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Fooian League in [season] Atlantean competitions

Asked in a neutral way, as per the rules: Do we have any consensus about articles of this type? Rationale behind this question: this article. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Responding in a similarly neutral way, I think any worthwhile content should be merged into the league's season article, before the article is deleted, salted and page creation protected. WFC (talk) 19:27, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

For example, like in this section? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 19:42, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

My course of action would be to have the creator of that abomination strung up for crimes against Wikipedia, and then every effort made to ensure that nothing like it is ever written again. Again, in a completely neutral way. BigDom 19:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, something like that section. There's always scope to slightly expand it, particularly if a team goes on an extraordinary run ("extraordinary" depending on the context; an Irish team reaching the Champions League proper would be extraordinary, an English team less so). WFC (talk) 00:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, User:Dalymount, creator of the article, just removed the PROD tag. He did leave a message on the talk page, but I thought protocol was to leave the tag on until the debate has concluded? Invisibletr (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Not for articles tagged as PROD. It is a different story for articles tagged as AfD, however. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 14:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

While we are at it, I just stumbled about a series of articles best described as "Fooian League in Atlantean competitions by decade" (Exhibits A, B, C, D and E). Any opinions on the treatment for these? Edit: And what about the type "Fooian clubs in Atlantis"? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 14:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

1968 Intercontinental Cup

User:Jamen Somasu (yes, him again) has added a summary of the second leg of the 1968 Intercontinental Cup to the article about the match. Unfortunately, I deemed this summary to be riddled with POV and tagged it as a POV section. For some reason, Jamen Somasu refuses to acknowledge the POV nature of his addition and insists on removing the POV tag. Would someone please provide a third opinion on this subject? – PeeJay 19:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"Manchester United attacked desperately and agonishinly with everything they had" sounds pretty POV to me. I'll re-instate the tag in the article, but perhaps you should of put an explanation at Talk:1968 Intercontinental Cup (i.e. give examples of what is POV). Just saying "the way it's written" might be unclear to Jamen. I realise patience may be wearing thin but just adding and removing the tag won't really achieve anything. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 19:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd go further and remove all unsourced, controversial sentences, per WP:V. In particular, I'd point Jamen towards WP:REDFLAG. If he decides to edit war, there is also WP:3RR. WFC (talk) 19:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, no it is not POV. I sourced it from the newspaper article that I left on the reference section of that same page. Nice try, though. You are more than welcome to get any translator to translate the entire summary; I merely copied from one page to another.

On the other hand, I want to remind you that POV is "personal own view", not "let's censor anything that displeases me". You and your good buddy PeeJay have a great history of it...especially the latter. Remember: Wikipedia is not censored. Jamen Somasu (talk) 19:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Would you mind if we just rewrote it to keep the information but remove the opinions? Because that sounds to me like the obvious solution here. Alzarian16 (talk) 20:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

(At Alzarian) I copied the entire thing as it came; those newspaper articles are from the day after the match. It doesn't get more accurate than that. If you go to google and type "Estudiantes Manchester 1968", you will have a good number of links providing the ENTIRE series. Nothing on that article is false or exaggerated: as soon as the 2nd leg started, Manchester pressed hard for the equalizer. When Veron scored, anyone including Blind Willie could see the desperation on that team and they simply fell apart. I will gladly change anything that is proven false. You have my word on that. I know what I saw, I know what I read, and that is why I am confortable with this. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I would have no problem with re-writing the section; in fact, the article needed a summary of both games. But obviously Jamen Somasu is a massive proponent of South American football and would like nothing more than to make Europeans look like savages. – PeeJay 20:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah...because my daily life revolves around Europeans...get a load of this guy...Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

*sigh* While dispute tags shouldn't be removed before the dispute is resolved, nor should they be edit-warred over. {{POV-section}} mandates discussion, which wasn't even started until two reverts down the line. This should continue on the article talk, but frankly neither of you are in the clear here. That said, the ice under Jamen is considerably thinner, and he should be thinking very heavily about what his previous blocking admins would think of this before he is permanently excluded (which is imminent at this rate). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. Unfortunetly for you, I have already gave him a message to look into this and I am still awating a response. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Could someone also have a look at what is being said at Talk:Old Trafford. The same user has been attempting to add POV information about the same event to the lead section only of the Old Trafford article. Furthermore, he is using flawed reasoning to justify this addition. – PeeJay 20:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You really are sad. I provided information that is not only sourced but it also comes from a player that played that match. You really are unbelievable, you know? Your bitterness really oozes out of you. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Without lending any opinion to that discussion I should point out that POV stands for "point of view" (not personal own). Also a player from the match is a WP:PRIMARY source which (as described in that link) is fairly "original research" prone. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 20:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Jamen, Chris is right.

In spite of your confrontational style, your track record suggests that the things you write in articles are based in truth, even if they are not always neutral. On that basis, I'm willing to assume that's the case here too. But if you are unwilling to even have a civil discussion with PeeJay to deal with what he (and others) perceive to be issues, you are leaving the uninvolved with very little scope for continuing to assume good faith. WFC (talk) 20:33, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out my "horrible" record. It is still irrelevant to the subject at hand since my track record is not what is being discussed in the sources I mentioned. Please see the Old Trafford talk page to see how "civil" PeeJay is. Another user approached me on the subject, civilly of course, and I complied with his demand to move the fact somewhere else.

I have no problems discussing issues. But civility goes bothways. If you think it feels necessary to have the dispute tags on the page, ok...I will also concede that. As a matter of fact, I will put them in myself.

But now that we are on the subject...if I provided video evidence of the happenings (I have both matches of the IC on my computer) can I use that as a source in wikipedia? The second leg clearly demonstrates how the British fans threw everything but their clothes on the field before and, especially, after the match. You can't get it better than that. So much crap was thrown by that mob on the field that Estudiantes only managed to do a half lap of honor. That's how bad things were which is a very direct contrast to how Manchester was received in Ezeiza and Buenos Aires. Jamen Somasu (talk) 20:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No, you can't. Video would be a primary source. The closest you could get would be to find commentators or other reporters who gave the opinions in question, and to reference them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it says I can use a video as evidence, source or reference as that is a historical document. Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It does nothing of the sort. "Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources". This includes videos of the game. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

And if you click on the link footnote right next to the sentence you mentioned (funny how you missed it) it says that "Further examples include archeological artifacts, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, VIDEOS, and television programs..." Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It will take me 2 hours tops to upload but it will be up for all to see what really went on in this series. Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:21, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes that confirms it is a primary source. We knew that. Read on "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." That is stopped the victory lap etc is interpretation. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 21:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

If by that you mean a reliable author, then no problem. :)Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

If Jamen Somasu has indeed copied this directly from a source ("I copied the entire thing as it came") then WP:POV is a secondary issue; our main concern should be that this infringes WP:COPYVIO! GiantSnowman 21:53, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

LOL Someone already brought this up earlier so I will have some fun with this lol. You tell me if what I written is a copyright violation and where. All WP:COPYVIO says is that copyright issues are taken into account in wiki. Nothing more, nothing less.

Where is the copyright violation in what I wrote? Jamen Somasu (talk) 22:09, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Moving from the specific and personal, this illustrates why we should be exceedingly careful about descriptive match reports, even if they are based on contemporary newspaper reports. This is an encyclopaedia, and so our emphasis should be on facts; we are not a journalistic enterprise, and so perceptions and judgements (even those of journalists) are not our concern. We should remember that journalists are employed to produce the material that sells newspapers, and therefore under pressure to write that which the prospective readership of that paper wishes to read: perception and interpretation which resonates with an anticipated POV is their trade. So we should stick to the facts (Manchester United had 12 shots on goal, 8 of which were on target and they hit the woodwork twice) rather than commentary upon them (Manchester United attacked desperately and agonisingly with everything they had). Frustrated would-be journalists probably do not make the best encyclopaedic editors. Kevin McE (talk) 06:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

For anyone interested, I have a compact video of the second leg on the IC68 page. You will be surprised at how cynical the British thinking is. When they said that Estudiantes played like savages, I went through hell and back to find a good, clear video of the match itself. Unsurprisingly, Estudiantes played smart, efficient, rough when needed but fair. On the other hand, Manchester thought they were in a boxing match as the video clearly shows two British players punching the Argentines. The last punch, after the final whistle, was a real thing from a coward. Disgusting, really.

Manchester had a good and talented team, yes. But their mentality was weak. They instigated the deragatory actions of the match and they, themselves, lost it when Estudiantes didn't give in to their provocations; thus, they fell apart on their own doing. Estudiantes clearly won the tactical and physical matches in that game.

Now I see why the British created those wild rumors during the match and tried to hide what really happen with exagerrated claims and even solid lies: the crap I saw on that video is embarrassing to the sport! Manchester was then, right down to their bones, a really dirty team. Jamen Somasu (talk) 17:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Off topic comments moved to collapsed section below. --WFC (talk) 22:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Off-topic discussion.

Manchester was then, right down to their bones, a really dirty team, with a bunch of neanderthals disguising themselves as fans. Jamen Somasu (talk) 17:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC) That last sentence is near enough outright racism. I politely request that you retract it. WFC (talk) 18:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC) Agreed. And anyway, Jamen seems to be conveniently forgetting that the Estudiantes players were equally dirty during the first leg in Buenos Aires. Nobby Stiles was kicked all over the park and even headbutted, and according to my sources, his sending-off was simply for waving his arms at the linesman who called him offside in the 79th minute! – PeeJay 18:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC) This has nothing to do with racism (I don't even see why you pulled the race card out. Talk about polarism). Everyone on those stands were all neanderthals! Estudiantes couldn't even perform a lap of honor because the team was being thrown crap for a good part of the game and, especially afterwards. Good thing they lost. That tournament actually meant something back in those days, and it would be too much prestigue for a dirty team like Manchester to have it. If the referee had any sense, he should have suspended the game after Medina was being pelted by coins. As for PeeJay, I would have you know that Nobby Stiles was a hack; the only reason he never got sent off in 1966 was because the world cup was hosted by England; in the first leg, he spent his time going after Veron and Malbernalt's ankles and got rightly sent off. Are we so desperate that we are trying to pull the race card, now? Jamen Somasu (talk) 18:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC) Erm, you did just call an entire group of people "neanderthals". – PeeJay 21:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC) Yes. Why? Because they are. I am a human being. I know better than to throw objects at another human being, especially over a sport. Only monkeys in a zoo and neanderthals behave like that. It has nothing to do with race; it has to do with the disgusting behavior witnessed. Jamen Somasu (talk) 21:24, 19 July 2010 (UTC) I'd advise you to read Wp:TALK Jamen. This is not the place to be discussing the nature of what happened during the match and your opinion on it. 91.106.96.171 (talk) 21:32, 19 July 2010 (UTC) Jamen, I am not an administrator. Nor do I aspire to be one. But if you ever equate a race of people to monkeys again, you will be banned. Let's get back to football. --WFC (talk) 22:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC) Manchester United fans aren't a "race". Stop over-reacting. BigDom 07:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

List of Albanian football players playing abroad - Afd?

Per old discussion such list should replaced by category. And the list itself did not cite and had some hoax/red link player. Matthew_hk tc 05:44, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Category = OK; list = no place. GiantSnowman 07:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, but why is America a special case? WFC (talk) 17:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Category:Association football seasons by year

I wanted to let everyone know that we now have distinct season categories for leagues and clubs. So if you want to find a club's season article or see how many club season articles exist for a given season – along as it exists and is categorized correctly – you should be able to track it down through the category tree here, though as editors I most importantly wanted to let you know of this new category tree so that new club season articles can be categorized properly.

The "Association football seasons by year" category had previously only been populated by league seasons – which are now the contents of the "Domestic association football league seasons by year" sub-category. I then created a new sub-category of "Association football club seasons by year" and populated it, creating many club season categories along the way. We are still in need of a category for "Domestic association football cup seasons by year" (or some approximate title) if anyone wants to tackle it, but I'm a little tired of this type of project for right now. This project took me almost 500 edits and two days to organize and implement. I know that this whole thing was very CreatorElf of me, but what can I say. Happy editing. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 21:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I have done the domestic cups category, see also Category:Domestic association football cup seasons by year.

Unfortunately, the creation of the categories is only the tip of the iceberg. The next step would be the re-categorisation of any domestic league and cup articles which are currently sitting in any of the "[year] in association football" categories. I had started to do this a couple of months ago, but ran out of time after the 2005 category or so. Since the re-organization is a really time-consuming job to do, assistance from several editors would be welcome. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for creating those categories, and you're right about all of the work that still needs to be done. I'd be glad to help work on all of that re-categorization work. I actually started doing some of these a few days ago in pre-1900 "xxxx in association football" categories. A few more takers? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 11:52, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I started in Category:1857 in association football and sorted & re-categorized everything in the "years in association football" categories through 1889. Each successive year takes longer to complete than its predecessor. We still need more volunteers. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Two brains, one thought (regarding posting an update).^^ I am through from 2010 backwards until 2001. And yes, we still need more volunteers, as especially the categories from the second half of the 20th century are basically crowded with season articles of all sorts. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 20:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

League season templates

At some point, somebody decided to move all the league seasons from the format Moravian Premier League 2008-09 to the format 2008-09 Moravian Premier League. This should have resulted in the templates all being edited so that they link directly to the new form - otherwise the bolding of the current article doesn't work. This has not happened. It is both annoying and unprofessional for a template to link to a redirect, but it's obviously an enormous task. Could a bot be designed to do this? john k (talk) 22:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably, but why can't you do it yourself? – PeeJay 22:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think he meant that there are not only one or two templates where links lead to redirects (see any of the non-recent templates in Category:Years in European football (soccer) navigational boxes, for example). So I would deem the bot request to be a good idea in general and would propose to request it at WP:BOTREQUEST.

By the way (and out of interest), are there any from our regular contributors who maintain bot accounts? It would probably save time if we had one or two people who could receive and deal with these requests directly (see also WP:CREATEBOT and the related pages) instead of going the "detour" over BOTREQUEST for every single task. For example, I would also like to see a bot which automatically moves every season article to the "[year] [league name]" format as most articles still are named the other way round. *desperately needs time to hone his own programming skills* --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I can't blame him for not wanting to do it himself, but to be honest fixing redirects is a complete waste of time. BigDom 23:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Hm, the idea of replacing redirects in templates by a bot has been requested before (here and here, for example), so chances might be good that there are some digital helpers out there who are designed for this task. If you have some time available, check Category:Approved Wikipedia bot requests for approval if there is something useful available. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how to create bots, and it would, indeed, be an incredible amount of effort to get this in shape. But it would have real benefits to do so - in properly constructed templates, the page one is currently at is bolded and unlinked, which makes it easier to navigate through the template. I don't really understand why it was agreed to conduct a massive change in how articles were titled for no particularly clear reason that I can see (how is "2009-10 La Liga" so much superior to "La Liga 2009-10" that it's worth such a massive effort?), and then not actually go about and do it right. At any rate, I've never done a bot request, either, and I'm not sure how to word it to people unfamiliar with the problem. I'd also have some concern that, if the format hasn't universally been adopted yet, changing the templates might create even more problems. john k (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 33#Formal petition to change the naming conventions. We knew it would be a massive undertaking, given the number of articles that have already been created, but things do not have to happen overnight here. As long as it gets done, that's all that matters. We made the right decision by choosing to move the articles. – PeeJay 12:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

That's all that matters? That's a pretty bold statement. The quicker it gets done, the better. And isn't that what bots are for? john k (talk) 14:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Update: User:DinoBot2 seems to clear redirects from templates; however, I would wait until all articles in the respective categories have been moved to the [season] [league name] format in order to avoid bothering User:T-rex too often.

As for the moves – as a first step, User:JohnnyPolo24 and I have begun moving all league and cup articles from the main category of a certain year (e.g. Category:2010 in association football to their respective league, cup or club season subcategories. Once this has been finished, a bot run can be considered. Johnny is working from the early years on upwards while I have started at 2010 and move back in time; as of now, everything from 2001 upwards should be in place. However, further assistance in moving articles between categories would be appreciated as there are still an estimated 110+ years to work on... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 20:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Website with historic kits

I just chanced across historicalkits.co.uk Perhaps it would be worth adding a link from each club's page, to the relevant page on that site for example the page on West Bromwich Albion. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm familiar with this site and have referred to it on many occasions. I would quite like for us to be able to link to it, but in considering our external linking guidelines:

What should be linked

3. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons.

Links normally to be avoided

2. Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research...

