User talk:HJensen/Archives/2009/April

Miami Masters

A request for mediation has been filed with the Mediation Committee that lists you as a party. The Mediation Committee requires that all parties listed in a mediation must be notified of the mediation. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Miami Masters, and indicate whether you agree or disagree to mediation. If you are unfamiliar with mediation on Wikipedia, please refer to Wikipedia:Mediation. Please note there is a seven-day time limit on all parties responding to the request with their agreement or disagreement to mediation. Thanks, Yosef1987 (talk) 14:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I have decided to stay out of these issues. They always turn into a silly mess (don't click if you are on dial up) that leads nowhere, and often become controlled by editors who have too much time and behave as Wikipedia is some international court. Pertaining to the particular matter, I recently made this edit, which perhaps could serve as a compromise. Best wishes, --HJensen, talk 15:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Wozniacki

I've responded to your removal of the {{fansite}} tag on the talkpage, in this edit. I'd be interested in your point of view. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Our posts crossed. :-) I have left a note on your talk page. --HJensen, talk 18:11, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

As for why so many tags, it's because the tennis bios, in my opinion, go way over the top for summarising a player's achievements. But I'm more than happy to discuss it. I've said it before (and I'm very likely to say it again), why does Wikiproject Tennis have precisely zero FAs other than video game articles which were promoted through work of a different project? Some of the major issues are:

• Excessive intricate detail.
• POV prose.
• Proseline (which makes for poor reading, not exactly "engaging" prose)
• Lack of inline citation - most bios seem to rely almost entirely on the ATP or WTA website as a general ref.

I'm still trying to get some out-of-project advice on some of the articles to see if anyone not heavily related to these articles can shed some light on what could make an article a GA or FA. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

In response to "one could put such a text on any wikipedia article", I'm not so sure. Take, for instance, Ipswich Town F.C.. It's a featured article, and it has a history section. The history section is relatively brief, 10 paras to describe 130 years of history. It is, however, forked to another featured article, History of Ipswich Town F.C. which goes into further, more "intricate detail" (as it should, given it's about just the history of the club, nothing else), and it hits 29 paragraphs. People searching for Ipswich Town may not be overwhelmingly fascinated by the plethora of detail on its history, hence the fork. Similarly, people searching for these tennis players are probably not fascinated by who they defeated by in each and every tournament and what score by which they won or lost. That detail is probably useful for a fork, like "Joe Blogg's career history". Similarly, but something I haven't dare tackle yet, is the overwhelming statistical data on each bio page. Again, another fork is screaming out here in each case. Approaches similar to this have resulted in the football and cricket wikiprojects making hundreds of GAs and FA/FLs. Wikiproject Tennis is sorely lacking in this respect. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:22, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that some is too detailed. But I think that a "fan" tag is higly inappropriate. As for your Ipswich example: Take as a (random) example: "Narrowly missing automatic promotion in 2004–05, Royle took Ipswich once more to the play-offs, but once more they lost to West Ham United in the semi-finals.[34] 2005–06 saw a campaign plagued by injuries and Ipswich finished a disappointing 15th — the club's lowest finish since 1966.[35] Joe Royle resigned by mutual consent on 11 May 2006.[36] A month later, Jim Magilton was officially announced as the new manager and former Academy Director Bryan Klug was appointed to assist as first team coach.[37]" By god, that is way, way too detailed for me, and may only be relevant for fans of English soccer. So I disagree there (but I won't tag it; don't worry). People looking up a tennis player is probably mostly interested in the player's results (that is after all mostly the interesting aspect of a tennis player). And the ATP/WTA are the authoritative sources on those. So, your intentions are good but you have taken a too aggressive and indiscriminate approach for my taste (Tagging the Federer and Nadal articles are quite over the top with their many inline citations, which I btw have ocasionally spend some time spiffing up - but I don't really care about all this tennis quarreling here anymore.) Cheers. --HJensen, talk 18:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Funny, you're right, I'll actually go ahead and change that. Recentism is all-too-easy to fall into. And that's something that current tennis player bio's is rife with. It's inconceivable to me that Becker's entire stupendous and record-breaking career is dealt with in fewer paragraphs than Wozniacki's 2008 season where there's so much intricate detail, as a regular reader I can't even easily see if she actually won anything! Okay, we can agree to differ in general, but I am interested in whether there's any intention to get any tennis articles to GA or FA status? This project is not about individual taste, it's about improving the encyclopedia. Articles need to meet the FA or GA criteria to be promoted. I don't see that being of much concern in most tennis articles, which is a real shame.

