Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Athletics/Archive 1

Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the
2007 World Championships in Athletics
Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the; 2007 World Championships in Athletics
WA code	GBR
National federation	UK Athletics
in Osaka
Competitors	60
Medals	Gold 1 Silver 1 Bronze 3 Total 5
World Championships in Athletics appearances (overview)
	1976; 1980; 1983; 1987; 1991; 1993; 1995; 1997; 1999; 2001; 2003; 2005; 2007; 2009; 2011; 2013; 2015; 2017; 2019; 2022; 2023;
	← 2005 2009 →

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

Discussion

Any comments or expansions on this proposal are most welcome! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 03:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

An honour board looks good, and racking up some DYKs, GAs and FAs. DYKs are fairly easy, just multiply an existing article five-fold or begin one - WP:Fungi has racked up quite a few so far. Listing current FAs and GAs is also useful. All a wikiproject template means for me is ones for which an article might be applicable to, so a place to ask for help (or a review) if need be. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Definitely interested, but question - are you planning on this kind of absorbing Wikiproject Running? Geraldk (talk) 14:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Willing to Join!

Hey, I would be willing to join WikiProject Athletics if you succeed in getting everything together. You might've noticed (or not ) I haven't been too active on the athletics pages in recent months, because I've been busy with academic work and research. However, in a month or two I should be able to devote some time to working on the Wikipedia pages. Mipchunk (talk) 03:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ha! I didn't leave you a personal message because you hadn't edited in a month or so. I find myself in a similar situation to you so I hope to push ahead with proposals by around the start of next month. The topic title move and sub-article expansion is a key issue as it's holding back the whole thing. Why has no one ever suggested that we need both an athletics article and a track and field article? Plus, I've only heard American usage of "athlete" and "athletic ability" when referring to sport in general. Not "athletics" (e.g. no one says, "Barry Bonds does athletics"). Good to see some early interest. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 03:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:RUN

FYI, you will also be overlapping with WP:RUN.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:03, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see your proposal listed at WP:COUNCIL/P. Send out another notice to people if you are going to make a formal proposal.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:07, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see the listed proposal here. Cheers for that. I've never really seen how to set a WikiProject before. The corridors of this virtual library are indeed endless... Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 18:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

As for overlapping with WP Running, wouldn't it be the best if WP Running would become a workgroup within WP Athletics, same as, say, water polo is a workgroup of WikiProject Swimming? GregorB (talk) 22:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a decent idea but some aspects are outside of this project scope, specifically that of bipedal locomotion. However, I think it's largely similar material so it would work. Are there any main contributors to the WP running project? I can setup the framework to start WP:RUN as an athletics workgroup but this should be discussed and agreed by that project first. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 16:26, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course, WP:RUN members would have to agree. Functionally, WP:RUN would lose nothing, because that project does not use assessments (in fact, it could gain assessments in the process). E.g. one could kickstart the article assessment for WP Athletics by simply replacing

{{Running project}}

with

{{WikiProject Athletics|running=yes}}

True, some articles may be outside of scope of WP Athletics, but surely these are few (after a short search, I couldn't find anything more exotic than Backward running). The overlap is such that it would be a shame to split the resources in this way. GregorB (talk) 19:19, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I very much agree. The lack of an assessment method was in my opinion quite a flaw in the RUN project. This sounds like a good match. I'll ask RUN project members when I move this to mainspace. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 00:02, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Moving... Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 20:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It was always intended that WP:RUN included track and field. Perhaps it is time to consolidate the two projects with a track and field task force to focus and specialize on that subset of the 9,000+ running articles. Racepacket (talk) 02:06, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that having two separate projects with (at best) considerable overlap is wasteful. Separate assessment, for example, is a complete waste of time. However: you seem to imply that track and field is a subset of running, while I'd say that clearly opposite is the case. If WP:RUN was, as you say, always intended to include track and field, then it appears it was oddly named. I don't think there is a reasonable way to construe "athletics" as "sports", as opposed to "track and field". GregorB (talk) 08:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Article tagging

I have setup up most of the basic inner workings and articles are now ready to tag. Just use {{WPAthletics}} on the talk page. Try to rate them as best you can as you go along. I think we should start slowly, incorporating high priority content (e.g. major tournaments, athletics events, world-class athletes) and see how we go from there. Tagging new articles is also a good way of expanding the project's reach without going on a huge tagging spree.

In the future I am going to inquire about automatic bot tagging from User:AnomieBOT, but I won't look to swamp the project with thousands of articles just yet! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 02:31, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

Since you are using the |display=none parameter, remember to give a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Article alerts from the mainpage (or an otherwise high-traffic page), otherwise your project members will not get much benefit from it. If you want to watch the alerts, remember to show bot edits in your watchlist. Thanks. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 02:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Good point, kind of forgot that the navigation is a transclusion. I'm linking it on the main now. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 13:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Athlete

I've been using this on many long distance runner entries lately. I noticed it was on Paula Radcliffe's article and then it was bothering me that there were many different types (or none at all) of infoboxes for long distance runners. Consistency is important.

I asked a user who knows how to update templates (because I don't!) to add some new parameters (current residence, coached by, college).

Let me know if anyone has some comments about this.

Thanks. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 14:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Good point - there's no need to use different types of infoboxes for athletes, {{Infobox Athlete}} should be enough. Incidentally, there are four infoboxes for martial artists, two are (semi-) generic, one is for MMA, and one for boxers - not really an optimal solution. (I made some enhancements on {{Infobox Martial artist}} just recently.) {{Infobox Runner}} should be marked as deprecated, and all its transclusions converted to Infobox Athlete. GregorB (talk) 17:00, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

So which infoboxes templates are used in athlete articles? And how many of them are there which you know of? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 19:07, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, on the Athlete Infobox, colouration of the "Personal information"/"Sport" etc banners might be nice. Perhaps in a light red like a running track? Feel free to disagree with me if you think this is a crappy idea! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 19:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

A tartan track color would be really adequate for this infobox. Parutakupiu (talk) 00:07, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

What about all the marathoners, do we find a road color :) --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 00:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Ha! True. We could use both sets of colors, but then again the infobox has four headings. Perhaps using a neutral color, then? Parutakupiu (talk) 01:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

{{Infobox Runner}} marked as deprecated and replaced by {{Infobox Athlete}}

Per the discussion above and similar ones elsewhere, I've marked {{Infobox Runner}} as deprecated and replaced by {{Infobox Athlete}}. Perhaps someone could verify that I've done that properly. Thanks! Location (talk) 23:56, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages bot

This is a future proposition, but: I shall look to file a request to User:Mr.Z-bot when the project has expanded further in order to create a "most popular WPAthletics articles" page such as this one. Good work on the article tagging thus far GregorB and others. This list should help the project focus on which articles should be improved to help readers the most. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 19:07, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, popularity of a particular article is one of the factors in its importance assessment... GregorB (talk) 10:21, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I found this tucked away in quality assessment: Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Athletics articles by quality. This is a good way of comparing articles of similar quality/importance. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!}

Athletics results

Seeing as there are a wide variety of styles, I'd like to see better formatting consistency in the results articles of athletics competitions.

