Talk:2010–11 Manchester City F.C. season

Appearance stats
I find the presentation of these confusing. At first glance it appears that Tevez has not started any games, for example. I don't know of anywhere that separates starts and full 90 minute appearances. What is wrong with using Starts (sub) like Soccerbase, Rothmans and AFAIK all the other season articles? Oldelpaso (talk) 18:52, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The stats. show that Tevez has not finished any games ... which he hasn't. With only duples to represent appearances you would never know that.  You only find the triples confusing because you did NOT bother to read the qualifier at the head of the stats. section - viz.


 * Appearances are for competitive matches only
 * Numbers denote: # full games played (# games subbed off / # games subbed on)


 * I hope that clarifies things a little better. Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 21:19, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * That why I said "at first glance". No statistical source that I know of presents appearance statistics in such a manner; as a tertiary source, Wikipedia should not be inventing new notation when perfectly adequate methods are used by everyone else. Also, the approach currently in use presumably involves citing a reference for each and every match a player is subbed off. Far easier to cite, say, Soccerbase as a ref for the full table. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:54, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * There are currently NO citations backing up those "Apps." figures in this season's article, nor in any prior season Man. City article that contains a PST, nor (I'm guessing here - because I can't be bothered to go check this) - in any comparable section in any other club's season articles. So if I take your point as having any serious merit we probably need to go and delete all those "Appearances" statistics in all those aforementioned places ... or perhaps just dutifully append to each of those numbers a "citation needed" qualification.  Are you up for that chore?
 * Wikipedia does not allow you to present new cutting edge research (which is arguably not yet established "fact" with citable RSs to support it), but it makes no similar prohibition on utilizing more creative and sexy ways to conveniently display the same information that has been displayed elsewhere, or to display comparable information that no one had previously thought to display. We are hardly inventing "new notation" here ... we are simply finding a convenient way to display additional data in the PST which heretofore has been overlooked.  It is no different that tracking yellow cards on a per competition basis rather than as just a humungous meaningless total (because the match suspensions associated with the cards - the very reason one would want to track them - do NOT always carry over between different competitions).
 * The "subbed off" information comes from the very same match day report sources as the actual "starts" and "subbed on" info. comes from, so whatever RS citation method is used for those two pieces of information (which is none right now, but that can be fixed) can be used for the "subbed off" information as well. Your objections carry no weight IMO.  They appear to be more about your being out of your comfort zone with a new idea rather than that there is anything intrinsically wrong with that new idea.  You will find no justification anywhere in Wikipedia for simply being a Luddite. :)  Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 22:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * BTW, I personally would prefer to see the "appearances triple" represented like this: "n/n/n". Thus 18/5/9 would mean that the player in question played 18 full games, started 5 other games but was substituted in them, and was utilized himself as a substitute in 9 others.  Would this be preferable do you think?  It would certainly save a couple of characters in each of the "Apps." columns.
 * There are also others here who would like to see the stats. reflect selections for "match day team sheets" ... or what I have elsewhere jokingly called wanting to track "bums on seats"! My objection to doing that is more of a pragmatic one because it would widen the 5 widest columns in the PST even further thus making the PST potentially too wide for most users' screens.  Those columns would also not be tracking "game appearances" any longer, but rather "team sheet selections" instead.  However, if people found that info. useful it could most certainly be done by substituting the triple with a quadruple - viz.  18/5/9(4) might indicate that the above player was also an unused substitute in a further 4 games that season.  That information too almost always comes from the same RS citable sources (such as match reports posted on the BBC Sports and the official MCFC websites) as the first three pieces of data come from.
 * I would love to hear your (or anyone else's) views on this issue.  Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 22:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)


