User talk:Falastur2/Archive 3

At last some sense

I would have reverted the blanking of the squad list on 2010–11 Manchester City F.C. season#Squad, but I'm a little involved. FYI. gonads³ 21:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments. I think I'm right in my approach to defend the current consensus. I'd like to assist in future if you've anything to throw my way. Loving your work, by the way. gonads³ 22:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll have think and let you know. I may back off for a while, this is getting silly. It seems some just don't understand what a verifiable and reliable source means, however old it is. Am I wrong? The current source is clear and it's here, but you know that. Anyways, I do believe I'm right in asking this user to gain concensus. Thanks for the response. No doubt we'll meet again. gonads³ 22:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Falastur2, thanks for your input on my talk page. I will respond to it there so that all text is mostly in the one place. I have no idea if you get notified by updates to it in the same manner that I am, so if you do not, please check it regularly for any updates. The biggest part of the problem I have with this "dispute" is not the details (which I don't really care about) but the completely disingenuous way 'gonads' has gone about handling the matter. To invite me to participate in a discussion on a page to which he knows I have no edit access and to then claim I did not respond or seek consensus there (when I have clearly responded to him on my talk page, and with a lot more lucidity than his brief comments there) just takes my breath away with its obvious duplicity. Anyway, my response will be on my talk page. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 00:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Falastur2, this is just to let you know that I have now responded to your comments on my talk page. Thanks for you interest / involvement. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 04:30, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I feel I should point out that the discussions I started are not on a protected page and never have been. To suggest that I had in someway acted inappropriately here is uncivil as well as inaccurate. The discussion continues and I welcome a wider view point. gonads³ 12:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I honestly don't know if MLITH can edit that page or not (I logged out and it still let me, but whatever). Let's just put that bit behind us, perhaps? It's already been arbitrated so there's not much point in continuing to labour it. Falastur2 ^Talk 13:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

gonads, you started the conversation on the main Manchester City article (viz. Manchester City F.C.) talk page which even today is showing a silver padlock on my screen. You started the conversation there immediately after I told you I could not make edits on that page because it is blocked to editing by new user accounts (which is the status I still have) for 4 days. IMO the appropriate talk page to have a discussion pertaining to an editing dispute is the talk page of the article where the dispute arose (viz. 2010–11 Manchester City F.C. season) and not some other wikipedia page entirely, particularly not one to which one of the parties to the dispute has no editing privileges. You can now lie about what you did as much as you want but the evidence is there for all to see on my talk page for anyone that takes the effort to read the text.

Was it duplicitous to start the conversation there? In itself no, particularly since you put a link there back to my talk page where I continued to respond on order to convince the reader of my case, and where you failed to present any arguments beyond your initial challenge. When you added the redirection for ATN's full name and wished me well with my future full edit status I took that at face value and assumed we were done and everything was copacetic. It became duplicitous, and I only realized the full irony of your comment, when you subsequently reverted my squad number changes (after having explicitly stating on my talk page that you wouldn't, so I assumed I had now achieved your consensus at least) and justified your subsequent deviousness (when I took you to task for that reversal) by claiming that I had failed to gain consensus for my squad number changes by not arguing my case on the main Manchester City article talk page. Exactly how disingenuous your actions were I'll leave it for the reader to decide.

Falastur2, thanks for your courteous responses and my reply to your latest comments will be posted back on my discussion page. I'll post back here when they are available to let you know. ITMT please give some thought to the question of how one achieves consensus (you know, I really don't like that word because, as I have already pointed out, to call an agreement between just two people WRT a web page edited by many people a consensus is a complete misnomer) with someone when he is behaving in bad faith? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 16:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, you were referring to the talk page of the main City article? Then in that case I have to agree - that page is under semi-protection and users newer than four days can't post there. However, I have to answer your question - "how does one achieve consensus (I don't like the word either) with someone acting in bad faith?" - with the obvious reply. One calms down the situation and achieves consensus through good faith. I don't believe either of you are trouble-makers, so the obvious implication is that you are merely two upstanding gents who have crossed swords, and presently neither of you is risking the hit to dignity to subsequently sheath those weapons. I honestly believe that we can engineer an acceptable solution if you both agree to simply start from first principles and debate this coolly and calmly as if the dispute never happened. But ultimately I won't force the issue, and I mean no slur against either of you when I talk about this. I simply think that a cooling-down is required. If the solution is easiest, come back in a week when the anger has dissipated - that's how the Anglo-Saxons solved legal disputes after all - because we won't reach an acceptable middle ground if there is any aggravation or simmering ill-will left waiting to bubble up again. I repeat what I said earlier: this is really not as big an issue as the two of you have made it, and it's not worth the problems it's causing. There's no reason we can't treat this as the minor niggle that it is and compromise a solution. Falastur2 ^Talk 16:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Falastur2, this is just to let you know that I have finally been able to make the time to respond to your comments on my talk page that I wished to add yesterday. I don't have the same amount of time to "hang out" on Wikipedia that everybody else contributing here seems to have and all my available time yesterday was consumed responding to others. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 02:15, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The policy on Semi-protection states;Article discussion pages, when they have been subject to persistent disruption. Such protection should be used sparingly because it prevents anonymous and newly registered users from participating in discussions. A page and its talk page should not both be protected at the same time. This is how it should be. The protection log, shows it isn't restricted[1]. If it is restricting you then I believe this to be an error and perhaps the cause of our issues. If you are unable to edit what you should, I can see how our actions and words might be misconstrued. Falastur2, where would you define as the best place to raise this error? Thanks. gonads³ 18:18, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

