Talk:List of Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees

I've put the legends into a table to enable the recording of their career highlights alongside their names. I am thinking that we can't do the same for everyone because it would become enormous. Perhaps the player inductees be structure within two columns (like the rest of the inductees), enabling a brief mention of their more important career highlights next to their names, e.g. three premierships, two brownlow medals, etc. I envisage that the career highlights for the legends would have a bit more in the way of details (thinking out aloud here), like games played and coached, premierships, club B&Fs, brownlows, state games, post playing careers, e.g. media roles, etc. I'll do a couple of the players I am familiar with, and we'll see how it looks. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 02:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think we should keep it fairly basic considering we have links to player profiles which go into detail (well, we at least have links to all the Legends). Maybe keep it to best and fairests, premierships, brownlows, games and goals. Coaching details should only be reserved for those inducted as Coaches. Rogerthat ^Talk 06:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

What needs to be on this page is the clues for a reader to decide which names to click through to the full article. To me, this would be name, years active, and clubs played for. Since teams win premierships (not players), it does not seem important to list on this page the premierships etc won, and B&F award years just aren't important enough for the list. --Scott Davis ^Talk 15:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Scott, is your proposal for the non-Legend inductees, or for all inductees? While I am slowly forming the opinion that we need to follow the more minimalist line (as you have proposed), I am still wondering whether the Legends deserve to be somehow set apart from the rest - even if it is only in the way of formatting with maybe an additional detail or two. Of course, it may be that such a distinction is not warranted in an encyclopedia, a view that I would not oppose. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 04:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking about the rest. For the legends, I'd add the citation on their award or something - I'd guess there's one or two sentences that describes why they're a legend. This is a list of detail articles, I'd answer differently if we weren't going to have (eventually) articles for each of the people themselves. As a comparison, Order of Australia lists the knights and officials, and only has categories for officers, members and medal recipients. --Scott Davis ^Talk 05:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Adding the citation of the award for the legends is a pretty good idea and an objective way of adding the necessary detail. This brings me to another matter, I have dozens of books on aussie rules, but do you think I can find one that mentions the Hall of Fame more than in passing? Where do we find these citations? Will they be on the web site? I'm having trouble finding much more info, it would be good to flesh out what we have there currently. ρ¡ρρµ δ→θ∑ - (waarom? jus'b'coz!) 06:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Try here: http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=halloffame . They are career summaries and a few sentences summarry of the career highlights. I notice some of them are not yet included. As it's a cut'n'paste I'll put them in now.

POV and OR issues

Are the brief biographies in this list such as "One of the most determined players ever to play the game, Barassi did not know how to accept defeat. His attack on the football and inspired leadership made him a football great. He took that passion for the contest into his coaching, willing his players to perform at their best" quotes? If they are they should be sourced and if not removed. This list has the capacity to be a featured list with a bit of work but puffery like the above will not help. Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk

I'm pretty sure they're official AFL citations. The last link in the previous section would probably have led us to them, but it no longer works. Aspirex (talk) 14:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Names in List

Johnny Leonard Tom MacKenzie Simon Madden Rod McGregor Merv McIntosh

Do not appear on the AFHOF Individuals_list_2012.pdf file on the3 AFL website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.167.4.131 (talk) 03:53, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Teams

With regard to the teams for which the HoF inductees are credited: I'm editing these to match the AFL HoF website exactly. Although this omits some minor teams on a seemingly arbitrary basis, I believe this (like the citations) officially reflects the achievements for which those players were inducted. (e.g. Bob Skilton played for Port Melbourne for a year, but the HoF doesn't acknowledge it). Aspirex (talk) 07:30, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. I believe lists don't have to rely on a single source, they can be referenced indirectly through the linked articles, all of which would offer citations for all of the teams that they played for. One could argue that the AFL is either being deliberate crusade to minimise the other leagues, but to be honest, I reckon it's probably either laziness by the web site developer or different standards year by year depending on who did the typing. Wasn't there a book recently profiling all the inductees? I reckon that would cover all of the teams each player played for if you are concerned about referencing. In addition to the Tasmanian issues you mentioned in your edit summary (and omitting Baldock's 15 Tassie state games but leaving in the 10 Vic games is misleading in the extreme), I see that you removed things like Glen Jakovich and Peter Matera playing for South Freo - they both got picked for a state of origin game whilst playing for South before they were drafted! To sum it up, I strongly oppose your edits. The-Pope (talk) 11:22, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you appreciate that I don't like the edits, and you've seen the work I'm doing in the VFA space, so I'm sure you believe I'm sincere. I agree with you that the self-centred view of the history of the sport that the AFL pushes is shameful. But there's a verifiability issue that needs to be managed carefully. Neither Baldock's nor Hudson's HoF inscriptions (per the website) mention a single Tasmanian achievement (and indeed, it lists Victorian games but not Tasmanian games), which would appear to be a glaring omission, but implies to me that those achievements were not actually considered when they were inducted, or are deemed to not be top-level.

The example I'll give, which I think illustrates the point best, is Barry Round. His inscription lists Footscray and South Melbourne/Sydney but not Williamstown; and, it says he played 3 state games for the VFA when he actually played about nine – those three games he was credited with were the 1988 Bicentennial Carnival games, implying to me that the hall of fame has some specific criteria which have designated the Bicentennial carnival as "top level" and therefore official, but the NFL Shield and stand-alone VFA rep games as lower level – rather than simply the laziness of the designer. With regards to Jakovich and Matera and the WAFL in general, I suspect WAFL games after 1987 have not been counted, and WAFL games from before 1987 have been counted – which I agree is a gross oversimplification of the draft and quotas and age limits which were in place at the time.

But what I think needs to be avoided is a situation where the addition or removal of teams from the minor states and leagues becomes discretionary. Bob Skilton and Ron Barassi, Jr. both played a season in their twilight years for Port Melbourne; most people would argue it's not important enough to mention these, but who's to say it isn't when Bob Johnson's 40-game career at Oakleigh around the same time is acknowledged? I could raise a valid argument along the same lines that Royce Hart's time at Glenelg was too brief to be worth acknowledging (even though it was a Grand Final). Should Matt Priddis one day be inducted, would he be (Subiaco, West Coast) because he was drafted after a few senior years with the Lions? Nobody would disagree that Laurie Nash's time at Camberwell was not notable, but it was during the VFA's throw-pass era and that may not even be eligible for consideration because the VFA was technically playing a different sport.

Ultimately, my contention is that the Hall of Fame is a private establishment, owned and maintained by the AFL, and therefore under the verifiability policy we should replicate the AFL's viewpoint. Even though neither of us likes it. Aspirex (talk) 08:16, 10 October 2014 (UTC)