Talk:Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics

Tables

I think this article would look a lot neater and be a lot clearer if there tables were used for each sport rather than just lists. Darryl.matheson (talk) 01:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

We've had discussion about that on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics. Something will be "standardized" in the next couple of months. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Hockey qualification

How come it says England qualifed for the Olympics by beating India in the Euro Hockey comp?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.64.28 (talk) 10:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes this was wrong, it was actually at the Olympic qualifiers, i've corrected this. -Basement12 (talk) 13:29, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Gymnastics Results

Should the format of the women's results table be the same as the men's results table? I know little clue as to how this competition works/progresses, so will leave for someone else to do. Yboy83 (talk) 13:41, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I've put in a similar table, assuming the competition works in the same way. It's quit complicated but I think i've done it right. Basement12 (talk) 15:24, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Contributors

To all those who are regularly making edits and updating the Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics page:

Add your User:name to this list with your interests and special knowledge about Team GB and the sports we're involved in.

• Yboy83 - Sports: swimming, track cycling, triathlon; Other: British records in swimming; General: Editing to ensure consistency throughout the page

Swimming Record

Is the womens 4x100m relay record correct? I thought that one of the swimmers was replaced for the final.Cairocat (talk) 06:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

You are correct - Sylvester replaced Beckett for the final. I now remember Jameson/Moorhouse saying on TV that there had been a swim-off in the training pool between the heat and final. I have fixed this now. Yboy83 (talk) 11:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hockey detailed results

User:Basement12 has recently added detailed results for the hockey. My opinion is this additional information is not required as part of this article. For no other sports have we included so much detail - who the officials were, which seat in the boat the rowers are sitting, score for each individual dive in the diving etc. The Sport at the 2008 Summer Olympics are the article pages for such detailed information, and as such there are {{main|Sport at the 2008 Summer Olympics}} for each sport in this article, leaving a summary in a simple readable table as had been prepared. What are the thoughts of other editors to this article? Yboy83 (talk) 11:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I see your point, I merely added it to be in line with other team sport results on pages for other nations, eg at Argentina or Brazil. This is probably something to discuss WikiProject Olympics? - Basement12 (talk) 12:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Although individual splits in e.g. swimming relays are probably a similar level of detail (at least to who the scorers were) and I don't think they are a bad thing. Basement12 (talk) 12:37, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Something has gone wrong with GB hockey results: the results are internally inconsistent and inconsistent with the hockey page Metalmouth70 (talk) 08:31, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Aquatics

Should this not be broken down into seperate swimming and diving sections and placed in th corresponding alphabetical positions, as found at the other nations pages. They are listed as seperate sports on Template:EventsAt2008SummerOlympics. - Basement12 (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest asking on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics‎, to ensure that it's the same for every country. Bluap (talk) 19:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Have now asked for opinions here. - Basement12 (talk) 02:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Heptathlon/Decathlon

Do people think a table like the one below, found at the US page, would be a good addition for these events or is it too much detail?

Heptathlon	Event	Hyleas Fountain			Jacquelyn Johnson			Diana Pickler
		Results	Points	Rank	Results	Points	Rank	Results	Points	Rank
	100 m hurdles
	High jump
	Shot Put
	200 m
	Long jump
	Javelin throw
	800 m
Final

The various events within events are equivalent to the different rounds in e.g 100m so I believe the full scores should be included. Basement12 (talk) 01:09, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

That table looks very nice. Bluap (talk) 02:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be included, much better table. Eddie6705 (talk) 09:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Records Section

This is starting to get quite large, to cut it down a bit I suggest only listing the records under their highest classification, i.e. a WR doesn't need listing 4 more times under OR, CR, NR and ER and a CR or ER should not be listed under NR. Basement12 (talk) 10:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but if we are keeping the details of the previous record, then all should be listed. Infact, I doubt we need to include the previous record information. But remember that WR>ER>NR, but OR and CR are not necessarily ER/WR. As I see the required fields are:

• Date
• Sport/Event
• Athlete(s)
• Result
• Record type - i.e. list of initials of which records apply.

Should we sort by sport/date/athlete name? Perhaps just make it a sortable table... Yboy83 (talk) 10:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree previous record not necessary, particularly if the record is properly referenced. Personally I like your sortable idea but another option is to keep the current sections adding a note at the top of each stating e.g. WR>OR, NR, CR, ER or CR>NR. This would mean listing some records more than once but would remove need for sorting. Basement12 (talk) 11:24, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I've made an attempt at it - see here: User:Yboy83/Sandbox. The notes at the top are just some info. Have setup sortkeys for record types and names (team records sortkey is first person in the team list). Yboy83 (talk) 14:40, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Only possible problem is that I have a feeling the cycling team sprint may technically a "world's best" not WR, as better times might have been recorded but at higher altitudes. My knowledge of the sport isn't good enough to be sure though. Other than that I see no reason not to put it into the article. Basement12 (talk) 14:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you might be right: According to List of Olympic records in cycling and http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/REC/CT.shtml there are only World and Olympic records recognised in a small handful of events. See also, the results from Manchester World Champs [1] - at the top of the results pages, there is the current world record, but for team sprint, it isn't recorded. I'm going to change it to WB until someone proves otherwise.

I have found this: http://www.uci.ch/data_UCI/track/palmares/records/world_M.htm, but it doesn't appear to have been undated in some time. Also http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/tra/track_records.asp, which links to an excel sheet, which would confirm a British Record.

To conclude: Sprint Team: WB, BR; Women's Pursuit: BR; Men's Pursuit: OR; as these are the only ones we can confirm atm.

I'll move the table from my sandbox to the article later tonight unless someone has serious objections. Yboy83 (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Athletics: Sorted by events?

User:Peterwill appears to have chaged the ordering of the athletic tables by events rather than the traditional by surname established in other articles and in other tables of this article as well. While I do not condone such actions, because it makes easy to see which events British athlete are in but usually when your updating the table it's natural to look for the athlete by their surname. Also, if this table is going to be kept like this, are the other tables going to be changed as well? --Phill ^{talk Edits} _{Review this GA review!} 18:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally when i started designing the tables being used on all the Nations pages, the intention was to list alphabetically by athlete surname as personnally I want to see everything a particular competitor has performed in, more so than a comparision of all British competitors in a particular event. I see someone has done something similar for the track cycling pursuits too. A solution would be to have sortable tables, but then we'd have to remove the rowspan and repeat the athlete name for each event. I think we'd only want to do this for athletics and swimming where there are multiple competitors in an event, and there aren't too many team/relay events. Yboy83 (talk) 07:04, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Medalist dates

Someone added a date column to the medalist table, I don't think this is a bad idea, particularly as the day by day medal tables will probably be removed post-games. What do others think and if it stays what format should the date take (16th, Aug 16th, etc)? basement12 (talk) 18:28, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably not a bad idea and nothing wrong with just 16th. Dont think it needs to be linked to the date as following the link does not provide any information about the Olympics. MilborneOne (talk) 19:03, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Medal targets

How about adding the targets for each sport set by UK Sport in a table with comparison of how many medals were won in each sport? Severo^TC 22:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Definitely worthy of a section in the article in my opinion. Probably should slot in just below the list of medalists i guess.basement12 (talk) 01:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Long page!