 * This is a correction to the above. When I stated that there were currently no citations in the article backing up those "Apps." stats. in the PST I was wrong.  What I should have said is that there are currently no citations listed directly in the "Playing statistics" section of the article that support those stats.  However, up above in the "Games" section every game that is listed is usually always supported with a "Report" which represents the citable RS for the information displayed for that game (scoreline, goal scorers, attendance figures, etc.).  Those reports are usually always links to the match report put up on the official MCFC website.  And those reports always list who the starting eleven were, who the unused subs. were, and who subbed in for whom and when.  So, for instance, looking at the MCFC website match report cited by the article for the Liverpool game (I just got to this report by using the "Report" link for that game cited in the article) I can immediately see that Zabaleta subbed in for Yaya Touré and Jô subbed in for Tévez in the 85th minute of the game.  The goal scorers and Micah's 58th minute booking are also covered by that match report.
 * Thus as long as the PST does not contain stats. for any competitive games played that are not covered in the "Games" section up above, all of the information that it displays is supported by citable RSs that are actually cited - rather than could theoretically be cited, such as Soccerbase (as you suggested), which I have personally never seen cited in support of the any data used in the Man. City article PSTs for any season. Thus the information presented in the current PST "Apps." triples is already supported on a per match basis by citable RSs, and if quadruples were used to track "BoS" info. that too would be similarly supported.  I really believe this is a non-issue you are raising.   Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 06:40, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Additional views from others would indeed be welcome. I'll post a note on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football.
 * Paucity of referencing in other articles is not an excuse for perpetuating poor practice. References need citing at the point they are used. How is the reader to know that material is supported by references elsewhere in the article? This is of course a side issue. My main issue is that this format unnecessarily surprises the reader, when the alternative of starts (sub) is commonplace throughout the football world. Sure, we shouldn't patronise our readers, but neither should we make them jump through hoops. Oldelpaso (talk) 09:03, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I quite agree that the paucity of referencing in other articles is not an excuse for perpetuating poor practice. Neither is the paucity of representing substitutions from only the "subbed-in" perspective an excuse for perpetuating that poor practice either.  You won't find me arguing against the desirability of adding appropriate RS citations to the article - in fact, the only reason the PST in this article has any citations AT ALL is because I have either personally added them or have twisted someone else's arm to go add them for me.
 * WRT your "references need citing at the point they are used" comment I also agree - you only have to look at my own error above in coming to the conclusion that all the stats. info. currently displayed in the PST is not supported with RS citations to see the consequence of not meeting that need. However, I believe it would be mind-bogglingly redundant (and way too much unnecessary work) to cite the same references over and over again to support the validity of various pieces of information gleaned from the same RS but used in multiple places throughout the same article.  IMO individual RS citations that support information included in various places throughout the article only need to be cited once if at all possible - and that would be at the place in the article where that supporting RS citation is first required.  In the situation that we are discussing here, that occurs in the "Games" section earlier in the article.  To my mind, to re-cite all those same MCFC website match report references all over again in the "Playing statistics" section is totally redundant.  All we need to add there is a blanket statement saying that the RS information on which the displayed PST statistics are actually based are exactly the same ones provided on a game-by-game basis up in the earlier "Games" section.
 * WRT your main point, "that this (new) format unnecessarily surprises the reader", it is, to be quite frank, completely irrelevant. You, or anybody else, cannot prevent new useful information being displayed anywhere within any Wikipedia article simply because it is unfamiliar to you.  If everybody took that stance the article could NEVER grow and develop.  Just like Stevie Ireland you are going to have to learn to move beyond your current "comfort zone".  To further undermine your argument, if you go look at the way the old "match starts (subbed starts)" duples are displayed on the BBC Sports pages they are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.  The BBC uses the convention that the first digit lists ALL match starts, and the figure in parentheses qualifies how many of those starts were substitutions.  Consequently, you have to subtract the parenthetical number from the first number used by the BBC in order to come up with the first number that we were using in our old duples.  Thus they are NOT the same and the MCFC season article is the anomalous one.
 * Many more people use those BBC web pages worldwide than currently use this Wikipedia season article to access this sort of "AppsStats" information, so any argument proffered by you that my enhancement of the old "AppsStats" scheme in the PST is a retrograde step because "it surprises the reader" is completely bogus since the duples I've just replaced already "surprised" any reader coming to the Wikipedia MCFC season article after spending any time on the BBC website pages covering this same information.  It most certainly "surprised" me when I myself made that transition.  Yet I did not immediately complain that the MCFC article was wrong and misleading to my eyes "at first glance", but instead I adapted to it, and in the end came to prefer the alternative presentation of the "AppsStats" here.  IOW, I moved out of my BBC comfort zone and embraced the alternative way of presenting that same information in the Wikipedia MCFC season articles.  IMO, you need to do the same thing here.
 * Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry Talk 20:40, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Take a look at my latest response to the comment by gonads down below to see if my suggested "happy compromise" works for you too ...
 * Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry Talk 01:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)


