably notice me get super-active at some point in the future, and even if I'm on downtime I'm still not averse to answering any questions you have. When I do get back in the game I'll make sure I write articles from a different era to the years you're working on so that we don't tread on each others' toes.

Oh, and final point - don't worry if the enormity of the task gets to you. It's a long project and I won't lie. At my estimate of 3 hours per page when practiced that's still about 210 hours of work still to go. If you want to just do ten or five or even one or two articles and take a break I won't mind at all. I remember when I was on the first handful of articles I felt like the job would never end and figured I wouldn't be able to keep up the effort beyond five articles - it will feel like a mammoth task. Don't let it get on top of you and if you feel like you need to take a break then take one - even if it's for months. I certainly wouldn't want you to feel compelled to keep going if it's getting on top of you and I don't like kidding people about the fact that it genuinely is a big job to take on. Anything you can contribute is a major bonus in itself, and I'm just happy in itself to have heard that you are interested in helping out. That, and have fun. I genuinely have found working on these articles to be not only informative but genuinely very interesting and it's helped me get a feel for the old legends of several generations ago. I'm sure you'll feel the same way when you get into it.

P.S. this page and are a veritable treasure trove for finding the links to players who are hard to research - especially as mcfcstats.co.uk doesn't tend to name first names, only surnames. I'm sure they'll be of huge benefit to you too.

P.P.S. Once again, thanks for the barnstar. It really does mean a lot seeing that other members of the community not only have read my work but actually enjoy it and are willing to go out of their way to say as much. My primary motivation as I say is always glorifying City but it really uplifts the spirit to receive praise such as yours. Thanks again :) Falastur2 ^Talk 21:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Cool. I've been looking into a method of automating the tallying everyone's appearances part you mention. If succesful it could help speed things up a little. I'll get back to you with an outcome. Thanks again. gonads³ 19:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Two matches up for deletion

Thanks for raising it to my attention. Angelo (the user who has marked the article for deletion) has history with me for some reason and he seems to be deleting pages I've created and doesn't seem to value my contributions. On the issue of the separate match pages, I made the two match pages because I believed they are both important matches in Manchester City's history. Likewise other users, such as Falastur2 ^Talk have been looking for users to expand Manchester City's range of Wikipedia articles, hence I thought a match page for the two aforementioned and very well known matches were a good idea. Furthermore, there is a page on Tottenham's 9-1 win against Wigan, that match page is allowed, therefore on that premise, there is nothing wrong with these two match pages. I hope you can back me up here, kind regards (Stevo1000 Talk 18:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the articles have a place in themselves as they are. Could you show this user has a conflict of interest with you? If so, perhaps it's worth raising to an admin for comment. gonads³ 17:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't see evidence of a vendetta, Angelo is a regular commenter of football-related AfDs and has nominated similar articles before, and started a discussion on the topic at WikiProject talk. He should probably have notified Stevo when starting the AfD, but that's a courtesy rather than a mandatory requirement. Of course, I'm far, far, from being an uninvolved admin here, seeing as I'm both a significant contributor to MCFC articles and the guy who nominated Angelo for adminship way back when. Oldelpaso (talk) 18:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware you were an admin, just a fair reasonable kind of editor. gonads³ 19:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, given a choice I'd take the latter, but I'd like to think the two aren't mutually exclusive ;) Oldelpaso (talk) 08:40, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

re: Fun

I scoured google thoroughly for about 4-5 hours looking for the missing ones actually - that was at the point when the season was 32 games in, if I recall correctly. I could add the others missing from after I made that page but I somehow doubt I will ever find the others - I consider it entirely possible that sometimes he didn't even make midweek predictions when there were only a few teams playing, which would make the table incompletable anyway. But regardless, you can pretty much see where it was going anyway - he tipped Liverpool for third place, and Everton to beat Villa, with Fulham for the drop, but otherwise everyone is about where you'd expect them to be. The real failing of the predo table is that it is adaptable at a lag of one game to trends in performance. If, say, West Ham have a blinder then it won't take Lawro long to pick up on it and start predicting them to win - so they will end up pretty much where you'd expect them to be anyway. What the predo table does best is show what the league would look like without shock results and which teams benefitted or were most disadvantaged from unexpected scorelines - which sees a few teams swaps places in important areas but few teams gain more than one or two places really. Falastur2 ^Talk 21:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems sensible. I'll be watching the upcoming season version. I'd like to track his accuracy over the season, even on a team by team basis. I may add a little extra to that talk page/page if you don't mind. gonads³ 22:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Missing links

Yeah, I found the root of the problem. Someone edited the main Manchester City page and removed ALL the capitals from "City" and changed them to "city". Have not got a logical clue why User:Kowalski66 did that :S. Regards Stevo1000 (talk) 17:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

