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Wikipedia:WikiProject Olympics/Olympic conventions/topics

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The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Please make your requests for new topics to be added to the Olympics Conventions page here. If enough people believe that the topic should be added, someone will add it for you. Thanks, Jared [T]/[+] 22:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: Please add new topics to the bottom of the page! Thanks.

==Countries no longer competing should not be Ranked== (Still listed in position, but unranked)

Countries that are no longer competing - because they no longer exist, should be included in the table in the position their medals merit, but they should not be ranked. What is the point of ranking a nation that no longer exists? In the table there entry should be noted in Italics.

This would also provide a more accurate guide going forward as to just what are the most succesful nations now competing at the Olympics, although the historical perspective in looking at these pages would still be provided. jkm 12:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's Create a Table Providing the Medal Count Scores For All Pairs of Nations

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The ideal, much more informative and interesting solution would be a table with all nations listed on both dimensions, for each pair of nations providing the score: how often did one beat the other in the total medal count when both participated? For example, the score for USSR vs USA would be 15:2. The score for USA vs East Germany would be 4:7. But the table would also provide many other interesting scores such as France vs UK etc. Former fragments of nations that split up or united should be listed separately, but their combined scores should also be given, since many are interested in this type of information. Similar tables should be created for pure gold counts and for scores restricted to Summer and Winter Games. Anybody feeling up to the challenge? Medalstats 10:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment.

Rickywicky, who's petty? The one who's trying to put things in perspective, or the one who's constantly deleting crucial info that makes other nations look better? Medalstats 12:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. This may be interesting reading for someone, but does not seem appropriate for Wikipedia. It reeks of POV, despite being numeric data in tabular format instead of prose.
  • Comment.

I think it's funny that your criticism can be immediately applied to the total medal count table invented by US patriot Caponer: It reeks of POV, despite being numeric data in tabular format instead of prose. It simply omits crucial information putting the numbers in perspective. As Churchill once said: I believe only in those statistics that I faked myself. The table I am suggesting above, however, is quite informative, and does not omit any essential aspects. 

Medalstats 17:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Table of All Medal Count Scores: Nation X vs Nation Y

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I think it would be interesting and informative to create a table with all nations listed on both dimensions, for each pair of nations providing the score: how often did one beat the other in the total medal count when both participated? In such a table we could immediately look up scores such as USA vs Greece 42:1, USSR vs USA 15:2; USA vs East Germany 4:7, France vs UK ?:? etc. Former fragments of nations that split up or united should be listed separately, but their combined scores should also be given, since many are interested in this type of information. Similar tables should be created for pure gold counts and for scores restricted to Summer and Winter Games. Anybody feeling up to the challenge? Medalstats 14:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The more I think about this idea the better I like it! But it sounds like a lot of work. Maybe someone can write a computer program that automatically extracts the relevant information from the existing Wikipedia medal count tables? Them medals 09:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support! I just stumbled across the page "total olympics medal count" following a link from the winter olympics medal count, and started feeling an urge to participate in the discussion. I believe this "total olympics medal count" is one of the worst examples of spin doctoring at Wikipedia. Clearly one must state how often some nation participated before you state how many medals they won. The idea of pairwise medal count scores is great as it will clearly show how often any two nations participated simultaneously. Wintermetal 21:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anybody notice the blatant sockpuppetry of Wintermetal/Them Medals/Medalstats?


No column for position on medal tables

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Since we seem obliged to follow IOC policy on almost every issue, as I believe we should, I think that the "pos" column, meaning "position", should not be there. The IOC orders the countries by # of gold unofficially, but it in no way ranks them. Calling position does not change the fact that it is a rank. Since the only ranks the IOC has are in the form of gold, silver, and bronze individually/teamly for single even accomplishments, I don't think we should in any way put in a column the quanitifies a country's cumulative rank, since none really exists. Bsd987 16:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Medal counts should include a column showing number of Olympic appearances

