Category talk:British and Irish contract bridge players

English bridge players

This subcategory needs some attention, at least brief explanation in the Category preface. --P64 (talk) 16:52, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that a number of those under "British bridge players" really belong under the "English bridge players" subcategory (assuming that the subcategory is worth retaining). I suspect that some of them were categorised as "British" before the "English" subcategory was created. I'd suggest that the "English" subcategory should be defined as including those players who were either born in England or played for England in the European or World Championships. JH (talk page) 17:24, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Categorization of UK, Irish, Scottish, English, British players

Discussion from elsewhere has been relocated below where it ought to have originated. Newwhist (talk) 21:50, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

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There is a discussion underway at Talk:Sandra Landy#Nationality which is of relevance to this project. Contributions will be welcome. Narky Blert (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the foregoing link. Going forward, I have copied the earlier discussions to here below and noted that fact at Talk:Sandra Landy#Nationality.

In the navigation template for contract bridge articles, there is a link for the category 'English contract bridge players' and one for 'British contract bridge players'. Can someone explain the logic in how members of theses categories are differentiated? Are all English players not British players? Why two categories? Newwhist (talk) 02:08, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

That's a good question. It seems fairly random which category English players have been allocated to. It doesn't help the confusion that nowadays the constituent countries of the UK have separate teams in international competition, whereas once there was a single Great Britain team. One feels that logically all the English players should be allocated to 'English contract bridge players', and similarly for Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish players, and that 'British contract bridge players' should only be used as a parent category for those four categories. On checking, I see that 'Scottish contract bridge players' does not yet exist, so that - for example - Hugh Kelsey has had to be categorised as British. The same applies to Welsh and Nortern Irish players. JH (talk page) 07:20, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not concerned about the fact the two categories exist (and possibly several more 'missing' ones, such as the one you point out for Kelsey) as I am about establishing a better relationship between them. Seems to me that 'British' should be the parent category and 'English, 'Scottish', 'Welsh', etc. should be subcategories listed within that parent. And as is stated in the introduction to each of the various nationality categories, a person may be associated with more than one nationality for a variety of reasons. To have all individually listed in the parent category and also listed in their respective subcategory or subcategories would not offend me.

In hindsight, I ought to have initiated this thread in the WikiProject Contract bridge pages.

@Jhall1: @Abtract: @Macdonald-ross: @Narky Blert: @Nicolas.hammond: @P64:: Do any other editors have comments?

Newwhist (talk) 13:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

IMO British bridge players should be the parent category, and English/Scottish/Welsh should be subcategories of it. Following the usual rules, players should be categorised as precisely as possible. There will be some cases where players may be best categorised as British rather than put in a subcategory; examples might include immigrants like Rixi Markus, Skid Simon and Paul Stern.

Northern Ireland isn't part of Britain (that's why it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). For the sake of simplicity, though, it's probably best to put Northern Irish as a subcategory of British. A tree of UK -> NI + British -> English + Scottish + Welsh looks overcomplicated. See, as just one example out of many where that has been done, Category:British poker players.

Off the top of my head, two more examples to show that Category:Scottish bridge players is needed: Albert Benjamin and Michael Rosenberg.

I have posted a notification of this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Contract bridge#Categorising UK bridge players by nationality. Narky Blert (talk) 13:53, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Pedant alert. Northern Ireland is part of Britain. It is not part of Great Britain (the island). Players pre January 2000 are British; post are from their representative country. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Bridge_League I don't think there will be a specific rule. Historic players are probably British; but if they played in Camrose etc.; you can additionally define them as the country they played for. Post 2000 players will be a specific country. Just my 2p.Nicolas.hammond (talk) 01:03, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Some considrations

At bridge, at any rate in Europe, you play for the country where you live, not necessarily where you were born. You have to be a member of the local federation, of course, but assuming you are selected, you play for your present home country. So far so good. Now consider Ireland. The two parts are different states, but under a special agreement, the island enters one team for European championships. Leaving aside history, this makes a certain kind of sense... England. Scotland and Wales are each able to enter their own teams for European championships. Home internationals are played between teams from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Constitutionally, the only countries (in the sense of members of the European Union) are the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. So the next question is: what do we want the categories to do? If they record where people were born, that is do-able, but perhaps not very useful. On the other hand, if we want categories to show which countries they played for, you could easily have a person playing for several countries. They might hold several passports as well. Probably, given that the various parts of GB can each enter teams, you should go for separate categories for the parts of the UK, and list individuals according to their known life patterns. So Rixi Markus = Austria and England; Michael Rosenberg = Scotland and U.S.A. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:40, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Text on category pages

The introductory text on each of the category templates states as follows:

"The nationality associated with a bridge player may be ambiguous because it may have changed over time and may refer to:

• country of birth
• country or countries of current or former citizenship
• country or countries of current or former residence
• a country's representative in international play

Accordingly, a player may be associated with more than one nationality. " Newwhist (talk) 16:39, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Other parent categories?

