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If you wish to discuss any of the topics listed below then please send me a new message on my talk page.


CFD backlog

Hi SFB, you have probably noticed that there is a backlog of nominations needing closure at CFD. You seem to have a decent understanding of CFD, and if you would like to do Non-Admin Closures of any of the early ones outstanding on the list at WP:CFDAC, I'll be willing to implement any of your closures that need admin rights (i.e. deleting, merging or renaming).

Any that you judge have a consensus of "Keep" or "No consensus", you could implement yourself. The instructions are at WP:CFDAI.

You would probably want to read WP:Non-admin closure and WP:Consensus if you have not done closures before.

Of course, you're under no obligation to do any more than the extensive and much-appreciated work that you are doing already. I just wanted to give you the option to help out with CFD, as there is a general rule that only admins may close CFDs as delete/merge/rename (because only they can implement those). Let me know on or off-wiki if you would like any more guidance! – Fayenatic London 20:20, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Fayenatic london Thanks for the invitation! Having given this a bit of thought I will have to politely decline at this time. Many of my recent category nominations/discussions have involved quite high level or long-standing traditions (e.g. what is a defining attribute, location and year categories, stub categorisation). These types of nominations attract both wider interest and conflicting views. I have been accused of prejudice at times, which is to be expected given my behaviour.
I think if I get involved in the closure side of CFD, at this moment, fellow editors may perceive me as having some form of greater say in category discussions than those not so involved. I don't want that to be the case – I want people to engage with just the logic of my reasoning, not my position or social status. I certainly don't want my actions or presence to compromise the process.
For me, questioning the basic aspects of categorisation is very important task; I believe people easily forget that many parts of the structure have simply grown organically and were not always built with a great deal of thought or a wide consensus. I'm happy for people to question my motives, and even to lose a few arguments, as long as we end up with a document of why the community feels something should be a certain way. Perhaps this is a bit of a cop out, but closure is definitely something I will consider when I am starting fewer or less controversial discussions myself. Thanks! SFB 21:12, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
That's fine, thanks for explaining a little of your thinking. Feel free to dip a toe in the water if you ever feel differently. Some of the overdue ones are not hard cases, but the current "regulars" are ruled out of closing them because we participated.
Admin work does detract from time available for creating content, so it's a perfectly respectable decision to stay out of it. – Fayenatic London 21:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Fayenatic london There is that side of it too. My recent involvement in category work alone has seen my number of articles per month go into single figures, even though I have lots of known gaps still left to fill! Cheers SFB 22:19, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Page move requests

You didn't set up the page move requests correctly, for example 2003 World Championships in Athletics – Men's marathon, the source and target are the same.--S Philbrick(Talk) 11:51, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Sphilbrick My mistake. I've fixed these now. Thanks for the heads up! SFB 17:00, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
All done--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:09, 19 July 2014 (UTC)


Turrbal: on adding supposed nations to the "neighboring nations" sentence

See my new section on Talk:Turrbal -- let's discuss there.

--MalcolmInglis (talk) 13:52, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Sig

Your signature is needed here. Cheers! Location (talk) 18:09, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Athletics at the 2014 Panamerican Olympic Festival

Hi SFB: I could cover the upcoming event held next weekend. However I don't know where to hook it. Some frame/structure like "Panamerican Olympic Festival", "2014 Panamerican Olympic Festival", "Athletics at the Panamerican Olympic Festival", navboxes, categories,... has to be generated and hooked to PASO, but that is normally not my business. I could generate a stub "Athletics at the Panamerican Olympic Festival" and hook it to APA as their announced "senior championship". APA is co-organizer for athletics and the event is also open for non-PASO members (Anguilla, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos, and probably Curaçao). Any suggestion?

Appreciate your comment also to this problem. CroesJ (talk) 12:33, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

CroesJ Hi there! I noticed references to this event, but only now have I read enough material to understand what it is. It just seems like a test/development event rather than a competition proper. On that basis I don't think it warrants the same level of coverage as something like the Pan American Games. I suggest we start with just the 2014 articles and leave out articles like Athletics at the Panamerican Olympic Festival until the continuation of the event is confirmed.
Pan American Sports Festival seems to be the common term for the event, so I have started a basic article there and linked in 2014 Pan American Sports Festival. If you want to start working on the year article you can use Template:Events at the 2014 Pan American Sports Festival as the navigation template. I would place all related the articles into the main Category:Pan American Sports Festival. If this does turn out be just a one-off event then this sole category will more than suffice for navigation. Let me know if you need any more help. Cheers. SFB 18:13, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
The pictogram for canoeing in {{GamesSport|Image=Yes|Canoeing}} should be "Canoeing (flatwater) pictogram.svg" in difference to "File:Canoeing (slalom) pictogram.svg" . And "Cycling" should be "Track cycling" with "File:Cycling (track) pictogram.svg" (no road cycling competitions). CroesJ (talk) 11:30, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
CroesJ Fixed as requested!. SFB 19:23, 18 August 2014 (UTC)


Splitting of Category:Ice hockey people from Ontario

Having closed Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 August 12#Category:Ice hockey people from Detroit, and implemented the closure, I started to get worried about the size of Category:Ice hockey people from Ontario - currently almost at 1,200. A currently open discussion, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 August 13#Category:Ice hockey people from Markham, Ontario, proposes upmerging more articles there. Being that you participated in one or both of these discussions, you may be interested in a related discussion at Category talk:Ice hockey people from Ontario#Splitting of this category. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:37, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Mismatch

Hi SFB! I noticed a mismatch between {{AthleticsLink|Marathon|Men}} pointing to "Event – Men's marathon" and {{ECMarathon}} pointing to "Event – Men's Marathon". I changed {{ECMarathon}} for the years of my recently created pages 1934 European Athletics Championships – Men's marathon and 1938 European Athletics Championships – Men's marathon, but I am not sure whether this is correct and what to do. Any advice? CroesJ (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

CroesJ Hi there! Hope you're doing well. There has been mixed usage in terms of capitalisation. For some reason many athletics sources capitalise the various event names, including the marathon (e.g. 100m Hurdles, High Jump). From my perspective, these are not proper nouns (or proper names to be exact!), so they do not need to be capitalised. I try to standardise these to lower case. Marathon is a little bit of a special case, given it's origin from Marathon, Greece, but the event is very much a regular noun. On that basis, the contents of Category:Marathons at the European Athletics Championships should be moved to marathon (small "m"). SFB 18:05, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Athlete

Its good to see you active after an absence. I don't want to be accused of canvassing, but we really need to get comment from people involved with Athletics articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#Athlete, prefaced at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Athletics#Relevant Rfc at Talk:Sportsperson. This change affects us so we need comment, from you and the other people who are part of the project. How do we get this to happen? So far, I'm all alone and I'm on the wrong side of the pond to mount a defense. Trackinfo (talk) 08:49, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Formatting issues

Hi SFB! I'm working on historical events at the European Athletics Championships, and completed the missing years 1934-1978. Now, I would like to revise the events in 1982 completing the missing heats/qualifications. I started to change the style of the existing tables to avoid different table styles in the same article (see [1] or here). Hope this is OK? And what to do with the "Marathons"? Redirect to "marathon"? CroesJ (talk) 09:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

