Talk:Lew Hoad/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Greatest of All Time

I notice from looking at the leads of other players, there is often a mention of being regarded or ranked among the greatest players of all time, often accompanied by a citation of a ranking result which supports that claim.

It seems to me that a similar reference could be added to the Hoad lead, along the lines of "often regarded by his peers as among the greatest tennis players." accompanied by a reference to the Tingay or Laver ranking lists.

Does this seem reasonable? It is not out of line with the other leads for prominent players. Actually, this seems to be standard practice for the leads.Tennisedu (talk) 19:22, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually it is a bit out of line. Looking at our current crop Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Williams, none of them have that in the lead. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:11, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but these players are still active, a bit premature to assess the total career before retirement. Here is what we have for Connors:"often considered among the greatest in the history of the sport"...for Borg: "widely considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport"...Rosewall:"he is considered to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time". And similar statements for other retired players. To say for Hoad that his "peers regarded him to be among the great players" does not sound like an exaggeration.Tennisedu (talk) 20:29, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

It is not an exaggeration, just not a great fit for the lead, nor for those other players. And it is certainly not premature for those active players as sources have shown. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:56, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

No objection if I remove or relocate those rather bloated statements from the leads of the other players I mentioned above? They appear to be rather subjective assessments, not suitable for a lead.Tennisedu (talk) 21:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I believe that we have already gone over this issue. They should be relocated.Tennisedu (talk) 21:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I have no issue with it being "moved." Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:19, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Laver Cup

Tennishistory1877, there is nothing wrong with mentioning that Federer and his management team created the Laver Cup in 2017 in honour of the great Rod Laver, I do not see why that should be objectionable. I added material earlier in the article pointing out the business relationship between Hoad and Laver, and also the business relationship between Hoad and Rosewall. So that has already been included in the discussion. No one is suggesting that these relationships influenced Laver's comments about who was the best player, that is not a justified assumption, indeed, Laver acclaimed Hoad as the best ever in 2019, two years after the Laver Cup was created.Tennisedu (talk) 17:19, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

In a Federer or Laver article it's fine. In a Laver Cup or tennis tournament article it's fine. In a Lew Hoad article it is generally not fine. There needs to be an overwhelming reason to talk about another player's accomplishments in a different player's article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

===Tenisshistory1877, please stay focused on the issues here. Hoad is not mentioned in your quotes of Laver and Rosewall making off-the-cuff remarks about Federer. They provide NO comparison between Hoad and Federer, and are not needed in a Hoad article. The subject of the article should be at least mentioned in the statement before it becomes relevant. Before you engage in further edits, please attempt to build consensus here in the Talk section.Tennisedu (talk) 20:28, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Fyunck, we already had a discussion about these quotes on these talk pages about this before, so I find it strange you suddenly come out with this edit now. And what you have said seems to me to be at odds with wikipedia's neutral point of view rules. If Boris Becker calls Federer the G.O.A.T. then it has no relevance in a Hoad article because he has never called Hoad the G.O.A.T., but if Rod Laver says Federer is the G.O.A.T. several times and in one source calls Hoad the G.O.A.T. then the Federer quotes should be included. The Rosewall statement I quoted about Federer being the G.O.A.T. was said several years after the statement he made about Hoad being the G.O.A.T. and Federer won several Grand Slams in the intervening years. This Hoad article should not read like a party political broadcast on behalf of the Lew Hoad Party. It should be written in an accurate and neutral way. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:51, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

===Tennishistory1877, the term "greatness" has several possible meanings in tennis, it could mean career achievements or it could mean achieving a high level of play. Rosewall clearly used the "level of play" meaning in his 1963 and 2010 statements about Hoad. In 1963, he even said "when he was "on"" to qualify his rating of Hoad. Adding more Slam titles to a record is all about career achievements, a different measure of "greatness". So there is no necessary contradiction between Rosewall's earlier assessments and that 2017 statement. To get a contradiction, you would need to show that Rosewall made a comment about Hoad's level of play being less than Federer, and we do not have that yet. As it stands, those remarks about Federer do NOT relate to Hoad in any definable way, and Hoad was not mentioned in Rosewall's 2017 remarks. That makes them irrelevant to a Hoad article. And we should discuss these matters in Talk sections before engaging in an edit war. It seems to me that you are motivated by a pre-conceived agenda here, certainly not a neutral point of view. By your own logic, Laver's statements about Federer would now be rendered obsolete by his more recent comments about Hoad...do you see the absurdity of that?Tennisedu (talk) 21:13, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

You were the person who began engaging in an edit war, Tennisedu. I at no stage removed your quotations, I merely added quotations that provided balance and context. Frankly, when I first read the page I was surprised to read those statements you found from Laver and Rosewall saying Hoad was the G.O.A.T. (though I don't dispute their accuracy), because I have seen numerous interviews with Laver in recent years when he has called Federer the G.O.A.T. I quoted two of them. Rosewall is also known to be a big Federer fan. He writes Federer letters wishing him luck in tournaments and made a very strong unambiguous statement when asked who was the G.O.A.T. in 2017 saying it was Federer "there is no doubt. I challenge anyone to argue otherwise". I have no problem with the statements from Gonzales praising Hoad, they seem consistent with what I have read (though he didn't live long enough to see Federer). There is the quotation from Max Robertson saying "Max Robertson, tennis author and commentator, rated Hoad as the best post-war Wimbledon player, followed by Gonzales and Laver, in his 1977 book Wimbledon 1877–1977.[356] In the second edition (1981) his list was unchanged but in the third edition (1987) he listed Hoad second behind Boris Becker.[357][358]" The inclusion of the third edition remarks add context. The statements I added provide the context of Rosewall's and Laver's remarks. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:43, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

No, Laver's remarks about Federer are not obsolete, because Hoad did not play any tennis between 2012 and 2019 (he was dead). Rosewall's remarks about Hoad are only obsolete because Federer achieved significant wins in the intervening period. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:47, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

===You have ignored the obvious answer to this question, that Laver and Rosewall are using a different definition of "greatness" when they acclaim Hoad as the "greatest", indeed, Rosewall stated that his acclaim was when Hoad was "on", implying that the definition was "level of play", and not "number of titles=career achievements". So that means that there is no discrepancy between the 2010 and 2017 Rosewall statements, nor between Laver's 2018 statement acclaiming Federer "the greatest" and his 2019 statement acclaiming Hoad as "the best". "The best" implies a judgment about talent or level of play, whereas "the greatest" is often used to refer to career achievements, like Nicklaus' 18 majors or Federer's 20 majors. So there is no necessary contradiction. In 2010 when Rosewall claimed that Hoad was the greatest, Federer had already surpassed Hoad in terms of majors won, so obviously Rosewall was using a different yardstick in his 2010 ranking, something other than than winning majors. That was not the metric. So it is not relevant to point to Rosewall's 2017 remarks about Federer, which do not make any comparison between Federer and Hoad, as impacting the 2010 assessment. Clearly different yardsticks were being used. So there is no relevance in those 2017 remarks by Rosewall or the Laver comments on Federer, they were not intended to challenge the assessments of Hoad. And by your previous logic, if Rosewall's earlier comments about Hoad are rendered obsolete by the 2017 remarks, so is Laver's rating of Federer in 2018 rendered obsolete by Laver's comments about Hoad in 2019....you cannot have it both ways.Tennisedu (talk) 22:07, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

You seem to think you can change the meaning of the Rosewall and Laver quotations about Federer. The statements Laver and Rosewall made about Federer are clear. I am merely the guy quoting them. You can continue to spout gibberish on this subject for the next ten years if you want to, but the quotations remain the same. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:34, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

===Of course the statements are clear, there is no need to obfuscate, everyone knows the difference between numbers of titles and level of play, and that is clear. And that distinction is also clear in the assessments of Rosewall and Laver, they rated Hoad best of all time in terms of level of play. But if you want to play games about obliterating previous older statements, then Laver's recent comments about Hoad obliterate Laver's older statements about Federer...your own logic.Tennisedu (talk) 00:36, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Junior Tournament

Just looking through the hth lists, it seems that the 1951 White City tournament, where Rosewall won over Hoad, was not a men's tennis event, but rather a junior development program held annually at White City and involving the top juniors of Australia in the playoff portion of the event. The White City program itself is described in a newsreel available readily online. Therefore, this looks like a junior event, not a men's tournament. Currently it is being counted as a men's tournament win for 1951. I would suggest that the hth tally for Rosewall/Hoad be adjusted accordingly, unless someone has another source indicating that this was a men's tournament.Tennisedu (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

I must be blind today. I can't find the head to head list in this article that mentions the white city tournament. Could you be more specific? Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:52, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the lifetime hth in grass tournaments for Hoad/Rosewall is sourced from Tennisbase, which includes the White City event from 1951...it is not listed separately in the article here, but in Tennisbase, which is the source for the Hoad/Rosewall hth in grass tournaments. It is referenced in the "Assessment" section of this article.Tennisedu (talk) 19:03, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

There is a White City Club Championships from July 1951 where Rosewall beat Hoad 4–6, 6–3, 10–8 in the quarterfinals. Jack Crawford vs Adrian Quist are in another quarterfinal as are George Ryder vs Bob Barnes, and Roy Felan vs John Obrien. Crawford and Quist were not juniors. Is this the event you are talking about? Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:13, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Just looked at Tennisarchives...there were no less than FOUR tennis events at White City in 1951, so, yes, it looks like the one you refer to is the "White City" championships...I stand corrected. Looks like the same field as in the Brisbane Exhibition. Looks like Rosewall was unable to play his next match after beating Hoad, Quist won the tournament quickly against a weak field.Tennisedu (talk) 19:51, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Using citations to push an agenda.

I am getting tired of one editor continually writing statements in order to push a point of view. The 1959 Ampol series is described (too) many times in this article a world series. The citations back it up as being a world tournament series (important the word tournament is used if world series are, as there was a world series tour that year won by Gonzales). Sentences should not be added just to restate over and over again "this was a world series". For example, I have found many newspaper citations of Pancho Gonzales being declared World champion for 1959. It only needs to be stated once. I don't write "The Daily Reporter, Dover, 1 June 1959 stated Pancho Gonzales was world champion. The same day The Sheboygan Press, 1 June 1959 stated Pancho Gonzales still world tennis champion" etc. etc.. This is repetition, it is boring to read, it unduly lengthens the article and if done a lot is seen as POV pushing. This Hoad article contains some good information, but there are also too many unnecessary statements placed there to push an agenda. This is bad editing. 12 times in one article for the words "world series" to be used to describe one year's tournament series is excessive. In the Gonzales article in total for all of Gonzales' many world series victories the words "world series" are used 4 times. This Hoad page is too long because it contains too much irrelevant information and agenda pushing. The whole article should be gone through and the question should be asked for every sentence "should this really be written on here"? Tennishistory1877 (talk) 19:45, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Tennishistory, you asked for citations to support the term "world series", I gave them, and now you don't like it that the citations were given....really, you seem to be hard to please on this issue. I have now put everything into good order, so it should be time to put this issue to sleep.Tennisedu (talk) 20:44, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Tennishistory1877, I agree 100%, and this has been a longstanding problem.  This article, and others, have grown bloated, because of that type of repetitive editing, pushing a POV about Hoad.  Having a citation for a statement doesn't mean automatically that it should go into the article, still less that the statement should be repeated at every possible opportunity.  If a statement has a citation, that is a very basic requirement; it means that the statement will not be removed immediately, and that's all it means.  If every statement in an article had a citation/source that is no guarantee at all that the article will have a neutral tone.  Actually it seems sometimes that a POV can be pushed more easily with citations.  When tennisedu has put in unsourced statements, we've removed them immediately.  But his cited material, he puts in at every opportunity, and defends it each time as legitimate merely because it's cited, without considering basic issues like whether a POV is being pushed this way, or undue weight is being given to certain evidence, or whether consensus with other editors is being ignored (as with the US Pro issue), or even more basic issues like bloat and readability.

