Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archive 1

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Infobox

A couple of remarks about the box:

• I think the "Turned Pro" entry is better replaced with something like "Professional", or "Pro career", as this will allow to give the last year someone was professional as well. For Stephen Hendry, one could give "1985-" as entry, for someone like Joe Davis, "1927-1964" can be given.
• Countries need to be linked, so [[Scotland]] instead of Scotland.
• Dates must be linked so that they can be formatted differently for users with different tastes.
• I'd prefer years to be linked as well, as is common in Wikipedia.
• Tournaments should be linked, especially when pages about them exist.
• I'm not sure whether "Residence" is relevant information - it's volatile information as well. Will a player send a change of address to Wikipedia if (s)he moves? ;-)
• Why is a 170px wide image put in a 140px wide table cell?
• The table appears chaotic. Some cells are crammed with text, specially the ones with a lot of years. Some contain just a number and lots of white space due to other cells being full.
• "2004/5 World Ranking" is also volatile information - next year the entry needs to be replaced.

Abigail 11:23, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Here's a box with a different layout. IMO, this table looks a lot less messy. Abigail 13:23, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Stephen Hendry

Personal Information
Name	Stephen Hendry
Nicknames
Date of birth	January 13, 1969
Nationality	Scottish
Career
Professional	1985-
2004/5 World Ranking	3
World Championship Best	1 (7 times)
Highest Break	147 (8 times)
Ranking Tournament Wins
Embassy World Championship	1990, 1992-1996, 1999
Grand Prix	1987, 1990, 1991, 1995
British Open	1988, 1991, 1999
Asian Open	1989, 1990
Dubai Duty Free Classic	1989, 1990, 1993
UK Championship	1989, 1990, 1994-1996
Regal Welsh	1992, 1997, 2003
International	1993
Regal Scottish	1997, 1999
European Open	1993, 1994, 2001
Thailand Masters	1998

My comments. Sorry, I don't know how to get these comments to appear below your infobox :(

<br clear = "all">

• I agree with all the above.
• I suggest linking all tournaments, in anticipation of an article on each.
• For players who haven't won many ranking titles, should we leave a load of empty boxes, or should we only mention tournaments they've won?
  • I'd say mention only tournaments they've won. Otherwise there will be a lot of empty boxes.
    • I agree.
• 'Embassy World Championship' should say simply 'World Championship', as Embassy haven't always sponsored it, and won't be much longer either.
  • That will make the box smaller as well, which is good.
• We should consider mentioning other, non-ranking tournaments. The Benson & Hedges, for example, is regarded as important.
  • Not a problem - we just have to change the header to 'Important Tournament Wins' then.
    • Alternative, add a separate section for 'Other Tournament Wins' - it would be nice to keep the ranking victories clearly separated.
• For Hendry, 'World Championship Best' should say 'winner' rather than '1'.
  • And for non-winners 'runner-up', 'semi-finalist', 'quarter-finalist', 'last 16', 'last 32'?
    • Yes.
• There should also be an entry for 'best ranking' - not sure whether this was an accidental omission. This should link to a new article about snooker world rankings.
  • Agreed. And it should be either directly below or above the current years ranking.
    • Yes. I say directly below, so the current info is more prominent.
• For dead players, we probably should have a date of death.
  • Yes.
• Ideally, the flag should be replaced by a picture of the player. No idea why a 170px image is in a 140px box!

Here's the infobox incorporating my comments:

Stephen Hendry

Personal Information
Name	Stephen Hendry
Nicknames
Date of birth	January 13, 1969
Nationality	Scottish
Career
Professional	1985-
2004/5 World Ranking	3
Best World Ranking	1 (8 years)
World Championship Best	winner (7 times)
Highest Break	147 (8 times)
Ranking Tournament Wins
World Championship	1990, 1992-1996, 1999
Grand Prix	1987, 1990, 1991, 1995
British Open	1988, 1991, 1999
Asian Open	1989, 1990
Dubai Duty Free Classic	1989, 1990, 1993
UK Championship	1989, 1990, 1994-1996
Regal Welsh	1992, 1997, 2003
International	1993
Regal Scottish	1997, 1999
European Open	1993, 1994, 2001
Thailand Masters	1998

--Auximines 14:25, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I've put a box with the above style on Peter Ebdons page. Abigail 15:49, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

The infobox looks alot better now, but my preference would be to use a green colour instead of a beige colour for the shading. (After all, it is snooker.) ChicXulub 18:33, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Will darkseagreen, as in the latest box, do? Abigail 19:31, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that's perfect. ChicXulub 21:17, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

What about also shading in the players name above the flag? Do you think that would make it look any better?