For the main page with all events results, I think we could do far worse than adopting a simple style similar to Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Personally, I always found that linking the event results from the event name was rather ambiguous, whereas "Details" is not.

I think use of templates such as {{AthleticsAt2007WorldChampionships}} on the sub-articles is a good idea (see example). I prefer it to the footer method of templates like {{2005WorldChampionshipsAthletics}} (see example). The former choice has the added benefit of bringing articles into line with what the Olympics project already does (see here).

What does everyone else think? I don't mean to suggest we do a massive retrospective overhaul, but adopting a consistent style for events from this point on would be beneficial. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 01:54, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I might be biased, but I think the formatting standard used by the WikiProject Olympics is quite good, and this project should benefit from applying it on its articles; this extends to the issue of event navboxes and others that might arise. In the meantime, and since we're getting closer to the World Champs, we could start "messing around" with the 2007 World Champs articles to provide a template for Berlin 2009. Parutakupiu (talk) 21:55, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a fiddle with the last champs articles now. Also, I'd like to use the {{Sports record codes}} template at the end of the results tables as they seem helpful. I'm going to draw up an athletics glossary (for abbreviations/brief descriptions/etc) at some point to help readers too. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 02:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

European Cup

What is the real title of this (now defunct) tournament? The main article is at European Cup (athletics), the editions are at (e.g.) European Cup in Athletics 2006, while the first sentence of the main article talks of the "Europa Cup". Does anyone have any idea which one is the official name? Also, perhaps we should move the articles to a year first title? (e.g. 2009 European Team Championships, not European Team Championships 2009. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 03:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

listing distance

So what's the proper way to list something like 10,000m race? (ex. 10000m 10,000m, 10000 m (????) I finally got an image for Shalane Flanagan but noticed her bronze medal distance is listed two ways in the lead. Thanks. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 01:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

From WP:UNITS:

In large numbers (i.e., in numbers greater than or equal to 10,000), commas are generally used to break the sequence every three places left of the decimal point, e.g. 8,274,527. In scientific and mathematical contexts, {{gaps}} may be used to insert thin spaces, e.g. 8274527 produces 8274527 (note: the thin space character and its HTML entity,  , do not render correctly on some browsers). Consistency within an article is desirable as always.

and

Values and unit symbols are separated by a non-breaking space. The {{nowrap}} template or the   character can be used for this purpose. For example, use 10 m or 29 kg, not 10m or 29kg.

So it's 10,000 m, preferably with a  . For some strange reason IOC does not use the whitespace. IAAF uses the whitespace, with a comma for "10,000", but without a comma for smaller numbers ("3000", "5000"), which is what WP:UNITS seems to suggest. Direct quotes should be left alone, though. GregorB (talk) 10:57, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 12:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

So judging by the IAAF interpretation should we move all IAAF 10000 metres events to "10,000"? I've been doing the latter but only because that's what I saw in the Olympics articles. Should we try to always use the number with comma from now on? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 12:23, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

IAAF style - by accident or not - appears to match WP:UNITS perfectly, so I'd say yes. BTW, it would be a good idea to write down some sort of WP Athletics style and layout guidelines. GregorB (talk) 12:25, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Blank templates

In light of the forthcoming 2009 Mediterranean Games I have drawn up two blank competition templates (one with details links and one without) to make creating events pages a little simpler. I'm not sure if similar things can be found elsewhere but you can see the drafts here (with details links) and here (no details links). I've based it on a mix of the Olympics pages and 2009 South American Championships in Athletics. What do people make of the ideas of and "events summary" and a "records broken" section? Any criticisms/improvements are very welcome. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 13:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Stub or not?

There is a number of athletics articles that were assessed as start, yet are tagged with a stub template. Here is a current list. Most of these are actually start class - 1996 World Junior Championships in Athletics is a good example, as it is too comprehensive and too informative to be declared a stub, despite actually having very little prose. Same might apply to some otherwise short biographies that nevertheless have e.g. comprehensive infoboxes, achievement lists or tables and the like.

So, if you have nothing better to do, :-) check the above list and remove stub tags where they are not appropriate. GregorB (talk) 12:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Although there's not much in terms of prose, there is a significant amount of relevant information in the results table to qualify as a start, whereas something like 2001 European Athletics Junior Championships (lacking results) is an actual stub. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 01:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the list for now. Let's keep an eye on it. I found United States at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics amongst them, which needs much clean up and updating. All the fields filled with "TBC" are pretty lame! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 15:58, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

ÅF Golden League move

What do people make of moving this article back to IAAF Golden League? I'm not sure entirely, but there seems to be consensus in not using sponsor titles in article titles as they can often change the official name, while the tournament lineage remains the same. Take Football League Championship for example, I think we should follow the same style: e.g. The IAAF Golden League (sponsored by ÅF and officially known as the ÅF Golden League) is a blah blah blah. Thoughts anyone? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 23:17, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Full agreement. Fol de rol troll (talk) 16:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd support a sponsor/official name if (in fact: only if) it's the name that an event is best known under. Not the case here. GregorB (talk) 17:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Delilah DiCrescenzo AFD

Hello Wikiproject Athletics. An article that you may be interested in, Delilah DiCrescenzo, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Delilah DiCrescenzo. Thank you. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 18:07, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

2009 World Championships in Athletics – Nation pages

I've set up the first nations page for the World Championships for Great Britain & NI. Many of the nations pages from the last championships left much to be desired. I feel we should establish some consistency. The Olympics project gives a decent example (see here from the GB 2008 Olympics page) and I've set up an empty template for listing the team selections of each country. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 14:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, I've just completed a modification of the Olympics infobox template for the World Championships at {{Infobox Country World Championships in Athletics}}. Here is a basic example (right). A number of features seen in the similar Olympics template have been removed, including: links to the countries overall performance at the competition, links to the category of the respective country's competitors at the Championships, extensive links to the historical performance of the team.