The typical pattern has been, we write something concise and sourced, without repeating it elsewhere, and if he perceives it as unfavorable to Hoad, he responds with a ton of edits, large and small, very often putting qualifying statements around ours or in parentheticals.  That's how the bloat has occurred.  You can't write one sentence in the Hoad article without provoking 7 more in return.  

The process is insane and morbidly time-consuming.  And it's happening because there is one POV being pushed with obsessive force.

The World Number one rankings page is starting to have these problems now.  There was no reason to mention the points ranking for 1960, or to mention it more than briefly, since we know virtually nothing about them.  I thought Wolbo was right to delete that.  But tennisedu put that back in with a wave of edits, and the final result is a mini-essay in the box, implying that Hoad may have been in contention for the lead, over Rosewall, by the end of the year.  This, even though Rosewall won 7 tournaments, and Hoad only 3, which tennisedu surely knows, but doesn't mention.  That's undue weight, bias, conjecture, bloat, call it what you will.

There is a lot more that could be said about the Hoad article and others, but the problem here is that it's all been said before, and even with warnings, for a few years now and it's still going on.  I agree with the suggestion to go through the article line by line but that would require tennisedu to agree that the article, not to mention others, has been bloated in the ways we've been describing -- with repetition, undue weight to a POV, etc. -- and that substantial material can be reduced. Krosero (talk) 12:28, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes I agree Krosero. There is some good information on this page. I would not seek to remove any of Hoad's results or relevant facts of his career. It is the irrelevant facts and repetitive phrases inserted to enforce a point of view that need to go. Ironically it is these very things that tennisedu inserts to try and promote Hoad that are likely to make people leave the page before reading the article, as they are very boring and tedious to read. An article can only sustain a longer length if more relevant facts are inserted. The more padding and point of view pushing there is, the more people will switch off and leave the page. Hoad deserves better than this. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 13:20, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

There has been a lot of padding going the other way, trying to qualify Hoad's accomplishments with a lengthy explanation about how the REAL important events were something else, which clearly goes beyond the scope of a brief recital of achievements. Why should the Ampol Trophy win, described in the sources as a "world series", require an additional paragraph to be inserted by an editor who takes offense at the Ampol results, relating the history of pro tennis world championships and attempting to explain to the readers why they should not place too much weight on the Ampol results? Irrelevant at best, although it is interesting perhaps to those of us who have an infinite interest in pro tennis history. But it surely disrupts the narrative and is out of place. The emphasis on "world series" in reference to Ampol is because that series was never referred to in the sources as a "tour". Previously, we had been using the term "Ampol tour" as a convenience to refer to that series, but it clearly was not in the sources. The sources refer to the Ampol events as the "Ampol Open Trophy" or "the world series", and I have given the citations for those. There is no reason to attach an additional explanatory paragraph about the role of the 4-man tour, it is out of place in this context.Tennisedu (talk) 17:38, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I repeat, in the Gonzales article the words "world series" are written four times in total to describe all of his many world series victories. The words world series are listed 12 times in this Hoad article to describe one world tournament series. As well as being placed there to push the point of view that this was a world series, it is bad grammar to write in this way. Let me quote from the article

"The Ampol Open Trophy "world series"[250][251] had consisted of 15 tournaments around the world played between 10 January 1959 and 2 January 1960.[i] Hoad finished first in the series with 51 bonus points, ahead of Gonzales (43 points) and Rosewall (41 points).[252][246][253] [j] The Melbourne newspaper "The Age" for 4 January 1960 declared, Hoad "was crowned the new world professional tournament champion at Kooyong" by winning the Ampol world series.[246] French language "L'Impartial" for 6 January 1960 declared "Lewis Hoad world champion", the win at Kooyong "allows him at the same time to claim the world title for 1959".[258] The order of finish of the 12 professionals on the Ampol world series was.."

Just a small selection of world series references. Only the first reference to world series needs to be there. Subsequent references need only refer to it as the series.

Who is this person (or persons) belittling Hoad's achievements, tennisedu? Either name them now or forever hold your peace. You react constantly against this unseen enemy and feel the need to constantly push this Hoad agenda. Just to write the results and information should be enough for you. Padding out the article looks desperate and it weakens the article. McCauley (page 97) mentions this world tournament series, but gives greater prominence to the 1959 World Series. This is in line with press coverage. I have found many references to Gonzales being crowned world champion in newspapers on 1 June 1959 but only one describing Hoad as world champion (without the word tournament) for winning the tournament series. Yet on wikipedia the reverse is true, with countless references to Hoad's victory in the tournament series all placed there by you. So this persecution complex about Hoad you have isn't backed up by any evidence. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 18:37, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

McCauley did not know the extent or even the name of the Ampol series, and I am not pushing anything, you are pushing a view of your own about the role of the world championships vs. the Ampol series, that goes beyond the scope of this article. You are padding the simple facts with your own discourse on the history of pro tennis. The "world series" designation is in the sources...how many times do I have to repeat that? That is how the Kramer literature described it, and your discomfort is entirely beside the point. If you find the sources challenging to your pre-conceived ideas, then perhaps that is a sign that we are discovering what the sources really stated, not some patina of romance pasted over the reality. Secondary literature can cloud the reality, so it is good to look at the contemporary sources, not some point-of-view construction from a later time.Tennisedu (talk) 18:56, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

McCauley stated "Kramer established a tournament points system to decide the best players in the world" and then listed the standings. Why are you repeating that the words world series are in the sources? We already know that and have been bombarded with that fact repeatedly! It is the press coverage at the time Gonzales won the world series I am pointing to (contemporary newspaper sources). Here they are https://www.newspapers.com/search/#query=Gonzales+world&lnd=1&ymd=1959-06-01

It is impossible to have a sensible discussion with you when it comes to Lew Hoad. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 19:30, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Tennishistory, are you serious? I stated above that McCauley did not know the official NAME of the Ampol Open Trophy world series...now, where do you see that title in McCauley? Give me a page number. What you are referring to there is a quote from Anderson which gives NO title for the series. I will give YOU some page numbers from McCauley...P. 212 "FINAL Ampol points standings after 5 tournaments 1. Hoad 13 2.Rosewall 12..." P. 99 "Hoad stamped himself as the outstanding man of the chain of Australian tournaments by beating Rosewall...to capture his third title of the 5 for which he competed. This earned him an extra purse of $5,500 put up by the sponsors, Ampol, for the man earning the most points in total from the series of Australian tournaments." There you go, Ampol was a series of Australian tournaments, 5 in number. From which it should be clear that we should not take anything in secondary literature for granted, but search the primary contemporary sources.....lesson ended for today. And by the way, could you give us a newspaper quote showing that the term "world series" was also applied to the 4-man championship of 1959, as it was for the Ampol Open Trophy series? I have seen the 4-mans referred to as "world series" elsewhere, but only for 1960 and 1961.Tennisedu (talk) 20:42, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

It is always important to quote what McCauley said on this issue just to reinforce what was known back in 2000 and reduce the true nature of your recent "discoveries" to their true proportion. I can not take your comment seriously when you lecture me on using primary contemporary sources. As someone who has spent several years searching for results using primary contemporary sources and unearthing many results, I find this comment laughable. I have corrected errors you have made on tours because you are relying on McCauley and I have posted newspaper screenshots containing the correct information. This is your quote from another thread in the Hoad talk page tennisedu "My thanks to Tennishistory for correcting the 1964 score at Brighton, that makes more sense for that month. McCauley had the score reversed, and I relied on him".

I have just given you a long list of sources of Gonzales being described as world champion for 1959. Many times it is described as a series or round robin series. These annual tours that Gonzales won are the same event "Gonzales clinches fifth world title" in 1959 in the articles I just listed. In January 1960 when the 1960 series began he was beginning the quest for his sixth title. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/497641235 If I was behaving like you, I would now be listing every quotation in every article that describes Gonzales as world champion in the main body text in the Gonzales page (a long tedious paragraph). But why would anyone want to read the same thing said again and again?

I am getting very bored of this discussion now. The concerns myself and Krosero explained in our first posts in this thread still remain. I will only respond again if you attempt to tackle these issues. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:35, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, Tennishistory, that was not the question, as I think that you are aware of (when someone says that they are too "bored" to continue, it often means that they do not want to answer a tough question).The question is: Where do you see the term "world series" applied to the 1959 4-man tour? That is not an obscure question, I think that you understand it. I myself have seen the term "world series" applied to the 1960 4-man tour, and the 1961 tour. But it appears, from the silence I am hearing, that you do not know if the term "world series" was ever applied to the 1959 4-man tour...right? There is no reason not to just come right out and say this. But, of course, that might mean that the term "world series" in 1959 was applied ONLY to the Ampol Open Trophy tournament series, and perhaps that is a little awkward to come to terms with. "World series" was an important designation in the old pro tennis world. So I understand your silence on this issue. And, yes, it exposes the claim about "world series" being a term applied only to the 4-man tour for 1959 as being not the case at all. I have shown you already that the Ampol series was described as a "world series". That is where we start on this research. The only agenda here is to see what is in the sources.Tennisedu (talk) 22:53, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Here tennisedu is doing what we said at the start. We raised large issues about POV, about pushing the importance of certain events, and pushing the greatness of a certain player; and he's reduced it all now to citations and the exact wording of a citation. He's basically reduced the debate to, "It's called a word series in the sources! Let's see if the H2H tour is also called that!" Yet as I've said to him in debates here and at Talk Tennis, you can't understand the nature and importance of events just by looking superficially at their names. How an event was named merely tells you something about marketing; and perhaps something about the politics of the tennis bodies doing the naming. This is basically the same "method" he uses to denigrate the tournament that Hoad never won, the US Pro: he says it was called World Pro by the promoter and takes every opportunity to repeat this, and says that this is the bottom line of the issue. This is as reductive a historical method as you can get it, and it results in blunders. Try ascertaining the importance of Wembley Pro by looking at its official name, to take one example.

But back to Ampol. You can see how much the name of an event means when you look at two basic facts:

1) the Ampol circuit is referred to as "world series" in one source; and

2) when it was all over, reports everywhere said that Gonzalez would soon begin the defense of his 1959 title as world champion.

In my detailed research of the 1960 tennis season I never saw any report that referred to Hoad as current world champion; it was always Gonzalez. Gorgo was understood to hold that title (this was not universal: those who saw Wembley as the unofficial world pro championship in this era had something to say on this question). And he understood that he held the title. It cannot be stressed enough: Gorgo didn't even bother to finish the Ampol circuit, despite the fact that he could have won it. Would he have dropped out of the Ampol circuit if Ampol had really been seen comprehensively by the Kramer pros as their world championship, producing their agreed-upon champion?

