User talk:AlH42

Flags is century breaks section

Note that previous consensus was not to have flags in these sections. There's way too many flags as it is. You're welcome to discuss at WT:SNOOKER. Nigej (talk) 12:44, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

OK - not a problem - I'll take them out. AlH42 (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Referees

I see that you're going some work on snooker referees. Are you aware of https://wst.tv/corporate/referees/triple-crown-final-referees ? Seems that this is a reliable source. Probably could be usefully added in some form to List of snooker Triple Crown finals and the information is potentially useful in List of snooker referees. Nigej (talk) 12:55, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'll have a look. Do you like what I did with the referees list so far? Alan. AlH42 (talk) 13:29, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. Pretty weak area for us, so improvements are useful. Nigej (talk) 15:11, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I've added referee data (ar far as I can) to the List of snooker Triple Crown finals as you suggested. I thought that footnotes would be best given the width of the tables. What do you think? Alan. AlH42 (talk) 06:27, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 12

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Sorted those out. Thank you. Alan. AlH42 (talk) 07:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Championship League source

Hi. I'm just trying to work out what your source is for century breaks and high breaks at 2023 Championship League (ranking)? Catb2006 11:51, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

I got them from CueTracker. I know it's blacklisted but I couldn't find a better source. Do you know of any?  Alan  (talk) 12:32, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Ahh no worries, I was just wondering as I couldn't find them anywhere else! Thank you! Catb2006 (talk) 15:26, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi where are you getting the players high breaks from today with no live scoring available please ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.233.29.21 (talk) 15:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

CueTracker  Alan  (talk) 17:44, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

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User:DooksFoley147

As you will have noticed there is a banned user User:DooksFoley147 who still edits in the snooker area despite being banned. It would be most appreciated if you didn't interact with him. Obviously it's not easy to be certain that it's him. He always geolocates to the Republic of Ireland. He also has interests in Arsenal (see Special:Contributions/80.233.26.201), Oasis (the band) and Darts which sometimes gives the game away. His style does too sometimes, he tends to quite aggressive if you undo his edits but when posting to talk pages he's always nice and polite (at least initially). If in doubt you can always let me or Lee know. Nigej (talk) 10:55, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Understood and thanks. I've had a look at some of the interactions beteen him and Lee and yourself - quite annoying. I think he was right, however, about the seedings and I should not have reverted his edit so quickly.  Alan  (talk) 11:00, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

He's got another different IP address now: 92.251.147.118  Alan  (talk) 11:42, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

@Nigej: He's back again. Using 178.167.180.197  Alan  (talk) 10:06, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

@Nigej: And he's back again. Now using 178.167.188.7 and 178.167.148.67 so I've reverted the edits by him that I could find.  Alan  (talk) 07:16, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Cheers. Usual obsession with numbers (eg Steve Davis edits). Almost always uncited information. Nigej (talk) 08:55, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

@Nigej: He's back again - using 31.200.179.83.  Alan  (talk) 09:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:3RR

Be careful not to break WP:3RR. Just because there's an ongoing (or even finished) discussion doesn't mean that you can break it. Nigej (talk) 15:54, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I didn't know that. Trouble is, users (mostly IP users) keep putting the flags back in for Shanghai, so I have been taking them back out. So I think I'll just pack it all in for now.  Alan  (talk) 16:09, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

This whole area is problematic for Wikipedia and makes this sort of change (removing flags in this case) quite tricky. WP:SEMI can be an option, if we can persuade an admin to do it. Nigej (talk) 16:19, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

2023 Northern Ireland Open moved to draftspace

Thanks for your contributions to 2023 Northern Ireland Open. Unfortunately, I do not think it is ready for publishing at this time because it has no sources. I have converted your article to a draft which you can improve, undisturbed for a while.

Please see more information at Help:Unreviewed new page. When the article is ready for publication, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page OR move the page back. Schminnte (talk • contribs) 18:23, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you were a bit quick to do this. I was editing and adding sources when you moved it. The qualifying matches start next week, so we need this article now.  Alan  (talk) 18:38, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

What I did was aligned with Wikipedia:DRAFTIFY, which states that during new page reviewing an article can be draftified if the topic has merit, it isn't to the required standard (unsourced does not meet those standards), there are no copyright violations and that there has been no active contributions for some time (an hour). It had passed one hour since the last edit and over two and a half hours since your last contribution. I hope this explains why I took this course of action. The new sources make a large improvement, so I've went ahead and patrolled the newer version. Thanks, Schminnte (talk • contribs) 18:47, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you please remove the original draft from draftspace.  Alan  (talk) 18:54, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I've redirected it to the better mainspace version. Schminnte (talk • contribs) 19:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

October 2023

Hi, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you tried to give a page a different title by copying its content and pasting either the same content, or an edited version of it, into 2023 Northern Ireland Open. This is known as a "cut-and-paste move", and it is undesirable because it splits the page history, which is legally required for attribution. Instead, the software used by Wikipedia has a feature that allows pages to be moved to a new title together with their edit history.

