Talk:Kickball

WAKA Lawsuit

The lawsuit between WAKA LLC v. DCKickball [1] could be mentioned in an article about WAKA but it doesn't belong in this article which is only about the sport/game of Kickball (not in-depth about specific leagues and/or governing bodies). Here are my arguments for this viewpoint:

a) The lawsuit is just a claim at this point. No ruling has been made yet.

b) The lawsuit (which sounds pretty much frivolous) and is unlikely to have any affect on the game outside of those two litigants. It won't affect the game of kickball, which is the subject of this article.

c) There are thousands of independent kickball leagues around the United States and probably the world. I play in a non-WAKA league. WAKA doesn't own the game itself.

Fife Club 17:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

External Links

As it states when editing the article, Wikipedia is not a search engine nor is it a website directory service. Please do not list sites that are not of significant value to this article on the game/sport of kickball.

Just because you have an adult kickball league does not mean you can add links to your website in this article so you get more internet traffic. That is spam and is not allowed on Wikipedia. The link to WAKA is justified because they are a legitimate subject of the article and/or have made an impact on the game (or if not, at least that point could be intelligently argued). By the way, I don't work for nor play in any WAKA league. Additional websites may or may not be appropriate for adding to the external links but no other individual leagues should be added unless the subject has some sort of a significant impact on the game. Remember this is an encyclopedia article on the sport of kickball (origins, equipment, rules, etc.), not a place for free publicity for for-profit adult leagues. Fife Club 21:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just start an article specifically on WAKA, apart from the kickball article? Amnewsboy 09:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would be fine. All you have to do to start one is click that red link in the article (not the external link). I haven't done it myself because I don't know enough about WAKA to write more than a few sentences. However that doesn't mean that WAKA shouldn't still be mentioned in the Kickball article too. I'm not the one who put WAKA in there in the first place but it is justified content. Aside from being the largest Kickball league, they honestly did pretty much launch the idea of having adult leagues in the first place (a true fact that I actually deemphasized to try to make it a more neutral article in hopes that competing leagues wouldn't feel the need to vandalize the article any more - a hope that hasn't worked out.)Fife Club 13:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ball size

The main article describes balls from 10- to 16-inches. Balls from 5 inches to 16 inches are commercially available, but all the sources I've checked agree that 8.5 inches is the standard size. I play in an adult league and we use an 8.5 inch ball. OlYeller 16:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adult leagues are free to make up what ever rules they want (despite WAKA's claims to "own" the game) so there are no universal rules. For what it's worth, my league plays with 15" and I've bought 12" for the team to warm up with. From trips to the sporting goods store I'm under the impression that 8.5" balls are primarily intended for kids so I'd agree with the 10-16" statement in the article but like I said, there really aren't any rules so anything is possible. If you feel the need you can add a statement about 'other sizes can be used as well' but IMHO I wouldn't expand the range of numbers considered normal sizes. Just my 2cents. Fife Club 13:25, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

kickball vs. soccer

I have heard the term "kickball" used as a derogatory term for a soccer strategy that emphasises long, often aimless kicks downfield rather than any attempt at aimed passing; but never as a general term for soccer itself. Any citations for this perported usage? Perhaps it is a regional usage? Wschart 19:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Repeated blatant vandalism

The following discussion is regaring the recent revert wars between myself and Ebaymarcaro (please no IP listings) on September 26th, 27th, and 28th. First off, the proper method of communicating with editors is on Wikipedia - not by sending me an email. Wikipedia is an open community and other editors need to be informed of why you make changes. There are tags embedded in the article which asked you to discuss changes to the WAKA references before you edited and you ignored those requests. Until your last edit you also haven't been entering an edit summary to explain your changes either - which needed explaining.

Now since everybody else can't get into my email inbox I'll copy and paste your message here for other editors to see and comment on.

I'd like to know what you felt was vandalism/spam about the following recent edit on the webpage. If you can point out one error or false statement or slander I will gladely concede. However, I don't believe that there is anything incorrect / opinionated about what has been written here. If the WAKA league is allowed to be included in the article without being considered advertising, then other independent leagues should be to.

Here was the most recent edit:

There are some non-profit, independant kickball leagues across North America:

The Brooklyn Kickball League

The Buffalo League

The D.C. League

The Providence League

The Toronto League

The West Coast League

There are also for-profit leagues:

The World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA) is a limited liability company that organizes the self-reported largest adult kickball league in the United States.

First I'll answer your question as to why WAKA deserves to be in this article and other leagues do not belong there. WAKA is the largest governing body in the sport of adult kickball. This is a verifiable fact. When you're the biggest (by far) this is Wikipedia:notable_notable, and therefore significant in the context of the article. Just like it's okay to have an article on Microsoft or Wal Mart but not joe shmoe's failing local store down the street. Not mentioning them would be like having an article on baseball without mentioning Major Leage Baseball. In addition to their being the largest in the world, WAKA is more or less solely responsible for popularizing the concept of adult kickball around the nation. You can dispute whether they were the first adult league but you can easily point to their tremendous success for all the other leagues that popped up in their wake, therefore WAKA is also Wikipedia:notable_notable in this article because they had a significant an undenialbe impact on the sport itself. Please take note thought that this fact is actually not included in the article. Due to previous vandalism attacks their impact on the sport was removed from the article because it was an easy target - but maybe it should be put back in.

