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This section is a summary of prior discussions - please add any that you find here which are not already listed:

(more to come..) -- Chuq 10:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

First use

This sounds like a pretty good summary of the conclusions of the conversations I've seen. Should the sentence In an article that only relates to one of these codes, the above name should be used in the title (if the word "football" is in the title) and the first paragraph. The word "football" can be used throughout the rest of the article. be changed to In an article that only relates to one of these codes, the above name should be used in the title (if the word "football" is in the title) and the first time in the article. The word "football" can be used throughout the rest of the article. to reduce the convoluted style suggested at the top of this talk page? (changed "...first paragraph" to "...first time in the article") I support this proposal with or without this suggested modification. --Scott Davis Talk 13:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, the intention of the wording was "once in the first paragraph", not "throughout the first paragraph" which is similar to what you suggest. -- Chuq 23:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Soccer templates

User:Urgeback has alerted me to the fact that User:Chuq is insisting on using "Football" and not "Football (soccer)" on the soccer templates Template:AUS fb natteams and Template:AUS fb general. I don't think this is in the spirit of the convention and is provocative and unnecessary. Grant65 | Talk 03:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

These templates are only used on articles about association football, therefore I thought the context would have indicated which code was being discussed. However, to make things clearer, I have made some changes to the templates. When they are viewed individually, such as at Template:AUS fb general, the headers show Football (soccer). When they are included in a page, such as Football (soccer) in Australia, where the page itself makes it clear what is being discussed, the headers show Football. Hopefully this should eliminate any confusion. -- Chuq 05:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Due to the context, they looked OK to me before (the usage description identified the code of football, and the transclusion meant they followed the "first use" rule on pages). They certainly appear fine now, unless somebody is going to try to argue they should be renamed like {{AUS fb(s) general}} ! --Scott Davis Talk 06:33, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem comes in when Joe Blow, who is unaware of the politics involved, searches for information on Australian rules, rugby league or even gridiron (which known simply as "football" in the US and Canada) in Australia using the phrase "football in australia" and comes up with this stuff on his Google search. We are supposed to avoid ambiguity, not create it. Grant65 | Talk 09:14, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I would expect someone who finds a page on google would then proceed to actually READ the page, which would clarify which sport it was in the title or first paragraph. -- Chuq 09:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Chuq's reasoning definitely makes sense, and there shouldn't be any major problems with these templates as they are. However, I do feel that headings on boxes like this shoudl be treated more like titles than subsequent uses in the article text. JPD (talk) 11:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Chuq, they shouldn't have to read the pages, that is my point. Grant65 | Talk 12:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
But all google searches return the page title in a large fon

t at the top of each search result. Go ahead and do a Google search for "football in australia". Wikipedia's Football (soccer) in Australia and Australian rules football in Australia are in the top three; each clearly says either "soccer" or "Australian rules" in the heading. It is extremely clear to anyone searching. -- Chuq 23:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. To me, Grant65 has shown his ignorance by presuming that Canadian football and American football are the same.
  2. Google (at least) will not return a Wikipedia template page above an article page that also matches. Confusion will not come to casual browsers who only see the content of these templates in the context of Australian football (soccer) articles. Any potential confusion would only be to editors trying to add these templates to articles about other forms of football in Australia. The usage info should give them a clue that these templates are always about soccer, not parameterised by football code. --Scott Davis Talk 10:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Just answer me this chuq and be honest. If you see a template in Australian rules football that says football in Australia, will you change it? Urgeback 08:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Why would I? It would be an Australian rules football page. It's a type of football as well. If that is deemed to be the most appropriate name by the page's editors, there is nothing wrong with that. -- Chuq 10:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

We need to keep the rules the same for all codes. If we use football (soccer), then we should also use football (afl), and football (rugby league), as they are the same structure. For soccer headings we should use Association Football. This is the same as other codes that use Australian Football, or Australian Rules Football. In the article we should use football after notifying what code is used. However we should also notify what code we are referring to every few paragraphs. This is alot like when writing a book with a lot of speaking. Is it possible to get something that tells us the percentile of each country viewing pages. If the majority of people viewing the page are from australia we can just use soccer, football and rugby league/union. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krabby me (talk • contribs) 20:59, 27 November 2006