CroesJ} Hello! I noticed you had started work on the event articles – great work so far! In terms of format, the 1982 article looks just fine. Personally, I prefer the grouped format as used on the 2014 article which allows for easier comparison of heat times and overall rankings, but I don't think either option is the "wrong" one. I have moved the marathon articles to use small "m" as we talk of people being marathon runners, not Marathon runners. It's not a proper noun, although capital "M" was previously used (I think this change was discussed at the project talk). I'll look out for other capitalisation issues. Good luck working through the results! SFB 20:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Smallcat exception rule

Hi, I've noticed that a nomination to delete/merge a small category is quite often rejected - based on the exception rule that categories that are part of large established tree should never be deleted regardless of their small size. Do you know if there is any chance to get rid of this exception rule as such? According to me the exception rule isn't particularly helpful for navigation. Marcocapelle (talk) 18:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Marcocapelle Hi there! The only way to change this is to change people's minds – convince them that this is not a good reason. I think the cause of the issue is technical/cultural: articles are not contained in all relevant parents. If the contents are present in the parent, then the "small cat" issue disappears entirely in my opinion.
  • Nevertheless, with the current arrangement I also believe the "established tree" reason is used without much more investigation into the average category size in that tree. Many times I see 200+ tiny categories with one or two articles just because "American xers" and "British xers" have a few dozen such articles. Maybe discussing the average category size of the tree is a good start to challenging usage of this idea. SFB 19:58, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Also, sometimes people over-estimate the true article base for a topic. I recall arguing against another editor about why we should not have 220 male and 220 female nationality long jumper categories (the article base is only around 300!) SFB 20:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Church music is not a church or even a type of church.

Church music is not a church or even a type of church. Church music is a type of Christian music. Church music is related to church, but so are many thousands of other things. tahc chat 04:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Tahc But Category:Church is a category about the whole concept of church (you could include church culture, if such an article were to exist, and not just about buildings. Church music relates specifically to music within church and thus belongs in this category, unlike broader concepts like Christian music, which also covers music outside of a church context. I think any article which covers a topic specifically in a church context only should belong in a category about the concept of church. SFB 11:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Christian leaders

Hi, please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 September 27#Category:Protestant religious leaders by denomination where the nominator has withdrawn his proposal, but you had already expressed support. Would you object if it was closed as "withdrawn"? – Fayenatic London 07:47, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Update navbox name parameter after moving a navbox

see here, otherwise the edit link goes to the redirect page, and not to the navbox. Frietjes (talk) 14:16, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Frietjes Thanks for the heads up. I will keep an eye out in future. Seems strange to me that this can't be done automatically in the transclusion though! SFB 21:48, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
it's almost possible now to have it automatically determined, but you have to invoke the navbox module directly (i.e., use #invoke:navbox instead of navbox). however, that doesn't appear to be the norm yet. I am hoping there will be a way to make this work without using the #invoke:navbox syntax, since that would require retraining all editors who actively work on navboxes. we shall see which way it goes in the future. Frietjes (talk) 13:52, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
see here. Frietjes (talk) 17:36, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Ugh - I've forgotten about this again. This is far from the only template I've moved recently. What is the impact of this? Having tested it out, I see the link still takes you to the navbox (rather than ending up at the hard redirect). Is it just that the view link won't show was black-bold when viewing the template? SFB 18:22, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
the main problem is that the edit link goes to the redirect page, rather than the template. this confuses newbie editors who then proceed to fork the template, overwriting the redirect. I would love to have the template/module detect this, but apparently, it's very expensive for a template/module to determine if a link is a redirect :( the links for the talk and view aren't such a big deal since those will just follow the redirect. Frietjes (talk) 18:27, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

American men's basketball players category

You should wait til the discussion is over and the future of the category is determined before spending time adding it to articles. If the decision is to delete it then you are just creating more work to transition these over. Please wait til it is closed as "keep" before doing this. Rikster2 (talk) 22:08, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Rikster2 Hi there! I simply meant I'm working on building the "sportsmen" structure which underpins the category being discussed. I've mainly started with the topic area I usually work in (athletics), though I've starting building up the contents of Category:Sportsmen by sport as well. SFB 23:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
Rikster2 In my experience there should be no objection against adding pages to a category while it is under discussion, as this can help to justify the existence of a category. Re-catting afterwards is done by a bot anyway. – Fayenatic London 14:04, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
{Fayenatic london} then I guess it's OK if I remove the category from pages since it's redundant to several other categories? It's my experience that category discussions should run their course before people start assuming a final decision. Also, if kept, a sub-category structure diffusing to the 50 states will be needed. A bot cannot do that, that is man hours by editors like me. Rikster2 (talk) 14:07, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
If it's clearly redundant to some pages, i.e. the redundancy is not disputed, then yes go ahead, so that the discussion can focus on the remaining contents. I was commenting on the general principle rather than the case mentioned in this section header. – Fayenatic London 15:16, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
I think it is important for people weighing in on this discussion to see just how little energy has gone into populating this category in the last year. Adding it to an extra hundred or so pages - especially by editors who probably won't work on populating it long-term (not saying that is SFB) - gives an artificial impression that the category is being actively maintained. There are thousands upon thousands of articles this category would impact. People need to get the lethargy around it. In my opinion, you'd be assuming the outcome of the discussion to add it en masse (if one knows the discussion is occurring of course). Why not wait for an outcome before doing so? IMO, that is the better practice. Rikster2 (talk) 15:21, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
In theory this category could be very easily populated by taking the contents of Category:American basketball players minus Category:American women's basketball players and feeding them into a bot task. Still, if the primary editorship of basketball articles chooses to neglect such categories, then this structure will not develop properly.
The athletics knowledge base was once in a similar condition and it's taken three years to just get something like Category:Male sprinters from a dozen articles to over 1000. Unless you're insane enough to dedicate yourself completely to categorisation (which some bizarrely do!) then it's a process that will take a lot of time. My worklist is still huge despite years of effort. I think as long as the categories are reasonable (i.e. divisions relevant to the subject and something readers will use) then it's worth slowly building rather than taking the easy route of neglect. SFB 01:01, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Tanya Jones

The article Tanya Jones has been proposed for deletion because it appears to have no references. Under Wikipedia policy, this newly created biography of a living person will be deleted unless it has at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Referencing for beginners, or ask at the help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the {{prod blp}} tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within seven days, the article may be deleted, but you can request that it be undeleted when you are ready to add one. TexasAndroid (talk) 14:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

2015 Pan Am Templates

Thank you for moving those templates over! Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 20:46, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Sportsfan 1234}} No problem! I'm not really sure how we all got in the habit of creating templates with unpredictable, goofy titles in the first place. This is only the start of the clean up job! SFB 21:01, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
I think its just past precedence! I followed the lead from earier competitions. Thanks again! Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 21:42, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Template merging announcements

Hi. The banners in templates such as Template:Bronze3 are not in "noinclude" tags. Thus they are displayed in every artcle inclusions, such as tables in Lists of Olympic medalists. Could you fix your edits ? Thanks ! Dodoïste (talk) 21:33, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

(de-ping)Dodoïste}} Hmmmm. Normally this is the way to attract attention to discussions but I think you're right that these are just too disruptive given the smallness of the templates and their use in tables. I will put the nominations in a "noinclude" to stop this. Hopefully people realise sometimes it's better to spare users such hassle and let the broadcasting of the discussion suffer instead! SFB 21:53, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
I closed the discussions. Feel free to merge as you see fit. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:25, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
(de-ping)Martijn Hoekstra}} Thanks for giving me the option to merge as appropriate. I've redirected these to the main gold1 etc templates. Cheers! SFB 21:28, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Template:Medal