None of these things actually exist at the moment so we can add them later if such articles and categories come into common practice. The two years forward/back links at the bottom should suffice for the time being. Any recommendations, suggestions, or code tweaking is more than welcome! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 17:35, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Some comments and suggestions:

"Great Britain at the World Championships". Which championships? I know it is explained below but still the infobox title should be unambiguous.

~~Modified. Rechange if you disagree.~~ Okay, I've no clue what I'm doing. Sorry, next time I should do something before saying I've done it. I can't see how to change it so it says "... at athletics World Championships" Fol de rol troll (talk) 22:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

The external link to the national athletics federation site (if available) would be nice.

— Parutakupiu (talk) 17:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I've made a few changes in {{Infobox Country World Championships in Athletics}} and updated the appended doc page accordingly, so if you don't understand something, please ask. Parutakupiu (talk) 20:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Excellent stuff. I've updated the pages using the previous model. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 16:03, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Article Importance Rating

I've just came across Dayron Robles page (which is pretty rubbish, so I'll be attempting to improve it), and after adding the WPAthletics template rated him as Mid-Importance due to the fact that he is a world record holder. Is this the importance level we should rate any athlete who has held a world record as a base? That would be my stand point, but wondering what other people think. Fol de rol troll (talk) 01:46, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I think mid is a fair rating for now. However, if his career continues at this rate he should easily be rated as high-importance, like Colin Jackson. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 15:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean just for him in particular. Should all current or former world record holders be listed as mid-importance as a minimum? Fol de rol troll (talk) 15:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the event I suppose. I've rated some former racewalking world record holders as low importance if the distance is unusual and they didn't achieve much else. Similarly, I tend to only rate relay runners as mid importance if their competition achievements are significant. So generally, most former world record holders are at least mid importance, but if an athlete set a short-lived record in a more obscure event and not much else then low importance will do. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 16:10, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

DecaNation

How do we go about de-orphaning this article? I've never heard of it, but that's no surprise because my country has never competed in it. Is this a big deal at all? Where can we add links for this? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 15:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Hurdles and steeplechase articles

After doing a quick google search, it appears that 100 metre hurdles, 110 metre hurdles and 3000 metre steeplechase articles should be moved to the plural of "X metres hurdles". I think the "metre" usage (which far more uncommon than either meter and metres has come about as a combination of the IAAF's usage of British/French spelling, and the fact that the most common usage in American English is the singular. Thus we are left with the uncommon "X metre hurdles" as our standard. I suggest that we move the hurdles and steeplechase articles to "X metres hurdles/steeplechase". The IAAF uses this style as standard and it fits in with the fact that the main metre/meter article is at "Metre". I would suggest that we also move the race walks to "X kilometres walk" too. What do people think? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 11:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I usually take into account and balance the official designation by the governing body and the most common usage. In this case it seems that they are all in favor of the plural form "metres", so I give my support. But you know this will imply an extensive renaming of articles, right? Another thing that should be changed is "10000 metres" to "10,000 metres" as per IAAF and Wikipedia's guidelines. Parutakupiu (talk) 14:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm very aware that this means there is much renaming work to do, I came across this problem when moving IAAF World Championships event pages and creating their templates. I agree with the "10000 metres" to "10,000 metres" rename too. Perhaps a piecemeal approach will do. There still a lot of endash moving to do on pages too... Also, Marathon: capital or no capital? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 18:30, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

"Marathon" with capital letter refers to the ancient Greek city, so "marathon". Parutakupiu (talk) 00:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Support per IAAF convention (as well as the change of "10000 metres" to "10,000 metres"). Location (talk) 17:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Duer Yoa AFD

Hello Wikiproject Athletics. An article that you may be interested in, Duer Yoa, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Duer Yoa. Thank you. --Location (talk) 20:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Pentathlon

I've overhauled the main pentathlon page and created the new Ancient Olympic pentathlon. Any help fixing what links should point to is most appreciated! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 20:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Tabbed browsing

You'll all have noticed that the Project now has tabs. I have translated the idea from the French Wikipedia which uses a main template for use on portals and projects. I've seen a similar thing at Wikipedia:Introduction and a couple of portals but I haven't seen it on any other projects. It would be good to get a portal set up for Athletics, but it will require much work (including rewriting and moving the main topic to "athletics" and writing a "track and field" sub-article). Portals seem like a great idea, especially when they're done well. It's a real shame that they are so poorly linked on the English Wikipedia. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 04:12, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I'm a member of the French WikiProject Athletics and i've participated to the Portal:Athletics ameliorations. You already have so many articles, so the creation of the portal would be a good thing for this sport. I would like to help you but I not maitrise tools on WP:en, sorry. Good luck. and excuse me for my very bad english Selligpau (talk) 19:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Race walk article done

Just a heads up to say that 20 kilometres race walk exists as a stand-alone article now and can be linked to directly. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 00:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

World Championships entry list

The athletes entry list for the events at the World Championships is now available if anyone wishes to start creating the upcoming events for the competition. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 15:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I've done around half of the nations so far, but I need help! I won't have time in the next days to finish it. And we need guys to put in the results of the respective nations. Per aspera ad Astra (talk) 13:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Athlete and "Finals"

Infobox Athlete has parameters for "Olympic Finals" & "World Finals". What about if someone qualified for either one of those, but did not make it through the heats? Should they not be listed there?

My vote is to remove the "Finals" from the display of the template.. making it to those competitions should be in the infobox, even if they didn't get through the heats. The practice should be to put "7th in qualifying heat", and if they were 7th in the finals, just put "7th", as it is implied that that's the final.

See Anna Willard for example. She didn't make it past the heat in the 2007 Worlds.

I'll be interested to see what others say.

Thanks. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 12:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems logic. I approve a change, but don't forget to update all articles (nearly 250) that have this template transcluded. Parutakupiu (talk) 14:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, but perhaps these performances aren't worth mentioning in favour of highlighting more significant achievements? Regardless, it's worth removing the "finals", not least because there's a bit of possible ambiguity between whether "World Final" means a final at the "World Championships in Athletics" or a race at the similarly titled "World Athletics Final". Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 18:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I think an athletes participation in both the Olympics and/or Worlds is a significant achievement and the infobox is a good place for the quick reference. As far "highlighting more significant achievements", that is vague and parameters in an infobox should not be open to interpretation.