 * What about a player who is both subbed on and subbed off in the same game (it can happen)? How would that be displayed?  Also, why is the # symbol used to denote "number" above the table (an Americanism completely unknown in the UK) in an article on a British subject.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed, it was Robinho's situation that caused me to realize that presenting this statistic as a duple instead of as a triple is inherently flawed (and has ALWAYS been so). There are two sides to every substitution - the incoming and the outgoing.  To track only the one side is obviously distorted.  Why is the fact that Nimely got a 5 minute run-out at Burnley in a game that was completely in the bag more important than the fact that Tévez is not considered fit enough, or playing well enough, to merit staying on the pitch for the full 90 minutes in every game he has played so far this season?  In answer to your question, Robinho's situation would be represented thus: 0 (1/1).  If before the Everton game his "Apps." stats. had been 7 (2,3) - I just made that up, BTW - then after the Everton game they would have been 7 (3,4).
 * As for your comments about the "# symbol" being "an Americanism completely unknown in the UK" and that the article "is about a British subject", the last time I checked, association football is a world sport (NOT just a game played in the UK) and America has a population about 5 times that of the UK (so that symbol has a meaning to many more people than the alternative "no." would). The fact that Wikipedia is a world website resource (started by an American called Jimbo Wales, who no doubt, is also completely unknown in the UK!), and NOT just a UK website resource, means that the above argument alone would justify the use of "#" in preference to "no." (or whatever else you had in mind). The fact that you probably made your post on your Dell laptop whilst sitting in a TGI Friday's watching reruns of "M*A*S*H" makes your parochial jingoism even more amusing! You need to realize that not everyone on this planet lives on Coronation Street like you do! :)
 * You may wish to read WP:ENGVAR, which states that articles should adopt the form of the English language used in the country most closely related to the subject. As MCFC is a British club, British English should therefore be used.  The fact that America has a larger population does not mean that every article on WP must be written in American English.  And please try to avoid writing stuff like your last two sentences above, which is very close to a personal attack.  Thank you -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Having said all that, I would be quite happy to change "#" to "no.", or if someone else changed it, you won't see me reverting it - because it really is no big deal. The choice of "#" was made simply because it is shorter (and it occurs 3 times in the definition of the triple).   Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 18:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Using the format 0 (1,1) for a player who is both a substitute and substituted in the same game does not differentiate between 0 (1,1) to represent a player who plays in two games; one as a substitute, and one substituted. It just backs up the idea that you are making up a notation that is non-sensical, illogical, incorrect and non user friendly. Brad78 (talk) 22:42, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Appearances should be just that - the amount of appearances the player has made. The 'games subbed off' is a new one with me but if you insist on keeping that then I suppose it would be more sensible to go with: TOTAL NUMBER OF GAMES PLAYED (NUMBER OF SUBSTITUTE APPEARANCES/NUMBER OF TIMES PLAYER HAS BEEN SUBSTITUTED OFF THE PITCH). That allows for the basic stats that most people want to be simply viewed, and also allows for more detailed stats to be observed by the reader taking a close look. This would satisfy Oldelpaso's very reasonable request for simplicity without removing any data.--EchetusXe 10:22, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You seem to be advocating a much lengthier and wordier definition of the triple than the current one, and pretty much just for the sake of it. I would wholeheartedly support a shorter and pithier definition, but I am not so sure I would back going in the complete opposite direction.  Also, I don't seriously believe that the terms "subbed on" and "subbed off" are completely lost on the whole British football supporting public as you are suggesting they are.  If you prefer "subbed in" and "subbed out" that would be just fine and dandy IMO, as would anything as equally short and pithy that gets the exact meaning across. But IMHO what you just suggested is a bit of a mouthful and obscures rather than clarifies what is already there.
 * The other modification you are suggesting is that the order of the 3 pieces of information be changed. I have no problems whatsoever with doing that if most people think it would be clearer and more intuitive displayed in that order.  However, far from satisfying Oldelpaso's complaint that the triple is confusing "at firsrt glance" I think your suggested order does not improve that situation, or might possibly even makes matters worse.  Utilizing your suggestion, Tévez's "AppsStats" now become 0 (0/3) instead of 0 (3/0).  As long as that first digit is zero I don't believe Oldelpaso will be entirely happy.  To determine which order the digits in the triple appear one has to first determine the order of importance of the 3 stats.  The ranking I used to originally come up with that triple is as follows, but readers should feel free to argue that the order should be something different (as you just did):
 * (1) Player was in the "starting 11" and finished the game in the "ending 11";
 * (2) Player was in the "starting 11" but was "subbed out" during the course of the game due to injury, poor performance or for tactical reasons;
 * (3) Player was not in the "starting 11" but was "subbed in" due to injury or poor performance (of others) or for tactical reasons or as an "impact sub" (which is really just another tactical reason).
 * Whether the order of the triple is 1-2-3 (as above) or 1-3-2 (as you suggest) I'm completely cool about. Whatever folk feel is clearer.  I originally put both pieces of the sub. info. in the new triple in parentheses so that users could more easily relate this format back to the old "match starts (subbed starts)" duple, but I really feel that all 3 pieces of info. in the stat. triple should be given equal prominence, with any difference in their "importance ranking" being indicated by merely their order of appearance in that triple.  So is "subbed in" more important than "subbed out" or vice versa?  Comments please.   Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 19:33, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Reading between the lines above, would the following be a happy compromise? This would show Tévez as 2 (2/0). Note the removal of the word full. It might just achieve that first glance answer that some seek, as well as providing enough information to calculate just how many full games played. As for "#" or "no." and "in" or "out", I'm not fussed either way, but I do like the full wording. gonads 3  20:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Number of games played (Number games subbed off / Number of games subbed on)