I've tried to make the css style changes again to the Template:Medal. I think it was a missing " that caused the issue. Could you check to see if it's ok now? Thanks. -- WOSlinker (talk) 23:41, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

(de-ping)WOSlinker}} Yep! That fixed it. I thought it was a missing quote, but I tried in the wrong place. Thanks for sorting it. SFB 23:56, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Timelines

Hi! With respect to the Timeline of Arda, you have recently re-categorised this article under Category:Fictional timelines. Since Timeline of Arda is already listed under List of timelines in fiction, why is there a need for said article to be listed again under Category:Fictional timelines? May I respectfully ask what is the point of this duplication? Joe Gatt (talk) 00:15, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

1993 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival

I don't think you meant to create a circular redirect. Bgwhite (talk) 07:05, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I think you need to remove a talk message at your /TP template... something is messed up there. Bgwhite (talk) 07:09, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
(de-ping)Bgwhite}} Thanks and... thanks! SFB 17:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Because you participated here (CFD), I thought you might be interested in doing so here (RM). Thanks. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:11, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Great Ethiopian Run Logo.gif

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⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Great Ethiopian Run Logo.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 23:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

(de-ping)Stefan2}} Thanks for notifying. It looks like the Great Ethiopian Run has updated its logo so this one can go. SFB 12:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:Left-footed association football players

Category:Left-footed association football players, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:30, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Maccabiah CfDs

Hello Sillyfolkboy. You have tagged several categories for CfD, but there is no related discussion (the only one I can find is about bronze medalists). These are:

Can you please start a discussion, or I will have to remove the tags from the categories. Cheers, Number 57 13:10, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

  • (de-ping)Number 57}} These nominations were made just around midnight 29/30 December, so most of the links pointed to the 30th page while the initially nomination was on the 29th. To fix this, I moved the nomination to the 30th so that the links pointed to the right location. However, User:Vegaswikian undid this move. I'm unsure of the usual procedure. I thought that since virtually all the nominations were done on the 30th, then it should be placed there, no? SFB 17:40, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

FourFourTwo

I'm curious about the opinion you expressed regarding FourFourTwo magazine in this discussion. I'm pretty sure World Soccer is a British publication and it is held in much higher regard than FourFourTwo. FFT is a tabloid by comparison. – PeeJay 00:40, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

  • (de-ping)PeeJay2K3}} I suppose it comes down to whether you define "foremost" through a subjective reputational assessment or via circulation. As the best-selling sport-specific periodical in Britain, FFT certainly has the props on the latter while the longer-establised and ESM-member World Soccer probably fits the former (albeit with a significantly lower readership). SFB 13:14, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Michele Brown (athlete)

Appears to me that you have change the links to the Michele Brown (athlete) page, so thanks. If there are some that are missed I cannot find them.Djflem (talk) 15:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC) Did those all on list though not all appear to have "registered" it yet. Will have to wit and see.Djflem (talk) 21:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Please will you edit Frank Lampard's career statistics table. Put in the stats table Lampard's premier league assists also his assists in all competitions for Chelsea.

Hi Sillyfolkboy. Please will you edit Frank Lampard's career statistics table. Put in the stats table Lampard's premier league assists also his assists in all competitions for Chelsea. This will improve his article. If I knew how to edit I would do it but I don't know how to. If you go on http://www.espnfc.com/player/8941/frank-lampard?season=2014 All of Lampard's assists for Chelsea and Manchester City have been recorded on that website. On the site at top of the table on right side next to career click on 2014-15 then all the years Lampard has played for Chelsea will open. On that site the letter A in the table is for Assists and G is for Goals. It's a reliable site. Hope this helps you out.--CescFabregas4CFC (talk) 17:51, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Good Contributions

I really enjoyed your comment on Straight Wikipedians. I also enjoyed the weak attempt of another wikipedian to mock your comment because they couldn't form a real response.

...I'd like to force the larger discussion of whether non-collaboration user categories are a good idea or not.
 Picking off only the weak outlying user groups simply undermines those user groups' sense of belonging to the wider Wikipedia project 
(frankly a self-destructive act). SFB 21:41, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

^ I agree with that statement wholeheartedly.
Just wanted to thank you for your solid contributions. Though I happen to agree with you on this occasion, I've read some of your other opinions/contributions and they always seem to be well-reasoned.
—Lightgodsy(TALKCONT) 02:05, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Radar

I'm not sure how you do it, but you keep coming in and adding the necessary technical stuff to articles I create. Thank you. Here's one you missed. Put Valentin Balakhnichev on your radar. As the investigation into the various Russian doping scandals expands, he's the guy at the top. A lot of people think the is complicit, even if that is not the finding, he's still the guy at the top of the food chain and will be a name in the news. I've sat on this for a while until I discovered sources making the investigation public. Trackinfo (talk) 09:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Trackinfo}} I've noticed Balakhnichev's name around, but obviously things are still a bit under wraps at the moment. Hopefully that's not an indefinite thing. I also found an image to add to the article, as the IAAF released professional images of the 2014 IAAF Council Meeting as public domain – great stuff! Not only useful for us, but actually an excellent way of controlling their image.
As for picking up the articles: there's an option in the notifications preferences (page link) that lets you know whenever someone newly links to an article you've created. One of the benefits of being a big content creator is that many new links come flying in to me this way, especially so with competition pages. Anything that pops up in my feed, I'll do some basic tweaks to make sure images, basic biographical facts, and categories are all there. I find this an interesting way of keep up to date – I'm glad you're happy about it, because others could construe my constant appearance as harassment! On the last point about categories, I'm building the gendered athlete categories slowly this way. I built a worklist for these, but it turned out to be so depressingly long that I've gone for a piecemeal approach instead! SFB 20:37, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
You posted the photos free of rights, I see. How do you determine which of IAAF's photos are released in such a fashion? I didn't see any special notation. Can we use others? There are so many athletes articles with no pictures, IAAF can certainly supplement a lot of that if what is on IAAF.org is free to use. Trackinfo (talk) 19:32, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Trackinfo}} Sadly not. They generally useful professional copyrighted photos for the articles, but the article on the Council Meeting notes linked to the free-of-right images hosted at Dropbox. They must have got an in-house photographer for the event instead. We do get some great images donated by Erik van Leeuwen so in that respect I'm very grateful. I think if Wikipedia did a programme to get public domain images from the subjects themselves and raised it through the media then they would be overwhelmed with usable pictures. Well-taken photographs like Erik's are very useful, but often just a basic selfie would go a long way in adding identifiable visual content to thousands of people's articles. Despite the "open for anyone to edit", people still feel like there is a barrier. If we had one button with stripped down options to upload a self-taken, public domain image, then I think we'd get a lot more. Young famous (and not so famous) people are particularly used to this kind of thing on Twitter and Facebook etc. I'll have a think about this because I think I've quite a powerful idea here! SFB 23:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
In the case of people like Balakhnichev around this scandal, they might not want to send in a selfie. All the easier to be picked out of the police lineup. Maybe in Russia there won't be the perp walk with them trying to cover their face with their jacket while wearing handcuffs (I seriously think they are considered national heroes at home) but there is still a KGB mentality behind all of this. Trackinfo (talk) 04:29, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Trackinfo}} Maybe so :) We'll see where this all ends up. I'm increasingly more conscious that things like this are driving a wedge between Western and Russian people. Hopefully the corrupt are rooted out before things get much worse – Cold War I wasn't enjoyable for anyone and it certainly doesn't warrant a sequel! SFB 18:40, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
That is the terrible thing about all of this. By making the most prominent sporting events based on national identity, we have caused political leaders of all stripes to trying to show their country's superiority athletically as a metaphor for their own superiority. And with all of them having overblown, nationalistic egos, the systematic motivation to cheat is overwhelming. It will ruin our sport if it hasn't already. Trackinfo (talk) 18:58, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Trackinfo}} Looks like Balakhnichev wasn't the top man – this just goes up and up! SFB 22:24, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
An insider I spoke with says it goes all the way to the top. The issue is proving it. Trackinfo (talk) 22:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

