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Need some help... on french wikipedia.

Hello,

I'd like advice on an article I've created on the French Wikipedia do deal with district cricket in Australia: fr:Grade cricket et premier cricket ("Grade cricket and Premier cricket")

1. Is it an original research to gather Grade cricket and Premier cricket in the same article and to give it such a title? Is it a good idea? Are these competitions equivalent in term of level (that is to say: just below first-class cricket, and the only way to be selected for the national competitions)?
2. Are there similar competitions in the Australian Territories (ACT for example)? If an ACT player is good enough to play f-c cricket, which team will he play for?
3. Do you agree with the figures in the table?
4. Where can I find an history of grade/district cricket in Australia?
5. Is "Long Live Club Cricket Day" worth a mention in this article?

Thank you for your help (and sorry for the mistakes) !

OrangeKnight (talk) 14:52, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bill Brown (cricketer)

The next cog of the Invincibles is up. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Upload script for photographs

I know this is shameless advertising :) I've written a Perl script to batch-upload your photographs to commons. ( See commons:User:Nichalp/Upload script) Highlights:

• Rename images on-the-fly
• Rotate images on-the-fly
• Add geotags and categories
• Add Exif data
• Add templates such as information, coordinates, camera information, flickr information
• All you need to do it add the data in a spreadsheet alongside the image name.

More details on that page. Now that give you no excuse not to put all those duplicate cricketer photos and cricket ground photos that you felt too lazy to upload. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Created an article, would like more eyes on it.

I was pretty surprised to see that there was no article on the Stanford Super Series, so I took a few hours to see what I could write up on it, and the articles there. I know it probably needs a formatting update, and probably to be expanded with criticism and the section on "how it came to be", etcetera, but take a look at the article, and let me know what you think. SirFozzie (talk) 00:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Sports diplomacy

The ever-present effects on sports and politics didn't have an article. I've just created Sports diplomacy which others may find a good read and to add more to. Lihaas (talk) 18:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little puzzled as to how you've managed to write such an article without a single mention of Basil D'Oliveira. Andrew nixon (talk) 06:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Or Bodyline. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 06:58, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

There's some interesting stuff here, but I'm worried about the tendency towards WP:OR. Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed category rename

I've proposed a rename of category:English cricketers of the 18th century to the more specific category:English cricketers of 1701 to 1786. This will make the names of all such categories consistent and it will resolve the overlap problem between this one and category: English cricketers of 1787 to 1815.

Could you please see [1] and ensure that the category doesn't get renamed as category:18th century insectologists :-)

Thanks. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 19:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Richard Beckett

Most of you will know that many cricketers like Colin Blythe and Hedley Verity were killed in the two World Wars, but did anyone know that a first-class cricketer was killed during the Napoleonic Wars? Richard Beckett, who last played in 1807, died in the closing moments of the Battle of Talavera in 1809.

Talavera was one of Wellington's most important battles in the Peninsular War but it is now largely forgotten. It's probably best known nowadays for Sharpe's Eagle. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 12:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

On a slightly related subject, a round of applause to anyone who can tell us the identity of the only first-class cricketer to have died on the Titanic... Andrew nixon (talk) 14:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

That'd be John Thayer. -AMBerry (t|c) 14:36, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

That'd be correct. Incidentally, thinking of an anniversary of an event taking place shortly, another American international, whos name escapes me for now, was amongst those killed in the World Trade Centre seven years ago. Andrew nixon (talk) 14:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

A wild shot from a swift Google search, would that be Nezam Hafiz? Bobo. 15:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

That's the one. Andrew nixon (talk) 15:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Given the number of early cricketers in the unknown year of death category, I doubt if Beckett was the only one who died fighting against Napoleon. Some must also have been killed in other major wars like the Seven Years, the American Revolutionary and the Crimean. GeorgeWilliams (talk) 10:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Ponting and Harvey

[2] I'm suprised that Ponting managed to restrain himself. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't get it. Can you tell us poms the story behind this?  :-) BlackJack | ^{talk page} 15:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Neil Harvey tells you about his habit of bagging modern cricket and modern cricketers and covered pitches. He does it all the time. Ponting is quite a touchy fellow, especially when anybody asks him a critical question or asks him if he thinks he/his team did something wrong. Especailly after the Sydney Test, his eyes fired up (like when he got cheesed off about pratt) when they questioned his conduct, especially when they asked him about what Harve had to say. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 07:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree with Harvey about the pitches. The vast majority of these "star batsmen" of today would not cope with pitches that had been uncovered overnight. He is also right about the quality of Australia's opponents in the 1990s when West Indies went into decline and England was frankly pathetic. However, Australia could only beat what was put in front of them and there's no doubt that people like Warne, McGrath and Steve Waugh were great players. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 09:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Club notability again

Sorry to raise this again, but the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/Archive 49#WP:CRIN on club notability didn't reach a consensus. I've removed BlackJack's guideline because the mood seemed to be against it, but we could do with an agreement on what we would like instead, if possible. Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

No need to apologise. Even though I wrote the bit about clubs I wasn't entirely happy with it and I would like to see a wider discussion because it is a much more difficult area than matches and players. I think the wording in WP:ORG is rather woolly:

• Organisations whose activities are local in scope are usually not notable unless verifiable information from reliable independent sources can be found.

Yeah, well, for a start how do you define local? For example, all the teams in the famous Bradford League are local to Bradford apart from a couple that are across the boundary in Halifax or wherever. But as the Bradford League is so famous and must therefore be notable as a league, does this extend to the member clubs too?

We can't have teams that are just a group of lads on one street (although it is historic fact that Rangers F.C. was once precisely that!).