Clearly, whatever Ampol was marketed to be, and whatever its origins or aims (Kramer did seem to have a genuine goal of establishing a ranking circuit with Ampol's sponsorship), by the end of the circuit it was not regarded by the Kramer pros as their world championship.

So naming the Ampol series as the "world series" 12 times in this article -- and never stating what I said above about Gonzalez's title -- is POV pushing. It's part of an attempt to make the '59 Ampol circuit look like it crowned Hoad as world champion; and we know that is tennisedu's view because he argued exactly that, in a debate with me on Talk Tennis, even when I pointed out to him that Gonzalez was universally seen as defending world champion in early 1960.

Repetitive use of the phrase "world series" is especially misleading today because nowadays we use the term "world series" as a synonym for the world pro championship, and as a synonym for the big, famous H2H tours that typically began the pro tennis season. To state 12 times that Ampol was a "world series", and not state that Hoad's Ampol victory did not give him Gonzalez's title, promotes the Ampol series, giving it undue weight in this article.

It cannot be repeated enough, you can't learn the importance of an event by staying at the superficial level of how it was named/marketed.

It's not even clear that the term "world series" always had the same meaning back then. Tennisedu is not a researcher, so he's probably never come across any other instance of the term "world series" than the ones we've talked about here. But "world series" had a variety of uses in the tennis world. It was used, of course, to describe the big H2H tours; it was not used that way every year (I can't be more precise without all my materials at hand), but it was used that way often and at least as far back as Vines-Perry in '37. It was used once to describe the Ampol series, as we know. I've also seen it used colloquially to refer to Wimbledon, and Davis Cup. The term "serie mundial" was used in a Barcelona newspaper in the early 60s to refer to the Kramer pros' activity in Europe, and it's not entirely clear what's being referred to there, because it refers to matches that were not part of the big H2H tours; I understand Spanish and I've discussed this with other tennis researchers, including the possibility that "world series" in this case refers to a competition known in the early 60s as the European Cup; but much of this is uncertain still.

The larger point is, merely because something is referred to as "world series" doesn't mean that it was a definitive event establishing the world champion. The term wasn't used uniformly in that manner; and no term from back then, in the chaotic world of the pros, had such clarity and consistent force.

In this case, a POV about Ampol, and about Hoad, is being pushed; all the issues are being reduced to a citation (and to the narrow question of whether a citation carries certain exact words), which is the main problem we named as the start of this discussion topic.

If the article remains as it is, with the Ampol circuit being pumped repeatedly as the "world series", the problem remains.

And let me be clear, I know that Wikipedia is not a place to hash out the truth of a subject definitely. My main argument here is not that this-or-that citation says or doesn't say what-not. I'm stressing that citations, and a literalist focusing on exact words in a citation, can easily be used to push an agenda on these pages, because all you have to do is repeat certain words ad nauseum to the exclusion of all other issues. A lot of misleading arguments, and simple bloat, happens that way. That's the main problem here, not whether a citation says such-and-such; and we shouldn't lose sight of that.Krosero (talk) 02:08, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Krosero, your long material here is full of assumptions, such as that I am attempting to challenge Gonzales' 1959 World Championship title...not so. What we are doing here is looking at the actual language used in the contemporary reports. I mentioned above that the 1960 4-man tour was referred to as a "world series" and the 1961 tour was billed as a "World Series". I found TWO examples of the 1959 Ampol Open Trophy series referred to as a "world series", and the question is, was the 1959 4-man referred to as a "world series", either in Kramer's brochure (as the Ampol series was) along the same lines as some of Kramer's other world championship tours, or in newspapers. Just as simple as that. You seem to be trying to make some big issue out of this, when all we are doing is simply looking at the terminology used in contemporary documents to describe a tour. It is time to calm down and search the sources. If you cannot find anything which is relevant, then simply say so and let it go. The only agenda here is to search the sources.Tennisedu (talk) 04:00, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes that is right Krosero, Hoad was not described as the defending world champion in 1960. Tennisedu, in refusing to acknowledge our relevant points in this thread, has failed to address the sheer number of references in contemporary press reports to Gonzales being world champion in 1959, compared to Hoad. This is a very relevant point, because the level of media reporting was important, particularly back then. What I found interesting is that a large number of newspapers on January 3 1960 reported Hoad's victory in the Kooyong tournament but made no mention of the fact it was part of a series (let alone a world series). Yet press reports on 1 June 1959 described Gonzales' victory at La Jolla as not just Gonzales winning a match at La Jolla, but also that he was crowned world champion. Yet to look at these wikipedia pages it would seem like the opposite were the case, with the words world series used again and again to describe the 1959 Ampol series and the whole series described in minute detail. In 1959 and for many years before that the main event each year in pro tennis was the annual tour. This tournament series was a one-off in this era. Although the pros did abolish the tour format and switch to a tournament format, this was not until 1964. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 10:33, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Tennishistory1877, really, now..."Refusing to acknowledge our relevant points"? Not so. I have already debunked that idea, and confirmed that Gonzales won the billed World Championship 4-man tour for 1959, in which both Gonzales and Hoad gave their best efforts and played hard. In the Kramer literature, Kramer clearly refers to the 4-man as a "World Championship". Where do you see me stating otherwise? The issue now is whether the term "world series" was applied to the 1959 4-man tour, as it was for the 1960 4-man tour, and in the 1961 tour, and that 1961 tour was actually billed "World Series", not "World Championship". From your response here, it appears that neither you nor Krosero have been able yet to find a reference to that 1959 4-man tour as a "world series". If this is the case, then simply say so, and let's move on. By the way, the 1959 Ampol tournament series was not the only example of a points ranking in old pro tennis, there was also a points series of tournaments in 1946, which Riggs won.Tennisedu (talk) 14:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

"In this era" being a term to describe an era containing Gonzales, Hoad, etc. 1946 (an era with Riggs and Budge etc.) was long before that and there was also a tour that year. Only in 1964 was the (mostly) annual tour abolished. I am still awaiting your response to our points, tennisedu. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 15:30, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

1946 is a year very comparable in its design to 1959, with two major tours, a tournament series with a points ranking, and a two-man head-to-head tour between Riggs and Budge. Your "points" were responded to and debunked above...and I am assuming that neither you nor Krosero have been able to locate, as of now, any reference to the 1959 4-man tour as a "world series". The 1960 4-man was referred to in the press as a "world series" and the 1961 tour was billed "World Series", not "World Championship". That was the issue which prompted our discussion. I will await your further research Tennisedu (talk) 16:17, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

No, you have not responded to any of our main points. Try reading what people write instead of ranting away at your own agenda constantly.

I will summarise my points (I will even number them for you). These are my views on how this page should be improved: 1. Hoad's results should all remain on this page and one or two references (but not 12) to world tournament series in the main article text should remain on here (I am not in denial about the sources). 2. All relevant information should remain on here (I realise this is a judgement call, but at the moment I could point to a number of things that are not very relevant and/or are written in an elongated fashion). 3. The repetition of the phrase world series ad nauseam to describe one event and the padding achieves nothing, cheapens the article and makes people switch off and leave the page. These aspects should be removed or altered. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 17:16, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

First, I am awaiting your response to the question of the 4-man 1959 tour, and from your silence, I assume that you and Krosero have not been able to locate any references to the 1959 4-man as a "world series". As you know, I found two references to the Ampol series as a "world series", one in a Kramer brochure, another in a newspaper, which justifies referring to it as such. You have not responded to this point at all. If you want to repeat ad nauseum that you do not like the discovery of these references, that is your private choice. The descriptions of events in 1959 found in this article are brief and to the point, and reflect the fact that 1959 was an extraordinary year in pro tennis, with two major pro series, and the players racking up about 170 matches, none of them shortened "pro set" affairs, but full best-of-three or best-of-five sets. I doubt that any year would show as much play as that year, and we have summarized the events well, it seems to me. I will continue to await the results of your research into the issue of "world series" applying to the 1959 4-man tour.Tennisedu (talk) 17:37, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

1959 in Tennis

The additions made (and removed) with regard to the amazing portable wood court, which Kramer ordered built for the winter portion of the 1959 Ampol series is an event which should be told somewhere. Apparently, we do not have an article or page on 1959 in Pro Tennis, where this information properly belongs. There do exist articles and pages for the more recent ATP Years in tennis, no problem there. It seems to me that we are overdue for the pre-open era to have articles for each year. The closest thing we have now to a 1959 Pro Tennis article are the individual articles for Gonzales and Hoad, plus the summary in the Annual World No. 1 Tennis Player article. Was there not some agreement to begin annual articles for the pre-open era?Tennisedu (talk) 07:32, 30 September 2020 (UTC)Tennisedu (talk) 19:15, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Should we not now begin to add separate articles for tennis years in the pre-open era? It seems to me that there exists enough information to construct pages for these years in pro tennis.Tennisedu (talk) 07:32, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

We already have them started. We have the 1877-1886, 1929-1931, and articles for more current seasons. 1931 in tennis is a mens and womens compilation. And we have a template for it too...

I'm not sure the trivia of the portable wood court belongs anywhere in a yearly article except as a footnote. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:50, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Portable wooden courts were not new in 1959. In 1937 Bernard Sunley built one for the Perry Vines UK tour. I am against the creation of the new pages suggested by Tennisedu. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 16:03, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Fully in agreement with Tennishistory1877, and I am against it too. Krosero (talk) 16:16, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Where is the 1959 article? I do not see it anywhere. The information regarding the sand/paint surface for this wooden court is new to me, and created a slow play for the players. That is surely something worth noting. The Vines article and other articles on players participating in the old pro tours could benefit from reference to the court surfaces. I see nothing on the 1939 court surface in the Vines article. In the Trabert article, we saw that Trabert had much better results on outdoor surfaces, and had an edge over Gonzales on the 1956 season in outdoor play. Surfaces make a difference.Tennisedu (talk) 12:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Is there any objection to continuing with the separate yearly articles? If so, what is the objection? So far, the series ends with 1931, we have enough information now to proceed with the 1930's.Tennisedu (talk) 13:56, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I have just been looking at the article "1931 in tennis" and I have grave reservations about creating more pages of this type. In fact it is my belief that 1931 should be removed or its scope modified. I will explain my reservations. Firstly, there is a list of tournaments in the article. If more years are created, where will the pro data for these lists come from? Is wikipedia still living in the dark ages and relying on McCauley for this? Several tournaments listed in McCauley have been proven not to exist. Many tournaments are not listed in McCauley because he didnt know the existence of them. But my main reservation is the one night stands listed between Tilden and Kozeluh. Is this a serious attempt to list all the Tilden-Kozeluh matches in 1931? If it is then it is pathetic. There was a North American tour with 66 matches. I have 64 of these results (and the missing two were won by Tilden). McCauley has 0. This article has 25. If this level of incompleteness was to be replicated across the years of pro tennis then this would be a disaster. Better not to create pages than to create pages that are wrong. There are still pro results missing and always will be, but this 1931 page doesnt even begin to scratch the surface on what pro results do exist. Probably for the open era the pages could be done reasonably successfully using the ATP website as a source, but not for the pre-open era. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 18:03, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

This really is a discussion for the Tennis project talk page, not here.--Wolbo (talk) 18:08, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I was responding to Tennisedu's remarks that he posted earlier today. By all means move it to Tennis project talk page, Wolbo. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 18:36, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Court Surfaces