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  • Support. - Simple and non-intrusive single column with the number of editions of the Games that each country has entered. Interesting and useful information that can be considered in whatever light the reader likes. -- Jonel | Speak 19:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question. Does this include both total appearances in both Summer and Winter Olympics included together in the separate Summer and Winter medal tables? For example in the 2006 Winter Olympics medal table, if we were to add a column, will it show just Winter Olympic appearances or Summer & Winter Olympic Games appearances? - Nick C 20:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Makes perfect sense to me. Do it! Them medals 23:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You make yourself out as so unhelpful, a complete violation of NPOV, and a pain in the neck when it comes down to debating these pages. Why muct you insist that everything you do is right? --Jared [T]/[+] 23:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support! Of course this must be done - everything else would be totally misleading POV, like comparing milk and whiskey. Wintermetal 12:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: This topic is currently a discussion topic on the main debate page. Make all further comments and votes there.

EUA or GER?

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Please note, I am NOT trying to re-open the can of worms of counting medals differently for Germany, Soviet Union, etc. My issue here is one of procedure and clarification. Now, West Germany and East Germany competed as the United Team of Germany (EUA) for the 1956, 1960 and 1964 games. Those results appear to be combined with those of GER from the pre-war games and the post-reunification period. This actually makes sense to me, but it could be considered inconsistent with what we resolved in issue 2.4. Should we extract EUA results as a separate line, or keep it together (with an explanatory note at the end of the table, perhaps). This would be consistent with the treatment of the Unified Team, where EUN has its own row in the table. I note that specific Wikipedia pages for those three games show results as EUA, with a distinct flag, etc. Again, I repeat, I am not try to make a political statement or have any agenda other than consistency and accuracy of results. Andrwsc 17:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. I think we should go by the names of the NOCs (National Olympic Committees) and not worry about whatever similarities they may have to other NOCs. I am against any combining whatsoever. If the NOC names aren't the same, then their medal counts shouldn't be combined. There are various other anomalies as well regarding this issue. Check out what I said in the 1952 Winter Olympics medal count talk page. King nothing 2 00:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Andrwsc, I think that this would fall under the debate resolved here. Therefore, I suggest that if this is the way you feel, you should just be bold and separate them yourself. I think this would be best, as a separate IOC code should mean a separate count. This discussion should be closed as it is minor and it has basically been resolved. --Jared [T]/[+] 22:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Use NOC as only criteria for medal tables

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I guess this point is an extension of a previous issue (EUA or GER). I was cross-referencing the medal tables we have on Wikipedia with those on olympic.org [1] and found a lot of discrepancies. The biggest sources of confusion (in my mind) are trying to sort out all the mixed team results, and nations that appear on Summer Olympics medal count (such as Wales, Smyrna, etc.) but don't show up anywhere on the olympic.org tables. My recommendation is that we:

  • use the NOC names as the only criteria to determine how to accumulate medal counts
  • include the NOC names on medal tables for clarity
  • include footnotes where useful, such as explaining what the EUA (United Team of Germany) and EUN (Unified Team) were all about
  • follow IOC convention and use the code ZXX for mixed teams, instead of trying to enumerate every combination in the medal table. There is already a stub at 1900 Summer Olympics mixed team to describe the situation at those games, and I expanded the stub at Independent Participant (IOP) today for a similar reason. There would be links from the appropriate games pages to the mixed team pages, just as there are (or will be) for every other NOC (i.e. the "NOC at the xxxx Olympics" pages).

To illustrate what I'm suggesting, the top four entries of 1964 Summer Olympics medal count could be changed slightly to look like:

1 USA United States 36 26 28 90
2 URS USSR 30 31 35 96
3 JPN Japan 16 5 8 29
4 EUA United Team of Germany 10 22 18 50

This seems awfully logical to me. I hope we can implement this, and it may help defuse some of the perpetual arguments (well, during/after every games, anyway) to re-tabulate medal totals for POV reasons. Andrwsc 07:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I support your idea of using NOC names as the only criteria for medal counts. There should be no discrepency between our tables and the IOC's. I don't see the point of listing both the NOCs' names and abbreviations like you did in your example, though. Just the NOCs' full names should be sufficient. King nothing 2 08:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I don't see where you're coming from, Andrwsc, because the top 4 entites look exactly the same on this table as it does on the real one. Could you clarify what you are suggesting? Thanks. --Jared [T]/[+] 18:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there are two changes in my example here. First is that the IOC code appears in the medal table, and second is that the wikilink points to "country at the 1964 Summer Olympics" instead of just to the country page. (I realize that is a bit subtle - you have to mouse over or follow the link.) Andrwsc 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. If you're going to use the NOC names as the only criteria for medal counts, how on Earth do you count the medals from the early Olympics? Are you aware that the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) was founded in 1900, therefore going by your NOC criteria you can't include the medals won at the Athens 1896 Olympics with the rest of the US Medals because they were not won by the US NOC, because they didn't have one! And, on that point, the United States was (AFAIK) the first NOC, so its going to have an even bigger impact on other countries having medals decided by NOC. Totally, wrong-headed solution IMO. jkm 12:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The IOC has "retrofitted" NOC codes for the first few games; I am simply proposing we follow the IOC conventions. I find the current table at Summer Olympics medal count extremely confusing, because of the treatment of the mixed team (ZXX) medal winners, and by the appearance of countries (like Wales and Smyrna), that don't appear on any of the individual "xxxx Summer Olympics medal count" pages. I just want to see consistency here. The page of total counts ought to match the sums from each games totals pages, no? Andrwsc 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I think I see your point now; It's that (basically) each IOC code should have its own separate line on the tables because they are/were separate entities at the time. If this is correct, say so and I will change this to a support vote. (I also like your idea of making them all say X at the XXXX Winter Olympics, althought this should already have been standard.) --Jared [T]/[+] 00:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed again, Andrwsc. We should be following the IOC's medal count pages and their conventions to a tee. After all, they run the Olympics; they know the right way to do these things better than anyone. I don't see any good reason why we shouldn't use the IOC's exact data. King nothing 2 15:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Medal Winner categories?

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How about in addition to the various Olympian categories we create Category:Olympic Bronze Medalists, Category:Olympic Silver Medalists, and Category:Olympic Gold Medalists. These could replace Category:Olympic medalists by medal, and we could very easily just include said categories in {{MedalBronze}}, {{MedalSilver}}, and {{MedalGold}}. Whaddya think? Staxringold 03:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. I am opposed to this because of your inclusion of the MedalBronze, etc templates at the bottom of your proposal. I despise those templates and images on them, but I think your idea might be good. It may require a lot of work to impliment, though. --Jared [T]/[+] 18:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • No offense, but that seems a little silly. They are being used, and so long as they are why not use them effectively? Staxringold 20:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah... I'm going to be bold, and please do revert it if you feel otherwise, but these categories won't change the appearance (the main debate, it seems) of the template, so they might as well be used to their full potential while they exist. Staxringold 12:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Adding Medals of the EU

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This debate was removed from this page because of its absurdity and lack of evidence to support it. It should not be replaced for any reason.

Alignment

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Ok, I'd like to talk about the alignment of the rank numbers and the medal count numbers. Currently, the majority of tables align them both to the left. There are only a few deviances. On the Summer Olympics medal count page, the rank numbers are aligned to the right. On the Total Olympics medal count page and the Summer Olympics medal count page, the medal count numbers are aligned to the right.

My opinion is that the rank numbers look better when they're right aligned. As for the medal count numbers, I don't think either alignment looks better than the other, so in my opinion we should just stick to left alignment for them so we don't have to change 40+ medal count tables.

So my proposition is as follows:

  • Right align the rank numbers on ALL medal count pages.
  • Left align the medal count numbers on ALL medal count pages.

King nothing 2 08:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have started adding some medal counts to pages that don't have them starting at 1904. See Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics for instance. I am not familiar with tables so how exactly do I right align the rank numbers?--Kalsermar 15:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just got done realigning all the tables on the medal count pages. It wasn't fun, but someone had to do it. King nothing 2 13:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

West Germany = Germany

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The article German_reunification clearly states that "German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on 1990-10-03, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, in English commonly called "East Germany") were incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, in English commonly called "West Germany")" Check it out. The government of what was referred to as West Germany then became the government of Germany as a whole - but there was a definite and recognisable continuity there. Why then should the medals won by West Germany be counted as separate from those one by Germany since then? The same chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was in power from 1982-1998, all through this period of transition and change - but it was the same government.