So you see the problem. Using the West Brom page you link as an example, several sources are cited, but none of them are specific – some searching of the linked sites would be required to verify the information, and worse, many of the sources are just plain names, presumably of people who emailed the site admin, as he invites them to. I don't mean to imply that the site does carry inaccurate information. Certainly I trust it enough for my own purposes, but can we verify that it is reliable enough to be trusted for more serious research? If that could be established then the guidelines above would support its use. AJCham 17:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I see no problem using it as an external link. It's factually accurate and explicitly states its sources. If being used as a reference, the solution would be to judge whether the specific kit's original source is reliable. For instance, if a club's official historian has provided the information, we can cite him or her, using historicalkits as a courtesy link. If on the other hand it merely says "John Smith", we would need to find an alternative. --WFC-- 18:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Current squad list

An enthusiastic IP has changed the format of the players section here. I believe a consensus was reached that the style shown there wasn't the way to go but I couldn't find the discussion on it. Am I Correct? I didn't want to revert it all without providing a reference to my reasoning. I probably need to take the article in question off my watchlist for a while because its been a magnet for petty IP changes recently and its been getting on my nerves. Argyle 4 Life^talk 12:19, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

That definitely isn't the style, because it's not using the specified template for a squad list. I've reverted. пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Well I thought the Port Vale F.C.#Players type of squad list was the way it was and the way it always will be. Is there some sort of better template? What is the consensus on this topic? Also the sub-categories being 'Current squad', 'Out on loan', 'Trialists', and 'Notable former players'? Am I right?--EchetusXe 13:04, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

It's the template used in the club MOS, so yes, you're correct. Invisibletr (talk) 16:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's remember that IPs are people too, folks. I've notified said IP of this discussion. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Hesk

Go on Findmypast.com and search the surname "Heskey" under the year 1978. Do you see what I see? Mattythewhite (talk) 01:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not even checking, I've seen it before - Emily perchance? GiantSnowman 03:04, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I do!--EchetusXe 08:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Using subscription required websites as references or external links

Does anyone know the protocol for using websites that require subscriptions as references or external links in articles? The ones I commonly see are playerhistory.com and bdfa.com.ar, both of which show some content to non-subscribers, but certainly not all of it. Often, there is no better source for statistics than these types of sites, but I wanted to make sure it is actually appropriate to link to them (would WP be viewed as promoting their business). Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 14:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with citing them. Print magazines that require a subscription are generally accepted as sources. I don't see why the same thing on the internet should be treated any differently. Sir Sputnik (talk) 14:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Also lots of articles use Times Online as a source, should we suddenly start removing them because the site has gone subscription only? JACOPLANE • 2010-07-20 14:54

Avoid them if you can, per WP:EL, but tag them with {{subscription required}} if unavoidable. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. I should have checked WP:EL, as it seems to address the issue. Apparently, it's preferrable to use these sites in inline citations (but only if they are the most authoritative cite available). They can also be used as external links, but are generally to be avoided. I'm wondering if playerhistory.com for example should be removed from ELs where there are similarly authoritative (or more authoritative) ELs that don't require registration. Jogurney (talk) 21:49, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Potential licensing issue for soccer league tables

The following is an exchange which took place at Wikipedia:Editor_assistance/Requests and is copied here for comments regarding the source of potentially Copyvio data. Any help appreciated

A whole series of articles have been created such as 2001–02 Welsh Alliance League, 1996–97 Welsh Alliance League, 1993–94 Welsh Alliance League etc. going back from last year to 1993 -1994. The articles are hardly encyclopaedic but probably innocuous. However , the main part of each article is a table which has been lifted wholesale from another web-site - http://www.seasidersattic.co.uk/league-stats.php - (select view against an entry to see the relevant table). The web-site disclaimer says quite clearly

"... Feel free to lift any information you may want to but please acknowledge that it came from www.seasidersattic.co.uk. Thank you."

but it does not provide any more information about any licensing conditions that apply to the information. In fairness to the articles creator, the web-site is acknowledged in the text (but presumably could be edited out by a later editor). I only came across these articles following an earlier differences of opinion with the author on a different subject, and I have no wish to jump in and be perceived as wiki-stalking and would therefore welcome guidance as to the acceptability of this material and its licensing status.  Velela  ^{Velela Talk}   14:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

We have a policy on using content from other sources.and recommended courses of action. It's at WP:COPYVIO. I suggest you read through it and also follow some of the links that give even greater in-depth treatment for some aspects of it. That would avoid having to repeat anything here. In short, generally whatever anyone says on their website about 'feeling free to use...' still needs express permission for use in Wikipedia. Creating a Wikipedia page solely by copying content from another site is of course disallowed.--Kudpung (talk) 16:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

In this specific case the results of the football matches are most likely not copyrighted information. What worries me though is that not only the results, but also the layout of the tables is taken from your source. The latter is likely to be copyright of the site. Arnoutf (talk) 16:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW, This appears to have something to do with football (soccer). You may wish to repost your conceern on the talk page of WP:WPF, they may have already obtained permissions to use certain external sources.--Kudpung (talk) 17:04, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

To my knowledge there is no such licensing agreement. I've notified onshore (talk · contribs), the author of the articles in question, of this discussion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

May I point out that the 2009-10 Welsh Alliance League was not created by me and all I have contributed to that page is the description at the beginning of the page to say it was the 26th Season of the Welsh Alliance League that began in 1984 and worked around the wording that was originally there.

With regard to the comments above I see that it has concluded and I presume everything is now satisfactory. Thank you to Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) on contacting notifying me about this discussion. --Onshore (talk) 21:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Whilst 2009-10 Welsh Alliance League looks as though it may be OK as the table has been re-written and only draws on its source for the data, the other versions, of which a selection are quoted above, directly copy the table from their source at http://www.seasidersattic.co.uk/league-stats.php which is what this discussion is about. The conclusion above , as I understand it, is that this material is not acceptable on Wikipedia as it represents a copyright violation.  Velela  ^{Velela Talk}   08:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

There's absolutely no way on earth that the league tables on those articles are copyright violations, and I can't fathom why you would think they were. All the information in the tables (wins, draws, losses, goals for, goals against, goal difference and points) is exactly as you would find it in any other source. I can't help but think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. BigDom 08:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The source doesn't actually include goal difference, that's been added at this end. I'd agree that the format used to present the data is completely standard, as used by every (British, anyway) source that publishes league tables. If the data isn't copyright, then there isn't an issue. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

"Feel free to lift any information you may want to but please acknowledge that it came from www.seasidersattic.co.uk." Is not that exactly what is done via giving the site as a source right under the table? I do not see why it should be a copyright violation, then. Also, saying that the source "presumably could be edited out by a later editor" is not a problem either. Either the new source is fine, probably even more official than Seasiders Attic is; or it is not, in which case it would get reverted. Finally regarding the layout – all articles seem to use the standard layout for league tables which has been used for years now, so saying that the layout of Seasiders Attic has been copied is blatantly wrong. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Dear Velela I can not understand as to why you are having issues with the league tables that I have created for the previous seasons of the Welsh Alliance League. I have noticed that you have now accepted the 2009-10 Welsh Alliance League as "OKAY" once I pointed out that I did not create that page/article. The previous league tables I have created are within Wikipedia's guidelines and have been sourced correctly. In the past I have created league tables for the Cymru Alliance and some for the Welsh Premier League. As you see from the other comments above that I have done everything satisfactory to Wikipedia's guidelines. I hope that you are not arising these issues as a personal attack against everything I contribute to here on Wikipedia as I understand that we had a dispute over Bangor over the weekend.

Also I would like to ask why a "This article does not cite any references or sources." box has appeared on the 1997–98 Welsh Alliance League page? As whoever has placed that on the page can see there is a source relating to the league table of that season. --Onshore (talk) 09:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I imagine the editor who added the unreferenced tag saw there was no explicit References section, but didn't spot the link to the data source below the table. That league table template does use a quite unnecessarily tiny font. You could always just remove the tag, with edit summary pointing out the whereabouts of the reference. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:56, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Boca Juniors

I have a couple of questions about some recent changes to the Boca Juniors article.

1. If there was a consensus about the article having being moved from Club Atlético Boca Juniors to Boca Juniors, shouldn't there have being a discussion before it was moved back to Club Atlético Boca Juniors?

2. The Honours section of the article has being split in two sub-sections Major titles and Minor competitions, but some of the tournaments in the Minor competitions sub-section include the Intercontinental Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, Supercopa Masters, Copa Interamericana and Copa de Oro, wouldn't calling this tournaments "Minor" be against WP:NPOV? --Bocafan76 (talk) 23:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

1. Yes. I've moved it back.

2. Probably. Don't think FIFA would be pleased at people calling their Club World Cup a "minor" tournament... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Struway2 for moving the article back, also if there are no objections, later today or tomorrow I will be changing the Honours section back to how it was before. Regards --Bocafan76 (talk) 15:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, another user has already made the discussed changes to the Honors section, so I guess that's it, thanks to all. Regards.--Bocafan76 (talk) 01:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistency between FC and F.C.

I've long wondered this, but why do some clubs have dots in their names, and others not? I've always held off asking because I didn't see it as much of an issue, but having started extensive renovation work on List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, I thought I might as well raise the point. The inconsistency between countries (and in one or two cases within them) is noticeable there, with no obvious reason or rhyme to it. --WFC-- 21:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The simple answer is that because this is en-WP, we have a disproportionate number of English-speaking editors and therefore a disproportionate focus on Home Nations clubs. As such, when the matter was initially decided upon, all the Football League / SFL articles were unified quickly, while not a lot was done about the rest. A more recent discussion ended with the consensus that the convention chosen isn't really important so long as there's consistency within nations, so most Continental teams do without the dots. To be honest we're well overdue a more widespread formal RfC to get a global consistency here, ideally to remove the dots everywhere. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 22:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

FAI referees template

Could someone have a look at Template:FAI referees and change the colours so the names are visible? I'm getting a headache just thinking about it. Jared Preston (talk) 22:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. However, it could be debated if the (non-linked) assistant referees should be included on the template, as these will not get an article anyway because of failing our internal notability guideline. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

This shouldn't even be a navbox. Navboxes are maps for getting around articles, not work templates. If articles are not likely to be forthcoming for the unlinked / redlinked persons it should be deleted. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 23:08, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Feel free to remove the names or delete the template, it doesn't serve much use anyway. Cheers! Jared Preston (talk) 23:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Categorisation of domestic cup final articles?

We currently have quite a couple of domestic cup final articles such as 2010 FA Cup Final, either in the "[year] in association football" or in the "[season] domestic association football cups" categories. Since this is a little inconsistent, where should we collect these articles? There are three possibilities which probably would make sense:

1. Listing in "[year] in association football" as these are the most important matches of the tournament
2. Listing in "[season] domestic association football cups" as these belong to the respective main articles in this categories"
3. Listing in a dedicated category for final matches named "[year] domestic association football cup finals", which would again be put in one of the categories mentioned under 1. or 2.

Opinions, ideas, comments? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Prefereably option 2. It's part of the cup season, so I'd say to include them in the "[season] domestic association football cups" category. I'm opposed to option 3 because if the yet-to-be-created "[year] domestic association football cup finals" is created then there are also qualifying rounds to consider. Create yet another new category for "[season] domestic association football cups qualifying rounds"? Three categories per season just to categorize cup season articles seems a bridge too far. I think that main cup season articles, qualifying rounds articles, and cup finals articles should all go in the same cup season category. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 13:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Since Soccer-holic and I have already been working on recategorizing articles, any more opinions on this subject would be appreciated. Thanks, everyone. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Frank Hill

There appears to be a discrepancy with Frank Hill's date of death. The article claims that he died in California in June 1993 although this is unsourced. However, his biography in my Burnley F.C. history book (Simpson, Ray (2007). The Clarets Chronicles: The Definitive History of Burnley Football Club 1882–2007. ISBN 978-0-9557468-0-2.) says that he died in Luton, Bedfordshire in June 1970. Apart from this, all the other details seem to correspond. I don't know which date is correct, and I was about to make a WP:BOLD edit and change it but I thought I would check first to see if anyone else could shed more light on it. Cheers, BigDom 20:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of him, but if it is true that he died in 1970, then he couldn't have "refereed locally at the college level well into his 70s" as it says in the article. Jared Preston (talk) 09:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

The 1993 death date's been in since the article was started, so it comes from the Arsenal Who's Who. Joyce's players records book agrees with 1993, though doesn't give a place of death. Joyce also has a Frank W. Percival Hill, born in and played for Luton, dying in 1970. Perhaps your book has confused the two. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, that seems like the most likely conclusion. I don't have access to the Joyce book, so couldn't check that myself. Cheers, BigDom 10:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

About IFFHS

IP 71.210.185.112 is deleting the information indicating that “IFFHS is not recognized by FIFA” when in fact it is (cfr. here, here and here) because, among other things, FIFA gives logistical support (Source: Rafa Jiménez, IFFHS: La calculadora del fútbol. Don Balón (1656), 9/15 julio 2007, p.50). I request the intervention of an administrator, thank you.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 19:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you put the information you posted here at Talk:International Federation of Football History & Statistics, where there is already a thread on the matter (which the IP has commented on). I see nothing here that requires administrator intervention. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:42, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Done.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 19:52, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Club name - FC Vaslui

The following matter could deserve a look or two: according to the pertinent infobox, this Romanian club name is "S.C. Sporting Club S.A. Vaslui", SC VASLUI for short. However, the WP name says FC VASLUI. Moreover, some users which don't write summaries to explain (as so many in the site, more than 50%), all of them editing from that country, have been reverting, thus creating redirects to SC VASLUI any players which play for the team.

Is the current WP name for the club the correct one. "Something" has to give in. Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 01:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The current name, FC Vaslui, was restored after this RM discussion on its talk page, so is presumably "correct". Though redirects don't do any harm (see WP:REDIRECT#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken), particularly where the link is piped to just Vaslui anyway. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:40, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

So I'm gleaning from this RM discussion that "FC Vaslui" is the name of the footballing branch within "S.C. Sporting Club S.A. Vaslui", which is a multi-sport club? If that is the case then if the other sports teams within the club are notable then the editors of the football club article should get together and create an article for the parent club. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 11:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I can confirm that FC Vaslui (Fotbal Club Vaslui) is the official name of the football section (see http://vasluifc.ro/). Jogurney (talk) 16:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Need help identifying this Tottenham player

There's a nice set of Wikipedia-friendly photos on Flickr from a recent Spurs training session: http://www.flickr.com/photos/apasciuto/sets/72157624383308573/ Any idea who this young player may be? Thanks. --Mosmof (talk) 03:23, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Obika.--ClubOranje^T 07:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

• Jonathan Obika, Spurs' youth product (1990-09-12). - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 09:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyone fancy taking on the responsibility of getting these images imported and assigned to bios that don't have photos yet? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:36, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Copa Libertadores

This article was in the Good Article nominations queue, and after reviewing it I found that the nominator has been indefinitely blocked in the time since he listed it. It seems like an article that is close to GA quality, so I am hoping an interested member of the Football project can address the concerns I have raised at Talk:Copa Libertadores/GA1. Thanks, Resolute 20:13, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Alan Hillses

I have just created the article on Alan Hill (footballer born 1943), who played for Barnsley, Rotherham & Forest in the 60s. Two other players by this name also played in the post-war period - a fullback for Wrexham (1974-1983) and an amateur winger for Tranmere (1956-1957). Does anyone have birth years for the two latter players for disambiguation? Cheers, GiantSnowman 01:09, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyway...

I checked the archive and couldn't find any mention of this. Guess what the most viewed DYK in wikipedia history is? And just look at the margin between that and the second most viewed entry! --WFC-- 04:09, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Coolio. As a general message to everyone. Just because I don't comment on a particular issue doesn't mean I don't read it and laugh or read it and think 'thats cool'. Theres a lot of funny things said on this talk page but I don't like to register my laughter on the discussion because this is afterall a place for serious discussions, declaring war over flag issues etc etc--EchetusXe 00:39, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

War? --WFC-- 04:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Takes more than the intervention of the OAS to end these wars.--EchetusXe 19:51, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

"George Best"

The obvious choice is at the root article, but having just created an article on the 'keeper George A. Best, I realised there isn't a George Best (disambiguation) page for the several George Bests that have existed (George Best (clergyman), for example). If anyone has a few minutes on their hands, I think such a page would be welcomed. - Dudesleeper talk 23:20, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Voila! GiantSnowman 01:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Attaboy! - Dudesleeper talk 13:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Metric & Imperial measurements

Hi, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Willie Irvine/archive1 is at FA, is the general consensus of this project to use imperial and then metric for UK footballers? Fasach Nua (talk)

As I said at that FAC, in the UK height is measured in feet and inches. If you told any British person your height in metres, they would just smile and nod politely as they would have no idea what that actually meant in real units. I know you've come here for clarification from more people than just myself, but I'm sure others will tell you the same thing. BigDom 16:25, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I live in the UK and have never used shillings, groats, hogheads, furlongs, perches, pounds, stone or feet to measure anything, (I do use miles for distance and the pint for spirituous beverages) Fasach Nua (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Really? I'm not old by any stretch of the imagination, but I honestly wouldn't understand a weight in kilograms or a height in metres. Maybe it's just different parts of the UK? BigDom 16:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The Welsh FA use metric, English and Irish FAs use imperial, and the Scottish don't seem to have a players profile section on their website Fasach Nua (talk) 16:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll change it in the infobox if you really want me to. It's not that important in the grand scheme of things. By the way, after a pretty good search today, there definitely is no way I can find out those Northern Premier League stats from almost 40 years ago so I'll add a note on the article soon. BigDom 17:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Without input from this wikiproject I would imagine the best course of action would be to follow the lead of the relevant FA .... Fasach Nua (talk) 17:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You would almost never see metric for heights used in the media in the UK. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 17:11, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I've seen very few English footballers' articles with the height displayed using the metric system, so to change it would be strange in my opinion. Mattythewhite (talk) 17:17, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

This project does use imperial for UK players' height, and MOS:NUM#Which units to use wouldn't disagree. Usage is changing, gradually, as more people are educated in metric rather than imperial, but my sample of one English 13-year-old says he's 5 foot 1, not 1.55, although he'd give his weight in kilos. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:21, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that imperial is definitely the norm in the UK. Personally, if you asked me how tall I am in metres or how much I weighed in kilograms, I genuinely wouldn't know -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyone any good at kits? please.....

In about May, someone added their attempt at this season's Birmingham City F.C. home shirt, which at the time I removed as it was still 2009/10. I've reinstated it now, but the V on the shirt is totally the wrong shape, should be much shallower, more of a thick stripe with a dip than an actual V. See image at club shop site. I've had a look through the existing patterns but can't find anything better. If anyone could be so kind as to create something closer to the correct shape, it would be very much appreciated. thanks, Struway2 (talk) 08:39, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Glad you asked this question. Can get the hang of most things on Wiki but the way shirt design is done is beyond me. Can't seem to get it to show two hoops of differing colour. If any kind experts can have a go at West Ham 2010/11 away kit would be grateful--Egghead06 (talk) 09:12, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I've also wondered how to create new designs for the kit templates, so I can create some of the old Burnley strips. BigDom 09:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I've had a go at it but the colour is off. On my desktop it looks fine but when I uploaded it to Commons it went slightly purple. I've only learnt how to do it in the past couple of days because I wanted to do ours. I just download the templates and edit them using Paint. Argyle 4 Life^talk 17:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Home

Thanks ever so much. Having looked at what you did, gave me the confidence to have a go myself. The shape on the arms is still wrong on mine (see at Birmingham City F.C.) but I'm not going to keep re-uploading it just for a couple of scruffy pixels. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Statistics bot

Sorry, but I do not know English well. I hope you understand me. So, is possible to make a bot which would update statistics in Premier League players' articles (only in infoboxes) according to Soccerbase? Then, that articles will be more up to date. What do you think about that idea? PS. (talk) 10:38, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we have one of those. It's called Gobbleswoggler ;-) – PeeJay 11:15, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, I doubt that we can. It's okay for us to attribute statistics to Soccerbase, but using an automated process to extract large proportions of what they produce, as they produce it would constitute copyvio. --WFC-- 13:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Further, the result of the proposal would not be a trivial bot, but rather something like an automatic web API or a similar bigger piece of software centering around some kind of interface between Soccerbase and Wikipedia. In other words, the program needs to know where to put which data, and this is not exactly something which can be done in an hour or two as it needs some database structures behind it. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 13:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Chinese names

There is a discussion going on between myself and User:Hoising at Talk:Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament regarding whether or not we should refer to Dong Fangzhuo by his full name or just his surname in the {{footballbox}} template. Since there was only one player with the surname "Dong" in the Chinese squad at the 2008 Olympics, it seemed to make sense to me to leave out Dong's given name, but Hoising is claiming that it is disrespectful or something to refer to him simply by his first name. Would someone else care to venture an opinion on this matter before the whole thing descends into farce? – PeeJay 09:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I've commented there. In short, in my experience it is usual to use the full name when giving Chinese or Korean names, and doing so would not look out of place. Knepflerle (talk) 12:51, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Why is that? Why is there an exception to use the full names for these kind of names anyway? Curious. Transaction Go (talk) 03:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Because in the Korean case you always have tons of Kims, Lees or Parks in one team or even in the tournament so you'll be using names for ambiguity anyway. And since they're just three syllables, it is much easier to write the full name from the start and don't bother. The shortness argument works for Chinese and Vietnamese as well. —WiJG? 13:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment regarding naming of French top division seasons

There is a discussion at the talk page of the French task force regarding the naming of pre-Ligue 1 and pre-Ligue 2 season articles as the naming of these is currently inconsistent. Any input on this topic would be welcome.

