User talk:Falastur2/Archive 5

EPL and UEFA Squad Registration - Suggestions for how to improve the PST

In order to reduce the amount of text we are generating on your Talk Page I have gone ahead and moved my original proposal post over to the User Page of my "sandbox account". I needed to input some text there in order to "knock it" out of its default "edit mode" and that standalone post seemed like a good candidate for a chunk of text to post over there.

So now my "sandbox account" contains the initial proposal text (but now significantly enhanced and converted into, and currently maintained as, a control document) for the suggested PST improvement on the User Page here and the latest version of the strawman implementation of that proposal on a subpage linked to that User Page here. (this text updated: Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC))

Let's keep the ongoing discussion of the proposal / strawman implementation on your Talk Page (below) for now. As we reach closure on issues that arise here we could perhaps also use the User Page of my "sandbox account" for archiving further chunks of text off of your Talk Page to further reduce the clutter here. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 03:41, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

The need to cite reliable sources

Incidentally, I believe Kolarov's number is now citable. This article shows the club official picture at the unveiling of the four new signings, and if you want a club source on that picture (or rather, and equivalent), you can see one by skipping to the very end of this OS video. Falastur2 ^Talk 01:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I saw the video (I usually check in on the MCFC web site - which incidentally is IMO the best one of all the EPL teams, and I'm not being sky-blue partisan when I say that - most days and minimally watch all the new videos) and made the same mental note as you just pointed out when I saw Kolarov and all the new players holding their allocated shirts up with Mancini. I also liked some of that Daily Mail article, although, as a rule, I think the Daily Mail web articles are pretty crap. I recently gained a new level of respect for Gary Lineker for his quitting of the DM over the part the DM played in the Lord Triesman fiasco. Good on him. Now, if only Wayne Rooney had such a conscience! I usually stick to the BBC and the various club web sites for my soccer/EPL info. And possibly the Guardian or the Telegraph. And, of course, your very own Wikipedia articles! :)

WRT my Rooney aside above, assuming the most recent media gossip has some substance to it, the little shit has just proven me correct yet again! As they say, great footballer, pity about the personality. :( Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 16:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Here's what I would like to do WRT Kolarov and his new shirt number. Roll out the Phase 1 PST, when we do roll it out, as is with his #13 squad number starred as needing a citation, just so that people get used to seeing that concept in action. Rather than use the DM article as the cited source (which we could add right now) I would prefer to see an MCFC web site source cited for it (and not that 30 minute long presser video either, but just a regular piece of text), so until that becomes available Kolarov can remain there with his #13 shirt requiring citation for as long as it takes. What's more, if this process works properly, because of the "citation needed" prompt, someone will find the citation that's required and add that missing citation for us at the bottom of the article and replace the asterisk next to his shirt number with the appropriate source reference superscript. But all this current crap of blanking his number for lack of citation, then someone else adding his number back in again, then someone blanking his number again, and on and on, needs to stop IMO. It looks to the outsider to be as childish as it really is.

You might also need to go get people such as PeeJay (and possibly others) to go read what I just wrote above (as well as that sruff over on my Talk Page re the Carlos Tévez example, etc.) so that he buys into this concept too. It's not as though it's radical, because it's how Wikipedia is friggin' meant to work! So my suggestion is to use the Kolarov squad number as an educational test case for others as I just outlined. Let mr know your thoughts when you can. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 03:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I regard this as issue resolved now - Kolarov's number is now citable by virtue of BBC Sport match reports which state player numbers if nothing else. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've completely missed my point WRT rolling out the PST with Kolarov's new shirt number indicated "citation needed". I am fully aware that his new shirt number can be supported with an RS citation, and that it could also have been when I wrote that text. Sheesh, please give me some credit here. So the current citability of his new shirt number is a non-issue ... NON-ISSUE NOW CLOSED. However, the issue (or culture) of not putting TRUE information into an article until AFTER you have a citation to support it is NOT CLOSED. Because every phrase and fact within a Wikipedia article does NOT require a citation - that would be way too anally retentive! - nor does every phrase or fact (that you may wish to cite) have to be correctly cited at the time it is first written in (or added to) an article - for those situations we have the "citation needed" qualification. Please go back and re-read the above and let me know that you NOW comprehend the point of my suggested test case. Once again, making such a test case over Kolarov's shirt number is also moot now (because we rolled out the PST with an RS citation for it already included, thus that ISSUE NOW CLOSED). However, the need for such a test case as I was suggesting for Kolarov is still an OPEN ISSUE from my perspective. Please stay focused here. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 20:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm...Alright, that makes sense and I can't see a better way of doing it. Obviously we don't currently have a case to use as test case, but if only for the fact that it just might encourage other users to start filling in citations, and the fact that it should work, I understand what you mean and I'll go by it. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:42, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't wish to flog this issue to death. However, I just didn't want you to dismiss the above text out of hand for completely extraneous reasons. This issue is mostly one to do with principles and the fact that we both appear to agree on this topic is probably about as much as can be achieved here. In short, people should be encouraged to update the season article with useful, true and accurate information whether they have a supporting citation for it at the time or not. The timeliness of updated information is also every bit as important as its accuracy. In that respect, the football season articles differ from mainstream Wikipedia articles in that they are more topical or 'news oriented' than perhaps the average Wikipedia subject matter; that is, they fulfill the same needs and compete in the same public space as the BBC Sport pages rather than that of Encyclopaedia Britanicca.

It is not crucial that I or anyone else read the latest research about dinosaurs or the literary importance of James Joyce today, or even this week. However, the 'requirement need' for a definitive reporting of, say, how much City paid to transfer David Silva is at its highest in the immediate aftermath of that transfer, and that information needs to be added to the article to meet that window whether it can be fully supported with an RS citation at the time or not. Ditto, where City's league position currently stands as a result of its latest PL game. The latter is information that really needs to be added to / updated in the article almost as soon as the game is over (not 2 months later) if it is to be of any real interest and use ... and that is generally what happens. Yet you don't see people immediately reverting those relatively rapid match result updates for lack of citation ... good faith is normally assumed and the supporting RS citations are usually dutifully added within hours or days afterwards.

My point is that that same approach needs to be extended to ALL other areas of the article ... such as, say, squad number updates during the pre-season. First the timely update is done, then the supporting RS citation can be added in due course when it becomes available in a readily citable form. The use of "citation needed" by the person that does the initial timely update acknowledges that necessary process of events, lets other editors know that his edit is a 'good faith' one, and it encourages others to go ahead and provide the missing citation for him if they can do so in a more responsive timeframe. Thus the use of "citation needed" should be actively encouraged NOT repeatedly frowned upon and fought against because, in the case of the PST, it potentially upsets the format of the table. The use of that asterisk as footnoted at the base of the PST that you are so quick to dismiss elsewhere allows for virtually any piece of information in any cell of the PST to be flagged in this manner without seriously screwing up the format of the table (and that presumably was also something that was on your mind when you stated elsewhere that "the squad section is problematic"). Should there be periods where there are no pieces of information displayed in the PST that were added for their timeliness rather than their RS supportability (as is the current situation) then perhaps that footnote at the base of the PST should simply be commented out during those periods rather than entirely removed (so that it can be more easily activated by an editor when he does add such a piece of information to the PST).

BTW, the footnoted asterisk convention can be used for ANY of the tables in the article such as the "transfer in" and "transfer out" tables where the use of a "citation needed" asterisk against an amount entered in the "fee" column is much more likely to be needed and utilized. In fact, I think Robinho's transfer fee is probably our next test case for this mechanism. Almost a week gone and still no fee has been entered for his transfer fee. Clearly, he did not move for free! If I was Gary Cook or Brian Marwood I would have felt that a price on Robinho's head comparable to the kind of fees City have been expected to shell out for top players such as Silva, Touré and Milner would be about right, and I believe that sort of sum (about £25M) is indeed what City was asking, while in its turn, A.C. Milan (who unrealistically wanted in excess of £100M for Kaka) was trying to purchase him at a fire-sale price. I believe I read somewhere (on a quite reliable source such as the BBC Sport pages, NOT a tabloid source) that the final agreed upon price was £18M, but I did not note the source at the time (because I just assumed someone else would take care of this information in the article). Perhaps you or I should enter that figure as his transfer fee followed by a "citation needed" asterisk - because that would serve to both flush out the real amount (should it be wrong) and obtain the RS citation we seek, as well as to provide the necessary test case for this mechanism in action. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 16:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Main differences between the UEFA & EPL registration regulations re my proposed changes to the PST

I'm largely in favour of this, though I want to raise one point: do we actually know how often a squad can reissue it's 25-man selection? Because if it's at any time more frequently than the end of each transfer window, I'd venture that it could prove problematic resolving how you classify a player who was included in the 25-man once, then was removed for a month, then was put back in, or something like that. Also, while the club is waiting to sell players and has more players than the 25-man rule allows (even accepting that u-21s aren't counted) how do you propose to represent the 25-man squad when we don't know exactly who won't be included. And do we yet know what ruling the PL is using over who counts as an under-21? As I've mentioned somewhere before, the PL has previously tended to be quite inclusive, leading to some cases of 22-year olds playing for under-21 sides for the countries and such. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not have the time to Google a citable source for you, but I'm pretty (98%) certain that both the EPL and UEFA squad registration deadlines are synchronized to the end of the summer and January transfer windows for the reasons I explained in my final paragraph of my original post (in the "Going forward" section below). With some minor differences those two transfer windows apply across almost all the UEFA nations, all of which play a fall-winter-spring season, although as we keep hearing re England's disappointing performance in the World Cup last month, England (and probably Scotland too?) is one of the few countries that actively continues playing through its winter transfer window. I most definitely know that the deadline for the initial registering of all the EPL squads for the upcoming season is August 31, which is indeed the same as the end of the summer transfer window. Thus a club can sign its new star striker on the final day of the transfer window (and how often have you seen that happen? Does the name Robinho ring any bells?) and register him to play in the EPL that same day. So the short answer is, "yes, it's only twice a year (citation needed)"!

The example you describe of a player being initially registered in an EPL squad, and then removed from it for a month, and then put back in again, etc. would indeed be a problem ... it would also be an administrative nightmare! Which is why it doesn't work that way. WRT "how do you propose to represent the 25-man squad when we don't know exactly who won't be included?" the answer is: exactly like this ... (NOTE: The contents of this sandbox are now completely different than what was being indicated at the time that comment was written. I've chosen to add this later qualification here rather than modify the original text.) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 18:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC) ... IMO, this sandbox version of the current "squad table" section that gonads and I worked on (before you came online today) is ready to go (meaning it could be used to overwrite the existing "squad table" section right now). As I explained in the first paragraph of the "Updating the PST" section above, all this first update does is essentially codify the current First Team squad players into four separate pools.

There is nothing speculative or particularly contentious in adding this new column in the way that it has been set up in the sandbox. The codification in the new column merely represents the effective conjunction of two pieces of individually citable information that already exists for every player currently listed in your own created "squad table" - viz., his current age and his junior playing (club registration) history prior to age 21. An interpretation of both the UEFA and EPL player registration provisions (also externally citable, but I paraphrased them for you in Steps 1a and 1b above) is then applied to those two pieces of citable fact in order to arrive at a resultant classification for each player that is then codified with a TLA.