You make a good point with your last comment.. this is something that leads to confusion. Do you think having the parameter hyperlinked to the World Championships in Athletics would help? Ironic that currently olympics is linked but not worlds. I can't think of any other way to clarify.

As for Olympics, I think just requesting the template (I don't know how to edit these) include the word "Olympics" instead of "Olympic Finals" should be good. Anyone have a problem with that?

Thanks. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think links from plain "Olympics" and "Worlds" would suffice, adding a championships would probably be too long for an infobox. On reflection, I suppose that, regardless of the athlete's actual placings, their performances at these competitions will clearly be a significant and notable thing to highlight within their career. I agree with those suggestions, Parutakupiu is a good person to ask to make edits to intricate templates. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 21:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. Parutakupiu (talk) 21:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

A standard for all athlete biographies

Hello my fellow athletics fans, I propose trying to create standards which we can impose on all biographies of athletes. It seems that we have decided upon using the athlete infobox, but I think we can do better than that. The athlete infobox has many parameters that I don't think we should ever use. For example, the use of "sport" is redundant when the parameter "events" is listed. In fact, I don't support the use of any of the "Sport" parameters except for "Country" and "Events". I also do not think that any of the "Achievements and Titles" parameters, with the exception of the "Personal best(s)" parameter, should be used either, since that information overlaps with the "Medal table". My reasoning for not using a whole bunch of these parameters is that, if we add too much information to the infobox, it will appear cluttered. For example, putting a list of all the achievements of Carl Lewis or Michael Johnson in that tiny, narrow infobox might actually make it so long that it'll be hard to read. I also propose that all dates, heights, weights, and all other forms of measurement, be expressed according to international standards, as used by the IAAF. Finally, I think we need to thoroughly include the IAAF profiles for each athlete in the external links. Do you guys have any thoughts? Mipchunk (talk) 23:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the "sport" entry is partially redundant given the events listed. The personal bests section is a welcome addition but I also agree that there's a bit of cross-over between the Worlds and Olympics sections and the medal templates. Given that, for a number of athletes, their career highlights will not include medals at these events, how do we resolve this? Perhaps only use these fields when an athlete is not a medallist, as an alternative? In terms of measurements, I'd recommend that the metric is given as standard with a variant of imperial in the applicable style. I also think that the IAAF profile should be included as standard, but I'd go one further to say that the national body's profile (e.g. USATF) should be included as standard too. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 18:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Source for world record progression lists

The IAAF have recently released a statistics book in two parts for the 2009 World Championships[1][2]. The second link lists the ratified world record progressions from page 202 to 222. Anyone wishing to create some of the athletics record progressions that are still redlinks will find this very useful! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 17:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Amazing. A gold mine. Also has all national records in athletics. GregorB (talk) 19:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

IAAF Biomechanics Project

I just posted to talk: 100 metres about this but I thought I should inform people of this initiative (100 m example). The data from the finals should allow us to have a good source to explain the basics of athlete's technique in various events. We should be careful not to extrapolate information and stray into original research, but I think a basic reading of the data would benefit many event articles. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 13:45, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

More or less confirms what is already known: an athlete reaches his maximum speed around 60 m and then tapers off (i.e. decelerates). However, this is still widely misunderstood: one can still routinely hear sportscasters taking about athletes "accelerating", "pulling away", "shifting into the fifth gear" around 80-90 m (and, to be fair, that's exactly how it appears), when in fact they are merely decelerating less than others.

Incidentally, it's interesting that Bolt hit the 60 m mark in 6.31 s; officially timed, that would have been a 60 m WR. GregorB (talk) 16:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

World championships records table

It's a bit confusing that these tables are only for records before the championships start. This is not explained in the articles at all. I don't want to be mesing around with the format of the articles as I know a lot of thought and work must have gone into them. However, could we change the records heading to something like 'Records going into the Championship'? Quantpole (talk) 08:16, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea as this misunderstanding keeps recurring. It makes most sense to change the titles to "Records before the Championships" and make a note of any improvements. Obviously it's pointless to change these tables to show the new record - we may as well just look at the world record pages etc! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 03:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Quantpole (talk) 09:13, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

National records in the Marathon

I've updated National records in the Marathon to resolve periodic conflicts regarding which "nations" should appear in the list. Please take a brief look there and offer your comments if you think some changes need to be made. Thanks! Location (talk) 01:58, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm very impressed with your work Location, excellent stuff! Obviously there is a difference in what a sporting body acknowledges as a competing nation, and what is politically recognised as a nation. I'm glad you have chosen the logical route in this case, instead of politicising what is largely an apolitical idea (people from different places running marathons). With more expansion of the women's section and some minor fine tuning, this could become a featured list! Again, great work. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 17:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I am already encountering some difficulties in maintaining the list. According to the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, Errol Duncan holds the national record for Saint Helena with a 4:06:47 in 2003: [3]. Another editor recently updated the list with information showing that he ran a 3:11:21 at the 2006 Commonwealth Games: [4]. I subsequently found an article in which Duncan states his personal best is 2:47 at the London Marathon: [5]. Question: Which mark should go in the list? The first is the only one noted by a road racing authority as a national record. The second is a verifiable result by a reliable source, but there are no sources stating that it was a national record. The third might be verifiable, but I don't know which year to examine. If we insert either the second or the third, then it is a national record as determined by Wikipedia editors rather than by independent sources. I am asking the question here as I encountered similar issues with the marathon world record progression list and they might occur elsewhere, too. Thanks! Location (talk) 20:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Disruptive editing

Can I ask people to keep an eye out for disruptive editing, such as this, on the event articles, as well as other athletics articles. Obviously, edits such as these should be reverted when spotted. Cheers. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 20:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Events at Championships - Lists or articles?

I've been working on creating additional commentaries for the 2009 World Championships events (see examples here and here). The basic format I've been working on is: pre-championships season analysis, qualification summary, final race description, post-race info (historic importance etc). One thing I always found really lacking in these types of articles was insight beyond the bare results.

The results alone do not relate such information as: who were the favoured athletes, who were the surprises, what point of the athlete's career did they win this medal, what did this competition mean for athletics as a whole? For example, this article concerns one of the most important events in recent athletics history, but you wouldn't be able to tell too much from results alone.

My question is this: should they be classified as lists? – considering the format for the Women's 800 metres is not really all that different from, say, List of winners of the London Marathon. Or should they be considered articles? In which case the format I suggested in the first paragraph should form four sections under "Competition notes" as done in the 20 km walk.