If Mancini's can't edit that page (I've just tried logged out and can) then he - or perhaps I should direct this to you personally, MLITH - then you should report it to WP:Troubleshooting. Falastur2 ^Talk 18:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Guys, please let's not miss seeing the woods for the trees here. Whether I can actually edit the page or not is immaterial. The issue is I told gonads after he stated he was not going to revert my updates, and after he had beaten up on me on the issue of CONSISTENCY, that I thought the main "Manchester City" web page should be updated to make it consistent with my squad number updates on the "Season 2010-11" web page, and I suggested that he be the one to make them since I personally could not do it for 4 days. His response to that post was to let me know he had started talk discussions on the main web page plus some other web pages that he wanted to contribute to, but he also linked those discussion entries back to my talk page.

Since I had already tried to edit the main web page and found out the hard way what that silver padlock meant, why would I even attempt to make any edits there before my 4 days were up? I don't make a habit of banging my head against walls and trying to do things I know don't work. I just assumed I could not contribute there, plus I had the option of keeping the discussion on my own web page which I preferred to do since it would (a) keep the discussion (at least my contributions to it) all in tne one place, and (b) since I am new here, I didn't want to burden myself with learning too many things at once, and I was comfortable with handling discourse on my own talk page. If it indeed turns out that I could edit the main web page talk page all the time that the main web page itself was blocked to me, so what? What is important is that I believed I couldn't based on past experience plus the application of a little common sense ... viz. why would anyone who had not yet made an edit update on the main page (because they were prevented from doing so for 4 days) need to be able to discuss anything on the talk page? That made no sense to me (at the time) and still makes no sense to me now (if it is indeed true).

As I said above, I don't consider gonads' setting up of those discussions on those various talk pages to be an act of duplicity in of itself (he was quite open about it and he linked those discussion topics back to my own talk page), although I thought then, and still do, that it was an inappropriate talk page to resolve our editing dispute. What I do strongly object to is what he did next. Having stated to me that he would NOT revert my changes, he then took my suggestion that the two web pages (viz. the main "Manchester City" article and the "Season 2010-11" article) be made consistent with each other and did the exact opposite of that suggestion ... he regressed the squad information for the latter article by modifying it to be consistent with the more out of date squad information in the former article. This reverted my squad number updates (plus much more in terms of adding additional players to the previous version of the squad) that he had stated he would not revert, while also not making the "Season 2010-11" article squad information consistent with this MCFC webpage that he so likes to cite for reverting my updates. It is that action that I feel was duplicitous.

gonads' edit in question is this one. It was the direct cause of my posting the following comment on my talk page: "Despite stating a number of times you would not revert I see that you have now indeed reverted. Thanks for doing the update to ATN's article page but I really don't appreciate your other duplicitous behavior. The accuracy and currency of information is more important than consistency with outdated wikipedia entries, so please cease and desist." This is where the problem really started.

Falastur2, since you admitted you had skipped over much of the discussion prior to making your first post on my talk page, may I please suggest that you locate that last quoted post there and carefully read everything that ensued until your own post. Everything else written prior to that post by me was pretty much concerned with the player naming policy and the two forms of ATN's names, and all of that is now a closed issue as far as I'm concerned, although it did probably get us off to a bad start. OTOH, as I have stated previously, it was my personal feeling that we were done with our "dispute" (and had reached "consensus") just prior to that reversion post made by gonads and that things were pretty copacetic at that juncture. (In fact, while I think about this, I think I'm going to add a new heading at that point in my talk page so as to clearly separate off the subsequent discourse there from all that came before re ATN and player naming policy, etc.)

But to re-focus matters here, the issue is NOT whether I actually could edit the main "Manchester City" article talk page, it is that I believed at the time that I could not edit it (and that contemporaneous belief is documented in my talk page too). And even that isn't really the issue either; it's much more that gonads justified his reversion of my squad number updates to me by accusing me of failing to get "consensus" for them despite having having led me to believe we had indeed already reached "consensus"! Thus the real issue is that gonads deliberately reverted my squad number changes with the specific edit identified above AFTER he had specifically told me he would NOT revert (thus leading me to believe we had reached "consensus" on that matter).

Furthermore, those squad number updates had not seriously bothered anybody else (such as you, Falastur2) causing others to immediately revert them (in the same manner that my changes to the names of Jo and Robinho did) so they had tacitly received some level of consensus from others watching that article too. I realize that they were not in place for very long and I'm not going to push that point; nevertheless, if they had been so egregious to the eyes of others they would have been undone long before gonads reverted them. Consequently, I view what gonads did to be a somewhat personal decision directed towards me. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 22:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I only stated once that I wouldn't revert. I believe that in the context of me saying I wouldn't, justified me to do the opposite. I'm just trying to keep the two articles the same, help you update the main article. The main article sees the numbers you put forward reverted almost daily, these days. It's nothing personal. We didn't reach a consensus, so I started a few discussions and invited you to comment. You said:To invite me to participate in a discussion on a page to which he knows I have no edit access and to then claim I did not respond or seek consensus there (when I have clearly responded to him on my talk page, and with a lot more lucidity than his brief comments there) just takes my breath away with its obvious duplicity. Would you like to enter into this discussion now that you can? Clearly we need other views. Did you see my entry in your talk page about a fresh start? Let's forget the past and move on. I'm willing and my latest contributions show this. Come on, please. gonads³ 22:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Does this constitute good faith? gonads³ 22:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

