Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 78

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Extremely small squads

Is there any merit to edits like this? Does it add anything to a club's article to list the name of one player on the current squad........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:15, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

No.--EchetusXe 19:22, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

It should be removed first-and-foremost because it's unreferenced; and secondly because it's ridiculous. One player is not a "current squad." GiantSnowman 10:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I think one-player squad lists are silly, but where it is incomplete there is the {{listdev}} template. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 12:33, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

F.C. Porto in international club football (FAC)

Dear project members, I've come to ask for your contribution in this FAC nomination. So far, it has been reviewed by two editors, so I would very much appreciate feedback from this project. Regards. Parutakupiu (talk) 16:11, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Flags again

Per this recent discussion here, I wonder if anyone supports the use of flags for managers and players (e.g. captains in the table) at 2012–13 Premier League and similar. In their roles as Premier League (or any club league) players, their status as being nationally aligned to one country or another is not important. Accordingly, one point of view may be that such flags should be removed from articles. Thoughts? Thanks, C679 09:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

They should be removed with prejudice. Club captains are not representing their national sides in the Premier League, and that goes doubly for managers. Whether you'll get away with it is another matter. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Results that clinched the title/promotion

Recently I have been removing a lot of instances of "on April 20 Foo Rovers gained promotion following a 2-2 draw with Foo United", but other editors, usually IPs, keep adding them back in. My reasoning is that promotion is based on a whole season's worth of results, not the outcome of one particular game, and describing the game which clinched promotion in that way (especially when it is the only thing said about the whole season, which it is in some cases) could give non-experts the impression that clubs can be promoted based only on the result of one match. I note that no article ever lists a specific result that clinched promotion for anyone in the pre-internet era. Thoughts......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

This isn't just an Internet-based phenomenon: this is just one example. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 17:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I realise that the press have always reported this sort of thing. What I meant by my earlier comment was that you don't see articles on Wikipedia that say things like "in 1953 the team were promoted following a 0-0 draw with Burnley". That information is extremely hard to find for pre-internet seasons, therefore it's recentist and undue weight to report it for more recent seasons...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree (but then I would say that). It is mostly a matter of context and how it is worded. Obviously, hasty day of promotion additions in breathless detail are often inappropriate. But I see nothing wrong with something along the lines of "Foo Rovers secured automatic promotion on the final day of the season, after a 2–2 draw with Foo United." Oldelpaso (talk) 20:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

And Foo Rover's second half performance was so nervous that it nearly read, "on April 20 Foo Rovers gained promotion following a 2-3 defeat by Foo United, as Foo Vale also failed to win." Kevin McE (talk) 00:35, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I concur that highly dramatic/well remembered finishes like last season's Premier League or Carlisle's Jimmy Glass incident should definitely be mentioned, but is it really necessary to mention that Cardiff's promotion was confirmed by a 0-0 draw with Charlton three games from the end of the season? In 20 years' time will anyone remember/care......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:11, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The simple answer here is that the vast majority of anonymous help we get in this way is from fanboys, and there is no point fighting it as it happens. Let it lie until next season and then clean it up, once they've moved on to glorifying the following campaign. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:00, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Just to add my thoughts... Although the season needs to be considered as a whole one must also consider the chronological happenings in the season. Instances such as promotion, qualification for other competitions (ECL, Europa etc) are all viable the whole article as the season progress. Of course if it isn't provided with references then the entry is highly questionable and grounds for deletion. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 17:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Importance of La Liga

So, the Premiere League championship is listed at Wikipedia:In the news/Recurring items meaning that assuming the corresponding article has been updated, the winner of the Premiere League should be listed at ITN every year. Perhaps my experience with football has been different from reality, but it has always seemed to me like La Liga was a more major league from a global perspective or at least on equal grounds with the Premiere League. With that in mind, I was surprised that the Premiere League was listed at ITN/R while La Liga wasn't. I considered starting a discussion about adding La Liga, but I thought I'd come here and ask some people who know far more than me about the importance of La Liga and whether or not it would be worth starting discussion, because I certainly wouldn't be able to make a compelling argument for adding it. Ryan Vesey 03:03, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

As the lead of the article in question states, the Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world. It's certainly worth considering the addition of La Liga. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:01, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

We have always been at war with Eastasia

Mario Götze will be joining Bayern in the summer, so there'll be a lot of people trying to change his official club between now and the transfer window. I think this is fine after the active season is over for both clubs' competitions, although others disagree. I can even sort of understand people making that edit now, maddening and stupid as it is, given he has 6-7 games still to play for Dortmund. But listing him as a winter transfer? The mind boggles. Why not stick him on the bench at 1999 UEFA Champions League Final for good measure? ArtVandelay13 (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I dare say that it took you longer to craft that response than it did to roll back the edit in question. For what it's worth, the IP in question is based in India, and Winter in India stretches into April, so this is plausibly an internationalistic hiccup (compounded by the general ignorance regarding when to date transfers that we have trouble with all the time). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:20, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

GA review request

I have just nominated The Oval (Belfast) for GA status, can someone from the project please give it a review? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 16:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I've been reviewing a few football GA candidates recently, but there's several football articles higher up in the queue so you are likely to have some time to wait yet. If anyone fancies some reviewing, there's currently a backlog of 63 nominations in the Sports and recreation category of Wikipedia:Good article nominations. Football related ones include Shimizu S-Pulse, Pavel Nedvěd, Gordon Banks, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neville Southall, C.A. Peñarol, Richard Cresswell and more. Oldelpaso (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Club honours

Does playing three games (out of 30) in the 2004–05 Alpha Ethniki warrant an "honour" for the league championship, as at Peter Philipakos? Or the (maximum) two matches of the eleven the club played in the 2004–05 Greek Cup? Thanks, C679 09:01, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Well if the rules in Greece are the same as in England (as I recall/understand them), he would not have got a medal, if that's any help...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:08, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

That's what I'd imagine, and the article seems to have been majorly edited by someone who appears to be a personal connection of the subject, but it would be good to have some more opinions before I remove it. Thanks, C679 09:12, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

In my view even 0 games played would warant that. Just being in the squad, training with the team and possibly pushing them. It's also the easiest to verify inclusion criteria. -Koppapa (talk) 17:16, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Like Chris says, there is likely a rule in Greece (as in England and elsewhere) which states you must play at least X games to qualify for a winner's medal. However, that is WP:OR; we need WP:RS to WP:V. GiantSnowman 17:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

OR it may be, but doesn't WP:BURDEN say that if it's not referenced, it may be removed until such a time where one can be provided? C679 22:21, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

In many countries 1 appearance is enough, and in many also even being part of the roster is also enough, just as Koppapa said. Now, I am not sure about Greece, however assuming English exemple is unworthy for other countries as many don´t apply any minimum appearances. FkpCascais (talk) 03:24, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

For future reference, how many appearances are required to earn a winners medal in England? The Premier League website says 10 but I cannot find any information with regard to the Football League. Also, how should the honour be referenced on a players page? A link to Soccerbase showing games played that season? Cheers. T 88 R (talk) 16:05, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It's 10 games because that's a quarter, so 12 would be the threshold in the football league. As others have said, I wouldn't at all assume that this rule applies on the contintent - in Germany all squad members get a medal, and this is much more the norm. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 16:49, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Have you got a source showing 12 appearances is the threshold to gain a Football League medal? Eldumpo (talk) 19:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

There must be a valid reference somewhere. In yesterday's ManUtd - Villa game the commentator's spent a few minutes about 10 games being the threshold for getting recognition of the award. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 17:29, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

We should never, ever assume that because a player has met the minumim threshold of appearances then he has therefore won a medal. ONLY is WP:RS confirm it. To answer C679's earlier question - no source = no honour. GiantSnowman 19:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

This article might be of interest - especially about Mateja Kezman. GiantSnowman 12:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

No one likes us, we don't care

According to the article No one likes us, we don't care, "the image of many Millwall fans as hooligans [was] perpetuated by certain sections of the media" (italics added for emphasis). This reads like a slur towards the press and is quite pov, it's taking sides for Millwall and against the press. Is it really the job of Wikipedia to take sides? 94.209.187.34 (talk) 22:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

TBH most of the article appears to be a coatrack for defending Millwall's reputation...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:39, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

John Mackie DOB

Does anyone please have a DOB for John Mackie, a Scottish player who played for Hull, Bradford City and Chesterfield in the 1930s? GiantSnowman 18:50, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

1 March 1910. ref: {{cite web |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20120329032402/http://www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk/staticFiles/fd/49/0,,10435~150013,00.xls |url=http://www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk/staticFiles/fd/49/0,,10435~150013,00.xls |format=Excel spreadsheet |first=Stuart |last=Basson |title=Football League players, 1921 to 2009 |publisher=Chesterfield F.C |date=18 February 2010 |archivedate=29 March 2012}} cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:23, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

fixed archiveurl link... Struway2 (talk) 08:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Perfect, cheers, will create the article tonight and disambiguate the related articles. GiantSnowman 11:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Fernando Pires

Does anyone have any more on this guy? I think he was a coach with Nacional Funchal in c.1989 and coached Brazil women in the 1991 Women's World Cup, but I can't find a decent source. Perhaps one of our clever Portuguese speakers can help? Clavdia chauchat (talk) 22:12, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

There appears to be another Fernando Pires. I don't really know which was the coach though. But it shpuld be the Brazilian as FIFA has an added (BRA) after his name. -Koppapa (talk) 07:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks Koppapa. I guess the Nacional coach was this other Portuguese guy. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 13:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Pub football

Does anyone know what to make of this, various sources including BBC, Telegraph and Daily Record reported on 13 June 2001 that a pub team, Stockport Town, had played a match in Prague against a club celebrating their 150th anniversary, purportedly Meteor and got a 14–1 thrashing. This immediately seems dubious, considering the world's oldest club, Notts County F.C., only celebrated its 150th anniversary in November 2012. Also RSSSF reports that the oldest club in the Czech Republic dates back to "just" 1892, a mere 109 years before the story was reported. Meteor is actually listed there as being founded in 1896 which may indicate a typo on 150 (105). However, looking in more detail, there are other things which do not tally. BBC and Daily Record reported Meteor as a professional team playing in the second tier, but no team in the league that season matches the description. Even in the third tier, RSSSF lists nothing matching Meteor. What else? Two sources also mention a second match, played against a "FC Strichlov", most likely a typo of FC Střížkov Praha, noting the club had just won the Czech second division. According to the RSSSF table linked earlier, they were playing in the third tier and finished second behind Kolin. So what is it? A hoax? Poor journalism? Does this story have a place on Wikipedia at all? Perhaps someone can shed some more light on this. Thanks, C679 11:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Also Manchester Evening News recycled the story in April 2005, noting that the event had occurred "last month". Did it happen at all, I wonder. C679 11:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

