Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Seattle Sounders FC task force/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Assessment

We need some definitive guidelines for assessing articles importance to this project. I would expect Seattle Sounders to be top, but I'm not sure about the players or the stadia. Your thoughts? DeMoN2009 20:02, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this as well. So far I've been rating most of the players, owners, and management as medium importance by default. Maybe the team management and owners should be rated higher, but it's going to be difficult to rate most of players during the team's inaugural season, because none of them have any real history with the team (though a few played for the USL Sounders). One option would be to rate the usual starters and notable international players as high importance, players the team has let go as low importance, and the rest as medium importance. That might work until the team has played a few years and has some more history. Anyone have other ideas? ← George ^talk 20:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Another thing to think about is how to treat articles related to the predecessors to the MLS Seattle Sounders FC - the USL Sounders and the NASL Sounders. Most of them should probably be covered by this task force, but their importance would probably be at least one level lower than the Seattle Sounders FC articles. So if the average FC player was rated medium importance, and key players were rated high importance, then the average USL player would be low importance, and the most notable players would be medium importance. Just a thought. ← George ^talk 20:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

A proposal on the importance ratings scheme:

Top - Team and season articles, lists of Sounders FC players and seasons

High - Stadium(s), Owners (current and previous), GMs (current and previous), All-Star players (selected as MLS All-star while with the club) and DPs, supporter groups, Coaches (current and previous),

Mid - All other players (current and previous), rivalries, minor cups

Low - NASL and USL teams players and other info, anything else

Some thoughts... I think we're going to want "Top" to be broader than one article. I also think the importance of things related to the Sounder FC should rank higher than things associated with the previous Sounders team. I've tried to apply those thoughts into this suggestion. What do you think? --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 01:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea for how to break things up. I'll add it as the scale to use to the task for page. I'm also going to go back through the articles I've rated so far and re-evaluate them; of course others should be free to do so too, as well as tag new articles. One caveat though - I think players that were traded away or let go before making any appearances (such as Jarrod Smith) should be low rated instead of mid. ← George ^talk 06:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added an importance scale to the task force page, based on Skotywa's ideas. ← George ^talk 07:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've completed tagging every article I can find related to either the Seattle Sounders FC, the USL Sounders, the NASL Sounders, or the Sounders Women. Pretty much everything in the last three categories are rated low importance, as they're only loosely related to the history of the Sounders FC. I've also cleaned up the categories structure a bit, requesting a couple renames and a deletion.

Our task force now covers 187 articles, though we should focus on articles rated top, high, and mid much more so than those rated low. We also have 30 articles lacking quality assessments. If someone gets a chance to rate them, by all means do. If not I'll try to take a crack at them when I have a chance. Cheers. ← George ^talk 14:58, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll try and find the time to do that if possible, though feel free to do so if you get there first. Really, we should be focusing on the lowest quality articles (stub-class if there are any) and getting them up to some standard. DeMoN2009 15:08, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Aye, we have five start and three sub quality articles of high importance. Those stick out as a place in need of clean up and expansion. ← George ^talk 15:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, I've assessed all the articles with tags on in the unassessed category - some articles may still need tags though - and should the Sounders Women article be top, high or medium importance for the project (I would go for high, but I wanted to know everyone else's thoughts) DeMoN2009 16:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The Seattle Sounders Women should probably be rated low, the same as the USL and NASL Sounders. The Seattle Sounders Women was the sister team to the now defunct USL Sounders (they shared the same management), not the current Seattle Sounders FC. ← George ^talk 17:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks - I wasn't too sure! DeMoN2009 19:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Article quality

One of the things I'd like to focus on as a participant in this task force is on the creation of good and featured articles. Once we get to the MLS off season (and vandalism and random IP editors are temporarily less interested) I plan to polish up the 2009 season article and try to get it elevated to WP:GA and also to nominate the team article as a WP:FA. This will be the first time I'll ever have attempted a featured article push, so it should be interesting. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 20:40, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that this is a common goal for that task force, and I'd be happy to help in whatever ways I can. It may be premature (and I've never personally attempted a feature article push either), but do you have any ideas on what the current article lacks that would move it closer towards FA status? I know we could use more pictures for sure, but do any sections need to be added, expanded, or cleaned up? ← George ^talk 04:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Speak of the devil. I am making a push for Qwest Field. I could try a nomination for FAC but want a thorough peer review to make the nomination process for featured smooth and to correct what I suspect will be at least a few screw ups on my part. Please see and comment: Wikipedia:Peer review/Qwest Field/archive1

