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Location maps and results tables in sports rivalry articles

I agree that there is no consensus here. however, in case you are interested, about 20 percent (unscientific sample) do: Mayor's Cup (Temple–Villanova), Victory Bell (Cincinnati–Miami), Bayou Bucket Classic, Marshall–UCF football rivalry, and Rice–SMU football rivalry. at some point, I would like to standardize the results tables in these articles, but it will take some time. there are so many of them ... Frietjes (talk) 16:28, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Frietjes, of the five "rivalry" articles you just listed, arguably four of them should be deleted outright as non-notable per GNG and NRIVALRY. There needs to be a big purge of 30+% of the currently existing CFB rivalry articles. WP:CFB started to deal with it in September, and then got sidetracked dealing with AfDs for stand-alone articles for regular season CFB games, and after 26 AfD deletions, the usual 10-12 participants were running out of steam. We need to pick where we left off in January and nominate another 10-15 single-game articles and 30-40 rivalries. With 90% certainty, I know which ones will be sent to AfD, and there's no sense wasting time improving them.
On the other hand, there are 100+ CFB rivalry articles whose notability and suitability for stand-alone articles is not in question. I would be happy to supply a prioritized list for you, so you can nibble on standardizing their records tables whenever you have time. I started to standardize the records tables for the most notable 2 or 3 years ago, but started to run into pockets of resistance from a handful of "owners" who wanted to maintain their own non-standard table features -- in particular, they wanted to include both team names in every game entry (why? only the color-coded winner needs to be listed), as well as cumulative win-loss records (sometimes including home and away cumulative win-loss records, too), and poll rankings. And some just liked their version of the table graphics better. To my way of thinking, the core information to be included should be limited to date, location, score, and winning team; a minority of editors want to include additional data points that basically duplicate the game entries for the season record tables of both team's season articles. Some newbies and habitual crufters simply don't grasp the concepts of "core data" and "less is sometimes more".
Bottom line: if you're willing to take on this standardization project, I would be grateful for your efforts, happy to cooperate, and have your back when pockets of resistance arise. I would suggest that we first standardize 30 to 40 non-controversial records tables for clearly notable rivalries, and then take it to WP:CFB for a mini-RfC determination of consensus regarding standardization. This has worked well for WP:CFB in the past, precludes anyone from bitching about "consensus," and has led to a number of standardized CFB article features over the past five years. I know that you will be able to count on most of the project's de facto leaders like Jweiss11 and others who have wanted to standardize these articles for several years, but simply have not had the time and energy to deal with it. In conjunction with the AfDs for non-notable rivalries, it's clearly time to end the Wild West "anything goes" fanboy cruft that has populated these articles. Your willingness to help would go a long way to helping us clean up one of the messiest CFB pockets remaining. Let me know what your thoughts are.
In the interim, I will purge the location maps from any rivalries that are clearly notable. It looks like it's been the same one or two editors who have been adding them. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:53, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Questionable Rivalries

You asked me a couple weeks ago to consider which Big Ten rivalry articles might warrant further scrutiny.