A random bit of trivia: this page is currently number 405 in the list of long pages!! Yboy83 (talk) 14:11, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Mirroring the current medal table we're behind US (28th) and China (59th). But this article is in far better shape! - basement12 (talk) 23:16, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Notes Section - Rebecca Romero Medalist in two Olympic Sports / References

I have adjusted the wording for Rebecca Romero ace achievement today as there have been multi-sport winners in the Winter Olymipics but according to the BBC not in the Summer Olympics see here. I have also removed the statement re only second woman in history to will medals in two different sports as there are a number of these but maybe in relation to the Summer Olympics only, this is I suspect only a small group and worth noting if it can be checked out.

I think references should be added to support statements here and provide access to further information so will try and add these. Welcome others to join in. Tmol42 (talk) 17:22, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Bolded Names in Rowing

There are certain names in bold in the rowing tables, and other names not bolded. That can be considered a NPOV violation. Is there a good reason why the names are bold?  AcroX  13:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

They are medal winners. This is the same for all sports, not just rowing. Yboy83 (talk) 13:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

PB/SB in athletics

Some athletics results have been listed as personal or season best times. These are all unreferenced, are almost certainly not completed for all the athletes and are not mention for other sports. I think they should be removed but wanted to check with other users before doing so. basement12 (talk) 16:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for removing them. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 19:00, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. Yboy83 (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I've now removed them from the article. If someone wants to put them back I wouldn't have a problem with it if they were properly referenced and implemented in all sports. basement12 (talk) 20:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure they could be added for all sports, but in atheltics especially (and swmming to some extend) PBs/SBs seem to be a heavily focused on and will be easy to find references for. I'm not so sure it would be easy to find referneces for many other sports (e.g. rowing). That shouldn't stop us including them in the article where we can find references though - with the aim of including them for every sport should references be found/be actualyl something that is actually measures. 78.86.183.220 (talk) 18:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

They are heavily focused on, mostly in talk between tv hosts and during interviews with the athletes, but are not really relevant to the olympics. Obviously they belong on the athlete's pages but they have no bearing on what is being discussed in this article. Basement12 (talk) 18:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, athletes' individual pages are the place for personal best information - in a few weeks/months, they could well post new personal bests, and I doubt anyone is going to come back to this article to remove the PB notation. Yboy83 (talk) 18:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Section headings/subheadings

Minor proposal: we adjust the subheadings of Canoeing and Cycling to:

   * 7 Canoeing
         o 7.1 Flatwater
         o 7.2 Slalom
   * 8 Cycling
         o 8.1 BMX
         o 8.2 Mountain bike
         o 8.3 Road
         o 8.4 Track

Equestrian is already in this format, and I have seen this on a few of the other nations pages too. Yboy83 (talk) 11:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Had the same thought myself about 5 minutes ago but kept getting edit conflicts so gave up. Go for it. Basement12 (talk) 11:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Summary Paragraphs

Now that the events in many sports are drawing to a close I think its a good idea to write short paragraphs summing up the British performance in each. I've had a go at one for track cycling and would like some opinions both on the idea and what i've written. Basement12 (talk) 18:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Medalist vs Medallist

While I appreciate that medallist is the correct British-English spelling the spelling medalist is in common use in Britain and is the one used on ALL [2][3][4] etc wikipedia olympic pages and this article should be consistent. Basement12 (talk) 20:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR-Strong national ties to a topic. See section here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics#Medalist vs. Medallist. Yboy83 (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Got to agree with Yboy83 on this one. Haven't changed back as it's in danger of becoming an edit war and I think a consensus needs to be reached first. Dpmuk (talk) 20:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Additionally I would point out that it took nearly two weeks of hundreds of edits a day for anyone to notice this, and I suspect that even then we all had to check a dictionary first? As far as the medal(l)ist sections go (for all nations) i'm in favour of renaming to medal winners as suggested by Andrwsc, or just medals as in the 2004 page. But i don't think going as far as moving Category:Olympic medalists for Great Britain and other pages is particulary necessary. Basement12 (talk) 21:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree with what you say but the problem is that it has now been noticed and as it would appear there's some disagreement it looks like a decison needs to be made. I like the medal winners idea as it will solve this problem in a neutral way. Dpmuk (talk) 21:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

"Medallist" is correct but "medal winners" is a sensible compromise. – ukexpat (talk) 21:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

British article, British English. I thought that's how Wikipedia worked. The compromise is fine, but I just think it's using a phrase which isn't the first that comes to mind. Craitman H. Pellegrino (talk) 21:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

If you wish to change it to Medallist, in accordance with WP:ENGVAR-Strong national ties to a topic, at least until any decision is made on standardising all nation articles to a "medal winners" heading then I don't have any problem with that. I was merely attemting to avoid confusion for readers browsing through the various nation/olympic articles, any disagreement i have is entirely based on this. Basement12 (talk) 21:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I will change it to "medallist" this once (sorry if I seem a bit persistant, but I really am all for proper/British English), and will see what happens about it being changed back and the "medal winners" change... Craitman H. Pellegrino (talk) 19:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

British Personal Bests at the 2008 Summer Olympics

Am I the only one thinking this new article that has been linked to from the 'Records' section of this article is redundant and should be suggested for deletion. It appears to be just a duplicate of the information on this article. Yboy83 (talk) 09:45, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Not only is it a duplicate it is wrongly named (its a list of NR, not PBs), unreferenced and factually wrong (all the NRs are listed under WRs). It should probably be nominated. Basement12 (talk) 12:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I have let User:Mazdamx5, who is the sole editor of the article, know about this discussion on their talk page. Basement12 (talk) 15:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Wushu?