 * But that is NOT at all the same, is it? You have simply duplicated one of the pieces of information contained in the parentheses (viz. stats. digit (2) in my post above) and clobbered the leading stats. digit (1) with it.  So now the user has lost the information that Tévez has not completed any games so far this season.  That is exactly the information I wanted to capture with the triple.  One of the reasons Tévez crossed over to the blue half of Manchester was because SAF was using him mostly as an impact sub. and Tévez wanted much more game time (particularly in a World Cup year).  Mark Hughes had no problem offering him that because he needed a striker of Tévez's calibre, so he could guarantee him his desired match starts.  If Mancini now starts to regularly sub. Tévez out so that he never plays 90 minutes, what exactly has Carlos gained by his move over to Eastlands?
 * That is the sort of subtlety that gets lost in the old way of presenting the "AppsStats" which are focused only on whether or not someone set foot on a pitch during a game. With a little careful thought, and taking up very little additional room, the new triple captures which players are playing the full games (such as Nigel de Jong) and which players are being juggled in and out by Mancini for tactical and performance reasons.  Mancini arguably has the best quality squad in the EPL this season - his problem now is how to give as much game time to everyone in it in order to keep them all as happy as possible.  Consequently, you are probably going to see 3 substitutions per game in almost every game City play this season, very few of which are going to be made because of injuries - such as Shay Given's (which is exactly the situation that substitutes were invented to handle in the first place).
 * Of course, the use of the substitutes for primarily tactical purposes has been part of the game for many seasons now - because the modern game of soccer is a tactical affair played with 25 man squads, 18 man team sheets and 14 participating players on the pitch ... and the days of "starting elevens" with an utility substitute are long behind us, and they have been ever since Paul Madeley hung up his boots - or perhaps that should be Paul Lake! IMO, the "AppsStats" finally need to catch up with this evolution of the modern game and much better capture a very important part of it; namely, the substitutions both in and out.   Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 21:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * However, building on your above concept of striking a "happy compromise" I would be happy to settle on the following quadruple:
 * - Total number of appearances (Number of full games / Number of games subbed off / Number of games subbed on)
 * Thus Tévez's "AppsStats" would now appear as: 3 (0/3/0). This meets Oldelpaso's "at first glance" criterion and also continues to capture all of the information I wanted captured.  It just does so with more characters than I thought necessary to use.  The first number is really only the total of the 3 parenthesized numbers that follow it, which I was assuming the reader could work out for himself (thus saving some characters).  Having just read Brad's comments I now realize that such an assumption of basic maths skills on the part of Wikipedians (and thus general intelligence on their part) might have been a little misplaced. :(
 * However, note well that this is really an extension of the BBC Sports approach to this stat., with the parenthesized triple qualifying the first "number of total appearances" figure by breaking it down into 3 different kinds of appearances, whereas in the BBC Sports' case, the single parenthesized number qualifies the "number of total starts" figure by identifying how many of those starts were not at the kick-off. Also note that this approach almost definitely puts the kybosh on any hopes anyone may have had of extending this statistic to also represent the BoS count - which is really not a part of a "match appearances" stat. anyway; it would belong more as part of an "appearances dressed in kit on match day" stat.! :)   Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 01:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)