I was also thinking about The main Sounders article. A peer review would be great from both this project and the community in general. The 2009 season page is ready to be nominated for GA. It will have to wait until after the season since it is an ongoing event, though. We also have several small articles (ECS, the local cups, etc) that may be able to meet GA with some work. Part of the purpose of GA was to recognize the shorter articles. I would love to get Sounders FC to Wikipedia:Good topics . If we want a real challenge, check out Ipswich Town and York City at Wikipedia:Featured topics.Cptnono (talk) 07:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It's always good to have a challenge, I suppose - though the Qwest Field article may be easier to improve as Seattle Seahawks fans could help with that as well. DeMoN2009 15:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I wish but don't think there is a Seahawks group. I still feel like a dick for removing a few things put in on Sundays since the IPs don't present sources (decibels, Sunday stat updates, etc). I was at a get together at a bar before the first game and heard three different numbers for the seismic reading picked up at the University of Washington!Cptnono (talk) 15:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you thought about starting a Seahawks WikiProject up? Or would there not be enough intrest? DeMoN2009 16:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I would only be somewhat interested in such a project and wouldn't put forth the needed effort to coordinate it. I also assume there is not enough interest among the community at this time.Cptnono (talk) 16:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, I started a project once, maybe twice, it really destroys your time to be able to do other things. DeMoN2009 16:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It might happen naturally if the team ever wins a Super Bowl (or at least makes another deep playoff run), but it would be hard to start such a group from scratch now. Still, it's not a bad idea to try to recruit help from WP:NFL or WP:SEA if there are some specific crossover points (like the stadium). ← George ^talk 17:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we should consider a peer review to identify the gaps between us and FA status. I also concur regarding the 2009 season page and moving it toward GA. I hadn't heard of good topics before, but that's a great idea. I think we're quite close to that now; a GA season article might seal the deal. ← George ^talk 17:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Answering George's question, no I don't have much else to add to the main team article. I exhausted all of the resources I was planning on adding when I contributed the extended history section a few months back. I think the Inaugural season section will grow a bit before the end of the season, but beyond that, I don't know of much else that needs to be added. I agree with Cptnono that a peer review would be in order before a full on WP:FA push. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 03:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Oops, the season article actually might be OK now. I was concerned about unfolding events but it isn't day to day and it is stable so it may not be a concern of GA criteria "Stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute."

I enjoy going off of User:Ealdgyth/GA review cheatsheet.Cptnono (talk) 04:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Skotywa on the peer review, and Cptnono on the GA push. Only thoughts I have on the main Seattle Sounders FC article is more pictures. They're hard to come by, but ideas would include one showing the team with the US Open Cup (would help the season article too), one to illustrate the golden scarf ceremony, and one showing the Sound Wave band. Also, would it make any sense to mention the USL or NASL heritage of the team more? They're already mentioned in the article, but I wonder if they wouldn't deserve a paragraph or two between them at the beginning of the history section, mentioning when they were around, how they impacted the city, and whatever championships they accomplished. Just some thoughts on pie-in-the-sky improvements; I think what we've got so far is really well done. Great job guys! ← George ^talk 06:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we are good on images for the most part. Image MOS can really screw up articles. If it does not fit it simply does not fit. The focus is on the text. Of course, expansion of text = more images. "Team name, badge and colors unveiled" (this should probably be adjusted to "Colors and badge" per Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Clubs) and Golden scarff could support images. We should poke around with it just be careful to not go overboard.

"In a press conference on November 13, 2007, the city of Seattle was awarded an expansion team.[17] The announcement provided a continuation to a long-standing soccer tradition in Seattle that has included the Seattle Sounders of the North American Soccer League from 1974 to 1983 and the Seattle Sounders of the USL First Division from 1994 to 2008.[18]" summarizes the heritage enough for me.

We have a good base. Sounders FC was the first GA MLS team page and FA shouldn't be too hard. Th season page might be able to skip GA and go straight to peer review as long as we get it tight.Cptnono (talk) 07:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Qwest FAC

Qwest had a small peer review and now it needs support/oppose votes at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Qwest Field/archive1 for consideration. I hope you will all support it of course but if you see room for improve it don't be shy and speak up! Also, for the sake of transparency, I don't think anyone here has made too many edits on there to have any bias issues but please mention you are part of this task force if you do support it.Cptnono (talk) 18:59, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The peer review should be ending for the main Sounders FC page soon!Cptnono (talk) 18:59, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Round 2.5 of the Qwest FAC is open gentlemen. Although I would appreciate the support, don't shy away from making criticism or comments if you see something new from last time. And please make a mention that you are with this taskforce if supporting so that everything is in the open. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Qwest Field/archive2 Cptnono (talk) 00:04, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

A call for pictures of the players (repost)

I posted this over on Talk:Seattle Sounders FC a while back, but the state of these articles/pictures are still pretty much the same, so I'm reposting it here...

I figured it was worth a post here to ask if anyone has any quality pictures of the Sounders FC players. I've uploaded everything I had that was any good, but there's still a number of player articles without any picture of the player. If you have a good picture of one of the players with a missing picture and are willing to "donate" it to Wikipedia, please upload it.

The following players don't have any picture in their article at all:
Sébastien Le Toux, Tyrone Marshall, Sanna Nyassi, Peter Vagenas, Zach Scott, Taylor Graham, Michael Fucito, Evan Brown, Lamar Neagle, Terry Boss, and Stephen King.