Re: recentism in those Ipswich articles, hopefully I've fixed it up a bit, thanks for pointing it out. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

As for tagging Fed & Nadal, well inline citations are fine, but both articles still have "too much intricate detail". It's unfortunate that someone saw fit to redirect {{fansite}} to fancruft. In absolute terms, these articles do not properly summarise these athlete's achievements. I'm not suggesting that every single detail isn't correctly cited (on these occasions) but that does not hide the fact that there's way too much bloat in each season's description. Please, let me know what you think about the GA/FA situation. Football (6 featured topics, 50 FAs [including retired and current players], 90 FLs [including national and third division teams], around 200 GAs), Cricket (28 FAs, 25 FLs, 59 GAs) and then Tennis (2 FAs [both video games], 4 GAs). I don't think Wikipedia as a whole has a grudge against the project, but it seems shocking that the project has, essentially, failed in its task to gain "recognition" for individual articles. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:01, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

A quick response (a "shot from the hip") on GA/FA: One should concentrate on some of the great retired players like Court, Navratilova, King, Ashe, Borg, McEnroe, to name a few that just comes to my mind. All have great careers and great and interesting "side-stories"; they could become great FAs (with their ass-long results list relegated to subarticles—or "forks"). I think active players are simply too problematic to bring to even GAs less likely FAs. They are just too unstable. So, one should imo improve the "old" ones (And as an aside, I cannot see why it should be the Wozniacki article's "fault" that the Becker article lacks detail.) Cheers.--HJensen, talk 19:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, good to hear you're interested! 100% agree that it's much, much easier to focus on a retired player. It is of continual surprise that none of the tennis icons (Becker, Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Navratilova, Graf, Henin) aren't above a B-class article. As for Wozniacki, not necessarily saying it's the fault of the article that it's in more depth than Becker, but, honestly, 29 paragraphs for 2008? Really? That must defy "intricate detail" surely? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:10, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, really. Number of paragraphs per se say not much.--HJensen, talk 22:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

WTA Tour

I'd like your opinion: is it appropriate to call an article on the 1971 Virginia Slims Circuit WTA Tour 1971? Regardless of sponsor, the other yearly articles are called WTA Tour YYYY, but I am not sure whether we would say that the 1971 tour can be considered part of WTA Tour history. Your thoughts? Ordinary Person (talk) 03:06, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm. Tough one. I am not sufficiently familiar with the WTA tour history to have an opinion there. I guess a related problem arises with the ATP Masters Series which (I guess) had another heading in early days (like they now have the '1000' addition). In any case, my immediate take is that if the WTA had nothing to do with this 1971 cicuit, I would think it is misleading to use their name. Best, --HJensen, talk 06:50, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Maybe a better approach would be to start separate articles for Virginia Slims Circuits up until the WTA era. Ordinary Person (talk) 07:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't...

...give up. We've made excellent strides in improving this article. I know it can become too much sometimes but we've got to battle on. Best regards. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I know, it is just so annoying when it is then same thing over and over again. Everytime I start enjoying things. Maybe I should look for other subjects...... Well, thanks for the cheer! --HJensen, talk 22:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

RfC

This is to inform you that a RfC for Tennis expert has been started here. AlonsornunezComments 19:37, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort. It is uphill.... --HJensen, talk 22:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Notice

Your violation of WP:3RR concerning the Serena Williams article has been reported here. Tennis expert (talk) 07:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

What became of the golden rule of "innoncent until proven guilty"? Not only certified lawyers undertand this fine principle, so don't call this a "violation"! That is your opinion. And your opinion, contrary to your own belief, is not the truth. --HJensen, talk 08:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Any lawyer who is not a judge is purely an advocate, HJ. And you clearly violated WP:3RR as it currently reads. If you don't like that policy, perhaps you should seek to change it instead of ignoring it. Tennis expert (talk) 09:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot that. I'll be an advocate then: I did not violate it. And I did not report your violation of the 3RR rule. I'll rest my case. --HJensen, talk 09:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Just got one myself! (It's obviously stale, and needlessly compounding the RfC going on, but ah well...) AlonsornunezComments 07:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)