Talk:Paintball/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

PBnation merge

I have played paintball since 1985 and, while I enjoy PBnation I would suggest >against< merging them with this article. My main reason isn't anything to do with any attitude against the site itself. In fact PBNation is a GOOD site. The problem is that most of the people who subscribe there are pretty young guys. While there is a core of old guys like me who will get facts before posting, most people aren't really in this category. Good forums to reference would be mcarterbrown.com or warpig.com as they have a more informative, unbiased group of people typically. Another good source would be automags.org.

PBnation is the largest forum for paintball, so i think it should be merged because it has young paintball player's along with veterian's

71.171.80.249 (talk) 04:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Tim 12/30/08

I believe it should not be merged because PBnation and Paintball are seperate entities, one is a sport, the other is a company/website. PBnation is a place to discuss paintball and should not be confused with paintball itself because it is not the paintball itself but a place to talk about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.76.44.9 (talk) 04:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Paintball is a Sport

Whoever keeps changing the first sentence of the page, please stop or I will report you for vandalism. The links provided clearly explain that paintball is defined first and foremost as a "game." The various independent sources cannot be refuted. This is your last warning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlab2005 (talk • contribs) 17:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. We already discussed this matter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Paintball#A_Sport.3F) and agreed that paintball is a sport. You only need to read the article and look up its categories to find that paintball is described as a sport all over Wikipedia. The reverts by Heaven's Army amount to vandalism. Stop it or you will be banned from Wikipedia.---91.55.208.178 (talk) 10:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Learn the rules of wikipedia, find a solid and reputable reference to say it is a sport and not a game what i'm doing is perfectly legit.haha banned from wiki who do you think u are? im going to apply that this article be semi-protected.--Heaven's Army (talk) 10:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Your references are neither "solid" nor "reputable". --91.55.208.178 (talk) 11:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh right let's not trust dictionaries on definitions hey while we're at it y dont we not trust doctors on illnesses or scientists on diseases--Heaven's Army (talk) 11:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I undid the latest edit to 'game' due to the source quoting a dictionary entry that was from 1987, which I consider to be a bit aged. In regards to this, there are valid arguments for both game and sport. We can easilly find cites for both, and my belief here is that this is just semantic. There is quite a bit of opinion and variation over the net for this, but I am leaning towards sport because of the physical aspect. If we compare it to other team sports, such as soccer - this is a sport, but it's also a game. Though it's different from a 'game' of cards, due to the physical aspect. Welcome your thoughts please. Jwoodger (talk) 00:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I was willing to cave into management and compromise. While some people consider paintball to be a sport, it is by definition a game. You can't refute that fact. It's right in the OED for Jove's sake. If you wanna refute the definitive source of the history of the English language, then you probably should try another language. I quote from the OED, "paintball" is, "A war game in which participants use weapons that fire paint capsules, with any competitor marked by the paint being eliminated from the game." Anyone who changes my post, I will report for vandalism against this true fact. jlab2005 (talk) 07:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

If this is true then why is it that when I type in baseball it says that it is a sport? Baseball is a game as well, but with a physical aspect. I think that all paintballers will agree that paintball is more of a sport than a mere game. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.26.29.75 (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Paintball is definitely both a sport and a game. You can call it either one. There is no reason to fight over such a small thing. The definition of a sport is an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc. So, according to the definition, paintball would be considered a sport. The definition of game is a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators. So, it is also considered a game. Paintball is both a game and a sport. More often than not, all sports are considered games. So, first and foremost, paintball is a sport. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Innocent3d (talk • contribs) 17:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It is also true that if you look up the definition of paintball, it does say that it is a game; however, if you look up the definition of football, it is also called a game. A sport is considered a game, and any physical game is considered a sport. Therefore, Paintball is a sport and a game, but you can call it either one. I prefer to call it a sport. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Innocent3d (talk • contribs) 17:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Fortunately, I was able to include both definitions in a nicely sourced and verifiable way that caters to both sides - i.e. "Paintball is a game...The game is regularly played at a sporting level...". This should really be the end of this debate. Jwoodger (talk) 05:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I really dislike people who seem to have irrational emotional attachment to a particular perspective and are fervently unwilling to reexamine their opinion even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are, quite positively, wrong. I also dislike when they support their position by using faulty logic.