In most cases for registered users, once your account is four days old and has ten edits, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page (the tab may be hidden in a dropdown menu for you). This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. Also, if there are any other pages that you moved by copying and pasting, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Requests for history merge. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:11, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

No - I did not. What appears to have happened is that, at the same time I was publishing an update to the 2023 Northern Ireland Open article, User:Schminnte moved it into draftspace (see the thread above) wrongly in my opinion, so I have ended up with an incorrect history. Please go ahead and merge the histories if you like.  Alan  (talk) 06:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Final

why does the final have to be different to the other rounds It is just another match after all 86.154.63.222 (talk) 09:05, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

It isn't different. But this is the way we usually do it. Remember that sometimes there are six or more matches going on at the same time, and updating scores for them would be messy. The final is only one and we also put in the scores for each frame (which you did not revert).

Also - blanking your talk page is not a good idea.  Alan  (talk) 09:16, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

yeah I understand that would be messy but updating the semi finals there was only match at time but they weren't updated frame by frame 86.154.63.222 (talk) 10:05, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Surely it is not unreasonable to treat a final differently to other matches.

Also - blanking your talk page is not a good idea. See WP:BLANKING.  Alan  (talk) 10:14, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Not saying that It is unreasonable but the final is not only big match of the tournament they all are so shouldn't they be treated the same 86.154.63.222 (talk) 10:38, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I have to disagree. The final is the most important match of an event. This is the way we have usually handled it in the past, and nobody has argued with it until now.

Also - blanking your talk page is not a good idea. See WP:BLANKING.  Alan  (talk) 10:45, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

the semis are just as big as the final

Also blanking my talk means it's been read 86.154.63.222 (talk) 10:51, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

You don't get a trophy for a semi-final. Also the prize money is significantly more for a final. Why would you want to hide your talk page messages? It makes no sense.  Alan  (talk) 10:56, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

This is getting silly - so I'm not going to discuss this further, or revert your edits anymore.  Alan  (talk) 11:23, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Shoot out final referees

Can't find any decent text sources but there's a few Youtube videos:

• 2015: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8RIHO_EoRU from about 1:00 to 1:30 has a clip from the final
• 2014: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3r6AO--umQ
• 2013: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jydlKjzDlZA
• 2012: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQlfugoeGO0
• 2011: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVJ4c6kPPyw

Also [1] lists Tabb doing 2011 and 2014, but no decent reference there either. Nigej (talk) 09:32, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much, I'll have a look when I get some time.  Alan  (talk) 09:50, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

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Citation date formats

I noticed that you've been editing the date formats in the inline citations. You can simply add a template (Template:Use dmy dates) to the top of the page, or within the reference section, so all of the citation dates will automatically display as DMY format. Cheers! AmethystZhou (talk) 07:39, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

It's already there, and works OK. I'm just pedantic.  Alan  (talk) 08:03, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

