Talk:2012 Tour de France

Pre-race favourites
Confusing or contradictory wording: "... names Cadel Evans as the top favourite because of the large number of time trial kilometres. " and "... it will be hard for 2010 winner Andy Schleck and his brother Fränk Schleck to win the 2012 Tour de France due to the large number of kilometres of time trialling." . Moondyne (talk) 12:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not contradictory. Cadel Evans is good at time trials so the course suits him. The Schlecks are not so good at time trials so the course does not suit them. --Racklever (talk) 12:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You might know that but its not explained. It needs to be.  Moondyne (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Really, for statements like this a reliable soure is needed! Calistemon (talk) 13:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Per WP:CRYSTAL #3: "Articles that present original research in the form of extrapolation, speculation, and "future history" are inappropriate.".  Removing section. Moondyne (talk) 14:28, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Flags
I don't see any justification in WP:MOSFLAG to keep the flags in the various tables. Riders do not represent their country in any but a symbolic way. If anyone wishes to add ("SUI") or something like that behind the rider's name that's fine, but the flags, they need to go. Drmies (talk) 17:44, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hundreds of race articles have flags used in the way you have undone. The flags of Spain and Switzerland are more informative than letters that are not an English language abbreviation, and at least there is some hope of people recognising the difference between Slovenian and Slovakian flags, whereas decoding SLO is pure guesswork. Kevin McE (talk) 18:14, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, hundreds of sports articles fall foul of the guidelines. The writing of many of those articles is even worse, but that's beside the point. MOSFLAG specifically counters your point about intelligibility: its rationale is that it is the other way around. Moreover, you fail to address the "national representation" point. Drmies (talk) 18:24, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * If you want to introduce a change of practice that affects hundreds of articles, you should raise it on the talk page of the project within which the articles fall. MOSFLAG says nothing about preferring ambiguous or unclear abbreviations.  While I largely agree (with the proviso that points are gained for national rankings in the World Tour) that they do not represent nations (if this change were being presented as a change that would totally remove reference to nationality, and across all race articles, I might just be persuaded to your point of view) nationality would be almost ubiquitously reported in RS reporting of the results of such events.
 * Both in terms of consistency with all major reporting sources, and with consensus for practice on sporting articles throughout Wikipedia, MOSFLAG is "a custom more honour'd in the breach than the observance", it does not really reflect what we do, and in that respect is fundamentally broken. To try to roll out the removal of flags from all sports in which the competitors are not formally representing their nations would be to spit into a hurricane force wind: every tournament article (bar a handful of events each year) in boxing, golf, tennis, motor sport...  Kevin McE (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Kevin, practice is not the only consideration, and you know that. That MOSFLAG is breached constantly does not mean you can revert me when I am trying to uphold it. In fact, that's disruptive because you know better. Your only argument is "it happens elsewhere"--yes, a nice parallel with WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, and a good reason for why so many of our sports articles suck. I don't care for hurricanes in boxing and golf, I care for MOSFLAG and what it has to say about representations--a point you agreed with, for crying out loud. Besides, you know, or should know, that there are plenty of editors who do care for it and edit according to it: if there weren't, we wouldn't have MOSFLAG in the first place. So you reverted me purely because of a practice you know runs counter to guideline? Sorry, but that is lame. Oh, consensus is against me, you said--well, no, you're the only here who responded. The editor who also reverted me clearly has no clue. OK, I hereby propose that MOSFLAG be upheld, starting here. How about that? One other thing--why do people feel the need for these stupid, meaningless flags in the first place? A philosophical question, which need not be answered here. But I'll leave it be. Sports on Wikipedia is like J-pop, or wrestling, or manga, or My Little Pony, or monster trucks: too much fandom, not enough encyclopedia. Drmies (talk) 19:57, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh you're right, I have no idea. ThurstAsh13 ( Malk  +  Montributions )  00:45, 2 July 2012 (UTC) (the guy who reverted you)
 * Fandom...are you listening to yourself? Would your solution be to have persons dispassionate about subjects be the primary editors of them? It, uh, kinda doesn't work that way. Green-eyed girl  ( Talk  ·  Contribs ) 14:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you really believe that the genuine consent and consensus of the community lies with MOSFLAG in such situations: authority rests with consensus, but with policies that have no widespread acceptance. You need to be clear about the distinction between "I might just be persuaded" and "I agree"; as to the philosophical/psychological pull towards drawing attention to nationality, while I haveideological reservations about it, it is absolutely clear from any sports news report on almost any public media source that it is the way of the world, and so it is ridiculous to attribute it to partisanship; of the top 30 Google news reports of today's results (Using "Cancellara" as the search item), in the English language, all bar one refer to his nationality within the first three sentences. Those US, Canadian, British, Singaporean, Indian, South African and Australian news outlets are not Cancellara fanboys.  RS consider it relevant, editors here consider it relevant, editors throughout the history of Wikipedia articles on cycling and countless other sports consider it relevant.  This is not so much WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS as WP:WHATSEEMSCRAPTOMEHASBECOMESOUBIQUITOUSTHATITISCLEARTHATTHATISWHERECONSENSUSLIES.  ThurstAsh13 has a very positive history in his contributions within WP:CYC, and your comments are a clear breach of WP:CIVIL.  You should be aware that you are in breach of 3RR in this issue.  Kevin McE (talk) 20:48, 30 June 2012 (UTC)