No amount of references stating that paintball is a game have any bearing on whether paintball is a sport or not. They are not mutually exclusive, so showing that paintball is a game does NOT show that paintball is not a sport. And there have been SEVERAL references showing that paintball IS a sport. The only thing that differentiates paintball from baseball or soccer or football is the equipment used - everything else is the same: Two teams, objective, sporting equipment, athletic activity, athletic skill.

The question is, as both game and sport are correct, which word should be used? When writing an article designed to be informative, we should use the most informative word. While paintball is a game, games also include things like solitaire, tic-tac-toe, checkers, chess, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Monopoly, and Jenga. Clearly, paintball is much more like baseball, football, baseball, etc than checkers. Ergo, "sport" is the most specific, informative word and the one that should be used. There has also been no reference cited that shows that paintball is NOT a sport, or any logic offered as to what characteristic paintball has or does not have where baseball would be considered a sport and paintball would not be.

Additionally, other than one zealot clearly unable to understand a simple definition, consensus in discussion is that paintball is a sport.

Raehl (talk) 20:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, neither definitions are wrong, and are properly sourced. Your argument about paintball being a sport, by comparing it to non-physical activities such as solitaire, is based on original research. As I stated above, I don't understand why there is an issue with displaying both anyway, in nice prose that caters to both camps. I would also hope to discourage you from labelling people zealots.

Jwoodger (talk) 00:03, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Neither definition is incorrect, but "Sport" is more specific and informative, and is thus the correct word to use in the article. And paintball is a sport because it meets the definition of a sport, as cited by the references. Comparing it to non-physical GAMES was just an example to show that there are games that are not sports; ergo sports is the more specific and informative category. (That's not original research either.)

Again, to summarize: Everyone (including you) but one person agrees that paintball is a sport. No one has been able to offer any logical reason why paintball would not be a sport while other similar activities are a sport. And, by definition, "sport" is a more specific word than "game". As our objective should be to write the most informative article, using the word "game" when the more informative and specific word "sport" applies is just writing a poor article. Raehl (talk) 06:19, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The introduction to the article specifies paintball as a game first and foremost, mainly because it doesn't have to be played at a sporting level for it to qualify as paintball - e.g. two kids mucking about and shooting each other at a home with their paintball markers could still be referred to as playing paintball (in this case, the term Sport is not the correct usage). But it is also played at the sporting level - that's why the introduction says so later on. Jwoodger (talk) 06:15, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Safety Statistic Deletion

The safety statistic section of the article cites a source that requires a free-login and was previously incorrectly read and then cited into the article that I have already corrected. It uses only ~250 sport injuries to develope the statistic that 20% of all eye injuries stem from paintball. I think it's a fairly dubious source that doesn't really prove anything about paintball related eye injuries because the study was conducted on such small terms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintball#cite_note-9 CatSoup (talk) 16:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

"Germany moves to outlaw paintball" - BBC News

This isn't a subject I'm knowledgeable about, so I won't actually edit the article, but it seems fairly notable: this BBC News piece says that in the wake of the Winnenden school massacre, the German government plans to make paintball (and laser-tag) illegal on the grounds that "they trivialise and encourage violence." Loganberry (Talk) 00:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Some German lawmakers would like to ban paintball but they had to back down just a few days after announcing their plan and receiving a lot of ridicule over it. Detrius77 19:16, 14 May 2009 (CET)

Note 6 - 'Public perception'

The link cited in Note 6 bears no relation to the paragraph it is meant to be supporting and should be replaced with something relevant. IxK85 (talk) 13:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

NPPL Bankrupt

In the last dates NPPL(National Professional Paintball League) have gone bankrupt, since that PSP(Paintball Sport Promotion) have been leading the Paintball Leagues. I think that should be updated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.116.48.146 (talk) 19:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

This and the definition of the standard gametypes are incorrect - I'll fix. (Vijilnz (talk) 03:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC))