WRT "I only stated once that I wouldn't revert." If you say so. I guess that's why you posted, "I'll not revert, as stated eslewhere" on my talk page. You tell me if you think telling yet another lie constitutes "good faith"? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 23:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

If stating it once and refering to original stement constitutes a lie then so be it. If you like I can change it to twice. I stated my intentions once. gonads³ 23:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but when most people say they won't do something once they mean it. I didn't realize you operated with some kind of variable threshold. Just for future reference, please inform me of the number of times you say you will or won't do something before you actually mean it? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 00:24, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

2010–11 Season Squad Numbers

Nice work updating the squad numbers today. Just wondering what constitutes entry onto this list? I note that the official source lists many more players. Just curious, that's all. gonads³ 18:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

The squad as listed is last year's squad plus all the new purchases and returning loaned out players, less all the players released and transferred out since the end of last season, with the new shirt numbers appropriately applied. Of course, as a City fan, you already knew that! Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 07:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Falastur2, thanks so much for making those updates to the squad table today. With a couple of minor differences that is exactly the place I wanted to get the table to with my own edits if I hadn't been thwarted at every twist and turn these last few days. When I couldn't get my initial squad number updates accepted I gave up on any chance of adding the additional players. However, there is one difference in your table to the one I personally maintain that I would like to ask you about. If Scott Kay is now in the first team squad, what is the status of #41 Ben Mee? I thought I had seen Abdisalam Ibrahim playing #50 in the Portland scrimmage but I was hesitant to update his number until I had further verification of him using it because that would make him the only player who has gone higher up in number this season rather than remain the same as last season, be promoted (e.g., Addy), or simply be assigned a new number as a new or returning loan player. Cheers. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 04:59, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I had also seen your Reserves and Academy updates too. No, I am not pushing for Ben Mee being added to the squad. As one of the three Academy players that stayed on with the team tour over here he's clearly on the threshold of breaking into the first team squad, but I don't think he should be included yet. My question WRT him was formulated more because of his shirt number ... he is obviously considered to be on more of a similar seniority level as, for instance, Boyata, Nimely, Cunningham and Ibrahim (all in the 40+ squad numbers last year along with him) and all four of those graduated to the first team squad last season. If there were any changes to your squad listing that I would suggest it would be to question the presence of Scott Kay. Has he ever played for the first team? Has he ever sat on the bench for them? His squad number of #31 might suggest he is regarded fairly highly in the pecking order, but one should not read too much into that. Shirt numbers tend to only be reassigned upwards rather than downwards ... which is why Ibrahim going from #48 to #50 caught my attention.

BTW, I'm not so sure that only sitting on the bench for a competitive match constitutes graduation to the first team squad in the same manner that actually playing (as a starter or sub) in such a match does. So I would possibly also question the status of Adam Clayton and Javan Vidal. Well, not really question, this is more just food for thought. Also, if Gunnar Nielsen is out on loan for the next six months should he not be removed from the squad listing for the duration (in the same way Robinho has been since January on the main City page) since we already know he cannot accumulate any stats for that period. To my mind, Gunnar cannot be both out on loan and in the squad at the same time.

Finally, you mentioned the three out of six Academy players that Mancini kept for the last half of the tour. As stated above, I believe Boyata, Nimely, Cunningham and Ibrahim all became established first team squad players last season under Mancini, so Boyata and Cunningham are not your 2 out 3 IMO (if I understood you correctly). The six youngsters Mancini brought on tour with him were Mee, Trippier, Tutte, Kay, Guidetti and Helan. Based on this video Mee is one of the three still here. I have no idea who the other two are as none of the three played in the last match. Mancini only has three strikers here in his 30-man (was 33 but 3 have returned home) squad - Addy, Bellamy and Jo - plus new boy Nimely makes four, so there would be good logic in his having retained both Guidetti and Helan as the other two players. But that is just speculation on my part, so I guess we will just have to wait and see who gets a run-out in the remaining game. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 16:21, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

As for the whole "Ben Mee and the other two players kept on" thing, I was right - the players were Boyata, Cunningham and Mee. I found out Mee was the third between posting on your talk page last and your reply - it was stated in this report - check out the third paragraph. As for youths in the Club America game, if you check out the OS game report down the very bottom it lists the squads used. As mentioned, Boyata and Cunningham both played but Ben Mee didn't ;) Falastur2 ^Talk 23:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I wasn't suggesting your 3-man explanation was wrong, I was just giving you an alternative explanation for the statements made after the Red Bulls game that "three of the youngsters" would be retained by Mancini for the rest of the tour. Since a lot of fuss had been made just as the tour began over the six Academy lads that Mancini would be taking along with the "big boys" I had initially assumed that the "three youngsters" retained referred only to that group. Plus it was also consistent with the fact that just as Yaya, Barry and Weiss finally arrived to join the tour, only three of them going home would keep the squad the same size. I guess I keep forgetting that despite all being Academy graduates, Boyata, Nimely, Cunningham and Ibrahim are all still 19 year olds (or thereabouts) too. Based on the MCFC OS match report for the friendly EDS game against Barrow it looks like fourth-string goalkeeper David González also returned home with the other "youngsters".