MCFC copyvios

Image licensing isn't my strongpoint but looks copyvio to me. The "created by me" is probably a misunderstanding of the difference between the work depicted and creation of the file itself. Though I'm probably more concerned with the vandalism to that section that no-one had noticed... Oldelpaso (talk) 21:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I missed that, well spotted. gonads³ 21:11, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Mario Balotelli

His profile on the official Man City website, which I provided in my edit summaries on the Balotelli and Cunningham articles. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 15:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Man City Kit Image (15th August 2010)

The image used was created by me on the 14th August, it may seem copied but it was not, it looks similar to another image sported on sortitoutsi.net and fm-base.co.uk (I am a member of both forums) but they are not the same images. I uploaded the image as soon as I finished it. I have not put any copyright on it, therefore the use of the image was completely legal. I am sorry for causing any trouble and I do not intend to edit any pages to make them worse. I am already in trouble with Captain n00dle and Falcon8765 concerning some of my inappropriate article editing on the 11th June and 17th June respectively. Since then, my edits have been entirely serious. My Apologies, --Blowerb2214 (talk) 21:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not intend to take the risk of updating them, I would rather leave that to a more experienced Wikipedia user (as I have been using it for just 3 months). The pictures do seem professional and that is because I learned how to make them from looking at pictures made by professionals and just practiced until they looked good enough. They use LS'11 templates from Sports Interactive (can be used and distributed without restrictions). I do not buy the shirts as they are too expensive, instead I will find a photo of the shirt on the Internet and start from that. As you may see, there are a few mistakes as you would know of course with the colour. I have not bothered to correct this. As for the issue on 13th July if you look back about the "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball" policy, I didn't cite the source or the article stating that David Silva had passed his medical and agreed contract terms 13 days previously. From now, I will only edit text on pages until I become more competent at editing other parts of Wikipedia. --Blowerb2214 (talk) 21:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Socks

You honestly want to know? Haha, for some reason I can't even remember I read the Portuguese wikipedia entry on Man City (not sure if you're aware but down the left you can see links to the same article in other languages on the left of the screen if they exist - try it for a major article, there are about 40 languages for City for example) and I found it there. Image graphics for the kit templates work across other Wikis, by the way. The list you are using is good but not comprehensive, unfortunately, and it hasn't been added there (yet). Falastur2 ^Talk 15:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Just hasn't been added to that list yet. It can still be found at [[File:kit_socks_mancity1011t.png]]. Nowiki'ed, hence why that's not a direct link. Falastur2 ^Talk 16:15, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

He's great, isn't he? I was tempted to nick his kits wholesale, except I'm split on the idea of kits showing the umbro badges - I've a feeling that would cause disputes over copyright on this Wikipedia. Falastur2 ^Talk 16:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Starting 11

Actually, I never liked the idea of a starting XI, but I'm not going to remove it. There are a few other ways of representing it, but none massively improving on what he's done. One thing you could do is go into the code right at the top where it says "|200px" and change it to something bigger like "|400px". This number represents the size of the image in pixels, so doing what I just suggested would double the size of the image of the football pitch. You would, however, have to make corrections to all the players' locations as they would still be where they should be for a 200 pixel pitch. Those players are placed by a pixel vector location - i.e. telling Wikipedia how many pixels across and up the image to place the names and flags - so obviously making the picture bigger throws it. The other ways of doing it really consist of representing it in a table or just by text. You could turn the pitch graphic on its size (you'd have to re-upload the picture of the pitch on its side) but I think that would look unnatural. I guess you could try using a pitch graphic from a different angle - i.e. the Football Manager style looking in isometric as if behind and above the goal like this but I'm not convinced it's an improvement at all. Problem is only a football pitch really represents a background for formations.

I've always opposed it, though, as it fails to compensate for different formations played, and especially if individual players play in multiple positions over the course of the year the statistics it relies on become inaccurate and misrepresentative. I'd prefer a system that just shows, say, the most regularly-played players in each position or something about goals-to-games for strikers, but though I love stats I've never quite taken a fancy to this kind of thing in this situation. Still, if you want to try to do it up, go for it. I'll give you some advice if you need it. Falastur2 ^Talk 16:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It does look better, doesn't it? I think PeeJay and I are in agreement over not liking it, but if you really want to do it up then go for it. Remember you'll have to upload your own picture for the altered-perspective view by the way, so if you want to use the FM perspective, make sure the image you use isn't too obviously FM or you'll get a smack down over copyright abuse. Preferably, make or find your own free-use image, if you can, but that's not always easy. Sometimes, ease of access to images is the reason that Wikipedia doesn't look better than it is. Falastur2 ^Talk 18:00, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