At least one non-Penn State entry probably requires some scrutiny as well: Colorado–Nebraska football rivalry: I don't know about the history, but the article suggests it wasn't a big deal until the 1980s and now they're not even in the same conference, so it was short-lived at best.
Maryland is new to the Big 10 and has 5 rivalry articles, which is on the high side, but I don't yet know enough about the Terrapins to offer an informed judgment on these. User:Strikehold would have been a good person to check with, but he hasn't been active for a couple years.
Michigan has five rivalry articles, but one (Chicago–Michigan football rivalry) is purely historic in nature. The other four (OSU, MSU, Notre Dame and Minnesota are solid.)
  • Leaving the Big 10, but staying in the Midwest, Notre Dame might appear to be a bloated list with 10 rivalry entries. However, there's so much lore built up around Notre Dame that I doubt that any of these 10 series could/should be AfD'd. The Northwestern series was AfD'd a year ago (here), and Jweiss, PaulMcDoanald, Ejgreen, TonyTheTiger and I all voted "keep" after reviewing the sources.Cbl62 (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the feedback, Cbl. Several of the non-Big Ten rivalries you listed above are already on my hit list, and I think your Big Ten weak sisters are dead on the money (and, yes, I've been around long enough to be familiar with Big Blue vs. the Maroons). I voted to keep Bama-Penn State in 2011; my level of scrutiny and my !vote would both probably be different now. You're right: the Notre Dame cluster is tough because it's a collection of active rivalries plus notable historic rivalries. I did the SEC first because I know it best, and also to set an example for everyone else; I will probably do another round of SEC (mostly SEC vs. non-SEC), and then look at the Big Ten and MAC. The ACC has a handful of weak sister "rivalries," too. The Big 12 has a bunch, but they have series names and trophies, which means somebody is attached to them, even if they aren't particularly notable per GNG. I expect to raise 20-25 more at WP:CFB, and then take the ones to AfD which a majority of WP:CFB editors give the thumb's down. I think it's a smart process for two reasons: (1) it's educational for all the CFB editors to clearly understand the NRIVARLY/GNG standard, (2) it creates a built-in consensus of 5-10 !votes at AfD, and (3) it allows us to avoid any obvious mistakes with a pre-discussion. I also think it's important that all of the regulars feel like they've had their say and their articles got a fair hearing. Apart from holding all of them to a strict GNG standard, I also think we can apply a certain measure of common sense to some of the relatively recent, short-lived series. Inevitably, there will be some squealing. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • You mentioned the sheer number of LSU rivalry at 7 as being indicative of overreach. Yet, there are almost as many supposed rivalry articles for Florida -- six. Do you think they all qualify as traditional, notable rivalries? When I think of Florida's rivals, I pretty much think of Florida State and Georgia. Sure, the Fulmer-Spurrier games were classics, but does that make it a traditional rivalry? Likewise, everyone gets excited to play Alabama, but can the Crimson Tide really have 8 current rivalries? It would show some real balance to include one or two of Florida's questionable rivalries in the next batch. Cbl62 (talk) 23:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I hear you, but do remember we've already deleted Alabama-Florida and Florida-South Carolina. What makes Florida's situation problematic is two historical rivalries, both legit: Auburn (SEC cross-division, formerly annual 1927-1940, 1945-2002), Miami (in-state, formerly annual 1938-1942, 1944-1987). The four active rivalries are annual: Florida State (in-state, annual since 1958), Georgia (SEC in-division, annual 1926-1942, 1944-present), Tennessee (SEC in-division, annual since 1990), and LSU (SEC cross-division, annual 1953-1967, 1971-present). From my perspective, the only candidate is LSU -- it has the least character of a traditional rivalry. Tennessee, which you suggested, has been the second most important rivalry, after FSU, over the last 24 years. It is, of course, also the newest/youngest in terms of total games played. The most obvious Bama candidate for AfD is Penn State, as you suggested.
You know Florida football best, though I'm surprised you would rate the Tennesee series ahead of the "World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party," which I've always thought of as one of the biggest rivalry games in college football. I thought the "bigness" of the Tennessee series was limited to the decade from mid-90s to mid-00s when things were actually competitive. Cbl62 (talk) 01:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh, I think the alumni probably have a greater emotional investment in the Florida-Georgia game, but the Florida-Tennessee game has had conference and national title implications more frequently since 1990. I chose my words carefully: the "most important," not the most popular, not the most bitter. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I nominated 5 of them for deletion (3 AFD, 2 prods), and planning to nominate more in the upcoming days fyi.... I also want to tackle these "rivalries" and nominate those that clearly isn't rivalries for deletion. Good job on dealing with the games. Secret account 22:09, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for doing this, Secret. There are more non-notable "rivalries," of course. I was going to hold off on more AfDs until January 2015, because the WP:CFB crowd was clearly burnt out after 26 or 27 AfDs for regular season game articles. I believe we could easily AfD another 10-15 regular season games, and 30-40 rivalry articles. The rivalries often require a fair amount of BEFORE homework to make sure there are no surprises in the AfD discussions. We may want to compare lists before the next round of AfDs. The next step in dealing with these issues is to propose changes to WP:NSPORTS to address notability and suitability issues for regular season games, seasons and rivalries -- this is long overdue. I'd like to put forward an RfC on point the second week in January, when we have everyone's undivided attention again. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
I nominated 3 more obvious ones (two consisted of five game "rivalries") for deletion, I'll hold off on nominating more until January unless its plainly obvious. Also WP:RFA is calling again if you are interested ;), especially the last has been a few years ago and you been avoiding MOS since. Thanks Secret account 22:55, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hello from Mary Wayte