So eight young players rather than three went home. Which means the tour squad is now 25 in size rather than 30. Or was. With the transferring out of Garrido today (who I believed to be one of three initially injured players in the squad - Michael Johnson and Shay Given, who is now fully recovered, being the other two) that means the squad is now down to 24 for the rest of the tour. And that's an ominous number. Because that's the nucleus of Mancini's 25-man EPL squad less the seven rested World Cup stars who are unquestionably going to be in the main EPL squad (except perhaps for Bad Boy Robinho and the almost permanently injured Santa Cruz who may both be shed fairly soon too) displacing five to seven of the players in this squad. Of course, there is also the eight homegrown players issue to address.

Actually, that should be six rested World Cup stars, because Boateng doesn't count because he is under 21. And so is Mario Balotelli should Mancini clinch that deal; which is now looking likelier and likelier. Wouldn't it be funny if Balotelli walked out on the field for tomorrow night's game against Internazionale in a City shirt? It probably couldn't happen that fast (because of the necessary medical) but you never know with City ... who thought Robinho would be playing for them in 2008 even as the season was under way. So if City decide to shed Robinho after he doesn't report for training on August 4 (5?) and Mark Hughes decides his first big signing for Fulham will be his old buddy Roque, that would mean that only four of the over-21 players on the current U.S. tour will be displaced by the returning rested World Cup stars once the team terminates its American tour this weekend.

I am now reading so much drivel in the press almost every day along the lines that City will be having to sell, or loan out, a whole slew of players come the end of August when the squads have to be registered with the EPL. Yet that number is probably nearer to being no more than 3 to 5 players, and even those players that don't make the cut don't have to go anywhere because they will still be required for rotation into all the games in the three cup competitions, which if City went all the way to the finals of all three cups would mean them playing just under 30 games in addition to the 38 games played in the EPL.

Finally, what were your thoughts re Adam Clayton, Javan Vidal and Gunnar Nielsen being removed from the squad? Gunnar because he is out on loan and the other two because they have never played a second of first team football. Clayton is not even included in the list of squad names under the MCFC "Players" tab, although the other two players are. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 02:59, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem about the youths thing - I didn't mean to disagree with you, more to show you where it said about the three youth players being kept on. I'd say your analysis of the situation is spot on. If you use the news aggregator newsnow.co.uk you can get a number of well-reasoned arguments for something very similar by reading the City blogs around.

About Vidal, Nielson, Clayton...it's a tough one. I don't think I was the original person to remove players who went on season-long loan but I can see the logic and won't disagree with it. I tend to treat the squad stats on the season page as a list of all players considered first team and in with a shout of playing. Thus the reserves aren't shown unless they are given debuts but unwanted or unplayed players are shown - i.e. Stuart Taylor was on the list for the entire season until he finally got his debut in something like February. This means that, to my mind, loaned players out for the entire season logically are omitted as they aren't eligible to play for the first team (they are on loan) BUT if they return early, or if they went on loan having previously played for the team, or perhaps even sat on the bench (it's a grey area) then they can be included. This means that right now, Nielsen is out as he looks set to be loaned out all season and retained for a possible bench place in future seasons. For Clayton I think he is being loaned out too, but honestly I'm not entirely sure he isn't considered reserve and I don't think he will be treated as first team by Mancini. As for Vidal, the same, only he doesn't have Clayton's history of being loaned out (he's only been loaned once IIRC, about 18 months ago to a Conference side). Hope this all makes sense. As I say, I don't consider myself infallible if you disagree... Falastur2 ^Talk 08:25, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is a tough one, which is why I'm raising it in discussion with you. BTW, going forward, now that I know that you are the main author behind this article, I would rather socialize my suggestions for any possible changes to it directly with you, and then have you make the edits should we both reach a "consensus" *rolls eyes at the thought of using that damn word* (but in my defense I'm trying to enter into the spirit of all things Wikipedian and demonstrate my complete lack of understanding of the English language lest I pick up another administrative warning!) rather than spend the best part of my life butting heads with all the "Nigel de Jong styled editors" of this article. (BTW, I did take the time out of my busy day to show you the courtesy of responding to your "If you want to hang around and talk over what to do with these situations then I would gladly welcome the input" request and yet you have neither acknowledged my effort not responded to it ... is there a reason for that?)

Also, if we are indeed in agreement WRT Scott Kay not being in the squad table, why is he still there? In your own way, you are doing exactly what gonads did. He asked for discussion, read my responses, stated categorically he wouldn't revert, wished me well, then went off and implemented his own opinion and reverted! To add insult to injury, he then reported me for multiple reversions (as an Edit War) when he was the one doing the reversions against the "consensus" achieved. In your case, we have politely discussed the topic, discovered very quickly that we both agree on the matter, and then you have quietly ignored the issue and gone on with your life as if the conversation never happened. As I have previously stated, it is impossible to achieve "consensus" (in the true meaning of the word) on the internet via such discussion. The "consensus" really only comes from the edits "sticking" because all other interested parties concur with them once they have seen them. However, even if we call what has gone on by its proper name (viz. a "limited agreement of future direction" rather than a "global consensus") you guys don't seem able to honor those agreements. Is it something in the beer you are drinking over there? Where I come from, what both of you are doing in your different ways, is called "grin-fucking" someone.

