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Busy July

I've just noticed that there are a huge amount of international athletics tournaments this month which should be documented.

• 6/10 July 2011 World Youth Championships in Athletics
• 6/10 July 2011 Asian Athletics Championships
• 10 July 2011 European Mountain Running Championships
• 14/17 July 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships
• 15/17 July 2011 Central American and Caribbean Championships in Athletics
• 16/24 July Athletics at the 2011 Military World Games
• 21/24 July 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships
• 22/24 July 2011 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships

Beyond that, there's even lower level competitions which we could probably cover in some way or another too:

• 2/3 July 2011 European Cup Combined Events
• 7/17 July World Masters Stadia Championships
• 10 July IAU Trail Championships
• 17 July NACAC Mountain Running Championships
• 17 July Asian Marathon Championships
• 23/29 July Athletics at the 2011 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival

Any help doing basic results coverage of these above events would be much appreciated. I'll be following them and hope to add quite a bit myself. SFB 10:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

2004 Olympics - Women's 4x400m Relay

As stated in the article (Athletics_at_the_2004_Summer_Olympics_–_Women's_4_x_400_metres_relay) "On January 29, 2010, the Associated Press and ESPN.com reported that Crystal Cox admitted to using anabolic steroids from 2001 to 2004. As a result, she will forfeit all of her results from that time period, and has agreed to a four-year suspension. The suspension will last until January 2014. The IOC instigated an inquiry into the doping violation and it was revealed in the IOC newletter dated 31 March 2010, that the USA had been striped of their medals, elevating Russia to Gold, Jamaica to Silver and Great Britain to bronze.[1]"

However, the page does not show this information, and the individual athlete pages have not been updated. The updated result is listed in the IAAF Newsletter at the bottom of page 2, however, as far as I am aware the result was still seeking clarification from the IOC. Should the pages be updated with the information per the IAAF newsletter, or remain as the intial decision.Peterwill 12:44, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

From what we've got in that link, the USA team is disqualified, but the three other nations have not yet been elevated. As far as I'm aware, the IAAF governs the competition itself (via its officials and rules) while the IOC is solely responsible for the re-distribution of medals. Regardless, it is inevitable that the IOC will look to redistribute medals at some point – it depends what we wish to reflect. SFB 19:18, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll add that the actions of the IOC/IAAF in regards to the actual awarding of medals is not predictable. The 2000 Olympics had several disqualifications but the medals did not change in various ways. Men's 4x400 is vacant, Women 100m elevated the Bronze medalist to silver and 4th place to Bronze, but did not award a new gold. And Women's 4x400 USA got to keep their medals even though Marion Jones was Disqualified. There is no consistency to their actions. Trackinfo (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Olympic medal redistribution is a bit of a farce. Among all the vague arguments, I find it hard to digress beyond these three tenets: (1) Elevate competitors when a medalist is disqualified and mint new medals, (2) No new medals given to those with serious doping breaches in their career, (3) A team of three clean people and one cheater is still a cheating team. You would think this would be very easy to state in a rulebook, but sports bodies are frequently useless at dealing with anything that strays beyond the most simplistic. SFB 20:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

What to call Spiridon Lebesis

So Greek transliterations are evil...

My first instinct was to go with Spirídon Lebésis, which is what IAAF calls him. However, almost every Wikipedia article for Greeks with that given name is at "Spyridon" (as implied by WP:GREEK). Just to make things a little bit nicer, his surname appears variously as Lebesis, Lebessis, Lembesis, Lempesis and most recently (on the 2011 Military World Games website and various other sites copying from there) Lempessis. (With or without the acute accent.) To top the cake, actual Greeks seem to mostly call him Σπύρος Λεμπέσης, that is, Spyros Lembesis (or Lempesis).

I thought, maybe we should decide once and for all what to call the guy. Sideways713 (talk) 09:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Should this be brought up at Wikipedia:Greek Wikipedians' notice board? Location (talk) 01:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

That noticeboard seems to be inactive. I'll ask WikiProject Greece, though. Sideways713 (talk) 09:20, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Ooops. Didn't notice that. Anyway, it's all Greek to me. Location (talk) 13:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

This is kind of my field – His actual full name will likely be "Spyridon" (with a "y" being the direct interpretation of "ύ"), but I would argue "Spyros" as the common name (he's pretty much exclusively referred to in this way in Greek language sources), just as it is Bob Marley (not Robert). The consonant pair of "μπ", while directly "mp" is a rough equivalent to a Latin "b". Thus I would argue that it should be Spyros Lebésis, with redirects for all other readings. SFB 16:16, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. WP:GREEK says to avoid diacritics in article titles, though. Sideways713 (talk) 17:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The Championships has begun!

The 2011 World Championships in Athletics is under way, with Edna Kiplagat taking the first gold medal of the event in the women's marathon. All contributions to the championships topic area are very welcome!

I've primarily been working on athlete biographies and writing the pre-event blurbs for the event articles. The majority of the men's events articles still need creating. Other areas needing attention are the usual results updates: our focus should be updating the medalists on the main championships page, the results on the event articles, and noting medalist performances on their biographies. On biographies, it's probably easier to neglect coverage of qualifying and minor place finishes for the moment – purely on a basis of time effectiveness.