Are there other country relationships like the above. Does the foregoing suggest for a category for 'European bridge players'?

This can get unwieldly and I think we should stick to entities which have recognized country status, i.e. Europe is not a country in of itself.

• the (former) Soviet Union: modern day Russia and all the former other members of the 'union'
• China and Taiwan?
• others?

Should we work off the member list for the 'United Nations' Newwhist (talk) 12:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

WBF categorization

See also the People Finder at the WBF website to see what countries they identify with players. Newwhist (talk) 15:37, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

This source may not help in all cases: Rixi Markus comes up as GBR, which reflects the WBF's rules of the post-WWII time whereby players from mainland Britain had only one organisation for European and World events. A reader would have to know all that to make sense of the GBR classification. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:23, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Noted. The WBF site does provide former country affiliations in the details of the player's records as well as their name variations. I submit that we are not limited by the WBF rules or classifications; they are simply one source. Newwhist (talk) 16:32, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Reference for countries in the British Isles

This seems a pretty complete summary of terms for countries and geography of the British Isles. Newwhist (talk) 15:11, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

Would a new parent category "British and Irish contract bridge players" with the four subcategories:

• English contract bridge players
• Scottish contract bridge players
• Welch contract bridge players
• Irish contract bridge players

be a compromise which packages the group in a logical format? Comments? Newwhist (talk)

English, Scottish and Welch players would be listed by name in the parent category and in their respective home country.

Irish players would be treated as follows:

• Northern Ireland players would be listed by name in the parent and Irish categories
• Republic of Ireland players would be listed in the Irish category only.

Newwhist (talk) 17:47, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I would be happy with that. JH (talk page) 18:00, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

End of copied material------------------------------- Newwhist (talk) 21:50, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Procedure

Sorry for the wild goose chase on the location of this thread.

If there are no more comments opposed to the above-noted proposal, I will implement it tomorrow. I think the proper procedure is to 'Move' the current page to its new name (Category:British and Irish contract bridge players) along with its talk page and then add the subcategory 'Irish contract bridge players'. After that, there will be some effort required to ensure that each player is in their appropriate category or categories. Newwhist (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Some notes. (feel free to relocate) I am not so active at Wikipedia 2017-18, and I return today after almost two weeks away from all internet projects.

1. The proposal(s) have been implemented, at least in part, I know from Category:Hungarian contract bridge players.

2. Note that we have also Jewish contract bridge players as a subcat of Contract bridge players by nationality.

3. We should follow EN.Wikipedia classification of people by nationality --inclg as Jewish-- and occupation --inclg as c.b.p.

3a. Thus we should follow personal identification as British or English, where that is known, which may be almost never.

3b. Visiting C. S. Lewis#External links I infer that now implies Category:Contract bridge players from Northern Ireland rather than cat Northern Irish c.b.p. (Lewis is now in 6 national-occupational categories as British, 7 as from Northern Ireland, none as Irish. It may be Wikipedia policy that people from N.I. should be double-listed. That isn't true of British people and English people.)

3c. Thus George Rosenkranz is a Mexican c.b.p. because he is a Mexican person and a c.b.p.; that is sufficient, may not be necessary. He has represented Mexico in inter-national competition, but that isn't necessary, may not be sufficient. Open questions are whether Rosenkranz must be, or should be, also a Hungarian c.b.p. because he is Hungarian by birth (in Austria-Hungary days). And must or should be also an American c.b.p. because he played on the 1982 Bermuda Bowl team USA2; ie, he has represented the United States in inter-national competition. (He is now in Category:Hungarian contract bridge players, as well as Mexican and Jewish; not in American contract bridge players.)

Not so brief and I can't afford more minutes now. Thanks for the ping. --P64 (talk) 21:18, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Some replies. Welcome back! I too have been taking some Wiki-vacations. I make my comments/reply in accordance with your numbering.

1. Noted.

2. I have an enquiry in play on this question. See here

3. Please give a link to the policy to which you refer.

3a. In the Wikipedia:WikiProject Contract bridge, I believe we should rely primarily (but not exclusively) on bridge related sources for the association of nationality with a contract bridge person. Not sure what you mean by "which may be almost never". As an inclusionist in principle, I see no problem with having a person associated as both British and English. The records of tournament play gives evidence to this, IMHO.

3b and 3c. Noted. I accept your observations as factual but am not persuaded that we should follow that lead. To me, the word "from" implies place of birth and is not as rich and broad in meaning as is intended by the description given in each of the nationality category page introductions. For our project purposes, I much prefer 'Irish contract bridge players' to 'Contract bridge players from Northern Ireland' and 'Contract bridge players from the Republic of Ireland'.

Newwhist (talk) 12:03, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done. The proposal has been implemented. Newwhist (talk) 18:58, 5 August 2018 (UTC)