Apropos your "the PL has previously tended to be quite inclusive, leading to some cases of 22-year olds playing for under-21 sides for the countries and such" I quite agree. And the reason for your observation is fully explained by the "Under 21 Player Provision" I paraphrased for you in "Step 1a" above. Read it again very, very carefully and note well that determining January 1 2010 threshold. Thus a young player that turned 21 years of age this past January is considered to be "under 21" WRT the upcoming season, and he will be 22 years and 4 months old when it terminates in May 2011. I hope that adequately addressed all your raised concerns. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 04:39, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll give you a longer reply later but sufficed to say this: UEFA has several reconfirmation periods for squads. There's after January yes, but you also have to confirm your squad at the end of each "tier" of competition. By that I mean qualifying rounds, then the play-off round, then the group stages, then the knock-out rounds, and there might even be a chance to change your squad before the final too. It's not just when there's a transfer window that UEFA make you reconfirm your squad. I doubt the PL will match date for date the confirmation periods and I also doubt they will only have two, but I'm not sure. Falastur2 ^Talk 17:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I hear you. When I stated above I was pretty certain that was more aimed at the EPL process. I'm pretty certain (based on a lot of stuff I've read, but little of it official) that the EPL registration process is only a two-step affair - once at the end of August and then again at the end of January. But even then I'm not certain how radically within the same season these two squads can differ - viz., can Mancini register a completely different 25-man squad in January than he does in August? Not that even City can afford to have that many good players (25) simply sitting around twiddling their thumbs until then! I'm assuming that "tweaks" of a few player swaps (viz. 3 or 4) are allowed to the August 25-man squad in the January registration of the 25-man squad (in fact, I believe it is actually called a "re-registration", implying the new squad for the second half of the season cannot differ by too big a factor). Also, I'm similarly not clear on who Mancini can play in August before he has to initially register his EPL squad. Can he play any of his 38 players during the first two weeks of the season, or does he have to register on August 31 any players that have already played in EPL games?

Other stuff I have read had led me to believe that the EPL process was essentially modeled on the UEFA squad registration process that was already in place. Since City were not pushing the squad limits when they played in the UEFA Cup two seasons ago I really did not pay much attention to this issue then, and ditto last season when the team was not competing in Europe. So I am hardly a subject matter expert on the UEFA squad registration requirements. Here is something that supports my take on the UEFA situation. Hardly an official text I know (and only the first couple of posts are worth reading). But those posts do suggest that your understanding that the squads can or must be re-registered before every tier of the two UEFA competitions is anomalous. I'm not by any means saying you are wrong ... I offer this only as grist for the mill of this discussion.

Of course, none of the above has any ramifications whatsoever on the initial codifying of the players in City's First Team squad into four pools of player eligibility (which I believe to be information that is much more pertinent to any given player's ability to clock up statistics in the upcoming season than, for instance, displaying the flag of that player's nationality). The issue of squad registration frequency only affects whether it would be wise to try and go beyond my basic classification of the players into pools, and further indicate in the PST the actual named squads once they have both been submitted, or whether doing so would only be an open invitation to edit warring due to how often the makeup of these squads changed during the course of the season. Even only changing twice (every August and January) might still be too frequent from that perspective. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 00:18, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I've spent quite some time since my last post above trying to find the official text of the squad registration requirements on the official web sites of both UEFA and the Premier League with absolutely no luck. One would think both of those sites would have a section dedicated to it prominently displayed ... or at least a FAQ section dedicated to the topic. And they may well do, but I've not been able to locate it yet on either site. After I came across that Manchester United message board web page and the comment there that was quoting text from UEFA.com site I similarly spent quite a bit of time trying to locate a source version of that text, also with no luck. Which is why I posted the link to the United MB discussion because it is still the best coverage of this topic that I could come up with. However, I'm not at all happy with it because it is not a primary source and technically it is merely hearsay (which, of course, is how most people are learning about the ramifications of the new ruling). It was only because that one poster seemed to be quoting the official text of the ruling from the UEFA.com web site that I used it above. I'll still keep looking for a better source of information. ITMT, if you know of a link to the source text of either of the EPL and UEFA squad registration rulings please post them here so that we can base any discussion of this issue going forward on the actual rulings rather than on gossipy (mis-)interpretations of them. Thanks.

BTW, I am assuming that the same UEFA squad registration requirements apply to all three of its competitions and that there is not a separate one for each of the Champions League, the Europa League and the Super Cup! Please Lord, let that be the case! :( Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 17:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

WRT the UEFA squad registration rulings re its three club competitions this is now a CLOSED ISSUE. I have located all of them for the current 2010-11 season and the "player eligibility" text in each of them is essentially identical. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 21:10, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

You are most probably right that you can't register an entirely new squad of 25 after the January transfer window, but it only requires one player to be an exceptional case and good planning and negotiation such as this can go out of the window, of course. But yeah, you're right. I don't know why I didn't bother looking for the rules of the competitions in question, but I took a gander myself and found the UEFA regulations for the 2009-10 Europa League and this page of links for the handbook for the Premier League this season. While the Europa League rules appear to back you up and stick closely to the Champions League rules in that thread of the unmentionable team that you cited, the PL seems frustratingly vague about the whole thing, but maybe I just haven't found the right section yet. At any rate, as a by-product of this whole thing, I have been able to confirm that the 3rd strip is officially white all over (bar the sash on the kit and socks) and not white-and-black, and we do indeed appear to be using the green goalkeepers kit again, which it was my mistake to dismiss earlier. Also I now know some extra board of director names to stick on the Man City article, but whatever. At any rate, it seems that you're probably right about the restrictions in re-registration. I believe the rule about games up to the end of August is that you have to register every player who plays (i.e. when they sign), but you can re-register a squad as many times as you need before the 1st of September deadline, by the way - the nature of evolving transfers makes that necessary. Obviously, after the transfer window is closed it then becomes final.

One thing that came to mind while skimming over those regulations PDFs, however, was the notion that the UEFA competitions have somewhat different squad statuses for players than the PL does. For instance, the two governing bodies disagree over the definition of "home-grown". UEFA insists it goes by nationality IIRC, the PL doesn't. Also, UEFA won't let you include unlimited U-21s whereas the PL will, etc etc. Will your table include a second list of squad status abbreviations to cover this or do you intend to find a way of merging the two together somehow? Falastur2 ^Talk 01:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

This is a response to your last paragraph above only. Apropos your, "UEFA insists it goes by nationality IIRC, the PL doesn't," that's not true - see my new column in the table in the Phase 2 sandbox (also see my comments in the section up above, which BTW I'm assuming you've read before you started reading this - but I probably shouldn't assume that!).

The reason for my stating that your IIRC comment is not true is explained in my "6+5 Rule" comments below ... I believe you are/were confusing proposed FIFA and existing UEFA regulations when you wrote that. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Apropos your, "UEFA won't let you include unlimited U-21s whereas the PL will," that's also not true - UEFA specifically states that an unlimited number of U21 players can be registerd via LIST B. WRT your last sentence asking about what my strategy for all of this is, see all my response text up above in the previous section. Finally, take a look at the age definition of what constitutes an U21 player (LIST B player) in that Europa League PDF and compare the defining cutoff date to what I've defined it to be in in the EPL section of my sandbox (either sandbox will do currently). Do you think they are equivalent? I'm not going to tell you what I think until I hear your opinion. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 09:19, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

They aren't the same. The UEFA rules have that thing about needing to be eligible for the club for two years since your 15th birthday - the wording isn't good but it suggests they've got to have been on the club's books for a while to count as an under-21. It also suggests that an under-17 would have to register as an over-21 in order to play because of that ruling too. Falastur2 ^Talk 17:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I missed that subtlety. But I think it's exactly the same vaguely-worded paragraph that we are both trying to deconstruct the true intended meaning out of here. Just so we are both singing from the same sheet I'll quote it directly below ...

"18.16 A player may be registered on List B if he is born on or after 1 January 1988 and has been eligible to play for the club concerned for any uninterrupted period of two years since his 15th birthday by the time he is registered with UEFA. Players aged 16 may be registered on List B if they have been registered with the participating club for the previous two years without interruption."

What caught my attention was that "1 January 1988" cutoff date, which is what was behind my above question. That would make LIST B players "Under 22" players rather than "Under 21" as comparably defined for the EPL, which even then means that 22 year-olds can be validly playing in the second half of the season (after 1 January 2011) as I indicated to you up above in my first response in this section. However, as you point out, that "2 year prior registration with the same club requirement" does make the UEFA requirement somewhat different (viz. more restrictive) than the comparable EPL requirement as I understand it (without the comparable source PDF text put out by the EPL). Although I stated yesterday in a section above that I did not believe we needed more than the current 4 status codes, that was written before I started my analysis of the above quoted paragraph which was pretty late last night (my time) and I was very tired. But I suspected I needed a new "U22" code or something (for that UEFA situation) if my initial take of that date was correct, so I decided to throw out the question to you and get your opinion of that date threshold and get some sleep and think about it again today with a fresh mind.

The other implications of that text were lost on my sleepy brain last night, but I now agree with you. There are at least 3 implications buried in that 18.16 paragraph that make that UEFA LIST B "youth player" requirement quite different from the EPL "U21" requirement as I have it currently defined. But we only need one difference between the two youth player provisions in order to require a new 5th status code - which we now do. The PST section of your season article is NOT the place for us to define the mundane niceties of the various provisions as stipulated by UEFA and the EPL (or is it the English and/or Welsh FAs? I ask that aside here because these players have to be registered with the English or Welsh FAs, not the EPL, in order to be accepted as being registered with UEFA). All we need to understand is that there IS a difference between the two stipulations (thus requiring 2 codes NOT 1) and which code subsumes the other one, so that I can stipulate - as I think is the case here - that any player satisfying the UEFA "youth" provision automatically satisfies the EPL one (in the same manner that all UEFA "ACG" players, as I have them currently defined, also satisfy the EPL "HGP" provision). The difference in detail, and which provision (and thus which Squad Status code) subsumes the other, is all that matters to us, not every jot and tittle of those differences in detail.

So the upshot of all this is that I need to add a new code to the Squad Status code definition table in the Phase 2 sandbox (just that one for now), which is what I believed I would have to do before I went to bed last night (actually it was late early morning for me) and threw out that question at you to focus your attention on that text (which is clearly what you had been focused on when you had written your last paragraph above). Just for the record, my take on the two differences between the UEFA and EPL "youth or junior player" provisions that must be met for LIST B player registration (for UEFA; I have no idea what the EPL call it) is as follows:

• A youth player satisfying the above EPL maximum age provision (e.g., Mario Balotelli) could theoretically play with "youth" status in an EPL game for a club such as City within two hours of being transferred in and registered by that club with the EPL; while even though that same player satisfied the comparable maximum age provision set by UEFA, he would have to be registered on the books of his new club for a further 2 years before he was eligible to be registered (via LIST B) to play with "youth" status in an UEFA competition game.