Equipment: propellent

I have been working to clean up this article and move a lot of the detail of the equipment to Paintball equipment, but I don't know what I can merge in regards to the (uncited) section on propellants (which doesnt belong in this article, should be in the equipment article). My problem is I don't have a firm grasp of the technical details and there is already a lengthy discussion in the equipment page. My main question is - can anyone check this propellants section on this page, and merge whats useful to Paintball equipment that doesnt already exist there - and then remove the section from here? Jwoodger (talk) 14:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I did this already. Jwoodger (talk) 14:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Check copyright

Can anyone please advise on the following site? - http://www.cpxsports.com/static.asp?path=415,765

The History section includes a significant chunk of information (although cited from another location) which appears mostly the same as the content of this article. I am, however, unsure what the situation here is:

• A contributor might have copied the text off this site into Wikipedia
• The website might have copied the text from Wikipedia
• Both Wikipedia and this website have copied the same text from another source (possibly the cited book).

Jwoodger (talk) 05:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The History section has already been cited to be from http://www.guide2paintball.com/the-history-of-paintball.aspx and is very much reworded compared to the original. Like this Wikipedia page, it is reworded from the original, but I doubt they would have gotten the same amount information as this article milked out of the other site so I would say they copied it off Wikipedia. Fwerp™ (talk) 14:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Good Article

Looking back through the history, I've noticed that this article has come a long way from its last GA nomination back in January. If no one objects I'd like to nominate this article for GA. Jack "Red Hood" Napier (talk) 02:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

As I have gained a certain love for this article since I started working on it a while ago — I would be curious to see how that goes too. I'm still concerned about some of the sections needing citations though... Jwoodger (talk) 02:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

To be honest though; I wouldn't mind getting this page to at least "A" status. Jwoodger (talk) 02:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you think the article is ready for nomination, I'd be willing to help fix any issues raised, and if not, I can provide assitance getting the article there. Not to brag, but I have connections with some key people and players in the sport, and can likely get any hard to find sources. Jack "Red Hood" Napier (talk) 05:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, fair enough — if we can fill in some of the missing cites that would be probably the first requirement. I also think we need to beef up the 'organised play' section — It would be nice to see generic tournament league information and trends over the years; e.g. how many players on a typical team, popular game variants, player training, etc — but make sure we don't get bogged down on details of particular leagues and tournament formats (i.e. I don't think details of tournaments per year or per country is helpful). Jwoodger (talk) 05:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I don't have on hand sources to back this up, but I'm sure I can find them. From experience PSP, NPPL, and NCPA play in a 5 man format. For pump tournaments it's usually 3 man. PSP, NPPL, and NCPA all run flag games, with significant points being awarded for capturing and returning the flag. Occasionally leagues will run promotional 7 man tournaments, though these are not the norm.

How would this fit into the article? And isn't this already in the Paintball league article? Jack "Red Hood" Napier (talk) 05:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, these leagues probably should only be mentioned in the league page; but I think some generic info or trends could be entered here (e.g. On average a tournament event includes x number of games, each team has an average n number of players, games played are often of type <capture-flag/elimination/etc>). I dunno, does that sound useful? Jwoodger (talk) 09:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds good. The only minor problem I see is that the number of matches in a tournament is largely depend on how many teams enter the tournament. Other than that: "each team has 5 or less players, games played are often capture the flag/elimination (point based. Flag captures gain the team a lot of points, but usually the team with the last man standing wins any way)." Also, good sources would include :[1] and [2]. Couldn't find NCPA rule book, but one can see just by watching their videos on ESPN that it's also 5 man, elimination. I believe that NCPA is basically an X-ball variant. Jack "Red Hood" Napier (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, good point — I will just use some generic cited statements (including "the number of matches in a tournament is largely depend on how many teams enter the tournament" - this is the sort of info I like to see here). Jwoodger (talk) 23:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I also have seen videos on youtube describing popular training techniques. I know youtube is not usually an exceptable source, but I think an exception could be made since the videos are made by recognized professional paintball players. What do you think?Jack "Red Hood" Napier (talk) 05:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Skirmish Paintball company

Regarding the paragraph starting "A year later in 1984, Skirmish Paintball..." - does this sound notable for inclusion in the history section; or is this simply a plug by a UK paintball company? Jwoodger (talk) 04:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

After looking at their website, I'd say its a plug, though they do seem to be the first field in the UK. Whether thats notable enough to include in the article I'll leave up to you. I don't think its notable enough for its own article though. If it is, I'm writing an article on my home field, the first field in Hawaii. Jack "Red Hood" Napier (talk) 11:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

"Incidents" Section

Is this section even relevant? I do not see a section for people who have been hurt in American Football, Association Football, Rugby Union, etc. So I believe that it should be removed. It is unjustifiably negative (as per the safety statistics).