The following players have old pictures of them in gear from a previous team:
Brad Evans, James Riley, Fredrik Ljungberg, Leonardo González, and Sigi Schmid.

I added pictures to the following articles, but if you have something better, please swap it in:
Fredy Montero, Steve Zakuani, Patrick Ianni, Tyson Wahl, Nathan Sturgis, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, and Roger Levesque.

The following players are the only players that already had what I would call a good picture in their article:
Chris Eylander, Osvaldo Alonso, Kasey Keller, and Nate Jaqua.

--SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 23:45, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I have any images myself that can satisfy this, but be aware that you can use some images from Flickr, if they have the correct licensing. I believe that this page and this page can be used to search for images with the correct license (I included a search for "sounders" in both, but you can search for whatever people may have tagged).

Be sure to check those images carefully, even if they look like zoomed out shots of tiny players. I found this one in high resolution, which could probably be cropped and used for James Riley. This one has a few players in high resolution, which could also be cropped into several images. But you get the idea. I'll try to check some of my own pictures and see if I happened to capture anything worthwhile. ← George ^talk 05:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I've uploaded a couple more pictures and I've also noticed some other pictures related to Sounders FC that are not currently being used. What's the proper procedure for identifying these pictures? Should I add the project template to their discussion pages? Maybe I should just add them to a "Sounders FC picture" category? What do you guys think? --SkotyWA^T|_C 19:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the project template should be added, with class=image, importance=NA, and seattle=yes. I think that would put them in the right place anyways, might have to play with it a bit... ← George ^talk 21:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Two new lists

Wanted to let everyone know that I've created two new Sounders FC-related lists, based on the tables extracted from the team and season articles: List of Seattle Sounders FC seasons and List of Golden Scarf recipients. Cheers. ← George ^talk 16:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Seattle Sounders FC up for FA review

I recently nominated the article for FA review. I wanted to post a notification of that here and invite any of the project members to join in the review and provide feedback. Thanks! --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 17:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm pleased to announce that after two rounds of FAC review as well as two independent copy edits that Seattle Sounders FC was promoted to featured article status today. These are the edits for the promotion: [1] [2] [3] [4]. We just have to wait for a bot to update the article talk page and add the FA star to the main article (woohoo!). Many thanks to project members George and Cptnono for their help responding to all of the comments and change requests during this process. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 20:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Badass. Do you want the honor of updating Wikipedia:WikiProject Football#Showcase, Skotywa? Cptnono (talk) 21:36, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Just did it. Thanks again for your help! --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 22:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Nice work! WFCforLife (talk) 07:45, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Great job - especially Skotywa for seeing to this the whole through way. I suspect another FAC push on the Qwest Field article and we'll have our second FA article soon! ← George ^talk 07:57, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, isn't the 2009 Seattle Sounders FC season close to being GA-quality..? ← George ^talk 08:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Content needs to be filled in for a good portion of the season. After that, it should be cake to get to GA. I also think that it needs a slight restructure to meet the status quo of other good season articles by grouping the prose together chronologically instead of by competition.

In regards to Qwest, the writing (general tweaks) wasn't sufficient for one of the reviewers still. I'll bring it back to peer review in 14 days (mandated clean-up period) if it does not receive a some attention before then.Cptnono (talk) 08:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Now that the FA review is complete for the team page, I'm moving my focus to the 2009 season article. Cptnono has been nice enough to set up a sandbox to make the improvements in here. I'll contribute all my work there, then we can cut-and-paste the entire work back into the article. My hope is that single edit will constitute enough churn in the article to nominate some fact in it for WP:DYK which would be awesome. --SkotyWA^T|_C 17:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

And that has been just a sandbox so don't worry about altering it greatly. I also started slacking on sources and spelling towards the end. Since the chronological review is common, I started adding in highlights from news coverage (trying not to exceed a couple lines per game) along with converting some of the listed awards into pros. The lists should stay but I wasn't sure if they should be prose as well. Have at it and feel to rip out anything and add anything else. Hopefully, we can get this one far enough along with our new found experience that the promotion process can go pretty smooth. Cptnono (talk) 21:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, has anyone seen a good published overview of the season. There are all sorts of things that we might find important and can find sources for. However, a couple RS discussing the importance of individual incidents at the end of the season might make this easier and help us not slip into mentioning potentially trivial information. Cptnono (talk) 21:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

All-time rosters

So I was looking through some of the football/soccer-related featured articles/lists/topics, and I noticed that the features lists for team players were named things like List of Aston Villa F.C. players, List of Gillingham F.C. players, and List of Ipswich Town F.C. players. Our player lists are named All-time Seattle Sounders FC roster and All-time Seattle Sounders (USL) roster. For consistency with our parent WikiProject, would anyone object to renaming these to List of Seattle Sounders FC players and List of Seattle Sounders (USL) players, respectively? Thought I'd ask here before proposing the rename officially. Cheers. ← George ^talk 01:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

No objection from me. I was just looking at those today as well trying to figure out how much work it would take to get the Sounders FC list to featured list status. Long term I'd love to see us have a complete featured topic like the one for York City F.C. --SkotyWA^T|_C 03:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and boldy made the move. It looks like the only articles that follow this "All-time roster" format are other MLS teams (except Toronto), and none of the featured football/soccer lists seem to.

