Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis

Template:Outline of knowledge coverage Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used

TFD notification

Only WP:CFB was notified. I think all relevant sports should participate in this discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 April 4#Athletic program head coaches navboxes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Mana Ayukawa for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Mana Ayukawa is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mana Ayukawa until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Mana Ayukawa is a Japanese tennis playe Eastmain (talk • contribs) 12:05, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Ralph James Wickel us open 1952-55?

I think this article doesn't meet Wikipedia: Notability... except possibly for this bit:

Ralph competing in the USLTA men's singles United States National Championships; known currently as the United States Open Tennis Championships. Ralph competed in Round 1 of the tournament in 1952, 1954 and 1955.[5]

Can Tennis experts confirm whether that is sufficient to meet WP:NTENNIS?--GRuban (talk) 11:22, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this is a clear pass of WP:NTENNIS, there's no question that the U.S. National Championships was a Grand Slam event. Iffy★Chat -- 11:30, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Widespread failure to follow basic encyclopaedic norms

In large numbers of tennis articles, I see there is a failure to follow a basic tenet of writing encyclopaedia articles: the first sentence should introduce the topic of the article. In the majority of instances that I have checked of an article about subcompetitions at a Grand Slam, this is not done. Here are some example first sentences:

Novak Djokovic was the two-time defending champion, and top seed, but was defeated in the third round by the No. 28 seed Sam Querrey.

Arnaud Clément and Michaël Llodra were the defending champions, but were forced to withdraw due to a left arm injury for Llodra.

Andres Gomez was the defending champion but did not compete that year.

Serena Williams was the defending champion, but was defeated in the semifinals by the eventual champion Kim Clijsters.

Vitas Gerulaitis was the defending champion, but did not compete this year.

These first sentences are inadequate. They do not include anything resembling the article's title and thus do not properly introduce the topic. They could often be fixed with the simple addition of eg "in the Men's Singles competition at the 1991 French Open", though some need more work. The winner of the event is more important than a defending champion who did not compete, for example.

Does this wikiproject have plans to carry out this work? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 06:40, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

I was waiting for you to do it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Is that supposed to be funny? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 12:31, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

You are right, this has long been a shortcoming of tennis tournament event articles. Unfortunately it is so widespread that it has become the norm and editors copy these type of 'leads' into new articles. It only takes a small effort to improve the introductions, see e.g. 1999 Direct Line International Championships – Doubles or 1986 Virginia Slims of Arizona – Singles.--Wolbo (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

While true, the problem does not lay with the Tennis Project. There are probably a million things that need correcting in articles and an inadequate lead is way down the list. To be honest, the example 1999 Direct Line International Championships – Doubles is awful. The most important thing about the event is who won, not who didn't play with whom. The winner/winners should be right up front and all too often they are not. A bad lead is often as bad as no lead. The thing is, anyone can correct it, including editor 146.198.193.61. I may be guilty of not correcting everyone of these things I come across, but so is every editor. If there was to be a start on these things it should be the newest articles of the four majors, since those get copied into other articles. Then the year-ends and next big nine events. That would help set the table for next years' editions. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Wolbo for your constructive comment, and Fyunck(click) for your second comment. I still do not know what the point of your first comment was.

It does only take a small effort to fix an opening sentence, and I have done a lot, but as this failing affects the majority of this type of article, then if we simply wait for them to be fixed, then it will never get done, and a majority of tennis tournament articles will not have an adequate opening sentence. That's a very low bar of quality to fall below. So what I think is necessary here is a systematic effort to fix this. And what mechanism exists for organising systematic efforts like this? That would be a wikiproject. So why Fyunck(click) should say "the problem does not lay with the Tennis Project", I do not know.

I find it odd to say "an inadequate lead is way down the list" of things that need fixing. The lead will be the only bit that a lot of readers actually read. It could not be more important. And what I've pointed out here is not merely an inadequate lead. It's opening sentences which do not even identify the topic of the article.

How many articles fail in this basic way? For the majors in the open era, assuming 8 sub-tournaments, that's about 1600 articles. But I see that basically all tournaments are affected. Let's say 30 events per year with articles, 2 sub-tournaments each, in the open era, and that's another 3000 articles.

So to re-emphasise:

• Not having an adequate opening sentence is a major failing for any article.
• There are at least 4500 tennis articles which don't have an adequate opening sentence.
• Without a systematic effort, those ~4500 articles are not going to get fixed.

Are you, the participants in this wikiproject, interested in initiating a systematic effort to fix this? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 08:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

I disagree and say it is way down the list. When you are talking about a biography, then our leads are pretty darned good. When you are talking about a "sub-competition" or a stat page, then they are not so good. However those are usually found after going to main pages and then going to detailed pages. When that is the case then I don't think that is all that is usually read. They go down to look at detailed stats most of the time. Don't get me wrong, there should be proper leads in all those articles. My guess is that 3000 is way low. With the womens events and the Challenger level tour there are thousands upon thousands more. Plus there are also wheelchair events and pre-Open Era events. With the small number of really active members, Tennis Project is unlikely to issue some mandate to drop everything to fix it. I certainly don't have time to make it a priority with the hours per day I already spend on tennis stuff, including all the vandalism. With you bringing this up, I will look a little more often and fix some as I find them. Maybe Wolbo feels differently about the likelihood of the project making it a priority No. 1 mandate? It could be added to the task force section of the project or perhaps assessment? Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

As a tennis fan and reader of Wikipedia, this error is by far the most glaring that I see in tennis articles. It is such an awful error that it doesn't just devalue the articles it occurs in but makes all the other tennis articles suspect as well. Why would a reader trust that a tennis biography is written with care and attention when thousands and thousands of other tennis articles are not? This is how I've felt over several years of noticing this error. So I really think that if you want your work on other articles to be appreciated by readers of Wikipedia, writing proper first sentences for these articles should be the highest priority.