You definitely lost me at that last paragraph:
  1. Do you think that absolutely all Australians call it "soccer" [1] [2] and we are just calling it "football" to please people overseas? [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
  2. Not to mention, do you think that absolutely all Australians call AFL "football"? [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
  3. How many people would know what "association football" is?
I was going to say you may not know about prior discussions here, but seeing as I discussed the exact same thing with you 6 months ago, I can only guess you forgot, or just enjoy a good argument. The intention of this page is NOT to argue the same thing all over again - if you have something new to add, feel free, but if want to read the same old stuff over and over, I have provided links at the top of the page. -- Chuq 10:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey chuq before you go on saying we are wrong for calling it soccer, you have just referred to Aussie rules as 'afl'. Afl is a league, not a sport. Stop being hypocritical Urgeback 08:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, association football is the official name (see FIFA) but "Football (soccer)" is clearer, which is why it is the convention in Wikipedia. "Football" is not clear, and that's why we have naming conventions. That is the issue in a nutshell.
We are treading old ground here. Do I think that absolutely all Australians call it "soccer" and we are just calling it "football" to please people overseas? No and no. The members of the Barmy Army who live here and have taken out citizenship certainly call it "football". As shown above, several outlets in the Sydney-based media also favour "football = soccer" usage. It would never happen in the so-called "AFL states", or the ACT, and not (me thinks) in Queensland either. The Macquarie Dictionary (4th ed., 2005) states that in Australian English, people usually mean rules or league when they say "football" (with the proviso that the SBS-FFA pact may [only may] have some impact on usage in future). (Please don't try to tell me that the Macquarie isn't authoritative and/or there is no such thing as Australian English.) Even SBS drama and news progams use "soccer" --- because it's common usage. I think the fad will eventually dissipate among those oddball Sydney sports journos as well.
Scott, I wrote most of History of American football, so I'm well aware that it and Canadian football are different games. They are similar enough to both be classified as "gridiron" in an Australian context, I mean I've never heard of anyone referring to "Canadian gridiron"! Grant65 | Talk 16:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Grant you may be interested that the editor of the SMH, who is an English immigrant, introduced it last year around the time of the WC qualifyer in Sydney. I have been trying to include this in his biography, like someone before me I may add, and have been aggressively reverted by two users(maybe socks) named Tancred and Dibo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.10.112.157 (talk • contribs)