To return back to the "Nielson / Vidal / Clayton" issue ... (The rest of this text has now been moved to its own new respective sections entitled "Gunnar Nielson" and "Adam Clayton and Javan Vidal".) I hope the ideas presented in both those sections helps.

It would appear that my biggest problem participating here was simply being a week ahead of my time. If I had just waited four or five days until you made the squad table edits of a couple of days ago I would not have had to do anything whatsoever and could have saved myself a hell of a lot of text input this past week. To have a numbskull of an administrator defend his reason for issuing his warning to me with: "I stand by the warning, since Mancini's Lasagne has not seemed very willing to negotiate up til now" hasn't really instilled any faith in me that there is much intelligent life participating at Wikipedia. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 20:20, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, before I respond to your last post I think I'm going to set up some new section headings on your talk page and break up some of my previous posts here into smaller and more manageable blocks of text under those headings since we now have too many sub-topics being simultaneously addressed in our interchanges. I'm not going to change any of the text, just move whole paragraphs around; although I will probably have to adjust indentation and slightly modify introductory words (for paragraphs that start new sections that come from the middle of some of my "streams of consciousness") so that the result is more readable by third parties. I'm also considering moving the text of your response posts on my talk page over here and re-inserting them back where they belong in the whole conversation, because I find it really hard to follow a duplex discourse when it is split into two separate simplex and mutually exclusive data streams. That is one of the really annoying "features" of Wikipedia that I consider to be almost a major bug. This way, I can respond to some of your points quicker than others, rather than not reply at all until I have a full response for every point raised ... or worse still, responding in a timely fashion yet dropping the ball on some points. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 04:10, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Template:Manchester City F.C. seasons

Feel free to re-add the line-breaks. Just don't revert the corrections I made to the links ;-) – PeeJay 23:26, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Gunnar Nielsen - First Team Squad, Elite Development Squad, or Neither

FYI, I believe Gunnar is not out on a season-long lone (like Joe Hart was at this point last season) but only on a six months-long lone (although come January it will probably be extended). IMO you need to decide whether the primary purpose of your squad table is to show the playing statistics of the various players included in it, or whether it is to show the complete makeup of the squad (whether the players listed get to play or not). It is my observation that the information defining the full constituents of the squad is also contained in the main Manchester City article (and it was in trying to synchronize those two pieces of similar information that gonads reverted my squad number updates) so I would suggest that the primary purpose of your own table should be the playing statistics (which are not defined anywhere else in Wikipedia) rather than the makeup of the squad. Because that would be redundant; in exactly the same manner that defining the players' full names in your table is redundant.

If the correct policy (for the sake of internal consistency within Wikipedia) is to define the full names of players only in their individual player articles, and then to use their more popular names in all other Wikipedia articles that reference them, then I would argue that the current Manchester City squad should similarly be defined in only one place too (viz. in the main article) rather than multiple articles attempting to do the same thing and consequently spending most of their time being inconsistent with each other (since most people will only try and update the article they are looking at in the same manner that I did because, like me, they will be completely unaware of your unwritten policy in this matter). If you agree with me on this policy, and thus agree with me that your "squad table" is really a "playing statistics table", then I would recommend the following WRT Nielsen. He should be included in the first team squad listing in the main article in the "Out on loan" portion of it down below (just as he and Robinho are today), and he should similarly also appear in your "2010-11 Season" article down below in the "Loan Out" section (just as he currently is). However, he should ONLY be included up above in the "playing statistics table" when he is in a position to actually contribute to them (which will be in six months time when he returns from loan).

I also suggest you change the name of that table from "Squad" to "Playing Statistics" (or something similar) so that it does not give the impression that it is defining the actual squad, but is instead displaying the statistics of all those players in the squad who have some actual statistics to be displayed. It might also be useful to add a link immediately under that new title over to the squad section of the main article with some text along the lines of: "To see the full makeup of the actual squad go here" (or some such wording). Since we are currently in pre-season, every player in the first team squad that is not already out on loan (viz. everyone but Gunnar), and thus can potentially clock up some playing appearances to be displayed in your table once the season starts, should be included there (exactly as you have it now - except that Gunnar needs to be removed and only added back again when he returns from loan).

Entries for all the current players in the table should remain there (even if all their stats. remain null as they are now) until after the last match of the season, because every one of those players has a potential of clocking up an appearance before that point. For example, last season Gunnar's table entry (if he had been officially part of the first team squad) would have been null right up until four matches from the end when he got his one substitute appearance against Arsenal. Of course, in reality, last season Gunnar was the sixth-string(?) goalkeeper and not part of the first team squad, so his entry was only added after that Arsenal game. Similarly, Márton Fülöp only got his table entry added when he came in on loan and played in the next fixture. If a player still has a null entry in your table once the season ends (because he has never made an appearance all season) his entry should be removed because he now no longer has any more opportunities of clocking up his first appearance. Thus your table in all the prior season articles would only contain entries for players that actually played that season, and no entries for players that were "officially" in the squad but never kicked a ball competitively (which I believe is how you have it now).