I think we should focus on the notability of the league. If the club is not a member of a notable league, I don't think it should qualify. But how do we assess the notability of the leagues? BlackJack | ^{talk page} 17:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

One possible rule of thumb would be to require that the league is covered either in Wisden or by CricketArchive, thus meeting the "reliable independent sources" requirement. (Wisden - and possibly CA may not be so good on coverage of non-UK leagues as they are on UK ones, though. For instance Australian Geade cricket is probably at least comparable in strength to the Lancashire League.) JH (talk page) 19:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

A way forward on this for clubs/leagues in England – suggested before – is that we use the ECB's list of premier leagues, and allow clubs who are in the top division of these to have an article; but for leagues below this level that have a promotion/relegation system there is only a league article (not the individual clubs, unless they have particular historic claims to notability eg Mitcham Cricket Club). You get problems with relegated clubs (no longer in a premier league), but we can probably afford to be inclusive with them. What we've never been able to pin down, apart from occasional efforts from Australia, is how this kind of policy might translate elsewhere. Wisden, for JH's point above, now carries the league tables for all the ECB premier leagues. The Lancashire League (and the CLL) have always stood outside the ECB structure, and by the calibre of their players are probably at least equivalent to ECB leagues. I suspect it'll take an age to sort this globally: but if we could at least agree on English/Welsh cricket, that'd be a start. Johnlp (talk) 20:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree and I would suggest that the Bradford, Lancashire and Central Lancashire are notable for historic reasons also (as may be some other leagues). BlackJack | ^{talk page} 10:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Cricketer infoboxes

Why are there two infoboxes for cricketers' pages? Infobox Cricketer vs Infobox cricketer biography? =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Infobox cricketer biography is the preferred one, Infobox Cricketer is deprecated. A number of people here designed a new one a while ago, but as it's on so many pages nobody's gotten around to replacing it on all of them. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/Archive 39#New Infobox complete is one of several things on it in the archives (see here for links to other conversations). There are several others that need replacing with cricketer biography too, see: Category:Deprecated cricket templates. AllynJ (talk | contribs) 10:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I guess we need to commission a bot to do the needful. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

We can do, but the new box contains an awful lot of information that wasn't present in the old ones. I'm not sure how much a bot can do - it can do the basic information, yes, but it will still take some work by hand. If anyone can, I'm all for it, just not capable of doing it myself. I'm slowly converting some when I get a chance or stumble on an article that needs updating. Perhaps we could commission the project to do a handful each.–MDCollins (talk) 15:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've tried my luck here: Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Convert_data_from_old_cricketer_infoboxes_to_new_one =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I am writing a tool that would help migration. Hopefully it'll be up tomorrow. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 22:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[3] should make migration easier. It takes all the fields that exist in the {{Infobox cricketer}} and puts them into {{Infobox cricketer biography}}. You'll need to manually insert any other fields you need. For international cricketers, if you want a different column, just put its name into columnx = ... and Sambot will pick it up when I do a full run. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 15:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Infobox cricketer biography: IT20 debut information, and family field.

Hi,

Just bringing to your attention an addition to the standard biog infobox. Due to the growing number of international players who have only played IT20 matches, I have added the provision of the debut/last IT20 matches in the "International Section" (mainly because otherwise international=true brought up a header and nothing else. And they are valid internationals).

I have recommended that these fields are never used when both Test and ODI information is present, and may be used when just one of the above exists. For example, Nadif Chowdhury has only played IT20 for Bangladesh, so I've added that in for a trial. Tim Bresnan is a candidate for displaying ODI and IT20 information - I've added in blank fields for a minute so Sam can test Sambot on it if he so wishes.

I know it was agreed to keep IT20 out of the infoboxes as much as possible, but I see no harm in doing so in the cases where it either fills space, or doesn't lengthen it (such as a stats column if one of the standard four = 0.

I also added "family = " a couple of weeks back, I don't know if anyone has seen it. I thought it would be useful, and haven't had any objections so far. There is an example at Mark Waugh I think (linking to SR Waugh. Again, only notable players get linked, and I suggest "scorecard initials" are used to limit the space it takes.–MDCollins (talk) 22:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Elegant solution, I like it. I also like the family= idea. Nice work. --Dweller (talk) 10:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I would personally put IT20 before FC, so all the internationals are on the left. SGGH ^speak! 11:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that is that it was encouraging editors to leave out FC or List A statistics all together by assuming that IT20 was as important as FC and List A statistics. I'm could be persuaded if consensus forms the other way...–MDCollins (talk) 15:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Cricket

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Victoria (Australia) cricketers

I had a quick glance up the page and couldn't see a discussion on this so apologies if it's been covered already. About a week ago someone suggested that all categories with the Australian state have Australia in brackets to disambiguate it. The category has since been changed but some such as Category:Parliament of Victoria haven't because they were raised specifically in the discussion as not being applicable. To the best of my knowledge there was no first-class cricket team in the UK or elsewhere called Victoria so should we consider getting this particular category changed back? Cheers Crickettragic (talk) 06:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Searching on CricketArchive, they have 2671 results for Victoria. Two are in 1840 for a Victoria Club that played against Manchester, six for a club called Manchester Victoria in the 1840s, two that refer to Victoria, British Columbia and three for Victoria College, Alexandria, none of which are first-class. The other 2658 are all for the Australian state side or its youth/women's teams or subdivisions thereof. I think we can safely say that the primary usage of "Victoria cricketers" would be for Australia. Victorian cricketers would be a problem though, for obvious reasons. Andrew nixon (talk) 17:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

If we can get a bit of a consensus here I'll bring it up at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion and see about getting it named back to the original. Crickettragic (talk) 10:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Bradman question

(reposted from my talk page --Dweller (talk) 15:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC))

Hello sir, i've seen your good works on Don Bradman, i am a little confused about a story can you help me? When Don scored 334, he surpassed tip foster's ashes record of 287. can you tell me who was the bowler when don took a single to take over that record?? Please ! User:Bharath (talk) 17:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

According to [4] it was a four off Maurice Tate? SGGH ^speak! 16:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I read that as Bradman equalling the record with a four off Tate? --Dweller (talk) 19:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah... in that case not sure. SGGH ^speak! 00:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

You could suggest he sends an e-mail to Bill Frindall, he regularly answers such questions in his BBC column. HornetMike (talk) 22:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Non free pictures

User:Ahsaniqbal 93 uploaded pictures from CI with the mention "Allowed to be used in free websites like Wikipedia". See here and here. I don't think that Cricinfo allow their picture to be used on free websites (they aren't often even the copyright holders of the pictures), do they? OrangeKnight (talk) 14:02, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Checked on CI, both are marked "© AFP". [5][6] Fairly certain CI don't allow it anyway. -AMBerry (t|c) 14:23, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The guy would seem to have a history of copyright violations, mostly for images but also for articles. Andrew nixon (talk) 15:11, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Template now redundant

I've just finished changing the infoboxes on those articles using {{Infobox Historic woman cricketer}} over to {{Infobox cricketer biography}}, if someone could nom the former for deletion (seeing as its no longer required) that'd be appreciated. Too knackered to do so myself, heh. -AMBerry (t|c) 22:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Which umpire is this?