Chuq, can you read?? Did i say in that paragraph that ALL Australians call AFL football? no. No im not looking for an argument but it sounds to me like you are. I suggested a perfectly good way to use naming in articles that created a consistency across all the football codes. Yet you with your obvious bias towards soccer have decided to find a lot of news websites that are based in Sydney or made for Sydney. The soccer World Cup has died down, you can stop using football = soccer now. As with making things clear. Perhaps we should use Association Football (soccer)...yes i know thats its a abv and that its been discussed already....however it makes it alot more formal. ":#How many people would know what "association football" is?" reply: How many people in Australia recognise football as soccer? Yes a lot of young people play soccer, i was one of them. But i have only ever called ausse rules, football. Its only in small areas that soccer is football. SBS calls it football because it is a channel that shows stuff for the minority. --Krabby me 02:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Too right Krabby, for us in the northern states it is rugby league football and the commen terminology for soccer is not football but soccer. The amount of people who recognise soccer as "football" on some type of moral level is probably declining daily from interaction with these folk who are trying to claim that Australians in any serious numbers, call soccer football. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.10.112.157 (talk • contribs)
Some people haven't signed the posts so I'm not sure who is saying what here, so I will reply to all at once:
  1. Chuq, can you read?? Did i say in that paragraph that ALL Australians call AFL football? It may not have been your intention, but that is what I took you saying If the majority of people viewing the page are from australia we can just use soccer, football and rugby league/union. to imply.
  2. I suggested a perfectly good way to use naming in articles that created a consistency across all the football codes. Football (soccer) works - it is the name of the main article; it contains both "football" and "soccer", the most common names for the game, so all people should be able to recognise what sport it refers to; and it can be written as [[football (soccer)|]]. "Association football" on the other hand, isn't as clear or as simple to link to.
  3. As shown above, several outlets in the Sydney-based media also favour "football = soccer" usage. and Yet you with your obvious bias towards soccer have decided to find a lot of news websites that are based in Sydney or made for Sydney. The only sydney one is SMH. The rest are national. I did not intentionally search for sites using "football", you will notice I pointed out the ones that use "soccer" as well - I went to ALL the major news sites to find what they used. Most news corp sites don't have their own sports section. Oh and I just found Seven's [15]. The point was to find what they called the round ball version "football" or "soccer", the point was to see what you would expect to find in a section named "football" and nothing else.
  4. Yes a lot of young people play soccer, i was one of them. But i have only ever called ausse rules, football. I played "soccer" (round ball) and "football" (oval ball) at school as well. That was the 80s and 90s. Things have changed a lot since then.
  5. The soccer World Cup has died down, you can stop using football = soccer now How is that relevant to what people call it? If anything, more people would have been calling it "football" then because it involved international competition and probably 30 of the other 31 countries there call it "football" (or a translation thereof, eg. "futbol").
  6. SBS calls it football because it is a channel that shows stuff for the minority. SBS call it football because they played games from the English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian, Argentinean leagues, as well as international matches and international club matches, and all of those nations call it "football" (or a translation thereof). I don't think they even had the rights to the National Soccer League, when it existed.
  7. with the proviso that the SBS-FFA pact may [only may] have some impact on usage in future I'm not sure what pact that is; SBS are probably more biased AWAY from the FFA - SBS have never had A-League rights and as of 1 Jan 2007 will not have any rights to any Australian team (national or club) at all.
The big question is, how does any of this affect what is on the main page for this naming convention? -- Chuq 11:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
"The only sydney one is SMH. The rest are national." National in circulation, but based in Sydney. SBS in particular is notoriously Sydney-centric. As for your final question, the templates should reflect the convention of the English Wikipedia as whole (i.e. not just Australian articles) and refer to "football (soccer)". I'm amazed that adherence to such a long-standing convention is controversial. In fact, there is even more reason to do this with Australian articles because of the rival codes.Grant65 | Talk 13:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC
  1. To imply: that if most people are Australians we can go by wikipedia rules and use the common names of the WHOLE country.
  2. Well if we take the common name, then for Australian Football we should use football (AFL) as they are the two most common names. I reckon we should make the headings inside all soccer articles, Association Football (soccer), and for smaller ones, just football. In articles involving more than one code we cannot use football (soccer), we must use soccer as it is much easier to read. Consider "Bill quickly took off his slippers (thongs) as he walked into the house, and put on his slippers (woolen)". If this was in australia we should use thongs then slippers. It is much like the discussion we are having now.
  3. What Grant said + check the adelaide, WA and tasmanian ones. \
  4. Maybe in your small community of soccer fans yeah, but hardly anywhere else.
  5. People and the media only started TRYING to call it football during the campaign (not just the actual soccer world cup)
  6. Yes cos the only people who watch SBS regularly are the minority in Australia. It is made for the foreigners.

We have to consider what most australians would search for. When a youngster searches for football from his shack on the coast of adelaide, will they get what they searched for, without having to keep checking the heading of the page.Krabby me 03:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Rugby league football

Hi, I believe the official name of the sport is rugby league football and all references to both football in a unambiguous circumstance and rugby league football in an ambiguous circumstance should be used. I think that it is manifestly stupid that this has to even be argued. One only has to hear an international rl player talking about international football to know what commen terminology is. I thought this was already the case and the practice and am amused that soccer people have claimed that it is not referred to as football, so here is to making it official. P.S. I am not interested in comments by SOCCER people who will make aggressive POV claims as is their want. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.10.112.157 (talk • contribs)

That is ok so long as it unambiguous, accurate, and agreed upon by other rugby league editors. Going by the articles in Category:Rugby_league_in_Europe, Category:Rugby_league_in_Oceania, and Category:International_rugby_league_teams, I think it is pretty clear most of the others think "rugby league" is the most convenient name that is short (easy to type/link to), descriptive (it is used to describe the sport internationally), and unambiguous ("Rugby league" won't be confused with any other sport)
I think that it is manifestly stupid that this has to even be argued. I think this shows a complete lack of understanding. Any supporter of any code should be able to recognise that there may be conflicts. To think otherwise is a refusal to wear a neutral point of view hat.
I suspect it is not you changing "rugby league" to "rugby league football" that is the problem; it is the fact that it is often the only change you make, or it is accompanied by uncivil comments, which makes it harder for other editors to sympathise with you. -- Chuq 12:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Rant from blocked user deleted -- Chuq 12:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Back to normal