I was also looking at what it takes to become a good or featured topic (which is what led me to these lists, in part), and trying to figure out the best way to approach aiming for that. The part of the criteria that worries me is the requirement that there be "no obvious gap (missing or stub article) in the topic. A topic must not cherry pick only the best articles to become featured together." To meet this coverage requirement, I think that a "Seattle Sounders FC" topic would look something like:

Seattle Sounders FC

Qwest Field

2009 Seattle Sounders FC season (replaces the list of seasons featured list that most team topics use, due to our short history)

List of Seattle Sounders FC players (now promoted)

Sigi Schmid (replaces the list of managers featured list that most team topics use, due to our short history)

Qwest Field is quite close to FA, and the 2009 season probably isn't far from GA, but the last two articles would need work. I was thinking that these could be promoted on our task force page, either as specific articles to focus on in the Tasks section, or as our monthly collaborations. Thoughts? ← George ^talk 10:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I could take on the List of Seattle Sounders FC players if you like? I say this for two reasons: firstly I'm looking for a few projects for Wikicup. But secondly and more seriously, I'm fairly involved at FLC, and have a reasonable idea of what they're looking for. WFCforLife (talk) 13:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be fantastic, WFCforLife! As someone familiar with featured lists, you're probably a good person to ask - is it possible for lists as short as the List of Seattle Sounders FC seasons to become featured lists? ← George ^talk 13:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

In short, no, but for a good or featured topic that wouldn't matter. You would need to include it in the nomination, but at that stage you would explain that it's ineligible to be featured. If there were any problems at that stage, I'm sure one of the FLC directors would be happy to confirm that its ineligible to be a featured list, and give their opinions on whether it was as good as it could be. WFCforLife (talk) 13:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

This is awesome! Thank you WFCforLife for diving in like this. Your recent changes already make it look a ton better. Even if we have trouble attaining the status of featured list, I think it can still become a good list can't it (with your help of course)? --SkotyWA^T|_C 18:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why it can't be featured. Obviously it needs a lot of work, but there's nothing stopping it. I'm having a couple of problems at the moment:

• I'm starting to work on the prose. Is there a decent source that says he was the Sounders' first ever captain?
• Also, is there anywhere that gives yellow and red card details for keepers? The MLS site doesn't seem to, but given that Keller has actually been sent off there must be a record of it somewhere. Individual match reports won't do I'm afraid.
• Has the roster been confirmed for 2010? Normally some sort of distinction would be added for players still playing for the club (colour, italics or whatnot), but I'm not sure if the roster is subject to change.

I'll post any other questions if I get stuck. WFCforLife (talk) 10:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Will these work...

• Source for Keller being the first captain: [5]. This is a preseason article (prior to their first season) which mentions that he's going to be the captain. Will this work?

• Another possibility: [6] this one mentions that he was the team captain in a pre-season exhibition.

• Source for Keller's red card listed in a stats summary page (rather than a match report): [7].
• I don't think the roster will be be confirmed until they get back from pre-season activities in Spain unfortunately.

Thanks again WFCforLife for taking this task on. The list is already looking really good. BTW, I was confused above about which lists we were talking about. The list of seasons and coaches probably can't be featured, right? But the list of players can be after we polish it up, right? --SkotyWA^T|_C 19:11, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

That's right. The lists of seasons and coaches can't be featured, but they would still need to be included in a good topic/featured topic nomination. According to criteria 3(c) here, they would still need to be peer reviewed. I think this project's immediate focus should be working on Schmid, because as your only head coach he might be a relevant alternative to the list of coaches. Once he was at GA I think you would have a good topic, and then getting Qwest promoted would give you enough featured content for a featured topic.

BTW, the soccernet source seems good, and one of the captain ones should do the job. As for the roster that's okay. What might be easier is if we can source the players who have actually left (and have a key for that for now). Longer term we'd need to do the opposite of course. WFCforLife (talk) 01:18, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing the players who've left is definitely achievable. Here's all that I know about:

• Here's a source for 3 of the 4 players that have left (Brown, Fucito, and Neagle) since the season ended. ref
• Sebastian Le Toux was taken in the expansion draft. ref
• Kevin Forrest was released on waivers. ref
• Jarrod Smith was released on waivers. ref

I'm pretty sure that's it. The rest of the players on the list are still with the team. --SkotyWA^T|_C 05:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

They have been "quiet" on their tryouts in Vegas and the draft is still coming up. Stuff won't be finalized for some time.[http://blog.seattlepi.com/sounders/archives/188982.asp for a little more info. --Cptnono