For the record, Notts County are not "the world's oldest club", Sheffield F.C. are...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Chris, I just got that from the Notts County Wikipedia article lead. C679 12:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Notts County lead clarified. As regards the news piece, I think the simple answer here is that the world was a much larger place in 2001 before literally every schoolchild in the UK was possessed of a universal instant pocket fact-checker. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:46, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

As a sidenote, Oldest football clubs may be of interest. GiantSnowman 12:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

So would anyone consider there is anything here to add to the Meteor page? C679 13:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Definitely not. The club can't have been 150 years old in 2001, as that would make them older than Sheffield F.C. and surely something would have been written about that. Maybe the match was celebrating the 150th anniversary of something else.......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

As my original post, most likely a typo. Even the Sokol movement is not old enough to have been celebrating 150 years in Prague in 2001. Anyway it doesn't matter if it's true, does it? C679 17:26, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Ruud Krol @ Vancouver Whitecaps

I want try to enlarge the article on it.wiki, somebody has something about his year in Canada? Thanks! 93.62.175.125 (talk) 13:48, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Article Merger input request

There is a proposal that the List of Queen of the South F.C. seasons article be merged into History of Queen of the South F.C. (or possibly even just delete the first one, and merge both into Queen of the South F.C.). Additional input is needed. Discussion >>>HERE<<<. (posted by User:GenQuest on project page). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 06:12, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Tables of international goals

Earlier today, GiantSnowman made a series of edits stating "tables of int'l goals against consensus at WP:FOOTY, especially one so very, very complicated" for each one. A few moment ago, Hmlarson reverted all of them. This is an example of the revert. There are also articles related to international goals by such players. So should we be encouraging the inclusion or removal? Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Why should we remove the information it is properly sourced and referenced? It is relevant to the article, I don't see why we shouldn't have it. Anyone have a link to the original discussion mentioned by GiantSnowman? TonyStarks (talk) 02:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

You may not be aware but I was not the only editor to revert GiantSnowman's edits made to articles about 17 individual (women) footballers. As two other editors have asked (in addition to myself), where is the original discussion mentioned by GiantSnowman for the rationale behind the removal of these longstanding informational sections? Hmlarson (talk) 04:11, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps that should be three editors now ... as apparently WalterGorlitz is unaware of any consensus or or nonconsensus on this particular issue either. Hmlarson (talk) 04:20, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Personally I don't like having these as separate articles. When anyone scoring 1 or 2 international goals can have his own goals article that's gonna be a mess. Remember when we had 13 articles for Pele's goals? Pele carreer goals (200-300) and so on. It's better to improve the International section within the article than to add huge stats, like who made the most assists to Christine Sinclairs carreer goals. Isn't there a website listing international goals? That would be a useful addition to the external links, not everything has to be up in wikipedia. -Koppapa (talk) 04:53, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

The original discussions were here and here. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

The newest discussion was about international matches tables, despite the misleading title. I can't really see a consensus in the discussion from four years ago, I think that is one of those discussion where editors disagree without reaching a consensus. I guess we should have another discussion about this? Mentoz86 (talk) 07:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Another discussion is fine by me - though there is, to my mind, plenty of consensus against these kind of tables. The ones that Hmlarson has restored to a number of women articles are the very worst examples I have seen - they are over-complicated, and yet at the same time incomplete (only using goals from World Cup or Olympics) and they therefore serve little-to-no-purpose, as well as violating WP:NOTSTATS. if you are to have an international goals table, then they should be incredibly simple, something along the lines of this or similar which is found in many articles, and which I grudgingly accept. Hmlarson and other editors who concentrate on women's football seem to believe those articles are subject to a different MOS or rules, which is simply not the case. The tables also rely on a far-too-complicated key, which is underdiscussion at TFD. GiantSnowman 11:53, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Recently, a standalone list of around 150 international goals (by Abby Wambach) was kept as no consensus to delete in an AFD. Whether it wanted to or not, the AFD set two precedents as far as I can tell... (1) international goals are notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia (2) standalone lists of goals are just are not objectionable to the community, assuming they meet WP:SAL. I don't think we should be removing international goal lists or lists within articles, based on this recently decided consensus. Consensus can change, but this consensus was reached less than a fortnight ago... The Rambling Man (talk) 12:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't really mind either way, but the format of the tables in articles like Bettina Wiegmann are awful to say the least, and should be deleted just because of how plain dreadful they are. Who on earth came up with that format??? Number 57 12:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, some of the formatting is undesirable but that's no real reason to delete all of the facts. I'll happily tidy tables up, just say the word. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Rambling Man - "no consensus" is not the same as an article being "kept." GiantSnowman 12:28, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Quite, that's why I said "kept as no consensus to delete". It demonstrates that the community did not want to delete the list. So it shows there's a very recent consensus to "not delete" the lists.... The Rambling Man (talk) 12:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

It also demonstrates that the community did not want to "keep" the lists - there's a very recent consensus to "not keep" the lists... GiantSnowman 12:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Well this is circular. The point is the list wasn't deleted, whether you want to say that means it wasn't kept or not is not important to the fact that the list still exists. And it's an extreme example, a standalone list, and a poorly formatted one. The vast majority of lists are kept within bio articles, and the majority are not as badly formatted as that one. I wouldn't want to second-guess the community but since that list still "exists", lists which aren't standalone and better formatted are "more likely" to be "kept" than not. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:48, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Number 57 - yes, that's my main issue with them as well. As I stated before, they are over-complicated and incomplete - if we agree to have international goals tables, then they should be as simple and clutter-free as possible, something like this. GiantSnowman 12:28, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

It's simple, but also incomplete according to the one reference used. It also didn't meet MOS:DTT (it does now), we need to be careful selecting articles to use as a golden standard, especially if they fall foul of one of the issues you have in the first place (i.e. completeness, or lack thereof...) The Rambling Man (talk) 12:39, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I didn't highlight it as a golden standard, it is the last one I remember poppin up on my Watchlist (the table was added by another user a few days ago) - what am I saying is that we should be aiming for that kind of table, not the style on these women articles. GiantSnowman 12:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Callethi

An interesting case here - looks like a page for a fake footballer including a fake twitter account and youtube video, which has been kicking about sicne August 2012. I would appreciate if a few people looked at this to confirm/counter my suspicions! Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 08:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Definite hoax, I have deleted. GiantSnowman 10:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

"MLS" v. "the MLS"

An American editor has correctly pointed-out that the definite article should not be used before "MLS" and stated that British newspapers that do so should be ignored and is requesting that we stop using the definite article. Discussion was started at Talk:Major League Soccer#" v. "the MLS". Please continue the discussion there. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Seeing as you've threatened to continue to edit war over this on the Chivas talk page, allow me to present a similar ultimatum: if I see you warring over such a blatantly obvious case of MOSVAR again (whether on a page where it is utterly obvious that the US style should be used, such as on an MLS team's article, or on a less obvious case like a UK-centric article that mentions MLS) I'll be issuing a 48 hour block. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't threaten anything there. What I did was state that consensus should be respected, but it must first be achieved. Also, it's not MOSVAR at all. The definite article is used in both North American and British sources. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If an editor points out a local convention, and your response is "that five are British shows that they, who invented the language, are using it correctly", it's a MOSVAR issue. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

You're missing the whole discussion so I'll copy the two North American sources I found here:

• http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/scoring-crisis-in-the-mls/
• http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/report-mls-team-queens-article-1.1329966

Five of the seven, and I stopped at seven, but could have added at least twenty more. Chris, please assume clue on my part and don't take sides until you understand the whole story.

The other editor claimed that the British sources should be discounted. I don't know why. I'll assume that it's because the league is not British, which could be a valid argument, but it's an enthymeme and so I took one conclusion. It's not an ENGVAR case Chris. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Ismael Blanco

His article says that he is Egyptian descent citing a Goal.com article. Considering that Goal is not a very reliable source in my opinion and the fact that I haven't found the information anywhere else, I was hoping a fluent Spanish speaker can help confirm or deny the information. So far I haven't been able to find anything that would suggest that he is. TonyStarks (talk) 03:05, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

{{fb cap player}}

Hi, in the {{fb cap player}} template is there any reason for there not been a link or hover-over tooltip on the flag icon as without this it is unusable for those with access problems. The other football templates, such as {{Efs player}} have links and tooltips. Keith D (talk) 23:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

This appears to be a problem with {{fb flag}}, as it also occurs with {{fb mfs player}}. Once again, this is mostly due to the legacy of nested template garbage that we've suffered for years. It may be time for another drive to eliminate as many of these as possible. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:51, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

So we can just change {{fb flag}} then and this will solve it wherever this is used? Keith D (talk) 18:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather take the opportunity to further prune the forest of fb-templatecruft. I'll see if I can prepare a plan for nuking the current uses of {{fb flag}} entirely. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Greenland national football team

Greenland national football team has been moved to Greenland men's national football team. I don't see any other similar articles being moved to specify male gender, they just have a note at the top pointing to the women's article. Is there any consensus that this is how article titles should now be, or is this a bold move that should be reverted? Fenix down (talk) 07:44, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

There are some more now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/LauraHale -Koppapa (talk) 07:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm not aware of any consensus on the issue. Personally, it doesn't really bother me, but I am a bit concerned that it is a potentially controversial move that should be done to all or none of the relevant articles and therefore one for which consensus should be established here before any "bold moves" are made. Fenix down (talk) 07:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted all the moves with the comment that as they are moving articles from a standard naming format, they should be using the WP:RM process. Number 57 08:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

It's a format used for the US and Canada national team articles - I'm not even sure they should be in that format though. GiantSnowman 09:53, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I would support moving these all to "...men's national football team" Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 13:07, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

...on what basis? GiantSnowman 16:07, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

For most countries, I'd say there is absolutely no basis for moving them. The men's senior national team is THE "national team" when you look at FA websites, national press, fan forums, etc. The other national teams (women's, youth) are labelled accordingly. For Canada, it might be different since the game is not as popular here and the women's team is a lot more successful and gets plenty of coverage, if not more. I'm against making such a move. Whether we like ir or not, senior men's football gets all the coverage in football. TonyStarks (talk) 03:03, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