Ok, now if there is anyone who isn't listed here left.. back to the suggestions? -- Chuq 11:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

A sensible summary

An extremely sensible summary of the situation. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

One question: Does this mean that an article about, say, Sport in Melbourne, when talking about UK football, will be recommended to use

"The city has a football (soccer) club, Melbourne Victory, represented in the A-League, the premier league of football (soccer) in Australia..." (example written by me)

Seems mildly convoluted to me, I would think that just using soccer would be better, since disambiguation will have to be done anyway? Sam Vimes | Address me 10:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

No, it would probably be more like "The city has a football (soccer) club, Melbourne Victory, represented in the A-League, the nations premier league..." or "The city has a club, Melbourne Victory, in Australia's premier football (soccer) league, the A-League.." or some other way that would result in the sentence flowing better. -- Chuq 11:08, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


100% support from me. I reckon "American football", by the way :) Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 10:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The proposal is in-line with the guidelines that the Football Project (that is, football (soccer)) have established. Which is, use most commonly used name of the region, football or soccer, or when both are almost equally common, use football (soccer). – Elisson • T • C • 19:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Well then, Ellison settles it. Soccer is no where near as popular in Australia as other codes. Yes i know all Australians follow their national team in all sports. Rugby Union was watched by everyone, yet it didnt take over australia. Looks like we have to go back to calling it soccer in lines with the convention made by the soccer people. Krabby me 10:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Alternate suggestions

The follow was added to the proposal page by an IP address:

Other suggestions:

These would not be suitable because:

  • AFL is a league and a governing body, not a sport; there are the VFL, SANFL, WAFL, and hundreds of local leagues which play Australian rules football, but they are not AFL.
  • "Association football (soccer)" is like saying "soccer football (soccer)" - the term soccer came from "association" - so would be redundant.
  • I think "American football" would be just as clear and easier to read.

-- Chuq 09:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there really a problem with this naming convention that the discussion is trying to solve? The convention looks fine to me as it is now - and I only had one lesson of soccer in PE at school. --Scott Davis Talk 11:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't think so - I did base the page on the results of all the past discussions so it should be pretty well spot on - but I just wanted to check with others first. It is just the American football/Gridiron terminology that is "unsolved", but as we don't have an "in Australia" or "national team" article for either I don't think there is a hurry. -- Chuq 20:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
How about football (Australian), football (soccer), and football (american). They are all in the same style and are not bias towards a particular code. At current articles are biased towards soccer by using football (soccer). AFL was used before because people in previous discussions have said AFL = football (Australian). Association Football (soccer) is a bit like that yes. However i believe the point in having it is more like "Portable Computer (laptop)" which are the same thing, yet people recognise laptop more.59.100.121.184 22:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Interesting ideas. "football (Australian)" and "football (American)" could be read as "Football (soccer) in Australia" and "Football (soccer) in the United States" to someone from a football (soccer) dominant country who doesn't know about all the different codes. Wikipedia's disambiguation guideline recommends using a name without brackets, if such a name exists and is easily recognisable. I'm not sure why football (soccer) was used instead of association football, but it is probably something to with overwhelming international usage. I don't think the current titles are biased towards any particular code either - for such a commonly linked-to article, I would rather a Football (soccer) have a regular name without brackets in it, so I consider it a disadvantage, it is inconvenient writing [[Football (soccer)|]] all the time (the same as Melbourne/Victorian editors have to write [[Victoria (Australia)|]] all the time!). By the way your comment about "football (American)" and my reply that it may be ambiguous makes me think that "American football" may be just as ambiguous. We may need to go with something with Gridiron in the name for that one.
The laptop analogy would make sense if every country in the world, except for 4-5, only had laptop computers, and had never heard of or seen desktop computers, and just called their laptops "computers". -- Chuq 08:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Well if they're from a soccer dominated country, it's important for them to know that not all countries call is football. That would be like us asking them to call theirs football (soccer). Urgeback 08:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

