Talk:Tim Tebow

American football player vs. American football player

American football articles typically gloss American football in the introductory sentence, rather than calling someone an "American football player". This was was the subject of a lengthy discussion at WP:NFL a while back; the gist of it was that just linking "football" is insufficient to disambiguate which sport is intended. While WP:MOSBIO recommends that an individual's nationality be included in the intro, that doesn't have precedence over the reason for their notability, which is their sports career. Every player good article I checked (Cato June, Mark Bavaro, Bob Chappuis, Joe Delaney, Tai Streets, Scott Zolak) do it this way.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it should state the sport (American football) rather than the nationality (American football). Eagles 24/7 (C) 19:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Done.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Gentlemen, I will simply point out that this is inconsistent with how every other sport identifies their players by nationality, more or less consistently, and is also inconsistent with the WP-wide standard. I suggest we remember that Americans are not the only contributors to English Wikipedia, and not all athletes who play American sports are American citizens. Moreover, the disambiguation argument is somewhat disingenuous when the "American football/football" piped link leads directly to "American football." This is just one of several purported WP:NFL "standards" which are inconsistent with WP-wide standards, most of which are eliminated when NFL bios are critiqued during the GA or FA review processes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That last part isn't true: as I said, every American football biography GA that I checked does it this way. Of course Americans aren't the only ones who read Wikipedia, that's why we can't assume they'll know what we're talking about when we say someone plays "football", which means different things in different places. Tebow doesn't play soccer, Canadian football, or Aussie rules football after all, and the readers shouldn't have to click a link to see that. And since his athletic career is the thing he's notable for, it's more important to make that clear than to clarify what his nationality is.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The "last part" was a reference to WP:NFL's eccentric habit of including the birthplace in the lifespan parenthetical in the lead and several other non-standard formatting quirks. At one point, several WP:NFL editors and at least one administrator were deleting the persondata template from NFL bios; they seem to have more than their share of eccentricities. As for the actual piped link vs. nationality question, the same argument could be made with regard to virtually every WP bio. E.g., is it more noteworthy that Bill Gates founded Microsoft or that he is an American? Clearly, the former; however, the two discrete items of information are not incompatible. Perhaps the solution is to include some reference to "Smith is a native of Virginia," by way of example, which would at least permit us to put the subject NFL player in a national context without repeating the word "American" twice in visible text. Please note, in the better-written Canadian football bios, American players are identified as such. Many NBA and MLB players are not Americans. As for Tebow, his lead would require more subtle distinctions, such as "He is an American/United States citizen who was born in the Philipines to American missionary parents." Both purposes can be accomplished, with some creative solutions, if our administrators and better writers attempt to adhere to WP-wide standards. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

As you note, the difference between American football players and players of other sports (and indeed Bill Gates) is that in those cases the nationality does not clash with the name of the sport. There's no dissonance in saying "Derek Jeter is an American professional baseball player" or "Bill Gates is an American business magnate", but we can't very well say that "Tim Tebow is an American American football player." And unlike many other sports, the great majority of American football players have been Americans. This format isn't perfect, but I think it works as well as any other I've seen.

"American Canadian football player", and "Canadian American football player" (for the few that there have been), are not as problematic. If they played both I've seen them called an "American and Canadian football player" or an "American/Canadian gridiron football player" (I personally prefer the latter).

Tebow's birth in the Philippines is already discussed in the bio section; it doesn't need to be said in the introductory sentence. At any rate I don't think any of this is sport-wide issue is going to be resolved at the this one article.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

May I suggest "an American player of Canadian football" or "an American player of gridiron football?" The construction "American Canadian football player" will probably leave most readers confused as to what sport the subject plays and whether his nationality is American or American-Canadian. English is a very flexible language, and in the hands of a skillful user, quite precise. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

crying photo

A couple of users keep trying to insert a (purposely) unflattering photo of Tebow on the sidelines during the 2009 SEC Championship Game. I recommend that he, er, I mean, they check out wikipedia's policy on photos in biographies of living persons, which explains why the photo is inappropriate. Also, let we add one more item to the "what wikipedia is not" list: wikipedia is not a college sports smack board. Thanks. Zeng8r (talk) 00:30, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I have nominated the file for deletion (see Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2010 November 7#File:Tim-tebow-crying.jpg). Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:36, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Univoxone, 18 November 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Tim Tebow's degree is in "Family, Youth and Community Sciences".. not "Services" I know this because I have the same degree from UF.

Univoxone (talk) 20:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done Eagles 24/7 (C) 20:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Filipino America, or not?

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List_of_Filipino_Americans#Tim_Tebow. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC) (Using {{pls}})

94 Million People vs 94 Million Hits

In the "Tebow Rule" section it mentions that '94 Million People' googled a verse after he wore it on his eyeblack. I checked the site used as reference- http://espn.go.com/blog/sportscenter/post/_/id/31088/tim-tebow-rules-according-to-the-ncaa - which says "94 million people" and links another site. This site - http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college_uf/2009/09/tebow-draws-more-attention-for-eyeblack-messages.html - says 94 Million hits. This is a huge distinction since obviously one hit does not necessarily mean one person. I'm highly dubious of the 94 million people figure since this would mean about a third of the US's population googled it. 82.0.16.12 (talk) 16:15, 20 November 2011 (UTC)