[2] Trackinfo (talk) 05:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Rio 2016 Olympic stadium name

Hi, yes, the name of the stadium still remains Havelange, unfortunately involved in crimes with ISL , but the official trade name , approved in the official gazette by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, since 2015 is Nilton Santos Stadium, a Brazilian idol world champion of 1958 and 1962 World Cup with the Brazilian national team, and was told that this is the name that will be worth from now , would you change the name of the Maracanã page on wikipedia for ' Mario Filho Stadium ' ? (official name of the stadium ) , what counts is how it will be called and is being called Nilton Santos Stadium , and all the facts are explained in the wikipedia article, just ask that no longer change the name , let ' Estádio Nilton Santos ' . Thank you very much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Figura2000 (talk • contribs) 16:11, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

World record

also take a look at jasmine st-claire's record which at the time beat the Houston 500 (circa 2000-2002) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yancampbell (talk • contribs) 06:34, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Yancampbell}} Took me a while to work out what you were referring to here, but my speciality is in a very different form of athletic activity! More like Jazmin Sawyers and the Carlsbad 5000, rather than Jasmin St Claire and the Houston 500... SFB 07:55, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Your deletion of Jewish sports category

Hello. You nominated for deletion (and I did not see it till now, when I see the fallout) a Jewish/nation/sports category.

The category deletion at issue is of Jewish Australian sportspeople.

You asserted in your nomination: "I have been unable to locate any material which studies Jewish people in a sports context that is specific to Australia and not part of broader study of either Australian Jews or Jewish sportspeople in general (the parent categories here)."

There are many articles and books that discuss Jewish Australian sportspeople. Jewish Australian sportspeople have also been sending teams to the Maccabiah Games for the better part of a century. Since 1932.[3] In 2013, the Jewish Australian athletes won 42 medals at the Maccabiah Games -- the third-most of all delegations.[4]

Judging by the results here and here and here, I think the deletion discussion was started with (and based on) an inaccurate assessment.

None of those sources were discussed. Nor were the Maccabiah Games. --Epeefleche (talk) 08:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Epeefleche}} This is one of the problems with just building a category on a topic when really an article should be created first to demonstrate the value of the topic. A lot of what you mention above is catered for by Category:Maccabiah Games competitors for Australia, so I'm not convinced on the point.
On the other hand, Anthony Hughes' 1999 article Sport in the Australian Jewish Community does provide a background of specifically Australian Jewish sport, so that is a good place to start. That said, it does seem to be the only source you've linked which addresses the topic stand-alone, rather than as one part of a general history of Jewish sport or a general history of Australian sport. I'm more of an inclusionist, so I'd be very happy to support creation of an Australian Jewish sport article and recreation of the category based on this supporting material. Personally, I feel Wikipedia would be better served by a greater focus on dual category/article content creation on topics rather than heading into very narrow category definitions when the key article remains non-existent. It is very sad that more effort isn't put into writing up articles on basic topics like Jewish sport, which is a culture with a great history, not least the Maccabiah Games, as you mention above. As a different perspective - this shows there are plenty of exciting new articles to build if you're up for it though! SFB 11:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
Actually, there is no such rule. There is no rule that an article should be created first to create the value of a topic before a category (or a list, for that matter) are created. In fact -- based on my experience -- most lists and categories do not have corresponding articles. --Epeefleche (talk) 21:37, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Epeefleche}} I know there is no such rule, but it is a strongly held conviction of mine on how we can build a better encyclopaedia I do think those editors interested in categories have the right desires and skill sets to build list articles, which are more flexible and, let's face it, much more widely read and useful than categories (United States is viewed around 300 times more often than its category). I see similar things with navboxes sometimes too. I do value categories and have put lots of effort into sorting them out recently, but I find the prevalence of the "category only" approach somewhat undersells what we can achieve here. SFB 21:46, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
Oh -- the way you wrote it, it appeared you believed (or would have readers believe) that there was such a rule. Rather than it only being your personal point of view. Not reflected in the consensus-driven guideline. You wrote "an article should be created first to demonstrate the value of the topic." That's not what our consensus guideline calls for. You could seek to have it changed, but I would anticipate a chilly reaction. And we should nominate based on guidelines, not on personal non-consensus views ... IMHO, of course. Furthermore, it's not only at odds with our guidelines, it is at odds with practice by the WP community.
I'm very sensitive to editors stating their personal opinion, especially when not supported by consensus, in a manner one could anticipate readers would take as being the preaching of the wp consensus on the issue. Epeefleche (talk) 21:51, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Epeefleche}} You can take it as a given that any sentence I write that does not explicitly state that something is policy or consensus is only my opinion. Vice-versa, I tend mention such things most when I'm disagreeing with them. You may have noticed in "categories for discussions" that I rarely refer back to policy and often just say how I feel about the category. I feel it's a more open way of discussing things, is easier for newcomers to understand, and hopefully the off-pitch style makes me a few friends along the way (maybe wishful thinking here!). I'm happy to be voted down should enough people think my viewpoint is a bit stupid, as long as I believe those people are driven by a desire to build interesting things for people to read. SFB 22:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
A suggestion -- while you've now put me on notice, I believe it is not a natural reading when one states: "an article should be created first to demonstrate the value of the topic", to understand that what you mean is "but this is my personal view, and not reflected in consensus guidelines or practice". I believe it would help readers if you clarified it. Otherwise, it looks as though you are over-stating the case, which ultimately weakens confidence in what you state, and which of course you have not wish to do. And especially when newcomers are involved -- they may well be misled by a "pronouncements" as to what "should" happen, or at the very least feel someone sought to mislead them, as they failed to clarify that it was simply their personal view. IMHO. Best. Epeefleche (talk) 22:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Epeefleche}} I guess we're reading the same thing in different ways. For me, when I say something "should" be done in the context of a one-to-one conversation on my talk page, I'm not anticipating uninvolved third parties to read that as a formal pronouncement of policy or community-wide consensus. I would interpret it as nothing more than something some guy said on his user page. I don't really see how giving a solicited response to one person on my talk page constitutes preaching. If you're unhappy with the category discussion outcome, then please raise request a review of it from the closing admin or at the categories for discussion page, which is the proper venue for getting community-wide input. SFB 00:14, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  • The outcome is one issue.

The other two issues I'm raising here, because I think this is the better place, are: 1) You nominated for deletion a Jewish/nation/sports category "Jewish Australian sportspeople" asserting "I have been unable to locate any material which studies Jewish people in a sports context that is specific to Australia and not part of broader study of either Australian Jews or Jewish sportspeople in general (the parent categories here)." But there are in fact many articles and books that discuss Jewish Australian sportspeople, and Jewish Australian sportspeople have also been sending teams to the Maccabiah Games for the better part of a century, and Jewish Australian athletes won 42 medals at the Maccabiah Games -- the third-most of all delegations. I think the deletion discussion was started with (and based on) an inaccurate assertion by you -- and you failed to discuss those sources or the Maccabiah Games.

