Talk:Bauke Mollema

Edit conflict

Perhaps other readers/contributors would care to express an opinion on some of the matters in the present edit dispute:

• Should cyclists' biographies be considered exempt from WP:NUMBERS (eg 4th rather than fourth)?

• Should the race officially known as Il Lombardia be given the previous name (Giro di Lombardia) when a specific, post-remnaming edition is under discussion, but only if that is 2019, not 2020?

• Is the reporting in prose of time gaps in the format +0:15 considered a standard format in Wikipedia?

• Should the word monument be capitalised?

• Is concise writing to be preferred over lengthier passages with redundancies? (eg he won his first monument in this race or he won the first monument of his career taking the victory in this race)

• Are the identities of riders who failed to catch a solo breakaway encyclopaedically relevant to reporting a win from a break?

• Is it necessary or desirable to mention the 2020 Covid-19 interruption to the season in every article that describes details of theat season?

• Is description of what was a potential outcome of a race more than 30 km before its conclusion suitable for inclusion?

• Are unsourced opinions of a rider's performance ("rode strongly") acceptable in cycling biographies?

I am confident that my edits have been in keeping with Wiki policies in these matters, but other opinions, especially those based on policy, are welcome. Kevin McE (talk) 08:29, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

@Kevin McE: Here are my two cents, in the order that the questions were posed.

• Not entirely familiar with the MOS here but I'm inclined towards fourth over 4th. This follows the same single-digit number rule that calls for four over 4.

• I have a vague memory of the GdL vs. IL discussion sometime around 2015, and all articles since then have used the latter name. Since at least 2019, the UCI has also used Il Lombardia so this is what should be used here.

• That should be written out: beating out the chasing group ... by 16 seconds

• The Wikipedia article primarily keeps it lowercase. News sources, perhaps quite unhelpfully, do not seem to have a clear consensus. Needless to say, more discussion is needed.

• Conciseness and brevity should always be something to strive towards, so the shorter version is preferred.

• Not encyclopedically relevant. Similar reasons to why only stage victories (instead of, say, stage top 10s) are listed in each rider's palmares section.

• I think it could be mentioned, but in a much briefer manner. So maybe something like: With the cycling season heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mollema's best result of the season was fourth in Il Lombardia. Again, I see a possibility for further discussion. Two notes here: 2020 is redundant in a section titled as such, and is it really that hard to keep instances of COVID-19 uniform?

• I need further clarification on this, but in general I think this should be considered on a case-by-case basis (see exhibit 28–3 as a loose standard). I don't think most breakaways clear this bar.

• Not acceptable. There are more objective ways to express, or at the very least imply, the same ideas. It certainly would not hold up in a GA review.

References

Hopefully that was at least somewhat helpful. Beyond the above comments, should any of the contentious content be kept, there is a need for copy editing to accompany whatever changes are made. Benjamin112 ☎ 04:52, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Here's my two two cents:

• Should cyclists' biographies be considered exempt from WP:NUMBERS (eg 4th rather than fourth)? No.

• Should the race officially known as Il Lombardia be given the previous name (Giro di Lombardia) when a specific, post-remnaming edition is under discussion, but only if that is 2019, not 2020? Yes, in all years and cases, if I'm understanding the question correctly. This google ngram has never heard of "Il Lombardia", and per WP:OFFICIALNAME and WP:COMMONNAME the official names of things is only a small data point.

• Is the reporting in prose of time gaps in the format +0:15 considered a standard format in Wikipedia? Probably not I wouldn't think. If possible, plain English prose that anyone can understand would be preferred ("15 seconds ahead" or whatever). We can't assume that every person who wants to access the article is familiar with technical styles used in specialized fields.

• Should the word monument be capitalised? Not unless its part of a proper name (eg "Washington Monument") as opposed to a description (eg "The monument to Washington"). However, it CAN be appropriate alone if being used as a shorthand truncation of a proper noun (eg "As he approached the Monument, he though of Washington" and "As he approached the monument he thought of Washington" are both allowable I think). There is not a hard and fast English rule about this I don't think; various subtleties of the particular passage might come into play, #1 goal is not leave the reader possibly confused as to what's being referred to. If that's not an issue, then it's not super important, if you object and your objection is pushed back against I'd use stare decicis and let the original format stand.

• Is concise writing to be preferred over lengthier passages with redundancies? (eg he won his first monument in this race or he won the first monument of his career taking the victory in this race) Yes. The first example is preferable. As an encyclopedia, we are a digest, and want to omit any needless words we can. The second example is just second-rate writing.

• Are the identities of riders who failed to catch a solo breakaway encyclopaedically relevant to reporting a win from a break? I wouldn't think so, no. Sounds like just clogging the prose with stuff that's not useful for getting the main point of the passage (that a particular solo breakaway was not caught, I guess).

• Is it necessary or desirable to mention the 2020 Covid-19 interruption to the season in every article that describes details of theat season? Yes, I suppose so. 20 or 50 years from now, to a reader reading just this one article (and not a series of articles on various races), would the Covid-19 thing be something they might not know about off the top of their head, yet important enough that some readers might benefit from knowing about it? I would think so, considering that it doesn't take a huge amount of space.

• Is description of what was a potential outcome of a race more than 30 km before its conclusion suitable for inclusion? Why not? It's not like we're worried about spoiling the suspense for the reader. If it's a matter of just extra verbiage clogging up the passage, that's a different question.

• Are unsourced opinions of a rider's performance ("rode strongly") acceptable in cycling biographies? Well... probably not, if somebody objects.

If nobody was objecting, and the conclusion is sky-is-blue obvious, I don't think it's flat-out unacceptable. If the material is objected to on the merits -- eg, "Doesn't look like he rode that strongly" then no, but if its "He rode strongly, and no reasonable informed person would deny that, but we still shouldn't say it" then... mnmh, I mean why not? I might use a source that says "40 of the unit's 45 tanks were destroyed" to write "the unit was virtually annihilated" and like that. A small and reasonable amount of extrapolation to a sky-is-blue conclusion is OK in my opinion.

HOWEVER, it's generally not a good idea, and its seldom necessary, and another editor objects, you don't really have a leg to stand on -- get a source, or back down. As a rule, we strongly prefer to state facts and let the reader decide. In the example above, just writing "40 of the unit's 45 tanks were destroyed" and letting the reader decide if she thinks that amounts to virtual annihilation or not is usually better. Herostratus (talk) 14:53, 24 July 2021 (UTC)