Here. I *think* it's Billy Doctrove, but I'm not sure. The pic's freely-licensed, but I'm hesitant to upload a cropped version to the Commons unless I'm certain of who it is :) Cheers for any help! AllynJ (talk | contribs) 17:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

After downloading the photo, the properties indicate it was taken on the 2nd of August this year. Billy Doctrove did indeed umpire the Sri Lanka v India Test that was on its third day that date. The other umpires were Rudi Koertzen and Mark Benson (Benson took over when Koertzen was ill) and neither of them are the umpire pictured, for reasons that I think are obvious. Now that's some good investigation if I do say so myself. Andrew nixon (talk) 18:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes indeed - thanks a lot. :) AllynJ (talk | contribs) 18:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Workspace list

Does anyone use or update Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/List of cricketers? WOuld there be any serious objection to its being removed? BlackJack | ^{talk page} 13:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The related changes page associated with it ([7]) is fairly useful, but no, it isn't really up-to-date. I fail to see what harm there is in letting it stay, however - whilst I don't use it, I'm sure others might - and after all, Wikipedia is not paper. AllynJ (talk | contribs) 13:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Cricket graphic artists

I noticed in the assistance needed section you are requesting graphic designers for wikiproject needs. User:Red Gown is one of the most talented artists I've seen, she just doodles these works of art seemingly without effort! She drew Geoffrey Boycott for his article. Admittedly I am slightly bias, but I'm sure if you leave a note on her talk page she would enjoy doing whatever art/design jobs you require. SGGH ^speak! 12:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've long thought that Flight (cricket) could do with an illustration of the trajectory of a cricket ball. And it's so fundamental to the game (and so different from <ahem> baseball) that I'd argue for including it in Cricket. --Dweller (talk) 13:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I have along list: (umpire hand signals, batting shots, illustration of nine types of dismissals) =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I suspect she would very much enjoy that, she can do sketches like the Boycott one very quickly. If you pull up a list and put it on her user page I'm sure she can get some done for you. I'll google her some photos so she knows what to base them on. SGGH ^speak! 14:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course I'd be absolutely chuffed to help out in any way I can. Any excuse to draw something is good enough for me (I can even do digital illustration if needs be), and I can further my cricket education at the same time. --Red Gown (talk) 04:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

That's really great! I'll put up my wishlist shortly. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Wishlist

Would prefer it as simple line art, and if possible in SVG format, so that it can be tweaked (or animated, if and when supported). I know it's a lot here, so if its too much to do, then consider only the umpire signals as most important.

Umpire signals	Dismissals	Batting	Bowling
Out Four Six Bye Leg-bye No-ball Wide Referral to third umpire One short Revoke previous decision Free hit Bouncer Powerplay New ball Penalty runs? (is there one signal?) Substitute (was there one?)	Caught Bowled Run out + Run-cut-out/Mankaded Stumped Hit-wicket Handled the ball Obstructing the field (any ideas how to depict this?) LBW (both instances: when pitched in-line of the stumps and outside the offstump)	On drive Lofted shot Cover drive Hook Pull Cut Late cut Off drive Square drive Straight drive Slog Sweep Reverse sweep Scoop Cut Slice Run down to third man Batting stance (left and right handers) as well as when shot is not offered Guard (middle stump, leg, middle-leg etc) Speciality shots: Kevin Pietersen (switch-hit) & Douglas Marillier (Marillier shot) Bye Leg bye	Pace bowling Leg break Off break Beamer Bouncer Googly Doosra Chinaman Left-arm orthodox Flipper Yorker No ball (leg positions & height) Wide (height and width) Bowling grips Inswinger Outswinger Leg cutters Off cutters

There are two signals for penalty runs -- one indicating runs to the batting side, one indicating runs to the fielding side. See Umpire_(cricket)#Penalty_runs. I don't recall there having been a signal for substitutes. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 07:35, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I think Red Gown will have to ask me what each signal is before she settles down to draw it. We will try the first one this evening, neither of us are at work today. SGGH ^speak! 11:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know she was your wife. Nice to have the two of you on board. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to get her into cricket :D SGGH ^speak! 15:02, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

You didn't actually ask for this one, but I just found an image of Jayawardene in the perfect forward defense position, but I haven't a clue which article it'd be good on. Any ideas? Image:Forward defense (cricket).jpg is the one in question. Regards, AllynJ (talk | contribs) 17:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Howzaaaat???? --Dweller (talk) 09:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, ta. :) AllynJ (talk | contribs) 16:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I suggest to had underarm bowling and roundarm bowling... OrangeKnight (talk) 12:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC) ... and a Bodyline field, too... OrangeKnight (talk) 10:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, do add it to the list. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Do we have any models here who are willing to pose as umpires with white coat or willing to pretend to be batsmen playing a cut shot? Much more efficient? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:42, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you could ask User:The Rambling Man. He has some nice black and white bathrobes. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Radio programme "heads up"

The "Afternoon Play" at 2:15pm this Wednesday on BBC Radio 4 is about WG Grace. It is set during his final f-c match in April, 1908. I imagine that it will be available on the BBC's Website for a week after it's broadcast, which will enable those outside the UK to listen to it. JH (talk page) 09:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Will it feature a falsetto vocal, I wonder? BlackJack | ^{talk page} 10:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The answer turned out to be "no". :) But it was a very good piece, with a neat surprise twist at the end, and the writer (Nick Warburton) had clearly done his research. JH (talk page) 19:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

2008 English cricket season

Can someone update the Natwest Pro 40 tables as the leagues have now finished. It might be a good idea to do them once the County Championship has finished today. 03md (talk) 15:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You could of course do it yourself! Andrew nixon (talk) 15:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done it for you. Regards, AllynJ (talk | contribs) 16:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject talk page banner

Just saw this at Talk:Forward defence.