Other than the fact it needed special permission to take place does this have anything whatsoever to do with the 2008 Summer Olympics? Its not part of the games in any case so I don't think it belongs here. Basement12 (talk) 16:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I've also brought the subject up here. Basement12 (talk) 16:55, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, there's no real consensus on either page but I've removed it again for three reasons:

• Mainly to keep consistency with other country's page as none of these include it - I'm treating this as a pseudo consensus not to include it.
• The editor that last added it this article included it as a 'non-olympic' sport.
• There's a very slight consensus against including it (for disclosure reasons I'll admit I've mad a comment not to include it).

Dpmuk (talk) 22:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
I've no real opinion on it either way, I edited the section previously to make the status of the event clearer, but that was not because I supported its inclusion. However, to save a constant battle of adding and removing, might it be a good idea (and a compromise) to at least have a subheading for it, followed by something like "For details of the wushu tournament organised alongside, though not part of, the Beijing Olympics, see this article"?Lukens (talk) 15:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• This discussion has been taken to Wikiproject olympics. Resons for the section's removal are explained there. Please add any further comments there. Basement12 (T.C) 15:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no move. JPG-GR (talk) 06:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics → Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the 2008 Summer Olympics — Per BOA website: "Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team." — Mais oui! (talk) 09:43, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Oppose - this has already been discussed many times, see links in discussion section below. Basement12 (T.C) 13:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Support. It is th GB&NI team - end of discussion. --MJB (talk) 14:30, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - firstly, GB&NI implies that all NI competitors compete for this team, which is not necessarily the case. Secondly, the official medal page, [5], refers to the team simply as Great Britain. — Pek, on behalf of Tivedshambo (talk) 14:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support per more accurate. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 14:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree - we just have to ask: "why not?" --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose - GB alone seems to be predominant usage by an enormous margin. --Breadandcheese (talk) 15:25, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose: per WP:COMMONNAME. I could be convinced otherwise, don't have a particularly strong opinion on this eitherway. --Jza84 |  Talk  15:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose because the name of the team is Great Britain, regardless of whether or not we think that name is accurate. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:06, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. We seem to go through this discussion every two years, don't we? The name has been simply "Great Britain" for almost every Games since the beginning, per the official reports downloadable here. Current media, including the BBC website, the official 2008 Games site, etc. all use "Great Britain" alone as the common name. The right place to educate people that this team represents the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is in the lede, not the article name. Obviously, that approach was taken on the main United Kingdom article, and the same should be done here. It was an unfortunate choice a century ago of using the inaccurate "Great Britain" instead of the more appropriate "United Kingdom" as the shortcut name for this team at the Olympic Games, but that's what happened, and that's the name this encyclopedia should use. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:06, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I've now adapted the lede of the article to reflect the fact that the team reprsents GB & NI, hopefully this will serve as a suitable compromise. Basement12 (T.C) 17:45, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose - for the reasons elucidated by Andrwsc.  – ukexpat (talk) 18:05, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - If the 'British' government cared enough about ALL the people they purport to represent they could, quite easily, have their representative team called 'UK' or 'Team UK'. But they don't, so they haven't. Unless and until the name is changed it should continue to be described as 'Great Britain', 'GB' or 'Team GB'. I suppose we should just be grateful it isn't known as 'ENG'. :) Daicaregos (talk) 19:03, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Slightly off topic comment—in the 1896 official report, the team was referred to as "England"! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - As the Olympics (without any argument from the UK) use the name 'Great Britain'. GoodDay (talk) 19:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - Already uses the more common name and GB&NI is already a redirect to here. MilborneOne (talk) 19:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - Surely its pet name would be Team GB & NI otherwise. Plus, it's not entirely the UK thanks to the Irish citizenship law... Craitman H. Pellegrino (talk) 21:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

One Olympian has moved from Team GB to the Ireland team in recent years - it simply depends who they choose to compete for, so the British/Irish/dual citizenship issue shouldn't be an issue here. We shouldn't use it as a reason not to use the name "Northern Ireland" anyway.- --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support:I think it is fair enough that "Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics" should redirect somewhere better if there is no reason not to. It must be noted that "GB" (as used in "Team GB") never strictly equalled "Great Britain". GB was chosen as a needed two-letter abbreviation years ago - and was always technically incorrect regarding Northern Ireland - but was and is used for NI all the same. The only inarguable name is "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" and as the official site uses it (alongside “Team GB”) on their principle Infomation page (here) I would support changing the article name to it. That for me is stronger than any prior use over the history of the games. For me it's just a case of 'it's more accurate - can you give a good reason why not?' There is nothing wrong with using "The United Kingdom", either - as long we have all the redirects in place - but GB and NI would be more in keeping with "Team GB" (which, like the website, include Northern Ireland). With article titles, I do this accuracy should always be the key. So 'support' per "GB" including Northern Ireland, and the introducion on the Team GB website - they are both enough for me. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:31, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: Ideally for me personally, either "The United Kingdom" or "Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics" would be the best, but I see "Britain" in the common cultural way as including the "British citizenship" country of Northern Ireland, and not as short for Great Britain. Others choose to define "Britain" as GB, however – so using Britain would have an element of ambiguity too. There is nothing wrong with removing ambiguity when it does no harm to do so, so I support the "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" rename for the title: the intro will explain the accuracy of the title - which is surely better than an Intro explaining the inaccuracy of a title?. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:36, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose this is *not* a country-based article, it is a *NOC* based article. If these articles were based on common name then Taiwan would not be Chinese Taipei at the Olympics, it would be called Taiwan at the Olympics. NOC areas are _not_ countries. The Olympic entity is called "Great Britain", which is not the same entity as the nation called "United Kingdom...". 70.51.10.38 (talk) 06:52, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - Since you don't hear "representing Great Britain and Northern Ireland" at any stage by the announcers. And also, it would be slightly incorrect to call them "GB&NI", since athletes from NI can represent the Republic. DitzyNizzy (aka Jess) (talk) 10:21, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