And 2) I think it is misleading for you to state as a fact that something "should" be done, when consensus is that there is no "should" in our guidelines or practice, but it is instead your anti-consensus view. I would urge you to clarify it as being your view, when you use words like "should" in wp discussions. Otherwise, as with my first concern, it looks to those who don't know better as though you are intentionally trying to mislead other readers. Epeefleche (talk) 01:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

    • (de-ping)Epeefleche}} Yes, I was unable to locate supporting material while you did, but neither did the four other editors party to that public discussion. I contacted the category creator as part of the nomination as well. I'm not sure what you expect from me here, short of infallibility. If you feel that me expressing my opinion to you on my talk page (in a conversation you began here, might I add) is intentionally misleading to other readers then you have misunderstood the purpose of usertalk pages. You have successfully exhausted my goodwill with your above statements and that is very sad. SFB 16:54, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
We all make mistakes. That's not the issue. As to the other 4 editors -- they are not subject to a wp:before requirement, whereas you as nom are. Nor did they assert that they had conducted a search and come up empty ... which has the effect of influencing other editors as to the existence of material. I found material quickly simply using the normal google and google news and google books search capabilities. And talk page discussions are of course open to viewing by the public. I'm simply talking about how in these two instances -- unintended by you of course -- your words could easily sway others to think there was more behind them that really existed, and thus improperly influence them. More care would be helpful. That's all. Best. Epeefleche (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox athletics competition

Template:Infobox athletics competition has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Alakzi (talk) 03:05, 14 March 2015 (UTC)


IAAF World Cross Country Championships

Hi SFB! Hope my undoing is OK. CroesJ (talk) 11:55, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Re: Category:Disabled sportspeople

At first I thought that must be a some kind of mistake, because I had nothing to do with this category, but apparently nine years can do that... :-) Thanks for dropping a note! GregorB (talk) 07:48, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)GregorB}} Ha ha. That's very true. There have been a couple of times where I've tried to look up the creator of an article only to find it was actually myself 5+ years ago! SFB 23:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Follow-up re new medal icons for medals tables

Well, this has been finally implemented, and I think the new icons are a radical improvement over the previous color blocks. The medals table of Nicole Haislett looks remarkably cleaner and more graphically refined, and we may now replace many of the artificially abbreviated place names and event descriptions that were previously employed to avoid line-wrapping within the medals tables. A couple of points remain to be discussed and resolved:

  1. how do we handle the graphics for the "disqualified" medal option?
  2. what do we do about the winner, runner-up and playoff options that were engrafted onto this template by an association football editor in 2011?

I'm bringing these issues here first, SFB, because you (a) are obviously not opposed to change, and (b) have a good eye for better graphics. I would like to get on the same page with you before starting another template talk page discussion.

My suggestion for the "disqualified" issue would be to fill square area surrounding the circular medal icon with a percentage screen of red, with a red diagonal bar drawn across the icon itself -- that screams intuitive. The disqualified option should also include a field for explanatory footnote text. Another simpler alternative is to omit disqualified medals altogether.

As for the winner, runner-up and playoffs options for association football/soccer, I seriously question whether these should be included in a "medals" table at all. Having looked at several dozen footballer infoboxes that use these options, it also appears that many uses are for minor regional, national and subnational tournaments. Frankly, I wonder if WP:FOOTY has even sanctioned many of these minor tournament outcomes for inclusion; most of them do not appear to be medal competitions, so the use of the gold, silver and bronze background colors is inaccurate. I'm going to ping User:GiantSnowman, and ask him for a football editor's perspective -- WP:FOOTY is ultimately going to have make the decision or otherwise cooperate on a resolution of this. It goes without saying that the new medal icons are graphically inconsistent with the color bar text blocks for "Winner," "Runner-up" and "Playoffs." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:53, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi - yes as far as I was aware the only 'medals' that are displayed in the infobox for footballers/soccer players are international tournaments e.g. European Championship, World Cup, Olympics etc. - and not for domestic league/cup club honours. GiantSnowman 19:54, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
You're fast -- I don't think I had finished posting on your user talk page before you responded here. Take a look at the Template:Medal page and the examples provided for the winner, runner-up and playoffs options. These were added to the template by a football editor in 2011. As you can see, we're going in a very different direction with the circular medal icons (as opposed to the old colored bars with "Gold," "Silver" and "Bronze" text) to be be used for major international championships that actually award medals. Do you want to start a WP:FOOTY discussion and get back to us? BTW, there are a couple hundred footballer articles that currently use the winner, runner-up and playoff options; Alakzi created tracking categories for the articles using these options. Frankly, we're still a bit confused as to what the "playoff" option was intended for. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:03, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

So, guys, the "disqualified" option -- what should we do with it? Does anyone like my idea above? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:49, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like a good idea. I could mock something up. Alakzi (talk) 21:52, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Alakzi}} Are we tracking usage of the "disqualified" option? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
We're not, but see here and here. Alakzi (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
Assuming the search yields an accurate count, there are 105 uses of "disqualified." More than I expected, but still easily managed with manual edits, if needed. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
I think we're already tracking the Winner, Runner-up and Playoff options, right? I can't find those tracking categories now -- can you provide the links for the Snowman and the FOOTY guys? They're going to need them. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
Here. Alakzi (talk) 22:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, sir. (de-ping)GiantSnowman}} Did you see that Alakzi already set up the tracking categories for you regarding Winner, Runner-up and Playoff? That should help you and the FOOTY guys collect information. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

2015 Pan Ams Wiki Project:

Hi,

We are just 3 months away shy of the 2015 Pan American Games. There are still a thousand of pages that need to be created for the event. I can’t do this alone so I’m soliciting your help for this task. Please feel free to send me any messages regarding it.

Best regards,

The Green Giant 23 TheGreenGiant23 (talk) 21:23, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

T&Fcalc

Repeating my thanks for creating the T&Fcalc template. I use it frequently, and probably should use it more. Can you do the same in reverse? Here in the U.S.A., there are still, today, meets measuring records in Imperial, much less other meets of the past I have detected measured a record in imperial. While microscopic, it is always inverted priority, so the converted metric is always wrong in order to get the correct Imperial distance. Since the source originated in Imperial, the rounding should go 1 cm less. I'm not sure I will even be able to remember each of these situations I have had to deal with in the past, but they keep coming up as I search our wiki landscape. So my specific request: Create a T&Fcalc like template from Imperial to Metric. Trackinfo (talk) 06:07, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Trackinfo}} I've gone and created {{T&Fcalc2}} for you. It's been slightly confusing for me to revisit the math, but I've been able to reuse some of the code from the original template to save my brain a little! Just to check if I've read your request right, here is a definition of what the new template is doing:
  1. First input field is for whole feet
  2. Second input field is for the total remaining inches (this accepts decimals)
  3. Inches are rounded down to the nearest quarter of an inch
  4. The display for feet and inches shows (a) the whole feet, (b) whole inches, and (c) a fraction for any quarter inches
  5. The subsequent metric conversion of the given feet and inches will (a) round down to the nearest quarter inch, (b) convert that to metres, then (c) round down the result to the nearest centimetre.
Does that meet your requirements? SFB 18:28, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for your effort. Excellent. Trackinfo (talk) 01:56, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox Country World Championships in Athletics