I hope everyone enjoys the week's highlights! SFB 11:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

2011 Statistics Handbook

According to this page, the newest statistics handbook (i.e. compilation of world and area records, etc.) can be found in four parts here: http://www.iaaf.org/wch11/index.html. Unfortunately, that link redirects elsewhere and I cannot find the handbook, but I was able to find the first part here. If anyone else can track down parts 2, 3, and 4, please post them! Location (talk) 23:50, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

To give them credit, this is a recent publication. Unless the fix was in, it has all the people, who were just elected 2 days ago, in their proper positions. But I just love how they make it so easy to find. Of course we would look for document 06/10/30/61030, that makes so much sense, they wouldn't have to put it on a menu anywhere. Uh, that was sarcasm. Trackinfo (talk) 00:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Athletics Weekly to the rescue! SFB 16:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for tracking this down, SFB! In the event that this might be useful to anyone, I've prepared the sourcing syntax for easy copy and paste. I wanted to make sure we have the links in the event AW takes down that webpage. The table of contents is on page 3 of the first part. Location (talk) 03:39, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Part 1 (pages 1 to 185):

Butler, Mark, ed. (2011). 13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011 (pdf). Monaco: IAAF Media & Public Relations Department. pp. 1–185. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |separator=, |trans_chapter=, |laysummary=, |chapterurl=, |month=, and |lastauthoramp= (help)

<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Mark |editor1-last=Butler |editor1-link= |others= |title=13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011. |url=http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/06/10/30/61030_PDF_English.pdf |archiveurl= |archivedate= |format=pdf |accessdate=PLEASE EDIT THIS |type= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year=2011 |month= |origyear= |publisher=IAAF Media & Public Relations Department |location=Monaco |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages=PLEASE EDIT THIS |at= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}</ref>

Part 2 (pages 186 to 368):

Butler, Mark, ed. (2011). 13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011 (pdf). Monaco: IAAF Media & Public Relations Department. pp. 186–368. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |separator=, |trans_chapter=, |laysummary=, |chapterurl=, |month=, and |lastauthoramp= (help)

<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Mark |editor1-last=Butler |editor1-link= |others= |title=13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011. |url=http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/06/10/31/61031_PDF_English.pdf |archiveurl= |archivedate= |format=pdf |accessdate=PLEASE EDIT THIS |type= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year=2011 |month= |origyear= |publisher=IAAF Media & Public Relations Department |location=Monaco |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages=PLEASE EDIT THIS |at= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}</ref>

Part 3 (pages 369 to 554):

Butler, Mark, ed. (2011). 13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011 (pdf). Monaco: IAAF Media & Public Relations Department. pp. 369–554. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |separator=, |trans_chapter=, |laysummary=, |chapterurl=, |month=, and |lastauthoramp= (help)

<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Mark |editor1-last=Butler |editor1-link= |others= |title=13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011. |url=http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/06/10/32/61032_PDF_English.pdf |archiveurl= |archivedate= |format=pdf |accessdate=PLEASE EDIT THIS |type= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year=2011 |month= |origyear= |publisher=IAAF Media & Public Relations Department |location=Monaco |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages=PLEASE EDIT THIS |at= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}</ref>

Part 4 (pages 555 to 740):

Butler, Mark, ed. (2011). 13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011 (pdf). Monaco: IAAF Media & Public Relations Department. pp. 555–740. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |laydate=, |separator=, |trans_chapter=, |laysummary=, |chapterurl=, |month=, and |lastauthoramp= (help)

<ref>{{cite book |editor1-first=Mark |editor1-last=Butler |editor1-link= |others= |title=13th IAAF World Championships In Athletics: IAAF Statistics Handbook. Daegu 2011. |url=http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/06/10/33/61033_PDF_English.pdf |archiveurl= |archivedate= |format=pdf |accessdate=PLEASE EDIT THIS |type= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year=2011 |month= |origyear= |publisher=IAAF Media & Public Relations Department |location=Monaco |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages=PLEASE EDIT THIS |at= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}</ref>

Developing event pages

Since the World Championships is finished, I think now is a good time to discuss the event/results-style pages. I think the batch of event pages produced for this year's competition have been some of the best yet. I really admire the efforts of WildCherry06, Wurstwicht, Pietaster and Aleksanderpc (for listing results), CroesJ (nation pages), Trackinfo (reports) and everyone else.

What are people's opinions on what these pages should contain? I've tried to develop 2011 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 100 metres to what I would describe as a good basic standard. Note that I've also created Template:Infobox athletics event – I'd like to hear what people think about it before rolling it out further. I've noticed that Trackinfo has found and added links to the official IAAF footage and I am going to add a section into the infobox where we can link to that. Is there any basic information still missing from these articles? Are there any more sections people would like to add in the event infobox? SFB 17:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Support. --Kasper2006 (talk) 16:02, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

US High School records

The National High School track and field records page is incorrect on the record for the 440 yard dash. Ronald Ray did not set the record for Newport News High School; he was running for Ferguson High School in 1973 when he ran 45.8 to set this record at the VA State Championship Meet.

Newport News High did not even exist in 1973 as it had been converted into an intermediate school in 1971. Ray had run for Huntington High previously; with intergration, he was transferred to to Ferguson High. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.3.76.92 (talk) 01:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

That was my edit. I tried to chase the lineage of that. What I posted is what my sources said but It was poorly documented. Please help me fine a proper source to attribute all this to, I'll be glad to make the fix. Trackinfo (talk) 01:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

2011 European team championships Super League

Hidden away in the latest IAAF newsletter http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/06/27/66/62766_PDF_English.pdf is the news that Dmytro Kosynskyy, who won the javelin, had a positive dope test at the meeting and is banned for two years. The official results at http://www.european-athletics.org/results-european-athletics-events-2011.html don't indicate a disqualification (which seems odd). Is it safe to change the results and assume he will be DQed? Topcardi (talk) 23:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

As the positive test was delivered at that meeting, then it is safe to mark him as disqualified – a requirement within the competition's own rules, as well as international ones. SFB 20:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Correct. The expunged mark will also disappear from the yearly rankings and the athlete's IAAF profile, but this happens with a certain delay. Also, IIRC, if there are two or more positive doping test results, all intervening marks are also striked out, even if the athlete passed all tests in that period. GregorB (talk) 20:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

IAAF name template update

Please note that Template:IAAF name has been updated. This is the template used to add IAAF profile links to biographies. Since around July, new links stopped working. To get the template to function for new links you must now include the first letter of the athlete's last name. For example:

• Correct: {{iaaf name|id=225569|name=Andy González|letter=G}} Andy González at World Athletics

• Incorrect: {{iaaf name|id=225569|name=Andy González}} Andy González at World Athletics