By Republic, I mean the Republic of Ireland, not any other one. DitzyNizzy (aka Jess) (talk) 10:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose The team is called "Great Britain" and that term can be used to refer to the mainland and Northern Ireland. Adambro (talk) 22:54, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose The team doesn't represent Northern Ireland.[6] 87.112.82.4 (talk) 10:03, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes they do - Wendy Houvenhagel (who won silver in the track cycling) comes from NI. [7]. And if you can't believe the BOA's website, who can you believe? DitzyNizzy (aka Jess) (talk) 18:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm in agreement with existing comments opposing the change Lukens (talk) 18:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Suggest description 'The Great Britain Team' or 'Team Great Britain' - the team included people from NI, so is strictly Team UK, rather than Team GB, but the fact is they entered as GB, were recorded as GB and wore GB, so rightly or wrongly, that is what they are. The term 'Team GB' or 'The GB team' recognises the geographical mismatch, but also recognises the name they used when they competed. It might have been more appropriate if they had called themselves 'Team UK' - but they didn't, and Wikipedia runs on the basis of verifiable fact - not opinion. My OPINION is that the team should have been called UK, but that is totally irrelevant - what matters it the FACT - which is that they competed as GB.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• This concerns a lot of articles, not just this one. I think you should take it direct to WikiProject Olympics. Severo^TC 13:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• Agree discussion should probably go to WikiProject Olympics, if it hasn't already been discussed somewhere in the archives there. Additionally WP naming conventions says "article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize", which i'd imagine is simply GB not GB & NI. Basement12 (T.C) 13:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It has been previously been discussed here, here, here and here. I think clearly the subject does not need to be brought up again. Basement12 (T.C) 13:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. --Jza84 |  Talk  16:00, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks to me that Team GB has addressed the NI issue themselves, using both "GB" (which as the two letters actually includes NI) and this Introductory page to the Tean GB website which clearly states "Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team". Shouldn't we follow their own lead, despite what has happened here (or elsewhere) in the past? I support the rename - it seems directly in line with the Team GB approach, which seems to have actually quite subtly addressed the old "Great Britain" Olympic tradition, if you think about it. I can't see a good reason not to do it, either. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Two other different approaches are using "United Kingdom", and to just use "Team GB". As long as the redirects get here. I would guess most similar Olympic team articles are more in line with "United Kingdom", but I haven't looked. What is the typical approach?--Matt Lewis (talk) 22:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment:The article is not about the performance of the country (i.e Uk or GB & NI) at the olympics, but is about the performance of the team of athletes selected to represent that country. Rightly or wrongly that team is officially known as Great Britain as far as the IOC are concerned. To use a slightly poor analogy asking for this article to be renamed is similar to asking for a page on Manchester United to be renamed to Manchester. Basement12 (T.C) 22:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

In agreement. We should stick with the IOC on this topic - as this article deals with the Olympics. GoodDay (talk) 23:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

But is there a "Great Britain" article? In the sense of the team? Using the title "Great Britain at the Olympics" (where Great Britain is a team), would logically require a "Great Britain" team article. I can see the ambiguity here. --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

If there's not? you're free to create one. GoodDay (talk) 23:17, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Great Britain at the Olympics is the summary article for all GBR Olympic teams—is that what you are looking for? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Not quite - what about the Commonwealth Games etc? This "Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics" title seems to need a "Great Britain" athletics team page, as surely they compete elsewhere as 'Great Britain'? If they don't, this title should be "Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic team" IMO, and should relate the title history from Great Britain to Team GB, and cover NI being involved. If the "Great Britain" team is genuinely a fixed body, then "Great Britain Olympic team" is would be the correct one per COMMONNAME. But is there a fixed 'Great Britain' body outside of the Olympics? --Matt Lewis (talk) 23:59, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

The arguement about GB being a team name was just to try and simplify the matter. There are no other major multinational, multisport competitions on the same scale so there is no need for such a body to exist outside of the olympics. However as this page is about the olympics that is not relevant and the Great Britain at the Olympics page is the ""Great Britain" athletics team page" which you seek. In the Commonwealth Games the team is seperated into England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (also Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man and possibly others). The fact that you are unaware of this may show you that perhaps your knowledge in this field is not enough to support a page move? As i've already said this issue has been very heavily debated before (see e.g. here, here, here and here) and seems to come up every Olympic year (e.g. 2006. Discussion has always (rightly) resulted in the use of Great Britain as opposed to any other name. Basement12 (T.C) 00:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

My inital concerns are with UK nationality representation - it is currently a very worked-on issue on WP regarding the UK. It's something I've worked in since I started properly editing Wikipedia around a year ago. "Great Britain" specifically is of key interest to me here, and NI too. I had looked at your links (you've listed them before), but none of them represent to me the kind of discussion that equates to a 'done deal' with this article (they are all rather short discussions, in fact). I did wonder about the Commonwealth Games (and it clearly lists the home nations on its Wikpedia page), but I found this list that mentioned GBR on Google (here it is). I only scanned it I admit, but "GBR" seemed to represent the possibility of a GB team. So Great Britain at the Olympics is the Great Britain athletics team page? If a Great Britain team exists outside of the Olympics, why not create a Great Britain team article? I would support keeping this "Great Britain" then. If it doesn't have that distinct identity, I'm not so sure we have the best title here. I'm watching the Olympics now, btw, and have seen quite a lot of it.--Matt Lewis (talk) 01:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry i wasn't suggesting in any way that you were ignorant of the situation. I will assume you're using "athletics team" as a term to encompase the multisport team in this senario? The British Olympic Association (BOA) is the organisation responsible for picking and managing the team. As such it is responsible for selecting teams only for the summer and winter olympics not any other events (as far as I know). Therefore the Great Britain at the Olympics is the "team page" which summarises the entire history and results of these teams for every summer and winter games dating back to the 1st games in 1896.

Teams for other events are managed by different organisations, e.g the Athletics world championships where I think the athletics team was known as Great Britain and N.I.

If you look at the Official 2008 Olympic Website you will see that the term Great Britain is used exclusively, there is no mention of UK or & NI anywhere. For this page to be moved you would surely be saying that the official website is wrong. Basement12 (T.C) 02:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Since this discussion started, I have been carefully looking at the GBR competitors on the television coverage, and every single uniform I saw (across multiple sports) said "Great Britain" or "GBR" and nothing more. Clearly the team itself subscribes to WP:COMMONNAME arguments. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:30, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Moved from RM:

• Change to United Kingdom at the 2008 Summer Olympics because United Kingdom = Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This implies move over redirect. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Can I bet a tenner on this happening during the 2010 Winter Olympics? DitzyNizzy (aka Jess) (talk) 16:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

"Medals by Discipline"

Is this needed? I haven't seen it prior to today and we were fine without it. Surely the sortable table for all medals would cover such a table. And, on my browser at least, it overlaps the main table of medallists. Craitman H. Pellegrino (talk) 16:19, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Works well if you have a very wide screen! but I dont think it really adds any value to the article all the information is listed under each discipline further down. Support deletion. MilborneOne (talk) 16:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't think its needed. In addition to all the ifo being under each sports section the number of medals per sport is summarised in the targets section. Basement12 (T.C)