You put in an archive for the reference to the Allen v Petrov match. It doesn't work. I don't think any archives for the live matches work. Something to do with the awful live scores system they now have.  Alan  (talk) 08:18, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: I've just tried to archive a few more matches from scores.wst.tv/matches and none of them work. You just get a black blank page.  Alan  (talk) 09:43, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I realized that too after you removed those from the citations. I think it’s because the scores loads in after the page does so WebArchive doesn’t capture it properly. That’s a shame! AmethystZhou (talk) 13:18, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I found that you can get WebArchive to save the WST live score page by saving a screenshot (like this) instead of a regular snapshot, you need an account on archive.org to do this though. AmethystZhou (talk) 05:23, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Well done, that works OK. But I couldn't be bothered. If you want I could send you a list of all the matches I've used for references. There aren't that many, mainly for 147s and high-breaks.  Alan  (talk) 07:27, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: That is one brilliant job you're doing with the archived matches in the CofC!  Alan  (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't intend to do this for all the tournaments, but there's not that many matches in the CoC so why not, haha. AmethystZhou (talk) 18:24, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: Surely you're not going to do all the matches in the 2023 UK Championship. That would be way too many!  Alan  (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Not sure yet, maybe for notable matches only? Feel free to remove them though. AmethystZhou (talk) 18:57, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: They're pretty much all "notable" when we're down to the last 32! It's entirely up to you. I will not be removing any, but I might take out the "names" since we're unlikely to reuse them, except for 147s.  Alan  (talk) 19:06, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Is "too many references" a thing, as in having an unnecessarily long reference section? Otherwise I might just do all of them, it's not too difficult, especially when the matches are all finished and I can just do them in one go. AmethystZhou (talk) 19:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: It is a thing! See this. But I think you should only do the matches that we mention in the text, and that will not be all of them.  Alan  (talk) 19:24, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good, thank you! AmethystZhou (talk) 19:30, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

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I already asked for it to be deleted. See above.  Alan  (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

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Internet Archive

I noticed that InternetArchiveBot can capture Eurosport links properly. Not sure why, but this is very handy, I'll look into how to use the bot. For editing ongoing tournaments, I think it's much easier if we just add the reference, and use the bot to archive them in bulk once the tournament is finished. Sometimes the news article gets updated, as well, Eurosport seems to do this often. AmethystZhou (talk) 00:49, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Good plan. I got caught out by the BBC updating a page after I had archived it. But I think we should continue to archive the match scores pages as they occur.  Alan  (talk) 06:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: However, I think it's a really bad idea to archive any of the snooker.org references until well after the end of the tournament, as Hermund Årdalen updates these pages continually. As an example, compare [2] with [3]. The archived version is completely useless. I think these archives need to be removed for now.  Alan  (talk) 10:58, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused why we'd manually archive anything. Really a reference in Wikipedia should be to something permanent, like a book or a newspaper. Nowadays semi-permanent web sites are ok. My impression is that any referenced url in Wikipedia will be archived by archive.org pretty quickly anyway. Any source that's so ephemeral that we need to archive it manually before it disappears is unlikely to be very suitable. Nigej (talk) 11:16, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the snooker.org references were archived manually. They might have been done using a BOT.  Alan  (talk) 11:21, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

How do we know yet for the 2023 UK championship? As long as they get archived in the next 6-12 months who cares? Nigej (talk) 11:36, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree, which is why I have suggested taking the snooker.org archives out. However, the scores.wst.tv/matches/ pages need to be done manually with a screenshot, otherwise we just end up with a blank page.  Alan  (talk) 11:42, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

As I said above, this is perhaps just telling us that the scores.wst.tv/matches/ is not a suitable source. Nigej (talk) 11:47, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Well it's pretty much all we have for now. We relied upon livescores.worldsnookerdata.com for a long time and that has now gone. Who knows what the WST will do next.  Alan  (talk) 12:08, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

And that’s why I think archiving is important. The news websites are generally OK, but many of the older WST links are completely broken since they redesigned their website. Also, they update the tournament pages (like this one) each year but keep the same url, what madness! At any rate, I still need to figure out how the bot works. AmethystZhou (talk) 12:14, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The BOT works fine. But, like all BOTs, it will make mistakes. So you need to check through manually after you use it.  Alan  (talk) 13:01, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I've taken the snooker.org archives out for now.  Alan  (talk) 14:13, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: And another user (User:BennyOnTheLoose) has just used the BOT and put them all back in again. I give up.  Alan  (talk) 14:26, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

WST's new live scoring system is online, and looks like it's finally compatible with the Internet Archive! Example: match and archive. AmethystZhou (talk) 19:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

We're in the middle of a bloody tournament for gods sake! OK it's only the Championship League, but I like it, as many do. Their live scoring site is still (sort of) working OK though. None of our cited links to WST sources now work. See this post. Thank god for the archives!!  Alan  (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah it's a big mess with the migrated urls! AmethystZhou (talk) 22:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: OK - I've calmed down now. Here's an interesting thing: if you compare:

1. https://scores.wst.tv/matches/95c99269-0305-4797-ad64-d2f5d8792638 with
2. https://www.wst.tv/match-centre/95c99269-0305-4797-ad64-d2f5d8792638

you'll see that they both use the same 36 character identifier. That might be useful.