Please note that older profile links remain active and this issue only affects new links. SFB 01:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Ibero-American Championships

Just a message to anyone who fancies working on the Ibero-American Championships in Athletics. The 2010 Guide from RFEA contains complete results for all competitions since the Ibero-American Games. Very useful indeed! SFB 18:29, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Half marathon

Minor issue: Can I get a second opinion in Half Marathon as to whether the recently added ELs are appropriate or not? Thanks! Location (talk) 21:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The links there at the moment seem fine. Maybe trim the map one, but there is nothing too problematic with the rest. SFB 11:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

(year) in athletics

Hi all. I started working on 1995 in athletics (track and field) with the goal of completing all the redlinks at Template:Years in Athletics, but I wanted to get some guidelines before I went much further. The big question: how many world best performances do we want to list? 2010 in athletics (track and field) only lists the world best, but most of the older years (like 1981 in athletics (track and field)) list top 5 performances in each event. I don't have a preference: as a fan, it's cool to see all five, but for most readers, one is fine (plus, they're all available at the referenced site). So, to standardize, should we go with one, five, or some other number? Thanks. Makeemlighter (talk) 00:53, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I've been pushing forward with listing just the best performance of the year. My principle reasons for doing so are to focus on just the most pertinent information and to avoid turning these articles into lengthy statistical lists (as is inevitable with the five per event lists as shown at 1981 in athletics (track and field)). Furthermore, I've never found a resource which complies just the top marks into one table (a method I think is very useful from an encyclopaedic perspective).

I've not yet managed to achieve the article that I think these summaries could be. Other sports seem to have gone for a chronological list (see 2010 in tennis and 2010 in baseball), but I think a year summarised in prose is more appropriate (like a meatier version of 1968 in athletics with a summary of this type of material). Maybe it's just me, but I can't think why anyone would be interested in a chronological list of dates and happenings. Also, I think the 2010 athletics article has the key list sections for an athletics article (events/records/year bests/awards/deaths). SFB 11:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks a lot. Makeemlighter (talk) 22:45, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Project-wide watchlist

Hi all. It has come to my attention that Tim1357 offers a tool which acts as a watchlist for all wikiproject articles. This is very useful and should he with keeping up to date with new content, edits, and help prevent vandalism on athletics articles. Well worth bookmarking. SFB 12:18, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Athletics will have interest in putting on events (on and off wiki) related to women's roles in track and field and related sports. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

AthResult template

I have created Template:AthResult, which is a quick and semi-automatic method of adding results into the "AchievementTable" sections of athlete biographies. If anyone finds themselves doing this type of work regularly then this template may well save you quite a bit of time. It may also be quite useful if editors wish to add a series of results from the same championships onto different athlete articles.

If anyone needs any help using it, or has any errors or questions, then please send me a message on my talk page. Thanks! SFB 01:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I've tended not to use the results tables, favoring the medal table for international competition. Stylewise, this form of a table is used much more often for non-US athletes, while the medal table is more common for the americans. Many times I have seen it used, it goes beyond the international competitions you mentioned in the template. For example, most distance runners, particularly marathoners cross over to road racing, cross country and track events. When we are using a results table, we will much more likely drift away to significant results to the athlete, as opposed to necessarily just the international list of events; a significant performance at a particular track meet, a national championship, an appearance at an Olympic trials. In short, (and I know you don't want to take on more work) this is likely to need more meets and major road race competitions to quick wikilink to. And while I'm on the subject of Items I regularly edit, I've never put a table into such an article, but many masters athletes, particularly europeans, have their masters performances displayed in such a table. Masters is not included in the template. Trackinfo (talk) 02:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the template would save much time for things like road races and national events because the information you would put in the template would probably be about the same amount you'd put in if you were doing it manually anyway. The real advantage of the template comes when it automatically generates the event-level article for major championships, or links to the athletics section of a specific games. I will seek to include the masters level events on the template shortly. SFB 21:02, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Seeking assistance

looking for help with an article on the 2003-2004 Saint Joseph's Mens basketball team, if anyone could help me put an image in the info box or creat another section that would be great. Thanks! 5hane2012 (talk) 22:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)5hane20125hane2012 (talk) 22:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You may want to try Wikipedia:WikiProject College Basketball. This Wikiproject deals with the sport of athletics (i.e. track and field). Location (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Merge discussion started

Please comment at Talk:2010 South American Under-23 Championships in Athletics regarding whether that page should be merged. Thanks, D O N D E groovily Talk to me 18:56, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Medal templates as a pseudo-infobox

How should we deal with instances of the medal templates, used as a pseudo-infobox? Your comments would be welcome at Template talk:MedalTop#Name, redux. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:44, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

2012 World Indoors results

Hi everyone. Just a heads up that some of the 2012 World Indoor Championships event pages have not been updated with the full results of last weekend's competition. Anyone who is interested in filling these out can find the official results links here. I'll also try and work on the missing results shortly. SFB 20:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

All event results are now covered. Thanks to all those who helped! SFB 19:24, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Athletics event at Olympics

As a user of French WP, I'm here to ask you an opinion on the idea of ​​creating a general article on the athletics events at the Olympics, and that is not used to my knowledge by other WP. Example: an article entitled "100 meters at the Olympics" could include a history of competition, the list of medalists, but also the progress of the Olympic record. What is your opinion on this? The ideal would be a common practice on all WP. Thank you for your answers and sorry for my english. --Selligpau (talk) 11:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

For Olympics, IMHO it's opportune a spin-off like is on fr.wiki. --Kasper2006 (talk) 12:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It's been a long-term objective of mine to begin building "EVENT at the Olympics"-style articles. I think this is an article type with much potential if we go beyond the basic statistics and provide condensed summaries of the event's competition and it's build up. It would also allow us to write cross-year analyses (e.g. the best marks in the event's Olympic history, multiple medallists, historical significance etc). I own a book on the Olympic marathon which does a more in-depth coverage in that style. These articles would be a strong link-in to the individual event result articles that we already have. One thing I would suggest is that doing one article which discusses both genders, rather than separating them, would probably be more fulfilling from a reader perspective. SFB 14:03, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