If you do it this way then there is no onus on you (or any other editor) to try and keep your table totally consistent with the table that defines the official first team squad in the main article. All of the foregoing may be exactly the policy that you actually work to right now, but how is any other potential Wikipedia editor (particularly a new one such as myself) meant to know that policy unless it is written down somewhere? However, the fact that you are currently dithering over whether Gunnar belongs in your table or not suggests to me that you also kind of think of it as being a definition of the squad IN ADDITION TO being a statistics table, and I think you need to relinquish that idea. Of course, the distinction between the two separate article squad tables gets particularly muddied at this time of the year (viz. pre-season) because until a ball is kicked the two tables should essentially look the same (WRT content not format).

However, your table will differ from that other table during the active season if a player clocks up some first team stats. and then goes out on loan or is sold. In which case he will have a permanent entry in your table (as well as a transfer entry down below) but he will be removed from the table in the main article immediately he is sold or loaned out. Similarly, a player such as Fülöp coming in on loan for a few appearances will also create a permanent entry in your table that lives beyond his brief loan period, while he will only appear in the squad listing of the main article during the few weeks that he is actually on loan and playing for City. Well, you get the idea and I don't want to beat this issue to death nor sing to the choir. Please let me know if you CONCUR ... because I cannot read your mind. I can only know that you concur or disagree if you tell me so. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 20:20, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

You're probably right that Nielsen should be added to the main article. When we've come to some sort of decision on the above issue, I'll get round to it - I hardly think he is being treated as an "elite squad" member now. That said, I was surprised to read that the 27-year old Gonzalez was playing in goal for an elite squad friendly (maybe even the Macc game recently or Barrow today) so maybe there isn't a strict under-21 rule...or perhaps it was just a friendly and thus inconsequential. I may never know. Falastur2 ^Talk 22:17, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I would argue (as I did above) that Nielsen is not in any squad while he is out on loan. A player going out on loan is removed from "Current squad" section in the "Main MCFC" Wikipedia article and added down below in the "Out on loan" section for the duration. The "MCFC Season 2010-11" article should parallel that policy for consistency. However, in the main article a player such as Nielsen is only ever in the one section or the other; while in your article, going out on loan creates a permanent loan record down below even after he returns from loan and rejoins the First Team squad where he might now clock up some First Team playing statistics. Once again you have your details confused. Nielsen already is in the "Main MCFC" article and correctly shows as being in the "Out on loan" section. It is ONLY the "MCFC Season 2010-11" article that is wrong where he shows up as both being in the squad AND being out on loan at the same time. That is impossible to my way of thinking and he needs to be removed from the First Team squad for the duration of his loan. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 15:37, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It is my understanding that the Elite Development Squad (EDS) is just a fancy name for the Manchester City F.C. Reserves. Am I right? Please explain it to me if I'm not. Also, which is the correct name for it? ... Elite Squad or Elite Development Squad? This difference appears to have been the source of some edit wars in the past and it is now hard to determine which it should be through all the smoking bomb craters! :( If it is just a fancy name for the Reserves, why is there an "under-21" requirement on it? Aren't you confusing that with the Academy? It may well be true that most of the players in the Reserves are indeed under-21, but surely that is because if you are 27 years of age (the start of the few peak years of 27-30 in a footballer's career) and still playing for the Reserves you are probably never going to see first team football at that club nor at that level. Most ambitious reserve players, if they have not managed to break the first team by their early twenties, will probably pursue regular first team football elsewhere ... at either another EPL club, but more likely at one of the three lower tiers of football in the Football League.

For goalkeepers it is a little different. They can play at the top flight into their forties (e.g., Edwin van der Sar). So Nielsen being only 23 years old is more the equivalent of being only 18 years old or thereabouts for an outfield player. Which also puts the 27-year old Gonzalez EDS status in perspective. He would be "over the hill" as an outfield Reserves player but many goalkeepers now only break into EPL first teams around that age and still have ten years or more of top flight football ahead of them. But I too was surprised to read yesterday that he was playing against Barrow for the EDS because I thought he was still over here in the States with the tour squad. Looks like he went back home with the other seven "youngsters" the other week. So there are (or now were, because the MCFC squad flew home last night after their pathetic drubbing by Internazionale) only 24 players left in the USA tour squad. I'll modify those numbers in my previous post. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 16:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

True enough. The name of the squad is "Elite Development Squad" - you can verify this here. It says there that it's the former reserves, and then a few lines later refers to them as "the under 21s". I think the case is that the club just made their own ruling - no over 21s because it helps develop the youth now. I'm pretty sure I read another article saying that all older players will now be considered first teamers and not allowed the extra games - GKs might be exempted because they're rare and the younger ones aren't as good. The term "Elite Squad" is simply shorter and more convenient. So is calling Manchester City "City" - it's that situation.