The US senior teams are often referred to as the Men's National Team (MNT) and the Women's National Team (WNT). For most of the other countries the naming of the relevant teams doesn't reflect the relevant common names - adding the gender adds precise disambiguation and is hardly going to break the Wikipedia. Hack (talk) 07:13, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm weakly in favour of the status quo. What I would say is that these are not low-traffic pages, and almost all of them have a large amount of backlinks. Even if there were consensus for the 200-odd pages to be mass-moved, articles should be moved one at a time, and the cleanup done one article at a time, until we eventually get there. This would be particularly true if we went for the US solution. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 08:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

There will come a time (maybe even not that far in the future) when we'll have to consider a mass move, but it isn't now. The women's game is sufficiently high-profile in certain territories to warrant moves on a case-by-case basis at present, but not in general. Editors who feel that a particular country would benefit from a move can use the normal RM process. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:48, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

You can't really argue with Laura's logic in moving these. But I also take the point that the "England football team" usually refers to the grotesquely overpaid, serially-underachieving manchildren, rather than the women. At the very least, I think the articles should carry the hatnote:

This page is about the men's team. For the women's team, see Fooland women's national football team.

until they are moved. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 19:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but if it ever applied to a set of articles, it is these. And yes, completely support the hatnote idea. GiantSnowman 22:36, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

1894–95 World Championship

This new article, about a football match between Heart of Midlothian and Sunderland in April 1895 poses several questions:

1. Is the match notable enough to warrant a standalone article? The article refers to it as "an exhibition football match" between the English and Scottish champions. As such, does it have any more official status than any other inter-club friendly match?
2. Was this match really considered as a "world championship" when it was played, or has this title been conferred on it subsequently? The article on the London Hearts website refers to it as the "Unofficial World Championship", whereas the StatCat (Sunderland) website calls it a "Friendly match" between "the newly crowned champions of England and Scotland". A newspaper report from the time simply calls it "the meeting of the English and Scottish League Champions". The only article I can find that confers the title World Championship is a Sunderland fansite.
3. If the match is sufficiently notable, then what name should the article have? Surely, it is now accepted that the title should somewhere include the sport involved – something like 1895 football World Championship. Otherwise it could be cricket or darts or tiddlywinks.

Any thoughts? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:15, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any evidence that it warrants a standalone article. Perhaps just a mention at the club season articles? Eldumpo (talk) 13:34, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I would agree it's probably not notable, best to take to WP:AFD. GiantSnowman 16:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Now at AfD. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 09:49, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

National leagues' names

I've noticed quite a few national leagues' articles in Wikipedia, such as 'Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional de Honduras' and 'Salvadoran Primera División', are in the local language. Occasionally and in addition, they are no references to their country of appartenance, as in 'Primeira Liga', making them potentially ambiguous. I have already initiated moves of some, such as the German games. Before I start doing the same for the others, would anyone care to give me any history as to why these articles are where they are? Thanks, -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 07:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

League naming should be based on what the reliable English-language sources call the league. However, if the term is in need of a dab to differentiate then a suitable country name could be added, although I would think most references to leagues will be clear e.g. whilst there will be leagues outside England called Premier League I would've thought most references to other 'Premier Leagues' will include a suitable qualifier. Eldumpo (talk) 07:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I would politely ask that editors associated with this project comment on the move requests at Talk:Fußball-Bundesliga, Talk:2. Fußball-Bundesliga, Talk:3. Fußball-Liga so as to have a more complete picture of opinions before any move takes place. Madcynic (talk) 12:23, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I would urge extreme caution before assuming that Anglicised titles for foreign organisations / competitions (of any sort, not just in football) see any common use at all. They are proper nouns just as names of players are, and should only be Anglicised in the event that there is a clearly-preferred common alternative. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:01, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata and football

WikiProject Football can benefit from wikidata. I make a small start suggesting some things about the templates Template:Infobox football biography and Template:Infobox football club. I need your help supporting and suggesting ideas. Users of WikiProject Football from all the languages we can help each other. For example, by updating wikidata for a football team or player, the change will update in the article of club or player on every wikipedia that use wikidata. My proposal are in d:Wikidata:Property proposal/Organization#Football club properties and d:Wikidata:Property proposal/Person#Football player properties. Xaris333 (talk) 20:11, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

2013 Chinese Super League#Clubs

Is anyone else having problems with the size of the China club map. When I view it (on ipad) with a size of 600 it obliterates most of the 'Clubs and Locations' table. I changed it to 260 so it didn't overlap but was reverted. How is it looking for others. Shouldn't there be a format which works irrespective of your computer type? Eldumpo (talk) 21:42, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I just moved it to later in the article. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:05, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Bedfont & Feltham F.C.

Bedfont F.C. and Feltham F.C. have merged to become the above. Not sure how this would be handled on Wikipedia (new article or article move), whether it's a new club or a continuation of Feltham FC, whose place the merged club is taking in the CoCo League next season. Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:03, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd say a new article at Bedfont & Feltham F.C. with the two former club articles to remain - after all, they were notable as seperate clubs and deserve seperate articles. GiantSnowman 21:06, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

If they're taking Feltham's spot in the league, then it is a continuation of Feltham, the name is just changing and the club is basically continuing and absorbing Bedfont. With that said, moving the Feltham article to the new name seems like the more logical choice. TonyStarks (talk) 04:54, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

MK Dons 'took' Wimbledon's old place; would you say that the MK Dons article should start in 1889 with the foundation of the Wimbledon Old Centrals? Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 23:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Arguably yes, as technically it is the same club under a new name -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 06:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

East York City FC

Comments requested on PROD for East York City FC. I have converted to PROD from Speedy because I am not sure it crosses the notability line. Somebody knowledgeable on Canadian Football (indoor) can certainly be of help. So far it does not look good enough to stay to me -- Alexf^(talk) 20:23, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it wasn't eligible for speedy, the "assertion of notability" required by WP:CSD#A7 is ectremely low, and "football team that plays in a league" is enough I'm afraid. PROD was the correct choice. GiantSnowman 19:38, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:NONENGEL

A very small but important (in my view) question: if references in ALL languages (Welsh, Azeri, Finnish, Kazakh, Catalan - not even an official language as Catalonia is not a country!) are allowed, why are external links only allowed in English?

Is there any possibility this rule is changed? Makes zero sense to me, or am i missing something? Attentively, happy week all --AL (talk) 22:22, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

It is just a preferred choice. If you must use a non-English external link and someone removes it then just explain yourself and why you added the Non-English link and add it back into the article. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 22:45, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

The difference is that external links are meant to give the reader a bit of background reading. If the links aren't in English the majority of our readers won't be able to understand them so it's pointless. On the other hand, it's fine to use foreign language references though if they back up information in the article, but English language sources are still preferred if available for the same reason as with the external links. BigDom (talk) 23:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

New sports related IRC channel.

There is now an WP:IRC channel for collaboration between editors in various sports WikiProjects. It's located at #wikipedia-en-sports ^connect. Thanks Secret ^account 03:16, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Yakubu has 101 Premier League goals

Yakubu has 101 Premier League goals for Portsmouth, Middlesborough, Everton and Blackburn yet isn't on the 100 Premier League goals list — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gtelfs (talk • contribs) 08:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

According to his profile at the Premier League website, he has 95. What makes you think they're wrong? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:12, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor is coming

The WP:VisualEditor is designed to let people edit without needing to learn wikitext syntax. The articles will look (nearly) the same in the new edit "window" as when you read them (aka WYSIWYG), and changes will show up as you type them, very much like writing a document in a modern word processor. The devs currently expect to deploy the VisualEditor as the new site-wide default editing system in early July 2013.

About 2,000 editors have tried out this early test version so far, and feedback overall has been positive. Right now, the VisualEditor is available only to registered users who opt-in, and it's a bit slow and limited in features. You can do all the basic things like writing or changing sentences, creating or changing section headings, and editing simple bulleted lists. It currently can't either add or remove templates (like fact tags), ref tags, images, categories, or tables (and it will not be turned on for new users until common reference styles and citation templates are supported). These more complex features are being worked on, and the code will be updated as things are worked out. Also, right now you can only use it for articles and user pages. When it's deployed in July, the old editor will still be available and, in fact, the old edit window will be the only option for talk pages (I believe that WP:Notifications (aka Echo) is ultimately supposed to deal with talk pages).

The developers are asking editors like you to join the alpha testing for the VisualEditor. Please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and tick the box at the end of the page, where it says "Enable VisualEditor (only in the main namespace and the User namespace)". Save the preferences, and then try fixing a few typos or copyediting a few articles by using the new "Edit" tab instead of the section [Edit] buttons or the old editing window (which will still be present and still work for you, but which will be renamed "Edit source"). Fix a typo or make some changes, and then click the 'save and review' button (at the top of the page). See what works and what doesn't. We really need people who will try this out on 10 or 15 pages and then leave a note Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback about their experiences, especially if something mission-critical isn't working and doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.

Also, if any of you are involved in template maintenance or documentation about how to edit pages, the VisualEditor will require some extra attention. The devs want to incorporate things like citation templates directly into the editor, which means that they need to know what information goes in which fields. Obviously, the screenshots and instructions for basic editing will need to be completely updated. The old edit window is not going away, so help pages will likely need to cover both the old and the new.

If you have questions and can't find a better place to ask them, then please feel free to leave a message on my user talk page, and perhaps together we'll be able to figure it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:00, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Correction: Talk pages are being replaced by mw:Flow, not by Notifications/Echo. This may happen even sooner than the VisualEditor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Darren Davies

Would someone care to look at Darren Davies (football coach) to determine if the manager is sufficiently notable. I don't know Australian soccer well enough to know if the team he's managing is fully professional or not. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I found Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Darren Davies (football coach) and it appears that this article is fine. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:25, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks to fail WP:NFOOTBALL but pass WP:GNG. GiantSnowman 11:21, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Who is that?

If you flick through the slides at ([1]) you'll soon get to the one of Mark Robins celebrating "the goal that saved Fergie". If you can possibly deflect your minds from thinking about one of the stranger omissions from Norwich's Hall of Fame and look at the chap on the left of the photo, who the heck is it? He looks familiar, but I can't place him and it's driving me mad. --Dweller (talk) 09:43, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

If you mean the other Man U player, that's Russell Beardsmore -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks --Dweller (talk) 21:06, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Wigan Town A.F.C.