As far as I can tell, the only reason the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany & Germany) has been split at this juncture in terms of medals won at the Olympics is because of a territorial change in the size of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990, with re-unification, but there was no governmental overthrow at the time. And it did not change its official name either - its territory merely grew in size.

Its easy to laugh at this point, but I can provide a direct example and analogy with the United States in terms of its territory changing. In 1896, the United States consisted of 45 States, 5 current States were yet to fully join the Union. Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona & Alaska were territories of the US, but yet to become full States. IN due time they became full states. But, Hawaii was not even part of the USA at the time of the Athens 1896 Olympics. It was officially annexed in 1897! Finally becoming a full state, with Alaska, in 1959.

Does the fact that the territorial integrity of the US has substantially altered (5 New States since 1896 - Including the new territory of Hawaii) during the time of the Modern Olympics mean that medals won by the United States in 1896 should be kept in a separate tally? Of course not, but then can someone explain the difference with the Federal Republic of Germany? The Federal Republic of Germany has competed continuously at the Olympics since 1968. Continuously (1968-2006). In the immediate Post WWII period it competed in a combined team with the German Democratic Republic, but the Federal Republic of Germany competed in 1988, and then again in 1992. It did not even change its name, merely the size of its territory. Can someone explain how this substantively differs from the case I raised of the USA?

Also, in relation to this argument I've heard it said that countries should be ranked according to the name of their NOC. But what happens to places like Ceylon/Sri Lanka? Bohemia/Czech Republic? Burma/Myanmar? They are the same countries, even if under a different name, why should they be separated? And as well, I don't believe there were any NOCs participating at the 1900 Olympics, or the 1904 Olympics - so going by that system does that require that these medals are put in a different category? I think not, because using the NOC is a spurious argument. Jkmccrann 02:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Support. Hence, there should be a better recognition of this fact and German medals should in some way reflect this political reality. jkm 12:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jkmccrann, this topic was already discussed and the resolved can be viewed here. Further, the political state of a nation has nothing, or little to nothing, to do with olympic counts, as each separate IOC code is counted separately. Here are the 4 Germany codes that should and will be counted separately:

IOC codes of Germany
Code Nation Name
EUA United Team of Germany
FRG West Germany
GDR East Germany
GER Germany

--Jared [T]/[+] 13:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, Jared. And Jkmccrann, where are you getting your information on NOCs? There were NOCs in the 1900 and 1904 Olympics... King nothing 2 14:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, point conceded slightly, but I was looking at Canada, who gained their Olympic Committee in 1904, and yet they were awarded medals at the 1900 Olympics - which you've put towards their overall total. That information is freely available on the Official Olympics Site. It clearly states that the Canadian Olympic Committee was created in 1904 and Recognised in 1907, so the NOC argument is a fallacy - unless the Canadian medals at the 1900 Olympics don't count. http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/noc/noc_uk.asp?noc_initials=CAN As well, look at Brazil, their overall count includes medals they won at the 1920 Olympics, and yet according to the IOC, they did not have a NOC until 1935! http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/noc/noc_uk.asp?noc_initials=BRA

Those are 2 easy examples I've found in 5 minutes of looking, and I'm sure I can find a number of others if I tried - my point is - will you admit that any argument based around using the NOC notation is therefore seriously flawed in terms of creating an overall count and contains an element of arbritrary decision-making?