It won't be perfect. My idea is that MLITH intends it either to list every position every player plays, or only their most-played position, both of which work better than the graphical version but neither of which are perfect. I think that after about 10 games it will become too messy though and will be got rid of one way or the other - it really doesn't offer a lot more than the squad stats above. Still, I'm going to wait and see where it goes... Falastur2 ^Talk 17:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Case-sensitive

Just saw your recent comment on Stevo1000's page about Wikipedia being overly case-sensitive. The reason is basically that Wikipedia has to handle a whole load of oddly-named articles, and in very rare circumstances, there are both pages which require a lower-case letter, and which are different from another article with upper case letters instead. Wikipedia can't assume caps for the article headers because that would mess up those articles where the lower case is the correct form (though due to various limitations, Wikipedia will always capitalise the first letter in an article title (this includes if you search for a lower-case capital in the search bar), which has been known to create occasional stupid-looking titles) but it also can't just allow non-case-discrimination for the rare circumstances where a single capital is the difference between articles. No, I can't give an example, by the way ;) Ultimately I think the decision also dates back to a simpler time, years ago when Wikipedia was new, and the software behind the editting actually wouldn't allow for such things as the search bar to second-guess what you meant if you failed to capitalise letters in the search bar. It probably could be better-handled now, but frankly the decision has been made and it would be messy and time-inefficient to roll out a new system right now.

Hope this gives you a better understanding of what's going on, and why you can "lose" pages if you forget to capitalise letters. Falastur2 ^Talk 00:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Cool, I thought as much. This applies to most things in life. If not right on day one, things evolve to the point where they cannot be easily undone. Thanks. gonads³ 17:51, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Kompany and players article

Hey, to be honest, I'm fine with Kompany being listed as a centre back and defensive midfielder, he is just as good in both positions and seems to play an even share of games in each position (maybe a bit more of a defender for Mancini, but still he is an accomplished and comfortable defensive midfielder). And the players article? Do you mean the Manchester City supporters article? Or the Manchester City strip article? Just putting the finishing touches to them really. I'm proud of the supporters article though, I think the article shows us that City fans are passionate and that we have got history and a sense of humour that makes City what it is. Regards, Stevo Stevo1000 (talk) 21:59, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Registered players

Go check out the 2 versions of the "Registered players" collapsible table in my sandbox and give me your feedback on them on my Talk Page. Also, see my responses on the MCFC season Talk Page re the "Apps." stats. You can delete this message once you've read it ... the only reason I'm posting it here is so that you wil receive a "new message" notification (which I'm assuming you will see sooner rather than later). Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

"ACG" and "YTH" TLA code links

Take a look at the latest changes to the MCFC PST I have implemented in my sandbox. I have changed the "ACG" and "YTH" TLA codes to be links over to the relevant section of the "Manchester_City_F.C._Reserves_and_Academy" article. I did the "YTH" codes slightly differently than the "ACG" codes because I don't know which one I prefer yet. The use of "!" gives the "ACG" a light grey heading background (the one that makes our eyes bleed!) while I think I prefer the "YTH" links that result from the use of "|" rather than "!". A third option might be to italicize these links rather than to bold them . A fourth option might be to do neither. What do you think? Is making these codes links to that other article too much? Reply back on my Talk Page in a new section; I would have posted this there but I wanted to get your immediate attention with a Wikipedia "new message" indication at the top of your page. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 18:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

sco.wikipedia.org

Hey gonads. I did see that edit, yeah. It's been allowed to stand, basically, because it's a legitimate edit. There are a load of foreign-language Wikipedias, as you are probably aware, and in the zeal for expanding Wiki to every spoken language, a number of language Wikipedias which are neither official language nor widely spoken were allowed to be created - Scots is one of these. I personally think that accepting all of the Wikis as equal projects is stupid as some of them seem reminiscent of a few guys who speak a dying language creating a Wikipedia more for an ego-trip or publicity than because they want it to actually represent world knowledge in their language, but I guess at least Scots has a fair number of speakers and articles (some foreign language Wikipedias have, like...one article. I'm not exaggerating here). But hey, what can we do. Scots isn't even one of the bad examples of entirely superfluous WikiProjects. If you want to see a totally irrelevant and entirely unnecessary Wikipedia, look no further than Simple English Wikipedia, which is Wikipedia in English, but...just using basic words. Yes indeedy, the description of Simple English Wikipedia even by its own admission is English, but only using the 1,000 most common words in our language. Utterly, utterly farcical and arbitrary. Oh well, it's Wikipedia policy to encourage and accept all links between language Wikipedia articles (so long as the links are correct), so we can't really object to it. Better to just ignore that those Wikipedias exist - thankfully the only recognition we need to make of them is the links down the left hand side of the articles where the articles link to the same page in other languages, and since that area is eminently ignorable, it's not much of a sacrifice.