New article on a football team from Wigan. Notable? Just two seasons in The Combination and Lancashire Combination Division Two in the early 1900s by the looks of it [2]. No FA Cup record so far as I can tell. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 18:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The Combination was a decent standard. Given the many short-lived Wigan clubs that pre-dated Wigan Athletic, there might be a case for merging one or two, or folding some information into Springfield Park (Wigan), but I wouldn't regard it as a candidate for deletion. Oldelpaso (talk) 18:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Association football in Wigan? GiantSnowman 18:39, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

They entered the FA Cup in 1907/08, see The FA Archive, and their sine die suspension in January 1907 was reported in both the Daily Express and Daily Mirror. It's a decent little article, the club satisfies the mythical FA Cup criterion, as Oldelpaso says the Combination was a serious standard (including the likes of Crewe Alex, Tranmere Rovers, Chester, Bangor), and the club attracted at least some London-based national newspaper coverage. That's good enough for me. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 19:05, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Willie/William Wilson

So we have Willie Wilson (footballer) and William Wilson (footballer); there are at least two other players by this name, who both played for Bradford City, one born 1915, and one DOB unknown (he also played for Newcastle but Toon1892 is no use. Can somebody help me disambiguate please? GiantSnowman 19:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

At least, indeed... There are 11 pre-war, according to Joyce, plus a WT Wilson first names unknown. Your DOB unknown is a Billy Wilson, if that helps, but Joyce doesn't give a birth year. William Wilson (footballer) was born 1902, and is also known as Bill. All at {{cite book |last=Joyce |first=Michael |title=Football League Players' Records 1888 to 1939 |page=285 |publisher=SoccerData (Tony Brown) |location=Nottingham |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-899468-67-6}}. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Jeez, thanks, I'll have a go at disambiguating tonight. GiantSnowman 09:16, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Input request

For all of you who watch this page but not the national team template page, please consider adding your thoughts to my proposal consistently gendering articles on national football teams at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/National teams#Proposed change: consistency in article title gendering. Thank you in advance for any contributions to the discussion. Dkreisst (talk) 21:35, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Premier League winners' medal

Hi, it is still the case that players need to have played 10 Premier League matches to get a winners' medal, right? I've been reverted by Sdotd (talk · contribs) who stated this in an edit summary: "new rules now that each team gets 40 medals and every player who has played will get a medal". Smells like baloney to me, just thought I'd post here to make sure. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 19:11, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe so - on a related matter, in the Netherlands it is only 3 full games (270 minutes) of play, as Gregory van der Wiel has just been awarded an Eredivisie medal, see his article for the reference. GiantSnowman 19:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Have just found this piece at the Man Utd website, which states that "But now five appearances is the requirement and United will receive 40 medals, 10 more than before". Mattythewhite (talk) 19:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it's just five appearances in the Prem now. They were talking about it during Utd v Chelsea when Alexander Buttner came on. – PeeJay 23:23, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

It looks like Nick Powell's page has him winning a medal. Should this be changed? I would say we have enough information to say Buttner, Lindegaard, and Fletcher will get one based the article above since they are all specifically mentioned. Powell did play in two matches, but he won't get the necessary five. Thanks! Patken4 (talk) 21:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I should say so. The club receives 40 medals, which they can distribute any way they want as long as anyone who played 5 games gets one, so it may happen that Nick Powell will also get one, but until we have a source, we can't call him a Premier League winner. – PeeJay 09:15, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

It'll probably become apparent when the trophy presentation is made. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 09:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I've updated Powell's page to indicate he hasn't won a PL medal yet since he doesn't look like he received one today. If someone has a source indicating he has, please feel free to revert my change. Thanks! Patken4 (talk) 17:32, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

F.C. vs FC

Perhaps now is the time for a definitive guideline on which among "F.C." and "FC" should be used in titles of football clubs. Particularly, if "F.C." means "Football Club" that is in the English language vs. "F.C." that is not an English phrase, or doesn't mean anything, where should it be? –HTD 14:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd propose this scheme:

"F.C." stands for...	Use "F.C."	Use "FC"
"Football Club" in untranslated English	Yes	No
Some other phrase	No	Yes
Some other language	No	Yes
Doesn't stand for anything	No	Yes

Or, we can ditch "F.C." and apply "FC" regardless of what "FC" means. –HTD 15:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Should be whatever the common name is. Hack (talk) 15:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I guess you haven't seen the massive discussion at wherever the Milan club not called AC Milan is now titled here... –HTD 15:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Personaly, I favour "FC" in all situations... I think we should discuss this for other club initials, not only "F.C." (exemple, P.A.O.K. F.C. why not PAOK FC?), and get consensus. FkpCascais (talk) 17:52, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, looking at the badge, P.A.O.K. would seem to be the way the club write it. Number 57 18:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Country-by-country rules are sensible, but any geographical region larger than that is a no-go. GiantSnowman 18:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

English clubs use "F.C." (Chelsea F.C.), while North American clubs use "FC" (Vancouver Whitecaps FC), same thing for Australian clubs (Sydney FC). Other countries have different languages so they must depend on something. –HTD 03:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The continued use of F.C. outside of logos and signs is a Wikipedia anachronism. The Chelsea FC web page uses the dot-free version. Hack (talk) 03:46, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Common name applies. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:49, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, I disagree. I believe this is merely a stylistic issue, and that we should get rid of the dots. They cause a lot of punctuation issues, IMO, and serve no functional purpose. Nowadays, people realise that if two capital letters follow each other, then the term is probably an initialism, so why not just dispense with the unnecessary punctuation? – PeeJay 18:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree we would be better off without the dots from a style/extra typing perspective, and my perception is that most references to FC will be without the dots, but this is not something I've checked. Eldumpo (talk) 19:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Totally disagree re it being stylisticly preferable. The two football clubs I visit the most both have very large signs on their main stands including the dots. Number 57 22:20, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Are the dots used on the club websites (aside from logos) or in newspaper reports? Hack (talk) 03:42, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

[3] Look at the top (regarding "P.A.O.K. F.C."). Also "PAOK" vs "P.A.O.K" in Greek language news sources, notice how most of the results when you search for the dotted version are actually undotted. I think an RM is in order... Cheers – Kosm1fent 06:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Web pages of Sky Sports, BBC Sport and Yahoo! Sport UK+Ireland omit the "FC" altogether, both in tables and individual team pages. –HTD 06:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

UEFA do the same, I believe; for example, see here. User:Number 57: Oftentimes, people will do things to preserve an image, such as retaining dots in initialisms to indicate a sense of tradition; either way, it is a stylistic choice, and not one that I believe we need to subscribe to. After all, we don't put dots after people's titles (Mr, Dr, Prof, etc.) any more either, do we? – PeeJay 12:29, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

FC and F.C. are both stylistic choices. Why do we suddenly need to change after 7 years of using F.C.? Number 57 12:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, they are both stylistic choices, as I said. FC, however, has more benefits to its use than F.C. does, and fewer drawbacks. Why shouldn't we change? Yes, it would be a monumental effort, but just because a task is big doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. – PeeJay 12:48, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe not a reason accepted by others but because it looks a helluva lot neater. GiantSnowman 12:55, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

If we're talking about change, why not throw in that having (say) Manchester United F.C. or Newcastle United F.C. there rather than at Manchester United or Newcastle United fails 4 of the 5 principles on article titles (Recognizability; Naturalness; Precision; Conciseness) in favour of the remainder (Consistency)...Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 12:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Why not have done with it and have the article listed at Man Utd? Because we're not a bunch of lads down the pub, we're an encyclopedia. We at least need a pretence of respectability. GiantSnowman 15:37, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Manchester United Football Club works... Hack (talk) 15:39, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Not per WP:COMMONNAME or WP:COMMONSENSE. GiantSnowman 16:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

It's more logical than Manchester United F.C..Hack (talk) 16:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Not at all. GiantSnowman 16:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Dropping the FC/F.C. entirely would work for the examples above, but what about clubs that are just the area/town/city name? Portsmouth, Dundee, Fulham for example? Would we then be seeing Portsmouth (football club) titles everywhere? ;) Grunners (talk) 09:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

It appears that this indicates in the Periods (full stops) and spaces section that The letters in an acronym are generally not separated by periods (full stops) or blank spaces (GNP, NORAD, OBE, GmbH). Periods and spaces that were traditionally required have now dropped out of usage (PhD is now preferred over Ph.D. and Ph. D.). It would seem to avoid potential arguments in the future that we follow this guideline, even where football clubs refer to themselves as "F.C." to ensure we use the same presentation in each article. I can't think of any club where the presence or absence of "." would mislead any potential reader. Fenix down (talk) 13:14, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

If we were to go to no periods (FC as opposed to F.C) we would still required redirects at the common name article and we save nothing. However, if we've got redirects there already, then there's no harm with this suggestion either. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Whole debate seems worthless. See WP:COMMONNAME. I support Ipswich Town F.C.. I don't support Leeds United A.F.C., nor do I support AS Saint-Étienne, or FC Barcelona. This is clearly not a one-size-fits-all situation. Let's now move on to more interesting debates, perhaps whether "Inter Milan" should be "Internazionale" or "FC Internazionale", much more useful than this pointless discussion. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman. That's a foolish, Slippery slope fallacy. Asking for a title which is not the technical name is far from arguing that we should therefore have the most commonly used informal name. Wikipedia's guidelines don't demand that we call things by their formal name. For clubs where the name is not identical to the location of the club, or another sports team, why not just remove the FC/AFC altogether? It is sufficiently precise, accurate, natural and concise for Wikipedia's guidelines, and is far from informal, as you seem to claim. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 22:12, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Because there is significant value in having consistent titles in a group of articles. I can't think of a worse outcome than having articles "Blackburn Rovers" and "Liverpool F.C." in the same category. Number 57 07:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

There is value in that, yes, as I acknowledged. If people think that this one criterium is more important than the other four, then I'll shut up about it. So far, no-one's given me a reason for the belief that consistency is more important than precision, accuracy, naturalness and concision, the other four naming guidelines. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 07:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Who cares. That's what redirects are for. -Koppapa (talk) 08:52, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

What exactly is imprecise and inaccurate about using Manchester United F.C.? It may not be quite as concise as Manchester United, but it's more concise than Manchester United Football Club. The only criterion I can see Manchester United F.C. truly failing is naturalness, but even then it's actually 4–1 in favour of that name. Remember, it's not a case of judging the criteria in terms of which title fits each criterion better, it's just whether the title fits that criterion. – PeeJay 09:28, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Two different arguments here

The above replies commingle two different debates:

1. How we should abbreviate "Football Club" as it appears in most British football club titles (and an associated argument for the same common phrase in Spanish, Italian, Ugandan clubs)
2. What we should do about outliers (specifically, clubs outside the UK who use "FC" in contradiction to local convention to, being blunt, look cool

Here is the present, firmly settled consensus on these issues:

1. Where the letters actually stand for something, we use a consistent variation of the abbreviation for each country. Some use dots, some don't.
2. Where the letters don't actually stand for "football club" / "athletic club" et cetera, but are there to look cool (sporadic cases over the world, but specifically in MLS), we use whatever reliable sources use.