I added this this morning as a similar table was shown on the BBC coverage and I felt it was an interesting way to display the data. I've considered merging it with the targets table though, as there is obvious overlap between the two, and I suspected it could be problematic on smaller screens. Perhaps the "Targets" section could be renamed "Medals by Discipline and Targets" (or similar). What do people feel about this? Personally I think it's nice to have the medals summarised in this way, rather than having to piece this information together from other tables, but I understand if people feel it doesn't add enough value to weigh up with any negatives. Lukens (talk) 17:35, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I would also argue that the table adds as much, if not more, value as the 'Daily: Overall Medals' table does.Lukens (talk) 17:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Daily overall medals will probably be removed after the games. See Wikiproject olympics - day by day medal tables. - Basement12 (T.C) 18:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You could try expanding the target table as you suggested, we can always change it back if it looks confusing! MilborneOne (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I feel that the medals by sport table is much more useful than the medals by day, and would rather have the former than the latter (which you can get by sorting the main list) Bluap (talk) 05:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I have now removed the day by day table (PER consensus at Wikiproject Olympics) as having 3 tables next to each other was causing problems in some browsers. Basement12 (T.C) 15:07, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Number discrepancies

On 2008 Summer Olympics, it says GB has 312 competitiors, as does the infobox, but the lead section says 311. I assume the lead is wrong because 168 men plus 143 women equals 312, but the math for the total delegation with either number is wrong because 236 officials plus 311/312 competitors is 547 or 548, not 549 like the lead says. Reywas92^Talk 14:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the numbers so they are consistent, unfortunatley the 2 sources used (no's 2+3), both from the official Team GB website are inconsistent. One says 311 athletes the other 313. I've gone for 311 as the source for this is the actual list of competitors. Basement12 (T.C) 14:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

There were originally 313 competititors named but Frankie Gavin and Alex Nelson withdrew without competing and were not replaced. If you add all the competitors and a few extrarelay squad members you should get 311. Topcardi (talk) 00:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Targets

The article states that the BOA revised the medal target to 20 medals on the 20th August. Apart from the Times article I couldn't find any other references to a new target. The article actually says "...British Olympic officials have set their sights on a final count of 20." which is, I think, quite different from setting a new target. Unless anyone objects I'll rewrite the text here in the next day or so. Spuddock (talk) 19:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Took me ages to remember but I have changed the section on the revised target as I've done more digging and can't find another reference other than the Times article. Spuddock (talk) 17:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I'll go ahead and take this GA review. H1nkles (talk) 20:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   prose is good though limited.

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   C. It contains no original research:

   citations are impressive if a bit singularly reliant on BBC Sport. Bringing in other sources to provide variety will enhance the article's credibility.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   Good work on editing out POV statements and focus to make it as neutral as possible.

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   See comments below.

Pass GA

I'm happy to pass this article as a Good Article. I have reviewed the changes and edits and I am pleased with the direction this article is taking. It is a model of all the thousands of articles that fall into the category of country at year Olympics. As previously stated, what will be required in order to move this article beyond GA status is a reduction in the overall size of the article while probing deeper into the results of each event that Team GB competed in. You rely heavily on the beautiful tables, which are impressive, but which also create the enormous size of this article. They are also limited in that they do not give the feeling of the events that copy edit can give. Congratulations on a job well done. H1nkles (talk) 16:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

GA Review Philosophy

When I do an article review I like to provide a Heading-by-Heading breakdown of suggestions for how to make the article better. It is done in good faith as a means to improve the article. It does not mean that the article is not GA quality, or that the issues listed are keeping it from GA approval. I also undertake minor grammatical and prose edits, but I don't believe in making major edits as the reviewer. After I finish this part of the review I will look at the over arching quality of the article in light of the GA criteria and make my determination as to the overall quality of the article. H1nkles (talk) 21:00, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Lead" Heading

• Try not to cite too much in the lead. Considering that the lead is supposed to be a summary of the article, one would assume those citations would come up in the body of the article, thereby making citations in the lead redundant. I can't cite anything from MoS about this so I would accept a cogent rebuttal argument.
• The lead is 5 paragraphs, only 1 of which is longer than 2 sentences. Try to combine a couple of the paragraphs and condense to 3 but no more than 4 paragraphs per WP:LEAD.
• I would recommend a brief explanation of what UK Sport is. This will help the reader understand the last paragraph in the lead better.
• In my opinion this sentence is redundant, "The team was made up of athletes from the United Kingdom." We know they are from the UK unless you are attempting to establish that the terms "Great Britain" and "United Kingdom" are synonyms. In the last sentence in this paragraph you refer to the athletes as from the United Kingdom, I think that would suffice.
• Recommend rewording this sentence, "The United Kingdom will be the next host of the Summer Olympics, holding the 2012 Games in London." The subject is ambiguous, and the sentence is too wordy. Perhaps this could be an alternative, "The United Kingdom will host the 2012 Summer Olympics in London."
• Consider rewording this line, "Great Britain's medal performance at the 2008 Summer Olympics was its best for a century". Perhaps, "...was its best in a century."
• The start of this sentence, "It is also the second highest total medal count Great Britain has ever achieved, with only the 1908 games resulting in more medals." is ambiguous. What does "it" refer to? I would suggest instead, "Team GB also acheived the second highest total medal count in its Olympic history, again coming in second to the 1908 team." H1nkles (talk) 21:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Firstly my thanks for taking on the review H1nkles. I've made some of the changes you talk about, combining paragraphs, changing wording and a small explaination of UK Sport, a further explaination is offered in the targets section. The sentence "The team was made up of athletes from the United Kingdom." is necessary precisly because GB and UK are not synonyms. The team actually represents the UK which includes Northern Ireland, not just GB, but is named GB due to one of those little quirks of the IOC. There is a long discussion of this naming somewhere on the talk page. I have however combined it with the info on how Northern Irish athletes may be selected so it seems less out of place. Of the references, 2 are used to back up this point, whilst the others are merely there to confirm overall numbers that are not mentioned elsewhere, I will remove one to the infobox if that would be better. The only further suggestion I could make is moving the paragraph on the achievements, and its references, to the "medallists" section but my opinion would be that this is important summary information. Basement12 (T.C) 22:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation of the GB/UK issue, I accept it. Overall the lead looks tighter. I won't get too nit picky since this is a GA review. Thank you for your prompt attention to the issues raised and your explanation of why you edited as you did. Personally, if someone can give me reasonable rationale for their edits then I will usually accept it. I'll continue my review. H1nkles (talk) 22:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Medallists" Heading

• I know a lot of blood, sweat, and tears has been spilt to get these tables into some sort of standardized format so I won't comment on the format, except to say that the tables appear organized, easy to navigate, user-friendly and intuitive so I say they're fine.
• I also know that there's been a debate between the use of "medallists" vs. "medal winners". From your use of "medallists" am I to assume that this is the consensus reached by the community?