You mean the caption? I don't know. Do we actually need a caption that just repeats the name? The name is also directly under the flag, and appears in a large font on the left (as title of the page) as well. I've put it there because it was present in the original infobox, but it seems a bit overkill. Abigail 21:24, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Not sure to be honest. What do they do with other infoboxes? ChicXulub 23:21, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Infobox Abigail 00:41, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Most other infoboxes have the caption in a shaded box, and then don't repeat the name later. I also think we should find a colour more like snooker green baize, particularly as darkseagreen has already been taken. How about #00CF00? With these changes, the infobox looks like this: --Auximines 07:52, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

The fact that a colour is taken is not a problem, if you look at the infobox page, you'll notice that other colours have been resused as well. You'll notice that most colours listed there are not bright colours. I find #00CF00 a bit on the bright side, but not overly, so it's fine with me. Abigail 11:00, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Infobox says that colours should not be reused, but certainly there are repetitions. Anyway, I've toned it down slightly to #00AF00, any better? --Auximines 11:12, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I've also added an "other tournament wins" section for comment, though we need to decide up front which tournaments to include, otherwise there's a risk of this section growing indefinitely. --Auximines 11:19, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I like this colour better. The other tournament wins is good as well. I don't know a lot about snooker, so I've no idea which tournaments to include though. Abigail 23:12, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

In the professional box, if the player has not retired then would it look better if we put (for example) "1985 - current" instead of just "1985-" ? I've made this change to the infobox below to show you what I mean. --ChicXulub 22:04, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion about this one. For me, either style will do, and they're both clear to me. As long as it's done consistently, I'm happy. Abigail 23:12, May 13, 2004 (UTC)

I like the use of 'current', it's clearer. --Auximines 07:50, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Stephen Hendry
Personal Information
Nicknames
Date of birth	January 13, 1969
Nationality	Scottish
Career
Professional	1985 - current
2004/5 World Ranking	3
Best World Ranking	1 (8 years)
World Championship Best	winner (7 times)
Highest Break	147 (8 times)
Ranking Tournament Wins
World Championship	1990, 1992-1996, 1999
Grand Prix	1987, 1990, 1991, 1995
British Open	1988, 1991, 1999
Asian Open	1989, 1990
Dubai Duty Free Classic	1989, 1990, 1993
UK Championship	1989, 1990, 1994-1996
Regal Welsh	1992, 1997, 2003
International	1993
Regal Scottish	1997, 1999
European Open	1993, 1994, 2001
Thailand Masters	1998
Other Tournament Wins
Benson & Hedges Masters	1998-1993, 1996

More issues

I just gave Tony Drago a new style infobox, and there were two issues:

• The style of the nickname: the object of the example we used, Stephen Henry, doesn't have a nickname, so in the example, it's just an empty box. Tony does have one - I put his nickname in italics, which seems a natural way of doing so.
• The old infobox (and for now the new one) mention 147 as his highest break. The text of the article however mentions 149 as the highest break. Do we want the infobox to really give the highest break (in which case, it should be 149), or do we want the infobox to show that a person has made a maximum break (15x red, 15x black and clearance), in which case the entry shouldn't be named highest break.