The reason for this RfC also stems from the fact that BigDom (talk · contribs) is currently the sole representant of this task force, despite mulitple invitations to other suitable members. If someone wants to join forces with him, please sign up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/France task force. Thank you. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. And I personnally wish to thanks BigDom for this creation.--Latouffedisco (talk) 17:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Bienvenu au projet! BigDom 21:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Did you mean bienvenue ? --Latouffedisco (talk) 17:27, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I did! What's the difference? BigDom 18:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm in. I don't speak much French but I've always kept an eye on the football there and my club has been served by a number of honourable Frenchman in the last decade (which I aim to make Good Articles of eventually), so I'll contribute as much as I can. Argyle 4 Life^talk 18:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

So Romain Larrieu has inspired you? Welcome to the task force! BigDom 18:23, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Bienvenue is welcome, bienvenu an adjective i.e. he is welcomed, il est bienvenu. Subtle. --Latouffedisco (talk) 18:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah thanks for the info. I'm still learning French, but I can't really get the hang of it; English is much easier :-) BigDom 18:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

And the award for Best Full Name of the Day...

goes to Herbert Lyon. - Dudesleeper talk 00:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

...I didn't think any full name would come close to Jarome Iginla, but that one is pretty impressive. Resolute 00:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

My favourite will always be Charlie Oatway if nothing more than the reason he got his assumed name. 91.106.114.111 (talk) 01:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Sagi Burton's is pretty good...GiantSnowman 05:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

It needs to be distinctive, otherwise he'd get confused with Bert Lyons :=) --WFC-- 08:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

• And how 'bout this one? Short but to-the-point, and pay close attention to the bit found in TRIVIA's paragraph#1... :) :) - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 13:24, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget Rafael Scheidt, who - quite appropriately - made just three appearances for Celtic. – PeeJay 13:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I was quite proud of getting Christ Bongo on DYK. And I admit that my main motivation for starting Norman Conquest was so that I could have a hatnote saying This article is about the Australian footballer. For the invasion of England, see Norman conquest of England. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Segar Bastard.........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:00, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Fernando Giner (wiki Espana, former International) always made me giggle because for years he was just known as "F.Giner". Ah, to be young and find such stuff funny. Georg Koch (the pronunciation of the commentator left nothing to the imagination because he was a Geordie).Koncorde (talk) 16:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't make me bring out my Dick Ray. Cheese is always funny in any context. William Loverseed would be a pornstar nowadays. Mr. Rimmer is now a PE teacher (I wouldn't want to stay behind after class).--EchetusXe 16:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Who could forget Charlie Oatway? And there's always David Cotterill. Mattythewhite (talk) 16:48, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

And Dikembe Mutombo ?--Latouffedisco (talk) 17:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Is it just me or does "the Warwick Rimmer" sound like some kind of sex pest...? GiantSnowman 08:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Just you... Happy Birthday for tomorrow ;-) or today, depending when you read it--ClubOranje^T 09:26, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Haha, I'm surprised you remembered, many thanks! GiantSnowman 12:59, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Player names

Is there a correct way to name a player in the squad template? I'm involved in a discussion here, but lack responses. I would like to gain consensus before reverting related articles. My thoughts are that the title name of a players article should be correct entry, anything else should be detailed on the specific players article. Examples of the different approach were seen here and here. I appreciate your views. Thanks. gonads³ 17:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Also asked here. Thanks. gonads³ 17:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused. Why was his name contracted down to Alex Nimely in the first place? It seems to me that his MCFC profile says his full name Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely[1] which typically would be something we would go by (as they would have his registered name). Is there a particular logic about the contraction, or is it just media lazines and ignorance?

For reference, we had a similar issue with John Pantsil/Paintsil/Panstil when he joined West Ham. In the end we had to wait for clarification and in the meantime simply go with what he was actually registered with at the club. In this case I'd be inclined to go with Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely until we actually know different for certain.Koncorde (talk) 19:19, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, but the concensus has been the shortened version for a year or so now. He wears Nimely on his shirt so must have been okay in the past. I'd be happy with the referencable name (long version). This question also should mention these names (These have been reverted by another editor since I asked the original question elsewhere). As these acceptable as squad names? Thanks for your time. gonads³ 21:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

In those cases, no. They are not known by those names, we can cite and reference that Jo and Robinho are known as Jo and Robinho - just as we wouldn't put Ronaldo, Romario, Maradona, Pele's etc full name. By that type of logic we'd have to start typing in every English players middle name (or names) and their full first name (hello Andrew Cole) in order to achieve a goal that really doesn't serve the purpose of being encyclopedic. Particularly on squad lists that are supposed to be simple to read and understand at a glance.

In the case of Nimely - if that's all he has on his shirt, then we still don't know why he made that decision (or even if he did). Google whacking for instance "Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely" = 31,600, "Alex Nimely-Tchiumeni" = 9,000, "Alex Nimely" = 5,540 so consensus certainly doesn't seem to be towards the shortened format in terms of what he is actually known as. Some wikipedians probably just changed it based on the article that they read that was popular at the time.Koncorde (talk) 01:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Imagine this name on a shirt! Anyway, looks like he my wear the full name on his shirt this season. I may wait until I see it for myself before making any adjustments. Thanks again. gonads³ 19:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

To (clearly offside) "teammates"

Teammates, me again,

This is clearly the place to report this, as these two "users" operate solely on football. Don't fret, i have also tipped an administrator, but the problem is he may not be into (i am almost sure he is not) the "ways of soccer", so it would be harder for him to grasp (some) stuff.

1 - Portuguese (as i) User:Pitadodocu: clearly a S.L. Benfica fan, who will add nonsense in articles even when boxes and links say different (like in Nélson Oliveira, see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=N%C3%A9lson_Oliveira&diff=prev&oldid=375034526; or in Artur Futre, a player which was now playing in the regional leagues of Portugal, see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Artur_Futre&diff=375721700&oldid=375036359), only to make a given player look like Cristiano Ronaldo - i bet he, as anon, was the one who created Futre's article, with the results you can see in the article's history.

He also has no English skills whatsoever, and writes no summaries and does not respond to messages. Some of his behaviour is thus, clearly close to vandalism IMO.

2 - Another compatriot: User:Alexanderalgrim creates tons of Portuguese players, obscure or not, from the top division to the fourth - only boxes and links though, no storyline (wait i'm not finished). He also does not write summaries or respond to messages. Regarding the latter, i have done following with him: he creates redirects with the link Midfielder, writing instead Midfielder (association football). I have told him twice the correct link, he says "talk to the hand".

When i said i warned an admin, it was only about the first user, not the second, clearly not a vandal in any way, just that it is "heatbreaking" to talk to somebody which is, apparently, on the same boat, and does not want to paddle for one minute. PITADODOCOCU, watch out, he could be a liability. I told you this so you would know what to expect if the occasion to work with this "pair" arises. Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 01:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Not quite sure why you are coming here with this. The first of these looks to be prone to overenthusiatic (and unencyclopaedic) praise of his favourites. Revert, with a simple unsourced POV in the editbox. If he continues, and does not reply to comment on his talk page, go through the stepped warnings templates on his templates. I have no idea why you are bringing this to the project when you haven't left a single message on his talk page. As to Alexanderalgrim, rather than "tons" of new articles, I can see 5 in the last month. If the player reaches the threshhold for notability, explain to him what additional info and citations would be good to make the article less stubby; if not, then PROD the article, and explain gently to the creator why you have done so. As to an unnecessary redirect, that is invisible to the reader anyway, it would have been quicker for you to revert the 5 or 6 instances of it that this editor has introduced than to try to denounce him here. There are approximately 3000 uses of that redirect on wikipedia, what do you intend doing about them? Kevin McE (talk) 08:56, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(side question) Why are there 3,000ish uses of that? Good redirects are a great thing, particularly where they enable you to avoid piping. But I see no benefit to that one at all. --WFC-- 09:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Because it was at one point in time located at Midfielder (association football) to align it with other association football positions. As the redirect exists, many cut'n'paste page creators or editors have simply changed Defender (association football)...probably. One day someone will get all excited about it and put in a bot request--ClubOranje^T 09:56, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for your helpful inputs, folks. To teammate Kevin McE, if you haven't noticed, i am not familiar with most of the WP technicalities (template warnings, PRODs, etc), i just do my best to work in cooperation with the site's members (in this case football members), RESPONDING to messages when i am accosted, not continuing to do the same thing without replying to the other editors. I find it - hopefully you do too - very frustrating.

As far as the messages, no i did not leave any messages in the first user's talkpage. For what, so he would not answer, as the second did after three approaches? And, about the latter, when i said tons, i meant a lot, don't know why you picked on me on that (and no, he did not write "Midfielder (association football)" 5,6 times, he writes it everytime he creates an article of a player in said position)...Of course we should warn/talk about with every editor about his procedures and try to help them develop as a Wikipedian, but what if there are no replies?

I just wanted to help, as in (please see above) "I told you this so you would know what to expect if the occasion to work with this "pair" arises", simple as that. I am sorry if i caused any incovenience and/or did not proceed according to site regulations. Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:12, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Fantasy football

The website is here, the code for the Wikipedia league is 273119-138678, two weeks to go lads! GiantSnowman 14:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I've joined. Hope my team does better than last season (although I wasn't in the Wikipedia league last term)! BigDom 15:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Nice name...shame the same can't be said for the kit! What are you, the Bahamas national team?! GiantSnowman 15:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Just fancied something a bit different. Maybe it was a bit too different! BigDom 15:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, at least it's not as bad as some of these efforts...GiantSnowman 15:13, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

True, there's some real shockers there. I admit that my kit may have taken some inspiration from Canvey Island's. BigDom 15:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Joined as well. Madcynic (talk) 17:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

This year's tigers have joined as well.^^; --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 19:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Last season's third place finishers are hoping to take an early lead and hold on to it this time. 98 points off last time round, hopefully these new signings will give us the edge. We are a young team still, but I have added experience throughout.--EchetusXe 22:15, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Fs Template

What happened to the FS template? Instead of showing the three-letter FIFA trigramme in the squad list it's now showing the entire country name, which is messing with the row alignment. If this is an intentional change, it look horrific. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand the aesthetic complaint. Even the variation in length between Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cuba is considerably less than that between "Joe Perry" and "Leon Constantine (on loan from Northampton Town)" The latter example actually happened. --WFC-- 01:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how anything valuable is gained by this. Previous version showed flags and trigrammes and any reader could see the country's full name on mouse rollover. Just look at how messed up this looks like (not to mention acres of space wasted n the said example). As for entries such as "Leon Constantine (on loan from Northampton Town)" - the part within parentheses actually has some informative value. Putting the country's complete name next to its flag and then wikilinking it 20 times within the same squad list somehow doesn't seem so. Are our readers really that retarded not to recognize that "ENG" means "England", or that they can find out what it means by rolling their mouse over it? This is absolutely hideous. Timbouctou (talk) 05:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know who did this. I know it was discussed previously, because some incredibly misguided people thought flags were too ambiguous (I still cannot wrap my head around that). It looks completely horribly now, and it makes reading squad lists twice as difficult. I hope it's reverted quickly, or else it's just another example of Wiki editors being completely out of their minds. Wicka wicka (talk) 05:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Is the Picard facepalm picture uploaded on WP? It would fit quite nicely here. Invisibletr (talk) 06:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Wowza. This ridiculous edit needs reverting, and it needs reverting NOW. GiantSnowman 06:55, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, it won't be reverted anytime soon, seeing as quite a few people agreed with the change so that the template complies with MOSFLAG. Although nobody thought it important to link to the discussion here, which would have been nice. However, here's a thought. What point does having a little flag next to a player's name actually serve? Surely the three most important things are squad number, name, and position? I would do away with the flags altogether as they don't really add anything important, IMO of course. BigDom 07:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

A lot of people (me included) would have NOT agreed to it had we known the discussion was actually taking place. It's very bad form on the part of the 4-5 editors who decided this amongst themselves, when I'm sure a lot of the veteran editors on this project would have wanted a say on something which significantly affects the work we do here. IMHO, the flags are important because it tells people what national team players play for, or what nationality they have. Readers like to know these things, and I find it immensely useful. --JonBroxton (talk) 07:11, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have agreed had I seen the discussion sooner. But if you were desparate to find out a player's nationality, you could simply read that player's article. BigDom 07:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion about the template is here btw. --JonBroxton (talk) 07:12, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

• On my screen, the nationality column in the left hand half of the Gillingham F.C. squad list appears to be much narrower than on the right hand half, is there a reason for this? It means that some nationalities (England, basically) are wrapping under the flags in the left column, but not the right, which looks really silly. On other squad lists, e.g. Liverpool F.C., the opposite appears to be the case, as Argentina is wrapping on the right but not the left......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted the change to the template so a wider discussion can take place before controversial changes (per WP:BRD). See Template talk:Football squad player for the main discussion location. пﮟოьεԻ 57 08:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

• If this ends up being implemented, I'd want the player name to be moved left, next to the number, as the name and number are the most important parts. Right now it almost looks like teams have Argentina at number 5 or Germany at 17. This might be alright for Stephen Ireland, but not for everyone else ;) Oldelpaso (talk) 09:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Just as well Joe Jordan, Pat Holland and Mike England have retired then :)

Several times discussion has been raised about the legitimacy of simplifying players' nationalities, or the relevance of nationality of the vast majority of players to their careers (or where players have represented a team that represents the homeland of a grandparent, the relevance of that nationality to the player's life), and the fact that these nationalities are widely unsourced. There has been an insistence, however, that nationalities remain. If they are to do so, those nationalities need defining, not merely iconographic clue. So it is those who argued for the retention of nationality that essentially mandated this change.

And we are still left with a header on every fs squad that is meaningless: FIFA does not determine one nationality for any player who has not played representative football. Kevin McE (talk) 10:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

In the wake of this issue, I think perhaps we need to come up with a new style of squad template. Perhaps one that uses a simple wikitable design. I think we need to create something that shows the lines between rows and columns to avoid issues where it looks like the country name is the name of the player. Something similar to the squad table at Glamorgan County Cricket Club#Current squad is what I'm thinking of, but obviously tailored to football needs. – PeeJay 10:39, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I actually quite like that layout. It's Easy to read, has no excessive whitespace, and it conforms to WP:MOSFLAG. Providing we can make it so that it's easy to edit the template without having to mess around with table rows (which I admit I still sometimes have trouble with, and I'm sure others do too), and make it so that we have the option to somehow maintain the two-column style we use on footy articles currently, and maybe get rid of the column/row black lines so that it looks more streamlined, this could be the way to go. --JonBroxton (talk) 15:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Coming up with a less idiosyncratic style for the squad lists is a long-term occupant of my todo list; once the present discussion simmers down I might give it a go. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:39, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Can I just say that I prefer it as flags rather than names, that if we are going to make any big changes then there has to be a big discussion first and that Leon Constantine is a goal machine of legendary proportions? I hope that this doesn't open up the whole 'FIFA nationality' debate again!--EchetusXe 17:34, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

"Previous version showed flags and trigrammes and any reader could see the country's full name on mouse rollover." A quick note regarding this statement from Timbouctou: we cannot rely on mouseover to convey important information. Wikipedia content may be accessed in myriad ways – one of which is print – and such information can be easily lost. As such plain flags, as are currently in use, should definitely be avoided.

The other issue is whether the trigrammes are sufficient to convey the intended meaning. The example that readers will understand that ENG represents England is a bit of a red herring; not all trigrammes are quite so intuitive. For example MAR for Morocco has been known to cause confusion. However, ultimately I would support the use of the trigrammes for templates such as this. WP:MOSFLAG does indicate that we should be using country names, however it does not explicitly state how they should be rendered, whether as the full official name, the common name (as would be used in article titles) or an accepted abbreviation or alternative. I am of the opinion that where an established alternative representation of a country's official name exists it should be permissible, and that in a footballing context the FIFA trigramme is an established alternative. Perhaps MOSFLAG should be amended to explicitly cater for this and similar situations, although of course that is a discussion that would have to take place there. AJCham 18:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I dare say that if the issue were brought up in MOSFLAG discussion the debate would quickly return to why we're insistent on inventing nationalities for people in the first place, unfortunately. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

For the record, using admin powers in a dispute you are involved in is a blatant abuse of the tools. Instead of pandering to the views of a project he was a member of and implementing his POV, Number 57 should have contacted another uninvolved admin. I won't say any more on the matter, but it needed saying.

The easiest way to meet the competing requirements is a very simple one. Remove {{fs mid}} if there are aesthetic problems. By definition, for this table to be causing trouble, either one column must be taking up significantly more than half the screen, or both columns must be unusually long. Common sense examples of when to column/not to column can be found here. --WFC-- 21:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Looking at your test cases, I notice you have expanded the commonly-used and widely-accepted abbreviations GK, DF, MF and FW to their full positions too. When did we decide to do this? --JonBroxton (talk) 21:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

We didn't. But are you seriously suggesting that on a discussion about whether icons and symbols are appropriate that it wouldn't have come up? --WFC-- 22:22, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me put it another way. We fundamentally disagree on this issue. But if the consensus is that flags cannot be used alone, it stands to reason that the consensus on two letter acronyms will be the same. --WFC-- 22:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

How? The positions have nothing to do with the flags. Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the basics of soccer will know that the letters "GK" in the "position" column will indicate a goalkeeper, and anyone who isn't will click on the link to find out what it means. Spelling out the position in full just causes more formatting problems that need not exist. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

All I can say is two things. One, I did not implement this in my initial change yesterday. Personally I'm happy with GK etc. But because of this project's refusal to even contemplate change—to the extent that its own admins have, in an administrative capacity, gotten involved in a content dispute—the template is now at RfC. At RfC I strongly suspect that non-football editors will reach the conclusion that the acronyms cannot be used alone, so I've saved us the time and (wishful thinking) the drama, by coding that into the sandbox for comparison with the current situation. It has not been implemented on any article, and if it's as stupid as you assert, it will never will.