So, what is there to discuss?

1. Should we:
   1. Unify our titles to consistently use dots everywhere?
   2. Unify out titles to not use dots anywhere?
   3. Keep the present system fine as it is?
   4. Scrap the present system and use whatever reliable sources use on a case-by-case basis?
2. Should we enforce the rules we use for abbreviations even where the "FC" does not actually stand for anything?

Is there anything I'm missing here? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:34, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I think that covers it quite concisely, but re point 2 of your second section, we don't currently enforce dots where FC doesn't stand for anything - which is why we have AFC Wimbledon as opposed to A.F.C. Sudbury. Number 57 14:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I think that's what I asked? (should we change our position by enforcing the use of dots in "AFC Wimbledon" even though the letters are meaningless, which we don't currently) Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Notwithstanding my general view – that dots are a waste of time – I think supporters of keeping dots would agree with not using them in cases such as AFC Wimbledon? The purpose of dots, if any, is surely to denote initialisms?

I would dispute the characterisation of a "firmly settled consensus": the status quo is fairly stable due to enforcement, but I see little evidence of a strong consensus to retain it. In answer to the main question, "use whatever reliable sources use" is what we should be doing per WP:COMMONNAME, and I don't see a justification to ignore that based on a local consensus. A more sensible question would be which one of the first three options should be the default scenario, where no-one has bothered to trawl through reliable sources for a specific club. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 13:19, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:NAME has five primary criteria, the fifth of which is consistency. That's the justification for the present situation, rather than it just being a local consensus. As for it being a strong one, I suppose it's right to say that we sort of ossified around it rather than deliberately choosing it, but nonetheless it's not one which has such significant dissent that we spend much time talking about it (at least not relative to some of our other perennial conversations). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:06, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

User:C7777777

Recently for the last month I have been dealing with Mr.C7777777 over the following pages:

• 2012–13 I-League
• I-League transfers for the 2013–14 season
• 2013–14 I-League
• Pages pertaining to Pune F.C.

He has been making some edits which I do not find okay. For example, him changing the captain of Pune FC from Douhou Pierre to Chika Wali despite various sources (including the club itself) saying that Douhou is captain or when he went to the transfer page and added to other transfers which so far have not been confirmed by the clubs themselves. He then goes and adds a "Stadiums and Locations" part in the 2013-14 season article despite most stadiums not being confirmed. Many teams this season have used maybe 3-4 stadiums as a home venue. We do not know yet what will happen next season so it is best not to have it yet till we know. Now I said that to him but I never get a reply. On either page. In the end I decided to give him warnings to the point where I called it vandalism. How can someone just ignore warnings or calls for replies? Then recently Druryfire comes in and tells him to post on the talk page of the 2012-13 I-League page. I replied giving my side of my opinion (very poorly) yet C7777777 does not reply still. Now I do not want to block him as I know what that is like and honestly he has not killed someone but it just seems that nothing is getting to him. I ask for sources. I ask for reasons why an edit was made. Drury asked for him to go to the talk page. Yet nothing. He just keeps going as if I do not exist.

How do I deal with this? Have you guys ever dealt with users like this and if so, how did you guys deal with it? (Note: Yes, if you look at the Edit History on these pages you will see that I have not been the nicest. I am just angry). Cheers. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 14:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

You cannot force an editor to respond to comments / use the talk page, though if they continue to edit disruptively a block might be an option. In the meantime have you considered something like WP:DRN? GiantSnowman 10:36, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Top Premier League goal scorers by season

Is it just me or does this article seriously suffer from a lack of prose? Premier League articles tend to be very well written but this one just seems like a big list, and the format isn't that great either. Thoughts? TonyStarks (talk) 23:51, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd be inclined either to properly listify it (by moving it to a list title) or take it to AfD as pure almanac content. I don't think the subject as it is could be given a treatment in prose. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:14, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

It is listcruft from information that would be available from each season article. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

This article is impossible to view on an IPad as the tables overlap each other. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

It looks like utter crap on a normal PC as well, at least in Chrome...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:48, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

It's the reason I brought it up here, it just looked awful, which is not usually the case for Premier League articles. However, after some recent edits from some of the folks, the article is already starting to look much better now. TonyStarks (talk) 16:29, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

2. Fußball-Bundesliga - admin needed

As you might have noticed, there is a RM discussion about the names of Fußball-Bundesliga and the other German football leagues, 2. Fußball-Bundesliga and 3. Fußball-Liga. The discussion about 2. Fußball-Bundesliga was NAC-closed as "not moved" yesterday, and subsequently moved to a new title by the same that noone in the discussion has even mentioned, Second Bundesliga (German association football). My first thought was that this move needed to be reverted, but as I participated in the discussion and isn't an admin, I thought it was best to find an uninvolved admin to review both the NAC-closure and the page-move. Any takers? Cheers, Mentoz86 (talk) 08:59, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

While I commented in the RM, I doubt that undoing what appears to be a close that nobody wanted is a particularly egregious violation of WP:INVOLVED. I've restored the previous title and deleted the redirect, but left the RM itself closed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:13, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

One of the most bizarre NAC/page moves I've ever seen, good work undoing it. GiantSnowman 10:34, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy Heathcoate

The above is now a redlink in my reference article, but I don't see that it was deleted. Can someone clarify? Thanks. - Dudesleeper talk 16:07, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

You are looking for Jimmy Heathcote. GiantSnowman 16:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

That I am! - Dudesleeper talk 16:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Annoying question about youth national team squad template

Could someone summarized which event is allowed and which is don't? Someone had created Template:Switzerland Squad 2010 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship and a spam of youth template could be predicted. A player could very successful to play many major youth tournament but a very not successful low division player (Olympic and U21 somewhat coherence with the professional career), spamming a collapsible template on low division player were silly, or what the hack importance is that player was a teammate with Totti at youth national team?

In old consensus, Olympic (pre-1992 a senior event for player not yet played in World Cup, or post-1992 a U23 event), regional qualification to Olympic (Europe U21, etc) were allowed and U20 events were all deleted until the consensus was broken by abuse of voting and/or ignoring old for and against in the past discussions. Consensus was maintained in senior event that limited on major regional competitions and two international event of FIFA. (thus East Asian Cup should be deleted)

What happened to recent nomination ? (2013 May 6), what i had missed on wiki political conflicts? Matthew_hk tc 16:28, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

No "on wiki political conflicts", simply a change in consensus. GiantSnowman 16:43, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Honours

Hi there teammates,

the title says it (almost) all, in this section we should only include the titles won by managers and players right? No assistant coaches, no youth/goalkeeper coaches, nothing, just the first two am i not correct?

I mean the line must be drawn at a given point no? Attentively --AL (talk) 19:05, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

It depends on what the reliable sources say. Eldumpo (talk) 19:40, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Eldumpo, I don't see why there would be an issue with adding an honour to Neil Adams's article for ex. if his side are successful in tonight's Youth Cup Final . ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 20:05, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

New clubs taking on the identity of old: Newport County A.F.C.

There is a discussion at Talk:Newport County A.F.C. about whether Newport County A.F.C. is the same club as the original Newport County that folded in 1989. Currently there is a single article for both clubs, but the precedents of A.F.C. Telford United, Chester F.C., Darlington 1883, Aldershot Town F.C., Accrington Stanley F.C., to name but some, appear to point to the need for two articles: one for the current club and one for the original club? Grateful for views. Mooretwin (talk) 08:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Be careful with your wording re: WP:CANVASSING. GiantSnowman 09:05, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely. If you want to raise a discussion point do not point the reader to the blinkered view you have already formed. Your original point on the Newport County page was requesting citations and once that was completed you've shifted the debate to back up the view you've already formed eg you know that it has already been discussed and agreed that Accrington is not a continuation of the original club. All the other examples you quote have their own unique circumstances and there is more benefit to the reader in clear description than enforcing inappropriate consistency. Also, Newport County's reformation was before any of those others so, if any consistency is required at all, where it is more informative for the reader the single page explaining club continuity should be the precedent. Pwimageglow (talk) 09:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

It was User:Topcardi who "shifted the debate", not me. If there are unique circumstances why Newport County A.F.C. should be treated differently from the precedents listed, it would be useful if you made the arguments in the relevant discussion, rather than here. Regards. Mooretwin (talk) 09:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

NFT player template doesn't seem to be working...