Shall we make a comment on every court surface which any professional tennis player has ever played on? You think not? I agree. UNLESS the surface is important in explaining some particular issue which arises in a pro tour. And that is important for two reasons. 1) Some players are better on some surfaces than others. Results of hth stats can sometimes be explained by the court surfaces. 2) If there is an issue with difficulties in play or injuries, that should be mentioned. In particular, the possibility of recurrent leg and joint injuries on a hard rubber surface are important to consider. Also, the use of a loose canvas surface in the many pro tours from 1939 to 1963 help to understand the results.Tennisedu (talk) 20:24, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

I should be very careful before making generalisations about canvas surfaces. There were variations between canvases, variations in tightness of the canvas and in some matches where there wasn't enough room for canvas and they played on gym floors with white lines marked out. I refer you to to these comments in Fred Perry's autobiography p. 134, talking about a severe injury he sustained at the start of the 1941-42 world tour. "Normally for indoor matches we used a heavy canvas court, with pulleys and ropes at each end and on either side to stretch it tight. The overlays were in strips, facing away from the centre of the court and double-stitched. For some reason known only to himself, Alexis Thompson opened in Madison Square Garden with a lightweight canvas, which didn't possess enough body to allow it to be pulled tight and the lines to be kept straight. And, fatally for me, there was only single-stitch overlay - facing the wrong way, into the court instead of away from it. None of us noticed this until we went on court that evening. The first match was between Budge and Kovacs, and during it Kovacs had opened up an eight-inch split along one of the stitched seams which didn't really show. I was playing Riggs in the second singles and midway through the first set I moved over for a short, angled ball on the forehand. I was leaning into my shot when my foot went into the hole in the stitching. I cartwheeled up into the air, landing on my right elbow and smashing it to bits." Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:10, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

This account is not the same thing, although Perry states "normally for indoor matches we used a heavy canvas court", apparently referring to the portable court used on the pro tours. This court was manufactured in 1939 and remained the property of the pro tours and used by them from 1939 to 1963. It was driven around by vehicle to the various stops on the hth tours. And it did slide when players moved, as seen by the comment in the Trabert article.Tennisedu (talk) 22:35, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

I have just proved the existence of different canvases with the citation (you claimed the pros always used the same canvas 1939-63, I have shown that statement to be untrue). Also, how tight were the canvases weighted? How often were gym floors used instead of the canvas? Some newspaper articles specify the indoor surface. Do some research and find out specifics before peddling generalisations. Also, I am well aware of your bias against indoor surfaces and your constant promotion of grass surfaces and matches played on grass. While you are doing some research, you can see how many of the articles mention a substandard outdoor surface. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:52, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

You have not seen the references to the portable canvas court which the pros transported around for the pro tours? It was the property of the pro tour, and they transported it by vehicle to all of the pro tour stops. Those references are all over the place. I will get some for you.Tennisedu (talk) 23:17, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Hahaha, aren't you a funny guy. I know full well the pros carried around a canvas court. But my citation proves you were wrong when you said they used the same canvas 1939-1963, so why not just admit you were lying (again) and we can move on. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 00:06, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Your citation? It seems that Perry verified the view that the pros normally used their own canvas court. That is consistent with the story in the other publications. But I will get you the citations. This is a significant point.Tennisedu (talk) 01:06, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Variations in canvases is a very significant point and one very eloquently pointed out by Mr. Perry. There are some other memorable passages about court surfaces used on the pro tour in that book. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 01:14, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I will compile some citations on this point.Tennisedu (talk) 01:16, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Consensus editing.

This page has become a battleground due to one editor's relentless biased and irrelevant edits. I have edited this page to remove some of the POV pushing, repetition and pointless statements. It is still too long for my liking and still contains too much repetition and a fair amount I would change, but I am prepared to accept it as it is. It seems to me the problem is that the editor has run out of any useful material to add and is filling this page with rubbish (now not only are some of his edits rubbish, all of them are). The edits come a bit at a time and none improve the page and they go against the consensus of other editors whilst doing so. To avoid this page becoming a constant battle ground I suggest the following: No one edits this page without coming to talk to agree their edits with other editors. Then if there is some fascinating fact about Hoad that is uncovered, we can agree to add it. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 16:09, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

It's true that one editor's obsession can not only a damage a page, but it can exhaust editors, which gradually kills discussion and collaboration; and all of that has happened here, on my part as well as yours, Tennishistory. I don't know what the solution is but I agree it's unsustainable. Krosero (talk) 20:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

The problem is one editor ramraiding their edits onto this page against the wishes of all other editors. I think if myself and the editor concerned both agreed that any edit we make had to get a consensus, this would solve the problem. I am not the only editor on this page. If the editor thinks he can get consensus of other editors then let him seek it. But if the editor concerned does not agree to my suggestion, then the only alternative I can see is for me to undo every edit that does not improve the page. A simple revert "not an improvement". I believe this editor is currently pursuing a line of editing that is a form of page vandalism and I am not prepared to tolerate that. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 08:15, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, I can see that the editor does not wish to seek any consensus for his edits, so from now on, every edit of his that I dont think improves a page, I will revert or modify. "Not an improvement" is the reason given for reverting. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I should think that minor edits do not require a discussion on the talk page. In the past, my attempts to achieve consensus on the talk page regarding some issues were often ignored. If the editors wish to use the talk page going forward, that's fine. One of the editors seemed to prefer using the "view history" page to conduct discussions. I agree that we have enough material here to cover the subject. I am not sure that some minor amateur tournaments need to be covered. Even some pro events. Is the Slazenger Pro a major event? Top prize was about $400. Tennisedu (talk) 12:54, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Slazenger Pro was not a major event. Minor edits can build up and add a lot of irrelevant information over time. I will say one thing in your favour tennisedu. In the past you have added some good material to this page in the form of results. Although personally I would wish this page to be shorter, I am prepared to settle for it as it is now. It is not necessary to keep editing a page that is complete. Everyone can always find something new to be said about every subject, but it gets to a point where the information found is no longer relevant. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 17:11, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I am agreed that there is now enough information in this article, unless someone finds that some of it is wrong. I was thinking about minor edits such as spelling errors, or use of language which is not neutral (such as "destroyed", "outclassed", "victimized", instead of simply "defeated"). Otherwise I am satisfied with the current amount of information.Tennisedu (talk) 19:33, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The term "victimized" does not appear in the Hoad article. Neither does the term "destroyed". "Outclassing" appears once in 1956. You can change it to defeating if you like. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 19:59, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Have done so.Tennisedu (talk) 20:42, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

On October 11 2020 you agreed that there is now enough information in this article, Tennisedu. Then why are you still editing it? Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:25, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Tennishistory1877, you are asking the wrong person about that. The article has been reopened by another editor. My contributions are simply addendums or corrections of the new material added by another editor, as I recall, this article remained open to corrections. Do you not remember that? Please address your complaints to the right person. You may also notice that some of my material was removed by this editor and it was necessary for me to restore it. This article has apparently been blown open again, but not by me.Tennisedu (talk) 20:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

You and I made an agreement, but that does not mean that other editors take the same view on this page. You seem to take a very proprietary view of this page, as if no one can change it without your agreement. A great deal of your material remains and is likely to remain, I see no butchery of your work here. Minor tweaking that is all. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:03, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

You and I agreed that there was enough information on the page, but obviously that agreement is not acceptable to other editors. And some of my material was removed by another editor and I had to restore it. So our view was not acceptable to other editors. The article is therefore not stable. If we could get everyone on the same page and agree not to add more material, I would be agreeable. So let's try and do that. Okay? This is obviously not MY page, others have had a hand in it and for some reason, these others cannot restrain themselves and leave it alone. Let's get everyone on board and try using some restraint. If you think that "minor tweaking" is okay, then you should have no objection to what I added here. Let us all play by the same rules. Is that clear enough?Tennisedu (talk) 21:50, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

It is not necessary to get into an edit war to restore every single sentence of your prose. It is not as if Wolbo has come along and dismantled everything you have written. Maybe we can get clarification from Wolbo that he only intends to make minor edits if you wish to have reassurance on this. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Talk pages are there to establish consensus and resolve editing conflicts that arise. I will always look to resolve issues here wherever possible, but if an editor uses these pages to say one thing and do another, they are making it impossible to reach consensus. I note looking at these talk page topics that one editor's name appears again and again and his disruptive editing, continued violation of multiple wikipedia polices and dishonest behaviour has reached a point where it is impossible to discuss the editing of this page with him. It is a shame, because after many battles I did think we had reached a resolution on this page when he said in October 2020 that "I am agreed that there is now enough information in this article, unless someone finds that some of it is wrong". Sadly, it seems he is too addicted to his obsession with Lew Hoad to be able to stand by the agreement he made. Below are policies which the editor continues to violate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiBullying https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view Tennishistory1877 (talk) 17:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Fastest serve addition

Just so it's discussed. Should we include a mention of a singles source saying that Hoad had the fastest serve in 1957? The line as last added was "Hoad was reported in a known single source in 1957 to have the fastest serve in the world." We know the overwhelming sources in the time period for years on either side of, and including, 1957 say Pancho Gonzales had the fasted serve, with Alex Olmedo right behind. Per the single source added to the Hoad article, Hoad had the fastest serve in 1957. I did not check the source but I assume it's valid. As long as it's worded so as not to mislead our readers I really don't care if it's in the article or not. But when it was boldly added and then removed, per wikipedia rules, you do not re-add it. You might tweak the wording and try once again but if it's removed a second time that's it! You gain consensus here one way or the other. Looking at the edits I can't even count the number of reverts by Tennishistory1877 and Tennisedu over a 24 hour period. You only get three reverts of any kind, and that's on a good day. From what I can see you are both lucky not to be blocked for a month. Discuss it here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:55, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I have no idea why Tennishistory1877 objects to this reference. This information is well sourced. I know that Gonzales has many mentions in the literature as having the fastest serve, although it appears that all of these references lead back to that Philadelphia test of 1951, showing 112 mph. So that is really just one basic source repeated many times in the literature. I see no reason not to include this reference from 1957 for Hoad.Tennisedu (talk) 21:00, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Well as you say, fyunck, I think like you that the serve speed is misleading. The article makes it clear no measurement was made on Hoad's serve. Segura said he thought it was probably 120 mph. The human eye can not measure service speeds. If it is an issue of tennisedu moaning that it states on other pages that Gonzales was the fastest server of the era, I am happy to remove any such statements (should they exist) if he wishes. But the 112mph statement should remain regarding Gonzales, because this was a measurement of those players on that day (no conclusions or inferences reached, just a list of measured speeds of players that day). But why are we even having this discussion in the first place? Tennisedu agreed there was enough material on this page in October and we both agreed to no longer edit the page. Nothing has changed. Agreeing a compromise on this page was complex and I see no good reason that he should return to editing the page. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:24, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

We discussed the speed issue and Segura, and we changed the wording accordingly. Segura was said to have "estimated" that it was about 120 mph. How would Segura know this? We can only guess. But the 120 mph was removed from this reference, and we went with the claim that Hoad had the fastest speed in the world as of 1957. There is nothing wrong with referencing that. I see no reason for Tennishistory1877 to remove that edit. Perhaps he can explain it. No, we did not agree to no longer edit this article, I pointed that out in the material Tennishistory1877 referred to. It is simply not there.Tennisedu (talk) 21:47, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