It's, erm, humungous. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Can all the B rating gumpf be zipped up into a "show/hide" thingy please, asap? Thanks! --21:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Err, the additional information is collapsible and starts out automatically collapsed for me. Is it starting out showing all of the B-Class criteria for you, or something? That's .. odd if it is. (PS, you missed a ~ :)) AllynJ (talk | contribs) 21:07, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Yup. It shows the lot. This crummy PC only has IE. Have some spare ~s this time. --21:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)21:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)Dweller (talk) 21:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I began my wiki career on IE and only got Firefox about three months ago! SGGH ^speak! 23:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Dunno if it's been fixed, or if it's my browser that's updated, but either way it's working fine now. --Dweller (talk) 11:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Cricket

As we all it knew it would, our "flagship article" has failed its FAR and has been demoted. This is not good for WP:CRIC and the problem, quite frankly, is those people who just have to stick any old image in or promote their pet hobby-horse about the sport's global popularity. Drivel like that has ruined what was once a good article.

Dweller, Andrew and I have begun the article again, moreorless from scratch, and have laid some foundations. We still need suggestions about the structure and especially about any additional topics that should be included. Once we have a clear consensus on what should go in and in what order, we can work on the detail and the citations.

One point that came across loud and clear in the FAR was the over-reliance of the old version on links. For example, stating that the fielding team includes a wicketkeeper (linked) and not one word about what the keeper does or even where he stands. Another was overuse of images.

Now that the FA rating has been removed, I've reviewed the new working version of the article against the B-class criteria and hoped it would pass. It hasn't. There simply aren't enough citations but we are working on that so it isn't too far off.

But the bottom line is that our main top importance article is only Start-class in quality. We need to take the old song and make it a lot better. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 09:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Its far from B grade too. I would prefer to go with the structure of this version. I'd be happy to help out with any SVG diagrams & maps, and critical review. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I've had a look at the 2004 structure and I don't think there is much we can use except for a separate section about wicket-keeping, which we currently have within fielding. What I'm most pleased about is that the topics included in 2004 are all still there, so we haven't lost any important content in four years.

My view of the 2004 structure is that it is disjointed. It looks like a starter for ten from which we have long since moved on; and this is even truer of the content (especially the lead!). The structure lacks the logical flow that some of the FAR contributors were looking for, and which anyone learning about the sport must need. In simple terms, we need to walk the reader through the match in a sequential way so that, for example, the toss is at the beginning and the result is at the end. Another example is that forms of cricket must come before history or the reader will find himself being told that Test cricket started in 1877 without knowing what Test cricket is.

The 2004 structure places emphasis on things that do not need emphasis and some of these points came up when we reviewed the article recently, before the restructure commenced. For example, topics like toss, captain, runner, substitute and creases don't need separate sub-sections: they should be dealt with under match, team, batting, fielding and pitch respectively. Field placements do not belong under parts of the field but under fielding.

I think we should forget about past versions of the article and look ahead by asking what we need to do to provide an introduction to a reader who knows little or nothing about cricket. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 13:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policies have changed a lot since those days, at that time references were not at all compulsory. The current draft unfortunately does not make sense at all. It's way too disjointed. Before making any changes, do have a look at the objections raised in the old nom: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cricket/archive1. There was an update the following year by User:Jguk, maybe we can look at that draft too. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I can only repeat that we should be moving forward and providing the reader with a logical flow designed to walk him through a match and deal with each concept in a sequential way. Having history at the top, etc. as suggested by the American (?) reader in the 2004 review is no use at all to someone trying to find out what the game is about. I really don't see the point of looking at past versions because, unless we have unintentionally omitted something (and we haven't), we will simply start repeating old mistakes.

Can you suggest some specific improvements to the present structure and/or content? That is what is needed. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 15:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Going forward it perfectly reasonable, but when you say that "a logical flow designed to walk..." is required, is the part I have reservations about. How do you plan to do this? Cricket is one sport so intricate, that writing about it becomes sort of the chichken-and-egg story. That brings me the second question. Shouldn't a peer review be done by those (American or not) clueless about cricket? That would help us in understanding where a reader has difficulties understanding the sport. The current draft is so badly *messed up*, that I cannot make any suggestions as of now, cause it needs to be updated from ground up. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of a peer review outside the project but I can't address your problems with the present structure and content unless you can be specific. It seems obvious that you are completely opposed to us rewriting the article and that you would prefer us to revert to the 2004 version which you were involved with? Saying the article is "messed up" doesn't exactly provide useful feedback or give us anything to go on.

Contrast that with the feedback from SGGH below which is to the point and is useful: the article does need more references and we do need to get those from books and not from CricInfo or whatever.

The current structure has four main sections: the game and its objectives is the key one for helping the reader understand what cricket is about. The other three are just additional information that effectively introduce more detailed articles elsewhere in the project. But the sequence of these four main sections is important because we need to discuss forms of cricket before we discuss history. We have already introduced the ICC in history and it is useful to say something about its global and geopolitical structure at the end.

In the main section, the idea is to tell a novice what is going on inside a cricket ground by trying to introduce concepts as they arise and in a logical sequence. As you say, cricket is an extremely complex sport and logic often eludes it, so we can only apply a benchmark and try to discuss things in the order they probably will arise. For example, the toss needs to be discussed very early and so does the pitch. But field placings come much later and the end of the game comes at the end. The trouble is that several things arise concurrently: e.g., there is a bowler and two batsmen and a keeper and nine fielders and two umpires on the field as the first ball is bowled so which do you describe first? BlackJack | ^{talk page} 16:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I am opposed to you rewriting the article. I did not say so, nor have I said that we revert to the 2004 version I worked on. My main concern that is that I would prefer we do not reinvent the wheel, so therefore wanted to know your thoughts on how it should be restructured. You only mentioned that the 2004 draft is disjointed, and I wanted to know the areas for improvement given the parallel timeline issue. As we both agree, several things do occur concurrently, so the onus would be on introducing concepts and rules in a phased manner. There are several ways of rewriting this, I'm just asking for your thoughts on a new structure. From what I understand, you are seeking a more game-plan type approach toss-batting-bowling-end. Let's restrict the debate to the structure instead of making assumptions.