You are very unlikely to get a response from WST to your email. I have contacted them a couple of times with no reply. You might be better contacting their software provider.  Alan  (talk) 08:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: ...and looking at the first match that we referenced and archived this season, compare old with new. The only reason I referenced this was for the tournament highest break, and the new sh1t site doesn't even mention it. Bloody hell, how much worse is it going to get?  Alan  (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The frame-by-frame scores are just gone for no reason? And the old page still works which means the database is still there, the new page just doesn't show it. How shambolic... Also, apparently the old scoring pages still work for current events, such as Selby vs. Wakelin that's happening right now: new / old. AmethystZhou (talk) 19:33, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Didn't realize that they now have live shot-by-shot updates, that's pretty nice. They are removed after the matches are finished, though. AmethystZhou (talk) 19:35, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this shot-by-shot stuff is way too much detail, and although very pretty and clever, they would have been far better concentrating on trying to get the basics right.  Alan  (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I just tried to archive the new score page of the Brecel - Lisowski match, and unfortunately it doesn't work! The frame scores and match stats are missing, for some reason. (original / archive) So we'll still have to use the old pages.. AmethystZhou (talk) 19:51, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: It's all a complete screw-up. I've just fixed your reference BTW.  Alan  (talk) 20:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I tried the same page again and now the archive is capturing all the stats. The WST page works fine but apparently we need to wait a few hours before WebArchive can capture it properly. But hey we can finally archive the new score pages normally now! AmethystZhou (talk) 06:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: Good. I think they will probably do away with the scores.wst.tv/matches site in favour of the www.wst.tv/match-centre site at some stage. But we need to keep the references to the old archives which have the break details, as in the example of Cao Yupeng mentioned above. They still can't get the basics right, and they still screw up all the Chinese names.  Alan  (talk) 10:47, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: It looks like I was right. They seem to have killed off the scores.wst.tv/matches site for current matches, but the older ones are still there for now.  Alan  (talk) 19:54, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

The older links just redirect me to the WST home page for me: [4][5] AmethystZhou (talk) 20:49, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@AmethystZhou: So they do. Rats. Thank goodness for the archives.  Alan  (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Dyk

Just a note - I believe it was yourself looking at getting something on the main page for the UK Championship. Just a note that 2024 Masters (snooker) is currently on there with a similar message. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so. I stopped even looking at the main page a long while ago. But thanks anyway.  Alan  (talk) 12:33, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: I just remembered. It wasn't me,it was AmethystZhou. I just had a bit of a rant about the general indifference to snooker.  Alan  (talk) 16:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Snooker project

Hi Alan, You're doing such a great job building the 2024 World Snooker Championship article (and plenty of others before it), that I'm surprised to find you are not included in the participants list on the snooker project page. Please add your name to the list as I think you deserve more recognition! Meanwhile, all set for the quarters starting today... I'm hoping that Kyren will go all the way this year, he really deserves it. Regards, Rodney Baggins (talk) 08:20, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi Rodney. I'm not looking for any sort of recognition. Just happy to contribute. I'd like to see ROS get eight!

On another topic, why use |work instead of |publisher in references to Eurosport and the BBC. The only difference it makes is to show the link in italics, which I don't like much.  Alan  (talk) 08:32, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Ha, it appears that you and I differ on our cite style preferences. I've been told (by someone in the know) that all CS1/2 citations require a work alias parameter because it's needed "for meta-data gathering purposes". I can't actually remember who told me that (maybe it was Stanton McCandlish?) – I keep meaning to bring it up in the teahouse. Publisher is reserved for the organisation that's responsible for the article; work (or website) is used to indicate the workspace (likely a website) that the article was published on. So, for example, the wider BBC corporation would be the publisher, while BBC Sport is the division/website that puts the communication into writing. I personally LIKE the fact that it appears in italics as it makes it stand out separately from the title. On a similar note, I'm not a fan of wikilinking the work parameter, as we end up with a WP:SOB issue. The important link is obviously the main URL via title. I had this conversation with Lee Vilenski once, and he was in agreement. There is some guidance on work/publisher parameters here, but I don't think it's particularly clear. It does state that the "publisher" parameter should not be included for widely-known mainstream news sources (which implies that we should be using work instead for sources such as BBC Sport, Eurosport, etc.) It also states that the work parameter should be wiki-linked at first appearance in citations in the article, so maybe linking every single one is overkill. Rodney Baggins (talk) 10:36, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Got it - very well explained. Thank you.  Alan  (talk) 10:41, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

That is exactly my understanding is that we should use publisher for published works. A book would have a publisher, and a website would have a work/website field. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:42, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Understood.  Alan  (talk) 11:08, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

The real reason to add yourself to the WikiProject Snooker participants list isn't credit/recognition, but so other editors working heavily in the topic know who else is doing so; wikiprojects are a collaboration and often minor-decision-making mechanism, and that generally needs input from interested parties.