The human eye can not measure service speeds. Segura's was a hypberbolic remark probably said for promotional reasons. I strongly suspect Gonzales was the fastest server of the 1957 era, but as serves were not routinely measured, it is impossible to say for sure who was. Therefore, in my view, hyperbolic remarks which have no basis in fact should not be included on this or any page. It is no good denying what you agreed. It is written on the other talk thread. And you did not give any reason as to why you are going against what you said in October. I suspect you are unable to stop editing this page, because your overwhelming obsession with Lew Hoad means you can not stop. A very unhealthy addiction. It is such a shame, if only your editing could be directed away from Hoad, you could be a reasonable editor. As it is, so often your behaviour is that of of an obsessed troll and you waste so much of your time and mine pursuing your agenda. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Tennishistory1877, there is nothing in what you say, there was no commitment to refrain from ever adding something to this article, that is your own "reading into it" of something which does not exist. Read the statements again carefully, there is nothing which states an endless time-frame or any time-frame for adding new information into this article. You are getting upset over nothing. The issue of Segura has already been dealt with, we left it out of the reference, and instead used the statement that Hoad had the fastest serve in the world as of 1957. That is consistent with the article source. Again, you are upset over nothing.Tennisedu (talk) 23:31, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I am not upset, I am extremely tired and weary of dealing with you. I am tired of the wikipedia system that seems to require editors to engage with and reason with someone who repeatedly violates the rules, pursues a relentless agenda of promoting one player, does not listen to anything they dont want to hear, is duplicitous and will not accept consensus. As I stated earlier, I am sure outside of the internet you are probably a decent guy tennisedu, but your behaviour on this Hoad page is extremely unreasonable. I dont know if these pages are seen by admins, but if any administrator can read this, I would urge them to look into the long and disruptive editing history of tennisedu in this page, his repeated violation of wikipedia policies, particularly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiBullying https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus Tennishistory1877 (talk) 01:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Tennishistory1877, please read the definition of Wikihounding, which means following another editor from place to place and using counter-edits to disrupt. There can certainly be honest disagreements, but to make a concerted policy of following another editor around is disruptive editing.Tennisedu (talk) 03:05, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

But hounding is usually when you edit hundreds of different types and genres of articles and another editor goes to each of those other articles to hound. You basically bounce from Hoad to Gonzales to World number 1 ranked male tennis players. If not those then just a couple other players of the 50s. For myself, every day those articles pop up on my watchlist so it's easy to see who is editing and check things out. Many others see the same thing. If you started editing articles on Civil War submarine outfits and someone followed you there, that would be hounding. But if you edit the same ten articles we are all alerted and check out what's been done today. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:04, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

It is not so much "where", but "whom" is being followed and targeted. A pattern of following and counter-editing a certain editor. That creates a Wikihounding situation. Tennisedu (talk) 07:42, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I check several of the tennis pages regularly and some less regularly. In recent months I commented on the talk page of Big Three on a talk thread fyunck set up, not linked with you at all tennisedu. You need to ask yourself why your edits are reverted by me, tennisedu. Why do I not regularly revert the edits of fyunck and Wolbo, for example? Because they dont constantly use wikipedia to push a point of view. You will see a distinct pattern in your editing, tennisedu. Your edits have been reverted many times, by me, Wolbo, fyunck and others. But whilst they will revert you once or twice and move on to another article, I will persist with reverting you, because no one should ever be allowed to get away with ramraiding their biased edits onto pages. If you were to edit non-tennis pages (for example I know you are a fan of classical music) even if you were to point of view push, I would not revert you because I would not be on those pages, because such topics do not interest me. It is up to those interested in those topics to edit those pages. I am getting rather tired of this false accusation of wikihounding, which you use every time I mention all the violations of policies you make. It states in the wikibullying article that a robust response to POV pushing is not considered bullying. In fact, your wikihounding accusation is actually another example of you violating the bullying policy, another straw man creation of yours. It is such a shame so much of your time on wikipedia is spent unproductively, particularly in recent times. You did in earlier times add some useful material to the Hoad page interspersed with the POV edits, though the Hoad page has more than enough material now. There are other player pages that would benefit from expansion, Bill Tilden for example. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 11:18, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with wikihounding, as explained by Fyunck. The central issue remains the editorial bias and POV pushing which Tennisedu displays through his edits, particularly on this article but also on related ones. Despite the fact that several other editors have notified/alerted/warned him about this many times over a period of more than a year this behavior persists. As a result it necessitates almost continuous monitoring and corrections by other editors which is untenable and, as can be seen, causes frustrations. This has become disruptive and it simply needs to stop.--Wolbo (talk) 13:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

If my edits were biased, they would not survive in such huge numbers. They are all reference-related, and I have had to revert many, many POV-related edits by other editors, especially related to old legends of great players. If an old legend is not supported by evidence, I have often reverted those edits, and other editors have been upset by this necessary process. This is true perhaps more than other articles in the Gonzales page, where even recently I removed an unsupported claim that Gonzales was "the greatest long match player in history", a claim which had zero support or citations. That seems to have set off this recent tirade by some editors. Now, look at some of the comments above, "I will persist with reverting you", is a description of what Wikihounding is, a following and tracking behavior of one particular editor. And, no, most of my edits are still in the texts, the vast majority, because they must be well supported to pass the rigorous test of being followed by editors who are targeting my edits. This is probably a good thing because it increases the quality of my numerous edits. And allows me to eliminate a vast number of unsupported edits by others. All I am asking for is an unbiased process, if we apply one set of rules to certain bio pages, those rules should apply to all bios. For example, if we allow subjective assessments of some player's skills, those same type of assessments should be allowed in the other bio articles, such as this reference to Hoad's serve. We cannot just assume that Segura was trying to promote this tour, and made up his assessment of Hoad's service speed. There is no evidence to support that view at all. It is quite possible that Segura gave an honest appraisal of his perceptions. It is POV-biased to allow subjective assessments of one player, but not another.Tennisedu (talk) 17:51, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

You have always been one to bend the truth to suit your purposes, tennisedu, but recently your repeated blatant lying about other editors and complete refusal to face any of the points put to you has got a lot worse. As I said before, I am not upset with you, I am just extremely tired of you. When I first knew you you did upset me, but the more I have got to know you and particularly recently, I have realised that you are a very sick man. Editors disagree from time to time. I have disagreed with Wolbo and fyunck in the past. They also may disagree with each other sometimes. But these disagreements are insignificant when compared with the huge amount of disagreements Wolbo, fyunck and myself (and others such as krosero) have all had with you and nearly always for the same reason, your relentless promotion of Lew Hoad. Your last post is perhaps the most deluded of any that I have read. You have tried and failed to convince other editors that I am wikihounding you, so in the last post you have widened your scope of verbal abuse to include "some editors". Stop the hot air and stop lying and stop defaming other editors! I realise wikipedia is a collaborative process and talk pages are needed to resolve disputes, but you have got to the point where I find speaking to you on these pages virtually impossible. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 19:46, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Your attempt to personalize the discussion detracts from the issues. Try and focus on the issues. The fact is that the huge amounts of material which I have added to the tennis pages is of high quality due to counter-edits which challenged my edits. That caused me to upgrade the quality of my edits, and for that I give my thanks to you and other editors. But we should not allow biasing to cause us to apply different sets of rules to different players, which would be POV-related. If we allow subjective assessments to be used for one player, then the same should apply to others.Tennisedu (talk) 19:59, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I have always believed that the same standards of impartiality should be applied to all players. But you seek out examples of impartiality on other pages and use them as an excuse to ramraid biased edits onto the Hoad page. Bias should be removed and not added to. And none of the biased remarks you find on other pages will ever have originated from me (and based on my knowledge of them, neither will biased remarks on player pages have originated from fyunck or Wolbo either). To imply myself and Wolbo and fyunck are biased or are acting in complicity with biased editors is another vile slur. "All I am asking for is an unbiased process" infers we are presiding over a biased process (and this remark from someone who is well known for being the most biased editor on the pre-open era tennis pages!) I won't engage with editors who repeatedly defame me (either directly or by inference) with false statements. I am giving you warning now that if I hear one more of these false accusations directed towards me, then I will cease engaging you at all. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:24, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Tennishistory1877, check above and you will see that I actually thanked you and others for causing me to upgrade the quality of my edits, which are voluminous and have contributed enormous amounts to the bio pages of several tennis greats, not just Hoad. Your challenges directed to my edits were instrumental in improving the quality of this material. Thank you again. I hope that this satisfies you that I have a positive regard for your activities. But on this matter of Segura's assessment, I do not see how this is necessarily a mere attempt to promote the tour, we have no evidence to suggest that. Did you find some support for your thought that this was just a promotional hyperbolic statement by Segura? Or are you just wondering about it?Tennisedu (talk) 20:33, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

You have a positive regard for my activites? In the past few weeks you have repeatedly accused me of wikihounding you! You are attempting to divert from the issue of your behaviour to the issue of services needing to be measured by equipment, which has already been discussed. The issue of your editing has not been addressed by you. I hate having to revert your edits, but am prepared to do so to protect the integrity of pages. I rarely revert Wolbo and fyunck because I dont need to. Some of your edits improve pages and I do not revert these edits (actually I find increasingly many of your edits neither improve nor decrease the quality of the page, they seem to be pointless tinkering). I can also smell bias a mile off and I know what (or rather who) obsesses you. I have reached the stage now where I keep an eye on pages and it is during this process I come across your bad edits and revert them. I would like to get to the point where I dont have to check the pages and be semi-retired from wikipedia editing, just making the occasional addition. I feel I have largely made the contributions I want to and would like to stop checking pages. I would love to think I could get to the point where I thought "that's great I dont have to revert tennisedu anymore", but at the moment I find that unlikely. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Don't underestimate the importance of your editing. I have made huge amounts of edits to the bio pages of Budge, Riggs, Hoad, Gonzales, Rosewall, Sedgman, Trabert, Segura, and other tennis greats from the epic 1950's era, perhaps the strongest era ever. The quality of my editing improved to very high levels as a result of the determined counter-edits I received from other editors. I believe that we have uncovered a treasure of historical documents which give a very fine and detailed account of these giants. I give considerable credit for this achievement to my fellow editors.Tennisedu (talk) 22:21, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