I advise you to continue this discussion at the RfC, if you wish to do so. --WFC-- 22:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to add something extra to this discussion. An MOS violation oppose vote was added to the Manchester United FAC candidacy discussion because of the flags. As a result of this change, the vote has been wiped out. The original comment was that without country names, the templates fall foul of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (icons)#Accompany flags with country names. 91.106.116.29 (talk) 21:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

RFC: Changes to Football squad templates to comply with WP:MOSFLAG

The reversion in question, and what can be done to make the templates comply with WP:MOSFLAG#Accompany flags with country names or if there are other alternatives has been started with Template talk:Football squad player#RFC: Changes to Football squad templates to comply with WP:MOSFLAG. Jappalang (talk) 22:00, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a great analysis. I personally think that using a flag only is a worse idea than not using anything at all. It's confusing and distracting when coming across unknown flags never mind ones that are similar to others. 91.106.116.29 (talk) 22:12, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, because it's not like you can just hover over the flag and see the name of the country. Oh, wait, that's exactly something you can do. How confusing. 98.212.25.109 (talk) 23:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't limited to PC users - people can view it from their mobile phones or as a print-out, and you can't hover over a link in those media, can you? – PeeJay 23:33, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Coincidentally browsing from my mobile right now and had a play. No tooltips in Android, but I can still click on them. Oldelpaso on the move 07:37, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

This depends on both the browser and mobile OS used. There are still many people use pre-smartphone browsers to browse the internet, some of which offer only very limited graphics or none at all, and almost all don't allow "hover". Even if the link is displayed, why make it necessary to click on a dozen or so flags and loading a dozen or so entire articles to find out where a team's players are from? There's the extra time taken, and it's a little inconsiderate for the people who are still paying by the kilobyte too. It should be noted that all known internet browsing mobiles can display the word "Fooland" next to a player's name really quite easily. Knepflerle (talk) 10:23, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Related template

I've just come across this horrible template, which is used on the Al-Ahly page. I assume that this is not the way forwards, right? Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 12:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

EPLinfo.com

Hello my name is Enb17 (Aaron Nielsen) I'm a professional soccer statistician with over 20 years experience and have worked with all the major companies in sports tabulation including Stats Inc., OPTA, Infostrada Sports. In 1992 my company started recording detailed statistical information for the English Premier League and currently record detailed information for over 50 leagues and tournaments World Wide. For upcoming season we have decided to make this information available to the public domain and are launching four sites in regards to the English Premier League, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, and Spanish La Liga. We've already launch the first site EPLinfo.com and the others hope to be available in early September.

I would like to make all Wikipedia editors aware that this information is available to help with your submissions and I was also planning on adding links to each player on wikipedia and a reciprocal link on the site (since EPLinfo is just data and has no written information about the player). An associate of mine runs/owns baseball-reference.com and my goal with these sites is to provide the same resource and relationship with wikipedia that he has in regards to Major League Baseball.

I very much appreciate the work you have done and would love to assist where I can be useful although with the time it takes to tabulate all the information it’s hard to also manually add it to the corresponding wiki page so I thought a direct link seems like the best option. I’m open to suggestions and overall I hope you find the information both exciting as fan of the game and useful in your endeavor.

Feel free to contact me on my wiki talk or via email at enbsports@gmail.com to request any information and discuss my idea further.

Cheers

Enb17 (talk) 01:01, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing your website to our attention. If, in time, your site gains a reputation for quality and accuracy of information and ease of use, as compared with other statistical sites longer established in the public domain, no doubt Wikipedia editors, myself included, will be flocking to your home page. However, until it does earn such a reputation, attempting to link to it from the Wikipedia page for every qualifying player will be perceived as spamming, however ungrateful such a perception might appear from where you sit. Perhaps you might have a look at the relevant guidelines: WP:External links and WP:Conflict of interest.

Please understand that I'm just a volunteer, like every other editor here, so this is just my personal opinion. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Struway2 (talk) Thank you for your response and I fully understand your point of view. Although I would argue that data is based on its accuracy and quality and not its time of publishing. The truth is the information I'm associated with has been on the internet since 1996 (http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.sport.soccer/browse_thread/thread/5f54b1dabff2acb/3dc896a7726be93f?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=enb+sports+statistics+1996 ) and has been referenced multiple times on Wikipedia just under other projects I worked for at the time.

The reason there is difficulty providing proper references to soccer/football information is companies such as Opta and the Premier League itself keep the data hidden from the public to maintain its publishing value. Since I'm based out of North America and see the role statistics play in North America sports I thought it was time to make this information available to public to help grow its interest. These sites are designed to provide a statistical alternative to what people perceive what is out there (ie what soccerbase provides). So I thought the link would be appropriate to provide the user this option.

That being said I respect Wikipedia and your guidelines and won't go out of my way to interfere with the general principles of the site. Cheers 14:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Enb17 (talk • contribs)

This is interesting. These future sites will be interesting for historic datas.--Latouffedisco (talk) 17:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully WP:RSN will accept the Spanish version. I just lost my manager stats (sportec.es down now). Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 18:07, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Herbert Chapman

Hi everybody, despite I'm not a native english speaker, I think that the article concerning Chapman is very good and would deserve at least a GA status; in fact it's been translated in russian and german and achieved such honour. The page received even a peer review, but unfortunately its author is no longer collaborating on Wikipedia, so I think that WikiProject Football should take care of its promotion. Sorry for my broken english. Greetings. --82.59.56.200 (talk) 11:22, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

It is pretty good, but I think the section on his playing days could be expanded; it's very short compared to his managerial career. Could use a new infobox as well, and certainly shouldn't have Southern League stats in italics. With a bit of work, it could certainly become a GA soon though. BigDom 11:31, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Additionally, a lot of the references say page xx.. but page xx of what? all a bit vague really.--ClubOranje^T 11:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

....erm, that refers to the book by someone called Page listed in the bibliography -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:52, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

D'oh! I should have looked down further...--ClubOranje^T 00:24, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Trouble is, most of the references are books, which most of us won't have any of. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

On a similar topic, does anyone have League stats for his brother Tom Chapman at Grimsby? GiantSnowman 12:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Never played in the League (per M Joyce), so no evidence of notability. If I were you, I'd change your article to deal with the Thomas Chapman who played for Grimsby but was a Wales international born 1871 who joined them from Ardwick. Redinked from List of Wales international footballers (alphabetical) as Thomas Chapman (footballer). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

@BigDom: Surely I can't say that section is huge, however not even the article dealing with Bobby Robson (which was recognized as a FA) contains a chapter about the playing career particulary vaste. Also it's necessary to consider that Chapman played more than one hundred years back, so I assume that a slight lack of informations can't be avoided, beacuse it's pretty hard to know everything about a such pioneeristic era. As for the stats written in italic, I see no problem to write them in the ordinary fashion. Regards, --87.6.114.143 (talk) 15:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Gabriel Mantz books

Does anyone involved with WP:Footy have any experience with football year books by Gabriel Mantz? I was looking at purchasing some recently to help with a project but I can find no reviews and don't know whether they are accurate.

• ISBN 1862231885 - Yearbook of African Football 2010
• ISBN 1862231893 - Yearbook of Asian Football 2010

TheBigJagielka (talk) 15:46, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

User:AhMeD BoSS

User:AhMeD BoSS is blanking my contributions to FC Barcelona. Have anyone else had problems with this user before? Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 18:46, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Neven had problems with that username, but it wouldn't shock me if I've come across him in an alternative guise. Could you give a couple of examples of "blanking"? I've seen content disputes where in my opinion you are entirely right, and I've seen a couple of blatant examples of breaching policy (for instance POV, using "legend" as a synonym for "history" whilst simultaneously telling you to "learn how to edit"). If he is blanking I imagine he can be blocked pretty quickly. If not, you'll have to go through the standard warning templates, ensuring that he is made aware of the policies that he is breaking, and that you are coming across as reasonable in any interaction you have with him. For what it's worth, I'll keep an eye on his future contributions as well. --WFC-- 09:13, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

[See his edits at the history] well he rollbacks to a version prior to a lot of edits I've made. His most recent diff he removed 6kb of contributions, including a wanted (see talkpage) section on crest and colours. In his prior rollback he tells me to Learn first how to edit in wikipedia then come and spoil barcelona page [sic!]. I included several books in the updating of FCB, due to the last FAC, so his rollbacking is quite annoying. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 09:44, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW: His most recent edit was likewise strange and thus removed. Mentoring? Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 09:51, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

His original issue appears to have been the stadium infobox that intruded on the section below, for which rather than attempt to fix the issue he decided to simply revert all the changes. I don't think the infobox should be included on that page really (it is included on the Camp Nou page for obvious reasons) and instead perhaps some of the images of the stadium should be used, but the other changes seem all perfectly valid so he's definitely reverting and/or deleting valid edits.

Seems he needs to learn how to revert changes accurately.Koncorde (talk) 12:39, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

2010–11 in Serie A

Some editors have recently been creating categories such as Category:2010–11 in Serie A. It's only filled with club season articles – as are all other years in Serie A categories seen here – but we already have Category:Italian football clubs 2010–11 season for that purpose. As far as I can tell, almost every other country has one category for season articles; the only exceptions are leagues like MLS and the A-League, where the leagues aren't part of a pyramid or national structure. There was also a recent SPEEDY that was declined on Template:2009-10 in Serie A even though Template:2009–10 in Italian football already exists. Do we want to segregate out Serie A from the rest of Italian football, or do these categories and nav templates need to be integrated back into the "Italian football" categories? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 12:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that category the other day, and I thought about nominating it for deletion. The only reason I didn't is that I couldn't be bothered, but I still definitely think it should be deleted. – PeeJay 12:52, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

As for the templates, re-integrate them into the existing ones, there is no need to have two templates for the same purpose. As for the categories - how about simply renaming them to "Italian football club seasons"? This would probably be a better fit anyways. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 15:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I've started creating "Italian football clubs YYYY-YY season" categories to replace the "YYYY-YY in Serie A" categories. Has someone started re-integrating the templates? – PeeJay 22:43, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the use of WP:COMMONNAME in clubs' articles

Hi fellow football maniacs. I come from the Spanish Wikipedia, and there, despite having a rule analogue to WP:COMMONNAME, clubs' articles are always named after their full official name (for example: Atlético Rafaela? NO, its es:Asociación Mutual Social y Deportiva Atlético de Rafaela; Deportivo Español? NO, its es:Club Social, Deportivo y Cultural Español de la República Argentina). When raised the issue, the answer was that they've reached a consensus not to follow the rule because official names "sounded more serious".

Anyway, my question is: is there any such consensus here? I want to launch a page-moving cruzade in all Argentine lower leagues' clubs' articles but wouldn't enjoy being reverted. Thanks for your answer. Regards. Fache (talk) 21:02, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

We do our best to follow COMMONNAME. We've had a few dust-ups over it in the past, and each time the consensus has been to follow the shorter, commonly-used name. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 16:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of common names, has any Premier League player ever been referred to as "Fredrik"? --WFC-- 08:22, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

You mean like Fredrik Ljungberg? – PeeJay 08:23, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. Fache (talk) 08:33, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Fabio Aurelio

His contract expired, and eventually, he signed a new one. Technically he was a free agent for a little while, but to have two rows in his infobox, as if these are different spells with Liverpool, is just silly. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 00:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be too easy for some. I agree with you though, this is not like David Unsworth who left a club to sign for one team only to move in the same window to another without playing a game. Here Aurelio simply let his contract lapse - then re-signed.Koncorde (talk) 01:10, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Similar but different situation at Shane Smeltz who joined Shandong Luneng and walked out after 5 days, then rejoined Gold Coast United since they had not yet dispatched his International Transfer.--ClubOranje^T 03:27, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I concur that, as he didn't sign for/play for anyone else in between, it should just be shown as one spell. To my mind, the box is meant to reflect stints of playing time with a particular club, not the minutiae of contracts, and clearly his actual playing time with Liverpool will still be from 2006 until whenever he does actually leave. I'm sure there have been dozens of other examples, especially in the pre-Bosman days, of a player's contract expiring and his not signing a new one until some time later when he realised nobody else was going to come in for him -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:14, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Chris. Specially his second sentence. FkpCascais (talk) 22:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

tj moncur

Who does tj moncur play for now?,Gobbleswoggler (talk) 21:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Cray Wanderers? TheBigJagielka (talk) 21:27, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

To cat or not to cat - Part 2

Teammates, excuse me for being such "a pain in the proverbial backside", but after seeing some developments in the subject, i think it really needs to be (further) discussed...

As i brought up here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_45#To_cat_or_not_to_cat), User:Kolins and i have been having some friendly "run-ins" about (expatriate mainly) cats in players. Now, in Marcos Senna, i found he did something completely illogical: a SPANISH EXPATRIATE FOOTBALLER?!? He was never such, when he played in Brazil, he WAS Brazilian, really hard to graps this concept...

Also, in the same original discussion, mate Chris Cunningham pointed out that "...the national categories reflect this "sporting nationality" nonsense exclusively right now...". So, in the light of this approach, Kolins is right? As Groucho Marx once put it, looking at a contract: "Easy, piece of cake, even a five-year old would understand it" (ten seconds later) "Quickly, go fetch me a five-year old, i can't make anything of this!"... Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I would like to do away with all of the expatriate footballer categories. They are poorly defined and frequently misleading. They also lead to a lot of clutter at the bottom of articles and I don't think they're very useful really. Jogurney (talk) 16:21, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed with Jogurney, I can't see how the expatriate footballer categories are helpful at all. Where is the consensus to add these? Jared Preston (talk) 09:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for your inputs. Clearly, after having read your opinions, that makes three! Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Wait a sec. I was on hollydays, so I can only now respond here... I like the "Expatriate cats". They are usefull to list all foreign footballers that played in a certain country. I check some from time to time. And, in oposition to the lists of foreign players, they list the players from lower leagues, as well. I only hate the superfluos adding by some users of the "Siuxian xpatriates in Tunguzia", "Siuxian expatriates in Abscinia"..., that is too much, but the simple cats like "Expatriate footballers in Kenya" isn´t. FkpCascais (talk) 01:24, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

To define somebody as an expatriate, their homeland (patria) must be clearly identifiable. As has been discussed here many many times before, for many people, and therefore for many footballers, it is not that simple. Benjamín Zarandona won an U21 Euro championship with Spain, the land of his birth, but since he represented another country, he has now been listed as an expatriate in Spain: this is clearly nonsense. Is an English player at Cardiff an expatriate? A Welshman at Hereford United? An English-born player with Scottish parents at Partick Thistle? A player born in Dresden pre 1990 at Dusseldorf? A Slovakian born pre-1990 at Sparta Prague? Does someone cease to be an expatriate by acquiring citizenship? Does such a person remain on the list on the grounds that he once met the criteria? Ill-defined, and therefore encyclopaedically indefensible. Kevin McE (talk) 09:45, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to say that the "expatriate" category is very useful to find players for whom to play abroad is not an usual case and probably not necessary at all for the football-exporting countries. The North Korean one, for example, is extremely curious while the Brazilian one will probably feature some 80% of the country's footballers. —WiJG? 16:59, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

A little thing, but requesting some feedback...

Anyone able to give their 2¢ over this way, please? Was heading towards an edit war, which naturally I wanted to avoid, so started a discussion. It's not really the most visible page, though, so yet to get any kind of responses. It's a horribly minor issue but one that I'd rather be resolved. Cheers! AllynJ (talk | contribs) 11:23, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Willie Irvine

Anyone interested in reviewing Featured Article nominations might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Willie Irvine/archive1, or it's likely that it might be archived due to a lack of reviewers. All comments, supports or indeed opposes are welcome. Cheers, BigDom 17:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The worst squad list template ever?

Look at that monstrosity! Can't for the life in me understand why it's been made to look like that, with the forced line breaks. If there's no objection, I'll convert it into a more conventional style. Cheers, BigDom 17:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks to PeeJay, who has kindly formatted the template properly. BigDom 20:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Malawi flags

Malawi changed its flag on 28 July 2010. As such, {{flagicon|Malawi}} now shows the new flag (). However, for football results etc. as these are past events these should show the oldvariant {{flagicon|Malawi|1964}} (). I attempted to run AWB on all articles with years in the title to run through and fix this. However, I'm unable to code an easy replace "{{[flag template]|Malawi}}" with "{{[flag template]|Malawi|1964}} because football articles use other templates such as {{TwoLegResult}}. As such I, personally, am unable to run something that could decide which team is being reffered to and then add var1=1964 or var2=1964. If anyone is better than me and could write a semi-automatic run that would be great. Otherwise, hopefully this will raise awareness of the fact and people can change flag variants as they find them. Best, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 21:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Given my recent record of a hasty edit affecting seven or eight articles, I'll let a more established editor check this over (I'll be happy to elabourate my idea to them if necessary). But I think if you set up AWB to skip if an article doesn't contain {{twolegresult| (leaving case sensitive unchecked), it would be possible to do a mass run. That said it would be complicated, would have to be done in two stages (one for home teams, second for away) and would involve a brute-force method for home teams. Obviously there will be several templates, but the basic principles of that AWB run would remain true of other templates, so it just might be worth the hassle. --WFC-- 23:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Before managing to see this thread, I'd been working for a while on adjusting the Malawi flags manually. All articles on FIFA WC qualification since 1964 are done; so is the latest Africa Cup of Nations. But please see this. The {{{natvar}}} parametre of {{nat fs g player}} doesn't seem to work for Malawi. The same problem occurs for Iraq here. I don't know how to fix that. --Theurgist (talk) 01:16, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is because {{National football squad player (goals)}} is not coded to accept flag variants. It is also not coded to accept accompanying country flags with country names (in violation of MOS:FLAG). The whole template might need adjusting. Good job on adjusting Malawi flags so far. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 10:50, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Carrow Road

Please will someone review the rating of this article on its talk page. Thank you. --Dweller (talk) 09:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Shamrock Rovers

Is "Shamrock Rovers" singular or plural? --Exorcist Z (talk) 20:49, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You can use either. In Britain, it's more common to use the plural, whilst in America the singular is more prevalent.Omgosh30 (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Kit templates

Hi, I was wondering if there was a guide out there for the creation of kit templates, or perhaps a more comprehensive list of those currently available. This seems to be massively underused and is the only thing I can find that comes close to a list of available templates. Previous calls for help have gone unnoticed here amongst other places. Omgosh30 (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sent off

{{sent off}} sort of doesn't work when placed into {{footballbox}} or {{footballbox collapsible}}.