If people want to know about who gets hurt or killed in paintball they should go look at news articles. It has no place here. Especially when the accident rate is so low compared to something far more dangerous in comparison, like American Football. Which itself has no such section. Not in the main article or even in the Health Issues in American Football article. 70.36.182.170 (talk) 10:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, and perhaps you are correct - these entries are mostly non-notable one-off incidents giving a negative perspective of paintball. I would be keen however, to still include incidents which have had an impact on the sport - such as causing a change of related laws or guidelines (if there were any). Jwoodger (talk) 10:51, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Well as far as I know, nothing has been changed because there was no reason to change it. I did hear that the valves on co2 and HPA tanks were changed to prevent them from flying around violently; Perhaps in response to some people dying in that manner. So maybe that's a place to start but I have no source for it. 70.36.182.170 (talk) 04:50, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I have prose-ified it all to explain why paintball might receive a bad rap every now and then, despite its low injury rating - I believe this section should remain, so this article doesn't succumb to a pro-paintball bias. Jwoodger (talk) 04:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Great work on your changes. I agree that the section in its new form should remain to avoid such a bias. This is much better than a list of people who got hurt. 70.36.182.170 (talk) 21:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Good Article

It is finally achieved - Paintball has been granted Good Article status! Congratulations everyone who worked on this :) So where to next? Well... is it possible we could now go for higher goals - could we get this to perhaps featured? Jwoodger (talk) 22:50, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, looks like the status is being contested. I thought it might have sounded too good to be true, despite our efforts. In any case, any re-assessment should point us in the right direction if it turns out not to be good enough. Jwoodger (talk) 23:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Misleading use of figures in the "Safety statistics" section

This section presents the 20.8% of sports eye injuries caused by paintball as evidence of its relative safety. ("paintball is one of the statistically safest sports to participate in, [...] of modern sports, paintball is responsible for 20.8% of eye injuries. Furthermore, [...] most sports eye injuries are caused by basketball, baseball, hockey, and racquetball"). This is incredibly misleading. 20.8% is a lot, and it means next to nothing to say that the eye injuries caused by several other sports together make up "most" of the total figure. To put the 20.8% into context, this places paintball behind only squash (29.2%) in the study, and I think it would be fair to say that squash is played a lot more than paintball. Melaena (talk) 23:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Paintball Laser tag

The creation of paintball laser tag is a great way to practice for paintball without all the costs. Why is it not on the system?

132.156.83.32 (talk) 16:06, 10 June 2010 (UTC)Andrew

Because it is not, despite the name, paintball; and as far as I can tell - it doesn't actually involve paint or balls. The only common factor, as I understand, is the paintball marker - so if you want to, I could imagine it being put as a small section of that article. However, it doesn't really apply here.

Jwoodger (talk) 01:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Gaza Flotilla Raid

What makes this event more notable than others to be here? Paintball makers have been used by law enforcement and military all over for riot control for over a decade. 70.36.182.170 (talk) 01:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Are paintballs biodegradable?

The biodegradability (or lack thereof) is an important subject for the public good, and therefore should be covered by this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.48.250.146 (talk) 16:29, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Take it to Paintball equipment#Paintballs, we don't want to get bogged down in equipment details on this page. Jwoodger (talk) 22:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Legality

went thru the Australian section and elaborated state-by-state. yay for draconian gun laws! NT reference cannot be cited, but I have the original email from the NT firearms branch if need be to back it up. Should this topic (Legalities of Paintball) migrate to its own page as it gets fleshed out, in the same way as with Airsoft? MichaelHenson (talk) 09:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)