I've put nicknames in double quotes in other infoboxes, but italics are fine. Consistency is the important thing. Drago's 149 was in a practise match. The infobox highest break is, implicitly, tournament breaks only. Maybe we should make this explicit somehow. --Auximines 07:47, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Prize money

Should career prize money be included in the infoboxes as well? Problem with it is that it needs constant updating - although if this information is available on the web somewhere, it could be automated. Abigail 08:47, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

I think the constant updating is too much of a problem. You'd have to update every player after every tournament. It's also quite difficult to find information about prize money. For the same reason, listing number of century breaks is difficult. --Auximines 11:04, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, there are the player profiles on worldsnooker - they list career prize money - but I don't know how often they are updated. I guess there is the same difficulty for the highest break - that's also information that can change any moment. Abigail 11:28, May 14, 2004 (UTC)

www.worldsnooker.com currently has prize money up to start of 2003/4 season (i.e. a year out of date). I suppose it doesn't matter so much if information is out of date as long as you date it. --Auximines 11:40, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

World Snooker Championship

I've expanded the old article Embassy World Snooker Championship to include the entire history of the world championship (not just the Embassy-sponsored years), and moved it to World Snooker Championship. The old article now redirects to the new article. When I have more energy, I'll fix all linking pages to link directly to the new article. --Auximines 11:09, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Regal Welsh Open/Regal Welsh and Rothmans Grand Prix/Grand Prix

I noticed that the Ken Doherty page mentions the tournaments 'Regal Welsh Open' and 'Rothmans Grand Prix'. Other player pages lists 'Regal Welsh' and 'Grand Prix'. Are these different tournaments? Abigail 00:11, May 16, 2004 (UTC)

I believe they're the same. We ought to standardise on the tournament names. --Auximines 08:32, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Tournaments

I've created a {{msg:snooker_tournaments}} custom message, which could be included on all pages about describing snooker tournaments. I listed the current ranking tournaments, and the B&H masters, but that's easily modified. Comments? Abigail 11:45, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

Now at "template:" Rich Farmbrough 18:22, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Great idea. It looks good, I suggest you add it to the existing tournament articles, so we can see how it looks in situ. Suggestions for improvement:

• add Pot Black to the list
• divide the list into three sections ('world championship', 'ranking tournaments' and 'others')
• decide how to order the list
• ?consider changing the colour to the green baize colour used for player infoboxes
• ?see how it looks with a smaller font
• ?how about a little graphic of a triangle of red balls in the top left?

--Auximines 12:41, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we should modify the colour or the font. It's now using the same style all other "boxes" use. It's recommended all such boxes use the same colour - this prevents pages that get more than one box to look real ugly. The font is already smaller, although not much. If I decipher the wiki CSS page correctly, the used font size is 95%. I'll add it to the tournament pages to see how it looks. As for the graphic, if you upload one, I'll see what I can do. Abigail 13:37, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

I've uploaded an image of a triangle of red balls to [[Image:Snooker reds 2.gif]]: File:Snooker reds 2.gif Can you squeeze it in to the left of the "Snooker Tournaments" header? --Auximines 15:05, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Done Abigail 19:21, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

I've done the European ranking tournaments. It's all rather complicated: in addition to the current European Open, there have been a German Open, an Irish Open and a Malta Grand Prix. I think all of these should probably be added to the {{msg:snooker_tournaments}}, though it will start to look a bit messy. Maybe we should have a separate section for past ranking tournaments? --Auximines 10:37, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Done things

• I've upgraded the infoboxes of all the players to the new style as discussed above. (If I missed a player, then that's because the player isn't listed in the list of snooker players).
• I added birth and death entries on the appropriate date pages for all the snooker players (you gotta love Perl...)

Abigail 01:02, May 22, 2004 (UTC)

• Done world ranking pages for every year. --Auximines 10:16, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

World Rankings

I've created an message box for world rankings {{msg:Snooker_world_rankings}}:

I intend this to appear on each of the world rankings pages. It's already on Snooker world rankings 1976/1977. Comments welcome!

--Auximines 16:14, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Is there any way to put a space between the message box and the table? It looks a little bit squashed up to me.

--ChicXulub 22:52, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

It looks OK to me. It may be that different browsers render it differently. Anyway, I've added a top margin of 0.5em to the message box. Might be easiest if you experiment with this value until it looks OK for you. --Auximines 08:24, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Categories

As you may have noticed, Wikipedia now has 'categories', which is an automated way of grouping related articles. I'm sure we can make use of that for the snooker pages as well. I suggest that we create at least the following hierarchy of categories:

• Snooker (top-level hierarchy)
  • Snooker tournament (descendant from snooker)
    • Snooker ranking tournament (descendant from snooker tournament)
  • Snooker player (descendant from snooker, probably from some sort of sports category as well)

I've created a snooker player category, and placed one player in it for now - tonight I'll automate adding the other players as well.