Incidentally I would also argue that Nielsen shouldn't be added on the squad stats because I never really considered him first squad. I simply am not confident of my judgement enough yet to make the change. But if he's over 21 and not first team, what is he? There's no such thing as being in limbo in a team. Falastur2 ^Talk 22:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

If the name of the Reserves squad is the "Elite Development Squad" then why isn't that full title defined in the introductory text to the article in the same way that Robinho's full name is defined in the introductory text to his player article? The article is entitled "Manchester City F.C. Reserves and Academy" and the opening sentence starts, "The Elite Squad ..." No mention is then subsequently made in the remaining in-line text of the article that the "Elite Squad" term is a shortened form of the full title of the squad (although that string does appear over in the sidebar). The only occurrence of the full title over in the sidebar makes it appear as if someone making global changes to the rest of the text simply overlooked changing it over there. If, as a City fan, I had to ask my question, then surely others will be confused too? IMHO the fact that the term "Elite Squad" is a popular form of the full squad name needs to be specifically defined in the text (particularly so in this case since it is not inherently implied by the full name being the title of the article) in the same manner that "Róbson de Souza" has to be specifically defined as the longer form of the more popular name "Robinho" in his article.

The previous point aside, it sounds like we are both in agreement with Nielsen being REMOVED from the first team squad table for this season's article ASAP. I agree with your point that he also is not a member of the first team ... if he was he would have been given a lower squad number than David González because both of their squad numbers were newly assigned for this season. To my mind Nielsen is the fifth-string goalkeeper, and González is the fourth-string goalie, and neither of them is a member of the first team (despite what the MCFC OS "Players" tab web page states). OTOH, your age argument may have forced both of them to become de facto members of the First Team squad despite the one being out on loan and the other playing for the EDS for the rest of the season. If it does subsequently transpire that Nielsen is not a member of the First Team squad then all you wlll have to do is move his loan out information from the left hand side of the web page (where he is under the First Team) over to the right hand side of the web page (where he will be under the Reserves & Academy). Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 00:37, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and removed Gunnar since we were in concurrence about him and I was editing the squad table for other reasons. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 02:52, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Adam Clayton and Javan Vidal - First Team Squad or Elite Development Squad

Without a clear definition of who is actually in the "official" first team squad (rather than just currently training with the first team at Carrington rather than over at Platt Fields) I have to agree with you that this is where the decision becomes more of an art than a science. I'll just say here that it is not absolutely clear to me that a player who once warmed the substitute bench with his bum two seasons ago indisputably nailed down his place in City's first team with that performance. And I think that is the situation with these two particular players. Just for the record, I did raise this issue in conversation with gonads ... just search my talk page with the following string: "If you really want to get your teeth" to locate the context of the conversation. The actual paragraph in question was the last one in that post but I subsequently deleted it. I felt this was an important topic to reach a "consensus" on if I was ever to be able to add these two players to the squad table down the pike. The last paragraph of that post - which I deleted in a subsequent edit because I felt the significance of the issue(s) I was trying to raise there was confusing our communication (since he had not given me any response to it) hence I endeavored to try and make matters simpler - went as follows:

A good case can also be made for adding Adam Clayton (#31) and Javan Vidal (#36) to the first team squad listings although neither of those two have ever made it beyond sitting on the bench for competitive matches. That is probably the criterion (viz. minutes actually played as either a starter or a sub in a competitive match) for whether someone should be included, while the fact that players such as John Guidetti and Andrew Tutte (who now train full time with the first team squad and have featured in the North American tour as much as any of the regular first team players such as Patrick Vieira) should not be included until they have made their first team debut in a competitive match. Likewise, a player should not be removed from the first team squad listing unless he is transferred out or released (because being out on loan to another club does NOT cause a player to be any less a member of the first team squad even if it does free up his squad number if he goes out on loan before the new numbers are reassigned).

Please note well that when I wrote that a few days ago I too was thinking of your squad table as being a definitive "first team squad listing" and was therefore arguing there that loaned-out players in the squad should nevertheless be included, so I am not on your case in suggesting that you might be wrong in thinking about it that way. I have since changed my thinking on this issue as documented above. I think the critical point that made me change my mind was the similarity with the issue of the player names, it becoming problematic if those names are presented lots of different ways all over Wikipedia, so all those variants should only be defined in just the one place in their respective articles, with an agreed upon "main name" (but not necessarily their "popular" name or "nickname" - if a consensus is reached by the editors of Kaka's article that he should be referred to throughout all other Wikipedia articles by his full name then that would be his "main name") used for them everywhere else. The definition of the City first team squad should similarly be defined in just the one place and then referenced from everywhere else otherwise it too will likewise become (actually, it already is) problematic.

However, it is the fact that you also have to represent statistics in your table for players that are really not part of the squad for that season (e.g., players sold very early on before the summer transfer window closes, such as Richard Dunne and Vedran Ćorluka, or players that are loaned into the club from elsewhere, such as Márton Fülöp), as well as delete players from the table at the end of the season (despite the fact that they were clearly part of the squad that season) simply because they never made an appearance (most likely through injury, e.g., Michael Johnson or Owen Hargreaves), that convinces me that your squad table can never (except under certain ideal situations) be a definitive squad listing. It can only be that during the pre-season when the events that make your table diverge from the squad table in the main article have yet to happen.