 * If the purpose is to provide a guage of a player's level of involvement, then appearances and minutes played would capture it in two numbers (if sources are readily available). However, when adding extra numbers, it is worth bearing NOT in mind. Oldelpaso (talk) 06:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't believe sources are readily available for what you suggested so it is probably a moot point. Additionally, although it does provide "a guage of a player's level of involvement", and that gauge may be even better than tracking substitutions, if we adopted it we would then lose the substitution info. we currently have.  BTW, nothing we are discussing here falls within the context of your linked Wikipedia reference ... gonads and I are hardly advocating the introduction of endless streeams of meaningless statistics.  Please stop introducing red herrings into this discussion.
 * Having laid out that quadruple above, and then subsequently thinking about the triple I've introduced into the PST (to which you object) and the alternative triple suggested above by gonads, I would actually now be happy to go with his original suggestion. The triple I've introduced into the PST consists of the last 3 numbers in that quadruple.  I omitted the leading totals number because I felt it was redundant; surely people could just add up the numbers in their head as they read them to infer the missing fourth total.  But any single piece of information in that quadruple can be similarly inferred from just the other three pieces of information in it.  So I would be content if we showed the leading totals number (as you desire) and omitted the second "number of full games" count because it can be similarly inferred by subtracting the other two substitution numbers from the first totals number.
 * This way, the numbers do not "surprise" anyone and someone such as yourself can immediately glean from them the total number of appearances made by that player. If someone such as myself wants to delve a little deeper, they can then look at the subs. info. shown in parentheses and can also infer the omitted "number of full games played" count by simply subtracting that subs. info from the total number of appearances.  This would also be more consistent with the way the BBC Sports pages currently do it.  As I stated above, the old duples used in the PST were anomalous to the way that that statistic is shown in most other sources.
 * Does this work for you?  Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 16:17, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and changed the PST "AppsStats" to reflect gonads suggested triple. I think I prefer it mostly because the numbers now match up with the BBC Sports website numbers ... ours just include the additional "subbed out" info.  Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry'  Talk 22:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I prefer it to what was there before. I won't pursue this further, 29kB is more than enough comment for what I expected to be a minor issue. Oldelpaso (talk)

The current presentation of the appearance data is absolutely non-sensical. I don't understand what it means. Appearance data by 99% of sources either has simply games played or games started/substitute appearances. Referring to games where the player is withdrawn is effectively original research. Brad78 (talk) 21:26, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I see MLitH has resolved this by updating the appearances figure to include all appearances and not just full games. Nevertheless, this is still hugely overwrought. This isn't meant to be a complete statistical dump. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Saturation of data
Obviously Gonads' opinion is known, for he made the edits, and I respect his ideas, but I was wondering what the opinions are of other people who read this as to the saturation of data particularly re: the match info. Setting aside that I'm not particularly inclined towards the collapsible match boxes, I'm not personally convinced of how necessary it is to list all the substitutions in a match, and I fear it dilutes the more important information, being the goals and red cards. Similarly I would oppose listing every yellow card in a match box, as I know some articles do, though of course this article does not as yet. However, I'm aware that my attitudes and preferences are sometimes prone to being influenced by how I like articles to look, and that I can fly against the wind, so I was wondering what other people thought about it.

Definitely not a dig at you, or your style, Gonads. Just interested as to what other people think. Falastur2 Talk 19:58, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Guys... have to say this article now looks excellent and is a massive improvement on previous seasons data collection and presentation (no offence to those involved previously!).
 * I really like the match reports being in collapsible boxes (and with colour code), and the fact all info is now available including sub on/off yellow/red cards and goals (this would be too messy without the collapsable boxes).
 * On a further note the appearences, should stay as they are now- total games played as the main figure and NOT full games played- Any chance of making these stats lines sortable?- I would but have no idea how to this this!
 * Keep up the good work guys! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manchestercarl (talk • contribs) 09:55, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Falustur2, I'm with you and I'm against you on this issue. Without the match report collapsibles I would agree with you that the presentation of all the match events (goals, cards and substitutions) would be way too much data and effectively represent information overload for the reader (as well as probably looking quite tacky).  The fact that it can be cleanly hidden behind the collasibles now makes it much more feasible IMO.  Why exactly are goals and goal scorers and red cards more important than yellow cards and substitutions?  That is surely a distinction that exists only in your own mind.  If it is important that the reader know that Balotelli scored the single winning goal in the 72nd minute of the first Timişoara game, isn't it also important to know that he scored it having only been on the pitch for 15 minutes?  That additional information surely puts that goal in its proper context.  His substitution for Barry in the 57th minute may itself have been a non-event and not worth reporting (and many substitutions are of that nature) but for impact players such as Michael Owen and City's own SWP and Adam Johnson, the fact that they score their goals in a short period of play is significant to my mind.  But if we are to track those substitutions then we have to track ALL of them (otherwise we are not being objective).


 * The recent changes done by gonads were not done entirely in a vacuum ... they were first discussed here. Hardly a "consensus" I must agree (and you well know my feelings on that subject!), but that discussion does show that at least more thought was put into making the initial change to collapsible presentation than is behind the edits that are currently now being done by anonymous entities (meaning those editors don't even have Wikipedia accounts).  I really don't like the color coding aspect of the collapsibles ... first off, it is totally meaningless (because lime green does not automatically equate to a win in any rational person's mind); secondly, it is chintzy-looking; and thirdly, it arguably violates Wikipedia style (I mean the style of the REAL Wikipedia encyclopaedic articles, not the fanzine articles that the football/soccer related articles mostly are).