If you want to try to understand my editing, I should probably mention my history. For many years wikipedia used my website as a source for nearly all its-pre open era Grand Slam mens singles drawsheets (with the exception of the French Open, who published their results on their website). My website was the first source anywhere to publish all Grand Slam mens singles drawsheets (back to 1877) in early 2008. I had already researched extensively then, though this was before I had used the internet for research. I also added a limited amount of pro data to my website that was used as a source on wikipedia. Gradually as the years went by other sites added drawsheets (ie Wimbledon), though this was several years later. After many years I felt my website had served its purpose, so I moved on to other things. I joined wikipedia in 2017 and added many pages (often short articles on obscure players). I was also heavily involved in researching my book on the pro tour, first released in 2019. Last year (2020) I added data to the main pro player pages, greatly expanding articles such as Sedgman and Segura and expanding articles such as Gonzales and Rosewall. If I am obsessive about anything it is accuracy and all the time look to improve accuracy whenever I can. Whilst you may enjoy battling other editors, it is not the way I like to spend my time. I am glad you feel I improved your editing, but I regret the time spent battling you. It takes me away from more important things such as research. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 00:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Congrats on your achievements in the field of tennis history. We have certainly had the benefit of your research. Your time was not wasted, and I think that we have managed to create sound and detailed Wiki bios for those great players from the 1950's and 1960's. Most of them were just brief sketches without any body of details before we went to work on them. They are now greatly expanded with well-sourced material. You should feel satisfied with the efforts involved.Tennisedu (talk) 01:18, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, but the point I am trying to impress on you is that I feel my work on wikipedia is largely done. That is consistent with the pattern of my tennis-related activity over the years. I want to be able to move on now (but you are preventing me from doing so). You say that you have learned from other editors and in some ways your editing has improved, but as long as that obsession towards Hoad persists in you, your editing will always be combative. I view other editors such as Wolbo and fyunck (who are both very different to me in many ways) as coming onto wikipedia and at the end of each day they edit they have improved wikipedia. I would like to view you in the same way. It is not enough to say that you have improved wikipedia sometimes, if at other times it has required me and others to intervene to stop you making it worse. Wolbo stated about your editing that "it necessitates almost continuous monitoring and corrections by other editors which is untenable." This is correct and this is the very heart of the problem. As I stated earlier, you dont upset me anymore, but dealing with you wears me out. Wikipedia is a collaborative process. Wolbo and fyunck go about their activities on wikipedia, I go about mine. Occassionally I may clash with them on something. They have biases, but they dont use wikipedia as a way of relentlessly promoting their biases. Also, they dont focus relentlessly on one or two pages. If I knew you were to continue editing, but not editing any page that had anything to do with Lew Hoad or his rivals, I would feel a lot more confident that your contributions would be consistently positive. There are still tennis history pages on wikipedia that could benefit from expansion. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 10:37, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Tennishistory1877, I do appreciate your assistance on these articles, including the Hoad article. Recently I did a lot of editing on the "World No. 1." article, and I removed several references to Hoad while adding references to Kramer and Gonzales and Okker and Ashe and other players. So I think that my recent editing has been more widely distributed among other players. But I appreciate that the optics would seem that the Hoad article was a focus, that being due to the large amount of recently discovered historical material related to the two major tours of 1959. That Ampol series investigation required many edits to complete. I hope that you do not disappear from these articles because you have added much valuable material to date.Tennisedu (talk) 19:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I might enlarge Tilden at some point if no one else does it. Other pro player pages are done to my satisfaction. Wikipedia hasnt been my main focus (in 2018 and 2019 I rarely edited on wikipedia, I couldnt spare the time then), though its still been important to me. There are many eras of tennis besides the late 1950s (though I agree with you, that was a great era). Tennishistory1877 (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

1963 Retraction

Please quote the retraction for 1963 Hoad/Laver Australian tour. An omission is not a retraction. The two citations for the larger number were direct quotes from Laver, not from a book under his name.Tennisedu (talk) 17:12, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Direct quotation from Laver added. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:23, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Overuse and Repetition of Information from Newswire Sources

We have a problem in the Hoad article in the 1959 section, there is a reference to Gonzales as world champion with a long list of 8 citations, however these citations from different newspapers all derive from the same UPI newswire feed for that day. As we discussed in the Annual World No. 1 article talk page, this should always be avoided. Only one citation is needed to support the quotation from the newswire report and I suggest that the others be removed, this cluttering effect is completely unnecessary. If there are no objections, I will remove the repetitive citations.Tennisedu (talk) 06:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

If it is a duplication of the same report, then the duplication sources can be removed. However, be careful that it is a duplication, because just because a newspaper reported the same event on the same day does not necessarily mean it was a duplication. I will look into the sources for Gonzales world champion and remove any duplications and find replacements on different days if necessary. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 09:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I have removed duplications of the same report for Gonzales being described as world champion in 1959. There is still a very long list of citations of Gonzales being world champion in 1959 and some citations are not even listed yet. Maybe I will look for some more some time. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 09:58, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Not necessary to look for more, you have already overloaded this section with Gonzales references, in what is supposed to be a Hoad article. The point about Gonzales being described in the press as "world champion" has been sufficiently made, don't you think? Many of these references are from 1960, not 1959, which is really stretching your point beyond normal boundaries. If you would like to find something of interest, try finding a 1959 reference to the world tour as a "world series" in a 1959 report, not in 1960.Tennisedu (talk) 17:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The early 1960 references are very much to the point. Gonzales became world champion on 31 May 1959 (and was proclaimed as such in many newspapers) and several of the references I listed are throughout January 1960, yet you push the claim (with a single source) that Hoad was proclaimed world champion in early January 1960. The more references to Gonzales being world champion in this period the better as far as I am concerned! The first Wimbledon championships were held in 1877 and we are now in 2021 (that means over 140 years of tennis history). Maybe it might be a good idea to not focus on just one of those years and say the same things again and again and again about that one year. Just a thought. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:20, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it's good to find Gonzales references to enhance the encyclopedia, but, this is a Hoad article. As with other articles we would tend to mention Hoad's attributes here, not Gonzales'. In an article on World Champions we would load it up, but this article is what Hoad has done. We would tend to say that some sources proclaimed Hoad as World Champion in January of 1960 and not mention Gonzales at all except as periphery. I think Gonzales is mentioned 27 times in Hoad's 1959 section. Some are necessary, but some are not. Most everything on Gonzaleses prowess should be in the Gonzales article, not Hoads. I think the 1959 section is too long and too trivial... my goodness a whole trivial paragraph on how much money Hoad earned is overkill. And in other sections you see more money tabulations. "Hoad won US$3,000 for his victory in the singles, plus US$750 for winning the doubles with Trabert"... That is pretty trivial, worthy of a book on Hoad but not a summary of a player in an encyclopedia. It seems like that section could be cut by a third easy. I'm a little surprised there is no "Lew Hoad career statistics" article. And remember that yearly articles are fine if a player won one of the four majors in that year (as we do with players like Novak Djokovic). That takes a load off the main article and keeps it readable for the general public. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:09, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

It is very important to list all Gonzales claims if the Hoad claim is written, because what tenniesdu is writing for Hoad is based on one citation and (as far as I am concerned) is not really true. I would be happy if the Hoad claim for world champion was removed entirely, then I would be happy to remove the counter-claims. Hoad was world tournament champion, a very important difference. Important to be truthful in articles and wikipedia has rules on writing with a neutral point of view https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view. No one apart from tennisedu and his one citation thinks Hoad was world champion. I agree 1959 is too long and agree with the reasons you list fyunck. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 22:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Not in a Lew Hoad article it isn't. This is about Lew Hoad, not Pancho Gonzales. But the Hoad claim should be put in context also. Make sure it says one source and that it is far from universal. You would then list some sources that say different without writing anything about Gonzales. I agree Hoad wasn't world champion, but if he has a source that says he was it should be in the article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:22, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Where did Tennishistory get the idea that Hoad's ranking as No. 1 was "only one source"? We have quite a few in this article and I have just added another from Sydney Morning Herald. The use in the Sydney article of the terms "world" in juxtaposition with "title" is probably the source for the French-language article, which used the term "world title", showing the consistency between the Australian and European press reports. The mystery about this is the absence of any report of the Ampol series and point ranking in the American press after the Los Angeles tournament, with only some confused references in Tennis World. Kramer did not apparently put out releases on this to the American press. Not a peep about Ampol world series in the New York Times, or other American newspapers. And Kramer made the unusual step of issuing his own personal ranking in contradiction to his own established point ranking. He ranked Hoad No. 4, which was a little absurd under the circumstances. As far as the money angle goes, there are actually quite a few references to tour, tournament and career winnings throughout these biographies. This article began to get complicated on financial numbers when one of the editors (who has not edited here recently) raised all sorts of objections and produced some incomplete and apparently contradictory data, which we felt should be included in this Hoad article in the interest of completeness. I think that these partial and contradictory data could be removed, and we could simplify the financial numbers by using the best sources, namely from Kramer and Hoad, and eliminating the contradictory reports. Hoad himself appears to have given offhand remarks about financial totals which may have complicated this issue. Hoad's biographers may be acceptable, because they looked at Hoad's records. I will simplify the financial numbers if all are agreed.Tennisedu (talk) 03:51, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Where did tennisedu get the idea that I said Hoad's 1959 number one ranking was only one source? I have said before I believe that Hoad does have a case for being joint number one in 1959 (even though personally I would rank Gonzales as being number one alone, by the smallest of margins). What Hoad wasnt was "world champion". Its like saying Pete Sampras won the French Open (ie not true). And it is a very dangerous thing to rely on single citations to build a case. Richard Evans recently brought out a tennis history book. According to a review I read, he put a totally erroneous score for one of the Federer and Nadal Wimbledon finals. This is an error not backed up by any other source. Do we now list this on wikipedia as being a given score for that Wimbledon final? No we most certainly do not! In the course of wikipedia editing, I am prepared to accept arguments I dont necessarily agree with, but only if they are backed up by a good range of evidence. Need I remind you of that debacle on the world number one ranked tennis players page, particularly regarding 1960. I continually said that I was prepared to accept Rosewall as co no. 1 for 1960, but only if a good weight of evidence was presented. This evidence has not been presented. Fyunck, you ended that by telling tennisedu "Three more sources for Rosewall in 1960." But neither of you have found any more sources for Rosewall in 1960. Instead you have come wading into another argument here. As for your financial figures tennisedu, these have been challenged by many people many times. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 08:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

You are using another "kitchen sink" post to bring everything into discussion at once, Tennishistory. Try dealing with one issue at a time. The rankings issue is for another article, not this one. By the way, just for the record, I do not believe that there exists a clear No. 1 for 1960 or 1961, the top three players dodged each other too much to provide a sufficient amount of play to determine the No. 1 in those two years. I am indifferent to your choices for those two years, and have no advice to give anyone. For 1959, I have Hoad alone at No. 1 in my personal list, Gonzales lost the major series in the world tour and finished second in the tournament point system...pretty clear the result. Gonzales still kept the world championship title in 1959, but it was a less decisive result because of the hth loss. To say that someone won the "world title" or the "world series" is tantamount to saying that they are world champion. I am still waiting for you to produce evidence that the 4-man series in 1959 was referred to in contemporary reports (not in 1960) as a "world series". The Ampol series was referred to in Kramer's literature and newspaper reports as "world series". I am still waiting on your findings for that. I would suggest that we simplify the financial numbers (which are from the literature of Kramer and Hoad biography, not my own numbers) and eliminate the casual references which a certain editor insisted on using to clutter up this article. Unless there are specific objections, I should go ahead and simplify the numbers, and meet the legitimate concerns raised above by Fyunck.Tennisedu (talk) 17:06, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not particularly interested in anyone's opinions on rankings for 1959-61. What I am interested in is editors providing citations to back up whatever they write there. If ever there is an issue of contention, the first thing I do is look for as many citations as possible to back up my case. Frankly, opinions without citations are meaningless. The tournament series played around the world won by Hoad was the Ampol Open Trophy. So so bored of listening to your broken record. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:17, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

It looks like the attempt to trim the excess detail from the financial discussions in this article have been reverted by Krosero, although he did not discuss the matter here in the Talk section. Perhaps Krosero could join us here and discuss how some trimming could be accomplished. Right now, it is a laborious read to wade through this excessive material.Tennisedu (talk) 18:47, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Myself and fyunck both said that we felt there was too much financial information in this article, but what to keep and what not keep is another debate entirely. Maybe krosero felt that what you removed was unacceptable to him. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:09, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