But they do. Football (soccer) is the main article, even though the global usage is much more in favour of "Football" by itself. Also, "not all countries call is football" seems to implying that no-one in Australia calls it football. Quite obviously, some of us do! -- Chuq 12:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it is possible to have a standard for both international and articles that mainly australians would view. For example, not many people from overseas would read about A-league, nrl, or the AFL. In these articles we should probably use soccer, rugby league, and football. Or some other variant. I haven't really thought about international ones yet, but i think that we cannot continue with football (soccer), rugby league, and Aussie rules, as it implies that a significant amount of people call soccer "football" (which isn't the case), and that people go around talking about afl, using aussie rules. I play all three sports, i call bith rugby and afl balls, a football. And a soccer ball a soccer ball. I also call rugby, rugby/football/footy/league, i call australian football, football/footy/afl, and soccer, soccer. I think that represents a vast majority of Australians, and we can work something out from those. Krabby me 09:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

A vast majority of the people you know and talk to, doesn't mean a vast majority of Australians. I would suggest a vast majority of people reading Australian Football League call Australian rules "football", and a vast majority of people reading National Rugby League call rugby league "football" and a vast majority of people reading A-League call association football/soccer "football". Then it gets confusing. Sydney FC is an Australian team playing in the A-League, but has also played in the 2005 FIFA Club World Championship. and will play in the AFC Champions League 2007 both of where the name "football" is predominantly used. Your statement "as it implies that a significant amount of people call soccer "football" (which isn't the case)" appears to be the crux of your argument. Lots of people DO call it football, just not the people you know/talk to. Do a Google search for 'Australia football'. You may think that google is biased towards official organisations or media organisations, so try Youtube search for 'Australia football' which is almost all 'grassroots' content. Football in Australia explains usage patterns to anyone confused. -- Chuq 01:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Well yes that would actually go by most australians. If you look at that logically. To prevent me writing to much, using football (word), we can say that MOST of Australia calls soccer, soccer. Thats out of the way. For rugby league, and union, which are called league and rugby to distinguish between the two in colloquial language, where its popular it is called football/footy. That is only in NSW (mostly Sydney) and the most populus area of QLD. In the rest of Australia except for pockets of other codes around the place, Australian Football is almost always called football/footy. Im not disputing the fact that in articles that are to do with a particular code should use football the most. All soccer articles should be able to use the word football, but only after stating what type it is. The type should also be stated every now and then in the article. such as. 3 or paragraphs into the article..."..Archie Thompson recently scored five goals against the New Zealand Knights. According to sources this amount of goals is a first for soccer in this country." This should happen with all codes. Currently what is happening is that in sites talking about more than one code, we have headings such as Australlian Rules Football, and later down, football (soccer). This suggests that soccer is called football by the majority of Australians. This is not the case. Also, in aricles, people are using "football" under the soccer heading, and when someone tries to use "football" in the aussie rules, or rugby sections it is changed back immediately. It is this type of behaviour that is eroding the links between the codes, and bringing on the destruction of wikipedia. I have many friends who are trying to call soccer football. Guess what!! They are all from Sydney. What a suprise!! However i have far more from Sydney who think that calling soccer football is just stupid and weird. I also know people who love soccer, don't like australian football, or rugby, but refuse to call it football. Why would someone search for australia football?? It is more logical to search australian football.Do that and see the results. Also switch google to australian mode, and search "football". Oh and in the paper today John O'Neill stated that AFL is easily the highest football code, followed by league, soccer then union. Krabby me 05:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you realise that this isn't "what sport is most popular", I think it is pretty obvious that Australian rules football is more popular that football (soccer) (in Australia) and no-one is trying to claim otherwise. The discussion here is "there is some naming confusion here, which terms can we use to avoid confusion". Not a single thing you have posted on this page has been in aid of this. I could reply to all that you have written above, but I have done it over and over to dozens of different users (who show up to edit various football articles to their POV, disappear). Also, in aricles, people are using "football" under the soccer heading, and when someone tries to use "football" in the aussie rules, or rugby sections it is changed back immediately. .. Yes, that is a problem. That it what this proposal is supposed to fix. -- Chuq 11:37, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been talking about what sport is the most popular. Stop trying to discredit me. I have been writing about which people would be most likely to visit all the different pages relating to all type of football in australia. This involves what sport is the most popular of them. I gave a list of all the different names the majority of australians use to call the three main football codes (if u can even say three).