And the thing with pointing out the various German teams that have competed then - by what right are the EUA teams combined with Pre WWII teams and post Cold War teams in an overall Medal Count? You have to admit that that contains a large element of arbritrary decision making.jkm 14:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, in case you're wondering, I think arguments concerning USSR/Russia and various parts of Yugoslavia etc. are a completely different argument and Russia should have no entitlement to any medals of the USSR/CIS. I just feel the whole German argument, though it may have been debated here many times, is very different and is not going to go away. Its basically going to come up every 2 years, because a lot of people do put all the Germanies in together. I think it should be recognised, even if its not explicitly ranked. Look at these pages for an example of what I'm referring to. These pages work perfectly well I might add. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_GDP_%28nominal%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29 jkm 15:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. To my knowledge there were no NOC's in existence for the early games but discounting those medals would not be right for just that reason. As for Germany, I have not followed that debate closely but I can see Jared's logic with the NOC codes. Personally however, I would count Pre 1945 Germany as one, GDR as another and combine FRG and post 1990 Germany since, even though they changed codes they are still one and the same NOC. Compare with the Netherlands. They used to be HOL and are now NED but no one, I would hope, would ever consider splitting those medals in two. The German question however is not of great importance to me but I did want to state my personal preference. If that debate is oficially reopened I would gladly contribute to it, if not, than that's fine too.--Kalsermar 15:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The split you talk of Kalsermar is IMO a more legitimate split than that that occurs currently. Its a tough one, but I have to agree with you that FRG and post 1990 Germany have been presided over by the same NOC, if we're going down that route, and that should be recognised in some way. As you say, and I agree, the NOC is a good starting point - but if you look back through the history of the games it is simply not that black and white, and the Holland/Netherlands point you raise is timely. It is a tough one though. jkm 15:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The NOC argument isn't fallacious. Yes, countries were awarded medals before they actually had a NOC -- so what? The pure and simple fact is that the International Olympic Committee (you know, those people who run the Olympics) made the decision to give the medals to present-day NOCs that didn't have a NOC at the time that they won those medals. Kals: there were NOCs in the early games. The U.S., for example, created their NOC in 1894. My guess is, in the early games, it wasn't mandatory to have a NOC in order for a country to compete. Also, where is this HOL you speak of? I'm looking at olympic.org, and all I see is NED. I don't see any potential splitting debate, tbh. King nothing 2 15:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. For the Netherlands, see right [|here]. I am Dutch and I remember the changeover in codes back then, I believe they requested it because it is properly Netherlands and not Holland, which is only part of the Netherlands even though most, even most Dutch, call the whole country Holland. I share your assesment that it was probably not mandatory in the beginning for the countries to have NOC's.--Kalsermar 16:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I think that combining medals from different NOCs is a Pandora's box of sorts. I think that your GER->EUA->FRG->GER argument is reasonable, but I don't think we should set a precedent for combinations that don't work, such as adding GDR to that total. With that situation, combining totals from two distinct teams does not give an apples-apples comparison because many events could have twice as many competitors, for example. I know you aren't suggesting that we do that, but it could be the follow-on argument for the next editor to make. The URS->EUN->RUS+others example is also problematic for those reasons. Because of all this, I think the best solution is to use the NOC code as the only criteria for tabulating medals, using the retroactive NOC assignments used by the IOC for the early games. I think that a well-written set of footnotes, or links to explanatory articles (such as the ones written for the United Team of Germany, Unified Team, Independent Participant, etc.) can really help answer questions that arise because of the multiple NOC codes used over the years. Andrwsc 04:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. King nothing 2 04:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gold, Silver, Bronze vs. Gold, Silver, Bronze

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I am of course talking about the column titles in the medal count tables. Currently, 5 medal count pages (2002, 2006, total Winter, total Summer, and overall total) use the medal pictures. All of the other medal count pages use the text version (2004, 2000, etc). I think we need to pick one or the other; we shouldn't be using both. So, let's vote on it. Please place a support vote under the option you favor; there shouldn't be any need for oppose votes.