Still not sure of the point of your first comment. Was it supposed to be funny? Was it supposed to be an insult? 146.198.193.61 (talk) 10:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

It was clearly a version of {{sofixit}}. Which renders thus:

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons you might want to).

--Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

It was not clearly that; it was clearly intended as some kind of insult. So that's the response you get, when you point out a catastrophic flaw affecting a very large number of articles - "go away, we're not interested". Thus, the vast majority of those articles will remain fundamentally inadequate in perpetuity. 146.90.39.145 (talk) 09:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Actually it was intended exactly as the administrator said, and it was supposed to be funny and to the point. Could I have been more thorough and perhaps written a better response. Surely I should have. Here's how it should have been conveyed to editor 146.198.193.61. This project is rather small and deals with players with no articles, vandalism, current tournament updates, stat updates, etc... on a daily basis. 10s of thousands of articles. It's pretty overwhelming and we need all the help we can get. You can do it just as well as we can, maybe better because it's obviously something you care about. As far as does the project have plans to do mass fixing of this inadequacy, no. We'll fix them as we get to them as best we can. Do I think it's a "catastrophic flaw?" Catastrophic....No chance. Most of our articles have some flaws and this one just gets added to the list. That's how I look at it. So if editor 146.198.193.61 wants something done on that front on a massive scale, please put on some gloves, dive in and join the party... We'd love to see the inadequacies fixed. Editors tend to work on things that they are most comfortable and concerned with, so the original poster could help out by taking it on as their own project. I'm not sure if you are the same person as the original poster, but either way it would apply to you as well. I hope that explains it better. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:44, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

It wasn't funny, and it didn't make any discernable point. I asked you three times what you meant by it, and you didn't bother to reply. It is obvious it was intended as an insult. You could have answered "Does this wikiproject have plans to carry out this work?" by simply saying "no, we do not". But you chose to insult me. That tells me plenty about why so many articles are in a deficient state. I do hope it gave you a great laugh to post that insult though. 146.90.125.65 (talk) 21:57, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

My post gave me a mild chuckle, and it was replied to by others, so I saw no point and simply stuck to the main topic instead of dwelling on one thing. But this last post of yours gave me a great laugh. Get over yourself and either help or don't help. It's up to you. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:33, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

What didn't give me a laugh is the following: are you actually here to help or just complain? I ask because today all you did was add a template on heaps of articles that said the lead was inadequate. You could have fixed some with a little research but instead all you did was add templates. That doesn't really help all that much. In the time it took you to add that to dozens of articles you might have been able to fix some of them. And when you add one of those templates you should also mention as to why on the talk page of the article so that another editor understands what the problem might be. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:41, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I was waiting for you to do it. 146.90.125.65 (talk) 23:48, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Knock off the simply adding hundreds of lead problems with no talk page explanation as to what you'd like done. That's ridiculous and disruptive and you will be reported if it keeps up. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:51, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Two month virtual editathon on Women in Sports

WikiProject Women in Red is devoting the next two months (July and August) to a virtual editathon on Women in Sports. Please take this opportunity to write more articles about women in tennis who lag far behind men on Wikipedia.--Ipigott (talk) 07:06, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Inadequate leads

Thousands and thousands of your articles have lead sections which do not even give the title of the article. Somehow, you've failed to realise the basic function of the first sentence. Having found no interest whatsoever in an effort to fix this abysmal situation, I am tagging as many as I feel like as needing cleanup. 146.90.125.65 (talk) 23:52, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

You need to mention what needs to be done on the article talk pages so others not as brilliant as yourself will understand what needs to be done. If you aren't going to fix it yourself, be specific so that someone who doesn't frequent Tennis Project talk pages will take on the challenge . Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:58, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• What on earth is going on here? Can anyone please discuss this and come to some form of WP:CONSENSUS instead of edit warring over dozens of articles? ST47 (talk) 23:56, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Read any tennis tournament event article. Almost always, the first sentence does not say what the article is about. That is insane - a complete and utter failure to follow the most basic standards of encyclopaedia writing. I gave examples above. I asked if there was any plan to deal with this. I received only a childish taunt in return. What consensus are you seeking? A consensus that an article should start by defining its topic? 146.90.125.65 (talk) 09:07, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

• I don't know if we are always talking to the same person or not, but what they could do (since they don't seem to want to do any fixing themselves) is make a detailed list of the "worst 100" offender articles. Perhaps ones with no lead at all or leads that don't even say who won an event. They could post that list on their sandbox and link it here. That way the worst 100 could be looked at and fixed. After those are fixed they could list another 100 of the next worst offenders. etc. This might really help to get some Tennis Project members to look at specific articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:13, 3 July 2019 (UTC)