 * To get rid of the color-coding I would be quite happy to revert right back to where we were before gonads opened up this can of worms with his initial edits (and I'm not getting at him there; he only implemented what we both discussed, and the issue of collapsible versus non-collapsible match reports was a can of worms to be opened up by whoever made the first change in that direction). In this regard I'm 100% with you on this issue, because if we have to return back to only an uncollapsed format for match reports in order to get back off the slippery slope of color-coding, then I also don't want to see all the sub and carding information in there (because it would be simply too much data for openly displayed records).


 * Manchestercarl, your comments are a little misinformed. The collapsible match report capability was only first introduced around the beginning of last season, and those sort of things take quite awhile to catch on and for the word to spread, so you really cannot point fingers at the editors of previous years' season articles for not making use of them (because they were not available prior to last season).  Hence "those involved previously" are probably pretty much the same people that are now introducing the match report collapsibles now that they have proven to be workable elsewhere.  WRT appearances stats., I don't believe anyone is now arguing that they be displayed the way I originally displayed them, including myself.  Although re-reading my comments here on that topic I make it sound like I felt it was a compromise, the compromise was between not showing subbed-out info. at all (and reverting back to the old way of showing the "AppsStats") and showing them in a new triple format. I much prefer the current triple format that matches the way everyone else shows these stats. (such as the BBC Sport pages) and would defend it over the initial triple format that was used.


 * WRT making the playing statistics sortable, what did you have in mind? Sorting the PST on the most goals scored?  That is already done for you here.  Sorting on most number of yellow and red cards?  Is that really necessary?  Ditto, most appearances or subs-in or subs-out.  The PST is a "wikitable" and any "wikitable" can be made to be sortable, but the "sortable" command is way too simplistic an implementation and it normally screws things up royally rather than making them appear more informative.  For instances, it cannot distinguish table footer and header cells from real data cells so, if used, all heading, sub-heading and footer fields will get sorted in amongst the data fields.  Thus, if you tried to sort the PST so that it is listed all the rows in "Player Name" order rather than "Squad Number" order, you'll see the grey heading "Player Name" sorted in amongst the players whose name starts with "P", and probably the word "Totals" (in the footer at the bottom of the table) sorted in with the players whose name begin with "T", and so on.  It's a real mess and I would NOT recommend doing it.  I hope that helped.   Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 20:32, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Starting 11
Any chance someone who has experience setting up the Starting 11 sections I see in other top teams season wiki pages could set one up for MCFC? Pik d (talk) 01:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * One was added before but it was removed again on the basis that the formation just changes too much. What formation would a Starting 11 show? If it is 4-5-1 then it is unfair on the strikers who play more frequently in a 4-4-2. If it's 4-4-2 then it's unfair on the DMs who play in a 4-5-1. You could feasibly end up with a situation where actually, assuming Yaya and De Jong are near-constants (and I'm writing this at 2.30 in the morning so I may be getting this wrong, I just can't remember for certain), and with Tevez having been out so much and Ade and Mario interchangeable, actually Barry, Johnson, Silva and Milner each have more appearances than any one striker - after all, with so many 4-5-1 appearances, there's more opportunities for them to play. So you could end up with no strikers appearing in the Starting 11 section because of the rotations and because of the changes in formation. Not to mention, what about players such as Adam Johnson and pretty much the entirety of our defense, who are constantly played in different positions - Johnson being sent to the left and right flank, and half the defense covering the LB and RB positions. Does it count if a CB gets picked 5 times in CB and 5 times in LB/RB? And if the other three defenders are all CBs, who have each played an equal number of games covering the wing-back positions, who gets put on the wings in the Starting 11 graphic? None of them are supposed to be there, they are there because of injuries preventing natural players for those positions playing there, and once again the Starting 11 section comes up looking distorted.