NOTE: I was in the process of making all of the tables the same, so I decided to make the medal thing the same, too. I'm not too partial to either or, but I do think that the medal icons look the best. I went ahead and used those on all pages, but at any time, I can switch it because I'm using AWB. --J@red [T]/[+] 22:32, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jared, I disagree with this decision. The discussion of the use of the medals on competitors pages seems to be reaching a no-consensus with a strong lean towards just having the text. And, the early vote on this one is 3-0 of using just the words and not the medal images. If you're in such a hurry to make everything consistent, it would probably be a better idea to follow the early results. Sue Anne 22:42, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm sorry you saw it as a bad thing, Sue, but you see, I was making the borders and class of each table the same, so rather than go back and re do it later, I chose to make them all the same now. I didn't realize this page had such a major consensus when I did that, because if I saw this, I would have gone the other way. Forgive me, and when this stupid MfD is over with, we'll start from scratch and make all of these debates more clear. This whole MfD thing is really screwing us over, don't you think, Sue? --J@red [T]/[+] 23:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1:

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Gold Silver Bronze
  • Potential support. I really do like the idea of medal images. The fact that they are so obvious what medal column is which (which you could tell without the headings anyway) is a plus. They also make the colums as thin as possible because with the words, the columns are wide and not all the same width. I think that this definitely has potential. --J@red [T]/[+] 23:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Option 2:

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Gold Silver Bronze
  • Support. The medal pictures look cool and everything, but the text version IMO makes the whole table look better. It gives more space in between each column of numbers, whereas the tables with the medal pictures seem to be too bunched up. The text version makes the tables look cleaner IMO. King nothing 2 14:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with the text it is instantly clear what the medals are and as King nothing 2 said, it makes it less bunched up.--Kalsermar 15:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What happened to the supportvote template? King nothing 2 15:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There were notices they would be deleted. I thought it would be after these votes would end but apparently they went ahead and deleted them now.--Kalsermar 15:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remove empty medal tables from "Country at the xxxx Olympics" pages

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I find it very verbose and unnecessary to include a medal table on the NOC pages if that NOC did not win any medals. I realize that these pages were created from a common format, but now that the games are over, I think we ought to clean these up. In most recent games, there are a LOT of NOCs that sent a handful of athletes (or even just 1!), usually finishing out of the medals, and I think the common format is too much. The medal table ought to only appear if the NOC won at least one medal. Here's a specific example: instead of the text at Bermuda at the 2006 Winter Olympics, I would simply say:

Bermuda sent 1 competitor to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Patrick Singleton served as flag bearer at the Opening Ceremonies and competed in the men's skeleton event, where he finished in 19th place.

(In this example, I think the times for each of his two runs are inappropriate information for this page, as they are out of context with the rest of the event's competitors, but that's another issue, proposed below.)

Clean up "Country at the xxxx Olympics" pages by linking to sport pages for results

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As an additional point to the previous issue, some of the "Country at the Olympics" pages are WAY too verbose to be useful, as editors have added every competitor's individual event results. Check out United States at the 2006 Winter Olympics and Canada at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Holy crap, I can't wade through that. I think those pages ought to be properly wikilinked to the respective sport & result pages, where this information should be found (only).

Even if this proposal is defeated, I strongly urge editors to try and compress these results (using effective tabular formats) from the current style of indented paragraphs. For example, putting each luge competitors four runs on separate lines just leads to a very ugly and unwieldy presentation of this information.

  • Support Andrwsc 01:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I didn't read the above too well, but I do agree that pages like this need to be limited to a certain size/type of info...and then link to other pages telling the rest. The US at the 06 Olympics is supposed to be a portal to the other more specific pages, also including a brief runthough of each sport, etc. I agree that its way too long, though. --Jared [T]/[+] 01:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. While I agree with your comment that the pages are a bit of unwieldly mess, I do think they serve a very useful purpose. I'm currently working on ways to make them a lot cleaner. If you take luge results as an example, while early results posted by me and others were in the "indented paragraph" format, I've been working on putting them into tables instead. Which take up a lot less vertical space and are much better for the page. If you look at Ukraine at the 2006 Winter Olympics, you'll see what I mean. Let me know if this addresses your concerns. Sue Anne 01:58, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't get me wrong...they're definitely useful, they just need more structure and all of the pages should be the same. --Jared [T]/[+] 02:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I disagree with that. There's too much formalism in here.--Nitsansh 02:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral Pages definitely need to be cleaned up to improve useability.--Kalsermar 02:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Sue Anne, I think your example is certainly an improvement, but I still think those "portals" (as Jared calls them) contain too much data. When I look at the times for skiing events or sliding events, I have no way of knowing how meaningful the times are (esp. since courses are unique to each Olympics venue). Really, the best place for that data is in a complete listing of the specific race results, which is best found on the "<sport> at the <year> Winter Olympics" pages. That's the only place where you get the context of each competitor's time. Similarly, do we really need to see the individual statistics for each hockey player on the "<country> at the <year> Winter Olympics" page? I say no. I think the details are best found on the "Ice hockey at the <year> Winter Olympics" page, or perhaps even better, on tournament details pages under that. It just seems to me that the "portal" pages for countries with large teams are getting buried under mountains of data. Note that I'm not suggesting we delete that data! Of course not! I'm just suggesting that we do a better job in organizing it. Andrwsc 04:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Medal results pages should be allowed to include more than one chart