OK. I began writing these articles on wp:fr : [1]. Regards. --Selligpau (talk) 15:04, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Athletics

 Done. --Kasper2006 (talk) 12:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The header is currently misspelled as "THE ATLETICS PORTAL" and I have no idea how to fix it. Location (talk) 19:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Same with: "The International Athletics Championships and Games are all those competitions to Nation of athletics are held periodically in the world. They can distingiuere in:" There are other phrases that come across as nonsensical, too. Location (talk) 19:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Simply you can edit and correct your self any sigle section. Click "edit" on a single section, than copy the text under the / and put it into url bar after Portal:Athletics. --Kasper2006 (talk) 22:57, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this still doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe some of the other editors who follow this page can figure it out. Location (talk) 03:22, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I fixed. Now you can directly click "edit button" of the section (for instance: Portal:Athletics/International competitions), and modify and correct your self the article. --Kasper2006 (talk) 05:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

(←) A request has been made for this portal to be portal peer review. Contributions and suggestions are welcome. --Kasper2006 (talk) 05:22, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Bio guidelines

For this red link: Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Bio guidelines. I have a proposal. What do you think about? --Kasper2006 (talk) 15:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I will discuss this more in future, but one thing to be wary of is that (in English wikipedia) flags are to be avoided generally when stating locations (e.g. "Amsterdam, Netherlands" not " Amsterdam"). It is usually better to use just words rather than images. The significant exception is championships medallist tables (where flags allow the brain to more easily distinguish the nationalities from the names). SFB 17:29, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Records and top ten lists

With the recent results in Rotterdam, the IAAF top 10 lists in marathon (which now have 13 times for men and 11 for women) do not actually match the top 10 lists published by the IAAF (men, women). Until the IAAF updates their top 10 lists, how should this be addressed? If the information does not fit with the citations provided, should the information be removed or should the citations be removed? Or do we accept a little OR until the IAAF gets around to updating the list? Thanks! Location (talk) 20:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I prefer to keep the actual results and citations, maybe with a key (& background color) like "Awaiting ratification".Montell 74 (talk) 20:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I trust we all know IAAF and most of these organizations are poorly staffed, particularly in the unimportant areas of records. They depend on motivated volunteers who work day jobs. The record updates will come slowly, the ratification process; glacial. So we fanatics will notice records way ahead of the curve. I think, as a wholesale look, wikipedia should use the color background to distinguish between the official record and records we statisticians assume to be "new" records. When there are competing or less official organizations, like the ARRS or T&FN, or with different standards like the NFHS, we should use multiple backgrounds to accurately track the declaration of a record by the appropriate organization. Lots of IP editors will jump to non-standard declarations when a record is achieved. We should watch over the articles to make sure a surpassed ratified record is still reported until the ratifying agency makes the change official. Details we are not privy to might invalidate a mark, meanwhile we as the reporters have improper information for the public to learn from. Trackinfo (talk) 21:04, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm OK with all of this. Montell, is there already a similar key/background color in use in other articles that we should use? Location (talk) 21:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I like Key:   Awaiting ratification Montell 74 (talk) 21:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Looks good. I took care of it. Location (talk) 22:40, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Categorizing Olympic team members who do not compete

I found that Alexander Thibeau was selected for the US Olympic Team in 1908, but he did not actually participate. Is it appropriate to place [[Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1908 Summer Olympics]] and [[Category:Olympic track and field athletes of the United States]] in his article? Thanks! Location (talk) 05:14, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

My own instinct here would be not to add the category. The parent category "Olympic competitors" clashes with this and seeing as there is no evidence to suggest he was "at the 1908 Summer Olympics", I would avoid the former category too. SFB 17:19, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

U.S. and many other countries boycotted the Olympics but selected team members. Certainly "at the Olympics" are not appropriate categories, but these individuals do deserve recognition of being on their country's Olympic team. A small semantic difference but I think appropriate. Trackinfo (talk) 17:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Athletics was nominated for Featured Portals

Here. --Kasper2006 (talk) 21:50, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kasper. The nomination seems to have run aground. I'm sorry that I haven't had the time to assist you recently, but I appreciate the hard work you have done. It is no great shame to be rejected for Featured Portal status because it is still a very new portal. A great deal of work is needed to maintain portals, particularly in keeping them up to date and getting a strong Good Article base for the topic. Please do not be discouraged. The reviewer also mentioned your standard of English. This is something you should continue to work on in your own time. As a foreign language speaker, I know this is an arduous process. I'll look forward to working with you to make the portal a good one come the 2012 Olympics! SFB 17:15, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. But the question is do you know what? That 80% of FP now has a quality and content of less than this. It may be that once the criteria for treatment are less rigid, does not dispute that, but keep it out would be an injustice. In any case, still waiting a reply from Bencherlite that gave me hope, since I received any request. --Kasper2006 (talk) 05:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Talk:2012 Olympic Marathon Course

Feedback is requested in Talk:2012 Olympic Marathon Course regarding the layout of a table in the article that describes kilometer and mile markers in conjunction with the notable places on the course. Thanks! Location (talk) 16:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Another possible widespread copyright concern

FYI: I've posted an issue in Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2012 June 4 that reflects a lot of copy and paste in articles about events in the 2012 Olympics. Location (talk) 20:31, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Not as big as the previous one here, but please see Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Pedrocampelo if you are interested in helping out. Location (talk) 13:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

WP Athletics in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Athletics for a Signpost article scheduled to coincide with this summer's European Athletics Championships. The article about WikiProject Athletics would serve as the beginning of a special "Summer Sports Series", giving you an excellent opportunity to draw attention to the project's efforts and attract new members. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 04:03, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Category up for discussion

I have nominated for deletion the category structure type found at Category:Athletes by nationality and event. Please contribute your opinion here. SFB 12:34, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

SFB, it appears that you are proposing to delete Category:Athletes by nationality and event, but are you proposing to delete Category:Argentine athletes by event, Category:Australian athletes by event, Category:Azerbaijani athletes by event, etc.? Location (talk) 16:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've added that to the nomination. SFB 19:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

It appears Category:Athletes by nationality and event has been deleted, but the sub-categories still remain. What now? Location (talk) 12:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Decathlon and Heptathlon results tables

Hi everyone. In reference to our combined events result articles (e.g. 2008 Olympic heptathlon), I think we should start moving towards a new standard. I have designed new Heptathlon and Decathlon template tables, similar to the IAAF-style summary tables.