  • Australian Football: football/footy/aussie rules/afl/australian football
  • Rugby League: football/league/footy/rugby league
  • Association Football: soccer

They are the main names that Australians use. I wrote that above. Have you ever thought that those dozens of users are right. It is just your and the other soccer recruits from other countries that are wrong. In an easy to read format:

  • the football word shall be used after initially stating what type it is in the first paragraph. It should also be stated every few paragraphs just like a normal encyclopedia entry.
  • the words Australian rules football, Association football, and rugby league football should be used in all headings where more than one code is the main sport
  • in articles that are a large majority of the readers are Australian, the words soccer, football, rugby union, and rugby league shall be used.Krabby me 23:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
The first problem with this is that Wikipedia does not choose it's word usage based on assumptions concerning where the large majority of the readers are from, but simply what form of English is most relevant to the subject of the article. The second problem is that there are enough "football means soccer" people in Australia now to not be able to ignore it on Wikipedia, whatever we might think of the matter (WP:NPOV). As someone who grew up (in Sydney) calling Aussie rules "football", surrounded by people who thought "football" was rugby league, and who avoids using "football" to refer to soccer, even here in London where it is normal, I think the current guidelines are fairly reasonable. The only place they are currently causing problems is things like Sport in Australia, where as far as I can tell, the guidelines say that "football (soccer)" should be used throughout that section, although there could be an argument for using "football" after the first mention in all of the relevant sections. I think that in that context using unamgibuous terms is better, but "football (soccer)" is awkward. Are the soccer people really against using "soccer" alone in any situation? JPD (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
The main issue I have with Krabby Me's most recent suggestion, above, is that he seems to be denying that Association football is called "football" by anyone (notice it is listed as an option next to the first two, but not the third). I understand that he might never call it that himself - but as another example, I have never ever in my life heard anyone call rugby league "football" in casual conversation, but that is because I don't follow it myself, or hang around with people who follow it, or live in an area where it gets much media coverage at all. However, I don't try to deny that it is called that by it's followers though. -- Chuq 00:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

If you had actually read all the wording you would have seen that those names are a list of what games are regularly called around Australia. However if you would like me to make a list of every name that a given code can be made, i'll try my best. But yes i do think along with most of Australia that there are not many people calling soccer football. It is just a very vocal minority. Do you really think that Ben Buckley started calling soccer, football on his own admission?

  • Australian Football: football/footy/aussie rules/afl/australian football/gayfl/national game/australian rules football/australian game/our game/aerial ping pong
  • Rugby League: football/league/footy/rugby league/thugby/rugby/rugby football/nrl
  • Association Football: soccer/football/wogball/footie/gay-league/world game/english football/world football/aerial ping pong/woosy sport

There you go. That should make you happy. What you have to realise that is as much as what people may say that soccer will be known widely as football in Australia, it is not happening at the present time. Now we need to look at the names that people use a lot in AUSTRALIA now. We need to decide on a convention that will keep australian, rugby and association football people happy when they do a search. A lot of soccer people around the world know that their 'football' is soccer. But not many Australians know soccer is also called 'football'. Krabby me 02:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You must be on something if you think soccer could possiblr be called ariel ping pong. How do you figure that. Urgeback 09:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I was just doing a few minutes of research. I was looking at New Zealands use of words, as they are quite similiar to our country. I also looked at previous uses of words on Australias entries. What i came up with, was that New Zealand has a similar level of support of soccer as Australia, yet in their articles they use soccer in both headings and inside the aricles mpst of the time. I also looked at the history of Australian articles. It was the soccer people that upset the equilibrium of naming in Australia. They started using the name "football" in about october 2005. This was about the time that many discussions took place regarding naming. I suggest we go back to the original naming as it was non controversial. Krabby me 06:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