Hi Dirtlawer1,

Thanks so much for offering to help! I would like my birthday removed. I work in corporate America and don't want anyone to know my age. While I know that people can do the math to figure out my age, I don't want to give it away at the top of this Wikipedia site. BTW, I have no idea who put this up, anyway.

The other nuances I can live with. Although, I do find it obnoxious that someone would change my edits. I'll change my user name to Mary Wayte in hopes that will help.

Again, many, many thanks for your help! Mary

  • Hey, Mary. In Wikipedia World, using your own name to edit an article about yourself may get you blocked as a conflict of interest. I suggest you pick a user name without the words "mary" or "wayte" in it. "Olympicgoldmedalist" might be a little conspicuous, too. Let me know if there are any other corrections or inaccuracies in the article, and I will do what I can to fix it. Go Gators! Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:43, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Florida-Florida State Page

Teams should be listed uniformly; "Florida" and "Florida State" or "UF" and "FSU." The majority of rivalry pages list "Florida State." This seems like you are pushing a POV in favor of the University of Florida. 108.253.237.81 (talk) 22:48, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure how using the most commonly used short form of "The Florida State University" (i.e. "FSU") per WP:COMMONNAME in a space-limited rivalry series results table constitutes "pushing a POV in favor of the University of Florida." You might want to rethink that; I have worked on hundreds of college football articles, including defending FSU-related articles from vandalism, and no-one at WP:CFB believes that I am pushing a pro-University of Florida agenda on Wikipedia. You will also find dozens of my edits in the history of the article, and they are all neutrally worded, and often tone down the fanboy nonsense of Gators and Noles fans alike. Suffice it to say, I'm not pushing any agenda except uniform formatting of college football articles, something I've been doing for five and a half years on Wikipedia.
We are in the process of cleaning up the many messes in CFB rivalry articles, and User:Frietjes has just cleaned up the Florida-Florida State football rivalry results table with the new uniform formatting in the last week. (Check the edit history.) I'm just trying to preserve the uniform formatting. If you think widening the tables to include the long form name "Florida State" somehow adds to the article, thereby widening the results tables for users viewing the article on their iPhones, BlackBerrys, etc., somehow enhances their Wikipedia experience by forcing them to scroll back and forth to view an entire line of the table at once, feel free to change every line. But please do not change the spacing and other uniform formatting of the table; within the next four months, all rivalry results tables are going to look like this. Thanks, Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Robert Cade

Hello. I've begun reviewing the article Robert Cade you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tim riley -- Tim riley (talk) 14:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I've left a few queries on the review page. If you can tick them off reasonably quickly we needn't put the review formally on hold. Tim riley talk 14:14, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Quid pro quo pro bono publico, groucho, chico and harpo

Having been reviewed at GAN, please consider reviewing someone else's GAN candidate. There's a helluva backlog, and new reviewers will be most welcome. And it really isn't difficult: the criteria are here and the article is there... Tim riley talk 00:33, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Robert Cade