Compare:

date time round	team 1	0 – 0	team 2	stadium Attendance: attendance Referee: referee
	player  10' player  30', 60'	report	player  20', 40' player 90'

as opposed to:

date time round	team 1	0 – 0	team 2	stadium Attendance: attendance Referee: referee
	player 60' player  70'	report	player  40' player 90'

In the former instance there is a minor inaccuracy with the vertical alignment of the goalscorers and the players cautioned. Where's the problem? --Theurgist (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I used the substitution function to display the above footballboxes to ensure the problem against becoming invisible here when already fixed. --Theurgist (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

That stuff above got too long when viewed at the edit screen. Here is it again, without substitution:

Compare:

date

time

round

team 1	0 – 0	team 2
player 10' player  30'  60'	report	player  20'  40' player  90'

stadium, city

Attendance: attendance

Referee: referee

as opposed to:

date

time

round

team 1	0 – 0	team 2
player  60' player 70'	report	player 40' player  90'

stadium, city

Attendance: attendance

Referee: referee

--Theurgist (talk) 21:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I was hoping that someone would have some inspiration on this matter. Although the problem is not exclusive to {{sent off}}, for instance:

date

time

round

team 1	4 – 2	team 2
Buckley 10', 13', 26' Graham 85'	report	player 40' player  90'

stadium, city

Attendance: attendance

Referee: referee

--WFC-- 20:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

What was wrong with the using text like before? Serious issues here in terms of WP:ACCESS and WP:MOSICONS Gnevin (talk) 09:41, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I make this suggestion in good faith, although I accept that it might not be well received. Never start a sentence with "Serious issues" and end it with "WP:MOSICONS". Doing so serves to undermine the otherwise legitimate points that you are making. Moving on, I don't share your opinion on {{goal}} and {{sent off}}, as demonstrated below. You do however make a very important point on accessibility. {{goal}} and {{yel}} need to be made as accessable as {{sent off}}. --WFC-- 15:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

date

time

round

team 1	4 – 1	team 2
Buckley: goals 10', 13', 26' Graham: goal 85'	report	(player): goal 40' (player): booked 57', booked and sent off 84'

stadium, city

Attendance: attendance

Referee: referee

Good faith suggestion taken on board. I really should of said there are a number of issues that could relate from Gnevin (talk) 16:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Southern Charity Cup

Longshot I know, but I was wondering if someone had anything to write about this competition. I doubt it's notable and don't intend to write an article, I'm just looking for a sentence or so to write about it, with a source. Presumably there have been a few competitions with this name, so for clarity I'm talking about the competition that ran in England between 1910 and 1915 (possibly earlier and later, but certainly during that period). I know that Brighton and Hove Albion won the competition in 1910, which might help.

Thanks in advance, --WFC-- 18:30, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Probably is notable. The Times listed results in the same column and typeface as results of Football League and Southern League, and at least sometimes published a short report of the final, e.g. ("Football. Association Rules., The Southern Charity Cup". The Times. 21 April 1903. p. 9.) which in those days was significant coverage for matches involving professional clubs. Arsenal lost 3–2 at home to Millwall in 1903,("Football. Association Rules". The Times. 10 February 1903. p. 10.) for instance, so it wasn't just Southern League clubs. As to sourced sentences, see below, all from Carder, Tim; Harris, Roger (1993). Seagulls! The Story of Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. Hove: Goldstone Books. ISBN 0-9521337-0-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)

• "was competed for by many of the professional clubs in London and the South-East from 1901 until 1915." (p. 326)
• Brighton & Hove Albion considered it a first-team competition and counted apps/goals in it as first-team apps/goals (p. 9)
• "The competition was open to all professional teams in the South, and was contested [in 1909/10] by the majority of the Southern League clubs" (p. 54)

hope some of this helps, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

That was fantastic, thanks awfully! Regards, --WFC-- 15:15, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Stru, do any of your Times refs indicate if the Gills ever took part in that cup? It's not mentioned in any of the history books, so if they did, they either don't regard it as a first team competition or else just couldn't be bothered researching ot properly :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I can offer you Southend United beating New Brompton by three goals to none at Gillingham in 1911,("Association Football. The Leagues". The Times. 7 September 1911. p. 7.), for which I'm sure you'll be grateful. Although Brighton count it as a first-team competition throughout, they did put out reserve sides in 1912/13 and 1913/14, so it's quite possible other clubs treated it as a less-than-first-team comp. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:03, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

My record books show that Southampton played in this tournament between 1902-03 and 1913-14, winning it in 1908 (beating Portsmouth 1-0) and reaching two other finals, losing 2-0 to Tottenham Hotspur in 1907 and Coventry City 1-0 in 1914. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 18:11, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There's a list of finals with scores at this forum posting. Though that has Southampton losing to Cov 2-0 in the replay after a 2-2 draw... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The Times confirms the 1914 result as Southampton losing 1-0 in the replay, which is reassuring that the Southampton record books got it right :-) I'll stop talking to myself now... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Two questions

Any help welcome .. I am looking to add to articles or add new articles but would like to know;-

1/ What is a notable match in Wiki terms? There are a number of matches which could have their own articles but I don't want to put in the effort if they don't pass 'match notability'. Is there such a thing?
2/ Are pictures of the front of football programs copyright? Again I have a number of these which could be added to articles but need to know how Wiki handles these in copyright terms. Anyone know - Thanks. --Egghead06 (talk) 09:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

1/ for me an important match would be something that is still talked about after the passing of time. However in most cases a wiki under the clubs history perhaps denoting "historic matches" would be better than singular match reviews. Those should be reserved for especially significant events. For instance the White Horse Final could perhaps carry its own article.

2/ they are copyright to the club usually, unless published by Fans (i.e. Over Land & Sea) in which case the copyright will be down to the publisher/author. If the image is sufficiently low quality then it should (like Movie posters or Similar artwork) be possible to upload them for illustrative purposes. Not sure what license they would be under. Koncorde (talk) 09:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

"For instance the White Horse Final could perhaps carry its own article." - ....to say the very least - The White Horse Final is a Featured Article -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I suspected it did :D Koncorde (talk) 10:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok thanks - I ask because I have been working with my Millwall supporting colleague (!), User:BillyBatty, on Millwall F.C. and West Ham United F.C. rivalry and there are a number of games, other than 2009 Upton Park riots, which might merit their own articles.--Egghead06 (talk) 10:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd just keep expanding out that single rivalry wiki. I'm not sure how notable the 2009 riots will be in 5 years as a stand alone game, but their inclusion in the longstanding history of the rivalry would be well established. Koncorde (talk) 11:42, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally I wouldn't be too worried about it, but clarification is clearly needed and (more coherent?) guidelines are needed. See here and in a more general sense here for examples of where a very low and inconsistent threshold has been supported. Omgosh30 (talk) 11:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

And this--Egghead06 (talk) 12:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

They don't exist at the moment, but if technology comes in, would the matches where the high-profile blunders that led to it occured warrant their own articles? --WFC-- 11:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Oo. Interesting one. It might be easier to do a "Technology and Advancements in Football" article (if one doesn't exist already), then have a section on Goalline technology and the factors behind its consideration. I don't think that putting it down to one game would be a good thing, nor would a game be notable for a disallowed goal i.e. England vs Germany in 66 is famous for it being a World Cup Final, a game earlier in the competition wouldn't be really be notable even for Geoff Hursts effort and whether it was rightly/wrongly allowed. If you start opening the floodgates on bad decisions it becomes contentious and not particularly encyclopedic. Koncorde (talk) 11:42, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it, the significance of an incident is a function of how blatant the injustice is, how high profile the match is, and how persistent the coverage is. The Watford and Palace incidents may have been in relatively low-profile matches, but the incidents were far more obvious than either England-Germany decision, and they're becoming synonymous with the call for technology. That said, England-Germany and Argentina-Mexico were the catalyst for the man from the 1890s to announce that FIFA would be looking at bringing something in. It's hypothetical at the moment, but if (as I suspect) something actually is brought in this time, it would need further thought. --WFC-- 12:21, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:AFC Asian Cup winners

Template:AFC Asian Cup winners has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Comment: {{FIFA World Cup winners}} has also been included, among others. --WFC-- 14:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I would be happy to split that one off into a separate discussion if it is perceived as being significantly different from the others. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 15:18, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Wilfred Crompton

Would someone with access to the Michael Joyce Football League Players Records book be able to add stats to Wilfred Crompton. I may have missed some of his clubs; the book I used only gives his teams immediately before and after leaving Burnley. Thanks in advance, BigDom 18:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Hong Kong League Selection squad

Template:Hong Kong League Selection squad has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Dávid Gróf

A rather petty edit war is starting to form on Dávid Gróf and I would be grateful for some opinions on the matter in question. I believe the image on the article should be resized so to stop the infobox from being stretched and to stop the gap between the "Apps" and "(Gls)" columns from being unnecessarily wide. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 19:49, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Left note with said user, fingers x'ed. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, said user here! I am a reasonable guy and I believe we are all working towards the same goal here. I don't see the original size of the image to be too big or stretching the box too far. If thats the attitude, we should start putting things like LDN or B'ham as oppose to the full name. I spend a lot of time and effort getting these pictures, and I'd appreciate them to be left at the original size. Regards Jonesy702 (talk) 20:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I see no real issue with the slightly larger size. Once the article is in full flow such as Des Lyttle with another of Jonesy's image in it it's clear that there is no longer any issue with regards to the images size, which in Dávid Gróf's case seems to exist purely because the article is currently quite short. If Grof had played (like Des did) for West Bromwich Albion (Loan) then the box would need to be stretched anyway, so that argument seems redundant.Koncorde (talk) 20:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The fact that he has played for teams with short names shouldn't mean that he gets a smaller picture than a player who plays for, say, Brighton & Hove Albion. BigDom 20:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask a naive question? Why isn't the infobox forcing the size of images to be consistent throughout the project? Perhaps I missed something... The Rambling Man (talk) 20:49, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, that would probably be a better idea. What kind of size do you have in mind? BigDom 20:54, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

But the point is the image shouldn't necessarily have to stretch the infobox and create an artificial extension in the infobox's size; having a club with a lengthy name isn't an issue as that's what is simply expected. Mattythewhite (talk) 20:52, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

All my images are 300 x 200 if they need to be resized by 250px for this artical, does that mean they need to be for the Des Lyttle artical and every other picture I've done? just seems waste of time. Jonesy702 (talk) 21:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

What I'm asking is that all images in infoboxes should be consistent. I haven't got the energy right now to work out if this is part of the argument, but if it is, why aren't all infoboxes the same? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

So basically if the pictures "must" comply with the infobox, surely images should be like this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Knight_(footballer)&diff=376821534&oldid=376586423 as oppose to its current format? Jonesy702 (talk) 21:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, consistency isn't one of Wikipedias strengths at the best of times and in many cases we simply do not have an image for a footballer, or a low resolution image, and so a smaller size is the default. Some pics are longer, some are potraits, other action based. In an ideal world everyone would have a squad image. It'd be nice if the infobox automatically adjusted itself or the image.Koncorde (talk) 21:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

To get back to the original point. Resizing image articles in infoboxes by 50px just because it puts a tiny bit of a bigger gap between Team Name and Apps is a very weak argument when the same gap exists in thousands of articles (or is absent in thousands) due to the fact that the infoboxes often do or don't have standardised image sizes (or text for that matter).

For a dimunitive stump of an article to therefore be the source of over 2 dozen edits based on its image size (rather than its content, or something justifiably wrong) is petty and really not well thought out.

I mean, can I object that the infobox is artifically stretched because "playing position" is longer than Date of Birth and Current Club? Or can we just accept that sometimes there might be a few extra pixels of space?Koncorde (talk) 21:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you've missed my point; what I'm saying is that if, as you use as an example, the "playing position" causes the infobox to extend in size that wouldn't be an issue as what is entered there is an objective quantity that can't be helped. Whereas, the size of an image is something that can be subjectively altered into a more suitable size. However, if nobody sees it as an issue then it's not really a biggie, but my concern is over where does one draw the line over image size; while in the Grof instance, the image being in its natural size does not majorly distort the infobox, but if a practice of not resizing images is always to be used then images will unpractically affect articles' aesthetics and readability. Mattythewhite (talk) 21:37, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

So in the long and short of it, you agree that "in the Grof instance, the image being in its natural size does not majorly distort the infobox" therefore can we now amend it back to its natural size? now we agree? Jonesy702 (talk) 21:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

When a clear consensus is achieved, then it will be changed, one way or the other. Mattythewhite (talk) 21:51, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

How long is that going to take? Jonesy702 (talk) 22:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't miss your point, however I'm struggling to see how this image in particular warrants a discussion over 7 pixels of width between the Team name and Apps, or 2 1/2 between Apps and Goals....is resizing an image by 1/4 of its size necessary because your eye sees a 2 1/2 pixel descrepancy?

Dozens of articles happily exist with such an arrangement (or greater). If we were on about a massive 500px image taking up an obstructive amount of the page (hello David Knight!) then clearly there is an issue but this seems a pretty perverse stretching of a situation into an argument for absolutely no justifiable reason. Koncorde (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Noted. So can it be amended back to original size without any problems now? Jonesy702 (talk) 22:49, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

An alternative solution nwould be to simply crop the image a bit on each side. We don't really need that big fence on the left, or the back of someone's head on the right...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that is necessary. If we look at things like that you might as well cut away everything up to his chin. Jonesy702 (talk) 16:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You didn't really just say that, did you? Chris is right; what do the big fence and the people in the background actually add to the photo? Couldn't you just crop it to a portrait size? – PeeJay 16:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

This I have no issue with. Resizing or editing images to better represent and focus on the subject at hand is always constructive.Koncorde (talk) 17:13, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes Peejay I did just say it, hence my comment. I'm not cool with people chopping down my pictures. If its no good in its original format I'll take it off. Jonesy702 (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You realise that you released those images under Creative Commons license that specifically states:

You are free:

• to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to remix – to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

If you weren't happy with them being "altered" why choose that license and why then contribute them to wikipedia? This is getting completely stupid.Koncorde (talk) 18:46, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Admittedly a bad example, as being an idiot with images I completely botched the job. But surely the image at the bottom is a better illustration than the one at the top? --WFC-- 19:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC) (Help getting the bottom image to the same resolution as the original would be gratefully received. --WFC-- 19:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC))

I don't think there's any question that the second image is superior for the purpose of illustrating the stand.Koncorde (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I just can't believe how unreasonable you are all being, I spend a lot of time and effort getting these pictures for players of all clubs around the world, taking the time to crop them and then someone comes along and thinks... "you know what I'm going to decided what size it should be and I want to crop it and I'm going to get my way because I'm an admin!" now one of you is going to come back with some excuse and some law of wiki, but lets be honest its just personal now, nothing to do about the picture, just certain people don't like me on here. Jonesy702 (talk) 20:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Nobody's being unreasonable. You released the images under Creative Commons license, so anybody is free to amend them so long as they acknowledge you. It's not the "law of wiki", it's the law of the United States, the United Kingdom and wherever else you care to mention. BigDom 20:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

It is, its a personal vendetta. It started with the size, and because it looks like I've won that, people decide they want to crop it, it'll be send it to the moon and back next. Jonesy702 (talk) 20:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it is. If the composition is bad and you have given the image a creative commons license, then we are free to modify the image. I don't know that we have the right to replace yours however. We don't have to use yours if someone modifies it and uploads one that has better composition though. Unless you can show that someone has a vendetta against you, I would wouldn't state it either. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:01, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorted it... I think this should help people identify him. Jonesy702 (talk) 21:09, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

It appears that your unhelpful comment has been reverted. I think what is needed is a new picture of Gróf since the one we have is quite poorly composed. While the subject is not difficult to miss, there are distracting elements and the quality is low. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Jeez, talk about some people taking it the whole hog. I officially rescind any support I gave you, you're clearly a deranged fruitbat. Edit away people.Koncorde (talk) 21:38, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

While I too am a fruitbat, I just haven't displayed any characteristics of that recently so I can only assume that the comment was not addressed to me. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, between me reading the page and clicking edit you must have posted :D Jonesy has pretty much alienated any support he did have, and all for the sake of him not wanting his images edited that he released to CC? Genius.Koncorde (talk) 23:01, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Fruitcakes? I'll go get the butter

Jonesy, I think you are getting an overly hard time here. I've seen a lot of your work, and 90+% of the time you get the cropping spot on. Watford pages lack pictures as it is, due to a combination of copyright, my incompetence with a camera and the position of my exceptionally cheap seat. If it wasn't for you, the image situation would be ten times worse. The point people are trying to make is that there are times when the background is just that- background. But there are other times when it's genuinely distracting, such as the example I have given above. Your caption was an overreaction, but if we were to lose as prolific a photographer as yourself, we would be the real fruitcakes. --WFC-- 23:41, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think he's had a hard time of anything outside the initial 2 1/2 pixel argument. His response to peoples input has been unseemly and alienating support for his position. His grandstanding and threats to leave and take his toys with him...oh boy. Since when were we held to ransom?Koncorde (talk) 07:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your support WFC at least someone appreciates my efforts on here. Jonesy702 (talk) 17:03, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not that people don't appreciate your efforts, it's just that you were being unreasonably stubborn earlier. I applaud the effort that you've taken during your school holidays to go and take photographs of players, but you have to be willing to admit that not all the pictures you take are perfect and that cropping a bit of background doesn't mean that others are not appreciative. BigDom 17:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Whats the need for sarcastic commets like that? why be a prick when you don't need to be? The quality of the picture is perfect, if theres people in the background do I need to ask them to move in the future? and knock the fence down? the pictures are perfect - it shows the player in question looking directly at the lens? Jonesy702 (talk) 17:17, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

And there you prove my point. Thanks, BigDom 17:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

You've already proved my point. Jonesy702 (talk) 17:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Even if people were going to resize your images, nobody has. Even if the images were resized, it would have nothing to do with you as you released the images for that purpose. You're battling against something that hasn't happened, probably will never happen. There's no guarantee that your images will be the one that stays used in the articles in question anyway in the long term, so arguing over composition and kicking off on people that were actively supporting you until you started acting immature is really not helping your case.Koncorde (talk) 17:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The quality of the pictures is sufficient for purposes of illustration. The quality of the pictures is far from perfect. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:12, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There was no need for that Walter. For the record, nothing is perfect. --WFC-- 20:19, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

WFC, I don't think Walter was intending to be malicious in anyway with his comment; I assumed he was just countering Jonesy's assertions that his pictures were perfect? Mattythewhite (talk) 12:26, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

You may be correct. You may not. But when someone (correctly or incorrectly) states that they feel like they're being ganged up on, needless criticism only strengthens that person's point. --WFC-- 19:20, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

To answer for myself, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't at the pointy end of the good-natured jab. Had I been, I would have tried to fix in myself the fruitiness displayed so as to no longer offend the other good editors here. Sometimes our own faults are the hardest to see. Without constructive criticism, we will only continue to be mediocre. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Issue still not resolved