BTW, I took you at your word on the matter of it being possible for a player to be registered for any EPL game up to about an hour before kickoff and incorporated that concept more vaguely worded (viz. "a short time before") into my latest round of text updates in the Phase 1 sandbox. However, it was mentioned more than once in the commentary of the Spurs-City match yesterday that Balotelli could not play in that game because he was transferred too late to be eligible for it. His transfer was completed sometime Friday because the web article announcing he was now a City player appeared on the MCFC web site Friday afternoon and the club never publicly make such transfer announcements until it is a done deal. So by my reckoning City had about 20 hours (give or take) to LIST B register him for the Spurs game if it had wanted to. I suspect City didn't register him for other reasons (e.g., because Mancini first wants to work with him in training before fielding him; no shirts made for him yet; etc.) rather than that the club couldn't register him to play even if they had wanted to. However, I throw this thought out just to make you reconsider your source for that comment. I intend to leave what I have written re the deadlines for EPL LIST B registration as it currently stands unless I have something more correct to replace it with (if it is indeed wrong).

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• A youth player satisfying the above EPL maximum age provision (e.g., a 16+ year old Wayne Rooney at Everton) could play in an EPL game without being a registered member of the 25-man EPL squad; while even though that same player satisfied the comparable maximum age provision set by UEFA, in order for him to be eligible to play in an UEFA competition game he would have to be registered in the 25-man UEFA squad via one of the 17 "free player" slots on LIST A (because he fails to meet the 3 years / 36 months minimum threshold for registration with his owning club in order to qualify to be registered in one of the 4 "ACG" or 4 "HGP" LIST A slots, in addition to failing to meet the "uninterrupted two years" minimum threshold for registration with his owning club in order to qualify as a player eligible to be registered with UEFA via LIST B).

Please confirm that the above is your understanding too, or alternatively give me your interpretation of this stupid piece of "legal verbiage". ITMT, I will go add and document the new "youth" Squad Status code in the definition table that summarizes my four existing Squad Status codes. FYI, I'm not going to update any inline text above that table until we are both happy with the table contents. Then, and only then, will I go back and modify the above inline text to make it expound upon and be more consistent with the contents of the table. Also, when you respond back here, give me your feedback on how you feel about my essentially handling all of the subtle distinctions between the UEFA and EPL 25-man squad provisions in the two new columns I've introduced.

Finally, WRT your other comment in your final paragraph above - viz. "... the two governing bodies disagree over the definition of 'home-grown'. UEFA insists it goes by nationality IIRC, the PL doesn't." - I believe my distinction between "HGP" and "ACG" captured that disagreement. Or did you have something else in mind that I have missed? Let me know ASAP if you did. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:13, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

We're in agreement. And yeah, you actually did capture that disagreement, my bad. Also to clarify a few other minor points you raised in this section, they are PL rules not FA rules - the FA itself has no such rules on any competition like this, only ineligibilities along the lines of players being cup-tied, so in fact City could win the FA Cup never playing any player more than once and still satisfy FA conditions.

Just as a clarification here (I don't expect you to respond to this point unless you disagree with what follows; in which case please correct me) ... the reason for my original aside was because the Premier League is a subsidiary (for lack of a better term) of the F.A. - that's why it is called the F.A. Premier League! Also, all professional players have to be validly registered with their local F.A. (meaning English or Welsh) in order to play professionally anywhere within England or Wales (as appropriate). To my mind, that registration serves as their equivalent of an actor's Equity card. That is also why the Premier League does not need a LIST B registration form for the youth players ... those players MUST be registered with their local F.A. anyway in order to play period ... and as you yourself have pointed out, that registration can be approved (NOT submitted) up to an hour before a game's kick-off. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 00:00, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

My original point about UEFA and the PL differing on their definitions of home-grown players was incorrect by the way. I can't remember the exact rule UEFA had, but it used to have a rule saying you had to name a number of player specifically of the nationality of the club they represented...clearly this is gone now. Of course, you identified slight, more subtle differences which remain and they should not be ignored, but that was the origin of my claim, for the record. I thought at first that that rule was part of the home-grown player restriction, but thinking back I don't think it ever was. But whatever. That rule is clearly not present now. And yes, you're right about players playing under-21 to the age of 22, but then as I said, UEFA has always been increasingly lenient and it's easier and easier to play youth football into your early 20s these days. Both UEFA and the PL use the term "List B" for youths, incidentally. It's becoming increasingly clear to me as I read into this that there's obviously been a great deal of co-operation in rolling out these rules so I guess we should expect to see something similar in Spain and Italy soon, and then the rest of Europe will follow. Oh, and one last, very minor point: PL and FA rules actually state that a player only needs one hour of registration time to be used in a match-day squad, not 24 hours. In practice, though, I can't remember any time a player managed to play in a game on the same day they signed - usually the medical is too exhausting to allow it. Falastur2 ^Talk 22:39, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I do so much prefer being in violent agreement with someone than being in violent disagreement with them! :) I just made some slight textual changes/additions to my previous post above (indicated in bold) to better reflect some of your comments and or wordsmith it to be more accurate, having now had the luxury of being able to reread what I posted to you earlier! I don't think you'll disagree with them but if you do be sure to tell me. I wanted to keep the text as accurate as possible because I have a sneaky feeling that some part of it is going to end up in the article, and these sort of interchanges are IMO often the best means of scrubbing such text to a better level of accuracy than one can generate just by oneself, no matter how definitive and objective one tries to be.

Apropos your reference to the UEFA rule that you cannot quite remember that addressed the nationality of the players in a team, I think you might be thinking of a potential FIFA mandate (which UEFA and then, in turn, the various national FAs) would have to align itself with, that is commonly referred to as the "6+5 Rule". There is even a Wikipedia article about it (I just now discovered that by accident while Googling "6+5 Rule" to make sure I had the term correct). I have never read the text of it, but I believe that with it FIFA had adopted an agenda of encouraging (coercing?) the top clubs around the world to better develop and utilize their own national talent - rather than just importing it from other countries (particularly the African and Asian ones where the game is still developing) in the manner that many are now accusing City of doing, but which clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and the two Milan clubs have been doing in like manner for over half a century now - by stipulating the actual national makeup of a fielded team.

FIFA was intending to mandate that its various constituent confederations must, by some future date, enforce that all the clubs under their jurisdiction would only be able to field a team containing a minimum of 6 national players (meaning players eligible to be selected for the national team of the country in which the club was located) in all competitions under their governance. This agenda was quietly dropped by FIFA in June while the World Cup was on. I believe it was meeting very strong legal and political resistance worldwide with both countries and clubs claiming that FIFA’s policy was clearly protectionist and that it violated the "free movement" provisions in many countries' labor laws, particularly the Bosman ruling as it pertains to EU labor laws that specifically mandate the free movement of labor between all member countries of the EU. So rather than take on the political might of Brussels it looks like FIFA finally backed off from that strategy, and did so while everyone’s attention was on South Africa so that few people, if any, would notice how much egg it had on its chin.

Most people viewed FIFA's "6+5 Rule" as simply the natural continuation of UEFA's already implemented "homegrown player" policy, particularly since it starts its life off as a "4+7 Rule" (where that "4" seems to map directly to the 4 "ACG" slots already stipulated by UEFA for squads, rather than match day team sheets) and then transitions over a period of years via "5+6" to the ultimate goal of "6+5". Additionally, it is UEFA that would have had to implement and enforce this new policy across the whole of Europe if the "6+5 Rule" had been ratified by all the member confederations of FIFA. So IMO it is quite natural to get it mixed up with everything else we have been discussing here. Anyways, if the "6+5 Rule" isn't what you were thinking of, then I hope that at least you found the foregoing informative.

Finally, WRT your comment, "It's becoming increasingly clear to me as I read into this that there's obviously been a great deal of co-operation in rolling out these rules ..." it is my observation, having now analyzed the details of the two main areas where the EPL and UEFA regulations actually differ, that far from "cooperating" with the intent and spirit of the UEFA policy, the EPL has carefully removed from its registration requirements whatever teeth the UEFA ones actually has. To my mind, the EPL's actions WRT the UEFA policy is the same subtle difference as being "polite" and "grin-fucking" someone. :) Finally, finally, now all you need to do is perform some "garbage collection" in the next section so that we can both start to see the woods for the trees again! :(

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 00:13, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I will just add one final comment here before you archive this section. In observing above that the EPL have only followed the letter of the existing UEFA player registration regulations rather than the spirit of them, one can come to one of two possible conclusions. The first is that the EPL's lip-service is simply one big cynical FU aimed towards UEFA WRT this issue; the other is that with the new "toothless" player registration regulations going into effect this year the EPL is instead doing no more than getting the infrastructure in place so that the individual "teeth" can then be incrementally added in future seasons. If this is indeed the case, and knowing the likes of Richard Scudamore and Co. I strongly suspect it is, then we will very likely see in future seasons a mandate that a number of the (currently 8) HGP designated players in a squad must also be academy trained too (viz. now AGP); and similarly, a length of tenure might well be added to the "Youth Player" provision bringing the current U21 designation much more in line with the existing UEFA YTH designation.

One thing the Premier League must be careful about doing is getting too far ahead of its major rival UEFA leagues in Spain, Italy and Germany, etc. WRT the stance it takes on player registration. If it gets too severe too quickly such that the current net migration of good foreign players and managers into the EPL dries up and reverses direction, such that all those players and managers start going to those other major leagues instead, then the EPL will quickly relinquish its status as the world's best football league that Scudamore and Co. have worked so hard over the last decade or so to make it, and that cannot be good for anyone that is invested in the success of the English game. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 04:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• Status of this section: I think that most of the points that were raised and discussed in this section have been resolved here, and that this fairly lengthy section probably should now be archived as-is. I have removed all the bolding that was still in this section's text prior to my edit to add this status because that bolding was pretty much added to make sure you saw ALL my updated comments in a timely manner (and did not miss any) at the time that they were made. Additionally, there is some quite useful information in this section (IMHO). If only all of our sections would turn out like this one! :(

Having just stated that "most of the points" were resolved here, unfortunately the one point that was NOT resolved was the issue of the implications of the required frequency of re-registration of the UEFA squads which this section was specifically started (by me) to handle. We allowed this section to wander off onto many other (important and interesting) topics, all of which now appear to be resolved EXCEPT for the main important one! Consequently, I have re-titled this section to better reflect its actual content and focus, and I will create a new one directly below it (in order to handle the topic this one somehow left behind) as soon as I've saved the edit that adds this status. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 17:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

• I just replied to the section below. I take it this section can now be archived, or have I missed something else? Falastur2 ^Talk 23:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oh yes, yes, PLEASE do archive it NOW before I find any more pieces of missing text to insert back into it, and most certainly before our small font meta-text status somehow grows into a conversation in its own right that is even longer than the text on which it is reporting the status! The more I think about this situation, it is my belief that what we really need here is for you to have a "Talk Page Talk Page" where we can discuss the text that appears on your actual Talk Page!! Of course, after that we would need you to have a "Talk Page Talk Page Talk Page" to discuss ...... :(
  Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 17:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Squad Re-registration Issues - Handling of this in the new PST "Elig." columns

To summarize this issue from all that has been written previously on this topic in other sections here ...