He was invited to join the discussion on the talk page, but chose not to. That is hardly a positive attitude, but typifies the strange view of this particular article taken by some determined editors, who are apparently motivated by a desire to promote a point of view, and ignore the normal forms of editing here.Tennisedu (talk) 04:05, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

The only person on this page motivated by a desire to promote a point of view is you. Maybe after knowing you for a decade, krosero is tired of debating the same subjects with you again and again and again. I have already reached that point after a couple of years of knowing you. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 08:13, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

This discussion involves more than me, I did not raise the point of there being excessive financial details, that point was raised by you, Wolbo and Fyunck. You are trying to change the subject again. I have become accustomed to your style of editing, too, and find that you are an ardent advocate of a point of view, as shown by your refusal to follow normal editing for this article, as Fyunck has just pointed out to you. You seem to think that this is an article about Gonzales, which is clearly a personal POV. The idea that there might be more than one world professional championship in one year is something which you have difficulty accepting.Tennisedu (talk) 02:31, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I identify very much with krosero's approach and it is one I hope to adopt myself (watching the page, intervening when necessary and not entering into a load of pointless and nasty hot air on these talk pages). Of course, this whole approach would never be necessary with any other editor, because no other editor on these pre-open era pages has such a relentless obsession with promoting one player and who has the neutral point of view policy constantly quoted at him. I would like to stop editing on wikipedia now (as I have said before) but feel unable to do so as long as you continue to edit. I dont feel that other active editors are able at the present time to allocate sufficient time to constantly monitor these pre-open era top pro player pages because they edit across the full spectrum of tennis history. Part of the problem is, there simply arent enough regular editors on these tennis history pages. If there was an editor or editors watching every single edit on these pages, looking out for all your attempts at POV pushing, then I would gladly stop editing these pages. These words from Wolbo sum up to me exactly what the problem is. "The central issue remains the editorial bias and POV pushing which Tennisedu displays through his edits, particularly on this article but also on related ones. Despite the fact that several other editors have notified/alerted/warned him about this many times over a period of more than a year this behavior persists. As a result it necessitates almost continuous monitoring and corrections by other editors which is untenable and, as can be seen, causes frustrations. This has become disruptive and it simply needs to stop." Tennishistory1877 (talk) 10:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

You are recycling some old statements on this. My editing is always well supported by sources and to the point. But as I said above, you seem to think that this article is about Gonzales, which is certainly an untenable POV pushing beyond normal editing. You complained with others about the excessive financial details added by a certain editor who refused to discuss the matter, then you change your mind about discussing your complaints in a serious way. You need to make up your mind about what you want. If you do not know what you want, no one else is able to assist you.Tennisedu (talk) 23:59, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

This page is different to others in that it has an editor who systematically searches for single sources, sometimes twists the meaning of these single sources and repeats these endlessly to skew the meaning of what occurred. I agreed with fyunck that there were excessive financial details. However, as always with you, the solution to this is not straightforward. I did, if you recall, come to a compromise agreement with you some months ago where I was prepared to accept this page as it was and we agreed to both cease editing it. There were many things written on the page that I personally would not have written and would choose not to include (such as excessive financial details). Why am I even on these pages talking to you now? Because you went back on this agreement. These talk pages are intended so editors can discuss matters and come to agreements. I find every talk thread with you involves unpleasant nasty rows, the same comments and debates again and again and very little of it is constructive. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 08:18, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

If you had not added long strings of duplicate citations for your Gonzales fixation here, we could have avoided that issue. We had no long-term agreement to stop editing here, that is your own personal imagination. We agreed to continue editing for errors and style, and other editors continued to edit this page, thus closing whatever agreement existed on "freezing" this page. Check this discussion above, we already went over this many times, you seem to hang on to dead issues like it was in style. You were quite willing to continue editing here, for financial details also. Why not get a round-table discussion on financial overkill for this page? That would be a useful employment of your resources here.Tennisedu (talk) 19:38, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

You can not make agreements on behalf of other people, only the people involved can make agreements. I was happy to leave the page as it was, but as you were not able to, the issue of excessive financial details was raised in a talk thread you started which would not have existed if you had ceased editing. I will tell you what I will do. I will remove several of the statements that I feel are excess. I have just looked at Federer and Nadal's pages, both very highly paid athletes of the modern era with long careers. There are not financial listings for every major tournament they won, just a few general comments about earnings. This seems to be standard practice. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:23, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Of course, others have to be involved in the discussion, that is what I suggested. I would suggest that you refrain from removing financial details derived from official sources without consulting others on this talk page. That is what Krosero seems to be proposing. Unilateral action by yourself would probably not work, especially if it "removes material that is non-duplicative and longstanding, and without getting agreement that it could be removed", to quote another editor here. Let's get a round-table discussion started, including Krosero.Tennisedu (talk) 20:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I knew you would react that way. The purpose of my edit was to indicate my choices for removal. I have left the general contract figures and world tour summaries but removed tournament prize money and general duplication (actually if I were writing the article alone I would slim down the world tour summaries too). As I said, the Nadal and Federer articles (both long articles for very successful highly paid players with long careers) do not contain the financial details this article does. If you want to have a discussion with other editors prepared to engage with you about what to remove that is fine by me. I have indicated my choices in that edit. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 21:44, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

All right, I made a serious attempt to remove the excessive financial statements, but if you and Wolbo are not interested in simplifying the financial material, I do not want to hear any more complaints from the editors here about financial statements. It is past time to put up or shut up. The matter is closed.Tennisedu (talk) 01:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Some further things need to be said before the matter is dropped. I’m looking back on some edits that tennisedu made to this Hoad bio in the months that I was inactive here. He now has Hoad earning $140,000 in his first six months as a pro (see the last paragraph of 1959, and the first paragraph of the 1957 pro career). That is false. Common sense alone would rule out such a claim from being used in this bio: Laver surpassed $100,000 in a season in 1970, and here tennisedu is claiming that Hoad was paid $140,000 for only six months play, when he couldn’t even win a single tournament.

But it’s worse than that. Tennisedu’s source for this claim is a Manila Times article from November 1957, which merely gives predictions about what Hoad is expected to make. That’s right – tennisedu took a mere prediction and put it into the bio as Hoad’s earnings.

Hoad did not reach the figure predicted in the Manila Times until November 1958: he was reported at $138,750 in career earnings by then.

That ’57 Manila Times article used by tennisedu also says that Hoad is expected to win the ’58 championship tour over Gonzalez, so you can get an idea of what was going on in such press reports. Hoad was being hyped by Kramer at this time as Gonzalez’s successor. Kramer fed the press some statistics for Hoad’s H2H results in 1957 that have already been proven false. He was hyping Hoad, which is why all statements he made about Hoad while he was Gonzalez’s challenger deserve a lot of skepticism and should not be thrown into this bio as if presumed valid.

(Kramer’s financial figures are sometimes suspect for other reasons, because in some articles he’s hyping his own organization as paying players a ton of money; he’s trying to persuade amateurs to join him; all his glowing statements about how much he paid Hoad or any of his players need to be seen in that light.)

It still gets worse, though, because tennisedu surely knows that Hoad himself said a few days after the Manila Times article, as 1957 was coming to a close, that he was on pace to reach only $35,000 career earnings by the end of 1957.

He’s surely aware of that statement by Hoad because he recently also added some H2H figures for the 1957 tour that are false (they are contradicted not only by other sources of the time period but by the current numbers at Tennisbase) – and he provided as the source for these H2H figures, the same article in which Hoad said he was on pace to reach 35K.

And in that same article (Sydney Morning Herald, at https://www.newspapers.com/image/125649494/?terms=%22Lew%2BHoad%22), there are other predictions, about what Hoad’s total earnings will be. One of them turned out to be a fairly accurate prediction: $135K career earnings by October 1958, fairly close to the actual case.

So in this one Sydney Morning Herald article, tennisedu took what he wanted, starting with the H2H figures, which favored Hoad. He then added them to the bio and claimed that they applied to the entire 1957 tour, even though they were reported on December 1, with the Aussie tour still to be played (but they were incorrect even on December 1, as I noted above). He disregarded the article’s predictions about $35K earnings in 1957 and $135K career earnings by late 1958. He took instead the Manila Times article with its vague prediction of $140K, and interpreted it to be a prediction for year-end 1957. He turned that into a past-tense report of what Hoad earned. Lastly, a few days ago when he attempted to prune the bio, he used this Manila Times claim/prediction/report to remove the more accurate report that I had put into the bio, in which Kramer says that Hoad reached $140K in mid-1958.

The pattern of cherry-picking sources and distorting them is the same as ever, but it was never more clear than in this instance.

And these are just the specific passages that I’ve noticed, after only partially looking over the bio.

At the very least, tennisedu cannot be allowed to prune the bio at will, as he attempted to do a few days ago.

But the larger problem with this bio, as ever, is that tennisedu is editing it. Until he stops editing it, his POV-pushing is going to continue to creep in. Other editors will drop away in frustration because they don’t share the same obsession (or have the same free time), and then even more POV will get into the bio, as well as plain-old bloat, because tennisedu keeps putting in minutiae.

The efforts to counter tennisedu’s material in this bio with balancing and accurate material have been necessary but that just makes the bio even longer.

As long as tennisedu is editing this bio, you will have either a bio that’s bloated-but-balanced (if you can call it balanced at all, with all of his dubious and incorrect material still in the bio) – or, if he is allowed to do the pruning, a shorter bio that is wildly POV. Even then, it will not be short, because he’ll keep all the Hoad-minutiae that readers will not be interested in. We will not have a bio that is both succinct, and free of POV-pushing.

This is the same old impasse, and it never gets better. In the last few months this bio got worse when I grew inactive, and if tennishistory1877 grows inactive as well, it will be lights out for this bio. But really, it’s already gone over the cliff, and it will take a great effort to bring it back.Krosero (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Most wikipedia tennis editors (minus a few occasional editors or trouble makers who dont have ids) basically have the same goal. This is to improve the standard of pages and to list the necessary information. We may fall out from time to time but basically we have the same goal. Tennisedu is entirely different. His aims are to relentlessly promote one player, to seek out individual sources that he can twist to suit his purposes. I want to become inactive but I will not allow tennisedu free reign on this page, because I know how devious and biased he is. But frankly, why should I have to spend my time monitoring an untrustworthy editor? An untrustworthy editor who is also extremely rude and confrontational. This talk thread is a prime example of the utter futility of dealing with him. How is it possible to come to an agreement with an editor who has completely opposite objectives to everyone else? You list the problems currently associated with the article, krosero, and say the article has already gone over the cliff, but maybe you forget the huge amount of biased POV pushing myself and other editors have already kept out. Its relentless. If tennisedu were not editing on the page the problems could be solved in no time. Something needs to be done about it. Wikipedia is supposed to be collaborative. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 13:51, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

You and others have indeed done a ton of work to keep out material that would be even worse, no doubt about that.

It's just not sustainable. We have a full-blown impasse, and as you say, this is not how Wikipedia is supposed to work.

There was an article in the Washington Post some months back, which I'll quote here (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/15/wikipedia-20-year-anniversary/):

"Any changes must be carefully sourced, and there are constant discussions to ensure neutral tone and appropriate weight to topics within the page. … It is the lower-profile pages that are more susceptible."