Glad to hear that you're reading my Lawro's Predos page, by the way - I of course made the page purely for self-interest, but I was curious to see whether other people would appreciate it. I'll get round to keeping the table on the right updated eventually (it takes a disturbingly long time to do) but the "league standings" are the main bit and they really do paint a picture...especially the way that Lawro seemed reluctant to award us any potential wins until about the fourth round of matches, leading to this somehow unsurprising situation where he predicted the Big Four in the CL positions, then Spurs, and Villa, and Everton...and City almost in the relegation zone. Ahh well, we'll see how he likes it when Liverpool go into administration in October, get docked 9 points and get stuck on the bottom of the table with a negative points total. Although his commentary on Match of the Day will go into the realms of insanity when that happens, so perhaps it's not a good idea... Falastur2 ^Talk 23:23, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

re: Lawro's Predictions

Wow. That stuff is freaking brilliant. Incredible stuff, it's miles better than anything I could've thought of. I really don't know how to express it properly, it's just absolutely spot on. I can't really thank you enough, that spreadsheet basically solves everything.

Incidentally, I'm all up for adding extra analysis to the article. If you think of anything worth adding to the page just give a shout. Falastur2 ^Talk 18:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. I was wondering about a chart of league places - that is, a graph plotting the placing of every team after every round so you can see how they rise and fell through the league according to Lawro's ideas - but I wondered if it wouldn't just be too close to reality, and/or probably with a high chance of the table just looking like straight lines (and thus being somewhat pointless). Indeed, maybe it would only be worthwhile for, say, the first 10 rounds of matches; what do you think?

Incidentally, for the record, I've been away all weekend, so I haven't had chance to implement your new code yet, but I'll be adding it to my sub-page shortly - though it would appear that your page is my page, but mark 2.0, now ;) Falastur2 ^Talk 17:18, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, one suggestion. Very minor, but you might like it. In your "arrows table" for want of a better description that's also a snappier name, you use the small-type hyphons (-) whereas in the Lawro's league table you use the longer form – (because I did originally, I'm guessing :) ). If you want to standardise it, because copy-paste won't work via Excel like it does in the Wiki editor, change the hyphon to – (you're going to have to edit this section to see the code on it because I'm feeling a little off-colour and can't put together a way to stop the code from interpreting as the hyphon automatically. For the record, no space is needed between the ndash and the number showing the # of places lower than predicted, i.e. –5 compares to – 5 which adds that superfluous extra space. Then when it's pasted to Wiki, it instantly works as the elongated, better-to-read hyphon called ndash.

Added your code to my sub-page, by the way. Thanks very much :) Falastur2 ^Talk 17:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

P.P.S. I really do love the extra tables you've added to the Excel. Falastur2 ^Talk 17:55, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

re: Home and away. Give me an hour or so and I'll draw the tables up for you. Falastur2 ^Talk 22:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Done and done. Hope that's what you were looking for. Interesting what stuff you learn from that table, actually. I only just noticed, for example, that Lawro isn't as biased against us as I thought (or rather, he believes we can get points away), that Blackpool will always lose 1-2 away unless they are losing 1-3 to Liverpool, and apparently Lawro believes that West Brom have some mystical ability to always draw 1-1 at home. Falastur2 ^Talk 22:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

views

You might be interested in stating your six pence worth WRT this issue. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I seem have missed the fun. Sorry, I've unwell and offline for a while. gonads³ 22:27, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Lawro's Predictions

I was perusing the viewing stats for my Lawro's Predictions page for the heck of it yesterday and I noticed that I somehow got a mammoth 143 hits to the page in one day on the 23rd of this month (last Saturday). I was just curious...you wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you? Just wondering where all those views came from ;) Falastur2 ^Talk 17:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Manchester derby

My considering work on the derby article as a derby approaches is nothing new, I've been meaning to do a proper job of it for years now. However, having now obtained the two long out-of-print books that have been written about the derby, this time I might actually do it. That and its compensation for the fact that I'm unable to attend the next one due to inescapable work commitments, first home one I'll have missed since 1989 :( . Anyway, to get to the point, I'm asking editors of both red and blue hues what they think should go in the article. Naturally, a History section which goes chronologically through the major events of the fixture will be the bulk of it, but what else? A short "non-competitive derbies" section is one thing I'm thinking of putting in. A section on the nature of rivalry between fans and their attitudes to the fixture may have mileage, but I fear it would become a magnet for dubious POV edits. Oldelpaso (talk) 10:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)