Template:Infobox Country World Championships in Athletics has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Alakzi (talk) 13:57, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

AfD: Pantacles of Athens has closed

The Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pantacles of Athens discussion has closed as a consensus "merge." The closing admin, SamWalton, identified four of the 40 articles for further talk page discussion whether they should be merged to the list or maintained as stand-alone articles: Talk:Dandes of Argos, Talk:Philinus of Cos (athlete), Talk:Oebotas of Dyme and Talk:Eurybus of Athens. Your input is requested on those article talk pages. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:02, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

FYI, I made this clarifying edit to WP:NOLYMPICS: [5]. Clearly, it was never intended to extend the WP:NOLYMPICS presumption of notability to participants in the ancient Olympic Games because of the relative lack of significant coverage regarding the overwhelming majority of ancient athletes in the available sources. Hopefully, these clarifications will head off any further unproductive AfD discussions that mistakenly rely on NOLYMPICS for the proposition that ancient Olympic athletes are presumed to be notable. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:18, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} I agree with that. The modern event has a completely different type of coverage and participation from the ancient one. The official games book for the first modern event probably has more detail than the entire contemporary corpus for the ancient games. I'm all for including information on ancient athletes, but I agree that this notability interpretation leads to unproductive uses of time and energy. SFB 23:47, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
I was actually surprised not to see my own words quoted back to me in the Pantacles AfD. On several occasions, I have fielded questions from rookies who wanted to understand the WP:NOLYMPICS standard, and whether or not it applied to all Olympics participants. Of course, I explained that it did, never thinking for a moment to qualify my explanation that NOLYMPICS only applied to modern Olympic athletes. Oops.
Anyway, among the other AfD/notability subtleties that are barely mentioned in the Pantacles discussion are the depth of coverage in the cited hard-copy references (one sentence or two?), and the fact that several of the ancient sources may be properly characterized as primary, not secondary sources. That seemed to be more than was needed, or could be absorbed, given the tenor of the discussion. In any event, the strong majority of these articles clearly work better as list elements rather than stand-alone articles. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:56, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} I think ancient primary sources hold a special status because coverage in that period (and the preservation of that coverage) indicates a high importance of the discussed topic, even if only a few lines. Personally I think Olympics notability criteria is very generous and I agreed with Hyphantes that there are also many modern Olympic athletes whose articles will contain nothing more than their minor part in an Olympic event. I would rather see these redirected and in a list too, but I think I'm in the minority on that point. My opinion is that if you can cover someone's entire biography in a single competition article, then it's not really worth writing a stand-alone article for them. It's not a problem I personally encounter a lot as I tend to work from a starting point of some notability (though even then I sometimes find a subject has far more depth than I imagined). SFB 00:27, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
From working with Olympic swimmers, I can tell you that in practical application NOLYMPICS is ridiculously over generous in its extension of the presumption of notability to all Olympic participants. It should have been automatic for medalists, with a presumption for finalists, but the idea that all Olympic athletes, including those that never made it out of the qualifying rounds are automatically generating sufficient coverage to satisfy GNG is a very flawed assumption. But then again, several of the other NSPORTS specific guidelines are also overly inclusive, too. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:34, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Articles needing attention

You might want to take a look some reverts on a few articles:

Have a great day! Skyerise (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Two other female athlete categories tagged as containers

You may wish to also have a look at Category:Female sport shooters and Category:Female skiers to see if they are also going in an unmanageable direction as you described at CFD. --Slivicon (talk) 21:04, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Slivicon}} It's a slightly different case in that it's a sport-level grouping (like Category:Female athletes for track and field) rather than an event level one, so they would sit directly in the "Fooian sportswomen" groups. The hypothetical equivalent would be if there were categories like Category:Albanian women's moguls skiiers or Category:Australian women's 50 m rifle 3 positions shooters. But still, I don't think the current shooters arrangement is a particularly helpful one for navigation, given the relative usefulness of simply gendered and non-gender-nationality categories. The skiing one seems ideal in that it groups a smallish number of women in the sport together without overly dividing further to gender+nationality when not helpful numbers-wise. SFB 21:15, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Jasmine Todd

jasmine Todd was born in San Diego California not chandler AZ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.37.160 (talk • contribs)

I've amended this to say raised in Chandler, instead of born there. Ideally we need some sort of source to say she was born in San Diego as this isn't on her college profile or interviews/news reports. SFB 20:41, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Dumb question

SFB, is there some reason we have special flag icon templates for particular international games, e.g., the Pan American Games, Asian Games? Also, isn't it odd that they/we are placing the athlete's national flag before the athlete's name -- given that the athlete's linked name is the more important datapoint? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:13, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I explained why this is at the Southeast Asian Games TfD: they're needed to output the correct name/flag according to year. {{Country IOC alias XXX}} came first, but values are in the format YYYY {Summer, Winter}, i.e. they're only really usable with the Olympics. Understandably, the next person thought it easier to fork the templates. And so it goes. Alakzi (talk) 01:21, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
I'm still missing the point, A. I can have a year-correct flag with the basic templates, e.g., {{flag|Canada|1868}} renders  Canada, and it does not put the athlete's national flag (secondary data point) in front of the athlete's name (primary data point). Technically, the template is redundant; semantically, the template places the secondary data first, and separates the flag from its three-letter national abbreviation. That's why I was asking SFB, who is one of the most frequent editors of our international games articles, and a bit of an expert on point, why these templates are necessary, or even somewhat better than our generic flag icon templates. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:57, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
{{Flag|Canada|1868}} →  Canada only works with "1868"; editors would have to specify the exact year the flag was adopted. The year is also used to retrieve the country name and generate a team link. If I'm wrong on any point, SFB will correct me. Alakzi (talk) 02:07, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Alakzi}} Surely we could be inventive here and use an <= comparison to interpret the appropriate flag for a given year? There are a small number of cases where team flags for the Olympics and Commonwealth Games didn't coincide with the flag of the time (the 1980 Olympic flag being a prime example) but this would work very well across the board for the increasing number of competitions where that is not the case. SFB 21:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
The flag alias in {{Country data XXX}} is not always a year. The country data infrastructure is in dire need of an overhaul. Alakzi (talk) 22:11, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Mmm. And why are we putting the flag icon in front of the athlete's name -- and separated from the country code, contrary to MOS:FLAG? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Good question. ;-) Alakzi (talk) 02:25, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} I thought the same myself but quickly realised the problem when trying an alternate implementation at User:Sillyfolkboy/template: the flag comes first because this allows for alignment of the images. If we place the name first then the images appear at a variety of different vertical spaces (given the wide difference in name lengths), which is ultimately less readable and more distracting to the eye and clearly the reason for that design in the first place (rather than a relevance order). Unlike the name, the flag image is of a predictable and (almost) exclusively equivalent size. See example below for logic-based horror. SFB 19:45, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
With proposed name first, flag second order
Games Gold Silver Bronze
100 metres Justin Gatlin  (USA) Lykourgos-Stefanos Tsakonas  (GRE) Su Bingtian  (CHN)
200 metres Anaso Jobodwana  (RSA) Justin Gatlin  (USA) Jaysuma Saidy Ndure  (NOR)
With current flagathlete (flag first, name second)
Games Gold Silver Bronze
100 metres  Justin Gatlin (USA)  Lykourgos-Stefanos Tsakonas (GRE)  Su Bingtian (CHN)
200 metres  Anaso Jobodwana (RSA)  Justin Gatlin (USA)  Jaysuma Saidy Ndure (NOR)
Alternative No. 1 (name on first line, flag and country on second)
Games Gold Silver Bronze
100 metres Justin Gatlin
 United States 		Lykourgos-Stefanos Tsakonas
 Greece 		Su Bingtian
 China
200 metres Anaso Jobodwana
 South Africa 		Justin Gatlin
 United States 		Jaysuma Saidy Ndure
 Norway