• the Premier League allows for two registrations of an EPL 25-man squad during the course of a season - the first initial squad registration occurs at the end of the summer (pre-season) transfer window, and the second squad re-registration occurs at the end of the winter / January transfer window. For the periods in between those two transfer-cum-registration windows the squads are essentially frozen (goalkeeper emergency and possibly other special situations aside);
• in comparison, UEFA allow for multiple registrations of an UEFA 25-man squad during the course of a season (the details of which I'll discuss below rather than summarize here like I just did for the Premier League situation above).

The two-times-per-season registration process (summarized above) does not seem to present too much "churn" for our representing it in the PST - currently in the "Elig." sub-column of the Premier League competition column. The concern initially expressed by you (and concurred with by me) was that the multiple UEFA squad registrations might indeed represent too much churn for the PST to sensibly track in the comparable "Elig." sub-column of the UEFA Europa League competition column. However, this also turns out to be pretty much a non-issue as I'll now explain below.

The multiple squad re-registrations required for both the UEFA Champions League and Europa League competitions are essentially all for the early qualifying and play-off rounds. Below are the multiple squad (re-)registration deadlines for this season (2010-11) for both of those UEFA competitions (the text shown being directly quoted from §18.13 of the respective "Rules and Regulations" documents issued by UEFA for each of those competitions) ...

• Champions League

List A has to be submitted by the following fixed deadlines:

a) 21 June 2010 (24.00 CET) for all matches in the first qualifying round;

b) 8 July 2010 (24.00 CET) for all matches in the second qualifying round;

c) 22 July 2010 (24.00 CET) for all matches in the third qualifying round;

d) 9 August 2010 (24.00 CET) for all matches in the play-offs;

e) 1 September 2010 (24.00 CET) for all further matches from the first match in the group stage up to and including the final.

• Europa League

List A has to be submitted by the following fixed deadlines:

a) 21 June 2010 (24.00 CET) for all matches in the first qualifying round;

b) 9 July 2010(24.00 CET) for all matches in the second qualifying round;

c) 23 July 2010 (24.00 CET) for all matches in the third qualifying round;

d) 9 August 2010 (24.00 CET) for all matches in the play-off round;

e) 1st September 2010 (24.00 CET) for all further matches from the first match in the group stage up to and including the final.

As you can see from the above, the wording, deadline dates, and the rounds they apply to in each case are essentially the same for the two competitions, and all of those List A registration deadlines apply within the summer transfer window. In that sense, the UEFA squad registration process represents even less churn than the Premier League one does, because once each of those competitions are fully under way (with the start of the respective Group Stages) the squads cannot even be re-adjusted as a result of transfer and loan transactions done during the winter transfer windows.

Note also that only deadline (e) applies to the top three EPL clubs entering the Champions League; only deadlines (d) and (e) apply to the fourth (lowest placed) EPL club entering the Champions League and the top two ranked EPL clubs entering the Europa League; while only deadlines (c), (d) and (e) apply to the third (lowest ranked) EPL club entering the Europa League.

If we just treat the EPL and UEFA squads as being in a "state of flux" during the last month of the summer transfer window (viz. August) then both of these squads can be formally nailed down come September 1 (viz. next Wednesday) with ONLY the EPL squad needing a possible readjustment come the end of January. Your comments on the foregoing please.
Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 16:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

When I first wrote my main post in this section one of the big concerns I had about introducing my two "Elig." columns into the PST was whether they would be the source of too much churn and edit-wars type disagreements. Those concerns were triggered mostly by your own comments that the UEFA CL and EL competitions required that 25-man squads be re-registered with UEFA at every tier (round) of those competitions. Remember that when I wrote my main post in that section I had NOT yet seen any of the source "Rules and Regulations" documents for the UEFA competitions and I was merely trying to give due weight to your own voiced concerns. Of course, since then, I have read all of the various R&R documents for those competitions and the above post is my assessment of that initial issue of potentially too much churn. In short, I don't think it is a problem at all. Do you agree?

I'm not going to declare this issue CLOSED yet ... the need for multiple re-registration of the UEFA squads during the early qualifying rounds that are played bang in the middle of the July and August summer transfer window might yet come back to bite us in other ways. But for right now, it appears to me to NOT be a significant issue. Which means that one of my two main concerns when I wrote that post in the other section has been resolved (at least for the time being). Let's keep this section open in case any other issues relating to the need for squad re-registration(s) subsequently occurs to either of us; but for right now, I don't see this as a problem and I want us to focus on other more important issues. Do you concur? Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 00:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Touché. Now I see the deadlines, I see your point is valid, and there's really no issue here. I won't archive this according to your wishes until you are happy for it to be removed. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:49, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

And you probably could go ahead and archive this section right now (after all, it is not as though we are going to lose this text). Of course, Murphy's Law states that as soon as you do go ahead and do the archive the UEFA re-registration process will suddenly become a major bugbear for us. Ah begorrah, what to do, what to do? :(
Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 17:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Strawman PST re the handling of Mancini's actual registered 25-man squads

Here's a strawman PST for how we might handle, come August 31, Mancini's submitted squad assignments for the EPL and Europa League competitions. Note that the "ACG" status players sre simply enumerated as "HGP" players for the EPL squad because there is no "ACG" requirement for the EPL. Both of the 25-man squads in my example PST utilize 14 "FOR" players and 11 "HGP" players, with the UEFA squad specifically identifying which four of the "HGP" players satisfy the "ACG" requirement (thus the squad makeup is 14-7-4). All the U21 players are currently shown as being in both squads as they can play in any competition - but because of that it might be better style to just leave their fields blank (on the basis that there are also a lot of EDS players not listed in the PST, such as Ben Mee, that could play too). Also, to make the squad colums a little thinner it might be a better idea to use just the first letter of the TLA codes in these columns. Thus the EPL squad players would be identified H1 - H11 and F1 - F14, and the UEFA squad players A1 - A4, H1 - H7, and F1 - F14.

The two squads show Given and Taylor being utilized as the goalkeepers in the EPL squad, with Hart and Taylor as the two goalkeepers in the UEFA squad. In reality, Mancini will probably use three goalkeepers in both squads (but maybe not). Jô is only used as a striker in the UEFA squad while Caicedo takes his slot in the EPL squad. I did a similar squad split for Onuoha and Michael Johnson. Anyway, you get the idea. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 00:48, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, back on the matter at hand, I actually don't mind that at all - I quite like it actually. I'm tempted to say that the first "squad status" column is superfluous but I can see how it could be useful in rare circumstances.

Actually, it was my initial choice of the new squad encodings that really contains the superflous element that you are observing. So I have modified them to just a single character plus number as I had suggested might be an improvement above. Unfortunately, doing that doesn't reduce the column width of these two new columns because the minimum width is determined by the column heading "Squad" string.

Ideally, in these two new columns, I merely require to enumerate the various squad slots being filled by the players. I could just as easily opted to assign numbers from 1 to 14 in all the "FOR" player slots, then gone back and assigned numbers from 1 to 11 in the "HGP" slots. That would be an unique encoding of the information I want to capture, but unfortunately it would also be very perplexing for the reader. Although Adam Johnson's "HGP" Squad Status plus the number 7 placed in the EPL Squad cell is sufficient information to identify him as the player occupying the seventh "HGP" slot in the EPL squad, the fact that there is another number 7 in that same column identifying Felipe Caicedo as the player similarly occupying the seventh "FOR" slot in the EPL squad becomes very confusing to the reader. Things get even more confusing over in the UEFA Squad column where the numbers 1-4 would be used three times over. Thus a minimum of a single letter is needed to distinguish the use of the same numbers in the same columns.

Your comments elsewhere tell me you're onboard with the above issue (viz. that the information in the two competition squad columns is not really just a redundant repetition of what is encoded in the leftmost "Squad Status" column), so you can now delete the above 3 paragraphs plus this one.

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 02:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I think of the TLA in the leftmost PST column as a "quality" of that player. For example, Addy's "FOR" status tells you that if he is utilized in a squad, either the EPL squad or the UEFA squad (or possibly even an FA Cup squad should the F.A. introduce similar squad registrations for that competition four years from now), then he will occupy / consume one of the designated "foreign" slots in that squad. Thus Addy's "FOR" status tells you something about the limits on how he can be utilized in any squad for which he is selected, just as his "position" status of "FW" tells you something about the limits of how he can be utilized out on the actual field of play (viz. that ideally he should not be playing in goal or as a center-back!).

I know you've seen what I've done with the above text (in terms of wordsmithing and improving) over in the new "Squad Status Codes" section of my "archived" version of the original proposal in my sandbox, so you can go ahead and delete it from up above (because we don't need two versions of it). Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 02:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I also view this latest sandbox update as just speculative experimentation as to how we might possibly encode actual registered squads should we determine that they will not be a source of major edit wars down the pike. It is entirely possible that we might still not choose to go so far as doing that. However, I view what we have here in our first sandbox as pretty much ready to go (meaning I would be happy doing that update edit to the article right now). It probably needs the text you are requesting below adding in first (and I'm currently thinking about the best way to do that) but in terms of the codification accuracy and general layout, etc. I think it is good to go right now (while how we actually represent the registered squads probably still needs quite a bit more scrubbing back and forth between us). Oh, I would also like a second opinion on Shay Given's status from you before we publish (and be damned!). Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 07:43, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

FYI, my first pass at the required explanatory text has now been added. I await your feedback on it plus your input re Shay's "HGP" status.

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 20:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Shay Given is home-grown. He had played for Blackburn for three seasons by the end of the season in which he turned 21, which is exactly the minimum of what the PL requires to call someone home-grown. Falastur2 ^Talk 02:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeppers, that was my take too, but I just wanted a second opinion since he was the only player that came close to not satisfying that HGP requirement out of all the HGP players. ISSUE CLOSED. You can delete this and the above 2 paragraphs. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 02:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Falastur2, I need your feedback on the text I added to both versions of the strawman PST update (it's the same text in both sandboxes) ASAP. I would also like your views on the status of Shay Given re whether he meets the "HGP" criterion although I'm willing to stick my neck out on that one. It would eventually be corrected over time anyway. OTOH, the more mistakes or questions of style in my proposed update to your article when it is actually made then the more reason for immediate reversion. Please note the following well. I believe the strawman update in the "first sandbox" (see paragraph just above) as pretty well ready for publication barring other feedback comments from you (and if you still have some, even if only minor nits, then I want to hear it), while the more advanced strawman update in the "latest sandbox" (also see paragraph just above) is still a work in progress that builds on the other one. Think of them both as being Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the ultimate update. I want to see Phase 1 published ASAP before it becomes yesterday's news. And I would like you to be the person that does the update because (whatever you say to the contrary) it is less likely to be immediately reverted that way.