My primary concern would be that, as articles, unless the event was of significant historic importance (like the Powell/Lewis long jump) none would be able to progress beyond a start. Any attempt at expansion would largely depend on bulking up sections on people's season results before the event, and more description of heats/qualifiers. I believe that such information does not merit more than five or six line paragraphs if we are to stay focused and keep the reader interested. The short lifespan of these events precisely means that there is not a great deal to say in most cases. Perhaps the most notable and historic events could, and should, reach being articles (consider 1998 FIFA World Cup Final as somewhat of a parallel) while the rest should remain as lists? I'm not entirely sure myself and would appreciate any input! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 23:56, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree fully with you, such articles should ideally be expanded beyond result tables. A similar case are articles such as "<Country> at the <Year> World Championships"; Croatia at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics would hopefully be a good, if modest example.

Still, I would argue that such articles are not lists - fleshed out or not - as they are essentially not collections of itemized data. Moreover, a typical list is about a collection of entries, while these articles are about events that are - as you've noted yourself - not adequately and fully described by mere result tables.

These articles are indeed limited by the extent of what reliable sources say, and in many cases it may well be good enough for start class at best, unless one goes into cruft. However, this is also true for many biographies, for example, so I don't see it as a problem. GregorB (talk) 15:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you entirely, I don't think I had a concrete idea of what comprised a list or article before. The Croatian page is also a good step in the right direction. I suppose you're right with the biographies comparison too, some things just aren't going to reach beyond start. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 17:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Glossary of athletics terminology

I saw something similar at the French Wikipedia some time ago (fr:Glossaire de l'athlétisme) and after seeing that Glossary of American football seems to work quite well, I thought it might be useful to start one for athletics given the wide range of terms used. There is a Glossaries WikiProject which may be able to help out with formatting and organisation. Any suggestions/thoughts? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 12:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Omar Ahmed/Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot

Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot's Muslin name is "Omar Ahmed". I've created a one-way disamb link at Omar Ahmed as well as a disamb page at Omar Ahmed (disambiguation) that I'm not sure is completely necessary. I would appreciate if any interested editors would look this over to see if I've handled it properly. Thanks! Location (talk) 18:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

That looks fine to me. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 08:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

USATF Athlete of the Week

While working on some American sprinter biographies, I came across this weekly feature at USATF.org. These tend to be great for expansion and referencing because (a) it usually focuses on an important event in the athlete's career and (b) it often crams in more useful information along the way. To find relevant features just search google with: "X named Athlete of the Week" site:usatf.org . E.g. for Sanya Richards. Very useful! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 08:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Is it appropriate to use the term "American record" when referring to a national record set by a United States citizen?

Is it appropriate to use the term "American record" when referring to a national record set by a United States citizen? Location (talk) 18:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments

I was prompted to post this Rfc due to a discussion in Talk:Ryan Hall (runner) and recent edits that have switched "American record" to "US record" in Ryan Hall (runner) and Tyson Gay. I have no problem with either, however, an objection to "American record" was raised on the point that the IAAF recognizes North, Central, and South American records. Location (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It is appropriate. The term "American" is used universally in general media, in Wikipedia, and in the IAAF to mean "United States American". However, for the sake of precision within the athletics articles, it might still be a good idea to change everything to "US". Mipchunk (talk) 20:55, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Just because the media uses the term, it doesn't mean the term is appropriate. Many people in North, Central, and South America think using this term to mean only the US is extremely offensive. Anyways the IAAF calls it a national record or a Continent/Area record, American record is never used. Yes the media says offensive things that are technically incorrect all the time. That doesn't mean we should repeat them. I don't see what is the harm in saying US record, or continent record to avoid offending people. There isn't any loss in making the change and there is credibility to be gained --MATThematical (talk) 13:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

But - if I understand you correctly - this would be an argument against calling anything "American", not just records. On the other hand, as far as the IAAF is concerned, there is no such thing as "record of the Americas" (North and South together), therefore "American record" can hardly be misconstrued as such. Of course, as Mipchunk duly noted, changing "American" to "US" won't hurt either. GregorB (talk) 14:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with GregorB, the term "American" is by and large used universally in the English speaking world to refer to people or things relating to the United States. As a Spanish speaker, I more than understand the friction this causes with South and Central American Spanish speakers. However, English speakers seem to deal with this distinction quite well. Indeed, few would confuse "American" for something pertaining to "the Americas". There is nothing wrong with using either "US record" or "American record", but we should not be afraid to use the English language as it is widely used. Few will be offended to hear that Steven Spielberg "is an American film director". Also, records of "the americas" are actually Panamerican records[6]. We are here to reflect society's general viewpoint, not correct the supposed "wrongs" of it. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 21:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I both agree and disagree with your points. Of course no English speaking person is confused when they here "American" used in such a way. So I agree. The problem is that many Canadians, especially those from Quebec, find the term offensive, they understand exactly what it means. In fact, using it in there presence will often lead to verbal argument. I agree that this word is commonly used in this way but if there is no difference meaning wise in using US and American, why not go with the one that causes the least offense. As far as the iaaf goes, they officially recognize a north/central American continent record and a south American continent record, these are abbreviated AR, standing for Area record. In addition they recognize national records, such as the US record, abbreviated as NR. You are correct in that there is no such thing as an American record in the sense of all of the Americas.MATThematical (talk) 22:06, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned in Talk:Ryan Hall (runner), the IAAF tracks continental records for "North America" (NAM), "Central America & Caribbean" (CAC), and "South America" (SAM). See page 389. The IAAF does not "officially recognize a north/central American continent record". Incidentally, searching the IAAF website for "American record" leads to a large number of hits used in the context in which you say they don't: [7]. Location (talk) 03:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

If enough Canadians find the term offensive then they should complain about the usage of the term "American record" to the IAAF or other sporting authority. I have never seen widespread condemnation of the term; Wikipedia is not the forum for resolving these issues. Some people may complain about usage of the term Eskimo on wikipedia but this is merely a reflection of common usage. As long as American record is in common usage to describe records of the United States, then I see no reason to avoid its usage here. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 20:39, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting document. So maybe they don't have a set standard way of abbreviating things, because according to their website they only keep the records I describe, but the document definitely suggests otherwise. Here is a link to their website. Lets make it clear, I never said they don't use the term in news articles, but that is not the same as official record keeping. MATThematical (talk) 22:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is my stance on this issue. I am not saying that American should be replaced in all contexts. I am saying that when US and American can be used in a sentence, and both words sound equally good (from both a stylistic and grammatical perspective) we should use the word US. In other words, I would not change the following sentence: "George is an American". However, I would change "George is an American citizen" to "George is a US citizen". The reason is that "George is USian" is awkward, but "George is a US citizen" is no more awkward than "George is an American citizen." In general American as a noun probably should not be changed, but American as an adjective usually can be replaced with "US" without hurting the flow of the article. Sure, it is correct to use American, but if we can write the sentence without it, we should because there is no harm done, and it helps keep the articles as neutral as possible MATThematical (talk) 01:36, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

World Half Marathon and Road Running Championships merge?