The article Robert Cade you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Robert Cade for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Tim riley -- Tim riley (talk) 00:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

It is a good article. I think its a great article. It was a better article with the citations improved. Dirtlawyer1, I know you have pride of authorship. Throwing out the baby with the bath water and WP:Own have some relevancy. Yes, I know it was a variation from the existing format, so don't bother WP:Lawyering me with the format citation. Speaking as one lawyer to another. But it's your call. Thanks. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
7&6, it's not a matter of WP:OWN. Please see WP:CITEVAR, which counsels editors to respect existing citation formatting when a consistent style has already been chosen for an article. The cite templates provide a framework for inexperienced users, but as I said above they are problematic in other ways. I am happy to discuss the merits and problems of the templates if you like. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
I was aware of the rules. I would submit that the formats i.e., the names of the citations remained the same. So the use of the templates within the named citations was not within the scope of the rule upon which you rely. Nevertheless, in the interest of editing harmony, and that is why I will defer to you. Not worth the powder it takes to blow it away.
However,I did not use sfn. It had all the same information within the same exact citations, but with wikilinks to newspapers. Is there some real issue or downside I am not seeing? 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:20, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes, there are problems: (1) there is no reason in footnotes to place authors' surnames first -- in the real world, this is a bibliography format in which references are alphabetized by author's last name; (2) the placement of the publication date immediately following the article author(s) is eccentric; (3) the wiki links to newspaper names and authors distract from the hyperlink to the actual newspaper article (see WP:OVERLINK); and (4) the templates unnecessarily include article quote marks in the hypertext. For traditionalists, the templates do not respect perfectly acceptable real world citation formats, which is why they are often not used in Wikipedia's best articles. As for everything else, the exact same information can be rendered without using the templates; it really is a choice of style, not substance. The templates do help impose some measure of minimum order and uniformity, but they do so to the aggravation of those experienced writers who actually know and use real world citation formats. That having been said, when other editors have chosen to use the templates consistently within an article, I respect that. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
I personally don't see any of your arguments as "problems." That being said, I now understand that reasonable minds could disagree. This is a matter of personal viewpoint and preference. I'll bear that in mind for the future. Thanks for the insight, if not the in cite. {:>{)> 7&6=thirteen (☎)
Nice pun. Thanks for trying to see both sides. There are reasons why MOS and WP generally have never been able to arrive at uniform citation styles. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Parenthetically, the DYK has been reviewed and approved by the reviewer. Since you prefer Alt 1, you might want to so indicate there. Happy editing. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance with this. It's like most things in life: it's easy if you know what you're doing. My prior experience with DYK was batting clean-up after the nominating editor became unavailable. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
It helps to have read the rules on the inside of the box. Especially if everybody else hasn't. But as practitioners we both know that. Cheers! 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:41, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!!


E-e-bayer_lover (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

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Merry Christmas!!!


E-e-bayer_lover (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

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Precious

swimmers and university presidents
Thank you for quality articles such as Catie Ball and Andrew Sledd, for starting cleanup here with "I do not believe ", for "good and thorough work pertaining to articles about your alma mater", for precision and missing, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