I need to see your current level of concurrence on this issue specificaly stated here ASAP ... either (1) yes, I think we are good to go with Phase 1 and I (meaning you) will do the update right away (by copying the contents of the "first sandbox" over the appropriate section of your article); or (2) I still have some general reservations / suggested detail changes / minor wordsmithing / typo corrections / whatever (in which case, I need to hear them ASAP so that I can address them). Those are the only two viable courses of action. I need to get this stupid update done and get on with my life knowing that you will support it going forward once I'm gone. I'll stick around to see Phase 2 reach fulfillment with you, but that is all I want to spend my time here doing. And I don't even wish to do that if you procrastinate much longer over Phase 1 so that it becomes yesterday's news. I'll simply write off my experience here as just a bad experience and move on. Please stay focused. Thanks. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 19:03, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(1) - I agree. I'll roll it out before I go to bed if I can, though it's already 3am. Falastur2 ^Talk 02:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I assume that you didn't do the roll out last night because of the lateness of the hour, and tonight because of the Phase 1/1A scenario I suggested above. But from your response I realize that you are essentually in concurrence with the phasing, understand what's in the 2 sandboxes, and are happy to roll out Phase 1 once I get back to you up above (the ball is back in my court). So you can now go ahead and delete the above 3 italicized paragraphs as far as I'm concerned. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 02:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite happy to preserve / archive text that is well written and has possible future use as an useful record of and reference to what transpired in reaching a local concurrence between us WRT possible changes to be made to the PST, but I think that text along the lines of ... Comment: "I think that word should be hyphenated." Response: "Yes, I agree and I've now fixed it." ... might be approaching the level of being way too anal. I refer to such text about other dialogue text as meta-text. Once we know we've communicated the thought to the other person such meta-text can IMO simply be deleted. Ditto original dialogue text where the author of it now wishes to retract what he previously wrote and tells the other person "never mind" (that would be another example of meta-text). To my way of thinking, if you don't separate such meta-text from the regular point-counterpoint discourse text, but keep all that intermingled meta-text in place as well, you are going to drive both of us crazy. Sending the other person some meta-text suggesting that they manipulate the source text in some way if they are in concurrence with the suggestion is really no different than, say, editing your own post just after you've made it (to remove silly typos, etc.). The meta-text approach simply involves the other person in the edit loop so that he is party to it and so is fully conversant with the way the source text ultimately gets manipulated (because he is the person that ultimately does the edit because he agreed with it). Such a process works perfectly fine in a 2-way conversation such as the one we're having.

I have been using the convention in our various dialogues here of indicating text that I think is now irrelevant or redundant, etc. (and can therefore be removed by mutual consent) by italicizing it, and posting my meta-text opinion of what I think should ultimately be done with that target text separately in bold font. If you disagree with my suggestion and wish instead to preserve some text rather than delete it, then all you have to do is normalize (un-italicize) it again, and perhaps give a reason why (but even that is not necessary). Either way, whether you reject the suggested edit (such as deletion) or go ahead and do the suggested edit because you concur with it, you really need to delete the meta-text (because that becomes old news whatever the outcome). Your preserving of the meta-text in place in addition to the chunks of source text I already feel are redundant is driving me bonkers because it is simply compounding the mess I'm trying to get you to clear up by asking you to delete that text in the first place!

My initial attempt at establishing this protocol of using meta-text to keep the source discourse text relevant and concise was, I decided, a little too cumbersome. I subsequently realized that the process of my first suggesting to you that a chunk of text should be removed because it was now wrong or redundant and asking you to concur before I then did the delete myself involved one too many steps ... all I really needed to do was make the suggestion and you could show your concurrence by simply doing the delete (or some other type of edit that I suggested) yourself. This protocol, of course, works both ways. And no text ever gets deleted or modified using this approach without both parties (viz. the "suggestor" and the "edit executor") agreeing to it. I just wanted this to be a background "clutter and garbage removal" process, and not a means for one of us to achieve the other's concurrence over something by twisting his arm with threats of deletion or anything - besides, you cannot delete ANYTHING on Wikipedia because there is a record history of all edits performed.

BTW, I regard all of the various section stati I wrote for you to be meta-text ... it informed you how I felt about the rest of the source discourse text in that section; whether I considered all the issues raised in that text to all be either resolved or now moot (and thus the section could be archived) or whether I considered the issue(s) being discussed in that section text to still be open / ongoing. You needn't bother to preserve that text as far as I'm concerned ... you just need to read it and act upon it (and that includes, say, not archiving something I suggested could be archived because you felt there were still open issues involved from your end). You clearly recognize the meta-text nature of my section stati comments because you are now putting it in "small font" ... your "small font" simply equates to my "bold font". If you would like us to adopt a convention of using only "small font" for what I'm calling meta-text that would be preferable to me too. But the bottom line is, meta-text needs to be deleted once read and acted upon by the recipient (such action including giving a reason why he refused to act upon it!). Does all of the foregoing make sense?

• I just replaced the 2 paragraphs that used to be here by the ones above. They represent what I should have written when I wrote my original paragraphs if I only had had more time to better wordsmith them when I originally posted them. Note that this small font comment is a meta-text comment and it can be deleted as soon as you have read it. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:24, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

-----------------------------------------------------

I went ahead and moved all the text that was here to its own new section immediately below this one. ITMT I consider what's left of this section to be somewhat of a CONSTRUCTION SITE ... BEWARE, MEN AT WORK! I will return later and try to tidy it up some more when I get the time. ITMT, I believe I have a spare hard hat if you need one. :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 18:41, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

-----------------------------------------------------

I have gone ahead and tidied up this section by deleting all the text that I have been waiting for you to delete thereby showing your concurrence with my recommendation that it should be removed because it was now all "old news". I did the deletes in 8 self-contained and easy to follow edit chunks identified as "text tidyup 1" through "text tidyup 8". If you feel that any of those deletions need restoring then go ahead and revert the deletions, but I think you'll find that everything I removed only pertains to closed, moot or non-issues. I would have also deleted the above two (now italicized) paragraphs too but I needed something on which to hang this current response post. I see that the latest bout of announced loan out activity during the last few days caused Clayton to be removed again from the main MCFC article which now correctly shows only 4 players loaned out - Onuoha, Bellamy, Weiss and Nielsen (and even he's questionable!). So that is now a closed issue and you can delete this paragraph along with the two above it if you agree. Let's try and focus on getting closure on everything rather than accumulating as much text (and thus potential open issues) as possible! :( Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 07:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll revert it when I archive it, but not here. I like having a record of everything that is said so I will restore it for personal use, but there's no need for it to be seen here anymore. Thanks anyway. Falastur2 ^Talk 16:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• Status of this section: I officially declare this section to be "Wikipedia Ground Zero" !!

I considered most of what was in this section to be old news back on Aug 20 BEFORE the new PST roll out - hence my "tidyup" deletes. POST PST roll out it is most definitely so. As for the text that still remains in this section here is my assessment of it. (1) I have captured the essence of the first paragraph over here in my PST Enhancement Proposal/Func. Spec. document (for lack of a better name) where it will be preserved, so the text can be simply deleted from here. (2) The second paragraph refers to / explains my two hypothetical EPL and UEFA squads that I initially set up in my sandbox PST. This is very old news now as the PST currently in the actual season article contains (a) the exact current UEFA squad which Mancini will be tweaking (viz. Milner will be added and someone needs to be removed to make way for him, presumably Robinho if he is sold in time) and re-registering in the next couple of days; and (b) a very close approximation to his current interim EPL squad (which Mancini will also have to tweak and finalize in the next couple of days too). So this text can also be deleted. (3) The third indented paragraph refers to my initial intended phasing of the PST roll outs which is now a moot issue too, and so this text can also be deleted as far as I am concerned.

Finally, the remainder of the text in this section is actually meta-text that addresses what was done with, or how to handle going forward, various portions of all the other text. As long as you've read it and comprehended it then this text too can also be deleted, which means that as far as I'm concerned this section is NO MORE ... it is a DEAD PARROT ... it is DECEASED ... and the only reason that I'm having to write this message, due to there still being some text left in this section, is mostly because you have insisted on nailing it to the perch! :(

As far as I'm concerned, our time on this planet is already too brief as it is, so I'll leave you to work out how to remove this section given your own rigorous chronological archiving rules. BTW, if you feel there was something addressed in this section that is still an unresolved issue then please bring it to my attention.

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:44, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Squad Status breakdown for the Manchester City first team squad

Also it was seem convenient, interesting and encyclopedic to perhaps provide a small summary of the amount of players satisfying each condition perhaps? i.e. "the squad for this season contains: 12 foreign players; 14 academy graduates; 18 home-grown players; 7 under-21s" (yes I made those figures up). In this example you could feasibly allow players to be double-counted - that is to say, if they are home-grown and an academy graduate you could count them for both statistics (or not, if you disagree) which would make an explanation that 'certain statuses supercede other statuses but do not remove them entirely' more necessary and yet more understandable, perhaps.
Falastur2 ^Talk 01:28, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

WRT your "yes I made those figures up" comment above, after seeing the arguments you've presented to me re the "Vuoso issue" I'm tempted to reply to you, "That's OK, you appear to enjoy making the squad up every season too, so why stop there?!" :)

Seriously though, I cannot write such a section until I know what the official MCFC first team squad for this upcoming season is (and I don't mean the UEFA and EPL registered squads; I mean the "first team squad" pool from which those squads will in turn be selected). So I won't be in a position to write that section as long as you and I have to wave our arms about and admit that determining the MCFC first team squad is "more art than science". Another of the reasons I cannot write anything is because somebody called Pwimageglow edited the main MCFC article on Aug 7 in order to put Adam Clayton out on loan when he wasn't even showing as being in the first team squad in the first place. Presumably it was Clayton's lack of inclusion in the first team squad in that article that caused you to agree with my reasoning here to remove him from the PST a week earlier.

So what I want to know is where were the Nigel de Jong styled editors to revert that uncitable edit when we really needed them? As I say, you guys continually come across as a clusterfuck that spends almost all its time trying to nail jello to the wall and justifying your edit and reversion decisions by shooting from the hip. I'm not going to spend my precious time writing something (such as you suggested above) only to have it immediately reverted as being INCONSISTENT with the main MCFC article and NOT CITING A SOURCE (because there is no way I could cite support for Adam Clayton either being in the first team squad or not). To even attempt to that would be a lose-lose situation for me ... and knowing my luck, I would probably get hit with another admin. warning to boot! As the expression goes ... once bitten, twice shy.

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 02:39, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The above paragraph was probably written mostly in frustration at seeing someone put Clayton out on loan over in the main MCFC article without first checking to see if he was even a First Team squad member. This frustration was then compounded when gonads added a citation to support that person's numbskullery! :( You can go ahead and delete the above italicized paragraph plus this one, but ONLY AFTER you first remove Clayton (period) from the First Team squad over in the main article).