We could subdive the 'snooker player' category into 'English snooker player', 'Irish snooker player', 'Scottish snooker player', etc, but I don't think that adds much. There will be categories like 'English person', 'Irish person', etc anyway.

This is fine by me, but on the player biographies the "Category" messages are shifting the infoboxes left, which doesn't look too good. --Auximines 08:26, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I suspect that that is a browser and/or user settings problem. If it were common, people would have complained much earlier (the English wikipedia was the last to convert to the 1.3 version of the software which makes this possible). You should file a bug report on the pages discussing categories - I've even seen a page that discusses where the 'categories' line is placed. I don't have the problem in the browsers (Netscape and Mozilla) I use. Abigail 09:03, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Do you by any chance use the Monobook skin? On Wikipedia talk:Categorization the problem you are experiencing has been mentioned in connection to the Monobook skin. It also says that the Monobook skin wasn't really production ready when it was released. I use the Standard skin, and there are no problems with that skin. Abigail 12:15, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's fixed it! Thanks very much! A couple of days ago, my skin mysteriously changed to what I now know is Monobook. Don't know how this happened, I assumed it was a global thing. Anyway, I've now set it back to Standard, and everything's hunky dory. On with the show... --Auximines 13:24, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Years in sports

Starting with 1927 in sports I'm adding world championship results to the 'years in sports' pages. Once I get to 1976 I'll add the number one in the rankings too. Other tournament results would probably be overkill. Got as far as 1930 in sports so far. If anybody has a way of automating this... --Auximines 14:27, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Automating should be a piece of cake. Don't do it by hand, I'll write a script tomorrow or on Saturday to do it. And then I'll rerun my script to add births (and deaths) of snooker players to the various date pages. Abigail 23:06, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'll complete the 'years in sports' pages by hand, as I want to add the occasional comment, and it's almost complete anyway. Automated addition of births and deaths would be most useful, however. --Auximines 07:27, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've done all these now. --Auximines 09:09, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ranking Tournament Wins

Should there be a header for Ranking Tournament Wins in the infobox if the player has never won anything? One example of what I'm talking about is Gary Owen. --ChicXulub 22:25, 03 June 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion, it shouldn't. Abigail 23:08, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I've removed most of them. --Auximines 07:54, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Player photographs

It would be nice if each of the player profiles could have a photo of the player rather than their nation's flag, but I'm not sure where to find photos that we are allowed to use. Anyone got any ideas? --ChicXulub 22:25, 04 June 2004 (UTC)

You can use images of fcsnooker.co.uk; I mailed them, and they allowed to use their images on wikipedia, when the source is mentioned. I've already used some pictues in the Dutch wikpedia, for example nl:Snooker and nl:Ronnie O'Sullivan.

By the way, you've done a great job with this Project Snooker - it is a nice basis for me to write about snooker in the Dutch wikipedia. 81.165.240.64 23:38, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC) (Jupiler @ Dutch wikipedia)

Categories

All the biographies have been allocated two categories, namely 'snooker player' and '<nationality> person'. However, I notice somebody has changed some of the Australian players to just one category, 'Australian snooker player'. Comments, anyone? --Auximines 08:07, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't really like the idea, but I understand the reasons. The problem is that otherwise the '<nationality> person' categories get "too large". IMO, that just shows that categories might not be all so powerful. Making the nationality a subcategory of snooker players is arbitrary. One could have picked "Snooker playing Australian people" as well. Furthermore, down that road lies madness. Where does it stop? Will have a category "Left-handed Australian snooker players who died on Februari 29, were born on December 25 and had an acting career", just because the super categories become too large? Of course, snooker players isn't the only category that gets (randomly) subdivided - therefore, I think this discussion should be held on the pages discussing categories. Abigail 09:57, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Infobox

I have added a copy of the infobox to Wikipedia:WikiProject Infobox, so make certain any changes to it are reflected there. Tuf-Kat 05:22, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Help Requested

I have added the page for Terry Murphy, help is required to add to the bio, if possible.

Also I have added the page for Allister_Carter, help is required to add to the bio, if possible. Many thanks, User:GL3N