In more detail on citation parameters: |work= and |publisher= serve completely different functions, and |work= (a.k.a. |journal=, |website=, |newspaper=, |magazine=, etc.; there are many aliases, depending on the template) should always be used when applicable, as it is essential source citation information (the cite is incomplete without it). |publisher= is often optional information (though generally not for books), and is usually omitted from serial publications, and should be omitted when redundant with the work title. E.g. |title=New article title here|work=[[BBC News]], without |publisher=BBC, since that's already implicit from the work title. The |title= and |work= relationship (specific minor item versus major publication containing it) is confusingly altered for books (where is it |chapter= AKA |contribution=, and |title= respectively) and for a few other templates. Websites and other electronic works are still published, just not on dead trees. It is not legimitate to ever cite on Wikipedia any actually unpublished works (e.g. a handwritten manuscript in your uncle's desk, or e-mail you got from someone); this is covered at WP:V and WP:CITE. If it's not published, it's not a source. Websites do have publishers, and when the parameter would not be redundant with (the same or nearly the same name) as the work title, it should be included in the right parameter. This can often be important for indicating corporate, governmental, or otherwise not-necessarily-obvious ownership (or self-publication, which is usually but not always an unreliable source, per WP:SPS), and such factors may have relevance for readers (and later editors) assessing the contextual or general reliability of the source. So, there is no "either use work, or use publisher, not both" thing going on. If there's a redundancy, then it's the publisher that gets dropped, since it is less important citation information.

Misc. complications sometimes: There's a further wrinkle with some (especially online) content, in that where you found something may actually have no responsibility for creating the content at all but simply be a conduit/respository (the most obvious is Internet Archive, Archive.org, which can be put in |via=Internet Archive). A less obvious example: the proper way to cite this YouTube video would be {{Cite web|last=Burke|first=Steve|title=New AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D CPU Review & Benchmarks vs. 5800X3D & More|work=Gamers Nexus|via=YouTube}} Here, the publisher (GamersNexus, LLC) is redundant with the name of the YT channel – the major/containing online serial publication, the "work" – so publisher is dropped (at no cost to source evaluability, since the publisher is already clear from the work title). But YT (Google/Alphabet) itself has nothing to do with this content other than being the venue through which it is streamed (and only one of them; the same material is also available at GamersNexus.com and, IIRC, through Patreon). One the other hand, if you were citing something YT had itself published, e.g. the YT acceptable use policy, then it would be done with |work=YouTube|publisher=Google, and the publisher might be quite relevant here as the actual party ultimately responsible for the policy, even if the average reader probably knows by now that Google owns YT. For titles of websites, use the actual name of the website if it has one, and use the domain name only if it doesn't (or if the displayed title in the content or in <title>...</title> is the domain name anyway). And "www." can be dropped for concision, if the website resolves without it, as about 99% of them will.

Anyway, whether one visually "likes" the particulars of the output of a parameter or not is ultimately irrelevant; this isn't PersonalAestheticsPedia :-). The citation templates are doing a lot more than just formatting text in the "References" section, but also generating bibliographic metadata which needs to have correct things in the correct parameters. If someone doesn't like italics on the output of |work=, they might look into changing it with their own user CSS in their global.css page here (or with in-browser scripting). I just took a look at the HTML source of rendered output of citation templates, and this would actually be a bit challenging right this moment (one would need some JavaScript to detect the surrounding element, then remove the italics), due to lack of specific CSS classes, so I've asked that some be added so people can simply add a line of CSS to their global.css file.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:38, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the information.  Alan  (talk) 07:35, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Mac, I thought it was you who was in the know about all this. I've been agonising about the work/publisher issue for ages, and now I have it on your good authority. Just about to make a related edit to the Snooker article. If I have any further questions on the subject, I shall ask on your talk page. Thanks also to Alan for bringing this up for discussion, v.much appreciated. Enjoy the actual snooker, guys! Regards, Rodney Baggins (talk) 08:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi! Yeah, I saw your edit on that page. I don't bat 1,000! I'm probably more guilty than anyone of doing it wrong as I'm more into getting the content side down than playing with citation styles, but both are equally important. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:45, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