Okay, SFB. That's exactly what I suspected was going on: the perceived need for consistent alignment is driving the flag-athlete-country order. Putting the flag first is a semantic fail; separating the flag and country name is contrary to best practice under MOS:FLAG and also a semantic fail. If alignment is driving this, there are two simple solutions: either (1) state the athlete's name on one line, and then the flag icon and country on a second, or (2) use a separate column for the athlete's name, a second column for the flag icon and country. I have seen both formats used in existing articles. The first is typically used in swimming world record articles. My position is that the readability and primacy of the athlete's name should take precedence over secondary information such as nationality and flag. I think this is an example were the presence of the flag -- coupled with the desire for a compact table format -- is driving bad layout and design, and a very illogical order of the data presented. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:13, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} There isn't any pressing reason why these changes can't be immediately incorporated in Template:Flagmedalist. It think retention of the three-letter-code is important as that is the code frequently allied to the performance (on kits, official results, press, etc.).
I actually think this is a good alternative to flagathlete (and one that is already well-used) but it does have the consequence (contrary to your intention) of comparatively increasing the attention away from the athlete and towards the nation. Given an image, a full spelling of (and link to) the country, a 3-letter country code and its own line means the visual space of a medal table effectively becomes 50% nation-based. Volume of blue-linked text devoted (and attracting the eye) to nations is significantly increased (see 1993 IAAF World Indoor Championships vs 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships). It is also a less concise solution. I think neither option is outright superior to the other and each has their clear benefits and drawbacks. I certainly don't tolerate warring between the two. Also bear in mind that in some implementations the addition of a separate line for the nation doubles the amount of space it takes to list the medallists (e.g. 1980 European Athletics Indoor Championships). That brevity is the main reason I use it in those circumstances (given athletics has 120+ medallists for each major competition). Also, it's worth bearing in mind that there is clear consensus in separate styling for nation and athlete in results articles, as in lists of this kind that format is easily the most useful – particularly given the lesser space constraints and the benefits of allowing sorting (e.g. 2014 European Athletics Championships – Men's 100 metres). SFB 20:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

AfD for Athletics at the 2015 Southeast Asian Games – Men's 100 metres

Based on your participation at the previous deletion discussion, you may be interested in the ongoing deletion discussion for Athletics at the 2015 Southeast Asian Games – Men's 100 metres which can be found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Athletics at the 2015 Southeast Asian Games – Men's 100 metres (2nd nomination). ~ RobTalk 09:00, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Flag icon misuse, redux

Hey, SFB. Just a quick head's up. I am stripping all flag icons that are used to designate swimming event locations. These were not originally used in the older FINA world championship articles, but had become quite common among the post-2000 event articles. Today I took the time to strip them from all FINA event infoboxes and navboxes in which the flags were used for event locations and/or host countries. In sports articles, flag icons should be reserved for the sporting nationality/national team of athletes in international competition (i.e., the countries that the athletes represent), and not used willy-nilly for every creative use associated with a city, country or other geographic location that our sports editors can imagine. I ask that you support me in this, and help discourage the rampant over-use of flag icons in our international sports articles.

FYI, I also stripped the bottom-of-the-page succession boxes for FINA event locations from all of the FINA championship articles today. These old succession boxes duplicate the same information provided in the FINA championship navbox as well as the before and after links of the primary article infoboxes. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:22, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

  • (de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} These all look like good sensible changes to me. Flags are a needless attraction when we're just describing a location in a table. Certainly in sports events the host city is a much more definitive piece of information, and emphasising the country over that is not a good choice. I've done the same changes on the IAAF world series of events (e.g. World Championships in Athletics). SFB 23:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

What do you think of these?

Is this really appropriate for second-tier international championships below the Olympics: Nicaragua at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships? We started with Country at International Championship articles for the Olympics, as well as individual event articles for the Olympics, and now we have a proliferation of country and event articles for games like the FINA championships, Pan Am Games, and Youth Olympics. Most of these articles have very little prose content, and never will; they are perma-stubs. I wonder is if there is not a better way to do this . . . . Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 11:57, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} I think they certainly serve a use for continental games and world championships from a national perspective and that is reflected in reader's interest. Nicaragua is an outlier, whereas larger nations tend to have significant content and coverage, such as Canada at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships. My own personal preference would be to begin at a higher logical level e.g. Canada at the World Aquatics Championships. However, I've not had the time to develop these types of articles further, given the large amount of effort required. SFB 01:51, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
I see this problem throughout the sports projects -- editors are simply unable to discern the difference between the United States, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Russia, etc., at the 2012 Olympics, and Bahamas, Burundi, Ghana, and Nicaragua, etc., at the 2015 FINA championships. Some editors will cast this difference as an issue of "fairness" in coverage; my reaction is that we don't really need stand-alone articles for countries/national teams that produce two or three B-standard swimmers who don't advance beyond the first round of qualifying heats. How you translate that into an objective notability standard, well, I'm not sure. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:10, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} It's not a problem unique to sports – initial coverage for large nations expanding to coverage to all nations goes right across all topic areas (see Burkinabé passport for example). I think it is to do with the mental nature of many Wikipedia editors. Certainly in the category system I see it extending to all closed-group topics where there is differing importance within the group (see for example my comments on medallists here, or the growing area of Category:People by occupation and ethnicity). I don't think it's really to do with a desire for even coverage or avoiding systemic bias: I think it is do to with the fact that many editors either (a) don't see a difference between the topics within a group, or (b) don't consider that real world coverage should have a bearing on Wikipedia coverage (hence novelties like this). I just tend to pick off the most egregious cases, because I know my view point on the whole system is a minority one. Editors who work in such areas often attach a lot of importance to these overly niche articles/categories and I find it's more amenable to all to just let people get on with it and only wade in when the effects worsen the main topic areas. That said, some editors probably don't find Nicaragua at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships any more niche than, say, 100 metres at the Olympics. SFB 12:26, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Request for comment

An editor has asked for a discussion on the deprecation of Template:English variant notice. Since you've had some involvement with the English variant notice template, you might want to participate in the discussion if you have not already done so.—Godsy(TALKCONT) 07:11, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Single extra line breaks do not render in articles

You asked, so here goes. The MOS suggests the option of adding extra single line breaks. They do not render in the article if used before or after headings, images, templates, etc.

Double-line breaks do render so I stay away from them unless I want the line break to render. Compare my edit to your rollback and you will see they render the same. Your rollback accomplished nothing. Just a friendly FYI. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 23:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Checkingfax}} If your noinclude is two lines down from the table-end that actually means two line breaks are included, rather than a single one, as the linebreak character precedes any text you put on that line. Cheers! SFB 23:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:EventsAt2015MilitaryWorldGames

Template:EventsAt2015MilitaryWorldGames has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. JMHamo (talk) 20:20, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

MOS:IDENTITY is being revisited: How should Wikipedia refer to transgender individuals before and after their transition?