If I have to review the article for grammar alone, I can pick several redundant, weasel, and peacock terms, in addition to an unhealthy non-encyclopedic tone. Some examples: In simple terms,, The key action, "bowling" aka "fielding", meaning he is a right arm spin bowler who bowls deliveries that are called a "leg break" and a "googly" (for a first time reader, this would send him spinning!), sometimes regarded as a type of all-rounder, for the more delicate part of the anatomy).. And I've not reviewed for readability, layout or accuracy! If I were a person new to cricket, I would be left puzzled as to why 1) The ball usually bounces once (in the lead) [--> newbie q: can it bounce more than once?] 2) [What is the meaning of "out"?] The lead has a high amount of detail, enough to put off someone new to the sport. The lead needs to be tightened significantly, to remove cricketing terms and provide the objective of the sport. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Nichalp. It gives us much more to go on. We will edit the wording very carefully to raise the article back to GA and eventually FA standard. The precise wording isn't an issue yet because in content terms it's the coverage of topics that is important at present. Thus, leg breaks have been mentioned, which is good, but have we mentioned off breaks? If we've got the topic we can edit the wording later. The article at present is still a first draft which was written with the aim of capturing the ideas and making a start. For example, the piece about minor counties is still in note form only; and the delicate part will be toughened up a bit before the GA team starts bowling at us! BlackJack | ^{talk page} 18:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I personally think the structure is fine, though there needs to be more references and they needed to be expanded to more than URLs, but then I'm only saying stuff everyone knows :) SGGH ^speak! 15:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree. We need a lot more book references. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 16:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The old version of the article in 2004 is awful and although you were talking about its layout it is full of errors. There is nothing wrong with the new version as a draft. The text needs finetuning and SGGH is right about URL because you should get your references about the laws from Wisden or another book. I would not change the present layout and cant think of anything else to add just some bits of detail only. The way the article is written like he is talking to the reader is good because it tells you one thing and then leads you easily into the next. Read the old one, you are jumping back and forwards all the time. The new one is good work but it needs the polish now. 86.150.241.72 (talk) 16:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this but it does need a lot of fine-tuning. If you can let us know the extra details you've identified, that will be a great help. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 18:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Infobox length

Hi,

Sorry to bring up the infobox again, but does anyone else feel that at times (particularly in the stubbier articles) that it is a little long? Is it worth considering using show/hide for some of the career stats/domestic teams etc? Perhaps it could be auto-set to 'hide', but with the option to explicitly'show' for full-length articles, or at least those where the prose is long enough to balance it?

–MDCollins (talk) 10:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I tend to leave out the stats for players who have only played a couple of games, so the ability to hide the stats could be useful - I'd default it to show though. We shouldn't really be writing stubs for anyone with a substantial career - I consider it to be a bit of a disgrace to the project that we still have stubs for some Test players. Andrew nixon (talk) 10:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Stats bot

Hi all. I haven't been around this project for quite a while, but it occurred to me recently that something that might be useful would be a bot that updates statistics. Now that there is just the one template for cricketers (I remember the many we had in the past...) and Cricinfo's player pages are in tabular form, it wouldn't be hard to make a bot that would regularly update the infobox after a match.

Perhaps someone could let me know if this would be (a) useful, (b) non-redundant (as in, there isn't a bot that someone else has already programmed!) and (c) popular, as there would need to be a certain amount of community input in working out which pages would need to have which information.

Thanks! Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 20:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be useful. It certainly wouldnt be redudant. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it would be very, very useful. It would save on valuable human resources for more productive tasks. Oh, and if a bot can also be programmed to create SVG graphs like this, all the better. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:06, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Each of those graphs only take between 3 and 15 minutes depending on how many games the person has played (and how many not outs he did) - you need to draw in the blue dots manually after using. It's not too bad as long as its a retired player. For current players it is hell if you are going to redraw the dots after the graph gets more squished when the next few innings are added in. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 06:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. I suggested the same idea a few weeks ago. The problem is where to get the stats from. Stephen Turner (Talk) 08:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Can't we just get some page where each player bio is listed along with the corresponding url, and then get a program to parse the numbers and then change it in the infobox? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 08:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You mean screen scraping CricketArchive or Cricinfo? That's generally considered very bad form. Some companies even regard it as illegal, which is probably not true, but do you want to fight lawyers? It's at best a reason to get blocked from that website. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, raw stats aren't copyright are they? They'r just raw data. I can remember bots writing geography articles from census data, although admittedly, census data might be PD depending on which country's government it is. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 07:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, that is one option, as I intimate above, and is very easy to program. If the collection is low enough, it would not be significantly more (and could easily be significantly less) than individuals doing so. I could be wrong of course -- but this doesn't to me seem like a huge drag on them -- nor huge competition. Now knowing that it is potentially a useful piece of work, I'll look further into the practicalities. Thanks, Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 10:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking how this might work when Stephen mentioned it a few weeks back. I'm intrigued as to how it might work. How would it determine the number of columns required, or would we be able to specify things like that? I believe someone was considering contacting CricketArchive for an official link up. Something else I thought of - the (poor) editing of a portion of the stats in real time during a match is a particular penchant for the anon editors (only updating the runs for example, and not the related figures). Would they be still tempted to do so, and are they likely to mess up the coding? I guess that is something to consider once a trial system can be drawn up. If you are capable of setting something up Sam, I'd be very interested to see it in action.–MDCollins (talk) 16:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have sent a cuddly email to CricketArchive myself. If users manually updated the stats, it wouldn't be a problem unless they mucked around with the formatting, in which case the bot would throw up and add the page to a list of pages that need manual checking. I was imagining having a page in the bot's userspace with lines like:

Brett Lee http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archive/Players/5/5951/5951.html Tests ODIs First-class List-A

I imagine the vast majority (all?) current cricketers will have these four columns, though. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

A lot, yes, others may just have First-class and List A (some with Twenty20, IT20, U19 to fill the space if there are other stats available. I was thinking that it work/could work for retired players, but maybe that is just a waste of resources, and perhaps the current players are more useful. But if it is possible to set it up like your example, with the required columns, that seems like an excellent plan.–MDCollins (talk) 17:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

As an alternative to an extra line in the bot's userspace, it could just read which columns are currently turned on in the template. Then if someone changed which columns are shown, the bot wouldn't revert it. Stephen Turner (Talk) 18:42, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The list would be necessary to work out which articles to update, of course. Reading from the template is probably the way I would go about it, you are absolutely right. It would be sensible, though, to have the page to be read on that page as well, so that, should someone unknowingly change the reference to a different site, it would remain correct. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Retired players' statistics don't often change... Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