Given that the IAAF World Road Running Championships was essentially a brief rename of the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships,[8] I believe we should merge and redirect to the Half Marathon page. The only difference I can see is that the competition was held under a different name for two years and the distance was slightly reduced to 20 km for the 2006 World Road Running Championships only. I think we can mention the brief change in the World Half Marathon article as it is essentially one continuous competition (no Half Marathon editions were held in 2006 or 2007). Consider European Indoor Games and European Athletics Indoor Championships as a similar example. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 21:24, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems as if there's no opposition and I've found the 2010 preview referring to it as the "19th edition of the World Half Marathon Championships"[9] which would only be right if they have integrated the Road Running change into the main programme. I'll get busy doing a merge and redirect now. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 22:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Athletics to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 00:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting stuff. Thanks Z-Man! What is the deal with Terry Fox? I've heard of pretty much everyone and everything from 1–150, except for this guy and the Terry Fox Run. Is this a big deal in North America? Because I have never heard about this at all. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 17:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Well: here in Croatia many people from the general population know about Terry Fox, and Terry Fox Run is quite popular. That's why I was a bit surprised to find his importance assessed as Low. Many Terry Fox Runs worldwide are held in September, so this month's data are perhaps not representative. GregorB (talk) 18:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough then. Re-rated as mid importance. Change to high importance if needed, frankly I don't know enough about the subject. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 18:25, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Deprecating Template:Sports result table

I have proposed that Template:Sports result table (a template used on around 600 articles) be deprecated in favour of Template:MedalistTable. I believe the latter template to be more versatile and aesthetically pleasing, and it is already in use on a greater number of articles. See discussion here. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 18:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Endurance/long distance running

I just spied a gaping big whole in our coverage here. We have long distance track event, road running, ultramarathon and Long-distance trail (as well as Adventure running, whatever the hell that is!), but we don't have anything on the obvious thing in common: long distance running/endurance running. This should be an article that discusses not just the competition types over long distance, but also physiological aspects and historical perspectives. This could be really interesting as it has a very obvious basis in competitions and technique, but also pokes a little into human biology and evolution! (see Endurance running hypothesis for instance)

We are sorely missing another core article—the athletics parallel of Swimming (sport)—Running (sport) or Competitive running. Both the running and long distance articles are needed to provide a good supporting structure to the athletics/track and field area as a whole. Anyone interested? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 21:22, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

1997 World Championships

According to [10]( the official Stats book for this year's World Championship) the IAAF have now changed the results for races at the 1997 World Championships where medallists have been caught for drugs in the last few years. One example - Great Britain are promoted to gold in the 4x400 relay. I've heard no official announcement about this but this is an official IAAF document. Can we trust this? Topcardi (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Page 5 and 167 of the Berlin book addresses the changes. It is a recent publication, so it make take time for things to be update elsewhere. I think a change should be made with an appropriate footnote. Location (talk) 22:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Yep, we should use the document as the source material for a note as to what happened. I'm very surprised that the British press has not given any updated information regarding this. Presumably the British team, and others, have not been sent gold medals or anything. Still, we should update all the results according to IAAF guidelines. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 10:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Meb Keflezighi

You may have heard, he won the 2009 NYC marathon.. I tweaked his article some, added the athlete infobox. I'm sure some quick google searches will bring up some good references with content to expand. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 20:13, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Some articles that you can use for expansion:Sports Illustrated profile from 2005, Runners World 2007 feature....I may get to it later, but feel free to beat me to it. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 23:13, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Um... I'm not sure that top importance for WP Athletics is warranted, though. GregorB (talk) 23:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's another article, I hope to incorporate in later but if someone beats me [11].. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 13:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Marathon world record progression

According to the progression of world bests listed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), James Clark set a world best of 2:46:52.8 in New York on February 12, 1909, Albert Raines broke Clark's mark with a 2:46:04.6 in New York on May 8, 1909, and Henry Barrett broke Raines' mark with a 2:42:31.0 in London on May 26, 1909.[12] A former director of the Polytechnic marathon has indicated on his website that some sources have wrongly listed the date of Barrett performance as May 26, 1909 and has confirmed the true date as May 8, 1909.[13] Articles in the The London Times (May 10, 1909) and New York Times (May 9, 1909) confirm that Raines and Barrett did, in fact, run on the same day. Consequently, the IAAF progression stating that Albert Raines held the world best mark from May 8, 1909 to May 26, 1909 is obviously incorrect. Without information indicating what times the various races started or finished, there is a remote chance that Raines in New York completed his race before Barrett in London and held the world best mark for a few hours. The more likely scenario is that Barrett in London completed his race before Raines in New York completed his - meaning that Raines never held the record. Being cautious of WP:OR, how should Wikipedia address this? Location (talk) 18:40, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say world record is - by definition - whatever IAAF says is the world record, even if it's contradictory. The article could (and should, IMO) point to the contradictions in the footnotes, for example. GregorB (talk) 19:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

We should state the facts: i.e. say the dates which the races were actually held, and state the IAAF's (somewhat incorrect but nevertheless official) view on the matter. Have you emailed the IAAF about this? Wikipedia often twists itself in knots over statistical inaccuracies, but the likelihood of the IAAF addressing this issue when presented with reports from the New York and London Times is higher than most would think. Expect a delay of some months though... Has anyone sent an email about it? If not, I will in the next few days. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 19:37, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI: It has been brought to their attention. It would be helpful if the IAAF could also have one of their Japanese members investigate Fusashige Suzuki's 2:27:49 that supposedly happened on March 31, 1935. Per User talk:Sushiya#Fusashige Suzuki and Talk:Marathon world record progression#About Fusashige Suzuki's record (another IAAF error), Suzuki's mark probably occurred on March 21, 1935 in a race in which he finished second. Location (talk) 18:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Athletics vs. Athletics (track and field) vs. Track and field athletics