I personally proposed the use of "medalists" to standardise across all 2008 and previous pages, i believe only three editors had any feeling one way all the other and all favoured medalists (the British spelling "medallists" is used here due to strong national ties rule). I've since changed all 2500ish "Nation" at "Year" Olympics articles to this heading so it should now be considered the standard (as seen in WP:OLYMOSNAT). Basement12 (T.C) 17:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, and thank you for your yeoman effort there. Sheesh that must have taken a while. H1nkles (talk) 18:18, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Targets" Heading

• I notice in this section that you did not bold Team GB, the rest of the references to Team GB are in bold, was this an oversight or intentional?

The intention was that it should only be bolded in the lede, to make it stand out as an alternative team name. I've ensured all other uses are unemboldened (is that a word?). Basement12 (T.C) 17:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• I would change "gained Britain's 13th gold medal" to "earned Britain's 13th gold medal."
• This sentence has some syntax problems, "This led, on 20 August, Day 13 of the Games, to the British Olympic Association setting a new target of 20 gold medals due to better than expected results.[12][13]" I would remove the date/day of the Games from this sentence and word it thusly, "This led the British Olympic Association to set a new target of 20 gold medals due to...." I try to avoid verbs with "ing" suffixes when ever possible.
• I'm a little confused by this statement, "The minimum medal expectation, of 35 medals, was passed on 20 August when they claimed their 36th medal - a bronze medal at women's RS:X, won by Bryony Shaw. The total medal target was equalled when canoeist Tim Brabants took gold in the men's 1000 m K-1[14] claiming Britain's 41st physical medal (three further medals were guaranteed in boxing at the time)." What is the difference between the "minimum medal target" and the "total medal target"? It seems (to me anyway) unnecessary to state when Team GB passed the minimum medal target. I would just keep the "total medal target", which is more prestigious. Of course that's my opinion. Also put the citation at the end of the sentence rather than in the middle, just to make it more readable.

A little explaination (i will change some of the statement anyway)... basically it was predicted that there were a total of 41 medals that the team had a good/realistic chance of winning, but allowing for bad luck and other nations over achieving in a few events, and to give themselves a better chance of looking successful i guess, the main target was set at 35. Thus passing the 35 medal minimum target was seen as good but passing 41 was considered an excellent achievement beyond realistic expectations. i think, but am not sure, that these numbers were all based on performances in the most recent world/european championships in each sport. I'll play with it a bit so its clearer in the article. Basement12 (T.C) 17:56, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• You mention that Team GB did not meet some medal targets but exceeded others. You then go on to talk about the instances when they exceeded or met medal targets. To maintain NPOV you should probably also talk about the sports in which Team GB fell short of expectation. I know you display it in the table in this section but it would be more neutral to also highlight it in the paragraph, that way you give equal light to both sides.

I've added a few sentences on the failure of the archery team and their criticism of their coaches. Other than that its hard to write anything other than that sport X didn't reach the target set which doesn't add anything that can't be seen in the table. Basement12 (T.C) 18:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

• The paragraph is quite long, consider breaking it into 2.
• In regards to the † section under the table, this statement is redundant and just an expansion on the comment under the Medal Table. I would recommend either combining them into one reference to the Chinese Gymnasts' age controversy or removing this one altogether. Personally I think it makes more sense to keep it under the Medal Targets table but that's just me, it could really go in either place but should not be in both. H1nkles (talk) 16:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Archery" Heading

• Section looks good nothing to add here. H1nkles (talk) 18:03, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Athletics" Heading

• In this sentence, "one gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze. The failure to meet the UK Sport target, of winning five medals,[11]" you should pick either to write out the numbers or represent them numerically but not both.
• I would reword this sentence, "The failure to meet the UK Sport target, of winning five medals,[11] was a contributing factor in UK Athletics performance director Dave Collins standing down after the Games.[24]" It is too passive. Instead something like, "UK Athletics performance director Dave Collins resigned after the Games. This was due in part to the Athletics team's failure to meet the UK Sport target of winning five medals." H1nkles (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Done Basement12 (T.C) 19:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Badminton" Heading

• "Great Britain were represented in 4 of the 5 badminton events by 6 athletes". Two things, first is it "were" or "was", I think it's "was". Second, put the subject - six athletes - in the front of the sentence rather than the end, like this, "Six athletes represented Great Britain in four of the five badminton events." I'm trying to remove the passive voice from the sentence. I would then end the sentence there and start a new sentence with, "They did not win a medal, thereby failing to reach the one medal target set by UK Sport."

Done Basement12 (T.C) 19:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Boxing" Heading

• I made a couple comma corrections otherwise good section.

Regarding "Canoeing" Heading

• "Anna Hemmings and Jessica Walker in the K2 were added later after complications with the Spanish team.[31]" Change K2 to two person canoe or something that is a little more generic for the layman. K2 is a little bit of jargon.

Done Basement12 (T.C) 19:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Cycling" Heading

• Again, several times you write out the numbers and other times you write them numerically.
• "Chris Hoy's became Scotland's most", I think it's Hoy not Hoy's. It's wikilinked so I won't change it. Speaking of which you already wikilink Hoy in the previous paragraph, you don't need to link him twice. He's also wikilinked in the medal tables so you could probably get away with not linking any of the cyclists' names, except Cavendish - by the way, what happened to Cavendish? He was rockin' in the Tour De France and then he drops out to be fresh for the Olympics and can't get it together. Maybe he was fatigued from the tour. Sorry that's a side bar.