I've started working to clean up Sigi's article. ← George ^talk 12:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The list of players has been promoted, so I've updated the featured topic summary above. By my reckoning, Schmid and the 2009 season need to be Good Articles for a Good Topic, And if Qwest is promoted to a Featured Article, you would have a Featured Topic. WFCforLife (talk) 17:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice work, WFCforLife! I was thinking to rebuild the Sigi Schmid article in my sandbox, and try to expand it fivefold to create a DYK, but other editors began improving the article, and having a quality article is much more important than a DYK, so I've merged my changes over. We're definitely not GA yet, but it's getting better. BTW, if you're looking for another list to work on for the wikicup, the List of Golden Scarf recipients could use some love. The list itself is more or less complete (though pretty short), so I'm not sure if it could even get to featured list status, but you're the list master, so just thought I'd mention it. :) ← George ^talk 19:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that seems like an interesting one. Might have a go at that in couple of months. At the moment I'm concentrating my efforts on a few extremely large lists and articles, in the hope of getting Watford to a featured topic one day. The Watford player lists alone are going to total about 200-300kb, so I've got to work slowly enough to double-check every digit! WFCforLife (talk) 20:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure any of us would be happy to get another set of eyes on any of those when if when you need it WFC.

And Sigi's article has gone from 10-16b in less than 24hrs. Plenty of time to get it expanded. Let me know if you need anything on that one George.Cptnono (talk) 21:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but to be more specific, for DYK it has to have expanded fivefold in terms of prose. It's gone from 4199 characters to 6870 characters, which is great, but to apply for DYK we'd need to get up to 21k characters (roughly three times the current prose length) in 8-9 days. If you (or anyone) has time to expand it that much, I'm more than happy to try and help out, but I've been pretty busy with work lately. DYK would be cool for this article ("Did you know... that Sigi Schmid, the head coach of the Seattle Sounders FC, was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1996 for being on the first-ever American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) team?", etc.), but I think getting the article to B then GA quality is more important. That said, if we do create new, interesting articles (like new players that join the team but don't have an article), nominating them for DYK could be a good way to draw attention to the articles and get more eyes (and editors) involved in improving them. ← George ^talk 09:47, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The DYK process kinda penalises people who work on sports articles. It's impossible to get a DYK on a season article, and sportspeople are going to do the interesting things after they've become notable. There are a lot of sports articles with genuinely extraordinary hooks, but they'll never make the main page because they've been maintained properly. Shame really. WFCforLife (talk) 05:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Well then when better than the off season! I actually was just tinkering with another page that made DYK but I am more concerned with overall assessment. I think we have enough info available to do it. Worse comes to worse, we get it closer to a great peer review and then FA. I'm stuffing some info in but overall quality is of course better than bloat. Do me a favor and give some thoughts over there? A couple thoughts on neutrality, sentence structure, and general layout.Talk:Sigi Schmid#Recent work on this article.Cptnono (talk) 07:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Totally agree. We should worry about the quality first and foremost, and if the article happens to get to the required size for DYK, great, but if not, no biggie. What WFCforLife mentioned about sports articles being penalized because they're not usually that interesting until they've been notable for a while is absolutely true. It probably doesn't make much sense for us to target most existing articles for DYK, but we should keep an eye out - maybe newer (especially drafted) players would be interesting for their accomplishments in college/high school, and could quality for DYK very quickly after being signed to the team (and getting articles). ← George ^talk 01:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

It is looking like 5x is out of the question but we are well on our way to raising it on the assessment scale. Thanks for the thoughts on the talk page. Saw in the history that Skotywa grabbed some stuff. I haven't gotten to general clean up and wikifying myself but most of the information is in now. Go for it if anyone wants to rip anything out or add anything else in.Cptnono (talk) 12:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Blank showcase

Wanted to give everyone a heads up that even though it looks like I blanked the Showcase section, I'm in fact trying to switch it over to use a bot to generate our showcase content. It will appear blank until the bot runs next (which is about once a week). You can see an example of what the bot generated list looks like here. Cheers. ← George ^talk 22:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The bot ran this and seems to be working. However, I made a typo, so the headings are two levels deep instead of three. Don't worry about this for now - it should be fixed next time the bot runs. Cheers. ← George ^talk 23:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty cool. I like the announcement bot that you hooked up as well. Very nice. --SkotyWA^T|_C 00:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The best thing is that as this lists grows, we can have it include featured lists, former FA/FL/GA articles, and Did you know? articles, without having to manually go and update the list every time one of those articles changes status (which would cause us to invariably miss some of them). Hmm, I wonder if we have any DYK articles yet. I didn't include them in the bot-generated list, because I assumed it would be empty, but they could already exist... ← George ^talk 01:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm hoping to produce one with the 2009 season article by the end of the month. The rewrite is underway. --SkotyWA^T|_C 03:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if that will be possible. One thing I saw in the Did you know? rules was that an article must either be less than five days old, or it has to have expanded fivefold within the last five days. I hadn't known about those rules before, but I don't think the 2009 season article can do that.

