Talk:Tyson Gay/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Controversy??

This whole section about some dumb web site that changed his name to Tyson Homosexual needs to go. It is not germane to Tyson Gay in an encyclopedic way.--Fizbin (talk) 16:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

It's about as minor a reference to Tyson Gay as you can get. As far as "Controversy" goes: it's humorous and all but I think the article can survive without this tidbit... Sillyfolkboy (talk) 17:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
If it's controversial or not isn't material, it's noteworthy that he became notable in another area outside of track and field. I would ask what you'd mean in terms of being "germane in an encyclopedia way", or if there are any rules regarding situations like these. Spinach Monster (talk) 15:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Unless Tyson Gay responded to the website in any way (lawsuit) it should not be included here. If it should be included anywhere in a wiki article it would be the article about the stupid website, not this one.--Fizbin (talk) 16:15, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
It's not about the stupid website though, it's the fact that there was media coverage of the stupid website and its role regarding Gay. Spinach Monster (talk) 16:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Just because Tyson's last name happens to be a synonym for homosexual and just because some website had a filter that switched gay to homosexual and just because some blogger caught this and a few bored news sites posted this does not make it worthy of inclusion here in this article, any more than noting in the article that gay is a synonym for homosexual would be worthy of inclusion.--Fizbin (talk) 17:12, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
According to what standard? That incident meets WP:GNG.Spinach Monster (talk) 17:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Hardly. This is a trivial story that has no impact on the subject of this article. The story had no legs, no effect on Tyson and is meaningless in relation to the story of Tyson Gay. Like I said earlier, if you want this lame story on wiki then the appropriate place is on the story about the web site.--Fizbin (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't agree. The story is relevant to Gay in the world outside of track and field but i'm not going to go back and forth over this, so for now i'm putting up a disputed tag. Spinach Monster (talk) 00:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Some More Media About This From Varied News Sites

I could go on. There are plenty of less and more reputable sources that covered this, but it was notable to them, it should be notable to us. Spinach Monster (talk) 16:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Just because something is in the media does not make it notable. I bet that the censoring software made many other mistakes, should we add those to every relevant article too? How about a controversy section in the Scunthorpe article? 76.204.100.237 (talk) 04:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Only two of those articles are about, or have a section about, the "incident". The others only mention it in passing and it is not the subject of the article. These are not highly reputable sources and the "controversy" had little impact: find me a story solely about this incident in a national newspaper and it can go in. Perhaps you should also read "controversy" and discover the meaning of the phrase. An internet filter is incapable of argument. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 04:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Who put the female genitalia in Sfemalegenitaliahorpe? Sillyfolkboy (talk) 04:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
O save us. I just found out there is a bloody controversy section in the Scunthorpe article. People, this is worthless information. There needs to be a quality control filter here other wise the useful information gets drowned out. Ever heard of the signal to noise ratio? 76.204.100.237 (talk) 04:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Well actually it's infinitely more relevant to Scunthorpe than Tyson Gay. "Who put the cunt in Scunthorpe?" is a well known, and nationally reported, saying: thus the Scunthorpe Problem is a reasonable article. Unless people start to discuss "The Tyson Gay Problem" then it's not relevant here. PS: Spinach Monster - the information is now is its appropriate article (the Problem one). Can we move on now? I've got a million and one other improvements to get on with in this article before it's anywhere near Usain Bolt. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 05:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Nobody's stopping you from making those improvements, Sillyfolkboy. I think it's notable, even if only as a trivia point. Per above, WP:N seems to agree. If somebody can cite policy otherwise, i'll let it go. Spinach Monster (talk) 14:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
WP:N says "Keep in mind that an encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details." 144.92.163.151 (talk) 17:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
There's a difference between a notable media phenomenon (accepted knowledge) and what the article's subject had for breakfast (all possible details). But thank you for talking in terms of policy to this dispute. Spinach Monster (talk) 00:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Well I guess this is subjective because it seems like breakfast-like information to me. 76.204.100.237 (talk) 03:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
By the way, 144.92 and 76.204 are both my edits. 76.204.100.237 (talk) 03:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Maybe you're right, maybe I am. Maybe neither of us are. Is there a way we can find a middle ground? Spinach Monster (talk) 04:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not that vested in the article, I just happened to see it and commented since it seemed a strange addition. 76.204.100.237 (talk) 05:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I personally would find it hard to include the information in the article in a meaningful way. I'm in the middle of researching and rewriting Tyson Gay and in the end it'll probably consist these sections: lead, bio/athletics career, personal life, competition record, statistics, refs external links etc.