My previous comment, that is "just because you and people you know do not call it football, does not mean that there isn't a significant amount of other people who do" still stands. Check almost any Australian football (soccer) forum [16] [17] [18] [19] - even some of http://www.bigfooty.com 's (an Aussie rules forum) "soccer" forums are a mixture, 2 named "football", 2 named "soccer".
So far as your comments about searching; the proposed policy allows for that (articles with "football" in the topic (eg. Football in Australia) will be a disambiguation page, for example).
Who cares how New Zealand articles are named - that makes as much sense as naming ours the same as England, or France, or Brazil. -- Chuq 09:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Whoa...ALL of the soccer people have banded together in order to make petitions to change the way media works in this country. Trying to change 150 years of views. A survey on a site that supposedly has about 15000 fierce supporters. Yet a petition that seems pretty well advertised on the Melbourne Victory website only has about 900 signatures. Do you really think that a couple of forums for each team in the A-League, and a couple more on the Australian soccer team mean that a significant number of Australians follow soccer?? The town in which i live is the home town of one of the australian womens soccer team players. There is a large italian community, and they all follow soccer. They never call it football. It is only a very small number of people calling the game soccer around Australia. Yes they have a lot of forums calling it football, but would all of them call it football around Australians? I think not. Soccer is the name that ALL australians recognise. Football is a term most Australians associate with AFL then league then soccer then union. Soccers A-league only has 3 games above 30 000 spectators so far this year, and only 9 above 20 000, in fact 42 / 60 games so far have had below 15 000 spectators. This does NOT represent a significant amount of people. Nor does the 2600 members of the Melbourne Victory forum, or the similar amount of people on the Sydney soccer club site. I researched New Zealand as they are a country that is extremely similar to us. They follow similar sports in rugby league, union, and cricket. They also follow soccer and aussie rules to a lesser extent. That is a quite similar to Australia with a few sports swapped around. Notably union and aussie rules. I totally agree with having disambiguation pages for most articles containing football, with a exceptions like official names that are used a fair bit. It is however disturbing that soccer writers seem to have the need to replace all "football" uses in australian football aritles with "australian rules football" when it is quite obvious that it is about that sport. This is while they have changed soccer to football in the same article, confusing people reading the article in the process.Krabby me 04:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't see why you are complaining about the guideline, Krabby me. They quite explicitly say that on articles about a particular code or footballer, "football" can be used later in the article. The only place I have seen people exchanging "football"/"Australian rules football"/"Aussie rules" recently is in Sport in Australia. In this case, the text as originally written (not by a "soccer writer) was "Australian rules", etc, and Urgeback changed it to football. I (again, definitely not a "soccer writer") changed it back, because this article is not an Australia football article, and it seems natural to me that when we are specifically discussing many sports including at least four varieties of football, we should use the unambiguous terms. This is in line with the guidelines and should apply equally to the soccer section, which by the current guidelines should use "football (soccer)". Since this is awful writing, I would prefer to use simply "soccer", and tend to think that if it werent' for people objecting to jsut about every use of "football" to refer to soccer, the soccer fans wouldn't be so keen to avoid the term "soccer". JPD (talk) 12:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I see many people leaving soccer to simply football after football(soccer) term is used, lets see on the MCG site. Urgeback 09:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that word usage is slowly being change by soccer writers on wikipedia. Pretty soon they will be requesting that football is not used at all by other codes. I have also seen people exchanging football/aussie rules. In all other government type pages i have visited, soccer is used with every use. It seems that only articles that are viewed alot are using the word football instead of soccer. I also would prefer to use the word soccer. However i think that if the soccer fans accepted that is what their code is called then there would be no problem. Krabby me 02:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Pretty soon they will be requesting that football is not used at all by other codes.. Haha.. so after all this, your main concern is not what is being proposed, but what you think might be proposed later on? Word usage on wikipedia is being changed ONLY as usage in the real world is being changed. I can't forsee football (soccer) becoming the nations primary football code in the forseeable future, and even if it was, I don't think anyone would suggest changing the naming on here - due to the significant history of the other codes. -- Chuq 23:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

That was only a statement in passing, a statement that i don't believe will occur. Well if word usage only occurs as the usage is changed then there is no need at all for football (soccer) to be used, and the word soccer should be used in most cases. Yes you may think that soccer has an enormous potential to change usage of the word football currently, but at the moment it is not used popularly. In fact, have you noticed that a lot of media organisations have begun to revert away from using soccer = football. I reckon if you did a survey of people at a-league soccer matches, more than half would use soccer over football, and about a quarter would not call soccer football at all. Krabby me 01:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Can we revisit and update this

7 years on and this is still on ongoing topic. So can we revisit and update this so we can discuss some standards to apply to articles. I like the basic template of this, so by update I am referring to Football (soccer) and Gridiron/American football. My suggestion is to replace Football (soccer) with Association football, and replace Gridiron with American football. This is reflecting the changes on Wikipedia and within Australia which have taken place since this was last active.--2nyte (talk) 13:20, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I approve of the idea of updating this page, in about one month from now once things are a bit clearer. If anyone who is watching this is interested, we are crafting an RfC to clarify naming and terminology in this area below. Please comment if you would like. --John (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
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