I was looking to see if the Sigi Schmid article might be usable for DYK (Did you know... that on October 24, 2009, Sigi Schmid led the Sounders FC to his 125th career MLS victory, making him the winningest MLS coach of all time?), but the article is more than five days old already. There's an outside chance that I might be able to grow it fivefold, so I've moved the content to my sandbox to play with. I'm not going to bloat the article just for the sake of DYK though, so if it's not possible I'll just improve the article. We need to keep that five day rule in mind in the future. ← George ^talk 08:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It's just the prose that have to increase 5 fold. I learned this when I tried to nominate the club article a while back after I contributed the majority of the history section. I'm not sure if we'll have enough new prose for a 5x increase, but we'll see. --SkotyWA^T|_C 04:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Template

Any thoughts?Cptnono (talk) 23:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Dave Butler

I'm doing a list of Watford players in my sandbox, similar to the one I did for the Sounders. It's a slow process; there are literally over 1,000, and obviously with those sorts of numbers I need to make sure I get the stats right first time!

When fixing the DAB links, I came across this guy. According to my source, his career was ended by a crippling knee injury at Watford, and he became a physiotherapist at several English clubs, before actually becoming England's physio. The dates after he "retired" are patchy, but he definitely played for Watford in 1975, and helped coached them in the 1975–76 season. Just wondering if these could possibly be two different people? WFCforLife (talk) 01:35, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the article is a mashup of two different players from the 70's named Dave Butler (so it should be split into two articles). As far I can tell, the Sounders Dave Butler was a striker born in West Bromwich, England on March 30, 1953. He played for West Bromwich Albion F.C. from around 1969 or 1970 to 1973, then for Shrewsbury Town F.C. in 1973 or 1974, before moving to the NASL Sounders. Most of the biographical information in the Dave Butler article is probably about the Watford Dave Butler, with some information on the Sounders Dave Butler mashed on top. ← George ^talk 02:13, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Two different people then, Watford's David Butler was born on 23 March 1945 in Thornaby-on-Tees. I've got enough information to create a "good stub" (if that makes sense), and I can help cleanup the NASL Sounders player, but any ideas how we should name them? WFCforLife (talk) 17:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Any idea if one is particularly more notable than the other? One thought would be to use Dave Butler (soccer) for the one who played primarily in America, and Dave Butler (football) for the one who played mostly in England. Or if they're particularly notable for playing on certain teams, we could use the team names... ← George ^talk 00:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

I've been wanting to create a task force barnstar for a while now. It would be good to have a special award to give to editors who contribute significantly to task force articles. I especially think it would be cool to be able to give something like this to editors who help out that are not members of the task force (though I wouldn't want to limit it to that). I finally sat down and experimented in GIMP. Here are some ideas I came up with:

Do you guys like either of these? Do you have any other ideas for what the barnstar could look like? Do you know if there is any special process I have to go through to creat this barnstar? --SkotyWA^T|_C 06:16, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I think I prefer the one on the right, but I like them both... the colors of the one on the left just feel a bit off. Where did you get the picture of the scarf from? ← George ^talk 09:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The Lakers task force has one shown at Wikipedia:Awards by WikiProject so I assume that project specific page would be were it would go. Maybe make a mention on talk over there that you plan to do it just to make sure it is OK. I personally like the one on the left (the colors on the ball don't match the scarf it looks like, though). Barnstars are fun and the receiver should be totally happy with either! Make sure there aren't any weird copyright laws that would impact use of the Adidas logo.

Alternatively, you can consider swapping out the Image:FootballBarnstar.png parameter of the footy star on the user's talk page (hit edit and then copy and paste the source on to their page with the modified file name).Cptnono (talk) 10:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Where did you get the picture of the scarf from? I started with an image I found here. If there are any concerns about copyright issues, my daughter has the exact same scarf, so I can take a similar picture myself to ensure that it's all free content. Regardless, I should probably airbrush out the Adidas logo either way as I doubt that's something that's allowed (I'll do that tonight). I think I prefer the star+scarf choice too. --SkotyWA^T|_C 04:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've swapped out the scarf image for one that I took myself. I also carefully placed the scarf such that the Adidas logo is not visible. This version should be 100% legit. --SkotyWA^T|_C 05:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The scarf looks awesome! WFCforLife (talk) 05:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've created the barnstar and add a link to it on the project page. This was fun goofing around in GIMP. Thanks for putting up with my silliness. :) --SkotyWA^T|_C 08:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Awesome. Like the banner too.Cptnono (talk) 08:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, looks great! ← George ^talk 00:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Assessment

Why isn't the assessment grid showing our new featured list? I went poking around in there and it looks like a bot needs to run to update it. Just wait longer? --SkotyWA^T|_C 03:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Seattle Sounders FC articles by quality needs to be updated/ It currentl is at List-class when it needs to be at FL-class. Is that by a bot or by hand?Cptnono (talk) 04:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yup, it's updated by a bot which runs about once a week. It can be run manually too by using this tool and putting Seattle Sounders FC in the text box. I just ran it, so the table should be updated now. ← George ^talk 05:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, much better. Thank you George. I'm too impatient. --SkotyWA^T|_C 06:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

DYK opportunity

I think I've created an opportunity for a DYK piece. Back in September I had the idea to create a match final article for the U.S. Open Cup (ala 2009 UEFA Champions League Final). I started working on it here, but quickly lost interest as I wanted to push for the club article to get to WP:GA and hopefully WP:FA. The recent discussion above about limited DYK opportunities for sports articles reminded me of this side project. Over the weekend and today (not at work due to illness) I worked on this research project. The fruits of my labors are here: 2009 U.S. Open Cup Final.