The article describes how Wikipedia pages are proving to be reliable due to the sheer number of users involved, especially on high-profile pages: large numbers of editors can be brought in to deal with problems. But it's "the lower-profile pages that are more susceptible," and this Hoad bio is a clear example: we've always had very few editors, and they're dropping away, or have done so long ago. That makes it impossible to get a consensus moving on what is unnecessary, tendentious, POV or just plain wrong in the bio. There needs to be decisions on such things, even when a source can be cited for them. If Kramer says that he paid Hoad $140K in 1957, that doesn't mean it should be in the bio. We do that all the time with win/loss stats that we know are wrong -- we don't use them. That claim that Hoad was "world champion" in 1959 is another dubious claim -- it comes from a mere stub article (something that could easily have been cut or modified by an editor-in-chief just to fit into the newspaper column), contradicted by all the more-substantial and better sources about Gonzalez remaining champion, and yet it persists in the bio.

I know that the "world champion" issue is a hot-button topic but I don't want us to re-litigate that well-litigated issue again and lose sight of the larger issue: as long as tennisedu is editing, you're going to have bloat and POV. He needs to stop editing the bio, or else we need a more effective method of voting on changes to the bio.Krosero (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The "world champion" thing is a prime example of the sort of editing only tennisedu would do. If an unbiased editor was researching the issue and looking at the evidence, they would see the Hoad "world champion" claim was only a single source, contradicted by many other sources and they would conclude Hoad wasnt world champion and wouldnt include it in the article. This is why all the counter-evidence needs to be listed on this article all the time. Imagine if there were resident Rosewall fanatics and Gonzales fanatics on wikipedia operating like tennisedu does towards Hoad. They would find a single source that Rosewall was the best server or Gonzales had the best backhand, or find a quote that someone said that Gonzales was a friendly guy who got on with all his fellow players. Then the single citations would be listed on the page to make a case for the most absurd things. This is what tennisedu doesnt understand, because he is so biased. He doesnt understand how to view things in an unbiased way. How judgement calls are used to weigh up evidence to make common sense conclusions about what did or didnt happen. And everyone who edits on this page has made criticisms of tennisedu's POV editing of this page many times. I even reached a compromise with him months back, even though there was a lot I disliked in the article, just so we could stop editing this page. But he couldnt keep away from editing and went back on his word. If tennisedu wasnt editing on this page we could sort out the problems with it very fast. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 15:08, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes that's exactly the sort of judgment calls, and process, that I was envisioning -- a process I think is necessary on any Wiki page.

I'd be unwilling to continue editing this page, without such a process or understanding in place. I'm unwilling to go back to making changes, getting them reverted by tennisedu just because he can object, and edit-warring in that manner. It's futile, and sometimes I think it's counterproductive, because tennisedu often responds by restoring his material and then writing even more, on this page, and on other pages, to prove his point that his Hoad material should remain. (That's pointy-editing, as has been pointed out to him before.)

I think a 2-1 vote on changes, with for example tennishistory1877 and I agreeing against tennisedu, should be sufficient -- without endlessly relitigating every single line or issue present in the bio; everything has already been discussed ad infinitum.

But in the interest of keeping the bio as objective as possible, I think if there's a 2-1 vote as I describe, and then any other longstanding editor such as wolbo or fyunck steps in and says, "Let's keep this material," then we keep it. I might disagree with keeping it, but I'm not going to push the issue, against someone other than tennisedu. I for one am not interested in endless debate about things I've already debated multiple times over the years.

Without such an agreement, I don't see myself actively editing this page any longer. It's futile.

Others' thoughts?Krosero (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree mainly with your points, krosero. I look at things from a reader's perspective because I read pages on wikipedia more than I edit (I often read non-tennis topics). If I ever come across a non-tennis page with even one bloated biased statement, that brings down the whole tone of the page and makes me question the validity of the whole page (even though most of it may be correct). It doesnt matter how many results are listed here, if they are interspersed with cherry-picked biased statements, the whole article is immediately discredited. Above all, krosero, I agree with you when you say "I for one am not interested in endless debate about things I've already debated multiple times over the years." This is the very last thread in which I will enter into a lengthy debate. From now on its a simple yes or no. One thing I am particularly annoyed with at the moment is tennisedu starting these talk threads and then making criticisms at other editors for not participating, pretending that he is the one prepared to discuss things and others arent. We already discussed these issues countless times already and are sick of it! I am bored of the sound of myself repeating things! The purpose of these threads is to make decisions, not recycle stale hot air. We had all the debates again and again with tennisedu and they got nowhere. Time for some action. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 16:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

"The purpose of these threads is to make decisions, not recycle stale hot air." Completely agree with this especially. Of course some discussion is necessary, especially when something new comes up or new evidence is introduced. But this is not a message board like Talk Tennis, where you are completely free, if you wish, to argue a case as often as you like, in all the ways you can think of and in unlimited posts/threads if you choose. These talk pages are for decisions to be made about material: keep; remove; change; or leave alone. Krosero (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

No this is not a message board like Talk Tennis, and this is one of the main problems I have with dealing with tennisedu here, he treats it like an extension of the forum. I am not a person who posts on forums anymore (I did for a short while). I have nothing against those who do enjoy forums, but they arent for me. Wikipedia is different. Its about finding information and presenting it to the readers, sometimes compromise is necessary and decisions should be reached on talk threads. But with tennisedu decisions are often not reached (or if they are way too much hot air is circulated before any decision is made and often the same issues are gone over again and again). Above all I am a researcher. I find information and I publish my findings. Posting on these talk threads a lot with tennisedu has quite a negative impact on my mood. I am not leaving wikipedia. I would like to leave, as I feel I have added most of what I have wanted to add, but I cant leave tennisedu unmonitored. But I will take part in no more debates other than to say yes or no. This is why I like your idea of a vote, krosero. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 20:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Try sticking to the facts, instead of rambling on about empty ad hominems. Here is something from late November, 1957 from Kramer. "Kramer said the Australian tour will end Dec. 15, after which Hoad, Rosewall and Segura will proceed to the United States for next year’s winding super-charged tour...By the end of the current tour, Hoad will have earned over $140,000 or more. The excess over his $125,000 contract fee is a compilation of the $100 bonuses he gets every time he wins." So this is late November, and the tour ended on December 15, about three weeks later. Kramer would not know what he is talking about? Krosero, could you please explain that? Your position stretches credulity here. Something which you and Tennishistory do not understand is that we do not exercise our own personal judgment here on Wikipedia, we cite references to what was published in the sources. If you and Tennishistory begin to exercise your own personal judgment, we would have original work here, and we are supposed to avoid original work or judgment. Please remember what we are doing here. Krosero, you complain that the Ampol series in 1959 was not referred to in the press as a "world championship" despite the fact that we have more than one reference to that in the press. Also, the term "world series" was applied to the Ampol series, a term reserved for world championships. Please respond to these points, because I seem to recall that you once stated that "world series" was a clear reference to a world championship.Tennisedu (talk) 03:58, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

This is a perfect test case for the situation, because there is no question that Hoad did not make $140,000 in 1957. And of course no Wiki page ever benefits from uncritical acceptance of clearly false claims, but here tennisedu is merely repeating the same discredited Manila Times report (though he doesn't tell us that he's merely repeating it) and giving every indication that he will hang on to this material. That is what I anticipated; he has always reverted our revisions when we've removed his material, and I wanted to avoid a revert-war. I have not tried to remove this 1957 $ claim, or the incorrect h2h figures for 1957, because as I said yesterday, going back to the same revert-and-revert struggles will not solve any of the problems that this bio is facing.

But nor will it solve the problems, when a Hoad fanatic has parked himself indefinitely on Lew's bio, to go the old standby's of "Work with him to achieve consensus," or, "take all viewpoints into consideration," or, "Keep his material if he can cite a source" (the latter is not even an absolute guideline, because there are many Wiki guideline pages stating that sources cannot be acceptably uncritically, as tennisedu is doing with this Manila Times reporter, merely because Kramer is quoted in the article). This is not to fault anyone here, who have all tried their best to address the problems, but to state my view as plainly as possible, those guidelines, in a case like this, merely result in good editors leaving in frustration and leaving the page increasingly open to the "viewpoints" of an biased editor. I think we can all agree that if that is happening to a Wiki page, then Wikipedia is not working for that page the way it should.

And to return to the 1957 $ issue. If something so clearly false cannot be removed from a bio without a revert war, because the biased editor in question is insisting on being personally convinced that he's wrong about it and that it doesn't belong in the bio, then that's a clear indication that a biased editor has too much control over an article.

I am not going to be engaging in discussion with tennisedu further, but beyond that, if no agreement can be reached here, with the other editors, about how to go forward with edits on a day-to-day basis, then the only remaining solution, to state my view perfectly clearly, is for tennisedu to be blocked from editing. I cannot go forward with seeking administrative mediation or other remedies for this page until I get clearer on the processes for such a thing, but it is as plain as anything that such a remedy would be the only way to move forward, if we don't have an agreement that all the editors can sign onto concerning future edits.

It doesn't have to be an agreement exactly as I laid out yesterday when I talked about taking votes (I am very flexible on the details), but we have to have some agreement, because the current situation doesn't work, and it's only going to get worse, as editors drop away.

Others' thoughts?Krosero (talk) 13:30, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Krosero, you were asked to explain your rejection of this apparent claim by Kramer, and your only response is that somehow it must be obvious to everyone that your suspicion is correct. That is insufficient to rise to the level of a demonstration. The point itself is outside the topic of this section, which is the overuse of newswire feeds. So I will start another section and we can see how this data about earnings fit together into an overall pattern. That would be a positive step in this process of weighing the credibility of the reports. By the way, that Manila report quotes Kramer as stating that Rosewall would get $100,000. That seems in line for Rosewall's year, judging from other reports. I did not hear you complain about this Rosewall figure.Tennisedu (talk) 15:28, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Again I’m looking through the financial figures in the bio and finding something added by tennisedu in the time that I was inactive. I had long ago told him that the career earnings figure from 1977 was not “suggested” to Lew by the reporter, but he recently resurrected that claim, by saying that the figure was provided “in a reporter’s question.” Yet another misrepresentation of a source.

And when tennisedu claimed that Kramer reported Hoad to have made $140,000 in 1957, he knew not only that Hoad said it would be only around $35,000; he also knew that Kramer said in the first days of ’58 that Hoad had made only $33,600, as per the Sydney Morning Herald at https://www.newspapers.com/image/125651017/?terms=Hoad%2BKramer – a source that I found in the bio a few days ago, and which tennisedu put into the bio himself.

I have a proposal for the group. I’m going to trim, remove or consolidate all the financial figures in the Hoad bio that are misrepresented, misleading, repetitive, excessive in detail, or obviously wrong, as previously discussed on this talk page. My arguments were laid out in very long discussions with tennisedu already, and they are still on this talk page, so I won’t repeat them here.

I will (unlike tennisedu, in his attempted recent trimming) also be removing some of the material/figures that I put into the bio. That material is all solid but I do agree with everyone else that there’s just too much financial data in the bio. Krosero (talk) 11:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Krosero, I agree to reduce the amount of financial data in this article (and any other articles in which there are a lot of monetary amounts listed). Tennishistory1877 (talk) 13:00, 7 June 2021 (UTC)