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I realize it was decided as a convention that countries should be ranked by gold medals in the medal table on the Olympics results pages, not by total medals, but I believe that should not preclude the inclusion of two separate tables. If we presented one table (the one decided on by the convention) first and then another table (ranked by total medals, or ranked by top 8, or whatever) below it, it would make everyone happy and make Wikipedia conform to both the "official" standard and the one used by almost all North American media. People have been removing those tables from the 2006 Winter Results page in the name of convention. Why should we have less information because of a convention? I thought WP's goal was to expand knowledge. Ajsegal 08:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I agree with the above sentiment. I've no problem with the convention of having a chart that ranks by gold medals that heads the article, but allowing the North American standard should also be admissible with that chart below the "Gold ranking" chart. Some people have remarked over not realizing that an organization of the chart like that even existed ... and is a benefit to those who are accustomed to the "Total medal" format ... and an added insight for those who are curious as to which countries have accumulated the most medals during the Olympics. The fact that the North American media has used that format, as stated by Ajsegal, should give it some sort of credibility as a valid format. Amchow78 02:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I agree with your point, Ajsegal, that Wikipedia is meant to expand and put forth knowledge, but I think that having more than one table is too much. With more than one table, especially on the Totals pages or the most recent summer pages, it would be both a hassle to maintain, impliment (on all pages) and it would make the page too big, with too many options of viewing to look at. For the sake of the people viewing, the gold first method is the best and there should be no other options. The individual results pages per sport- or per country- per games is where you may have more than 1 table, but that should be the only place. --Jared [T]/[+] 02:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I am in two ways about this. I myself prefer the tables that rank according to total medals as I would rather have 1 gold, 5 silvers and 8 bronze then 2 golds and I think it is absurd that the latter should be ranked ahead of the former. Having said that I know that the gold medal preference is going to stay and I think two tables is too much of a good thing. As a compromise we could do what the Turin Games official site did and rank them according to the gold medal preference method and add a column that gives their rank according to total medals won as illustrated by this very crudely designed table.

RankCountryGoldSilverBronzeTotalRank by total
1Swaziland30033
2Paraguay10452
3Kiribati074111

--Kalsermar 15:41, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I am an advocate for only one table, I certainly agree with you Kal. This way, the people who didn't get their way when it came to the gold or total ranks debate will still get to have part of their idea there. Plus, I think that more information in a small space is a good thing; with one extra column that is very small, it would be easy to take care of, impliment, and it would be a good addition to the gold medal ranked pages. --Jared [T]/[+] 20:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. . I am strongly in favouring of having the three tables on the same page as it was before.. It is not uncommon to have multiple tables sorted in different ways on wikipedia; and the reasons 'hassle to maintain and impliment' are pretty silly, since they are already made for the 2006 olympics; if someone wishes to make them for other years they can.. but i'd hardly call it a hassle. The fact is, some people are opposed to the mere existence of the top-8 placement table, and it is currently up for deletion here; this feels like we'd be losing information, which doesn't seem right for wikipedia. in any case, i don't think the tables are so unwieldy that it would make the page too big.. and they are sufficiently self-explanitory that i doubt they would confuse the readers. Mlm42 21:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let's create a Pre World War II Table & A Post World War II Table

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I think creating these 2 new tables would be a good step, and a worthwhile exercise in demonstrating how the Olympics have changed over the years. One immediate effect of doing such a thing would be the demise of Great Britain after World War II. The vast majority of British medals were won before World War II, and their lofty status on the All-Time Medal Tally is maintained because of this historical legacy, whereas over the last 50-60 years their performances at the Olympics have been very disappointing. This is perhaps a first step, and I believe a very logical path to go down - to recognise the changing geo-political realities the Olympics have dealt with.