Key

  The highest mark recorded in each event is highlighted in yellow

Rank	Athlete	Points total	100	LJ	SP	HJ	400	110 h	DT	PV	JT	1500
1	Ashton Eaton (USA)	9039	1044 10.21 s	1120 8.23 m	741 14.20 m	0 2.05 m	0 46.70 s	0 13.70 s	0 42.81 m	0 5.30 m	0 58.87 m	0 4:14.48
2	Roman Šebrle (CZE)	9026	942 10.64 s	1089 8.11 m	810 15.33 m	0 2.12 m	0 47.79 s	0 13.92 s	0 47.92 m	0 4.80 m	0 70.16 m	0 4:21.98

The big advantage is that all the results are displayed in a condensed format which is visible at once and the ranking information can be obtained by sorting the columns (it sorts by the points). The only piece of information that gets lost is what heat/group the athletes are in. I think that is worth sacrificing if we can transform 15 whole screens of results into just two. I have introduced these tables into the 2012 Olympic events already. If anyone has any further suggestions, or wishes to use the new style on old result tables, that would be most welcome! SFB 16:37, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

We are having the same discussion at Talk:United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics. This should become an athletics specific item for the WP:MOS. A format we can copy and paste, then fill in the blanks. Because of some editing I had been doing, I had my browser width reduced--in that mode this looks . . . poor. Imagine someone looking at this on an iPhone. I had to widen beyond the default browser width to make this look nice. The point here seems to be to compress width. So I'd suggest a couple of items reduced for brevity. "Overall points" can be either one of the individual words, but not both. "Min" following the 1500 time is also bothersome. I realize the second one is consistent with the s (seconds) and m (meters or in wiki British metres) and distinguished from the meters. But having that on every result just seems so repetitive. Event pts after the points seems repetitive. Can we develop a header or legend that reduces the need for all these repeating characters. We do use other abbreviations that we assume people understand, like the letters describing the events. And omitted from this design is the necessary wind readings for 100, LJ and hurdles (when available. Trackinfo (talk) 18:04, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Another quick point of note is that you can't have the highest mark in each event denoted by simply color per WP:COLORS. You need some kind of identifying mark that can be picked out by people that are color blind. I'm also about to bring this issue up at WT:WikiProject Olympics/Manual of Style (Games summary – Nations) so maybe between these three talks a consistent format can be hammered out. Torlek (talk) 21:27, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I've updated the table in response to these comments (removing "pts" and "min"). A short legend above the table could be introduced to clarify the abbreviations. I suggest that the "m" and "s" units remain for ease of identification (e.g. when you are several pages down you might think "is that 47.79 in metres for the discus or in seconds for the 400 m?"). For windy readings one could simply insert another line break (<br>) to place that information beneath. Regarding the colour issue Torlek, we could introduce something like an asterisk (*) or diamond (♦)? SFB 16:34, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Order of sections

I know it is a little bit silly question but anyway – what order do you prefer of these 3 sections in the bio's articles: "Personal bests", "(each) Season bests", "Achievements". --Edgars2007 ^{(talk/contribs)} 14:37, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

There is no real agreed consensus on the order, but personally I would prefer the two "best" sections to be connected (with personal bests first) and the competition table to come afterwards.

I've actually been trying to move away from the "achievements" header because of its ambiguity; one might not consider a disqualification an "achievement" for example, while an honorary title, such as a knighthood, might be considered an acheivement. I have tried to push towards a "Statistics" section (like that at Usain Bolt) so that all these concepts are grouped together. I think it's important to have a specifically international competition table and also a separate national championship title list as well (as rightly suggested in Kasper2006's draft). This conveniently brings athletics into line with other sports, such as football, baseball and basketball, which typically have "Statistics" sections on player articles. SFB 17:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

This could be an opportunity to establish together a standard for biographies of the athletes (Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Bio guidelines). As SFB said, I've already made ​​my proposal. --Kasper2006 (talk) 19:37, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I, too, prefer that personal bests precede the competition table. Given what is a relatively short time-span for elite athletes, I am not convinced that a listing or notation of season bests is even necessary and they are likely self-evident if a table is in place. I agree that the "Achievements" section that appears in a lot of article should be renamed as "Statistics", "Competitions", or "Performances". If that occurs, there should be some thought given to renaming Template:AchievementTable at some point.

I would love to see a "formal" MOS put together by this Project and Kasper's proposal seems to be good start. I would suggest naming it Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Manual of style to be consistent with other MOSs elsewhere, or even Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Manual of style (biographies) to distinguish it from Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Manual of style (events). Location (talk) 21:19, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's a good time to discuss style guidelines (not strict rules!) for articles if both you guys are interested. One much contested aspect are the opening medal templates. I recommend limiting this; usages such as that at Veronica Campbell-Brown are excessive, especially for those using the mobile view.

I think we should limit this to senior medals only. Perhaps only the world championship and Olympic events, plus the foremost high quality regional competitions (e.g. African Championships, European Indoor Championships, Asian Games, Pan American Games etc). Medals that are of less relevance (World Athletics Finals, CAC Juniors, Bolivarian Games, European U23 Championships etc.) can be more appropriately covered in the main prose and the exhaustive international competition record table.