This is a bit of an odd situation, but what's going on with {{NFT player}}? I understand they upgraded their website, but this is the first time that I'm having problems getting access to the site by using the template. Is anybody else experiencing the same problem? – Michael (talk) 22:06, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

yes, they totally screwed up all incoming links. for example, consider Carlos Valderrama, the old link was http://www.national-football-teams.com/v2/player.php?id=14283 and the new link is http://www.national-football-teams.com/player/13683.html if you go to http://www.national-football-teams.com/player/14283.html you get a different player. it seems the best solution is to replace the links with query strings, like http://www.national-football-teams.com/search.html?term=+Carlos+Valderrama since the numeric IDs are no longer stable. Frietjes (talk) 23:45, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we need a new template. – Michael (talk) 00:45, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Search results pages are not acceptable for external links. If these idiots have broken their permalinks then the correct solution is to delete the template and lose them a ton of traffic, in the hope that the next time they redesign their website they hire people who have the remotest clue what they're doing. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:11, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

No, the correct solution is to fix the template and fix the links. GiantSnowman 08:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

If a site cannot reliably keep its links working then it is not a reliable source for our encyclopedia, and we should not direct traffic to it en masse. We do not owe these databases traffic. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

A ridiculous attitude, numerous websites (including just about every single English club's official site) has changed format & 'lost' URLs, to dismiss them all is harmful to us. GiantSnowman 09:32, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

No. If we're using a given page as a reference, we can dig into archive.org and find a permanent way of referencing it. For anything which we are using simply as an external link, we should be able to trust that it is working, especially where we are spamming it over hundreds or thousands of BLPs with a template. WP:ELNO #16 applies here: if we cannot trust that a link will continue to work, as evidenced by a site redesign so idiotic as to break the one fundamental rule of permalinks, then it cannot be trusted to be stable and we should not be linking it as a matter of course. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:19, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Unimpressed by this comment on their forum: "On the old version, by checking the national team squad of a specific year, you had listed the "missing matches", so I know that the players' statistics of this match(es) were missing. On the new site, I miss this info. I can't see if all matches from a specific year were considered or if there is a match missing." So, as well as there being no information as to ownership, sourcing or fact-checking, as required to identify a reliable source, now you can't even tell whether the data's supposed to be complete or not... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Worrying indeed, we'll have to see how it pans out, though I still have faith in NFT as a source worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia. GiantSnowman 09:33, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome to try contacting them and talking some sense into them. For now, we have (at least) 9728 broken external links, and if there is no way of updating them automatically (which it appears there isn't) I'll be taking this to TfD and strongly suggesting that we avoid linking to NFT directly in future. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:19, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Chris - please hold off on any action for now, I will e-mail NFT tonight and see if they can sort themselves out, threatening them with much reduced traffic etc. GiantSnowman 11:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course: it's obviously my preferred outcome that this be resolved amicably by all parties. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:16, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I've e-mailed them, will let you know how I get on. GiantSnowman 18:35, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• I have been changing the url as i "see" them, but it's excruciating to say the least. Also, how bout this guy? Have you ever heard of a case of a player without a club still going strong (maybe not the best word to describe these chaps) with a national team? --AL (talk) 18:25, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Its more common than you might think for small or low-ranked nations. Angola's goalkeeper in the 2006 World Cup, João Ricardo, had been without a club for over a year at the time of the tournament. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

If I remember rightly, some American international players in the early 90s went years without a club due to the near-total collapse of domestic soccer pre-MLS. They were basically training/playing full-time with the national team, which is why some of them won so many caps...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:19, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Correct - and Canada's squad at the 1986 World Cup had 6 out of 23 players without clubs. GiantSnowman 19:36, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

and now we have this change which simply makes all the links wrong. it was better when they just returned a 404. Frietjes (talk) 19:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I reverted the change as it seems they have fixed their website to send you to the updated page. We should still probably do something about this, but we will probably want to create a new template for the new syntax or use a different parameter for the new ID (e.g., newid or something). Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:20, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

And what happens when it changes again? We shouldn't be expected to repeatedly manually update near enough 10,000 articles every time someone else has a go at playing with the database. Sites which don't treat permalinks as permanent are not reliable targets for external links. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:02, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we can have a bot update them all. the fact that they are now supporting the old URLs is good, but there is no way to use the template for new links if you don't know the old URL. so, we do need a new parameter or a new template. and a bot to switch them all and check for errors. Frietjes (talk) 19:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

They're not "supporting" the old links. They return 404. There is no way to automate updating them. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 22:49, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure about that? When I click on http://www.national-football-teams.com/v2/player.php?id=14283 it redirects me to http://www.national-football-teams.com/player/13683/Carlos_Valderrama.html so they "supporting" the old links. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:52, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Aha. Yeah, I clicked the wrong link. Okay, so at least the template is fixable (and indeed already fixed), which resolves the original problem. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

We could just lose the template if it only appears at the bottom of a page in the External Links section as it's not an inline ref and therefore there is nothing being referenced from the site. We do seem to experience this now and then, usually when FIFA or UEFA unilaterally archive competition pages and break all of the links after the event concludes. Responses from those in the past about this have generally been of the 'Fuck you' variety. Nanonic (talk) 20:28, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

the template has now been updated to take |pid= for the new numeric IDs and still return the redirect pages for the old IDs. we may want a bot to update the old ones to avoid confusion with the old syntax, but for now the old links work and there is a mechanism for adding new ones. Frietjes (talk) 15:12, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Club colours and navigation templates

What should happen to navigation templates when a club changes/swaps their 'primary' colour? I'm thinking in particular of Bradford City's rather (awful) new kit, which is mainly yellow as opposed to traditional colour of claret. However, it also applies to Bayer Leverkusen (whose 'home' colour swaps between red and black every year) and no doubt a multitude of other clubs which are unfortunately prey to bored designers. GiantSnowman 17:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Based on Arsenal, I think that the colour of the current kit of the season should be used but lower down in articles maybe include a template of their regular colours. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I think what Snowman meant was should the background colour of templates like {{Gillingham F.C.}} be changed if the club changes its colours. Well, in the case of my team, who changed their colours at the start of last season, the main club template did not change but {{Gillingham F.C. squad}} did. But then our change of colours was only ever intended to be for one season..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:19, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

While my personal preference is to simply avoid colour if we can, what about using colours based on club badges if there's a frequent change to the strip? Most clubs use their general playing livery on their badges, right? So Leverkusen's would stay red and Motherwell Bradford's would be 50/50 claret and amber. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

You cannot have a 50/50 coloured navbox (as far as I am aware), and my issue is whether I should change the navboxes from claret background with amber text to amber backround with claret text. Not all clubs use their colours in their badges e.g. Hannover 96. GiantSnowman 09:11, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, if claret is the more traditionally dominant colour, and both are equally represented on the badge, I'd leave it as predominantly claret. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:53, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I tend to change the squad template to match the current kit, and leave the manager template as the traditional colours. I think it's fun that there are changes every season, it adds a bit of variety. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 09:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

as far as alternative colouring schemes go, there is also the approach taken in the NHL navboxes (e.g., Template:Anaheim Ducks), which avoids contrast issues. Frietjes (talk) 23:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Picture help needed

On the links below there are several photos of football players that I need help uploading and identificate. They're all under a approved license for uploading at Commons. Best regards Fredde (talk) 14:59, 15 May 2013 (UTC) (Originally posted by User:Hastaro at svwp)

• AIK - Dinamo Zagreb, Ivan Turina Charity Game, 2013-05-13
• AIK - IFK Göteborg, Allsvenskan omg 7, 2013-05-06
• AIK - Halmstads BK, Allsvenskan omg 6, 2013-04-28
• AIK - Malmö FF, Allsvenskan omg 4, 2013-04-17
• AIK - Syrianska FC, Allsvenskan omg 2, 2013-04-07
• AIK - HJK Helsingfors, träningsmatch, 2013-03-24
• AIK - Syrianska FC, Svenska Cupen omg 3, 2013-03-16
• AIK - Halmstads BK, Svenska Cupen omg 1, 2013-03-03
• AIK - SSC Napoli, EL gruppspel omg 5, 2012-11-22
• AIK - PSV Eindhoven, EL gruppspel omg 4, 2012-11-08
• AIK - Malmö FF, Allsvenskan omg 30, 2012-11-04
• AIK - Syrianska FC, Allsvenskan omg 28, 2012-10-28
• AIK - Gefle IF, Allsvenskan omg 26, 2012-10-07
• AIK - FC Dnipro, EL gruppspel omg 2, 2012-10-04
• AIK - IF Elfsborg, Allsvenskan omg 24, 2012-09-26

It's pretty easy to upload them to commons, but without captions I am not sure what the pictures are of, and selecting suitable file names is an important part of the uploading process. Can you help with this? C679 06:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The Flickr names detail competition, clubs and dates. GiantSnowman 11:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Allsvenskan, Swedish Cup and Europa League group phase matches. träningsmatch would be a friendly. Madcynic (talk) 15:19, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I assumed the original poster was asking for help identifying any players pictured clearly enough to be worth uploading? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:30, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Technically a breach of OR (thought one should consider citing IAR) but try and marry up the kit numbers with relevant squad numbers? GiantSnowman 15:59, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Teams to have played in the old First Division, but not the Premier League

There was previously a wikilink from the List of Premier League clubs to a sub-section on the article for the old first division, with a table of clubs who have played in the old First Division (i.e. when it was the top division), but not the Premier League.

I think this remains useful information, so have dug back in time to get the table. Where to put it though, I don't know. Grunners (talk) 15:32, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Clubs who have competed in the top flight First Division, but not the Premier League, include:

Club	First Division Titles	FA Cups Won	League Cups Won	Total Seasons	Last Relegation	Current Status (2011–12)	Levels in Pyramid
Accrington†	–	–	–	5	1892–93	Defunct	–
Bradford Park Avenue	–	–	–	3	1920–21	Northern Premier League Premier Division	7
Brentford	–	–	–	5	1946–47	League One	3
Brighton & Hove Albion	–	–	–	4	1982–83	Championship	2
Bristol City	–	–	–	9	1979–80	Championship	2
Bury	–	2	–	22	1928–29	League One	3
Cardiff City	–	1	–	15	1961–62	Championship	2
Carlisle United	–	–	–	1	1974–75	League One	3
Darwen	–	–	–	2	1893–94	North West Counties Football League First Division	10
Glossop North End	–	–	–	1	1899–1900	North West Counties Football League Premier Division	9
Grimsby Town	–	–	–	12	1947–48	Conference National	5
Huddersfield Town	3	1	–	30	1971–72	League One	3
Leyton Orient	–	–	–	1	1962–63	League One	3
Luton Town	–	–	1	16	1991–92	Conference National	5
Millwall	–	–	–	2	1989–90	Championship	2
Northampton Town	–	–	–	1	1965–66	League Two	4
Notts County	–	1	–	30	1991–92	League One	3
Oxford United	–	–	1	3	1987–88	League Two	4
Preston North End	2	2	–	46	1960–61	League One	3

^† The Accrington Stanley club competing today in League Two, as well as its 1891 predecessor, are unrelated to the original Accrington club.

Well, The Football League. -Koppapa (talk) 10:55, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism making the news again

Alan Mathews resigned as manager of Shelbourne and well it lead to vandalism not as bad as the UAE incident but this time they didn't misreport a fact due to vandalism they were actually reporting on the vandalism itself see here rather amusing. It later changed to a gender swap. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 19:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Page cleaned up and protected. GiantSnowman 19:58, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Snowy. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 20:30, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Bundesliga (men), 2. Fußball-Bundesliga, 3. Fußball-Liga, ...