Jonesy is likely going to find himself on the end of a 3RR, see 3RR ban discussion, unless the situation is clarified. Koncorde (talk) 07:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Fussballdaten.de

Could we produce an external link template for the profiles of German footballers at the database http://www.fussballdaten.de/ like we have on the German and Italian language Wikipedias? Something similar to, say, Template:Soccerbase? I know that Fussballdaten doesn't have player IDs in their URLs (for example: Franz Beckenbauer's profile), but it's a very useful site for statistics and seeing that the Bundesliga is gaining in popularity, it would be nice to have similar links with the same wording in the footballers' biographies under the external links section. Would anyone be willing to help me with this idea or is there no consensus for this? Jared Preston (talk) 14:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I could probably help, but I'm not sure how valuable the template would be when they don't use player IDs. I'll see what the German and Italian wikis did for ideas. Jogurney (talk) 15:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, pages for players usually have the url "http://www.fussballdaten.de/spieler/<lastnamefirstname>", with ä, ö, ü and ß transcribed as ae, oe, ue and ss, respectively, so it should not be that hard to realize a template, if desired. If there is more than one player with the same name, the last two digits of the birthyear is attached (see a search for "Christian Müller" for details). Should not be that much of a problem. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 15:12, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find a template for fussballdaten.de at the other wikis. Do you know where it is? Jogurney (talk) 15:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I linked them above already under the language names. de:Vorlage:Fußballdaten and it:Template:Fussballdaten. Jared Preston (talk) 15:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, having poked around here on the English Wikipedia, it seems that Zombie433 (talk · contribs) already had this idea. See: Template:Fußballdaten. The only transclusion at the moment is for the player Marco Sejna and something isn't right there. Could someone clean the already-existing template up and provide a documentation maybe? Jared Preston (talk) 15:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I added the missing /spieler/ portion of the url to the template, but I don't understand how the name argument works (well, doesn't work). Perhaps we should follow the GermanWiki's approach of requiring an ID field which is the player's name? Jogurney (talk) 19:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

It works now, but I had to remove the attempt at automatically determining the ID from the article name (which seems nearly impossible if you ask me). It just requires that someone check the url to make sure "lastnamefirstname" will work. Jogurney (talk) 20:05, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for all of your help, guys. I've tarted the template up a bit and added a documentation now. Jared Preston (talk) 17:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Is fussballdaten.de a reliable source now then? Madcynic (talk) 11:26, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Colour coding of results

An increasingly common habit seems to be background colour coding of match lists according to their results, like this. At least this example has a key: others do not. Does this have any consensus or is there any desire for this convention to be allowed to become established? Personally, I'm agin: it looks garish, wins are easily identified by the score, and the likelihood of being left with no key is high. (Not quite sure why an icon of a ball is considered a relevant icon for the timings of a goal in that table either, but that's a different matter) Kevin McE (talk) 13:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The color-coding presented above actually stems from the MLS season articles, which introduced them after a discussion (probably to be found here, but I'm not sure) last season or so. I do not know how many articles have adopted it by now, but nevertheless, it still looks a little bit... odd. That being said, if the majority wants to have it, so be it, but then please make sure that the colors are being explained somewhere, otherwise the coding violates WP:ACCESS. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 14:16, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Why not have a hidden sortable row? Gnevin (talk) 14:27, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

{{goal}} is widely used and has consensus. As for background colour, it is the easiest way to identify trends at a glance (for instance form through a season, something that a sort function wouldn't be able to do). While a key is good practise and should be near-compulsory, it's not an accessibility issue on the basis that the scores convey the information. Gnevin also makes a good point; if you decide to go down the table route, there's no good reason not to use a sort function. --WFC-- 14:51, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer if they used either the template:footballbox collapsible or template:footballbox. The "result =" parameter already does the correct colouring. While they don't indicate what the matches are for (friendlies, etc.) as is currently recorded there, they do add proper references by having a "report =" field, which is currently missing from the page. It also indicates who scored against the US, which is often useful. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:02, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

1968 Intercontinental Cup

Sorry guys, we have a little debate about this Cup. We are searching for some sources which state that the eventual play-off between Manchester United and Estudiantes would have been played in Amsterdam. Till now I've found those ones:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/ITV/European.html

http://hemeroteca.elmundodeportivo.es/preview/1968/10/16/pagina-3/953191/pdf.html?search=estudiantes%20manchester%20amsterdam

http://www.linguasport.com/futbol/internacional/clubes/intercontinental/inter68.htm

Does anybody know something more about this matter? PLEASE: IT'S VERY IMPORTANT!!--VAN ZANT (talk) 18:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Sources as above all support the Amsterdam theory obviously, although reliability of sources may be an issue given on says it would be the following Thursday, one says the following Saturday and the other doesn't specify, but I don't actually see it as the least bit important where a non-existent game might have been played. Unless there is some notable reason to include it, I'd leave it out.--ClubOranje^T 10:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

ClubOranje, many thanks for your attention ;-) --VAN ZANT (talk) 14:39, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

William Wood

Does anybody have a date of birth for a William Wood, who was born in Blackburn and played for Blackburn Rovers before joining Burnley in March 1933? Perhaps the Joyce book will provide an answer. Note that Burnley already had a player called William Wood, born in 1910, playing for them at the same time so I need a date of birth for the other before I can create an article. Cheers, BigDom 09:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Joyce doesn't give a date of birth, I'm afraid. You could call him William Wood (1930s footballer) and add a suitable hatnote to distinguish him from the born 1910 one. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's what I'll have to do. Sorry to be a pain, but please would you be able to provide years and stats for his other clubs? The Burnley book only says he played for Rovers until 1933, then Burnley 1933-34 (7 apps 0 goals), then Mansfield. Cheers, BigDom 09:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Joyce page 287 says 1931-32 Blackburn 7 apps 0 goals (which means played from the 1931/32 to the 32/33 seasons, no implication of actual years), then 1932 Burnley 7/0 (i.e. played in 32/33 season), then Chorley, then Darwen. No mention of Mansfield. Doesn't give years for non-league clubs. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I see that Michael Joyce's website at www.allfootballers.com is still unavailable. Does anyone have any news? Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 10:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I too have been wondering where that site went; I found it a useful alternative to buying the book. BigDom 20:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Jason Steele

Can someone sort out the redirect for Jason Steele to Jason Steele (politician) to presumably a disambig page, and then also move Jason Steele (footballer born 1990) to Jason Steele (footballer). Ta. 93.174.8.253 (talk) 14:56, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Unless someone's got in first... I'll moved the footballer, dunno why it wasn't created at (footballer) in the first place, and put a hatnote on the politician. No real need for a dab page for just two people of that name. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

OK then, I won't :-) Jason Steele (footballer)'s been salted, so it'll have to be an admin job. sorry, Struway2 (talk) 15:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Moved to "... (footballer)" and added hatnote to politician. Note, I haven't made a disambig page per Struway's comment. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 16:10, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to let you know, the reason why i didnt create it as a (footballer) page was because it wouldn't let me as there had been to many deleted articles for him already xxx Parklands_Cobbler (talk) 01:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

National team callups in player infobox

Am I right in believing we have a consensus that a player's national team only belongs in the infobox once he actually plays for it? So we wouldn't add a national team with current year and zero appearances, as soon as the player receives a squad call-up. I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I can't find where. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe so. That's the way I've always seen the matter anyway. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 12:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I ask because of Charles N'Zogbia's recent callup to the France squad. Someone added it to the infobox, I undid, claiming we didn't do that, someone else put it back, so I was hoping to find a discussion to point to as justification for why we didn't do that. Something a bit more convincing than "because I say so" :-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is the same as both of you, but I'm too new to know where any consensus would be. Although now that you mention it, it's strange that we treat clubs and countries differently. Being called up to an international squad and not playing is roughly analogous to being signed by a club and not playing. --WFC-- 21:27, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Devils advocate mode... For a player who was called up to a squad, did the week training camp and then didn't make the matchday programme for the friendly, no real reason to note in infobox - it is likely to be in the prose anyway. Other side of the coin is the player - often-times the 2nd or 3rd string keeper, but sometimes other players - who has been in the squad multiple times, even perhaps gone to the world cup a time or two, been in the matchday squad but yet not crossed the white line. They appear in all the squad templates so it seems like an anomoly that they do not have an entry in their own infobox.--ClubOranje^T 01:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

ClubOrange made a good point, that makes me think about what would be the best solution for the case. On the other side, we loose too many time removing that situations (NT in infobox 0 (0) that is continuously added and readded by many ID to many biographies... It also wouldn´t be so bad to have the 0 (0) as a sign that the player has been called to the NT. FkpCascais (talk) 22:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

What to do if a roster has two players with the same family name?

Just updating Template:FC Ingolstadt 04 squad and there are players with the family name of Hartmann. Normally, I would include the first initial and a period, but in this case, one player is Manuel Hartmann and the other is Moritz Hartmann. So what to do in this situation? I decided to go with full names. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd say you probably did the right thing. The only other option I can think of would have been to pipe one link as Ma. Hartmann and the other as Mo. Hartmann, but that might make it look like "Ma." and "Mo." are titles like "Mr." or "Mrs.". – PeeJay 22:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Yep, looks good to me. let's just hope that these guys are one-offs. --WFC-- 00:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what I used to do with Maik and Martin Taylor, as on this version of {{Birmingham City F.C. squad}}. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

County Mayo (Ireland) Football

Can someone please create pages for football clubs and create pages for the seperate leagues in the amatuar league Mayo & District League and edit the page its not up to scratch?Dooniver (talk) 11:24, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Jesus, that's one of the most dreadful articles I've ever seen. No offence. BigDom 17:15, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

A bit better now thanks to Peejay. I would offer to help but my knowledge of Irish football isn't very good.

New football season

The English season kicks off shortly, with Norwich City v Watford.

I've been working on developing Carrow Road, the venue for tonight's game, with an aim to getting it to Featured status. Your edits are welcome, and comments at the talk page, where I've also posed some questions where I'm unsure or want consensus for how the article should develop.

Happy new season to you all. Even Ipswich fans. --Dweller (talk) 18:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

And a happy new season to you :) --WFC-- 21:08, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Wembley Wizards

This article, about the England v Scotland match on 31 March 1928 has multiple issues, most especially the tone and poor referencing. Is there anyone who fancies taking it on and re-writing it? Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:03, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

FK Gence logo

Hello, can anybody please upload logo for FK Gäncä from here http://yalli.az/Khayal/albums/2271/40675 I tried to upload but due I am not sure how to upload logo's or give it right license, I am having problems and my files get removed.--NovaSkola (talk) 06:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Also could please someone update AZAL PFC Baku's logo from here

http://www.azerisport.com/images/articles/2010/08/04/thumb210_20100804013939919.jpg

--NovaSkola (talk) 10:43, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Nobody going to help me?--NovaSkola (talk) 15:55, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Here you go: File:FK Ganja.gif. BigDom 16:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

And the second one: File:AZAL PFC Baku.jpg. BigDom 16:52, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot!!--NovaSkola (talk) 21:44, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

New Zealand Mainland Premier League

Can anyone tell me if Mainland Premier League counts as a Fully professional league ?

I'm asking because I was looking at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamish Lewis and I'm not clear whether this player meets WP:ATHLETE as a pro; I'd think this league was pro, but IDK.  Chzz  ►  17:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it. I thought Wellington Phoenix were New Zealand's only professional club but I could be wrong. Argyle 4 Life^talk 17:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no fully professional domestic leage in New Zealand. The Phoenix are professional. They play in Australia's A-League. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:51, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Mainland Premier League is not even the top level domestic league. Soccer_in_New_Zealand#Professional_football and the following paragraph clearly answer the question.--ClubOranje^T 05:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

It does, indeed; thanks (all) for the answers.  Chzz  ►  22:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Category:Lists of association football players by national team

There are three examples at the above category page (namely England, Scotland, Wales) where a full list of all internationals to have played for that country exists as an article (with players listed in alphabetical order) but the article name is given an '(alphabetical)' suffix, whereas there is also an alternative page that only lists players who have reached a set threshold of caps, but this latter page is not given any suffix. As an example see List of England international footballers (alphabetical) and List of England international footballers, the latter only listing players with 30 caps or more. I would like to either make the 'complete' listings the master article (with no suffix), and a suffix be added to the qualified list, or for a suffix to be added to both lists, as this would be a more accurate descriptor of what the pages are.

Additionally I would like to ask an admin to move the page history of List of Wales international footballers to List of Wales international footballers (alphabetical) following recent changes, although hopefully this would only need to be done as a short term measure, depending on people's views on the above.

Please note I am the original creator of the Wales page (the one now called 'alphabetical'). Eldumpo (talk) 19:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The talk page for List of Wales international footballers will also need moving to List of Wales international footballers (alphabetical). Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:47, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Why on earth do we need two lists? The 25+ caps one is totally redundant, given that the big one is sortable. I say AfD the smaller one, and move List of England international footballers (alphabetical) → List of England international footballers. --WFC-- 21:07, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

If you look at the selective lists of Germany players or Scotland players, they add a lot more useful information than just the number of caps and goals scored. If those lists were expanded to include every player capped for those countries, their length would become a serious issue (both lists are around 70,000 bytes in size at present, and will for obvious reasons only get bigger, unless the selection criteria is tightened). I think it is comparable to the situation with club lists of players, where the main article is generally a selective list that provides comprehensive information about all the important players in a club's history, with daughter articles providing comprehensive lists of all players with a lower number of appearances. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:22, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

1939–40 season

Looking at his stats in my trusty copy of Joyce, Wally Akers' three games for Mansfield can only possibly be the three games played at the start of the 1939–40 season, which was abandoned because of the outbreak of war. Joyce says that he included these games in players' stats "for completeness". Should they be in the player's infobox......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 06:14, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

IMHO - no. The season was abandoned and thus officially never took place. (I had the same situation with Robert Perrett who played in all three Southampton matches, but is shown as having made no league appearances for the club.) I would put the status of these matches alongside play-off matches; they can be included in a player's total appearances but are not League matches for infobox purposes. Purely my personal opinion. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:26, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Also worth noting, of course, that any player who played in said season and whose stats have been sourced by Joyce could have their infobox stats "out" by up to three. I only picked up on it in the case of Akers because he only joined the club at the start of the season and they were the only three games he played for them...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 06:37, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

In List of Birmingham City F.C. players, which used Joyce as its main source for pre-war players, I excluded games played in that season, but added a footnote against each affected player saying so. But I've been inconsistent on individual player articles in the past, and I'm not sure what my personal view is as to whether they should count or not. However, from a WP:V point of view, i.e. "whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true", if we're using Joyce as the RS, either we ought to count them, or every time, however boring it is, explain why we're choosing to not follow that RS. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:30, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally, it was the first time I'd encountered the problem, because, of course, Gillingham were not a Football League club in that season. If, however, I was to do an article on a player who played for the Gills in say, 1934, and in Joyce it said, for example, "Stoke 1936-39, 52 apps", I wouldn't have a source to indicate how many to knock off for the '39-40 season.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Are there other sources than Joyce out there for player stats info from that era, and if not, shouldn't we be going with the published/verifiable information that we have i.e. whereby 1939-40 games are included as regular fixtures? Eldumpo (talk) 08:00, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

If we have other sources, club complete records or whatever, we can make a choice as to which to use. But if we only have Joyce, then we have to use him, and as in Chris's example, we won't know how many to knock off. Perhaps, for clarity, we should always footnote whether or not stats from that season are included or not... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:19, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Then again, there is always this book from the same publisher as Joyce's book. I was thinking about purchasing it, but £12 is a lot of money for only 118 pages. – PeeJay 09:53, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

A template could easily be created that makes a little reference note. That'll make it easier to implement. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 10:06, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

CAF Awards 2000

This page lists the nominations[2] but I can't seem to find out who won the other awards other than the Young player of the year going to Eto'o. Can anyone help? TheBigJagielka (talk) 13:52, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind[3] TheBigJagielka (talk) 14:01, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmmm....

Folks, what to make of this, in Francisco Jiménez Tejada's "PRIVATE LIFE"? It is referenced, but it seems a bit unencyclopedical and bordering on the opportunistic (the "i hate Xisco as a player, now i have references to make him look bad" attitude), in my opinion.

I remember roughly one year ago, when Guti had the same (similar) stuff inserted in his article. I clearly remember someone removed the (referenced) bit saying it was unencyclopedical. What is your opinion? Free your mind! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't look reliable from a first glance... it also seems to be idle gossip. Unless covered in-depth in reliable sources and significant to his notability, this shouldn't be there. I've removed it. – Toon 16:57, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

See the passion!

But a few things: 1. Seems to break Original Research and Wikipedia is Not News. 2. He is kissing a few guys but there is no evidence this was a gay pride event or even it was that he wasn't just there with some friends. 3. Usually supposed to wait until someone comes out before labelling them as a homosex.

If it made it into the national media then it is worth a mention.--EchetusXe 13:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Projects

The WP:Milhist project has several sub-projects set on specific targets, e.g. the Majestic Titan which aims to have every battleship in one large featured topic. On the project page you can easily see the progress and primary editors, which makes cooperation easy.

I would therefore like to suggest that Footy set up equal projects which aims to improve specific areas of wp:footy. These could be;

1. League of Europe: The leagues of Europe in UEFA coefficient order (perhaps top 10 as a first milestone?): Premier League / La Liga / Serie A / etc
2. The Core project: the articles assessed as vital in the assessment department.

Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 07:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Player of the Year lists

After commenting on Argyle POY, I feel there should be a larger debate on the issue. The player of the years lists should in my opinion be done with as they a content forks of a "list of players". It can easily be indicated on the list of players who where player of the year. As an independent article on the phenomena "player of the year" those would more often than not, not meet the notability criteria of an article. Sandman888 (talk) ^{Latest FLC} 07:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Football kits

Now I don't follow this to closely but I believe I recall correctly (and {{Football kit}} seems to agree) that we don't include sponsors or manufacturers on the kits in the infobox. I really see no advantage of this over this so I delved a little deeper. There seem to have been a spate of uploads recently, and there might be other users doing similar things. My question is, do we try and stop these uploads, do nominate redundant/over specific ones for deletion etc. The deletion aspect, especially, sounds like a lot of work and I suspect that is why no-one has done anything thus far. Thoughts? Rambo's Revenge (talk) 10:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There definitely shouldn't be manufacturers' or sponsors' logos on the kits because the logos themselves are copyrighted. All kits with sponsors on should be removed immediately. BigDom 10:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

That one's an obvious candidate for deletion. What about more subtle instances like File:Kit body grosseto 2010 away.png where they have tried to imitate a sponsor or team crest but is so small it is impossible to tell what it would be. File:Kit body timor-leste 2010 home.png is another example, except here the manufacturer symbol is recognisable at small scale. If lots need deleting would people help add to this list: User:Rambo's Revenge/Football kit deletion. If we do a massive nomination it should be under one unifying clear reason such as WP:Copyvio so all can be closed under one reason. Criteria for inclusion in the FfD should be strcit as I've seen mass FfDs thrown out where one file doesn't fit the rule. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 11:12, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, they can be a picky lot over at FFD. On the ones where the logos are tiny and indistinguishable, they should just be deleted for being completely useless, rather than copyvio. BigDom 11:55, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There is a user at Wikimedia Commons called Bruno-ban who insists on adding logos to the kit images he makes. I have done my best to remove the logos from as many as I can, but he and other users don't seem to be able to recognise the copyright violation and re-add the logos. This feels as pointless as reverting live score updates, but I'll keep going anyway. – PeeJay 12:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay I've listed here the ones that featured a copyrightable logo. Input welcomed. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Articles that currently use one or more of the nominated templates (strike once an article is sorted):

• B68 Toftir
• B68 Toftir II
• Faroe Islands national football team
• Vanuatu national football team
• Sri Lanka national football team
• Hibernians F.C.
• Yeovil Town F.C.
• 2010–11 Yeovil Town F.C. season
• Syrianska FC
• Jordan national football team
• Bradford Park Avenue A.F.C.
• Solomon Islands national football team
• Zambia national football team
• Cape Verde national football team
• ÍF Fuglafjørður
• N.E.C. (football club)
• Equatorial Guinea national football team
• Pobla de Mafumet CF
• FC Twente
• FC Utrecht
• FC Dynamo Kyiv

--WFC-- 11:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally I am opposed to the inclusion of these logos on the kit images in infoboxes, but........if we're deleting them solely on the grounds of copyvio, then should we not also delete all photos of players in shirts which have club badges and sponsors' logos clearly visible? How is the case of the infobox images any different.........? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChrisTheDude (talk • contribs) 09:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Good question. Answering on the spot, I guess it is something like that those pictures are not trying to capture those logos as such. It is an incidental (de minimis) form of copying. Wheras, the kits have no need to include that information and are deliberately infringing copyrights. Not sure if that is correct legally but it makes sense in my (unqualified) eyes. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 09:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

promotion, relegation, and color-coding

recently a very well-intentioned IP editor has made significant changes to the league tables on 2009–10 Lega Pro Prima Divisione, 2009–10 Lega Pro Seconda Divisione, and 2009–10 Serie D. the tables have been changed to show the final fate of each team in the league; many of these low-level teams in Italy have declared bankruptcy well after the completion of the season and have been reassigned to amateur divisions. to me, the tables have become almost unreadable, and at a glance only indicate that low-level Italian football is seriously messed up, not how the leagues were supposed to function. is there policy on this? i only reverted one of the IP's changes, on 2009–10 Serie B, where they had changed the qualification column to indicate that the playoff winner had directly won promotion. —Ed Cormany (talk) 15:36, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Only those teams leaving the league should be shaded. If there is a team who originally finished in a relegation or promotion spot, but nevertheless stays in the league on special circumstances, e.g. a revoken license for another team, the line of this team is unshaded and a footnote should be added under the table as well. See also 2009–10 Fußball-Regionalliga#Regionalliga West for an example. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:26, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I also fixed the 2009–10 Serie B table. The other tables should be changed in this way as well. Please take a look at the code, especially regarding the marking of play-off winners and general notes.--Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:45, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

The Serie D tables look OK to me. Three or so footnotes for each, but that's alright. Eldumpo (talk) 19:24, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Njaaaaa... they are too busy with their colors. Usually, the darker shades of green or red are used for visual indication of direct promotion or relegation, with the lighter shades used for possible play-off matches. For lower leagues in general, there is no need for more colors such as yellow, orange, blue or pink as in the top-level leagues.

On a side note - why are the English Football League tables using that tartan green color as indication for their promotion play-off spots? The standard lighter shade of green (also used for e.g. the 4th place in the Premier League) would be a much better fit, and the looks would also not be as fugly as they currently are (at least from my point of view)... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

@Soccer-holic: the teams that have left the league are marked with (R) after its name and color shading is intended to indicates the direct relegation/playoff zone. The main problem w/ those tables IMO is the color choice – when you have a palette of bright green, red, orange and yellow it really makes the table unreadable. Different (preferably light and subdued) shades of two colors should be enough. Also I'd recommend grey for special occasions like disbandment of the team – see examples here and there. —WiJG? 15:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Quality scale: Anel Raskaj

Im asking for second opinions on the quality scale of Anel Raskaj, Halmstads BK, in my personal opinion its either C or B, asks for others opinions as im the original creater of the article. --> Halmstad, Charla to moi 22:06, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Where can we find firm criteria by which to assess biographical articles? Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries

Would someone be able to have a look at the lead for this? I'm in the middle of work on the technical side of it (images, alt text, sorting etc). I think the explanation of what countries are and aren't in the list are good, but I'm quite stumped at how to do a succinct lead introducing 50+ separate leagues. Thanks in advance, --WFC-- 01:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Have a couple of sentences at the top of each league's section introducing that league? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Cruft?

As a supporter of a lower league team, the articles of my heroes are free from the extremes of fancruft and there are few cup-finals and heavily promoted pre-season tours to be distracted by. But because of an interest in things Ecuadorian, Antonio Valencia found his way onto my watchlist some time ago. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Man Utd players receive a lot of "overenthusiastic" edits, but is there any consensus as to where we draw the line at inclusion of goals and appearances? I can happily accept debut, first (competitive) goal, first goal in European competition, appearances and goals in major finals or season defining matches. Various editors have wanted to include every pre-season friendly goal and appearance, a description of the manner of scoring of each goal he has for the team, and now a goal in the glorified friendly that is the Community Shield. I would argue that if each goal he got for Wigan and El Nacional did not need noting, then neither do his Manchester United ones, but to enforce this, I would end up in an editwar. Does one just abandon all senior players' articles at such high profile clubs to those who mistake Wikipedia for Twitter, perhaps with the hope of restoring some order and proportion after they retire and drop off the attention span of the masses, or is there a standard or example of best practice to which we can refer those who fail to distinguish between an encyclopaedia and a fansite? Where do we draw the line? Kevin McE (talk) 10:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of building a comprehensive biography. Given time and a decent amount of sources, one could probably write a GA-class article about any recent league player. The trouble is that players in the bigger leagues get more exposure and therefore they will naturally receive more edits from enthusiastic IPs. I think my point is, don't limit the content of one article just because Gillingham players don't get as much exposure as Man Utd players. – PeeJay 18:06, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"A comprehensive biography"? That would be a book. These are meant to be encyclopaedic articles. Where do we draw the line between encyclopaedic coverage and "overenthusiastic" fans (by no means always operating as IPs)? Kevin McE (talk) 19:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Hence why we only write about biographically significant events, such as a player's first goal of the season or a sending-off. – PeeJay 19:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I generally agree with you Kev. But I think the community shield is a tricky one. It's a friendly, but to shamelessly paraphrase a well known lager company it's probably the biggest friendly match in the world. --WFC-- 00:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

First goal for a club is fine, but whence do you derive consensus for first goal every season? Kevin McE (talk) 14:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

What makes a first goal more important or notable than the second goal? BigDom 14:47, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Non-notable pre-season goals you say? A bit like this? I'd take it out but it would probably return by tomorrow!!!--Egghead06 (talk) 15:36, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Distillery vs Dundela

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillery_F.C.

How can Distillery have played Dundela in December 1880 when Dundela's page states club founding in 1895? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.206.64 (talk) 21:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

A different Dundela team by the same name perhaps? Or a typo? GiantSnowman 17:51, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Flickr Photos

Hey, I was wondering how to search more effectively for football photographs on Flickr. I found this photo and some others and I think the licensing allows us to use it. That Getty Images confuses me though.--EchetusXe 11:08, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

That photo is OK to upload. Just check [4] for the symbols used on photos. Avoid anything that has Getty Images on it and be careful as some on Flickr users pass off press photos as their own. The photos from the last World Cup were prone to this. If it looks too professional (high quality action shots, very good close-ups), it might be worth a double check.--Egghead06 (talk) 11:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

How would you go about asking them to change their license?--EchetusXe 17:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I like this tool. And I believe the Getty thing is fine. It is not a Getty image but Getty and Flickr have partnered to make licensing easier for Flickr uploaders. Also see Wikipedia:Upload/Flickr for a graphical representation of the icons. You can use the advanced search feature at Flickr to trim down search results to hose with the appropriate licensing. It is true that you have to make sure yourself that the images are not ripped off by the uploader and licensed incorrectly.Cptnono (talk) 21:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Senior career Infobox: league appearances & goal reference

Hello... what websites do you use to reference a player's league appearances and league goals in the InfoBox, especially played outside the UK football league? The reason I ask is, I am looking at Ricardo Carvalho's SoccerBase entry ([5]) and I see that his SoccerBase career data and his Wikipedia InfoBox entry don't match.. should SoccerBase be used to update his Wikipedia InfoBox entry (assuming SoccerBase is accurate)?

Also, should his loan appearances and goals for Leça, etc., be replaced with (?) (?) as they do not have a reference? Thanks

JMHamo (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Soccerbase is fine for English clubs. Or Neil Brown's site for older players. The reason Carvalho's soccerbase figures differ from those in the infobox is because someone's included apps/goals in all competitions in the infobox, rather than just those in the domestic league as it should be. The figures in his career stats table down the page are sourced to National football teams, which is accurate enough for well-known international players from well-known countries. There is a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Links which contains football sites of all (OK, some) nations, but whether its contents are reliable and up-to-date I couldn't say. hope this helps, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Players now meeting WP:ATHLETE

Would an admin mind restoring the Jack Midson, Sam Deering and Danny Philliskirk articles, as they have now made appearances in League Two per this? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 16:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Done dude, done. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Might as well have started the Philliskirk article from scratch.--EchetusXe 18:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Spent ten minutes tidying it up. Argyle 4 Life^talk 20:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The salted Ray Putterill has also played in the FL now. BigDom 20:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Unsalted and re-tagged. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Please note, I'm happy to undelete articles on request, but the onus is on the requestor to ensure the the restored article is up to snuff otherwise I'll end up looking like more of an arse than normal...! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Might be worth starting that one from scratch. --WFC-- 21:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting the feeling that it might be worth starting each of these bad boys from scratch. Best bet is to ask for "unsalting" of salted players, but beyond that, start from scratch per WFC. Easy, and no admin needed... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I have my own opinions on players who play one League Two match, but as these guys will clearly keep going (injury permitting) I'll let that slide. That aside, I think a great job has been done with all the above articles. Ironically, players who win promotion from the Conference tend to start off as better articles than players from bigger clubs who start off in the League Cup or on loan. --WFC-- 01:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Mike Green (goalkeeper) as per [6] Kingjamie (talk) 19:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It should be located at Mike Green (footballer born 1988) or Mike Green (footballer born 1989), depending on his exact DOB. GiantSnowman 19:34, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Bristol Rovers OP says 1989. [7] Kingjamie (talk) 19:56, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Could an admin plse undelete James Ellison (footballer born 1991) - he played for Burton in the League Cup last night?--Egghead06 (talk) 06:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

HELP (or should i say "Ayuda"?)!!

Lest an edit war erupts, i need some assistance with this matter (some Spanish users would REALLY come in handy right now!):

A user with a recent "history" has been changing Javi Martínez's birthplace. I replied to him once that all three external links which appear in the player's page say he was born in Estella-Lizarra (and i add here, as in the user's talkpage, a FOURTH one - please see here http://www.futbolme.com/com/jugadores.asp?id_jugador=3986), including the OFFICIAL website of Athletic Bilbao.

To the contrary "effect", we have his word (and a revert summary which is in no way explicatory - see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Javi_Mart%C3%ADnez&diff=378162667&oldid=378031247), and the Spanish wiki entry. About the latter, one would think that a Spanish piece about a Spanish player would be enough source for validation, but it's not ref'd, who's to say it's a correct insertion?

Please, inputs here, so we can end this discussion before it gets out of hand. Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added an inline ref to Athletic's website, and a note in the edit summary pointing to a comment on the article talk page. Won't necessarily stop the other editor changing it without supplying a source, but if they do, it's arguably vandalism. People don't always appreciate the need for referencing reliable sources on BLPs. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:45, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well the two towns are less than a mile apart, and it is unclear from Google maps where one starts and the other stops. Ayegui is for at least some functions (tourism and public transport are evident from the website) under the auspices of Estella, which has 7 times the population: Estella boasts a hospital with a maternity ward. It sounds very plausible that he was physically born in Estella, but born to a family resident in Ayegui, or even that if talking to someone in the area he would say that he is from Ayegui, but farther afield it is more worthwhile refering to Estella, as the <2000 population of Ayegui is unlikely to have impacted on the national or international consciousness. Is our usual intention to record the place of residence at birth or the location of the hospital? Kevin McE (talk) 17:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I beleave the answer to Kevin´s question should be neither of the choices, but the place where the birth actually happend, meaning, the place of the maternity, if he was born there, or the place wherever the birth happend, if it wasn´t in the maternity. The place of residence of his family at birth shouldn´t count for that purpose. As curiosity, there are "funny" cases of people that were born inside an airplane during a flight. I can´t remember any now, but if anyone does, please say the result of the passport birthplace for the person born in that situation. FkpCascais (talk) 04:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Request for photographs and images

To help address the many requests for photographs People-photo-bot has moved article talk pages from Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people and Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of sportspeople to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of association football people if it contains the template {{WikiProject Football}}. Members of this project are invited to address the requests for images listed. Please note that some articles may now have an appropriate photograph and that the need-image flag has simply not been removed, this can also be checked using the Image Existence Checker link on the category page. If a page has been incorrectly moved please inform me on my talk page.--Traveler100 (talk) 17:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Can that be added on to the err '{{Football|class=Start|importance=Low}}' thing?--EchetusXe 22:07, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

At the moment {{football}} doesn't have a photo parameter, although I'd certainly be happy to see one in the future. I suspect you'll probably have seen 100s of these edits on your watchlist, but for the benefit of people who might not have, you can currently add a photo to this category by tagging a talk page with {{reqphoto|association football people}}. Regards, --WFC-- 00:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Definition of "Foreign Player"

Can anyone point me to an official definition of a "Foreign Player"? For context, it's in relation to List of foreign Scottish Premier League players which defines a foreign player (in the context of Scotland) as one that was born outside the British Isles? Also related to a discussion here. Thank you. --HighKing (talk) 17:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the simple reason for that list having that criteria is that a list that included English, Welsh and both types of Irish as "foreigners" would be implausibly long. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:00, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like it's a makey-upey list then? No? There's nothing official about the list. It can't be used to determine eligibility for the Champions League using Home Grown players? --HighKing (talk) 18:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

There are no rules of that nature in Scottish football that I'm aware of. Another valid reason for not counting "British Isles" players as foreigners is the sheer number that would have a theoretical dual nationality between Scotland and that other nation. Why should Aiden McGeady (for argument's sake) count as a "foreigner" (given that he plays for Ireland) when he and both of his parents were born in Scotland? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:15, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, so "foreign players" isn't a definition by the Scottish FA, as far as we know. So what use is the list? What is the article relevant to? Who decided on the definition of "foreign"? Good point about Aiden McGeady, but what then about Roy Keane? The UEFA rules state ‘Home-grown players’ are defined by UEFA as players who, regardless of their nationality or age, have been trained by their club or by another club in the national association for at least three years between the age of 15 and 21. The UEFA rule does not contain any nationality conditions. It also applies in the same way to all players and all clubs participating in competitions organised by UEFA. So it's not done, in fooball clubs, based on nationality. --HighKing (talk) 18:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Participations in national teams count as well. FkpCascais (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a weird definition of foreign. Many Scottish players are developed between those ages by English clubs (eg Graeme Souness, John Wark or Darren Fletcher). If and when they played in the SPL, they would count as "foreigners" because they weren't "home grown". Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what the proposals for the Premier League are. See here. --HighKing (talk) 18:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• It doesn't use the word "foreign" anywhere though. Red herring. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

That's kinda the point. If there's no definition of "foreign" being used officially, what's notable about the article? Who decides that "foreign" means? Also, this article gives another good overview (and uses the word "foreign"). This example is a fans forum for a poll on best foreign player, and it includes Roy Keane. This BBC article compares where today's premier league players come from with a decade ago, and include RoI players as foreign. This article defines "foreign" as any player not eligible for the National Team. This Newspaper article defines foreign as anyone who isn't British. --HighKing (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The fact there appears to be different definitions of the term "foreign player" justify the method used by the author of the article, which included the ROI and EWNI. It is not our job to determine if the article itself is notable or not here, the issue is the term "foreign player" and if there is an official (UEFA, FIFA, SFA) position on it. BritishWatcher (talk) 18:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I have come across this article [8] which says:

"There has been some confusion and much debate in recent days about whether or not Nacho Novo can play for Scotland," said SFA chief executive Gordon Smith.

"On one hand, the Fifa regulations say that George Burley can pick eligible players who hold a British passport - and, on the other, we have the gentlemen's agreement with the other Home Associations that says that we will pick players based on their bloodline."

That was in 2008, i dont know if there has been changes since then, but according to that it doesnt sound like FIFA view English people to be "foreign" when it comes to Scotland and there for nor are people of the Isle of Man and Channel Islands which are not part of the United Kingdom. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:04, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I will just like to remind everybody that the article is stable and there has not been any debate regarding any player neither nobody wanted to incorporate other British nations in it. On the other hend, the list has been very usefull to show the non-domestic players that played in the Scottish Premier League. FkpCascais (talk) 22:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree, there is no need for a change and the list is of use to the reader. It also basically matches the list found at List of foreign Premier League players although that too should say British Isles rather than just Great Britain and Ireland. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:21, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Manchester City F.C. 4–1 Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 3–4 Manchester City F.C.