OTOH, there is also an argument for capturing in your individual season articles what the "official" first team squad was for that season (because the main article squad listings are always kept current) so that someone could, say, look up what City's "official" squad was for the season 2002-03. But if you wanted to do that you would have to capture the state of the squad table in the main article at the end of every season and only then include (archive) it in your article for that season IN ADDITION TO your statistics table (which almost certainly won't match it exactly). As to how one determines what City's "official" squad is for any given season is also in need of discussion, because most of the information on the MCFC web site under that "Players" tab is clearly out of date and in many cases contradictory, thus it does NOT qualify as a reliable citable source. I hope all of that helps. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 20:20, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

As for Vidal and such, you're probably right that they should be kept off the table - I have no intention to add them. This is the other side of the coin - how we treat people where it is entirely guesswork to decide which squad they are in. If they are given a debut, they will be added. Falastur2 ^Talk 22:17, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we are basically in agreement on this issue, but you have some of your details reversed. Both of these players are currently in your "MCFC Season 2010-11" article squad table and so, based on what you just wrote, they would have to be REMOVED from it, NOT "kept off" it. The reason these two players are out in the "Twilight Zone" is because there is no clear definition ANYWHERE ON THE WEB (not just within Wikipedia) as to what determines which team a marginal player - meaning one of the better EDS/Reserve players on the brink of breaking into the First Team (either looking likely to soon do so, or having just failed to do so in the recent past) - primarily belongs. That probably should be a discussion topic in its own right and I will make it a new heading here after I finish this response.

If neither player has debuted in a competitive match for the First Team (which I believe to be the case but I'm really not certain of that) can either player really be considered as being in the First Team squad. OTOH, neither David Silva and Jérôme Boateng have debuted for the First Team yet and nobody would argue that they are not First Team players. In their case you can apply a little logic and common sense and come to the conclusion that MCFC would not spend £24m to acquire a Reserve team player.

Both these players are currently aged 21 so they are eligible for the EDS. Both have been bench-warmers for the First Team but have never debuted. Vidal is listed as being in the First Team squad here, while Clayton is not. The BBC Sports "Squad Profiles" page for MCFC also shows Vidal as being in the First Team squad with Clayton not being in it (but that web page is even more out-of-date and inconsistent than the MCFC Official Site (OS) web page). Neither player was on the USA tour and there is no evidence anywhere that these players are on Mancini's radar screen for a possible debut anytime soon (if that is indeed the criterion for becoming a First Team squad member, which I question). Here are the two players' respective stati on most of the two most useful pertinent "reliable source" web pages and other related MCFC Wikipedia pages ...

Current status of Javan Vidal (#36):

- Listed as a Member of the First Team Squad under the "Players" tab on the MCFC OS

- Listed as a Member of the First Team Squad under the MCFC "Squad Profiles" on the pertinent BBC Sports web page

- Listed as a Member of the First Team Squad in the "Main MCFC" Wikipedia article

- NOT listed as a Member of the Elite Development Squad in the "MCFC Reserves and Academy" Wikipedia article

- Listed as a Member of the First Team Squad in the "MCFC Season 2010-11" Wikipedia article

Current status of Adam Clayton (#31):

- NOT listed as a Member of the First Team Squad under the "Players" tab on the MCFC OS

- NOT listed as a Member of the First Team Squad under the MCFC "Squad Profiles" on the pertinent BBC Sports web page

- NOT listed as a Member of the First Team Squad in the "Main MCFC" Wikipedia article

- Listed as a Member of the Elite Development Squad in the "MCFC Reserves and Academy" Wikipedia article

- Listed as a Member of the First Team Squad in the "MCFC Season 2010-11" Wikipedia article

Based on the above I recommend you REMOVE Adam Clayton from the "MCFC Season 2010-11" article squad table ASAP and leave Javan Vidal in that squad table for the sake of consistency across all those above web resources. I see no evidence for Vidal having any different status than Clayton WRT his membership of the First Team squad but to change his status at this time would probably cause more trouble than its worth. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 15:15, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Alright, done and done. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:04, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

ISSUE CLOSED (WRT Adam Clayton at least; the status of Vidal remains pending)

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 23:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Scott Kay - Should he be anything but Elite Development Squad?

You're right about Scott Kay, really I should remove him. I kept him in for one reason, and it was a poor one (as I said, I don't consider my edits to be an exact science, more just making the best of what is given to me). The reason was simply, when the OS announced the squad numbers, it announced them as a list with a break - that break came after the number 40. After that point, by and large who followed were reserve players (most notable contradiction: Yaya) and Scott Kay was the sole reserve player with no competitive caps who had the first half of the list. Under the circumstances I made the (probably wrong) decision that that indicated that Scott Kay was considered a first teamer - now I am not nearly so sure. But regardless, that's my logic. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

As per your above comments re Kay ... why is he still there?

Current status of Scott Kay (#35):

- NOT listed as a Member of the First Team Squad under the "Players" tab on the MCFC OS

- NOT listed as a Member of the First Team Squad under the MCFC "Squad Profiles" on the pertinent BBC Sports web page

- NOT listed as a Member of the First Team Squad in the "Main MCFC" Wikipedia article

- Listed as a Member of the Elite Development Squad in the "MCFC Reserves and Academy" Wikipedia article

- Listed as a Member of the First Team Squad in the "MCFC Season 2010-11" Wikipedia article

Based on the above I recommend you REMOVE Scott Kay from the "MCFC Season 2010-11" article squad table ASAP for the sake of consistency across all those above web resources. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 23:55, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and removed Scott since we were in concurrence about him and I was editing the squad table for other reasons. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 02:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

ISSUE CLOSED Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 17:43, 2 August 2010 (UTC)