Pre World War I (1896-1936) Post World War II (1948-2006+)

Other possible Historical Tables (which I'm not strongly advocating at this time, but bear thinking about in this context)

A Cold War Medals Tally (1948-1992) (Up to and including 1992 because whatever anyone says, the Unified Team was a Soviet successor team put together because of the changing geo-political realities on the ground - I realise it was not EXACTLY the same as the USSR team, but neither was the 1896 USA team the same as the 1960 USA team (5 new states between 1896-1960) (Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska & Colorado) (New States = New Flag.)

A 20th Century Medals Tally (1900-1996/98(Nagano)) OR (1904-2000) (Yet another argument, not sure what the Wikipedia convention is on the 20th Century. To make it easier, we could refer to it as a 1900s Medal Tally (ALWAYS 1900-1996/98(Nagano))

A Post Cold War Medals Tally (1994-2006+) (This would allow a fairer comparison between Russia and other more established nation-states for instance)

First Modern Olympic Century Medals Tally (1896-1994) The historical record of how the first century of the Modern Olympics Panned Out.

Not advocating all of these, but I think they're worth thinking about, and they're really not that hard to organise and create - certainly not as hard as splitting up USSR medals for instance (Pretty much impossible) jkm 12:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment. Yep, new tables - and the simplest time-scales would also mean these tables should be free of any arguments concerning the Germanies or USSR/CIS/Russia etc, because the most obvious time scales would correlate with the geo-political changes that have gone on - I think such tables have value - because they represent certain historical periods as reflected in Olympic success in a way. So USSR dominance of Cold War Olympics is recognised - and recognised as distinct from its successor states, like Russia. I would appreciate any other feedback though. Cheers. jkm 12:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment would they be in addition of or instead of the all time total medal count? If in addition of then I would not be opposed to its inclusion although I personally don't see the point. I would suggest tables for 1896-1936, 1948-1988 and 1992-present to reflect the older, pre WWII games, the Cold War games and the Post Cold War games.--Kalsermar 15:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. In addition to! Not suggesting replacing anything, just expanding the information available for anyone looking for Olympic statistics and history. There are pages on Wikipedia that list future events that may have only appeared in obscure fiction - like strange computer games and low budget movies - that stretch through every year of the 21st century and every century of the 3rd millennium! I think a couple more pages documenting the history and evolution of the Olympics (by way of the medals won) is every bit worthwhile compared to those sort of pages. Also, in relation to Cold War Games - although 1992 officially occured after the Cold War, one can't seriously argue that the Olympic representation at the Olympics of 1992 was not seriously still effected by Cold War politics. Although I do agree that that is possibly an unsustainable position to take. jkm 09:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. While I believe you have good intentions, I think it would (just like my opinion of the diploma count) be cluttering WP with information that is borderline encyclopedia, not to mention, yet another set of tables that would have to be taken care of. I, personally, don't think many people would look at them, or atleast understand them; after all, you have to take into consideration that they would be original research and could be speedy deleted at any time (unless there are plenty of good sources that have already implimented such a table.) I think that your intentions are great though, because a new POV can be shown, but this might be something you could squeeze into an existing article, like Winter Olympic Games, Summer Olympic Games, or Olympic Games; or you could create your own article (with actual words) titled something like Olympic Games - pre WWI or Olympic Games - post WWII. I just think that another table set is too much. --J@red [T]/[+] 14:13, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reformatting and IOC codes or country codes

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See the talk page for the discussions that have already taken place on these related subjects.

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Support I've been trying to do this on some pages, so far mostly medal table pages, but there are a lot of them. I have some templates to help speed up the process if anyone wants to help. Jfingers88 03:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.
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