I think many readers will skip straight to the section on the sport that interests them, thus ignoring the medallists section, so I think leaving the links could be useful, i will however remove them as there is already a critical mass of blue in this area. By the way I think Cavendish was fine, the problem was that his team mate Wiggins was too tired from his other medal wining exploits to be able to compete at the top of his game :) Basement12 (T.C) 19:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, I would say remove wikilinks of people already linked w/in the section. Also I loved watching Cavendish in the Tour and look forward to his participation next year. Lance will be there next year, which will make for a very interesting Tour. H1nkles (talk) 19:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• I recommend moving cite #32 to the end of the sentence rather than the middle. Just makes the article more readable when in-line citations are not in the middle of sentences. H1nkles (talk) 18:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The reference in question only refers to the first part of the sentence, the references at the end of the sentence to what comes afterwards. I think, but am not sure that in cases like this the style guidelines say the reference should go directly after the information it backs up? If i'm wrong on this i will change it. Basement12 (T.C) 19:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not 100% on what the style guides say, I'll look into it and let you know. H1nkles (talk) 19:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• According to MoS (see section 8.12) citations should be after punctuation including commas, so as long as there is a comma dilineating a certain thought then go aheand and keep the in-line citation where it is. H1nkles (talk) 20:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Diving" Heading

No problems, good section.

Regarding "Equestrian" Heading

I made a minor grammatical correction otherwise no problems here.

Regarding "Fencing" Heading

• The only correction I would make would be to spell out FIE rather than have it abbreviated in the body of the article, then put (FIE) after it with a little explanation of what FIE is. This is absolutely a personal preference to avoid jargon, not a hard and fast rule. H1nkles (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Done, seemed sensible to me as I didn't know exactly what the FIE was before following the link. Basement12 (T.C) 18:20, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Gymnastics" Heading

• Consider specifying that the gymnast was out due to a slipped disk in her back. Some readers may not understand "slipped disk".
• You have another blurb about the gymnastics age controversy, this should be removed. H1nkles (talk) 20:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I have specified "in her back" and also wikilinked slipped disc. I've substantially shortened the note on the age controversy but feel it is necssary to leave a short explaination here, with the references from above repeated, as a reader may just read this section and not the whole article. At some stage, when the situation is resolved one way or another, there will need to be a note there anyway (like the one found for the changes in the heptathlon rankings). Hope that is an ok solution. Basement12 (T.C) 21:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a reasonable solution. I was thinking after I wrote the suggestion that as long as the note wasn't a verbatim copy of the previous note then it would be fine for the same rason you stated. H1nkles (talk) 00:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Hockey" Heading

• Everywhere else in the section you refer to the event as "Field Hockey", therefore, I think the heading should be retitled "Field Hockey".
• I fixed a few minor grammatical errors otherwise it looks good. H1nkles (talk) 20:22, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I think "field" hockey is only used in the wikilinks to other articles. In the UK the sport is known only as hockey, confusion with ice hockey isn't really an issue, so i would suggest that the heading be left as is. Basement12 (T.C) 21:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

You would have a better cultural insight than I would. The suggestion was to remove ambiguity even though I'm sure very few would think that ice hockey would be played at the Summer Olympics. H1nkles (talk) 00:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

You may be suprised at the lack of thought some people are capable of then :), i'm sure any British reader would look alphabetically for "hockey", which would just about be covered by WP:ENGVAR. Basement12 (T.C) 00:39, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• I have updated this section to use the roster and tournament statistics tables proposed for team sports by WP:WikiProject Olympics, replacing the roster and match summary tables that had previously been used. Please let me know if there is strong objection to this. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Judo" Heading

• "Team GB were represented by seven athletes in the Judo events.[51]" Is it "were" or "was"? I think it's "was" represented since in this sentence Team GB is singular.

Regarding "Modern Pentathlon Heading

No problems good section.

Regarding "Rowing" Heading

• Consider revising this sentence, "Medals were won in 6 events, including gold in the coxless fours for the third successive games, meaning GB topped the rowing medal table.[54]" The last part should read, "which meant GB topped the rowing medal table."

Regarding "Sailing" Heading

Aside from a minor grammatical fix it's fine.

Regarding "Swimming" Heading

• Consider wikilinking the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships.
• You run into the problem of numbers spelled out and written numerically here.
• "Britain's first Olympic swimming title since 1988, and the first swimming gold by a British woman since 1960. Her second Gold in the 800 m" you have Gold capitalized and not capitalized, I think not capitalized is more correct.
• In the tables you bold CR and ER but not NR, is there a reason for this? Also I note that you do not have any of them bold in the records table below. Consider unbolding for consistency.

Fixed everything apart from the wikilinking. As far as I can find out there is no article for the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships, if one were to be created I couldn't say for sure what exact name it'd be under either (could be 2008 or 5th championships or it could include the name of the governing body, FINA). I think for now no link is better than a long, red and possibly incorrect one? Basement12 (T.C) 21:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, I assumed there was one, that's what I get for assuming. H1nkles (talk) 21:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Synchornized Swimming" Heading

Fine.

Regarding "Taekwondo" Heading

• "entered three entrants" an awkward wording here, entered-entrants. Consider athletes or competitors or a noun that doesn't have the same root as the verb.

Regarding "Tennis" Heading

• As with fencing, consider spelling out ITF and explaining what it is.
• Is there a table for world rankings in tennis that could be wikilinked in reference to Andy Murray's world ranking?

I've linked to the relevant section of Tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Qualification as this should be a permanent record of his ranking at the time, plus I don't think Wikipedia keeps a record of the current rankings. Basement12 (T.C) 21:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Triathlon" Heading

• Same as Tennis and Fencing, spell out ITU and explain it.
• Also consider wikilinking the 2008 Triathlon World Championship.

Same issue as for swimming with the wikilinking here, no article on that year's championships or the event in general. Basement12 (T.C) 21:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Weightlifting" Heading

• "The only British weightlifter to qualify for the games was Michaela Breeze who competed in her second Olympics games.[63]" I think you mean, "...her second Olympic Games." Remove "s" from Olympics and capitalize Games. H1nkles (talk) 20:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Other Sports" Heading

• This sentence doesn't make sense to me, "British representatives participated in the qualifying tournaments of a number of other Olympic sports in the lead up to the 2008 games, only for outside events to prevent their further participation in the games." I'm looking at the last section about outside events. What are you trying to say?
• In the Football subheading you don't wikilink Portugal, Italy, Sweden and Denmark. Is there a reason for this?