If anything, don't worry about citation styles. It's way more important to get the good content in there and source it some way (even a manually written citation with no template) to reliable sources, than to agonise over citation-formatting particulars. If something's not quite right about the latter, some WP:GNOME nerd like me, with a bunch of scripts, is apt to patch it up later. (The only actual problem is when someone doesn't "like" something about what the citation templates do and tries to thwart their formatting by intentionally, programmatically using the wrong parameters, and/or reverting other editors using the correct ones. A general principle of our style and other guidelines is that no one is required to read and follow them to add new material here, only follow the core content policies and the behavioural ones. Only interfering with other editors massaging the content into compliance is apt to be disruptive.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:13, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: There are a lot of references which have, for instance, both |website=worldsnooker.com and |publisher=WPBSA. Clearly the WPBSA is not a publisher. But we can't, in these cases, change |publisher= to |work= because you can't have both |website= and |work= within the same reference. What would be the best way to correct these?  Alan  (talk) 08:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Just remove WPBSA from the refs IMO. They might be the company behind the article, but I don't think that means we need to comment on them Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Lee, good call. On a different subject, you keep using the IABot to archive references which is good. But it is a bit of a blunt instrument, in that it gets old archives which are out of date, particularly for snooker.org and SnookerInfo. These are best done manually after the tournament is over.  Alan  (talk) 09:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I saw your revertion. I actually asked the question at meta if it were possible to add a flag to citations for archival not to happen on both runs. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Hopefully somebody will answer you. I did a bit of a search the other day, looking for just that kind of flag, but did not find anything.  Alan  (talk) 09:34, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: I just noticed that you got a reply at meta a few days ago saying that we can use the cbignore template for this, so that's useful information.  Alan  (talk) 07:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That is useful info - I hadnt seen that reply. That's probably where our solution needs to be Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:16, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: I just tested it out in a sandbox, and it works perfectly.  Alan  (talk) 07:55, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "Clearly the WPBSA is not a publisher." A "publisher" (and a |publisher=) for WP purposes means "the entity responsible for the publication"; it does not only mean "a company that exists solely or primarily for publishing" like Taylor & Francis, HarperCollins, or Wiley-Blackwell. So, WPBA is (or at least for a period was) the publisher here, and should be identified as such when that particular publisher claim is actually applicable. But something(s) seem to have changed after various of these citations here created. Perhaps WPBSA is no longer responsible for producing and distributing (i.e. publishing) this content. I notice that WorldSnooker.com now redirects to WST.tv, which says that its publisher is World Snooker Tour. I'm out of the loop on snooker politico-business relationships lately, so I'm not certain right off hand whether WPBSA changed its name, or WST is a subsidiary of it, or WST is some replacement entity for WPBSA, or WPBSA sold or licensed this stuff to WST, or WST is some kind website usurper, or what. Regardless what the situation is, it is best to identify a publisher, since people who are not topical quasi-experts will not be certain what WorldSnooker.com and WST.tv are, and who is responsible for them, and that they are likely to be more reliable sources than, say, random snooker-fan blogs. For content that is archived and no longer available "live", the publisher should not be changed from what it was at archival time. Same goes for old books; if Collins published a book before the HarperCollins merger, then the publisher for that book is Collins not HarperCollins; if citing a new edition that is published by HaperCollins, of a work originally published by Harper or by Collins, then the publisher would be HarperCollins. So, some WorldSnooker.org content that has been moved to WST.tv and is being cited at WST.tv should be showing WST as the publisher (of the current version that we're citing), while a "dead" page from WorldSnooker.org that we're only able to pull from Internet Archive would probably have WPBSA as the publisher (unless there was some transitional period in which WorldSnooker.org content listed WST as the publisher, or WST.tv content listed WPBSA as the publisher).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:25, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I don't think that the WPBSA is "the entity responsible for the publication" in any of the citations, but I'm not certain. So please have a look at the edit I made in the Maximum break article and feel free to revert it if you think it's wrong.  Alan  (talk) 13:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Then who is? Either it's an official publication of WPBSA/WST or it's not. If they are contracting out some of the work of producing the content to some kind of interactive-media productions company they would still be the publisher.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:04, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea. Look - I made a similar edit to the 2024 World Snooker Championship article a couple of days ago, for which I got "thanks" from Rodney Baggins. I was looking at the Maximum break article and decided to ask the question above. Lee Vilenski suggested in response to "just remove WPBSA from the refs" so I did. So please have a look at the edit I made in the Maximum break article and feel free to revert it if you think it's wrong.  Alan  (talk) 15:40, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