 * If my comments are in breach of anything, drag me in front of some court. It won't go anywhere, since you're wrong--as wrong as you are in your count. You may have lost track of Rs in all those capitals, but I reverted only twice. No apology will be forthcoming, I'm sure, yet I accept it. Drmies (talk) 21:44, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "Riders do not represent their country in any but a symbolic way. If anyone wishes to add ("SUI") or something like that behind the rider's name that's fine, but the flags, they need to go."


 * 1) Riders do represent their country in a non-symbolic way: the results of the races in the UCI WorldTour (which includes the Tour de France as the race which gives the most points) determine how many cyclists each country can send to the World championships. Does this change your point?
 * The Continental Tours count for that, too. Green-eyed girl  ( Talk  ·  Contribs ) 14:01, 1 July 2012 (UTC)


 * 1) If riders would not represent their country, why would you accept "SUI" behind the name? My common sense would say either show nationality (with flag or name or both), or not show nationality at all.
 * I am at the moment neutral in this. WP:MOSFLAG is clear on this, and the arguments for that are reasonable. But on the other hand, practically all other reliable sources give these nationalities, and a policy/guideline with an acronym I can not remember says we should follow other sources...--EdgeNavidad (Talk · Contribs) 08:47, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Reliable sources say lots of things. They may state an age, for instance. But that's not really my point--it's this flag-waving, this ubiquitous use of color in articles because it's cute. I have no real objection to a nationality being mentioned (which is obvious if you look at how I removed the flags), and I will accept that that's the way of the world. I just don't see the need for a flag. Kevin, above, gets all clever with searches--but you won't find an article that mentions anyone's nationality and puts an image of a flag in there, so that entire argument is a red herring. (Feel free to address this, Kevin: the absence of graphics inside the text in all those articles you can point to.) And that's the problem: the flag, throughout this argument, is connected to nationality, but why do you need both? "Oh, the flag is clear"--well, no, it's not, not all flags are clear, and that's specifically stated in MOSFLAG, which claims (correctly or not) that stating a nationality is preferred over pasting a colored icon. One more thing: that standings in the end have an effect on other competitions and selections is derivative, and you all know that. The World Tour goes back to the UCI Road World Cup, 1989, so that's relatively new, and it has nothing to do with the running of the Tour de France itself. Moreover, riders don't get selected on the basis of nationality (duh) and even if there's always more French teams, that's not because all the riders on those teams are French or something like that. I wouldn't call this argument a red herring, but it's a very weak one. There's always an element of nationalism, of course, but there is no representation in the way that Spain just represented their country in the Euro final, since there is no such thing as a national selection by any stretch of the imagination. EdgeNavidad, I only came back here because you asked me to: it is obvious to me that my arguments aren't taken seriously and my edits are misrepresented (as above, with the phony 3RR charge--if they meant it, they would have warned me or reported me to the 3RR board), and I have little interest in addressing brick walls. Thank you for your remarks, though. Drmies (talk) 21:44, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Jersey yellow number.svg
Is this still being used (in the race itself)? Because they're (also?) giving the teams class leaders yellow helmets, in what seems to be a first this year. Green-eyed girl ( Talk  ·  Contribs ) 13:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
 * From race rules, page 29: "Riders of the leader team in the team ranking will wear specific bibs with black numbers on a yellow background as well as yellow helmets provided by teams." Photo here too. As you say, the helmets are new this year. Craig  (talk)  15:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Post-race summary
The tour result is listed at WP:ITN/R and due to be posted on the main page, but the guys at WP:ITN/C are, quite rightly, insistent on an update to the article. With this in mind, and so that there is minimal delay in raising the item to ITN, I have prepared a post-race lead to the article, detailing jersey winners and with a brief summary of how Wiggins came to win. It can be seen in edit mode as remmed out under the existing lead paragraph, or on my sandbox page. Some sentences are, of course, subject to change, but the likelihood of the main text needing to be changed is minimal. Kevin McE (talk) 10:47, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Consistency vs mix of skills in MV
Hi Kevin, I agree that the Points jersey rewards consistent sprinters and the first sentence which states "The points classification for the most consistent finisher was won by Nibali's Slovakian teammate Peter Sagan." reflects this. However if we are looking to explain the reasons why Peter Sagan finished so far ahead of Greipel and Cavendish this year it would be more helpful to emphasise that while Sagan is able to be consistent across both flat and uphill sprints, Greipel and Cavendish are strong in flat sprints but compeltely absent in uphill sprints. I am sure a form of words which reflects this better could be found. Cheers Andrewdpcotton (talk) 16:00, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Strictly speaking, the Points Classification does not reward 'the most consistent finisher' as points are also awarded for winning intermediate sprints. Obscurasky (talk) 18:11, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

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