 * Then again I'm a bit biased as I just don't really like those Starting 11 sections - I don't think they're accurate enough to be useful. If others disagree then by all means do add it to the page again. Falastur2  Talk 02:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Not only could you end up with no strikers ... since City arguably have the two best goalkeepers in the Premier League, if Mancini decided to alternate between fielding Given and Hart in his team selections rather than treating Given as a second choice to Hart, you could also end up with two goalkeepers in the "starting 11"! :) Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 02:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The previous response addressed the topic of "team formations" rather than a "starting 11" per se, however the two concepts usually go hand-in-hand in those sections found in other teams' season articles (to which you referred) because a "starting 11" has to be presented in some form of a "team formation" - be it in graphical format or only in text. I feel your whole concept of a "starting 11" is a bit of stillborn concept.  If you bother to look at the playing statistics and match reports currently in the article you'll see that City do not have a consistent "starting 11"!  Which only bears out exactly what Roberto Mancini has repeatedly stated in media interviews to the effect that he intends to rest players - since they cannot continually perform at 100% if they play every three days - and so he will be selecting a different "starting 11" for the next game after the current one.  The truth of the matter is that the modern day game is played with approximately 40-man first team squads, 25-man registered squads, 18-man team sheets, and 14 players (if 3 subs are used) that actually play, while the impact subs such as Adam Johnson and SWP are as equally important (if not more so) as the 11 players that might happen to start the game.  So what is City's "starting 11"?


 * On the subject of "team formations" - IMO they are intrinsically POV. Ten different fans could watch City (or any other club) play and identify the team as using ten different formations.  That is partly due to the fact that ten different observers can have ten different subjective opinions WRT to the same observed phenomenon, but is mostly due to the fact that any team worth its salt will change its formation a number of times during the course of a game depending on whether it is being forced to defend or whether it is the team piling the pressure on the opposition, and so on.  Substitutions frequently cause a team to restructure its formation even if it would otherwise like to stick to just the one formation for the whole game.  So team formations are NOT static; they are much more dynamic in the modern game than they used to be.  Whichever one you choose to capture there is almost certainly going to be someone else who will claim it is the wrong one.  If you posted an edit that showed City playing a 4-3-3 formation in its last game I might feel inclined to revert/change it to show that they played 4-3-1-2 instead; whilest someone else might feel the formation should really be 4-4-2 ... and all we are really disgreeing over here is the predominant position of play of a single attacking midfielder - of which City have quite a few.  This is simply grist for an "edit wars" mill IMO.  Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 02:15, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Infobox
The WikiProject on football designed a infobox just for this type of article. There should be no reason why it should not be used. I have placed it back so the article is back in line with similar articles. Additionally, certain items were replaced with a simplier form. For example, (& n d a s h ;) was replaced with proper en dash (–). Code such as was replaced with , which displays the same thing, but is easier and simplier. Lastly, there were unnecessary breaks through out the article that served no purpose what so ever. They were removed. So was excess spaces. In all, those changes reduced the size of the article significantly without affecting the article and content. Thanks. Digirami (talk) 03:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You do realise that calling instead of [[Image:Yellow card.svg|10px]] dramatically increases the server load, right? You're making the server visit a template page, interpret that template, activate it and follow it to gather the graphic of the yellow card, whereas the other method...just goes straight to the page of the yellow card graphic. All to save using 23 characters. Every single time that graphic is called. Which is quite a few. Cutting out all the extra spaces also makes editting the infoboxes and such substantially harder. The spaces are there for a reason - so you can read what is otherwise an semi-unintelligible block of text.


 * I will concede that certain things, such as replacing the en dash, are generally helpful though, if somewhat petty to change. Falastur2  Talk 18:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "Dramatically" is an overstatement considering that the same template is used dozens, if not hundreds, of times in the article already. Using it ten more times for a table is not going to increase server load. The spaces do not do the same thing for different web browsers. It may work for IE, but not for Safari (for example). Please read Restoring part of a reverted edit before you blanket revert edits like mine in the future. There are a number of things that were incorrect in the article that I correct (correcting links, using the correct infobox, unnecessary " " throughout, among others). Now those are gone for no substantial reason. Digirami (talk) 23:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I will respond tomorrow. In the mean time, I suggest you in turn read the three-revert rule, which you have already violated, in case you were tempted to revert my edit also before I have a chance to reply (I am going to bed now and don't have the time to compose a serious response in the next half a day or so). Falastur2  Talk 23:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Alright then. Let's see.


 * As for the use of instead of [[Image:Yellow card.svg|10px]] . True, you're right that  is already used a lot, though I shudder to think how horrible the code would be to manage in the match boxes without it, but you make a fair point. However, I'd remind you of the other side of the coin - the side you seem to advocate - which is to use the template which requires extra server strain for the sake of consistency - consistency which is somewhat unnecessary in such an extremely minor point. It seems a little nonsensical to me...but frankly I'm not sure why it ever needed changing.


 * As for your suggestion that spaces don't work the same way on Safari...I just checked Safari, and those spaces work fine, not to mention that removing them because they don't work in Safari seems like you're advocating the argument "if one person can't have it, no-one should be allowed to have it".