Fußball-Bundesliga was moved to Bundesliga (men) today. I'm not happy about the move, but shouldn't the naming across the leagues in one country be at least consistent? We still have 2. Fußball-Bundesliga, 3. Fußball-Liga, ... --Jaellee (talk) 16:41, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Have a look at User talk:Miniapolis#Bundesliga. GiantSnowman 16:47, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I'll have a look. --Jaellee (talk) 16:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

But I'm not sure that covers the second and third divisions...... I haven't checked but I thought they were being proposed for moves too. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:11, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Second Bundesliga and Third Liga then should be used probably. But why spend so much time debating, that's what redirects are for. -Koppapa (talk) 19:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Fußball-Bundesliga is now at Bundesliga: my opinion (as expressed in the RM for 2. Fußball-Bundesliga) is that the best title for the lower leagues is "2. Bundesliga" and so on. Hopefully the RMs will be closed to that effect soon enough. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:50, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Years in Welsh football navigational boxes

I recently tried to amend Template:2012–13 in Welsh football to include the activities of Welsh clubs that play in the English football league system only to find that User:Owain reverted my edits and labeled them as “not relevant” . I’m a bit mystified how articles on matches featuring Welsh clubs and season articles about the four most senior Welsh clubs are deemed “not relevant” yet articles about the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League and 2012–13 Europa League are included. Welsh involvement in these latter two competitions is minimal at best. My proposal for this template can be found at User:Djln/sandbox. Does anybody else have an opinion/suggestion on this topic ? Djln --Djln (talk) 11:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

It is not relevant because Template:2012–13 in Welsh football refers to the FAW competitions and Template:2012–13 in English football refers to FA competitions, in which they are already covered. Owain (talk) 11:58, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

• Nowhere in the template is the FAW mentioned but if it just about FAW competitions then change name of template to "2012–13 in FAW football". However all the four senior Welsh clubs are all affiliated to the FAW and played FAW competitions also. So your logic makes no senses. Plus last I checked the Champions League and Europa League were not organised by the FAW Djln--Djln (talk) 12:20, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
  • You can't have it both ways. Either the clubs are "Welsh" because they are physically located in Wales (their affiliation with FAW is a red herring, as the teams no longer participate in the Welsh Cup and after the FAW's shenanigans regarding rescinding a red card in the recent Conference playoffs I imagine they'll soon no longer be in charge of disciplinary matters either) or they are "English" because they play in and around the Football League. Just think of "Welsh" here being shorthand for "FAW" and "English" as "FA" and you'll be fine. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:30, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd say there is no harm done having them in both templates. -Koppapa (talk) 15:06, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Should Berwick Rangers be listed in all the "English football" templates? At present we have a good degree of consistency here simply to stick to defining Xish football in terms of the national body rather than geographic location. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

• You can’t just presume FAW = Welsh and FA = English. Think of it from the point of view from someone who doesn’t have an extensive knowledge of football. The template should include all articles related to Welsh football and not discriminate. I agree with Koppapa that there is no harm in including articles in more than one template. Regarding Berwick Rangers, there’s a big difference. Cardiff City, Swansea City, Newport County and Wrexham are the four most senior clubs in Wales while Berwick Rangers are relevantly low level club Djln--Djln (talk) 16:28, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

  That's not a "big difference": it's a marginal one, and how marginal it is depends on the year. "Someone who does not have an extensive knowledge of football" is not going to be navigating our article by navbox. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:30, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

  Exactly, it's just personal preference; Berwick are a diddy team so shouldn't be included in the English template, but Swansea and Cardiff play in the oh-so-mighty Premier League so let's put them in the Welsh one. I fail to see the logic in removing the season articles for European football from the Welsh template either. Clubs qualify for, and play in, the Champions League and Europa League through their association with the FAW. Maybe the articles for World Cups and European Championships should be removed too because, afterall, Wales' involvement is "minimal at best". Argyle 4 Life^talk 22:36, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

• Why not Chris ? . Navboxes serve a very useful purpose in linking articles together. Djln--Djln (talk) 19:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I think it's illogical for such a template to not include the Welsh teams playing in the English pyramid, and I can't see how that is useful to readers. Eldumpo (talk) 19:39, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Johnston Press Websites

A heads up - they seem to have updated all their websites this morning and it looks like the historical links are all now dead. Which is useful. Anyone got any suggestions as to a quick way to fix them? Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:24, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually - just done a bit of a test and they've just changed the url structure so you can still access them if you update it. (Well you can with the Sheffield Star ones.) Still a big job though. 08:39, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I've just checked a few, various papers (including the Sheffield Star ones in the article Sevenstone), many don't seem to have changed at all, and those that have changed still redirect to the correct article at the new-format url. Have I just been lucky? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it's just the Sheffield one or just football? The only ones to hand I had to check against were in articles I've edited - they've changed the url structure from sheffieldstar.co.uk/sport/football/sheffieldunited to just sheffieldstar.co.uk/sport/sheffieldunited. Maybe not as widespread then but worth checking if you use a lot of refs from them. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:51, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

If the URL structure has just changed slightly then you can get a bot to fix them, or maybe even AWB if you're suitably whizzy with that tool. GiantSnowman 09:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

thisisnottingham.co.uk has pulled the same trick - the "/football" chunk of their URLs have gone, but they appear to redirect properly. Still, might be worth sorting that out while that's true, as opposed to losing it if they decide to drop that redirect. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 11:13, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - it seems they'd sorted redirects for the last but one version of the Sheffield Star website but not the most recent one. I AWB'd the links and sorted them all now. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:35, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Articles for creation, perhaps you can help

Hi WP Football Wikipedians!! We have a few footballer bios that could use your expertise if you have some time:

• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cristian Ceballos
• Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Geofredo De Souza

I'm not comfortable in my knowledge of footballers to approve/decline, so perhaps some of you are (I have a feeling :) ) Thanks for your help. We have a big backlog, and your help would be so appreciated. Thanks for all you do for Wikipedia! SarahStierch (talk) 02:27, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Others will wish to comment but on first viewing I would say that the first subject would not pass either Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability or Wp:GNG. He appears to be a youth player with no notable career. The second subject is an international player and as such is deemed to be notable. Both could use some more references but Ceballos career so far has little merit.Egghead06 (talk) 02:46, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Egghead, the first is an individual who has yet to play international football, nor feature in a fully professional league, and so would not be deemed notable usually. There is nothing to suggest that he has accomplished anything else to make him generally notable either. The second one is a full international and so would generally be considered notable, however, an article already exists for this player here, unfortunately, albeit under his Chinese rather than Portuguese name. Looks like there is a need to clarify the name in the existing article, but a review of sources and this link at NFT show they are definitely the same player. Fenix down (talk) 07:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Was going to say that Chit Un Cheung already exists, which is the second player under a different name, but looks like Fenix down beat me to it. C679 08:15, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Great! Thanks everyone. I declined both articles based on your rationale. Thanks for informing me that you replied over here, too! Thanks again. SarahStierch (talk) 17:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Completely agree that Ceballos is not notable; it appears Geofredo De Souza has played international football (and already has an article anyway!) GiantSnowman 17:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Now that's what I call a TOC..........

History of Crystal Palace F.C. -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Best article evarNarom (talk) 20:24, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Section 5, subsection 5.5, 1962–1963: Palace finished 11th. Awesome. Argyle 4 Life^talk 21:48, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe put the TOC limit? --Edgars2007 ^{(talk/contribs)}

...or it just needs chopping down, given the lack of references, POV, bias etc. GiantSnowman 09:49, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

It needs chopping down and sections need merging. Who in their right mind would allot a separate section for every season in the club's history? – PeeJay 17:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Done. GiantSnowman 17:29, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Infobox- Teams managed

I was always under the belief that in teams managed who had the teams who you managed and nothing else so i changed Alan Wright to reflect that but it has since been reverted. Others like Steve Clarke dont mention roles at Newcastle,Chelsea, West Ham, nor Mike Phelan for the role he is most famous for at Man United. Is there a consensus or practice as to what goes in there? Narom (talk) 17:42, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

It should be manager/head coach roles i.e. no assistants, scouting, youth coach etc. GiantSnowman 17:39, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The instructions for {{Template:Infobox football biography}} say: "A list of clubs that the person has served with in the capacity of team manager. Please do not list positions other than team manager (such as assistant or coach positions, or director of football roles where this role is not considered managerial) unless that position is a significant part of the person's career; this will apply primarily to those with significant or perhaps primary experience in management.". Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:43, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

That answers that then, thanks. Narom (talk) 17:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone explain why this is? It seems like it would be useful to detail a player's post-playing career. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 18:01, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Because where do you draw the line? GiantSnowman 18:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Where it relates to the team - Coach, Dir of Football, Scout, Physio, Youth Coach, Assistant: yes, ambassador, hospitaility, fan-club co-ordinator: no. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 18:17, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

But surely due to the increasing number of roles that football clubs now have, an infobox could get out of hand and look cluttered. That info should be put in the main body imo Narom (talk) 18:19, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x2... You draw the line at roles that are not "a significant part of the person's career", as per the template instructions. While the reader won't be helped by an infobox-full of 15 short-term coaching jobs, half of which are the same job with a different title - that's what sourced article text is for - omitting something like Chris Hughton's ten years as Spurs assistant manager would be ridiculous. It's a judgment call. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:21, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm the original culprit that Narom mentioned in the first post, I was under the impression that assistant manager roles were relevant having seen them on many other infoboxes but I should have consulted the guidance more closely. I agree with a couple of the comments above that it does make sense to include football related positions else you can have large gaps in career history that leave the infobox more confusing as a result. In Alan Wright's case, it seemed relevant to include his spell as Blackpool assistant manager as it was his most high profile management career role and is one of the reasons that he managed to secure his new role as Southport manager. Of course, I'm willing to go with the convention in future Mountaincirque (talk) 13:59, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

It's editorial discretion what to include. For instance, I'd say that Nigel Adkins may well appropriately have his time as Scunthorpe's physiotherapist in his infobox, seeing as this was notable enough to result in one of the best songs in football when he was promoted to manager. But we shouldn't routinely include every job in football that someone has had, as most of them will not be independently notable. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't a nice fix for this box be "notability"? If an independent third party source clearly highlights your significance as a person / player / role within club then it's notable for inclusion in the article body. For instance Stewart Houston, Ray Harford, Steve McClaren, Frank Lampard, Sr. seem to have odd infobox profiles due to gaps and/or absence of referring to key elements of their careers. Koncorde (talk) 12:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