You are being contacted because you contributed to a recent discussion of MOS:IDENTITY that closed with the recommendation that Wikipedia's policy on transgender individuals be revisited.

Two threads have been opened at the Village Pump:Policy. The first addresses how the Manual of Style should instruct editors to refer to transgender people in articles about themselves (which name, which pronoun, etc.). The second addresses how to instruct editors to refer to transgender people when they are mentioned in passing in other articles. Your participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:07, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

FYI, I spoke me piece on point. You should too. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Olympic swimmers?

Hey, SFB. Quick question for you: have you created many Olympic swimmer articles in the past? If so, would you be willing to take responsibility for upgrading your own swimmer article to the current standardized version of Infobox swimmer and related uniform formatting? Please let me know. About half of 4400 swimmer articles still need to be converted. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Wish you had. If it were just about trading out old parameters for new, we probably could use a bot. But the flag icons are being moved from the medals table to the "national team" parameter, and all of the British swimmer infoboboxes need to be reviewed for appropriate nationality and flag use. Hidden text messages meed to be added about using non-free images for living persons, non-referenced nicknames need to be reviewed and most removed ("Snuffy"?). A lot of the older ones aren't even using the appropriate infobox. Anyway, you get the idea. Four to ten years of accumulated cruft and worse. Needs critical human eyes to do it right. I'm adding them to my watch list after review to prevent recurrence. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:13, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Japan Championships in athletics

Hi Sillyfolkboy. I googled it and I found both. Most of the term "Japan Championships" are edits from wikipedia itself or sources of the "All Japan Championships". What do you say about gbrathletics? [6] Do you still think its a "bad move"?Montell 74 (talk) 16:11, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Montell 74}} When you search for "Japanese Championships in Athletics" minus wiki you get six results. Only the youtube links denote a usage unrelated to Wikipedia – your new page title was effectively a novel phrase. A similar search for "Japan Championships in Athletics" minus wiki yields nearly 5000 results, including ones from the NHK (the Japanese state broadcaster), Seiko (one of the biggest sponsors of the sport in Japan) and the Yomiuri Shimbun (among the leading newspapers in the nation). Not sure if you see the same results I do, but it seemed like a no brainer to me. SFB 21:31, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Kim Min-hyeoks

While I agree with your reasoning, it appears that the renames of Kim Min-hyeok (footballer, born February 1992) and Kim Min-hyeok (footballer, born August 1992) so I've declined one speedy and done a histmerge in the other case. I'd recommend starting a requested move discussion for them, they could probably both be discussed in the one RM. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 14:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of ALBA Games records in athletics

Appreciate your comment/action. Might be merged into Athletics at the ALBA Games. Can't deal with it anymore. Desease is progressing rapidly. Almost can't use my hands. CroesJ (talk) 11:19, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)CroesJ}} I'm very sorry to hear that you are not well. You should be proud of what you have contributed here, and your volunteering is something I hold in high esteem! If possible, it might be a good idea to investigate using voice apps to continue to write prose. If your ability to write on Wikipedia is diminishing, then it might be a good time to put something brief about what you value, who you are, what you hope to achieve etc. on your user page. That way, people in future will be able to see and understand what led to you creating so much.
Given the fact that the ALBA Games records aren't probably notable in and of themselves, I've gone and merged to the main page as you suggested (there was little content there anyway). Thanks for dropping me a message to let me know. Feel free to alert me of any other issues you have – if it's something like a deletion, then you can just let me know by pinging me: (de-ping)Sillyfolkboy}}. Take care! SFB 16:37, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Your changes about retired Ukrainian athletes

Hi. I'm about your changes to Irina Slyusar and 5 others. In your logic Mia Hamm is also retired from being American, isn't it? -- A.sav (talk) 16:11, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)A.sav}} Hi A.sav! Thanks for sending me a message. That is correct – "former" or "retired" should come after the nationality. The logic is that Irina Slyusar is (still) a Ukrainian person who used to be an athlete. Personally, I prefer using "former" instead of "retired" because it suggests the person is now doing other things, as most sportspeople do (i.e. their current occupation is not sitting at home, being retired from sport). Some suggestions around this are located at the Manual of Style. Thanks! SFB 16:50, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
OK, English is not my native language. But if it is right there are a hundreds of articles in enwiki have to be corrected (Magic Johnson) --A.sav (talk) 17:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
(de-ping)A.sav}} Yes, this a common problematic usage. It is a perfectly valid formation in English, so no need to worry in that respect. However, it is a formation that has logical meanings that are not desirable, or even intended. It is a phrasing that defines someone as what they used to be rather than what they are. Note how Britannica deliberately avoids this, for example. It is mostly a style issue. SFB 17:20, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Han Qing

Hello. I hope you don't mind, but I've been working to get Asia Month entries to the main page, and as such, I've nominated one of your articles at DYK. Mobile Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 15:01, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of List of Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in athletics records, ...

List of Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in athletics records, List of Central American Junior and Youth Championships in athletics records, and List of Central American and Caribbean Age Group Championships in athletics records are nominated for deletion. Might be merged into Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in Athletics, Central American Junior and Youth Championships in Athletics, and Central American and Caribbean Age Group Championships in Athletics.
Guess others (South America, Oceania, ...) will follow. Appears to be a matter of principle. Unfortunately, can't write down my arguments anymore, just "drag and drop". CroesJ (talk) 12:12, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

  • (de-ping)CroesJ}} I've requested to merge the data rather than delete it. Preservation is my key aim, and the list article presentation doesn't add a whole lot more compared to a link to a section in the championships article. Thanks for letting me know. SFB 20:08, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

You're invited! Women in Red World Virtual Edit-a-thon on Women in Religion

You are invited! Join us remotely!

World Virtual Edit-a-thon on Women in Religion

  • Dates: 5 to 15 December 2015
  • Location: Worldwide/virtual/online event
  • Host: Women in Red (WiR): Did you know that only 15% of the biographies on Wikipedia are about women? WiR focuses on "content gender gap". If you'd like to help contribute articles on women and women's works, we warmly welcome you!
  • Event details: This is a virtual edit-a-thon hosted by WiR. It will allow all those keen to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women in religion to participate. All levels of Wikipedia editing experience are welcome.
  • RSVP and learn more: →here←--Ipigott (talk) 10:47, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


Best wishes for 2016 . . .

SFB, may you continue to make Wikipedia a better place in the New Year. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:06, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

(de-ping)Dirtlawyer1}} Thanks for the greetings Hope you have a great New Year and an even better 2016! SFB 17:53, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to a virtual editathon on Women in Music

Women in Music
  • 10 to 31 January 2016
  • Please join us in the worldwide virtual edit-a-thon hosted by Women in Red.

--Ipigott (talk) 14:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia Asian Month

Hi, thank you for participation in Wikipedia Asian Month. Please fill out the survey that we use to collect the mailing address. All personal information will be only used for postcard sending and will be deleted immediately after the postcard is sent. If you have any question, you may contact me at Meta. Hope to see you in 2016 edition of Wikipedia Asian Month.--AddisWang (talk) 14:49, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:GamesSport2

Template:GamesSport2 has been nominated for merging with Template:GamesSport. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Nitobus (talk) 18:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)


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