Are these games really worth of a separate article? I think no. Opinions? --Angelo (talk) 08:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Definitely not. The first one was surely no more notable than City's 4–1 wins against Spurs on 15 January 1930 or 17 March 1954, and nobody would write articles about those games. As for the second one, coming from three goals behind has been achieved many times so nothing special there either. BigDom 08:47, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Coming from being behind 3-0 in an away fixture to win 3-4 is not exactly an everyday occurrence, but I agree with you that it may still have happened enough other times so as to be not particularly notable, or notable enough. However, coming from behind in that manner with only 10 men has happened exactly how many times before? Would you care to cite some references to other away games won in this manner by other teams to prove your point? Thanks. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 17:59, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, Manchester United 5–3 win at Spurs a few years ago is one that immediately comes to mind. On 4 December 1960, Burnley came from FOUR goals behind to get a draw, again at Spurs. On 23 August 1958, Manchester City came from three goals behind at Burnley to win 4–3. On 13 September 1924, Blackburn came from three behind at Burnley and won 5–3. On 1 January 1896, Burnley themselves came from three goals down at Bury to win 4–3. Indeed, on the second ever weekend of the Football League on 15 September 1888, Burnley came from three behind to beat Bolton Wanderers 4–3 away. I don't know much about the results of other clubs, but I assume that most have achieved the feat at least as many times. Also, I admittedly don't know if there were dismissals in those games but they do show that a three-goal comeback is not unheard of. BigDom 18:38, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it was my bad to have written "in this manner" in my challenge above. So let me address that now ... what I meant by that phrase was "away from home, coming back from being at least 3 goals down, AND doing so with only 10 men (or at least less players than the opposition; 9 against 10 would also count, and so on)." All of your cited examples meet the first two criteria but, as far as I can determine, NONE of them meet the third one. I had already agreed with you in my first post that matches meeting the first two criteria are perhaps not "notable enough." Clearly it is the third criterion (in this case the dismissal after the first half ended of Joey Barton for his cussing out of the referee) that makes the comeback all the more notable. It was comeback matches where the comeback team was at a numerical man disadvantage in addition to an away disadvantage and a heavy score deficit disadvantage that I was challenging you to cite. So I now repeat my challenge ...

BTW, most people consider the Eusebio-led comeback of Portugal against North Korea, from being 3-0 down to win 5-3, as one of the most notable World Cup games ever played. Why is that do you think? I suspect it wasn't because Kenneth Wolstenholme in his game commentary came up with, "... certainly the North Koreans may not be very tall, but they're quick, they're very, very nippy, and they can jump as well"? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:11, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Might just as well say this game, played under similar conditions to the City 4-1 game, was worthy of an article (well, I might, but most people wouldn't :-). Further, I don't really see why any of the games in Category:Premier League matches is article-worthy, apart from possibly the Battles of Old Trafford. Where the game has no aftermath and no lasting coverage apart from being the answer to a trivia question, a sentence or two in the season article is plenty. Nor do I see why the Charity/Community Shield appears to be automatically notable. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I would especially say that Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 9–1 Wigan Athletic F.C. is not notable. Any article that feels the need to say "x is notable because..." in the first sentence is usually non-notable. This game is apparently notable because it equalled the highest number of goals by one team. If it had set a new record, then maybe. But otherwise, it was just another match. BigDom 09:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

None of those seem notable to me. Does anyone think that the Copa Hermandad match/friendly competition between Everton and Everton de Viña del Mar is notable? I'm pretty sure it's not, but wasn't definite about starting an AfD. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 09:35, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that was even less notable than the PL matches. AfD seems like the way forward there. BigDom 09:38, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

For your interest, I have nominated the two articles above for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tottenham Hotspur F.C. 3–4 Manchester City F.C. and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manchester City F.C. 4–1 Tottenham Hotspur F.C.. --Angelo (talk) 10:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

This is just the problem folks. There are no guidelines for what is a notable match. I asked last week if there were before creating articles and was glad I did. To go to alot of effort to write the articles only for someone to say 'not notable' is a great disincentive. Why is the Community Shield notable? Why is the annual MLS All-Stars game notable? We need clear guidelines....--Egghead06 (talk) 11:59, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

"Why is the annual MLS All-Stars game notable?" Errrrm, you've stumped me! Might it possibly be because it features a team made up of all the best players in the MLS? Honestly, I think that part of your comment reveals much more about how parochial and limited your own perspective is - not all football is played in the UK. However, I do agree with the rest of your comment ... there does need to be some guidance for what constitutes "notable" otherwise to delete such articles once others have gone to the effort of creating them does appear to be a bit like rejecting a piece of string because it is not long enough. :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 18:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

The significance of the Ballet on Ice (which would be a more appropriate title than Manchester City F.C. 4–1 Tottenham Hotspur F.C.) is from marking the moment when City became viewed as genuine title contenders - the point when the glory years under Mercer and Allison began in earnest. Being from the days when Match Of The Day only had cameras at one ground, it is the foremost recorded example of that side in their pomp (the 4–3 win over Newcastle to clinch the title was not shown, the cameras were at Old Trafford instead). That said, I've always been a mergist on these issues. Outside cup finals etc. I typically favour material being incorporated in the relevant season article if it exists, particularly for occasions where the match was of greater significance to one team than the other. Oldelpaso (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I would consider both of these articles as notable, but then I would. I would strongly suggest that these two articles are not deleted, such an action might create an extremely vague precedent. The issue here is what exactly constitutes notable. Be that a game, a player, a coach, a manager and all else in football. We need a guideline. Can we agree one that suits all and avoids any potential conflict of interest?

I note many commenting here have created acticles that themselves could be considered by some as not very notable (not me). It would be a waste for that effort and data to be deleted if it didn't meet an unwritten rule.

It would be a shame to delete these articles (those in question). Please consider the minimum action, the movement of this data into any relavant season article and allow those that created them the time to do so. Thanks. gonads³ 17:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

On the issue of the separate match pages, I made the two match pages because I believed they are both important matches in Manchester City's history. Also, I have invested quite a lot of time in creating these articles and other users, such as Falastur2 ^Talk have valued them as they have been looking for users to expand Manchester City's range lack of Wikipedia articles. Hence I thought a match page for the two aforementioned and very well known matches were a good idea. Furthermore, there is a page on Tottenham's 9-1 win against Wigan and that match page is allowed so therefore on that premise, and on the basis there is no official rule/line on specific match pages on Wikipedia, I believe there is no argument to delete these pages (Stevo1000 Talk 18:33, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that finals of major competitions should be treated as automatically notable. From an English perspective, this would mean that all FA Cup and Football League Cup finals, and all Community Shields would be considered notable, as well as all Champions League, Europa League, Cup Winners' Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup finals. Other than that, I think that any matches that received significant media coverage after the fact should also be considered notable. The problem is how to define "significant media coverage". – PeeJay 18:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd personally say that both of these games were notable, and would agree with PeeJay's idea above. They are the foremost matches in City's history and have acquired legendary status amongst the fans; not only that but they both received significant press coverage afterwards over the events of the games. How many games have ever become so renowned as to be known by a nickname rather than the score, anyway? The Battle(s) of Old Trafford I can think of. Any others? I'm not sure; I can't think of any. Incidentally I agree with Oldelpaso that the 4-1 article should have been named The Ballet on Ice rather than going by the score, for the very reason that The Ballet on Ice has become famous in English football history under that name. In fact, not so long ago The Mirror ran this piece remembering the game in a series of articles about memorable moments from footballing history. On top of this, the other game is, let's not forget, the game highlighted by neutral, leading national commentators as "the greatest cup comeback of all time", These are hardly a flash-in-the-pan reaction to good scorelines, as some appear to suggest earlier in this debate. Falastur2 ^Talk 19:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

As one who did comment above on those two matches' apparent lack of notability, having read the explanation here of the 'Ballet on Ice' in Manchester City's history, I withdraw the comparison with my club's League Cup game. However, please understand that to assess general notability, the reader has to see in the article evidence of the match's importance in the grand scheme of things and aftermath or legacy as demonstrated by significant ongoing media coverage after the event. With respect, there's nothing in either article to show that. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Any event that can create a vernacular term such as "Ballet on Ice" that is still being used in the English language over 40 years later to fondly refer to it is indeed a notable event. Surely such an event is much more notable than an event that merely created "significant media coverage after the fact" because those events still don't leave a legacy of adding a new expression to the common English language that refers to them. Was the "Battle of Britain" just another air battle? Was "Trafalgar" just another sea battle? So in that context I ask, was the "Ballet on Ice" just another football match? If it was, then why do we have the legacy of that expression in our common football culture in order to refer to it?

IMO the only real problem with the "City-Spurs 4-1" article is its current title. The article suggests that it's just another league game in over 130+ years of such league games - hardly notable, whatever the scoreline and whichever teams took part in it. The title needs to be changed to "Ballet on Ice" ASAP. Because it is as a definition of that cultural expression that the article belongs in Wikipedia, not as a record of just another football match. If 50 years from now I was someone reading a novel set in Manchester and one of the characters in the book referred to having been present at the "Ballet on Ice" game at Maine Road I would probably want to look up in an encyclopedia what that term was referencing, just as I might also want to look up what and where Maine Road was - which is why that football stadium has its own article too. This is no different a situation than some young person today wishing to look up the term "Battle of Britain" in an encyclopedia because they first came across the term in a novel set during the Second World War.

As for the football significance / notability of the game ... it is particularly notable right now because there is currently "significant media coverage" (PeeJay's criterion) worldwide WRT all of the foreign "Galacticos" that Manchester City is currently adding to its squad, and this article serves to document that the Season 1967-68 was the last season in English League football that the championship was won by a team that consisted of ONLY English players. That is a notable fact and a statistic quite worthy of being captured in an encyclopedia in its own right. Arguably it was after that season that the "foreign intrusion" into English league football initially began, an issue that has now reached its zenith forty odd years later in this upcoming season's need to register 25-man squads. So which would be the most appropriate match to capture for posterity in a Wikipedia article out of all 42 of the league games that the last all-English League champions team played in that pivotal season? Surely the one that even Match of the Day dubbed the "Match of the Season"?!

Add to those above reasons that this game was ALSO notable for being played in severe artic weather conditions that by rights should have had the match postponed; within the modern Premier League or Football League environment that match would not have been allowed to proceed if weather conditions such as those prevailed today. If I remember correctly, that First Division league game was played on December 9 1967 (not 1968 as currently stated in the article) which was the weekend of the First Round Proper in the FA Cup that season, many of which fixtures were devastated by the severe winter weather conditions across the country - over a dozen matches were postponed and at least two more were abandoned due to blizzards in the FA Cup alone. The primary reason the officials permitted the City-Spurs game to proceed was because the MotD cameras were at Maine Road and there would have been no program that night if the game had not have been played. It was truly amazing that the players could even stand up without falling over let alone produce such an entertaining game (within the limits of a frozen solid pitch and snow falling for almost the entire game).

So exactly how many highly notable facts does a Wikipedia article actually need to document before other editors finally acknowledge that the article has true merit and worth within the Association Football area of Wikipedia articles? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 17:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW, is it permissible to edit an article while it is in AfD discussion like this? For instance, at least 3 people have stated here (me being one of them) that the "City-Spurs 4-1 game" article would be much better titled "Ballet on Ice" - and that if it had of been called that initially, it might not have been selected for deletion. So is it still possible to change the article's title and modify its text in order to make its "notability" more readily apparent to the reader (as someone suggested above)? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:45, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Wishful thinking if participants at sports AfDs realised that the likes of WP:NSPORT and our internal guidelines are merely helpful rules of thumb, but that only the WP:GNG actually matters, there would be no need for this discussion. Watford 2–2 Reading has unquestionably received significant and consistent persistent media coverage. Would it survive an AfD if created? Answers on a postcard... --WFC-- 20:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The same goes for Burnley 2–1 Orient, especially round these parts. BigDom 18:10, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• I'm struggling to see the difference between these two articles and this non-football example. Just curious as it's on show here and it made me think. Can anyone help explain? Thanks. gonads³ 21:11, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Actually you bring up a good point there. If that Grand Prix is notable, even though the only coverage was just after the race that has subsequently been forgotten, then it could be argued that every Football League match ever played in England must be notable. Otherwise, it's double standards. BigDom 21:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• You could always ask. --WFC-- 21:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Equating a Grand Prix to a Football League game is pretty skewed. A Football League game is more akin to a Formula 3 race at best, in terms of wealth and crowds etc, whereas a Grand Prix is more like a World Cup quarter-final or bigger. There are fewer than 20 Grands Prix per year, and there are hundreds of Football League games per year, yet more people worldwide watch a Grand Prix than watch the Premier League. More than five times as many people watch a single Grand Prix than watch the Champions League Final. In the whole of football, only the World Cup final gets more viewers than a Grand Prix. Formula One is only the top 1% of the motor racing season, and only those individual races get their own articles. None of the other thousands of races get articles (even if someone wins by a huge margin...), and no domestic racing series gets standalone articles for its races, so why should the Premier League, which is just a domestic competition? Bretonbanquet (talk) 01:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• I was merely trying to compare these articles with a GP event that in itself wasn't especially eventful, but at the same time worthy of today's featured article. Skewed? I'm not convinced, but would a comparison of this to this make a fairer comparison? The former has articles for each event throughout the year. I think that maybe they could. It's clear that further discusion is required to help provide consistency with respect to notability here. Achieving this would help many editors understand better before commiting their time. Thanks. gonads³ 17:18, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, does anyone else find it to be slightly double-standards-ish (no personal insult intended, I assure you Angelo) that this debate is going on in parallel with, and yet completely independently from this AfD over the article in question? My point is particularly with emphasis to the view that it seems quite like the AfD will eventually decide for deletion, while this debate appears to be swinging the other way. It seems illogical to allow both processes to go on at the same time, and especially when an admin will eventually swing the axe as a result of that AfD and with no reference to this debate. We should have one combined discussion on this point in general, or we should all debate the AfD first and then come back to this point after the resolution of the said AfD - otherwise what we in fact have here is two opposing trials for the lives of articles, both stepping on each others toes and neither seemingly aware of the existence of the other. Falastur2 ^Talk 00:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this whole issue requires an RfC and perhaps some sort of policy. If the articles being discussed are deleted then that would set a precedent for the following to all go, IMO:

• Battle of Old Trafford (2003)
• Battle of Old Trafford (2004)
• Nottingham Forest F.C. 1–8 Manchester United F.C.
• Manchester United F.C. 9–0 Ipswich Town F.C
• Liverpool F.C. 4–3 Newcastle United F.C.
• Newcastle United F.C. 8–0 Sheffield Wednesday F.C.
• Portsmouth v Reading (29 September 2007)
• Battle of Bramall Lane --129.234.252.67 (talk) 09:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the above. Deleting is all too easy. Whats needed is a policy and guidelines as to just what is a notable match. Otherwise this all gets just too random and disorganised and, something we all should be concerned about, a disincentive to creating articles. Who in their right mind is going to create an article for what they believe to be a notable match just for a group of people operating under no guidelines to cry 'delete'? --Egghead06 (talk) 10:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Although !voting delete, I asked the closing admin to make a closing statement on both of the AfDs. I hope they do. Then again, I hope that Watford win the league this season. The best course of action IMO would be to let the AfDs run their course, then start an RfC before nominating/creating any more. --WFC-- 17:25, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added three RS to the AfD page, each of which demonstrate that this match is historic, not only in the history of MCFC, but in the history of football. I request that those who have already given an opinion there return to review. --Dweller (talk) 21:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Seriously though, two wiki pages dedicated to 0-0 draws between Man U and Arsenal? At times wikipedia seems to slide away from being an encyclopedia into being a repository of media links. People need to ask themselves "if there was an encyclopedia on Manchester Utd, would it have 3 whole pages dedicated to just 1 game?". All very much OTT.Koncorde (talk) 11:36, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

No but you can see how it happens. I (or anyone else) picks up a book 'Memorable Games of (for example) West Ham' sees West Ham 10-0 Bury or West Ham 8-1 Newcastle (when Alvin Martin scored a hat-trick against 3 different 'keepers). Decides to write articles on them. Are they notable games - the club/the book/reputation/folklore and Google would seem to think so - Wikipedia - who knows?--Egghead06 (talk) 15:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh I know, I just remain amazed (and I consider myself an inclusionist!). The issue is, typically, that the match warrants a footnote, someone creates a wiki in a pique of nostalgia, it gets AFD'd, and in response editors leap in to pad out what was originally an interesting tidbit of information into a full blown article structured wholly around rote repeating of information you could get simply from a link to the relevant Sun article.Koncorde (talk) 15:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Thought we were building an encyclopedia. Now I know when nostalgia for a better and less angry time, when knowledge and expansion thereof were encouraged, comes over me I can just Google and take it from there--Egghead06 (talk) 16:08, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

You know I'm not attacking you Eggy :D I'm not attacking anyone, I'm culpable too. It's just startlingly predictable. Koncorde (talk) 19:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOTPAPER. I also fail to see which of the "nots" that most of these games fail. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:17, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I have no wish to labour any point on this subject (no really!) but would point out even as this discussion goes on we have Charlton Athletic F.C. 7–6 Huddersfield Town F.C. created. IMHO this is the type of article that should be encouraged. I'll say no more. The drive is towards deletion and brevity in this modern world of sound bites.--Egghead06 (talk) 05:27, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The difference with that match is that it actually still receives coverage, unlike the other games we are discussing that have just been lost in the mists of time, remembered only by the most ardent of the respective teams' fans. BigDom 07:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with Dom, that would seem to me to be a historically notable game as a matter of an official record a la Football records in England.

Meanwhile Jmorrison raised the spectre of WP:NOTPAPER, which is fine. But specifically a lot of these individual games fall under the criteria of WP:NNEWS particularly under the criteria of Wikipedia:Notability (events).

"News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia."

Specifically Utd playing Arsenal falls under WP:ROUTINE for instance. Koncorde (talk) 08:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Am loving the look of Football records in England. Its got the aforementioned 'West Ham 10-0 Bury' in it. Guess this must be a useful yardstick for notability then?--Egghead06 (talk) 08:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Isn't all that needs to be said, said with the note "West Ham United 10–0 Bury (Second round, second leg, 25 October 1983)"? Essentially we just return back to the point I made originally.

"that the match warrants a footnote, someone creates a wiki in a pique of nostalgia, it gets AFD'd, and in response editors leap in to pad out what was originally an interesting tidbit of information into a full blown article structured wholly around rote repeating of information you could get simply from a link to the relevant article."

I'm not strictly against an article for each historic game in that respect, but what is notable is the scoreline - not strictly the content of that result. The scorers are irrelevant (unless they achieved something themselves) the teams involved are pretty much irrelevant too (unless there was more to it - such as a rivalry or a match of significance other than its scoreline). Koncorde (talk) 09:49, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

To reply to myself for a moment, for instance WHUFC.com has an article on the subject: [9] Does wikipedia need to mirror any of that information?Koncorde (talk) 09:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

You have to take each match on its own merits. If a game from 50 years ago is still included in lists of the greatest comebacks, has been included in different books that are independent of each club involved and still receives general coverage then it is notable. If it is only a match that is notable in the history of one club but has been forgotten by everybody else, then it isn't notable. There's nothing else to it. BigDom 10:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)