There are usually a number of watch-dog editors who take notice when a relatively complete article appears and they take care of nominating it for DYK. If, after a day or two, this article is not already nominated, would one of you be interested in nominating it? I think it has a legitimate chance if an interesting hook is provided. Also, I'd appreciate it if someone could copyedit the article especially looking for any shortcomings I had with WP:NPOV. I think it's obvious that I'm a Sounders FC fan, but I don't want any bias to spill over into my contributions. Thanks! --SkotyWA^T|_C 23:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, I don't know where this article would fall on the importance scale. I'm thinking high for cup finals that they win, and maybe medium or low for ones they lose? --SkotyWA^T|_C 02:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice! I'm swamped, but if I get a chance I'll try to take a look at it. Did you (or a watchdog) nominate it for DYK yet? I'm not sure what a good hook for an article like this would be... Regarding the importance, I'd agree - probably high for a cup finals they win, and mid or low for one they lose (who remembers who gets second?). ← George ^talk 03:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

So far no love from the watchdogs. That's how I got my one and only DYK though. I didn't even know it existed until I created an article and it magically appeard there. If you're up for it, please go ahead and nominate it. Some good hooks might be:

• Did you know that the 2009 U.S. Open Cup Final was won by Seattle Sounders FC which was only the second MLS expansion team in league history to accomplish this?
• Did you know that the 2009 U.S. Open Cup Final was played in Washington, D.C. at RFK Stadium and Seattle Sounders FC won?
• Did you know that the MLS expansion team Seattle Sounders FC defeated D.C. United in the 2009 U.S. Open Cup Final which was played at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.?

The last two could include the picture of RFK maybe. Any other ideas? --SkotyWA^T|_C 03:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Done! I tweaked the wording a bit - feel free to suggest alternatives there. ← George ^talk 15:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. It looks like it's already been reviewed and verified. In about a week it will appear on the main page. Thanks for nominating it George! --SkotyWA^T|_C 02:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice work guys.Cptnono (talk) 08:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Good news. It's now been promoted off of the nomination page and onto the prep queue. Here's the edit. --SkotyWA^T_C 22:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice! Just a matter of time then. Great work once again Skotywa! ← George ^talk 06:30, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Nice work. And it got into the queue pretty quick! My first one is on the main page at the moment. Pretty chuffed. WFCforLife (talk) 06:45, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Rooting for you WFC. Wikipedia:WikiCup#Standings Cptnono (talk) 07:00, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Congrats WFCforLife! I just looked and the Cup Final article has been moved into queue 3 which means it will appear on the main page tomorrow (Feb. 2) at around 10am Seattle time. --SkotyWA^T_C 17:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Great! I've updated our bot-generated showcase to include DYK articles the next time the bot runs as well. ← George ^talk 19:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

(cough, cough)I'd like to direct your attention to the main page in about 2 hours. Thanks again George for the nomination. It continues to be a blast working on these articles with you folks. --SkotyWA^T_C 16:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Woo, it's up! ← George ^talk 18:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

One follow up item... It's interesting to look at yesterday's page view stats for the articles that were linked to in the DYK hook:

• 2009 U.S. Open Cup Final which has averaged about 35 visits per day jumped to 710 visits.
• Seattle Sounders FC averages about 650 visits per day surged to 1,200 visits.
• Major League Soccer saw the least amount of impact. It normally gets about 2,000 visits per day and it bumped up to 2,500 visits.

Unfortunately, the Cup Final article didn't receive the necessary 5,000 hits in order to qualify for inclusion in this list. Regardless, thanks again George for the nom. This was fun to watch as it went through the process. --SkotyWA^T_C 16:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the bump in viewer traffic is the biggest benefit to DYK. More eyes means more edits, and more edits means (hopefully) better articles. Plus, it's fun to share interesting facts with the readers. I think we should always be on the lookout for DYK candidates... it's a pretty easy process that can only help. ← George ^talk 22:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject logo

The picture we're currently using for the WikiProject in {{football}} has been bugging me. It feels like we're trying to cram a picture with way too much detail into a tiny little area. This probably happened because there wasn't a better choice at the time George was creating the WikiProject. I took the liberty of creating a new image to be used in the template, and was curious what you folks thought:

I think this will look a lot better in that tiny format. If you're all okay with this new image, then I guess a request must be made to update the template (it appears to be locked). --SkotyWA^T|_C 05:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it looks great, but I'm pretty sure it's a copyright violation. I don't think we can use anything from the Sounders FC logo - not the logo itself, not a part of it, not even a work that's a modified version of it. Nothing stops us from creating our own logo though. ← George ^talk 03:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, fair. How about this picture instead (which was already uploaded):

I think it would look better in that tiny formate. I'll marke the picture I made for deletion. --SkotyWA^T|_C 03:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it looks great. Absolutely no objection from me on changing that image - I just grabbed whatever I could find at the time. ← George ^talk 15:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I kind of dig the current one since it encourages clicking on it to see its awesomness. The Space Needle is iconic so it works too. Is that the one currently used for the Seattle Portal? I'm OK either way.Cptnono (talk) 08:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Another DYK

Sid1977 did a great job creating Seattle Sounders FC supporters recently and I nominated it for DYK. If the picture I supplied is also used, this would could probably generate quite a bit more traffic than the 2009 U.S. Open Cup DYK did. This will be interesting to watch. It looks like we've got 4-5 days to wait before it shows up on the main page. --SkotyWA^T_C 08:12, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

It's on the main page now, and for what it's worth I've upped its view count by two. Well done! WFCforLife (talk) 05:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. Fantastic work on a couple recent articles Skoty. Now life would be that much better if the redlink thing was figured out for WFC.Cptnono (talk) 05:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah don't worry about it. I'm going to create a lot of articles this week, which will also give me plenty of opportunities for DYKs. If the FLC fails I can always take it back there in future. WFCforLife (talk) 05:42, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

While I remember, any ideas how to sort out Steve Dave Butler? I forgot to follow it up, but wasn't too sure how to do it. WFCforLife (talk) 05:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Sis that need to be split between the two still? Is there a hierarchy shown in a guideline naming conventions somewhere? ie Profession>country>date of birth I can't tell if one is the primary topic over another but I am all around confused with it.Cptnono (talk) 06:02, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Very difficult to name, and I don't think either is more notable than the other. The Sounders player possibly did more on the pitch, but the Watford player was a very successful coach and part of the England national team's backroom staff, both under Graham Taylor.

The Watford player was primarily known as David, so I'd have no problem with the Sounders player remaining at "Dave Butler". But it still presents naming issues. At the very least, both would need to link to the other with a hatnote. WFCforLife (talk) 07:25, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Perfect. Dave and David with a hatnote works.Cptnono (talk) 02:55, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Sigi Schmid

Sigi Schmid seems to coming along. Need one or two more sources at the end. Feel free to run with it if anyone has any ideas.Cptnono (talk) 02:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Where do you need some links. I can help you find some if you need me. Antoinefcb (talk) 21:03, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure. It all kind of blends into a big mush after so many edits on it. Feel free to grab anything if you see it.Cptnono (talk) 23:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Another GA

I'm pleased to share that 2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final has been promoted to GA! I just now opened a peer review for it so if you have not yet read it, here is a formal invitation to do so. Now would be a great time to dive in and help improve the prose. I intend to drive this towards FA hopefully by this summer (one can dream at least). --SkotyWA^T_C 23:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Great work, yet again! :) I'm going to try to give the article a read through once the current peer reviewer finishes going through it. I see a few minor issues, but I don't want to overlap with the review. Cheers. ← George ^talk 15:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I think I'm finally winding up on addressing the comments provided by the first peer reviewer, so feel free to have a look at the article when you have time. --SkotyWA^T_C 02:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Should the Starfire Sports Complex image be right aligned?Cptnono (talk) 02:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It certainly could be. Is there a guidline I'm breaking by having it on the left? I was going for variety. --SkotyWA^T_C 03:19, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Some editors say that it is not OK on the left unless absolutely necessary per one of the guidelines. I can;t find it now though. But MOS:IMAGES says it is OK and I see it often ignored. The main reason why I was thinking it should be moved is because it is directly below a third level heading. I also cannot find that guideline though! I'll let you know if I find it.Cptnono (talk) 03:31, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

FYI to task force members... the peer review has closed and I've just nominated 2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final for FAC review. If you haven't taken the time to read through the article yet, please feel free to do so now and participate in the FA review process. Thanks! --SkotyWA^T_C 18:14, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

CEO

Tod Leiweke is the Sounders' CEO. I've added him to the Template:Seattle Sounders FC... feel free to revert if editors feel it shouldn't be in that template. Should he be mentioned in the Seattle Sounders FC article itself? Should he be in the infobox? ← George ^talk 13:17, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response... I would say yes to a mention in the article, but no to including him in the infobox. Do we have a source for the addition? --SkotyWA^T_C 01:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I removed it from the template. You can read more about him here. I think that he's actually the CEO of the Vulcan Sports umbrella group, which makes him the de facto CEO of the Sounders, Seahawks, etc. ← George ^talk 02:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to the infobox in the article not the navbox for the club. Sorry for the confusion. --SkotyWA^T_C 06:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)