Including it in the personal life section (which will describe his family/wife/children/hobbies etc) would be awkward. Including it chronologically in his athletics bio would be even more awkward. The only possible way to meaningfully include it in the article would be to give its own section. This would give the event, which was minor and wasn't even commented upon by Gay, undue weight in the article. It would, at least in terms of a table of contents, seem as important a section as his personal life, or his achievements in 2008. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so a subsection then? Under "trivia" or "miscellaneous"? Spinach Monster (talk) 04:38, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I just came on to wikipedia and saw this big orange thing at the top, who knew you could get paged in wikipedia!? Anyway, since you ask for my input , it seems that you are the only one that thinks it should be in the article. So why would you be asking which section? I think that rationale outlined by Sillyfolkboy above seems like a sound argument for it not being in the article. And the policy page you cite for its inclusion (WP:N) seems to be saying that real trivia does not have to be in even a comprehensive article. This all makes sense to me otherwise articles would be completely disjointed. And of course, many are! That they exist is not a reason to replicate them, IMO. 76.204.100.237 (talk) 07:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Third party opinion works for me. I'll see if that factoid can fit into another article. Spinach Monster (talk) 19:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Gay's Most Notable Performance??

The paragraph in the intro about his wind-aided 9.68 starts with a subjective hyperbolic statement and is about a mark that is essentially a trivia point in the track & field world. Wind aided marks count for absolutely nothing, and the wind in this case was not just marginally over the limit but rather closer to hurricane force (OK, that is a hyperbolic comment too). This whole paragraph should be deleted, and the mark maybe mentioned in the PR section, although personally I would ignore it altogether.--Fizbin (talk) 17:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Bump. If we go a week from my original post with no discourse I am deleting the paragraph.--Fizbin (talk) 03:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Info is now reduced in lead. Is that better? Sillyfolkboy (talk) 03:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Definitely better but I tightened it up a bit. --Fizbin (talk) 04:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Good stuff. I think that's about as concise and informative as you can get it. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 15:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
It works for me too. Thanks for the help.--Fizbin (talk) 16:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Redo intro

I would redo the intro thusly. It would highlight his greatest meet to date, while allowing the info box to handle the golds in lesser meets. As it reads now it sounds like the gold at the 2005 WAF was the highlight. Also, the bad hammy problem in 2008 is really better off in the article rather than the intro. Just one man's opinion.

Tyson Gay (born August 9, 1982) is an American track and field sprinter. His primary events are the 100 meters and 200 meters. His personal bests establish him as third fastest athlete in the history of the 100 and 200 meter races, with times of 9.77 and 19.62 seconds respectively. Furthermore, his time of 9.77 s is the American record for the 100 m event.
Gay has won numerous medals in major international competitions, highlighed by his gold medal sweep of the 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 meters relay at the 2007 Osaka World Championships. This made Gay just the second sprinter to win all three events at the same World Championships, after Maurice Greene.
Gay ran the fastest time ever recorded in the 100 m dash—9.68 s—which was aided by a non-legal wind of 4.1 meters per second (the allowable for official IAAF record purposes being 2.0 m/s).