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 02:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at this new section and table that I've added into my sandbox. Does this achieve the "small summary" that you were requesting above? NOTE WELL that I synchronized the numbers in that table with the latest version of the dreaded MCFC website "Players" tab which currently lists 38 first team squad players. All 4 loaned out players are listed there which accounts for 4 of the 7 players that currently do not get listed in the new version of the PST that you rolled out yesterday (which only has 31 entries). Two of the other 3 players are the ones that some numbskull has already tried to add back in to the new PST and I reverted (viz. Vidal and González) while the third one is Kelvin Etuhu. If you like the new table I'll go ahead and adjust the numbers to ignore those 3 players so that it is consistent with the current PST, and then you can roll it out too (or you can just go ahead and do that adjustment yourself before rolling it out). Hmmm, I just remembered that Etuhu has made something like 10 appearance for the first team (just not any time recently), so perhaps he should be added back into the PST, and the first team squad count (excluding loaned-out players) now becomes 32. Let me know which pieces of jello you would like to see nailed to the wall !! :(

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 08:26, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Just as an update on the table numbers here. On 8/20 when I wrote the above comment, there were only 38 players listed under the "Players" tab on the MCFC OS - because Caicedo had been removed pending his sale to West Ham after Avram Grant screwed up the loan deal (his loan would have been one too many for West Ham under EPL rules). Caicedo subsequently nixed that transfer deal because he did not like the terms and so he was added back into the list again a few days later (bringing it back up to 39). On 8/20 there were 31 entries in the article PST; the 7 missing players being the 4 out on loan (Onuoha, Bellamy, Weiss and Nielsen) plus Vidal and Gonzalez (who I consider to be only EDS) and Etuhu. I subsequently adjusted the "Squad Status Breakdown Table" in my sandbox to reflect the 31 players in the PST plus the 4 loanees (but ignoring the other 3 "fringe players" mentioned) as I said I would do up above.

Late yesterday, after all the earlier spate of transfer and loan business was done with, the comparable numbers were as follows: 38 players listed under the "Players" tab on the MCFC OS (39 less Robinho); 30 entries in the article PST (31 less Robhino); and a total of 35 accounted for in the "Squad Status Breakdown Table" in my sandbox reflecting the 30 players (31 less Robhino) in the PST plus 5 loanees (the other 4 plus Caicedo) - but still ignoring those other 3 "fringe players". We now need to agree what we do about those 3 players. We probably are already in agreement because we both feel the PST right now should only contain the players that are registered in one or both of the 25-man squads plus any of the the "U21" and "YTH" designated players that have already made their debut for the first team, and those 3 players don't satisfy either criterion. However, seeing only 35 players in that table when there are 38 listed in the MCFC OS is probably going to upset quite a few people.

To make things even more complicated, I just pulled up the MCFC OS "Players" tab and it is now listing Bojinov as a striker that is out on loan again (making 39 players in total)! As you can see someone is obviously working on this web page so hopefully that is a temporary regression glitch. But that page is proving a very unreliable "reliable source" for this information. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 01:50, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The addition of Bojinov was indeed a temporary glitch and he has been removed again. Now that the panoramic vista of players on this web page (which was always out of date a couple of weeks after it was updated) has finally been removed, hopefully, going forward, the powers that be responsible for this area of the MCFC OS will feel more motivated to keep it current and accurate.

Take a look at what I've done here. I think the expediency of adding an additional column to the "Squad Status Breakdown" table solves the above problem of how to easily identify "fringe players" in the "official" first team squads (of any team, not just MCFC). Consequently, the totally deterministic rule for which players get included in the PST will now simply become: all the players listed under the MCFC OS "Players" tab LESS the players out on loan LESS the players identified as "fringe players". Right now, my definition of "fringe players" = "players yet to debut for the first team" and that definition works to keep ALL of the players out of the Man. City and Man. United PSTs that I would not want / expect to see listed there. Unfortunately, that simple definition does NOT work for Etuhu whom I have always considered to be a "fringe player". He hasn't played for the first team in nearly 2 years and he's not in either of Mancini's 25-man squads. Of course, one solution to this would be to simply add "LESS Kelvin Etuhu" to the end of my above definition! :)

Your thoughts please. I need to be done with this ASAP. Tx. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:40, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

The courtesy of a response to the above question sometime before the end of this season would be very much appreciated! :)
Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 21:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. Recently I've been feeling really drained of energy and it's been affecting my Wikipedia usage - if you check my edits since I returned from holiday you can see I did a bit of stuff on the 31st, then I idle-mindedly tinkered with a table on my userspace for a while the next day, but otherwise I've barely touched this website in a week. I'll try not to let it affect me so much in future - at least as per these discussions.

Feeling "drained of energy" the week after you return from a rest and recuperation vacation is NOT a good sign! And yes, you appeared to me to be pretty active as a Wikipedia editor on transfer deadline night. BTW, did you notice that I tidied up all those "Transferred In", "Transferred Out", "Loaned In", "Loaned Out", etc. sections on that night so that it is much clearer which 6 pieces of information have to be added for each citation? Once an editor realizes that 6 items of info. are needed for each reference - viz. an RS article title, an RS article URL, a publisher name, a work name, a publication date for the RS article, and the date that the RS citation was first added to the article - the "References" section takes on a much more uniform and professional appearance. BTW, if you take a look at the "References" section in the current article you will see that you have already violated all my good work (when you added the Joe Hart PotM reference) by citing the MCFC web site as a publisher instead of being a work created by the Manchester City Football Club. Tch, tch, tch !! (shakes reprimanding finger at Falustur2) :(
Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Anyway. Yeah, those guys puzzle me too. I'm somewhat inclined to suggest a rule changing "fringe player" from "with no appearances for the first team" to something like "no first team appearances in the last two/three seasons - i.e. something which suggests that the player is pretty clearly frozen out of the squad. Obviously for players such as Gonzalez this counts too since - not having been here for two or three years, he clearly didn't get any games before he joined, so the concept of a player who has come through the academy but it yet to play being fringe remains - it's not just a reclassification to get rid of out-of-favour former players. That, or since it's essentially Etuhu on his own to whom this applies, we just call him a special case and reclassify him as fringe, then keep your idea - rechecking your statement, that's pretty much what you suggested at the end of your second-last comment. Let's just go with that, actually. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

BTW, my last comment re simply adding "LESS Kelvin Etuhu" to the end of my earlier definition was sarcasm, but when I made that comment I didn't know the correct hex code for the sky blue pink with yellow borders font to indicate it as such! :(

I want whatever solution we come up with for excluding "fringe players" to be both GENERAL (and work for most "fringe players" at other EPL clubs) AND intuitively SIMPLE so that it satisfies Occam's Razor / KISS principles. I would rather include Etuhu in the PST than come up with something way too convoluted in order to exclude him. In fact, if you are observant, you will notice that I have already added him back into the City PST over in my sandbox. I think the topic of who should be included in a club's season article "Playing statistics" section is an issue that plagues all of the EPL club's season articles and not just City's, so a solution to the issue should be aimed at that level and not just be City-centric.

This probably should be the topic of a new section as this one is getting to be a little long, but I 'll leave that up to you since I'm doing all the heavy lifting here plus I don't want to keep creating new sections on your Talk Page. In fact, I really want to close out the ones we currently have going and be done here! One of the reasons that I completed more squad analysis worksheets (viz. for United, Chelsea and Arsenal) over in my control document was to see how the issue of "fringe players" in the PST applies to other clubs. There are currently more "fringe players" listed in the Man. United season article PST than you can shake a stick at so we are actually in pretty damn good shape here. I started this new section over in my User Page control document to address this topic. I would like to hear your feedback on my initial draft text there. Tx. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 22:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the method by which I keep track of who belongs in my PST and who is officially in the first team squad this week and reconcile all the differences is here. As you can determine from my update log I continue to keep the list of players synchronized with the MCFC website squad listing and all of the transfer and loan news reported there too. There are 38 players on my list and the 31 that appear in the PST are only those with digits appended to their squad status codes. I am assuming that you check in on this document on a regular basis (which is why I have been fairly anal about signing / timestamping all my updates to it so you can follow them). If you haven't been checking it regularly then going forward you might want to start doing so at least every 4 or 5 days. If nothing else that will allow me to remove old signatures and/or log entries once the text has stabilized or the changes are now ancient history. Although it originally started life as a posted suggestion / proposal to you on your Talk Page, I now consider this "document" to be a sort of mini functional spec. for all the changes that I have recommended and/or have already implemented. Please let me know that you understand what I'm tryting to do here.

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 09:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Nice work, and I certainly will follow it. If you want to make the edits to that table I will add the table to the article tomorrow morning, just before I go on holiday. If you look at the article, I made your little codes analysis fully collapsible so that by default it barely takes up any space at all - hope you approve. For now I think the references to PL and UEFA provisions can be left to refer to the cited sources, so I'm happy to leave it there but when I return from holiday next week I will work on a more ready solution - if you have any ideas in the meantime feel free to tinker and we can discuss the situation when I get back. You've been full of good ideas so far - and your efforts have put mine to shame, I can honestly say - so I suspect that you will quite probably come up with a much better solution than I will in the same amount of time. I'll ponder it while I'm away though, and see what I come up with. Falastur2 ^Talk 22:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, I reworked that table and now it is good to go. The above "new section and table" link (three paragraphs above) still links to it despite the fact that I've moved that section in my sandbox document. In fact I've moved quite a few sections around so that my sandbox document is better synchronized to what you rolled out in the article. I really liked what you did in making my table collapsible and placing it AFTER the PST as a sort of legend definition for the PST - which is actually what it started life as! However, please note that I had a lot of problems with getting that table to collapse which are documented here. I believe I have now fixed it. It now works for me in IE; hopefully I haven't broken it for everybody else! I think the problem was caused by your not giving the table a name (not even a null name) - presumably so that all that would show up on the user's screen would be "show". You can see from that dialogue with gonads what each of us saw. Once I gave the hidden table a name it began to work for me, although it was clearly working for gonads the way you originally had it.

Anyway, besides the fact that this is the only way that the collapsible table will work for me (and presumably for lots of other users too), I think I actually prefer the little tab displaying "Squad Status (show)" being there rather than just the word "show" all by itself. The reason I prefer it is that all of the encoding in the "registered squad" columns (labeled "Reg." in the PST) still has yet to be defined too, and I think I want that definition to be handled in a similar manner - viz. by a collapsible table accessed by a tab labeled "Reg. (show)". This table will, of course, be much smaller and less complicated than the current one and, since you introduced a double column under the PST so that the RS citations could be displayed side by side, it might actually be possible to place the "Reg." table tab in the right hand column alongside the other collapsible table tab. If not, the new tab will just have to sit underneath the existing "Squad Status" tab. This is the next thing I'll be working on while you are away on vacation and I'll probably just roll that one out myself once I'm happy with it. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 06:32, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I just had the following thoughts about the positioning of that new "Breakdown Table" in the article. Originally, in my sandbox document, my sequence of "Status Code" definition ran as follows: (1) fully define and explain the new "Squad Status" terms, such as "YOUTH" and "HOMEGROWN", in the inline text; (2) summarize those new terms in my (now collapsible) table and introduce the new TLA coding for them; (3) use those TLA codes in the "Breakdown Table"; and (4) finally use those TLA codes in the PST. Currently in the article there is no step (1), the PST is presented first utilizing TLA codes that have yet to be defined for the user, yet he can immediately find out what they mean by looking up the definition of those TLAs by clicking on the collapsible table tab. The moving around of sections in my sandbox document that I alluded to above was to align my document to that new sequence ... which is, if we ignore the initial presentation of the inline text of old step (1): first old step (4) - present the PST; then old step (2) - present the collapsible table of TLA and terminology definitions; and finally old step (3) - utilize the newly defined TLA codes in the "Breakdown Table".