How often do you plan to update the statistics? Daily? =Nichalp «Talk»= 20:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm planning to talk to website owners before I make those specific decisions. My initial thought was weekly. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 20:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

My edit count would go way down, that is pretty much all I do these days! :D SGGH ^speak! 11:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Then you can write some marvelous articles instead. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 07:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think if we can't get agreement from CricketArchive or Cricinfo, this is a complete non-starter. I'd even go so far as to rule out Cricinfo, as their stats are incorrect in a few places. Andrew nixon (talk) 13:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how copyvio differs from a human manually copying things. CI seems good enough for raw Test aggregates isn't it, most of hte issues I've seen brought up here are on obscure records and such IIRC. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 07:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Cricket statistics are not the intellectual property of CA or Cricinfo, so cannot be copyrighted. Permission is a courtesy to let them know that we are using their bandwidth. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Would a note to The quiz guru be worthwhile?. Moondyne 07:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say that if this proves to be possible, I would prefer CA stats to Cricinfo ones by a wide margin. My experience has been that they're generally better in most regards, and of course CA's individual match scorecards, season summaries etc are nicer. Loganberry (Talk) 12:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. BlackJack | ^{talk page} 12:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Can I suggest that if we go ahead with this, to prevent all kinds of problems, we would at least initially restrict it to working on players who are deceased? Retired players may come out of retirement, but dead ones' stats only change when the statisticians or the ICC are bored. (Sorry Blackjack). Oh, and we already have a well-used cat: for pools of deceased data. --Dweller (talk) 13:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression that deceased cricketers had their stats in place. Does the bot have any additional stats to add to deceased cricketers? I don't think running it on deceased cricketers as a pilot project would be of any help. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Update

I have just had a very useful conversation with one of the founders of CricketArchive and they are very happy for us to use their information for current international players. Understandably they would prefer if we didn't grab all the information for all first-class players ever, so I will restrict it to current players only.

I anticipate the bot running in approximately this fashion:

• Load the list of players
• For each player:
  • Check the player is currently playing international cricket (i.e. has played a Test, ODI or T20 International in the past year)
  • Check which columns the infobox contains
  • Update each column with the new statistics
  • Save the page
• Remove players who haven't played in over a year

Does anyone have any suggestions to improve this before I start writing it and requesting bot approvals?

Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 13:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Good news! One possibility once you've got started would be to look at the scorecards of recent international matches and see who's played in them, and then just update those people.

It's probably worth turning all the legacy infobox templates into the new infobox template the first time you touch each player.

Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't intend the bot to construct the template ab initio every time, just to replace the relevant information. If there is an issue with the format of the page -- e.g. the wrong infobox is used -- I'll have it place a link to the problem page in its userspace somewhere and manually change it. I figure this will be rare enough that fixing the pages manually will be easier than programming the bot to do it automatically. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 14:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Some comments: Past year would be restricted to a) the past 365 days b) current calender year or c) the current cricket year? Secondly, could you also maintain a database of the statistics? You could then dump the data as comma separated values in your userspace. This information could come in handy with the use of other bots that could parse this data and add this data to graphical timelines. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It will be the past 12 months -- doing either calendar year or cricket year would mean the bot could delete someone who played the previous week, which is obviously not desirable.

I certainly could output the data in whatever format, but I'm not entirely sure what data you want... I'm currently processing it into PHP arrays like so:

Extended content

array(2) { ["batting"]=> array(8) { ["Tests"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(2) "68" ["inns"]=> string(2) "77" ["runs"]=> string(5) "1,287" ["top score"]=> string(2) "64" ["bat avg"]=> string(5) "21.45" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "5" ["srate"]=> string(5) "54.76" ["catches"]=> string(2) "21" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } ["First-class"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(3) "106" ["inns"]=> string(3) "124" ["runs"]=> string(5) "1,950" ["top score"]=> string(2) "97" ["bat avg"]=> string(5) "19.50" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "8" ["srate"]=> NULL ["catches"]=> string(2) "32" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } ["ODIs"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(3) "173" ["inns"]=> string(2) "85" ["runs"]=> string(3) "855" ["top score"]=> string(2) "57" ["bat avg"]=> string(5) "17.44" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "2" ["srate"]=> string(5) "80.66" ["catches"]=> string(2) "41" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } ["List A"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(3) "205" ["inns"]=> string(3) "104" ["runs"]=> string(5) "1,010" ["top score"]=> string(2) "57" ["bat avg"]=> string(5) "16.83" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "2" ["srate"]=> string(5) "80.99" ["catches"]=> string(2) "46" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } ["International Twenty20"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(2) "13" ["inns"]=> string(1) "6" ["runs"]=> string(2) "75" ["top score"]=> string(2) "43" ["bat avg"]=> string(5) "25.00" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "0" ["srate"]=> string(6) "138.88" ["catches"]=> string(1) "5" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } ["Twenty20"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(2) "17" ["inns"]=> string(1) "9" ["runs"]=> string(2) "92" ["top score"]=> string(2) "43" ["bat avg"]=> string(5) "23.00" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "0" ["srate"]=> string(6) "137.31" ["catches"]=> string(1) "8" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } ["Youth Tests"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(1) "6" ["inns"]=> string(1) "8" ["runs"]=> string(2) "21" ["top score"]=> string(1) "9" ["bat avg"]=> string(4) "3.50" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "0" ["srate"]=> NULL ["catches"]=> string(1) "4" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } ["Youth ODIs"]=> array(10) { ["matches"]=> string(1) "5" ["inns"]=> string(1) "2" ["runs"]=> string(1) "7" ["top score"]=> string(1) "5" ["bat avg"]=> string(4) "7.00" ["100s"]=> string(1) "0" ["50s"]=> string(1) "0" ["srate"]=> NULL ["catches"]=> string(1) "0" ["stumpings"]=> string(1) "0" } } ["bowling"]=> array(8) { ["Tests"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(6) "14,764" ["maidens"]=> string(3) "496" ["runs"]=> string(5) "8,550" ["wickets"]=> string(3) "289" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(4) "5-30" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "29.58" ["fivefor"]=> string(1) "9" ["tenfor"]=> string(1) "0" ["srate"]=> string(5) "51.08" ["econ"]=> string(4) "3.47" } ["First-class"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(6) "22,000" ["maidens"]=> string(3) "743" ["runs"]=> string(6) "12,508" ["wickets"]=> string(3) "457" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(5) "7-114" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "27.36" ["fivefor"]=> string(2) "18" ["tenfor"]=> string(1) "2" ["srate"]=> string(5) "48.14" ["econ"]=> string(4) "3.41" } ["ODIs"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(5) "8,853" ["maidens"]=> string(3) "113" ["runs"]=> string(5) "6,955" ["wickets"]=> string(3) "303" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(4) "5-22" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "22.95" ["fivefor"]=> string(1) "8" ["tenfor"]=> string(3) "n/a" ["srate"]=> string(5) "29.21" ["econ"]=> string(4) "4.71" } ["List A"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(6) "10,595" ["maidens"]=> string(3) "140" ["runs"]=> string(5) "8,178" ["wickets"]=> string(3) "345" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(4) "5-22" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "23.70" ["fivefor"]=> string(1) "8" ["tenfor"]=> string(3) "n/a" ["srate"]=> string(5) "30.71" ["econ"]=> string(4) "4.63" } ["International Twenty20"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(3) "277" ["maidens"]=> string(1) "0" ["runs"]=> string(3) "334" ["wickets"]=> string(2) "12" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(4) "3-27" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "27.83" ["fivefor"]=> string(1) "0" ["tenfor"]=> string(3) "n/a" ["srate"]=> string(5) "23.08" ["econ"]=> string(4) "7.23" } ["Twenty20"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(3) "373" ["maidens"]=> string(1) "0" ["runs"]=> string(3) "446" ["wickets"]=> string(2) "16" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(4) "3-27" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "27.87" ["fivefor"]=> string(1) "0" ["tenfor"]=> string(3) "n/a" ["srate"]=> string(5) "23.31" ["econ"]=> string(4) "7.17" } ["Youth Tests"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(5) "1,361" ["maidens"]=> string(2) "40" ["runs"]=> string(3) "743" ["wickets"]=> string(2) "21" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(4) "4-61" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "35.38" ["fivefor"]=> string(1) "0" ["tenfor"]=> string(3) "n/a" ["srate"]=> string(5) "64.80" ["econ"]=> string(4) "3.27" } ["Youth ODIs"]=> array(10) { ["balls"]=> string(3) "233" ["maidens"]=> string(1) "1" ["runs"]=> string(3) "207" ["wickets"]=> string(2) "10" ["best inns bowling"]=> string(4) "5-32" ["bowl avg"]=> string(5) "20.70" ["fivefor"]=> string(1) "1" ["tenfor"]=> string(3) "n/a" ["srate"]=> string(5) "23.30" ["econ"]=> string(4) "5.33" } } }

So I can output this data however you like... I'm not sure what it would be useful for -- graphs of batting averages over time?

Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 14:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that was one I was looking at. But I'm not too sure what other graphs we can use with this data. Will think on it. I wonder if CricketArchive would lend us their database... :-) =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:16, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Pete, the guy I was talking to, said that they would be happy to look at new suggestions for features. I doubt they'd be too keen to let us at their database, though!

I can certainly log the data if you like -- though maybe it would be better to do it off-wiki? I intend to get a Toolserver account when the bot is running (I have a university server I can use temporarily) and it might be better to host them there. The other point I'll make is that I wouldn't have data match-by-match from the beginning of someone's career, only from the present day. Would the data actually be usable? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Just out of interest, how will the bot "know" which players to update? Will we just add the player's page name to a page that the bot looks at? Andrew nixon (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's my intention, yes. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

<reindent>I'm not sure about the depth of coverage of CricketArchive, but this is what I have in mind as a suggestion. I was looking for the bot to scrape and parse all the rows on cricketers as depicted on Cricinfo. We could then use the data to build our own cricket-related SQL database on toolserver. It shouldn't be too difficult scraping the data: The content there is held inside <table class="engineTable">, so you can probably apply some XML parsing methods to get this data. This would give us a healthy database of our own to start with. Once this is done, the bot can update the statistics, and also create SVG-graphs. Some graph ideas: Batting averages vs time; Averages vs different countries; Averages vs at home vs away and so on. Since we are using a bot, a text can also localise the graph labels in various languages. How does this sound? =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The depth of statistical coverage on CricketArchive is much greater (and more accurate) than on Cricinfo. Personally I think getting the stats is much more important. We don't need graphs for every player anyway, and they are only really going to be for feature articles anyway, so we should just create graphs as and when we need them. Having a bot that scrapes the stats, draws a nice graph, does the washing up, mows the lawn and walks the dog is all well and good, but a little over the top. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Andrew nixon (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

An open-source cricket database has been a dream of mine for some time! I have to say, though, that I think we should shoot for achievable targets in the first instance. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 22:17, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Trial period approved

Sambot (talk · contribs) has had a 7-day approval. I need to work at getting all the international cricketers who have played in the last year listed at User:Sambot/players. I have got all the English ones and will be working on adding all the others over the next couple of days. If anyone wishes to join in, they are very welcome to! Once I have the full list, I shall do a full run of the bot so I can submit it on the request for approval as evidence of the successful running of the bot.

Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 22:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Fantastic news. I've added Australia for you. When you run it, if you let me know which players have incorrect infoboxes, let me know and I'll deal with them if I can. If the bot makes a list on a subpage I can be watching it. Let me know if there's anything else you need help with. (nothing too technical), simple repetitive tasks like making lists/column data etc.–MDCollins (talk) 00:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks! It will log at User:Sambot/log. That will include messages about invalid infoboxes. The errors listed there now were teething problems, now fixed. (Incidentally, isn't it extraordinary that Australia have used 11 more players over the last year than England!) Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

They didn't - England used 30 as well. It seems you left off some of the IT20 players. I've added them now, including Mascarenhas who got deleted by the bot despite playing in February.