 * I've studied your revisions (in some detail) and I'm still trying to highlight the changes to correct links that you made. OK, I'll roll with Football Association instead of English football league system, and the equivalent for other national referees, but that's hardly a substantial series of changes. As for "using the correct infobox", I would counter that our infobox is better, and there is no policy saying we have to use the other one assigned. There are merely guidelines, but if you seek consistency between articles then I'd say that infoboxes are the least of your worries. Just look at how substantially different our style is from the Chelsea one...and pretty much all the other club season articles. By and large, every team's fans do things their own way, for the major clubs at least, and we do it thus because we believe that our article(s) are best that way. If you want to standardise the use of infoboxes, I suggest you first have WikiProject Football bring in a rule enforcing all articles to look the same first, because without that rule there is little incentive for us to use an infobox that allows us to use less information. On top of this, I could add Wikipedia's history of innovating and updating its graphical portions (do you remember how infoboxes used to look 3-4 years ago? They were pretty hideous.) I simply regard the infobox here used as a step up to the next level of detail. Perhaps if I was more outspoken, or could do more with code, I would propose these changes be added to the established infobox model. However, I'm not and I can't, which kind of pigeon-holes me here. For the record, the  s were for the purposes of layout styling, and while I personally don't regard them as essential (N.B. I wasn't the one who added them), I can't see that they caused significant problems in their existence in the article's source that required a detraction in quality in the article's actual space. I admit you could argue both sides of the coin, but I can't see that one side is stronger than the other here - and you've already admitted that your edits were causing additional server strain but you were adding them "because a few more can't hurt". I cite the same precedent to you.  Falastur2  Talk 23:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I will be the first to admit that club season articles are amongst the most inconsistent within the project. But, don't take that to mean that should stay that way. Chelsea's is unique so far as I'm concern and I wouldn't endorse it (it's also the first I've seen of it, and yea, it's bad). I have been one of the strongest proponents for an MOS on club season article. But it as to start somewhere. This is the only article I've come across that uses this made-up infobox. It doesn't do much of anything better than the existing version. If there are things you feel should be added to it, take it to the template's talkpage and push for its inclusion (or add it yourself). That's how the stadium parameter was added recently. But there is no need to create a new one. As for the spaces, they are there so certain things would align, presumable to make editing easier. It just doesn't work that way with Safari users. Still, those extra spaces take up space. Lots of space. Removing those spaces from this article would reduce the size by about 5000b. Other edits included lining up and the fixing the goal scorers list. The established consensus regarding goalscorers list is the number of goals should not span multiple rows since it would imply that that number of goals was scored collectively. In a sense, rank is shared, not goals. Digirami (talk) 00:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

"Player registration and competition eligibility" section
This sort of information belong in the current Premier League, not in a club season article since it is not about the team's season. Digirami (talk) 19:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Re: "Good faith" edits
Oh, to MLitH, I suggest you improve your understanding of what constitutes vandalism. Just because you do not agree with good faith edits, such as mine, does not mean they are acts of vandalism. Digirami (talk) 02:23, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I fully understand what constitutes vandalism on Wikipedia, but thank you for patronizing me anyway. Unfortunately, edit summary boxes only allow limited text and there is no other word I know of in the English language that describes your sort of contributions to Wikipedia.  Because I'm not exactly sure what to call the edits of someone that only removes stuff from articles without making any constructive contribution to them.  Late at night, with a severe character limit on my ES comment, "vandalism" was the best word I could come up with off the top of my head.  Plus I am still yet to see that your edits are indeed in "good faith".  It may just be me that's dumb, but I fail to see why approximately 50 consecutive edits by you to ONLY the Manchester City season article in the last week, with not a single similar edit made to any other club's season article, is going to somehow miraculously make all the Wikipedia club season articles consistent.  OTOH, if I wanted to vandalize perform good faith changes to another club's article I would probably go about it in exactly the same manner that you are doing.  Namaste.  Mancini&#39;s Lasagne invite to Harry  Talk 02:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is more patronizing since you just do not seem to get what vandalism is: read Vandalism. It will help with your comprehension of what constitutes vandalism (especially that first paragraph). Digirami (talk) 08:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

What happened to the appearance statistics?
There used to be a section with the appearance statistics, now it's gone. Is there some way to easily bring that back because that's quite a serious omission. Pik d (talk) 02:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. Stupid Original Research police, don't even understand what Original Research is. Well spotted, and now reverted, though it's a few days out of date and I don't have the time right now to update it. Falastur2  Talk 00:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

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