I've explained the violations multiple times but once again....

1) I admit you removed this yourself but you edited this article to state "(WAKA), pronounced hwǎk, is the largest for-profit (pyramid scheme) adult kickball league in the United States, although there are many other (better) independent leagues as well." Do you really need me to explain to you how that is slanderously not NPOV? From this moment on it is known that you are not editing this aricle in good faith.

2) You then added links to five individual leagues (each improperly named, btw). This is an article on the sport of kickball. History, rules, etc. This is not a link farm for spam. Even WAKA didn't have a link to their website in this article!

3) You then added "Now in its 3rd full season, The Brooklyn Kickball League [2]is an exclusive independant league comprised of miscreants, vagabonds, griffters, and other fine upstanding individuals. If you think you have what it takes, gather a group of ten and a pack of 6, use your brain to crank out a 'witty' team theme, and come to McCarren Park in Brooklyn (duh), NY. The season runs from April to October (roughly). Sunday's only. Check here for the latest BKKB news here [3]." This is NPOV??? This is blatant promotion which is strictly forbidden by Wikipedia.

4) You then proceeded to remove valid content about WAKA (which at this point I assume is a competitor of yours). You removed the existing wikilink to an article on World Adult Kickball Association and removed a factual, verifiable, and essential fact that WAKA is the largest kickball league in the world. As mentioned above, the fact about WAKA being the largest league in the world is important information because this is the reason they are included in this article and other leagues are not.

5) I then reverted all of your edits for all the reasons above (and I used the Edit summary field), however you used a different IP address to revert my vandalism revert, once again with no explanation, putting all that crap back in. I'm getting tired of writing this but that too is against WP guidelines.

6) You then decided it would be better to list these other leagues without links so it wouldn't be considered spam. Yes, it's slightly better but it's still spam, even without the links. They are still not notable and have no significant contribution to the subject of this article so they don't deserve to even be mentioned. Because of this, their inclusion serves only as a promotion for a business which is against WP policy.

7) And finally, after a second revert of a revert, you cast doubt on the fact that they are the largest league but adding "self-reported" to the statement. You then removed the entire WAKA section from the article, replacing it with a brief listing at the bottom - stipped once again of it's wikilink to the existing WAKA article.

So I'm going to revert this again, add a new category tag, and then ask for other Wikipedians to enter this ridiculous discussion with a RfC.

Fife Club 17:08, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response:

1) I'm commenting on the last changes made where I simply listed many examples of adult leagues. I don't see how this is spam.

Only representing one league and having a description of that league seems much closer to spam. Furthermore, listing the leagues was to illustrate the popularity of the sport across the country and Canada. Hence saying the D.C. league not DCKickball.

3) To my knowledge, there has been no third/independant party census of the size of kickball leagues. In fact the only published claim comes directly from WAKA (or other cites referencing this claim). You submit to me something other than an empirical claim and I'll accept that they are the biggest league.

4) Your comparison of other independant leagues to Joe's failing business is a bit off with many independant leagues holding a couple hundred members a piece consistently over years.

5) You should have checked the WAKA wiki link -- it was broken. I removed a broken link.

6) I know I vandalised with earlier postings. I'm not hiding my dislike for WAKA. But, my e-mail to you was in reference to my most recent post, which I consider the less biased than what is posted now.

7) I wouldn't consider WAKA the reason why kickball has become so popular. It was a popular (granted not like today) intramural sport in colleges well before WAKA. I'll give you that WAKA has been the most financially successful league.

8) You too removed factual information about WAKA. They are a limited liability company that governs a league. I think that is a more precise description of WAKA than what you have in place.

P.S. Yeah this trully is a really silly discussion.

Speaking as somebody who's played in both leagues (and just plays the damned game and could care less about the whole WAKA vs. other leagues argument)... I think the article AS IT IS CURRENTLY WRITTEN is just fine when it comes to WAKA / non-WAKA. Bringing WAKA into the disucssion is appropriate in this case, given that they are (as far as I know) the only national kickball organization -- but any controversy about them should be talked about (AND sourced) on their article. It's totally appropriate to acknowledge that there are dozens of other leagues in the country, but we simply can't name every single one of them without devolving the article into listcruft. I say we leave it as is and move on. (BTW, yes, the photos are from WAKA, but the game is still the same, and certainly not meant as an endorsement of such.) --Amnewsboy 09:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I won't comment on everything but I will reply to a few questions. Regarding #3, you are correct that certain items in the article should be more properly cited. I will try to find and add citations to those sources. Regarding #7, I think it would be difficult to find citations for this fact but there weren't many, if any, adult recreational kickball leagues in America until WAKA showed that it could be popular. However your point about kickball leagues existing in college is a good one and I see no reason that couldn't be mentioned in the article. Regarding #8, that removal was just a casualty of the revert but to be honest, neither is appropriate in that sentence. They may be a limited-liability company but that's just a incidental fact about their business stucture. What was written is more appropriate but it is actually inaccurate and needs changed anyway. When I add citation sources in a few moments I will change that to the fact that they are "the largest sanctioning body of adult kickball leagues". I continue to welcome more comments but I'm going to go find citations now. Fife Club 20:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]