That's already intimated by the present wording. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:31, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Alf Bellis

A non-registered user has indicated that he died last month, but I cannot find any evidence to confirm it. Can anyone else investigate somehow?EchetusXe 18:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I cannot find anything either, and Bellis does not qualify for Category:Possibly living people as he was known to be alive less than 10 years ago. GiantSnowman 19:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Premier League country/countries

Various editors have been adding Wales to the infobox in the Premier League article as one of the league's countries. Although the league comprises two Welsh teams, I do not believe that Wales should be listed as one of the league's countries as it is administrated entirely from England and is part of the English football league system, not the Welsh. Opinions? – PeeJay 22:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

League of Ireland Premier Division, Swiss Challenge League and Ligue 2 are all marked as bi-national, as were Conference National, Conference North and Scottish Football League Third Division before intervention of PJ yesterday shortly before the post above. Current implicit consensus seems to be with indicating nationality by that of teams participating, not by administration. Frankly, participation is what is of interest to most people: the text can clarify technical issues about organisational matters. Kevin McE (talk) 05:48, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I realize that it's a minor league, but Major League Soccer has indicated both United States and Canada despite being sanctioned only by USSF. Unless we change the infobox to indicate sanctioning authority, it does make sense to include the nations of the clubs or teams playing. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:25, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Question - which federation gets points for the UEFA coefficient if a Welsh team qualifies for Europe? The FA or the FAW? Maybe that would be helpful in deciding. Madcynic (talk) 11:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

England. To my knowledge Cardiff and Swansea would not even be permitted to participate in that event, from the discussion about Cardiff's League Cup final appearance last season. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 19:29, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

In MLS, the three Canadian teams cannot advance to the CONCACAF Champions League if they win the league. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:37, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

But this isn't a matter of which country's teams play in the division, it's about which country's league structure the division forms part of. The Welsh league system does not feed into the Premier League in any way, and if Cardiff and Swansea are progressively relegated, there is no way they could end up in the Welsh system unless they resigned from the English leagues and rejoined the Welsh. The same applies to all of the Welsh teams in the English leagues (Newport, Wrexham, Merthyr and Colwyn Bay), Berwick in the Scottish league, Derry City in the League of Ireland, Vaduz in the Swiss league and AS Monaco in the French league. They are not binational leagues, they are merely leagues that happen to contain one or more teams from another country. – PeeJay 21:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The field is entitled Countries: not organising FA, not co-efficient contribution. It invites one relevant question: what country/countries do the teams come from? In terms of participation, they are indeed binational. Is it true to say that the only country with participants in the Premier League or next season's League 2 is England? No, it is not. There is no reason for the casual reader of the infobox to assume that the field is restricted to organisational identity. Simple truth over bureaucratic technicalities. Kevin McE (talk) 22:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I am tempted to support PJ´s approach, not only because of the logic of his arguments, but also because when one see´s English and Welsh flag he may beleave that the two countries play fully in that only league (meaning all clubs and full league systems of both), and that is misleading. I beleave that the field in the infobox could rather be fixed than being decisive on what it actually says ("country" in this case), and also that the technicallity of the few clubs from outside can be explained in the article. FkpCascais (talk) 04:29, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree with PeeJay. Perhaps a compromise would be to state England, but with a note explaining that at present there are members of the league who are based in Wales. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 05:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I would be fine with a note as a compromise. It really doesn't matter where a club is geographically from. Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Wrexham, Merthyr and Colwyn Bay play in the English football league system. Other than being on the other side of a border they're no different to all the other clubs that compete in the pyramid. Whether they want to admit it or not, Swansea will represent England in the Europa League next season and any coefficient points they gain will go to England's total. The 2013–14 UEFA Europa League article uses notes and it looks fine. Argyle 4 Life^talk 22:12, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

• Suggest that there be three fields: Country could be used on its own when there is only one country involved, as is the case for most leagues and division, so no change will be needed in all of these. Where there is bi-national participation, we could have two fields instead of that one: something like Countries of clubs, and Administrative nationality. Clarity, no danger of misinterpretation or claim of misrepresentation from either side. A rem note in the template could require that these are only used in seasons when the division has bi-national participation: the basic country field could have a footnote in other years to explain, for example "In some years, a Monegasque club has competed in Ligue 1". Kevin McE (talk) 06:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Two days without further comment, and on the principle that it is better to clarify than to leave information open to misinterpretation, I have implemented a variant on my proposal above. One additional optional field, Other participants, and the previously entitled Countries changed to singular. Kevin McE (talk) 09:30, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I've applied it to Premier, Championship, Conf and Conf North (England), Div 3 (Scotland) and the Irish, French and Swiss leagues above, and to MLS and NASL in the US and the Aussie A-League (and subsequently Lega Pro Prima Divisione and S.League). Anyone know of others? (Later note: I've found List of association football clubs playing in the league of another country) Kevin McE (talk) 09:47, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's not the conclusion that we reached. In fact, the last two comments do not support the change you made at all. You can't just make a change with as far-reaching consequences as this without a proper consensus. – PeeJay 18:11, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

There is demand here that there should be clarity about the nationality of the league: I have provided for that. There is also demand here, and more importantly demand at the articles involved, that readers should not be left bewildered that the nationality of clubs involved is ignored: I have provided for that. We don't need to be adversarial and have a "winner" in every discussion: we can ensure that everyone's concerns are met. It was discussed briefly in February last year, with the majority of opinions being for stating all nationalities involved, but with prominence given to the main nationality, which is what I provide. The new solution distinguishes between the nationality of the league and that of some participants. There are not "far reaching consequences": it affects about two dozen articles, and the only effect on 98% of the articles that use the template is that the inappropriate plural countries is corrected. Kevin McE (talk) 22:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I do not dispute that people's concerns should be met. What I dispute is the method by which you are meeting them and the unilateral action you seem to be taking in order to meet them. The majority that appears to be emerging is in favour of a note, rather than adding more and more parameters to infoboxes (many of which are already too bloated with unnecessary fields). Instead of adding more fields, why not just keep what we had already and add a footnote? This would make far more sense as it would keep confusing info out of the picture, especially since the infobox is supposed to remain relatively constant, and it is not always the case that the Premier League contains a Welsh team, or that there is a Monegasque team in the French top flight (which I dispute, by the way; since AS Monaco is registered with the FFF, not whatever governing body they have in Monaco, they are a French team, plain and simple). – PeeJay 23:56, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

The Monaco situation is something of a red herring here: if we were listing football associations, I would agree with you, while we are labelling it as countries, I do not. Same applies to Guernsey FC in the Southern League. Kevin McE (talk) 09:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

The recent change to the template resolves this issue completed. Should we be listing the nations or the national associations? Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:06, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

If by "the recent change to the template" you mean the one Kevin McE implemented, then you clearly haven't read anything I just said and I have absolutely no idea why you are thanking me in your edit summary. Otherwise, please indicate the template to which you are referring. Either way, the second part of your question is moot; the only relevant info is whether the division is part of one country's national league system or another's, and if it is part of two or more countries' league systems, list all. Taking Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Wrexham, Colwyn Bay and Merthyr playing in the English leagues as an example, none of their divisions should have Wales listed as a country since there is no link between the Welsh league system and the English. – PeeJay 00:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

No, that is plainly not the only question. Until you intervened, there was a clear implicit consent, re-affirmed at the earlier discussion on this page linked above, and exercised by those maintaining the pages affected, that the nationalities of all participants should be reflected in the infobox. The glaring other question is the omission, in your preference, of the country of participating teams which has never been tolerated by readers/editors of the articles in question. In the adapted template, Wales is listed as "other participants" (maybe not the best title: minor detail like that can be discussed at template talk) to make it clear that their role is participation, not the nationality of the league. No-one is likely to interpret that as a "link between the Welsh league system and the English". Kevin McE (talk) 09:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

See, you say that, but I believe that people who have no clue might assume a link between those league systems. Obviously since those hypothetical people have no clue, they would need something to explain why Welsh teams play in the English league, but the appropriate method to do that is not the one you have suggested. – PeeJay 10:47, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

People who don't understand the word participant probably shouldn't be trying to use an encyclopaedia. The infobox is clearly not the place to explain why Welsh clubs are in the Premiership: that should be in the text. But there is no need for the infobox to deny the fact that Welsh clubs are in the Premiership. Kevin McE (talk) 23:12, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

From my point of view - the "country / participant" thing now looks really odd. Wales does not take part at all. A couple of English registered teams based in Wales take part. If Swansea / Cardiff are relegated, does "Wales" cease to be a participant? The MLS argument is a bit of an odd one because of their league structure, and in fact PeeJay highlights the oddities of principalities etc in Europe.

The "Country" field appears to be pretty inappropriate when it is being used in this manner. I would also point out that, for instance, the UEFA Europa League does not utilise the field yet it has far more potential "participants". The Field should be amended to reflect the host federation / registered federation rather than trying to shoehorn all of Wales into the Premier League. Koncorde (talk) 23:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

It said countries before, it says country now: if it is inappropriate now, it was more inappropriate on 98% of the articles on which it is used until a few days ago, and has been inappropriate ever since the template was created.

You show lack of understanding by stating "A couple of English registered teams based in Wales take part": those teams are affiliated to the FAW, not the FA.

If you have to ask If Swansea / Cardiff are relegated, does "Wales" cease to be a participant? then you have clearly not read this thread.

Although I don't think any intelligent person would have interpreted it as meaning that the country of Wales takes part, I've changed the display label for that field to Other club(s) from.

What possible reason would there be for presenting Wales as a registered federation? Where did this designation come from?

The Europa League uses a different template altogether: it has no national association organising it, and is not really a league, despite its title. Kevin McE (talk) 17:24, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Have you ever heard of Occam's razor? It is a principle that states that the most simple solution is usually the best one. This is not that. – PeeJay 00:07, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Kevin, I never said it was better before. Only that it now looked odd now with "participant". The Welsh teams may be affiliated to the FAW - but they are registered to play in the English League structure which is managed by the English FA. The Premier League is an affiliate of the English FA. Why therefore are we trying to shoehorn a league which pays no attention to boundaries into a "country" designation? Why does the template not say "National Sports Association"? The "Country" designation really is massively simplistic (and inaccurate) and requires overly complex explanations of what are quite simple principles. The UEFA template seems to handle the issue of "participants" and "country" quite well by completely omitting it.Koncorde (talk) 09:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)