...also - other editors have been using the Citation bot to make similar changes. See this recent edit as an example.  Alan  (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks

Hey, Alan. Thank you very much for keeping the 2024 World Seniors Championship up to date and for polishing all the references. Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 08:58, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

@Alavense: De nada. I'll work away at that as and when I can. I did try the IABot but it is a "blunt instument" and gets things wrong, so I reverted what it did and carried on doing them manually.  Alan  (talk) 09:18, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Much appreciated, AlH42, muchas gracias. :) Alavense (talk) 09:22, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Championship League breaks

Hi Alan, keen to know your reasoning for only including 50+ breaks on the Championship League group tables. Thanks and keep up the good work! Catb2006 (talk) 13:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@Catb2006: That's what we've always done. Look at the tooltip in the table header.  Alan  (talk) 14:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@Catb2006: However, if we had a situation where all matches were 2-2 and nobody had a break above 50, then we might need to rethink this. It hasn't happened yet though.  Alan  (talk) 14:16, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@AlH42: I think the reason for never including this before was that the WST scoring system didn't provide these breaks. However, it does now show a player's highest break in a match, even if it is below 50, so this should be changed in my opinion. For example in this match: https://www.wst.tv/match-centre/b08e6fce-e49e-4655-a361-6be74b9035ac, Marco Fu didn't make a half century but the scoring system shows his highest break was 39. Catb2006 (talk) 17:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I tend to disagree. Looking at the link you sent, I can see no 39 break mentioned, and the left and right columns say specifically 50+ breaks only.  Alan  (talk) 17:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@Catb2006: OK - I found the mention of Marco Fu's 39 break. It's well hidden away though, and the casual user would not see it. It is moot anyway as he had a 64 break in another match. I think it's best to leave things as they are for now though.  Alan  (talk) 07:21, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@Catb2006: I have now added in all the breaks below 50, and changed the table header tooltip, because people keep randomly putting odd ones in. There were only ten.  Alan  (talk) 07:30, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

June 2024

Your edit to 2024 World Snooker Championship has been removed in whole or in part, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without evidence of permission from the copyright holder. If you are the copyright holder, please read Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for information on how to contribute your work appropriately. For legal reasons, Wikipedia strictly cannot host copyrighted text or images from print media or digital platforms without an appropriate and verifiable license. Contributions infringing on copyright will be removed. You may use external websites or publications as a source of information, but not as a source of content, such as sentences or images—you must write using your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, and persistent violators of our copyright policy will be blocked from editing. See Wikipedia:Copying text from other sources for more information. — Diannaa (talk) 23:18, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry the passage no longer makes sense. But the material I removed was copied straight from The Guardian so I had to take it out. — Diannaa (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

@Diannaa: I want to put a paragraph into the 2024 World Snooker Championship article about Ronnie O'Sullivan's act of sportsmanship, as detailed by Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian, but without plagiarism this time. I think it's important to include it. I thought something like this:

After eleven frames, O'Sullivan led Bingham 6‍–‍5. In the twelfth frame, a situation occurred where the referee, Desislava Bozhilova, was unable to properly re‑spot the black ball after it was potted. This left O'Sullivan with a relatively simple next red. He refused to take the red and instead played a safety shot, which arguably cost him the frame. Simon Hattenstone, writing in The Guardian said, "It was incredible. This was a shot that both defined and transcended sport. It was everything we’d learned about sportsmanship at school (if we had decent teachers). But it was also about the best of humanity – morality, bravery, sacrifice and sheer bloody goodness."[6]

Would the above text comply with the copyright policy?  Alan  (talk) 13:57, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

That version looks okay to me. — Diannaa (talk) 14:10, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Explain?

@Gaz99999: I don't understand why you thanked me for an edit which was a silly mistake (but was quickly corrected). Please explain.  Alan  (talk) 19:21, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand wiki. I apologise for my mistake. Gaz99999 (talk) 06:40, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

@Gaz99999: No apology needed. Wikipedia isn't hard to understand, and there's plenty of help available. Have a look at this.  Alan  (talk) 07:12, 19 September 2024 (UTC)