TIP: Do a cricinfo statsguru search for "All Test/ODI/T20", "Batting", "<team>", "<quick pick - last year>" which gives you the full list per country.–MDCollins (talk) 01:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Another way to do it would be to go to the talk pages of all the Test playing nations other than Bangladesh. There I've got lists to co-ordinate with the squad lists I've been rolling out. Actually, while I'm here, does anyone know why sortable tables are now seemingly broken on all those pages? HornetMike (talk) 10:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah - hadn't noticed them, quite useful too. The date sorting doesn't work now the links have been removed. You can use {{dts}} to implement date sorting in tables.–MDCollins (talk) 14:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Question: does this work for every player's infobox, or just those with {{Infobox cricketer biography}}? A lot of players, including current ones, especially from the smaller countries (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) are stuck on the old one, although some from other countries have the same problem (James Kirtley, for instance). If it only works for the newer one I'll gladly get stuck in giving them with the new infobox. Regards, AllynJ (talk | contribs) 01:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Just the new 'box. The link above ([[User:Sambot/log]) will log all problems including the old boxes. I've put a watch on it for the same reason. The more hands the better.–MDCollins (talk) 01:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha, and on it. :) AllynJ (talk | contribs) 02:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

One problem spotted - it replaces the / in bowling figures with a dash, ie. 5/20 becomes 5-20, which goes against our style guide. Andrew nixon (talk) 09:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Mdcollins has already pointed out a few issues at my talkpage (many thanks). I'm dealing with them right now. The template does indeed only work for the {{infobox cricketer biography}}. Thanks to everyone for your help. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 13:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

All the issues he pointed out have been fixed, including this one.

The point I really meant to make above was "fancy that, Australia have used as many players as England this year..." Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 15:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I have the statistics for Youth Tests and Youth ODIs where CricketArchive has them but I have yet to see what they are called in a page, so I can't update them. If anyone can tell me an article that includes them, I can update them as well... Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 15:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've added the appropriate columns to Greg Thompson (cricketer), with incorrect/out of date data. Try that one! Andrew nixon (talk) 16:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, while we're at it, we should probably come to some sort of consensus on exactly what column headings we use. For example, I only use FC and LA if there are three or more columns, otherwise I use the full First-class and List A. Andrew nixon (talk) 16:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that is reasonable. Do what is best to fill the space. Obviously when space is of a premium, Test, ODI, FC and LA are useful. First-class and List A can be used when there is more space. Also, a reminder that it was agreed that IT20 or T20 columns would always come after Test, ODI, FC and LA and not in the middle of them. I've clarified the template doc to mention this.–MDCollins (talk) 17:07, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Having said that, I've realised that I haven't used LA - Test, ODI, FC and List A fits quite nicely!–MDCollins (talk) 17:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm mainly thinking in terms of what the bot looks for. Does it look only for [[List A cricket|LA]] or does it look for [[List A cricket|List A]], List A, LA, etc. too? Andrew nixon (talk) 17:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

At the moment it "List A" (don't forget it's the wikitext that's parsed, not the screen output). If there was a list of possibilities, that could be implemented. The potential problem is that the more you have, the higher the possibility of false positives. But I'm happy to make the bot work with whatever is decided. If you always link to "List A" and "First class", the bot will pick that up. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 18:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

An idea - could SamBot be used to update the various List of [country] [format] international cricketers? Some of them haven't been updated for years? Also, a theoretical problem - might it scoop stats for someone like Steve Harmison and include his ICC test stats? HornetMike (talk) 22:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

What I've done with examples such as KP with his 2 ICC World XI ODI matches, is to put a note in a reference in the column saying "includes 2 matches for..." - that saved any discussion as to WP Cricket's stance on the legitimacy of such 'charity' games. Whether we could get consensus here to either include or exclude them, I'm sure Sambot would oblige.–MDCollins (talk) 22:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. It's easier to program if you agree to include them, but not enough to make it worth worrying about. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 22:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Sambot certainly could update those statistics. I'll have to do some more programming and might not be able to do it for a few days, though. I'll have to think about the best way to do it. The advantage of this request is that it doesn't involve any more page-fetches from CricketArchive -- I can use the stats generated by the current job. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 22:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Slowly but surely most are done - just Sri Lanka/Pakistan to do of the full members now. Just wondering if we should perhaps include associate members (with ODI/T20I status) in this? I can't see any harm in doing so. AllynJ (talk | contribs) 14:32, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

By all means. I added the ten Test nations first because they are (a) most important and (b) they all have articles (well, they do now!). The Associate players can certainly be added next, but I felt getting the bot up and running with the major nations' players was the best place to start. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 18:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's perfectly reasonable. I've added all the rest now. It might spam your bot's log next Saturday, depending on how far through the backlog of players to update we can get. Considering this, I think it might be wise to comment out or get the bot to ignore the teams from Zimbabwe downards for the time being, especially as the list is probably approaching 400 players, about half of which don't have the new infobox yet. Regards, AllynJ (talk | contribs) 22:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I just programmed it to use {{hat}}, so the page will at least be sane. If, however, you would like the bot to stop at a particular point on the list, place #STOP at the beginning of a line and it will ignore everything after that point. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, {{hat}} is probably better. :) On a related note, for the time being at least, could I request that you add to the output in the log how many problems there were? It'd make it a lot easier to see how far along the infoboxes are. AllynJ (talk | contribs) 15:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot approved

The bot is now approved, and I shall run it at about 4AM on a Saturday morning, to get a low-traffic period. If you spot any problems with it, please do let me know! If it's doing something particularly stupid, place some text (anything!) at User:Sambot/shutdown. Thanks for the help in migrating infoboxes! Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 14:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Just after a quick look at the recent run, the bot is ignoring ICC Trophy and Youth ODI stats. Andrew nixon (talk) 12:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Link? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 13:05, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Greg Thompson (cricketer) and Trent Johnston spring to mind. Andrew nixon (talk) 15:05, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. I hadn't programmed the Trophy matches and had the options in the wrong order for youth matches. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't know if this makes a difference Sam (probably doesn't) but somewhere I think I've used "TRO" as an abbreviation for the ICC Trophy - to me if I saw "ICC" above a column, I would wonder if there were matches for the ICC XI or such like. Actually, scrap that, "I" know enough not to think that, but other readers may not. Although TRO very good either.–MDCollins (talk) 00:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll program it to flag up any unrecognised fields for the next run. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:41, 28 September 2008 (UTC)