The leading medal record will remain long for some athletes (Sergey Bubka for example), but these will be extreme cases where some athletes really do have that many crucial career medals. What do people think about this proposal? SFB 19:04, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

In My Opinion "Medal infobox template" must to limit to Olympics, World, Continental, Universiade and Regional (Mediterranean Games or Commonwealth Games). FO VCB must to go out for: "World Athletics Final", "CAC Junior Championships" (Youth an d Junior). As a minimum. --Kasper2006 (talk) 05:28, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

• (undent) On a related note: I have made a proposition to harmonise most of the templates in Category:Medal infobox templates. Please contribute to the discussion here. SFB 16:27, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I have created (ok, copy-pasted) MOS page, comments and/or improvments are welcomed. --Edgars2007 ^{(talk/contribs)} 13:52, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Good work. Do you prefer feedback here (i.e. centralized) or on the respective talk pages? Location (talk) 14:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Invitation: WikiProject Globalization

Hello, WikiProject Globalization is a new project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of aspects of Globalization and the organization of information and articles on this topic. We would like to make a special invitation to WikiProject Athletics members to join this effort in strengthening articles related to Globalization of sports, Globalization of baseball and other World sports topics. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page. Thank you, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 02:20, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

http://www.european-athletics.org

Just to let you know that most links to European Athletics website now seem to be dead. There are hundreds of links that require repair. Fortunately, it also appears that the content is not really gone, it still exists under a different URL, so if the article title is supplied, it is easy to find its new location by using Google Search.

For some reason, publication date is not displayed anywhere in the article in the website's new layout, although it used to be displayed before. That is very odd for a serious news website - could be a simple oversight. GregorB (talk) 13:41, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. Thanks for the heads up. The EAA's website delivery is relatively poor. The content is occasionally very good but its organisation and presentation demeans it most of the time. The IAAF rightly left in pages that had active links during their revamp. The EAA has obviously not done so – only a fool would not leave a redirect because this just haemorrhages your number of productive hits. Yet more clean-up for us I guess. SFB 22:21, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Olympic team navboxes

I have noticed that {{Footer USA Track & Field 2012 Summer Olympics}} was created. I am wondering if we should create all of these historically. I have created {{Footer USA Track & Field 1996 Summer Olympics}} to see how redlinked an old one might be. Should we create all of these going back? Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Olympics#Team_templates_and_their_categories, where I am proposing that track, gymnastics and boxing be treated like swimming and basketball in this regard.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I have a question. The template containing the name of the athlete should be added at the bottom of the same article of the athlete, as for any navigational template? --Kasper2006 (talk) 10:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe that is the purpose, yes. SFB 10:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

London 2012 Bios are GO!

The London2012 site now has plenty of athlete biographies available. I assume that more information will be added to them as the athletes compete, but one very notable bit of data is the inclusion of athletes' birthplaces. Sometimes this info can be hard to pick up on for athletes from more obscure nations. This database could be a great way for us to plug that knowledge gap. SFB 22:21, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Excellent. Nice biographies, with (mostly online) references, just like Wikipedia. Note height and weight - also an important piece of information which is sometimes hard to source reliably. GregorB (talk) 22:35, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

But remember that after some few years those will be dead links :( --Edgars2007 ^{(talk/contribs)} 06:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

As long as they leave them up for a few months and allow them to be scanned by the Wayback Machine then we should be covered. SFB 10:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Category:United States athletics Olympics squad navigational boxes

Category:United States athletics Olympics squad navigational boxes needs help filling in the templates.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

World Championship in athletics template broken

This is just a heads up that the World Championships in Athletics Template appears to be broken. It is no longer displaying the previous and next championships in the Infobox (eg). Could someone who knows how to edit infobox templates please fix this? Thanks. --Kafuffle (talk) 10:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The issue has been raised, see Template talk:Infobox games#Only "Games", neither Summer nor Winter. GregorB (talk) 15:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. GregorB (talk) 16:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Olympic entry lists released

The entry lists for the Olympic athletics events are now available, thus we can start work on who is actually entered by nation and which athletes are in which events. SFB 17:59, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

World Championships in Athletics page, multiple medalists

Can someone add Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merritt to the table of athletes with at least six medals? Wariner has won 5 golds and 1 silver and Merritt has won 4 Golds and 2 Silvers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.109.72.78 (talk) 21:26, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

There you go. Done. --Kafuffle (talk) 16:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Imperial conversions