The opening sentence is saying that British athletes would have been entered into other sports if not for issues outside of their own control, issues of team funding for baseball and lack of agreement on team make-up for football that the athletes themselves could not influence. I've made a small change to clarify this. The links to relevant team articles are done. Basement12 (T.C) 21:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

• Why is this section needed? Why aren't basketball, handball, softball, volleyball, water polo, or wrestling mentioned? Surely GB had entries in pre-Olympic qualification tournaments for some of those sports also. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

The stories behind these particular sports and why there were not British entries are controversial. The whole issue of a GB football team has been a massive talking point in the British media. The reasons behind these sports not being contested goes beyond the simple failure to qualify explanations for the other sports you mention. Basement12 (T.C) 15:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, ok. For baseball, the lack of funding prevented participation in the final qualifying tournament, but they would not have necessarily finished ahead of Canada, Korea, or Chinese Taipei to qualify for the Games themselves, so that is certainly a different situation from football. Does it warrant the same weight? My feeling is that "Other sports" looks out of place, and perhaps should be replaced by a "Football" section that explains that situation alone. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 15:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It probably doesn't deserve equal weight with the football issues, at least interms of the coverage it recieved, but then the section is already far smaller. I feel that as we have the information and a suitable reference it deserves to be included. Either way I think just a football section gives the wrong impression, seeing it in the TOC may make a reader think that a team did qualify. Perhaps changing the heading to something like "Sports not contested" (thats a crap name but something like that would be the general idea) and adding a short sentence listing the other sports at the games that GB didn't qualify for simply because they weren't good enough? Basement12 (T.C) 16:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "Records" Heading

I made a minor grammatical change, otherwise it's fine.

Regarding "Media Coverage" Heading

• I would take this out, "and other countries to view delayed highlights". It makes a run-on sentence way too long and really doesn't add to the context of the paragraph. If you really want to keep it then split the sentence so that it isn't a run-on sentence.
• Cite the paragraph about who anchored the Olympic media events and who provided expert commentary. H1nkles (talk) 21:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
• The Eurosport and Radio coverage sentences are stub paragraphs, consider combining with the previous paragraph. Also in-line citation # 87 is not after a punctuation mark per our above discussion and and MoS section 8.12 regarding citations within a sentence. H1nkles (talk) 21:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

All done, i've covered the enire paragraph on anchors and commentary with a single press release that lists all of them (plus many more commentators). In case you were wondering I think what seperates the commentators listed from those not listed is that they are all past Olympc gold medallists. Basement12 (T.C) 22:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, and how did you Brits get Michael Johnson to do Athletics commentary, when the US got Ato Bolden? Nothing against Ato Bolden but he's no Michael Johnson!

Overarching Comments

• Very well-done. The article is comprehensive and well-written. The linking and citations look good.
• Regarding the images: I think you should move the Ohuruogu photo, it is awkward where it currently resides. I think placing it in the Athletics Heading would work although you're going to likely run into formatting problems with all the tables you have in this article. If the photo could be reduced in size to match the margins of the tables above it then it would be fine where it is but it is an awkward size and does not seem to really fit where it currently sits. I refer you to MOS:IMAGES. It recommends staggering the photos starting on the right and then left and so on. Again, formatting may be so nightmarish that you may not want to do that, I'll leave it up to you. The copyrights check out, though I'm not an expert on this.
• Citations appear credible. Check the formating on cite # 23, it appears to be incorrect. You rely very heavily on BBC Sport, which is fine for a GA, you probably want to diversify if you are going to move on to FA candidacy.
• Speaking of FAC. This article could certainly qualify with some more work. The key in my opinion, would be to enhance the commentary on each discipline that the UK competed in. Instead of relying solely on tables to show results, explain some of how the events played out. This article could be more than just a compilation of results but it will take some dedicated effort similar to what has already been put into the article to get it to this point.
• About the tables - If this is going to be the accepted format for all such articles then I can only imagine with the US or China articles will look like, countries that have entrants in nearly every sports discipline competed at the Games. To reduce the size of the article, if this is a concern, consider removing the country flags from the tables that have them. They are very colorful and really add to the look of the article but they are redundant since you have the three-letter country abbreviation immediately after the competitors name already. I'm speculating that the article size will be a hinderance should it be promoted to FAC as it currently stands. As I've previously said, I know a lot of work has been done to make the tables consistent across all nations, I don't want to go against community consensus on this issue. I think that is all I'll say at this point, I'll give time to make edits and corrections and then give my decision regarding GA status. Well done! H1nkles (talk) 22:09, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I fully understand what you are saying about the article length, it was a concern of mine also, this article currently stands as the 55th longest on all of Wikipedia on the list of long pages, with the equivalent US article in 5th and China in 8th (not sure if this would make it the longest GA if it gets promoted?). Obviously due to the sheer amount covered these articles will always be long but it may well become necessary to discuss ways of cutting them down. The idea of removing flags is an interesting one, however it should be noted that the flag and three letter code appear as part of the same template and i think both would need to appear together or be replaced with the full country name (discussed in Wikipedia:Manual of style (flags)). As for FA status its something i'd like to work towards. Expanding and diversifying a few references would be easy enough, articles from The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph are readily available if necessary, though few non-UK sources would be possible. I imagine however that it would fail on the issue of length. My counter argument would be that WP:SIZE is mainly concerned with large amounts of prose, and it only deals with specific problems for articles over 32Kb (a size this could never be cut down to) and 400KB (which it shouldn't reach), i doubt at its current length it could be linked to from the mainpage but i don't think that should stop it from being promoted entirely. Anyway that is for the future. For now I believe I have addressed all the points you've made that i'm able to. Thank you for all your suggestions and help Basement12 (T.C) 22:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Further Comments

It appears as though edits continue on this article. I am seeking further comments from other editors who have an interest in this article. If I get no further input over the weekend then I will make my determination regarding GA status on Monday 9/29. H1nkles (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Title

This may be completely asinine and if there is already consensus to the contrary on this then ignore it, but I was thinking since the title is so long that it might be wise to delete "Summer" since there is only one Olympic Games in 2008. Any thoughts? H1nkles (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

We have over three thousand articles of this form ("Nation at the year season Olympics"), so it would be a very sweeping change to go to a different naming scheme. There is also some merit in keeping consistency for all Summer Games to have "Summer" in the title, whether it is truly necessary (1924–1992 inclusive) or not (1896–1920, 1996–2008). If you want to pursue this idea, please, please, please start a discussion thread on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics and not just make a decision here. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• I figured that there would be quite a discussion, no decision made, just a suggestion. I'll think about it a bit more. Thanks for helping me see the ramifications of such a change. H1nkles (talk) 22:25, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

  Ok, great! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC) H1nkles (talk) 20:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I have passed this article as GA, my comments on the quality of the article are on the article's discussion page. Please refer there for assessment, edit discussion and review. H1nkles (talk) 16:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 16:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 16:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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