Per the various discussions at Talk:Track and field athletics and Sillyfolkboy's recommendation at Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Proposals, is it time re-evaluate whether Track and field athletics should be moved back to Athletics or Athletics (track and field)? It appears that a unilateral decision was made in August 2008 to move Athletics (track and field) to Track and field athletics without consensus. Location (talk) 04:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The principal problem here is caused by the combination of the US and Non-US usages, and Wikipedia's naming limitations. The possible disambiguator – Athletics (track and field) – is frankly a mish-mash at best and misleading at worst. Consider this as an equivalent: an article titled "Rodents (rats)", which proceeded to treat both as the same topic. While rats are rodents (and make up a large percentage of rodentia) they are clearly related but separate topics – to treat the topic as "rats" is somewhat a disservice to all the gophers, chipmunks and beavers out there. The current article fails to satisfy the expectations of someone wanting to read about either "athletics" or "track and field".
Issues

There is no American word or term for what non-North American English speakers (and the IAAF) call "Athletics"
The disambiguator Athletics (track and field) is inexact
Track and field sports is similarly inexact
Another possible disambiguator Athletics (sport) fails to clarify the sport of athletics from the general American usage of "athletics" as a synonym for "sport"

In case the differences between "athletics" and "track and field" remain unclear to some, consider the following: the Boston Marathon is not a track and field event, cross country running is not track and field, a man quickly walking on a road is not track and field. However, all of them are forms of "athletics". USA Track and Field, the US governing body for athletics and track and field, also recognises this distinction. Hence why the US Outdoor Track and Field Championships are separate from the US Half Marathon Championships etc[14].

I am currently in the middle of writing an article for Athletics as well as a sub-article for Track and field (click to see). Any input/comments/expansion would be very welcome!

There most definitely should be an article at track and field which stands on its own, but the current title of the athletics (track and field athletics) article would greatly interfere with reader comprehension and would fail to create a distinction between the two.

My personal preference is to have the athletics article at plain Athletics. This avoids the ambiguous disambiguator problem. I understand that this is imperfect as American readers may be unfamiliar with that usage of the term, but concessions can be made to make the context obvious (see the draft article). Also, we should take into account that every other article on Athletics at the moment has its own page at the most obvious name – College athletics is best described as "College athletics", the Oakland Athletics are best described as the "Oakland Athletics", Athletics as a synonym for sports is best described as "sports". The sport of athletics is most easily described as Athletics. No other adequate disambiguator is apparent... Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 00:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

PS Lets not dilute this with arguments about the use of the word "athlete". That is a separate problem. Also, keep in mind that we make category names, while the world should dictate article names.

Let me know when you are ready to make the move with Athletics and Track and field; you will have my support. I agree that "Track and field" falls under the umbrella of "Athletics"; with the exception of USATF, "Athletics" does not fall under the umbrella of "Track and field". Under the current structure, too many road running articles appear to be listed as falling under the umbrella of track and field events. Location (talk) 04:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm 100% behind this as previously discussed privately with SFB. Fol de rol troll (talk) 23:18, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I have some spare time, at least for a little while, to work on this Athletics vs. T&F issue. However, I think that before this happens, we really need to begin another push to rename the main article as "Athletics" again. Who is with me? I'll wait for responses before I make the request. Mipchunk (talk) 10:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that move would be far more successful if we have a separate article on track and field. Without that, you'll get much opposition from those who feel that an American term is being supplanted by a European one. Obviously that is besides the point because these are separate terms and ideas. I'll try to crack on with the track and field draft in userspace. My main concern is that if these two articles aren't clear or distinct enough in their definitions, then we could face a merger request from editors without full knowledge of the differences. I've been focusing on improving and creating athletics content as a whole lately, but I suppose that the T&F/Athletics issue is a higher priority in the long run. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 12:17, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so I think our current grand vision looks something like: main Athletics article, which gives the low-down on the four major categories of athletics: Track and Field, Road running, Cross Country Running, and Racewalking. Mipchunk (talk) 00:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I must say that I see no reasons (other than purely technical, such as article size) to separate "Athletics" from "Track and field". Do you know how do they call the British counterpart of USA Track & Field? UK Athletics. One could say that this is a literal "translation": for the Americans, "track and field" in the name of their national organization means exactly what "athletics" means for the British. That's not what "Track and field" article would cover, so why introduce it? It won't solve the disambiguation problem either, it would only make it more insidious: if you're an American who is interested in track and field, and you go to Track and field, you won't find anything about the marathon, which you may find odd, because if marathon isn't track and field, how come USA Track & Field is a governing body for US marathon runners too?

The solution is to get rid of the Frankensteinian title "Track and field athletics". A change into "Athletics" would be just fine, as I don't think that anyone in their right mind would go to Athletics and expect to see Sport. GregorB (talk) 19:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

One more thing: "Rodents (rats)" is a very nice example, but that's not what we're doing here. It's more like "Elevator (lift)": let's create "Elevator", in which we'll write about elevators, and "lift", in which we'll write about lift (force), a subject that is not at all the same as "lift" as in "Elevator (lift)", i.e. it is not a synonym for "elevator". That would precisely be the case with Athletics and Track and field, and that's why it doesn't make sense, since it doesn't solve the original problem at all. GregorB (talk) 20:08, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The typical argument for why "track and field" and "athletics" should not be equated is that "track and field" is considered a subset of "athletics". A very basic parallel is the sport of "aquatics", of which "swimming" and "diving" are subsets. Mipchunk (talk) 00:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Article group move

I just moved the article listed the men's national champions in the marathon from National champions Marathon (men) to National Marathon champions (men). Then I realised that all articles of this type have similar unusual titles. While the current is not a very natural wording (though entirely understandable) I think we can use a better naming style. The three I can think of are National marathon champions (men), National champions in the marathon (men) and Men's national champions in the marathon. I've no massive preference towards any particular one. Any got any better ones? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 11:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

How about Men's marathon national champions? Parutakupiu (talk) 20:51, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Or National male champions in the marathon? --Piet.Wijker (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Issues with infobox

I believe there is way too much information on some of these runners infobox. I believe having too much information in those boxes make the article look unpleasant. Here are the issues I'm having with them:

-Date of birth Not sure why this is listed when most biographies have DOB in the beginning of the them.

-Place of birth Again, most articles have this listed in the beginning.

-Event(s) I can see why we might keep this in the infobox but I believe it's useless information.

-Achievements and titles Unless they medaled, which would be annotated otherwise in the medal template, I don't think it is necessary.