There are a lot of articles that use the wiki autoconverter to convert metric to imperial marks. I know, I know, we don't use imperial on a worldwide basis, but we American's just don't understand metric measurements. I've had people ask me how they calculate the points in a long jump. All of the recent television coverage of the Olympics field events was reporting imperial marks so the audience was understanding how far they were throwing or jumping (which made no sense when compared to the marks on the IAAF reporting). So we need to accommodate that faction of our english language readers. Unfortunately the standardize converter, currently built into our articles, seems to be accurate to 1/16th of an inch. The official level of accuracy is 1/4 of an inch. Look at Pole vault, which someone has also plastered with additional source tags. I hate tags. If you don't like something, just fix it. I digress. Additionally, we need to use track and field rounding rules, so a 3/16th would mean there is no fraction. Getting even deeper, possibly beyond our ability to source, we should report the original measurement and convert to the other measurement. If a mark in the 1960s set in in the USA was originally measured in Imperial then reported to the world as a conversion, we should not reconvert it and incorrectly report a mark now 1/4 of an inch shorter. I don't know how to go about this, but I'd like to request we develop a converter that uses the proper level of precision--to the nearest lesser 1/4 inch. Additionally, I would suggest we look for older sources to see how a mark was originally reported, so we can apply the proper conversion direction (even though that might mess with some of the repetitive formatting in existing articles). And because people like to keep messing with the formatting, I'd suggest when we make an adjustment like that for accuracy, leave a hidden note to explain why you made the conversion work the opposite direction. Trackinfo (talk) 08:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea of how to implement this in all the relevant track and field articles, but it seems to be a good idea. This is probably something to bring-up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Measurement. (By the way, I removed the excess taggage in pole vault.) Location (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I've just had a go at this but it's proving much more difficult than I first thought. I can get the basic calculations right when writing manually but I have absolutely no idea how to implement it in the form of a template. Until my programming gets better, this one will have to sit on the backburner. SFB 19:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Obviously my backburner is exactly 24 hours! {{T&Fcalc}} is available to use now. I can't actually believe it myself that I worked out how to do this! SFB 18:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent work. I am impressed. The next question is how to use it? Trackinfo (talk) 19:24, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Nice job! Location (talk) 20:30, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Regarding usage, it should come in handy in biographies of American field athletes particularly. Distances in primary articles like long jump and pole vault would probably be more intelligible to American users with this template. I'm much less keen on its usage on tables like List of Olympic records in athletics or Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics. There is already a lot of information to take in there. It feels much less intrusive when used in prose though. If you meant the basic usage, Trackinfo, then it's just {{T&Fcalc|X}}, with the measurement in metres where X is. FYI: it doesn't convert the other way around (relatively unproblematic seeing as the sport has been metric for a long time now). SFB 17:50, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I meant the wikicode, which you answered. There are plenty of historical marks set in the USA, before about 1980. But even to use it in reverse will need to take the extra step of determining the measurement method used for the mark. For example, I think we can be reasonably assured that the United States Olympic Trials (track and field) were conducted in metric (to emulate the international meet where these athletes were destined). I think the majority of domestic meets were conducted in imperial, particularly the vertical jumps, but probably also horizontal measurements. I wrote articles about the Modesto Relays, Mt. SAC Relays, Sunkist Invitational and others that include such marks. We will be able to detect it because the press will report an imperial distance, probably as the primary report. International record keepers will have a metric amount which, if translated will come out 1/4" or 1/2" less. In those cases, we should report the originally reported imperial mark, manually, rather than using the auto-converter that would be wrong. But you can see that would require more mulit-source diligence on the part of us knowledgeable editors. Just stuff to think about when dealing with articles of that vintage. Trackinfo (talk) 08:15, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Something to think about indeed. SFB 18:57, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

On Women's pole vault world record progression I hit a slight problem. Several of the marks (starting at Dragila 4.60) are set indoors. The "i" indicator shows up after the imperial mark and is virtually lost in the text. I think we need to come up with a way to indicate the indoor marks a little clearer. Perhaps an italicized i before the mark, so it works around the calculator. I'll do it on that page as an experiment, but lets discuss whether that should become a format. Trackinfo (talk) 17:52, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Track, notice you added imperial to the women's pole vault progression. The issues raised here are the same I was wondering - while it is not as big an issue for the women's event which is only some 20 years old, some records on the men's side I believe were ratified to the 8th of an inch way back when. And does your converter actually take the quarter-inch ABOVE the record? Further, what about those marks set, say like when Jimmy Howard jumped, I think 7 8 1/4 to "break" the American high jump record which was 7 8 (2.34) but since the "official" conversion was that 7 8 1/2 was the first to the quarter of an inch for 2.35 he was only credited with tying the record. IOW, what would be the imperial measure we insert? Canada Jack (talk) 19:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

How's it goin' 'eh, Canada. So like, SFB already took the proper rounding direction into consideration when he designed the new template. So far, all of the conversions I have checked DO go the proper direction. As as I discussed above, we do need to consider the form the original measurement took. That is one reason I have not wholesale edited the men's progression yet, or other events (that plus my edit time comes in bursts around real work). What we have concluded is, if the original measurement was in imperial (your example), we will need to insert the metric manually, rather than using this converter in reverse (however that would work). Pretty much, any marks set in America prior to the 1980s needs further investigation. Try to find a report more closely associated to the original date of the event, rather than a more recent summation (gbrathletics). Trackinfo (talk) 20:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

(undent) The calculator uses the floor function, thus it will always round down and never up. If there is any doubt around the measuring system used for the performance, then we could just work these exceptions manually. I agree with Trackinfo: it is good practice to list the actual measurement first (be it imperial or metric) and follow with the conversion after. For the pole vault list issue you could use notes instead using {{ref label|i|i|i}} next to the performance and placing {{note label|i|i|i}} at the top of the references section. For example:

List

• 4.50 m ^[i]
• 4.60 m
• 4.61 m ^[i]

References

• ⁱ Indoor performance

SFB 22:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Trackinfo, eh? I did a quick check and the conversions you did on the women's vault look correct, but those 80s and earlier marks could be problematic. Perhaps one approach here would be to access a source like Track and Field News (whose editor is a Canadian like me!) and calibrate the record progressions we have with the reports there - but this would be tedious work indeed. Frankly, my preference would be just to leave it metric only as it looks a lot cleaner and won't require a ton of research. But I recognize that most Americans aren't familiar with metric marks so this needs to be accommodated, especially given Americans probably have set far more records than any other nationalities. Good to see that you are on top of the complex issues involved. Canada Jack (talk) 16:12, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Please remember to be clear when using the word "athlete" or "athletics"

I know that in Commonwealth usage, athlete and athletics are specific to what in American usage would be called "track and field" (which includes all running, whether or not done on a track or in a field). In American usage, as you may know, athletics simply means "competitive sport".

So I would ask the members of this project to just keep that in mind a little and make sure that articles will not be misleading in any major English variety. Today I came across an article that asserted that Robert Matthews had retired from athletics but was taking up cycling, which to an American reader is simply a contradiction. --Trovatore (talk) 08:59, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

There have been various discussions regarding the terminology of "athlete", "athletics", and "track and field", here and in other articles of which most of us (in and out of the U.S.) are already aware. Just like certain articles use American English and others use British English, perhaps there should be clarification on this point for U.S. competitors vs. non-U.S. competitors. In the above example, Robert Matthews (athlete) competed for Great Britain whose athletics governing body is UK Athletics (note the emphasis on athletics, not track and field) and in the marathon, which is not a track and field event. In his case, I would recommend the removal of "track and field" and and change it to "the sport of athletics" and use the appropriate disambiguation links. Location (talk) 15:51, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I am not saying that an article written in UK English should not use the word athletics the way it is used in UK English. I am saying that it needs to be glossed as appropriate to avoid confusing NA readers. A wikilink by itself is not good enough, because articles are supposed to have the same meaning whether or not you follow links. The phrase the sport of athletics is a little borderline — I'd prefer an inline parenthetical explanation of some sort. --Trovatore (talk) 20:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you recommending that we add "(track and field)" after every use of athletics (sport)? Location (talk) 22:40, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