  • @Gerda Arendt: Thank you very much for thinking of me, Gerda. I'm not sure what I did to prompt this, but all compliments are graciously accepted. Please let me know if I may ever be of service of to you in your Wiki endeavors. Cheers! Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:20, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
You came to my attention because of missing, then I looked around and saw more that I liked. Help is always welcome, my endeavors are on my user page and the related project, but no obligation ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:18, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
Did you know that I like general infoboxes, {{infobox person}}, {{infobox building}}, {{infobox musical composition}}? In {{infobox church}}, different denominations get different colours (St. Martin vs. Unionskirche) much better than many different ones, imho, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:32, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Gerda, I assume you're alluding to my running commentary with Andy Mabbett at TfD. In principle, I agree with you regarding generalized infoboxes. That being said, when we have clearly defined subcategories of subjects that have several thousand distinctly different article subjects with multiple infobox parameters that are category-specific, I see no harm and a potentially simplified and superior infobox tailored for the specific use. We are currently debating whether American professional football players (14,000+ articles), Canadian professional football players (3,500+ articles), and American college football players (1,500+ articles) may have their own distinctive infoboxes. Given the numbers involved, and the distinctions between the three different versions of the sport of football, I see no reason why each should not be permitted to have its own visually distinctive infobox that permits readers to immediately distinguish between the three visually and also to emphasize different parameters that are more important to one version of the sport than another. As an example, we have a generalized infobox for buildings, but we also have specific infoboxes for churches, a distinction that might be lost on someone with no knowledge of religion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:50, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
We have one for churches which has room for functions in the congregation, people, not just the building. We don't have one for Baroque churches and another for Neo-Gothic churches. We had one for Bruckner symphonies, but they are also musical compositions ;) - Tomorrow is Andy's day, found precious two years ago, for helping me with an infobox template ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:01, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough, Gerda. I will try to be nicer to Andy on his Precious Day (tomorrow). At what time GMT does his day start? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
As for the infoboxes, only a non-sports editor would ever try to sandwich American college football and Canadian professional football into the same shoebox. Remember: to an outsider, a llama, a zebra, and an Arabian thoroughbred look like the same animal, too. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Started now ;) - never hurts to be nice --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
You are, of course, correct. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:22, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
In two of my worst moments here, I asked users to imagine I was their mother, - will not do that again ;) - proud, - did you know that precious is the prize of the outcasts? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:30, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Uh, no, I did not, Gerda. I do not consider myself to be a Wikipedia "outcast" in the normal definition of the word, and I certainly hope you do not perceive me as such. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
English is not my first language, please help me find a better (legal) wording for: given by outcasts, and the recipient shares it with outcasts, - three (of 1,000+) refused so far but for other reasons. - A have to apologise: too late when I typed the above, missed a line, today is Sitush's day, Andy's day is tomorrow, fight today, be nice tomorrow ;) - What doesn't show in writing is the tone of lines like the one that won my heart: "Unless, of course, someone wishes to argue that Barber was not a person..." - I argue that a hymn by Luther and a symphony by Dvořák are different animals but both are musical compositions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:16, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Gerda, your English is better than that of most of the "natives" here on Wikipedia. That is often the case of someone who had to study the formal grammar and syntax of a language as a non-native speaker (an "outsider" or auslander?). German and English are very similar in many ways, but as you know Frisian/Saxon English took a different turn in its evolution with the invasions of England by the Danish Vikings and Norman French. What is lost sometimes on a non-native speaker are the subtle nuances of meaning of a given word. Of course, some native speakers never comprehend those nuances, either. All of which is a long way of saying your English is excellent, and your name is more of a giveaway of your German origins than your writing. "Gerda Arendt?" Doesn't get more Deutsche than that, fraulein. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, flattering ;) - I just felt completely misunderstood by you thinking I included you in the outcasts. No, not you, but the most misunderstood users I met here, including the photographer of the sapphire, the designer of the picture frame, the almost banned Andy and Eric, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Now the 20th. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:19, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Aury Cruz and flag icons

Hello, Dirtlawyer1. You have new messages at Talk:Áurea Cruz.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Hello, Dirtlawyer1. You have new messages at Talk:Áurea Cruz.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

FYI, Osplace, there is no need to place talk back templates on my talk page. I have the Aury Cruz article watch-listed. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Assessment backlog

DL, thanks for cracking into that backlog. On bio articles, don't forget to add the banner for WikiProject Biography as well, if it's missing. Jweiss11 (talk) 23:50, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Yup. I was trying to get the football templates down, but I will add the bio template too. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:59, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

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Happy editing,
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