-Personal best(s) I think this should be replaced with a separate personal bests box somewhere in the article like Shalane Flanagan. Otherwise, it makes it look very cluttered.

Note this refers to infobox_athlete.

My feelings - Infoboxes are meant to be summary overview information, so info in both the infobox and prose is not an issue. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes). DOB and POBs are important parts of summaries, and it is standard for any bio on wikipedia to have the info in both the infobox and prose.

In theory, the event parameter is very useful, because it's a way for the user at quick glance to see what the runner specializes in. The problem with middle and long distance runners is that the list could get long, especially if you consider their whole career. Most marathoners focused on the mile,5k,10k and cross country at some point in their career, so basically my point is that this list could get long.

Same goes with PBs, and achievements and titles. It gets too long.

For the 3 fields just mentioned, another problem, users will have different ideas of what to include, and this leads to inconsistency. Also per the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes), it falls under "more extended detail that may be better placed within the body of an article"

So, my vote is for removing PBs~~, achivements and titles~~, and events. (edit - participation in the olympics/worlds when not obtaining a medal should be reflected in the infobox)

For whatever we form consensus on, the parameters should be removed from the infobox. This obviously will help with consistency.

Thank You --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 22:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Strongly DISAGREE. The infobox in any Wikipedia article (as is the case on most other encyclopedias) provides a summary of information that is also contained in the article text. It is used by our readers to easily find information about the article's topic that they can then read about in more detail in the article text. There is no reason to remove any of the information in the infobox. Further, should a consensus to remove be reached (which I doubt), the infobox template should be changed so that it doesn't process and display the removed datafields, not the hundreds of articles that use the template. Truthanado (talk) 23:06, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my last comment was in regards to the parameters in the template, not the articles. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 23:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

New Championships Infobox

I've created a variation of the World Championships infobox – Template:Infobox Athletics Championships. It has quite a few different options for customization, although there aren't that many fields so it tends to easily fit one one screen. It was getting bored with plopping a little athletics pictogram on championships pages: the tops of these articles are often a little bare anyway. I'm getting a bit better at coding these things but there may still be a couple of problems/bugs.

Does any one have any thoughts or recommendations/improvements? There is some crossover with other templates like Template:Infobox Olympic event and Template:SEA Games event infobox but these don't seem to be in widespread use. Perhaps it might be useful to implement something like "Infobox Olympic sport" as the event infobox seems more suited to single event articles?

PS There's also Template:Infobox XC Championships for cross country articles now. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 03:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Achievement table template

Hi again, just a note to say that Template:AchievementTable is ready and working. It should save on some time and make things easier. It has an option to add or remove an "event" column as necessary. It's based on the code Darius has been using for tables recently. See James Kwalia's before and after for an example. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 21:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Achievements tables vs Prose

moving talk from userspace to project space

Hi Darius! I've noticed you've been making edits to achievements tables such as this. I think this is a good improvement as the tables do look a bit squashed up and the space left on a new wide table is generally enough for a dangling infobox or image.

I was wondering if you think its a good idea to create a {{AchievementTable}} template which could transclude the table code? (i.e. class="wikitable" style=" text-align:center; font-size:95%;" width="75%"). I suggest this because table code can seem a little tricky at times but a simple, standardised template could give newer editors the confidence to put their own tables in.

I'd support a whole sale switch over to your new style regardless. The plain, small wikitable ones don't look too great, but I'd be especially glad to see the back of these outdated monstrosities! Cheers, Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)Join WikiProject Athletics! 11:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Two great ideas: the {{AchievementTable}} and the Pan American Games proposal! Regards, Darius Dhlomo (talk)

Although I don't know what this discussion is about specifically, I'd favor a general "drift" away from most tables, replacing them with text. Text is what an encyclopedia is about. Geschichte (talk) 18:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

When I'm talking about how tables are bad, very bad edits such as these are what I have in mind. Geschichte (talk) 09:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I had no idea that things like that had been done! I completely disagree with changes like that. My own opinion on style is clearly expressed on the Tyson Gay article: Major medals only in the infobox, text for all accomplishments, performance at significant events in the competition record or achievements section.

All three of these cover similar information (if not identical on some articles), but they have very different and complementary purposes.

The medal templates at the start are a quick visual clue to readers: we look at Michael Johnson and see his great success at the Olympic and World competitions.
The text is the main entry, which should cover all aspects – virtually everything else on the page (PBs, medals etc) should be repetitions of sentences in the main prose of the the article.
The achievements section should be an exhaustive list of performances at all the major Games/world/continental championships they attended. The purpose of this is to summarise an athlete's accomplishments in table form so that one can quickly judge their overall career achievements.

I'm not a style-Nazi so I'm not particularly bothered if there's a bit of deviation from these main ideas. However, I would certainly insist that the prose must always remain the main and primary way of presenting information, while tables and templates can be introduced to complement but not replace prose. To do that takes us away from the notion of an encyclopaedia and closer towards one of a statistics database.

Athletics is unusual among sports in that it is allied with a type of journalism which also focuses on things outside the statistical; an athlete's progression is perfect for writing a narrative. I have also written on football articles – the journalism for that sport is completely dull and uninspiring. Hence why most Wikipedia articles on football could be mistaken for a "transfer fee and goal report". On the other hand, athletics writers are a gift to encyclopaedic articles. We should not waste that opportunity. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 15:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree almost completely with everything you wrote. Since you mentioned football: one of the fundamental differences between athletics and sports such as football is the fact that athletic achievements can be objectively measured. That's why people who know something about athletics but have never heard of, say Zersenay Tadese (surely a familiar example...), and are wondering how good that guy really is, can go the "Personal bests" section and get an exact and almost instant answer. That's why tables are important.

The only thing that I (conditionally) disagree with is the assertion that prose must always be the primary way. It all depends on what "always" and "primary" really mean. Tables can and should impart information beyond what is said in the prose: imagine what would the Tadese article look like if every single fact in the "Personal bests" and "Major competition record" sections had to be repeated in the prose. Also, the primacy of prose may apply to well-developed articles; if I had to write 100 athletic biography stubs, I'd prefer tables for competition results (which would also be my choice if I had to read 100 biography stubs).

All in all: I'd like to see {{AchievementTable}} or something of the sort in more articles, if for nothing else then for visual consistency. Also, I'd like to see an equivalent template for personal bests (for the same reason). {{Swimmingrecord}} is an interesting example of how these things can be implemented. GregorB (talk) 17:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)