No no, of course not. One gloss per article is probably enough, unless the usages are so far separated that a reader might not have seen the first gloss. --Trovatore (talk) 03:25, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

How would you handle article titles such as Athletics at the Summer Olympics? Location (talk) 05:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I can live with the title, I guess. The first sentence should gloss the word athletics. --Trovatore (talk) 07:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the parenthetical explanations are actually necessary and the issue becomes further problematic when you address this from the other side of the coin for articles that use the American version of "athlete". Do we place "sportsperson" in parenthesis for those people? There is something very U.S.-centric about changing the articles of cross country runners and marathoners to include "track and field" when those aren't track and field events. Location (talk) 12:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't have to say "track and field", necessarily, if you have a better solution. One possibility is an explanatory footnote (there's a way to make explanatory footnotes look different from citation footnotes; don't remember the details). It's not US-centricity, just neutrality.

Compare with the football wars, where a solution was found, not perfect, but mostly satisfactory. Articles, not always, but in a good solid fraction of cases, explain whether they're talking about association football, American football, rugby football, or something else. (The term association football was judged more elegant than the parenthetical football (soccer) that used to be prevalent. --Trovatore (talk) 19:38, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

World Record

In Aries Merritt, an IP just inserted in place of our more common WR The number of times we have World Records to report, this could create a lot of editing to adopt the new format. Discussion? Trackinfo (talk) 07:12, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't like it as it is difficult to read on my monitor. Location (talk) 12:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree, difficult to read. Still, there are other, better looking symbols for WR, NR, etc. that I've seen recently. Should one use these or not? GregorB (talk) 19:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Like this: --Kasper2006 (talk) 16:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, , etc. Or maybe WR ({{WR}})? Do we have a consensus for or against such symbols? GregorB (talk) 17:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok for me... Italian Wikipedia already uses these symbols. -- 87.2.211.21 (talk) 22:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I brought it to the table without comment other than the work load. I agree with Location, it is difficult to read. Bold text does the job, is doing the job now. So my vote is against. Trackinfo (talk) 23:57, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Expanding a little. We do have a lot of abbreviations for records, pending records, hand timing, wind, altitude, assisted courses. Those of us who have been a part of the sport, who read Track and Field News or read detailed results know what they mean. Through a wider audience here we do need to explain these things. I have spent thousands of words explaining these details when they are relevant to an article. We might have our own inventions, like (discussed above) identifying imperially measured marks converted to metric (I've left some suspicious marks un-converted until I can research. When I do the research, I'd like to post the clarification of why it was done, lest some future editor remove it for a lack of understanding.

Perhaps we could design a template for easier explanation. So a novice T&F reader might see an A after a time and not know what it means. If we could turn that into something like {{TF|A}}, it could take them to a small new window paragraph about altitude assistance. Or {{TF|WR}} could be a page about how World records are ratified. That could be particularly helpful in explaining non-ratified cases or other bodies (like ARRS) declaring a record. I deal in Masters athletics, where the strange ratification irregularities could be better explained by linking to external articles that complain about the flawed process. We can't editorialize, but we can factually show that other have noticed and are trying to address the problem. It would take a little design and we might keep finding things to add, but ultimately we are about passing on the knowledge here. Trackinfo (talk) 00:27, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Great Scottish Run

I'm working to improve the Great Scottish Run article. In addition to its headline half marathon event, this also has a (better attended) 10K. I've found quite a volume of sources for the half, but not so much for the 10K. Results on the event's website only go back to 2003 (for both events). Does anyone have any ideas where I might find references for earlier runnings of the 10K? I can't even figure out when the 10K event was added to the programme. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:55, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

{{athletics classifications}}

The template:athletics classifications template is missing classifications for athletics that are not para-athletics. -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 06:56, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

It is easier to change the name. --Kasper2006 (talk) 09:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

template is renamed to {{Para-athletics classifications}}, so what happens to the redirect Template:Athletics classifications ? (fixing the transcluded articles yet to be done) -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 12:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

High jump and others

I ask you if we can delete the references to the Anglo-Saxon measures in the articles of athletics, as the international federation is not using them. --Kasper2006 (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

See above. --Edgars2007 ^{(talk/contribs)} 14:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Why is Category:Long-distance runners and Category:Middle distance runners?

Why not Category:Long-distance runners and Category:Middle-distance runners or Category:Long distance runners and Category:Middle distance runners? --Kasper2006 (talk) 17:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Classification to Disability Classification redirect

Template:Athletics classifications has been nominated for deletion, please see WP:RFD. -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 07:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Category:Track and field athletes by event

I would like to know who, among of the collaborators of the project, wants to help to empty the mother category (ex. Category: Sprinters), creating the various categories for Nationality? I, at the moment, I completed the Category: Hurdlers. --Kasper2006 (talk) 11:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

•  Done Category:Hurdlers (86 different nations)
•  Done Category:Long-distance runners (103 different nations)
•  Done Category:Racewalkers (57 different nations)
•  Done Category:Decathletes (59 different nations)
•  Done Category:Marathon runners (77 different nations)
•  Done Category:Hammer throwers (60 different nations) --Kasper2006 (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

RfC on the use of flag icons for sportspeople

An RfC discussion about the MOS:FLAG restriction on the use of flag icons for sportspeople has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons. We invite all interested participants to provide their opinion here. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:35, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:Athletes by nationality

There is currently a proposal to rename Category:Athletes by nationality to Category:Athletes (track and field) by nationality. Since It relates to this page I thought notification should be done here.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:44, 29 December 2012 (UTC)