--Fizbin (talk) 19:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the other championships are probably best left out so as to highlight his most important/notable victory. I think the Olympics needs some mention however as this period, while lacking in achievements, was perhaps the one which received the most coverage in the press. The build up for the Bolt/Gay/Powell sub-9.80 final was much discussed, and Gay's injury equally so. If you google Tyson Gay you find that Olympic talk fills the results. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 13:00, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I can see both sides to this. My feeling is that after his hammy blew out in Eugene that most experts knew his season was finished, and his performance (or lack thereof) at the OG was expected. Therefore not so noteworthy as to be included in the intro. --Fizbin (talk) 17:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Indeed. But, while many felt this way, he still went to the Olympics. I want to see if I can source Michael Johnson's comments from the BBC and Gay's angry response about him being possibly still injured. Personally I would fall on the side of briefly summarising what essentially is quite a large part of the article. I suppose this is a mismatch of thoughts about what leads consist of: (a) a brief outline of the subject and a summary of why the topic is notable / (b) A summary which fully reflects the content of the article.
I tend to do a mix of both with perhaps more of an emphasis on (b). Ultimately I would aim to include the Beijing information now and, as his career progressed, reduce it to a fleeting mention in the future. I'm not too fussed either way but that's my rationale of things. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 11:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, how about the following (I moved the 9.68 into the lead paragraph since that is where his PRs are mentioned):
Tyson Gay (born August 9, 1982) is an American track and field sprinter. His primary events are the 100 meters and 200 meters. His personal bests establish him as third fastest athlete in the history of the 100 and 200 meter races, with times of 9.77 (the American record) and 19.62 seconds respectively. He also ran the fastest time ever recorded in the 100 m dash—9.68 s—which was aided by a non-legal wind of 4.1 meters per second (the allowable for official IAAF record purposes being 2.0 m/s).
Gay has won numerous medals in major international competitions, highlighted by his gold medal sweep of the 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 meters relay at the 2007 Osaka World Championships. This made Gay just the second sprinter to win all three events at the same World Championships, after Maurice Greene. In the 2008 Olympic Trials in Eugene, OR Gay established the American record in the 100 m with a time of 9.77, but later in that meet suffered a severe hamstring injury which contributed to his failure to win a single medal at the Beijing Olympics.
--Fizbin (talk) 15:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Looks good. Though I'd remove the "just" next to "second sprinter" (it seems a little redundant) and remove the "Eugene OR" info as the location isn't really crucial to the lead. Otherwise, it all looks better now. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 00:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the help. --Fizbin (talk) 01:15, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Repetition

The section "personal life" still repeats information from "early life". This looks strange. Punkmorten (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I've remove the repetition and reorganised the paragraphs as a result. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 11:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Competitive Record Section is Redundant

As I've also mentioned on the Asafa Powell page, I see no reason for a Competitive Record section that is almost all redundant information already provided in either the main info box or in the prose of the article.--Fizbin (talk) 16:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The competition record is a useful summary of the athlete's competitive record. Furthermore, the infobox only states medal winning performances which means that, say for example, Asafa Powell's Olympic performances would only be noted in relevant sections of prose when they are important an important aspect of the subject. The fact that it is mentioned in the prose in neither here nor there—if a reader wants to know how an athlete has done at major competitions they can (a) spend 35 minutes reading through the prose, or (b) take a minute for a quick overview in the competition record. A similar comparison would be to say that the table is made redundant by the prose in this article. The two parts of the article are serving distinct purposes, albeit that they contain at the very root similar information. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


Minor Intro Modification

Congrats bringing this up to GA status.

In the intro the last paragraph begins 'Gay suffered a severe hamstring injury in the 200 m Olympic qualifiers.' To avoid ambiguity this should read 'Gay suffered a severe hamstring injury in the 200 m at the 2008 Olympic Trials.' As it currently reads you do not know which year this happened in unless you read the following sentence and know that the Beijing OG were in 2008. Additionally, the term 'the 200 m Olympic qualifiers' could easily be interpreted as one of the preliminary heats at the actual Oly Games themselves.--Fizbin (talk) 14:44, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, good spot. I'll switch it now. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 15:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Adidas Grand Prix Photo Finish

This weekend Jamaican Steve Mullings supposedly beat Tyson Gay at the Adidas Grand Prix. I would really like to know how they came to this determination because on the image I've seen of the photo finish, it's not possible to tell who is in front. Mullings was ahead for most of the race. Gay actually passed him just before the finish line, but of course, it's what happens at the finish line that counts. From what I understand, it is the leading edge of the body (not the head) that counts. There is a red line on the photo indicating where the first, second, and third place finishers are in the photo. It really just looks like two lines. Not only that, I don't know how they determined where to put the line for Mullings. His body is obscured by Tyson Gay's head.

If anyone has access to a high resolution picture of the photo finish, I'd love to see it. Victor Engel (talk) 18:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I've just learned that there was an additional camera also in line with the finish line but with a perspective from the other side of the track. The clear winner was visible from that side.Victor Engel (talk) 00:19, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

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