Note that the "Breakdown Table" now really ought to come last in the sequence (viz. after the TLAs have been defined in the collapsible table) because it utilizes those TLA codes. Which means that that "Breakdown Table", if correctly placed, will sit between the PST and all the transfer and loan information, all of which is really a natural follow on from the PST. I don't know how you feel about that consequences of placing the new table between the PST and the old transfer and loan sections, and I don't have a solution to it to proffer to you. All I'm doing here is simply pointing out one of the consequences of the new ordering of these three items in your article. I don't think that the non-inclusion of my lengthy inline text in the season article is an issue here because I don't introduce the TLA codes in that text. Those codes are only introduced in the collapsible table; thus it is the re-ordering of the other three items that is the cause of the problem ... if, indeed, you feel there is a problem here.

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 07:33, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

That's all fine, I agree completely. And I apologise about the troubles you experienced with the collapsible table - I hadn't realised that you would have javascript disabled (I believe that was the problem) and the solution that you and gonads devised I freely admit is better than my solution. I agonised over having no text showing but didn't think of creating the extra row on top to allow the show/hide button to stay where it is, so in the end I gave up and went with the solution that you saw. Having seen your counter-solution I wish I'd thought of it in the first place.

Re: the order of placement of the different sections, I tend to follow the accepted Wikipedia position, which of course is mainly centred around the idea that these articles exist primarily for the purposes of dispensing as much useful information to casual readers as possible in as short an amount of time while not sacrificing quality or style - that is, the focus of the article should always be on the bits that casual readers want to read first. Where terminology in tables is ambiguous, WP then recommends placing a section to follow which explains it thus to the reader. Thus I kept the PST at the top of the section and placed the explanation stuff below. With the codes duly explained, the squad breakdown can be rolled out afterwards with no fear. Conveniently, this is exactly the same order in which you have no decided upon for your own works. Please do roll out the squad breakdown when you're finished working on it by the way. I'm sure it will contribute greatly, and the sooner it can be put in the article, the better. Falastur2 ^Talk 08:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

I did not add the "Breakdown Table" while you were on vacation. This section is still ongoing IMO. You probably need to acquaint yourself with this section on my Talk Page to get up to date with this particular topic on your return. You will also need to read everything else on my Talk Page that follows that section in order to get up to speed with everything else that has been discussed in the interim. Happy reading.  :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 03:12, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you read this section yet? Do you have comments? Do all those collapsible tables solve the issue of how to bury all that text? Note that in the material organization I'm now recommending the "Squad Status Breakdown Table" would appear in the article BEFORE the PST, so all my concerns expressed to you just before you left on vacation would now be moot. I need your feedback on this so we can put this issue to bed. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 00:33, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Just read it all through and I like it - it all seems accurate, understandable, correct, informative, and all the other stuff you'd want from it. It fills up perhaps a little bit more space than you might like, but we can't have everything perfect so perhaps that is a price we must pay. There are possible solutions - putting the info in two columns or placing tables side by side - but really that just distorts the tables when they are opened, so I'm not desperate to improvise a solution - as I say, eventually we must accept something not quite looking perfect, and it's a pretty small price to pay. Perhaps next season or some time we should have a discussion about a better layout for the article as a whole, allowing tables such as these to be placed down the bottom where they are readable yet don't get in the way of data lower down, but I don't think that it's a big enough problem that we need to worry about it right now. Anyway, I'd be happy to see you release those tables into the actual article. They are impressive work, and a job well done. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I think my latest batch of edits to the MCFC season article paves the way for "allowing tables such as these to be placed down the bottom where they are readable yet don't get in the way of data lower down" the article. By moving the 2 original collapsible tables down to the bottom of the article (and directly linking to them from the PST header) this now allows the possibility of adding all that new text into the beginning of this new section. However, now I don't know where we would insert the "Squad Status Breakdown" table into the article. Directly under the PST would probably be the best bet. What do you think?

BTW, I feel all that new text still needs at least one more wordsmithing pass over it before it is publication-ready, but I need to convince myself it really fits into the article in a much better manner than we've so far come up with before I invest anymore of my time in it. I'd be just as happy if we could do without it (that way I wouldn't have to revisit it again). However, if you still feel, like I do, that some explanation of how the five TLA codes are hierarchical in nature, with some codes completely subsuming another, and why, then I don't see that we can avoid having to include that text. It really comes down to a question of how well-informed you can assume an "uninformed intelligent reader" (the level at which any encyclopaedia article should be pitched) of the MCFC article is going to be! Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 00:50, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I do feel they're necessary, and I like the way that that section is laid out and slots into the article. I'm now quite content with how all that blurb is laid out, though there is of course still the question of that table for how many players there are for each code category. Hmm...honestly I'm not so sure any more. I find myself bending more to the viewpoint now that such statistics aren't as necessary or relevant as they were - much more important is who is and who isn't in the 25-man squads. Also I fear that that table would clutter the article, more and more, and contrary to our recent actions collapsing more and more tables isn't the right option, not to my mind. But that's just my opinion. Hmmm... Falastur2 ^Talk 23:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, we're getting there. I had to change the way the citation references to the UEFA and EPL R&R docs. in the "Squad Status" and "Player Eligibility" collapsible table footers were handled before I could add any of the new collapsible "single-row tables" (containing the newly "buried" text) into the article here. As you have doubtless already observed for yourself, I have now added 7 of the 9 proposed collapsibles to that new section of the article. The 2 missing ones are the first two covering the "Squad registration process".

The "UEFA collapsible" is still yet to be written, and the reason for that is because all of that old "inline text" (now "buried" in 8 of the 9 single-row collapsible tables) was written from the perspective of the new EPL R&R on this topic, with reference only being made to the UEFA R&R where I saw that it differed - which, in hindsight, was a bit of an ass-backward approach to take, but it reflected how I had originally attempted to get my hands around this issue. The lack of orthogonality in my original approach only became apparent when I initially created the various "collapsible cells" to drop the individual portions of my original "inline text" into based on the various topics I had addressed in it. I had discussed the EPL player registration process because that was what was changing for this season, so I had had to distinguish the "new way" from the "old way". OTOH, the UEFA player registration process was already in place (even if it too had changed only a few seasons back) so I had felt no need to discuss it. If I had written my original text from the UEFA R&R perspective, with reference only being made to the new EPL R&R where I saw that it differed from the UEFA R&R, the missing topic would have been covered.

So the fact that one out of the two "collapsible cells" is still "TBD"; plus the fact that I'm not convinced that discussing the actual player registration process might not be going a bit beyond what is actually needed in the article to explain a player's eligibility to play in a competition; plus the fact that if it is still necessary, then what I've done so far probably represents only a half-assed job if I don't also discuss the "squad re-registration process" in addition to the original "squad registration process" (which would probably require in turn a couple more "collapsible cells", one each for UEFA and the EPL); plus the fact that I'm hesitant to put any more effort into this area until I see how well the other stuff is received (meaning that I want to see whether or not other editors will yank that new section back out of the article because they think it is too much detail and/or not solely applicable to Man. City); are all reasons why I held that topic back in my recent edits to the article. To my mind, all the ramifications of squad re-registration still represent the biggest potential "gotcha" in all of the changes I have done to the PST and the article WRT this subject. So for right now I'm in a "wait-and-see" mode WRT the two (or possibly more) "collapsible cells" addressing the "squad (re-)registration process" topic, but at least everything is now set up in the article so that these additional "collapsible cells" can be cleanly and easily added to it if and when it is determined that they are required.

The whole subject of the handling of this text is really quite off-topic for this section, which should really only be focused on what information goes into, and what we should ultimately do with, the "Squad Status Breakdown (SSB)" table, but I'm damned it I'm going to invest any more of my time doing further restructuring of your Talk Page for you - that ultimately should be your responsibility - so it will have to remain intertwined here. WRT the SSB table, I'm also beginning to see it as also possibly introducing lots of meaningless statistics into the article. I see its main value (now) as representing a good explanation for why every player listed under the MCFC OWS "Players" tab does not get a row in the MCFC article PST. I have tried to develop these thoughts here from a general EPL club perspective, as opposed to the usual City-centric (one might call it almost "tribal") approach that you guys repeatedly apply to these sort of issues.

If you read the MCFC SSB columns (in the table in my control document to which I just linked you) from left to right, the 2nd column reflects the 38 first team squad players that are shown listed on the MCFC OWS, the 3rd, 4th and 5th columns identify those first team squad players that are currently omitted from the article PST, leaving an "effective first team squad" size of 31 identified in the 6th column - which correctly represents the number of OWS first team squad players with a row in the PST currently in the MCFC season article (which, due to the recent first team debuts of EDS players Mee and Guidetti in the League Cup fixture against West Brom, now contains 33 entries). These 31 players consist of the 25 senior players (as registered in the two UEFA and EPL squads represented by the 7th and 8th columns) plus 6 youth players, one of whom (Balotelli) being "U21" rather than "YTH", causes RSC to be bumped from the UEFA squad.

This deterministic process also works very nicely for the other "Big 4" clubs that I did worksheet analyses for if you look at those worksheets (presented in section 1.3.5 of that control document), the corresponding SSBs (presented in section 1.6), and the resultant PSTs (linked into section 2 at the end of the document). Note that when I originally started this "project" over a month ago, I only ever intended generating PSTs for MCFC and MUFC (because those are the only two clubs I have kept this sort of statistics data for in the past) but after I completed the worksheets for Chelsea and Liverpool I decided that those PSTs would possibly make interesting test cases (particularly the Liverpool PST as discussed elsewhere on this Talk Page - discussed by me, that is, as you have not yet granted me the courtesy of a response!).

So even if the Man. City SSB does not get added to the MCFC season article it has nevertheless proved a useful tool for me in addressing the issue of who gets an entry in the PST. This topic is also addressed here in my control document ... once again I'm waiting for your feedback and comments on this section.
Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 23:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The PST Squad Status information going forward

Finally, let me address the issue of what you might wish to do once Mancini registers his 25-man squads with both the EPL (at the end of this month for the first half of the upcoming season) and UEFA (I'm not quite sure when exactly the Europa League registration deadline is, but I'm assuming it is probably the same date). If my understanding of the two squad registration requirements is correct (Step 1), and my understanding of the various players' ages and youth backgrounds is also correct (Step 2), and my application of the two sets of requirements to all the players currently listed in the latest version of the PST (Step 3) is also correct, then the above status codes are actually quite objective pieces of information (I won't go so far as to say "uncontentious" because as we all saw with my recent go-around with gonads, there are times and situations where even the information he is now defending from change was, only a few days ago, quite contentious). My assigned squad stati merely classifies all the current First Team squad players into four useful pools, and it does not try to second guess Mancini's ultimate 25-man "EPL squad" and 25-man "UEFA squad" selections (should they differ).

However, after both those 25-man squads are announced you could possibly then modify the above stati to suitably reflect which competitions the various players are eligible to participate in (which is the whole purpoose of this classification process). How that is best done is a topic of discussion for another day. Because the wisdom of going beyond what I've already done in "Step 3" above is something that needs some careful thought. If you did decide to go in that direction, the "squad status" information would change twice per season since the both squads have to be registered at the end of every transfer window (thus allowing newly acquired and loaned-in players to be added, and newly sold and loaned-out players to be removed from the prior registration) which would create a similar situation as exists for the new squad numbers every preseason ... and that might create simply way too much editing contention.

Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 19:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey MLITH, I like this. I like this alot. Although I'm not quite sure if a change of this magnitude is warranted purely on the views of the three of us. I would love to see this taken to the talk pages of the article in question to gain a much wider considered concensus. I understand Falastur2 might be taking a break from Wikipedia matters for a while so doing this might move things along with more speed. If I would offer one piece of constructive comment, it would be to try and keep the text as concise as possible. You have many words, perhaps a few less would not impact the intent. It's a lot to take onboard. I would be more than happy to back some form of change, especially the inclusion of the squad status code. Perhaps something like this. Excuse the use of your namespace. Hope this helps. gonads³ 19:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I was going to post a response here to state that I had modified your sandbox PST template but you obviously noticed that I had already done that before I even had a chance. I have fixed the Adam Johnson typo above. I must have been thinking Michael Johnson when I made that error :( .... but the context of the grouping (plus your knowledge of the player) should have told you what I meant.

I am currently on the road and although I have web access right now it is not guaranteed for the next few days. I completely disagree with your approach to obtaining consensus. You have it ass-backward. You obtain consensus by initially getting a buy-in at the lowest level ... just a few people at first. Then you take it to the next level and get more people to buy-in. Then the next level after that ... and so on until you get consensus at the top level. It is inherently a bottom-up process in which the ideas get scrubbed at each level so that what gets presented at the next level is a more refined concept/model etc. that has been improved at each of the earlier levels. To take a half-baked idea and to just throw it out there and hope everyone will embrace it is tantamount to failure, and if you fail the first time people will reject the idea / concept out of hand the next time you come back with it (even if you have significantly refined and perfected it by then). People just remember their first reactions to the original half-baked idea they were asked to judge and stick by their initial reaction.

For example, just look at the improvements we have already made between the two of us. Falastur2 may have further improvements and enhancements to suggest. I don't want to go public with anything until I have his buy-in. And then I want it to be Falastur2 that takes it to the next level(s) in order to achieve however much buy-in is required. If the Wikipedia community recognizes that the article is "his baby" they will much more readily accept the updates coming from him. I discovered in my go-around with you that my doing any changes as a newbie, other than perhaps minor edits, is pretty much a case of my pushing a soft noodle here. That is one of the biggest problems with Wikipedia – it is very cliquey!

WRT you comments re my communication skills: I am almost universally considered an exemplary communicator. People ALWAYS remark on how erudite and lucid I am. I have multiple degrees in communications and computer science. It is you, my friend, who needs to reconsider your own skills in this department. You need to learn to say what you mean and mean what you say. More verbiage from you during our initial contact would have gone a long, long way towards preventing what happened. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't quite work like that, MLITH, and I would only ever refer to this project as "my own" as tongue-in-cheek. I recognise the contributions of others, and while I might look upon others taking over the article with the slightest similar feeling to a parent seeing his child growing up and living his own life, wishing that he could continue to care for the child, I still recognise that at some point this article must divorce itself of me. As a newer user you might be seen by some as less experienced, though that notion can be dispelled by reasoned and well-thought-out actions. You would never be thought of as less significant or your points less valid because of your newness however. Of the literal handful of Wikipedians who know about my history with these articles, those users might at the most give a nod to anything I put into the article, but none of them would specifically go out of their way to check everything with me first and none of them should think that they can't object to anything I do because of my background here. It's only right and good that this article is shared equally between all, and if you have ideas - which clearly you do - then you shouldn't hesitate to raise them, and not just on my talk page.

Otherwise, guys let's really not let ourselves fall back into the previous dispute, eh? All very well refer to consensus if necessary because it's clear we aren't all in agreement on how it works here, but let's not use the backhanded insults and accusations, please?

As for the specific issue at hand...I just need another day or two to decide exactly where I lie on this issue. Falastur2 ^Talk 23:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

gonads, WRT to our sandbox PST here, I like the idea of a Legend Table much better than just plain footnote text because, down the road, it allows us to much more easily to define any new codes added to the "squad status" column of the PST with an associated new row entry in the Legend Table. For instance, after Mancini has named both his EPL and Europa League squads there will probably be some players that can play in ALL competitions (viz. those registered in both squads - e.g., Carlos Tévez - plus all of the U21 players); some players that can play in all competitions except for the EPL (because Mancini did not pick them for the "EPL squad" - e.g., possibly Jô); some players that can play in all competitions except for the Europa League (because Mancini did not pick them for the "UEFA squad" - e.g., possibly Michael Johnson); and some that can only play in the domestic cup competitions (because Mancini did not pick them for either of those squads - e.g., Kelvin Etuhu). We will probably want to extend the "squad status" encoding to cover each of these scenarios. This is what I had in mind WRT my comments in the "Going forward" section of my initial post above. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 00:35, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Falastur2. WRT your comment: "You would never be thought of as less significant or your points less valid because of your newness however," I'm sorry, but I think a "let's beat up on the newbie" attitude was a big part of the problem. I only have to read the interchanges to reaffirm my opinion. However, that is behind us now. I only ask that you acknowledge what happened and the parts both of you played in it, and that you not retroactively sanitize it. Honestly, my comments were not intended as backhanded insults nor accusations ... the accusations have already been made. I can move on and I have done so, but I am NOT going to pretend that nothing ever happened, nor will I allow either of you to lay the blame for it all at my feet. You both have to learn to take responsibility for your own actions (or lack thereof). My comments merely reflect that what happened has given me an initial impression of how things are done around here (at least some of the time). If you think that impression is false then you each need to examine your own conscience and see what part your own actions may have played in causing me to now have those impressions.

Was I unlucky (as you stated elsewhere)? Yes, I was possibly "unlucky" in the same way that Vieira was "unlucky" to be red carded in the Internazionale game. But to call Vieira "unlucky" WRT his sending off is just to play with words IMO. Personally, I don't think luck had very much to do with that incident. To my mind Materazzi was 100% to blame for the cause of both the incident and all that subsequently ensued, just as he was in the Zinedine Zidane incident in the 2006 World Cup final. To dismiss both those incidents as simply being cases of someone's "bad luck" is to deny what really happened. And I won't let you do that in this case. The reported "Edit War" incident against someone that had only be a member of Wikipedia for a couple of days and the wording of that report was pure casuistry and maliciousness. And neither of you have taken the effort to show any good will and try to redress the outcome of that report on my behalf. OTOH, I feel the effort I have put in here in the last few days to share my ideas with both of you shows more than adequate good faith from my end.

I just want to see these changes done. I am quite happy to scrub them and refine them with both of you in order that when they are implemented (viz. the edit to the PST is acually done) the updates stick and are welcomed by others, rather than immediately reverted with a curt "that's not how we do things around here". I just don't want to spend the next 3 months of my life doing (n+1) edits against n reversions (and getting into all of the kind of confrontation that that entails) in order to make my ideas see fruition. Because I don't have the time and I don't like contention. I'm an ideas man. I'm also very detail-oriented, so I can also implement my own ideas. Usually, I just set direction and let my employees get on with things. I'm just not used to having to write the great American novel in order to get something so straightforward implemented. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 01:36, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Apropos your "I just need another day or two to decide exactly where I lie on this issue." That is fine by me, I suspected you would. I would rather you carefully think it through and check out all my codifications of the players (especially Shay Given) rather than just jump at it and assume I have all the answers. In particular, you both need to go and verify my interpretation of both the existing UEFA and new EPL registration requirements. Which is why I went to the trouble of posting my interpretation of them both here in my own words, rather than just cut-and-pasting the text in from elsewhere, or just letting you both assume that my interpretation was the same as your own. Misinterpretation of these requirements is the single most common cause for why people come to very different conclusions about the ramifications for various clubs of the new EPL squad registration requirement. For instance, I have seen many people miscomprehend the threshold date for what constitutes an "under 21" player as 1/1/2011. I made that same mistake myself. The other common mistake (that I also initially made) is to assume that EPL HGP = UEFA ACG.

Just please don't take as long to convince yourself of the veracity (or even lack thereof) of my work as you guys took to finally agree on Jérôme Boateng's transfer fee (almost two months by my reckoning!). This information needs to be posted ASAP because the audience for it is NOW. In a few weeks time it will be yesterday's news. We can discuss how we encode the various squad choices that Mancini announces once we have this first piece in place. Rome wasn't built in a day. BTW, I see this as something that the "MCFC Season 2010-11" article can blaze a trail with. Get it in place ASAP and let the editors of other club's seasons' articles come and admire our solution to this issue rather than spend the next 6 months socializing a consensus everywhere for it. Think horse NOT llama. I sense a lot of paralysis by analysis in both your approaches. It's no wonder that the new Wembley Stadium took so long to build and ran so much over budget ... and it still hasn't got the pitch right yet! This is a chance to be ambassadors for you country!  :) Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry (talk) 05:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Out of respect for this user's talk page I shall be concluding my discussions on this subject here. I look forward to discussing it elsewhere, if given the opportunity. gonads³ 23:33, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• Status of this section: This is another section that contains only old news and which can be archived or deleted right now as far as I am concerned. Technically, this is the OLDEST section currently displayed on your Talk Page - look at the Aug 3 signature time stamp of the first message in it - plus this section has also not been added to since Aug 5. So, theoretically, it could/should be moved up to the very top of your Talk Page. What happened is this ...

• On Aug 3 I made my original PST enhancement proposal post here which ended with a section entitled "Going forward" which contained the first two paragraphs of this section followed by my old format signature (as you can see). The subsequent comments posted by you, gonads and myself re my proposal over the next couple of days were then posted here below my concluding signature and they constitute the remainder of the text in this section.
• On Aug 8 I decided I wanted to take control of my original proposal text and use it as a sort of control document, so I deleted the posted text from your Talk Page here and moved it all over to the User Page of my sandbox here, replacing it in situ with the text and links that I'm now requesting remain anchored at the top of your Talk Page (or at least somewhere on your Talk Page) which I signed with my (then) new format signature.
• The text I pulled over to my sandbox User Page was everything in my original post up until the "Going forward" section which I left in place here - because all the commentary that remains in this section was "hung off" of it - with a new section heading (the current one) added above it.
• Every section on your Talk Page that exists between the original proposal section and this section has been created since I did that rearrangement on Aug 8.

I hope that clarifies matters a little for you. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry ^Talk 01:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)