Talk:Cue sports/Archive 2

Timeline problem
According to this article, the search for new ball material began in the early 20th century. But according to the article on John Wesley Hyatt, his celluloid solution to the billiard ball problem is what eventually led to his founding of his own company in 1870. (The celluloid article would seem to agree with the Hyatt article; their timeline puts his use of celluloid in billiard balls in the 1860s.) So if he was making celluloid pool balls in the 1860s, and was so successful at it that he was able to open his own company in 1870, it doesn't make sense to say that they started looking for a replacement for ivory in the 20th century. Kafziel 22:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. So some research on this issue needs to be done.Fuhghettaboutit 04:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I have it. From | this article:
 * "Before the advent of synthetic products, almost every conceivable item that people desired came from nature. Fashion and recreation dictated many things. Whales sacrificed their bones for women's corsets and elephants forfeited their ivory tusks for hair combs and billiard (pool) balls. It was a demand for something to replace ivory pool balls, which were becoming scarce and expensive to attain, that led to the discovery of the first plastic compounds. John Wesley Hyatt of New Jersey is credited with finding the miracle substance, Celluloid, in 1870. This discovery built upon the earlier development of cellulose nitrate in 1856. Immediately, Hyatt's celluloid was not only being used on pool tables, it was also literally making impressions in the dental profession. By 1872, Celluloid became a trademark whose applications seemed endless. As a reward for his initiative, Hyatt collected the prize of $10,000 in gold offered by the largest billiard manufacturer in the US to anyone who could derive a viable alternative to ivory."
 * Changing the article to reflect new information. Fuhghettaboutit 03:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Use of the word "cue"
I noticed that the intro uses the naked word cue to refer to a pool cue. That's understandable from a historical perspective, but the modern convention has been to use the term 'pool cue' to distinguish from the term 'cue ball'. Using the word pool cue seems to be the convention in both spoken and written contexts.

Michael Bauers

12.24.200.251 19:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Very good point but I think we need to segregate it. Use pool cue when unambiguously referring to a pool game, but not when speaking more generally and not about a particular game. For instance, I play three cushion with a billiards cue, a very different cue than is used for pool. It has a fatter tip, a shorter ferrule, the whole cue is shorter and fatter than a pool cue and has a wooden pin like almost all billiards cues, and unlike almost all pool cues (all this acts to reduce deflection, necessary in three cushion because you often have to hit very hard, with extremes of english, and at distance; something all pool players avoid like the plague). I'm sure you know that snooker cues, likewise, are very different from pool cues, being usually made from ash, for one thing (instead of maple), having a thinner shaft and a much smaller tip. Maybe it should be like this: When speaking generally—cue stick; when speaking of pool—pool cue, billiards (three cushion straight rail, etc.)—billiards cue; and snooker—snooker cue. --Fuhghettaboutit 23:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * For the moment I have changed the use of cue in the intro to cue stick. --Fuhghettaboutit 00:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Added this to the WP:CUESPELL draft guideline. PS to Fuhghettaboutit: What you've said here aside from the naming is good material for articlespace.  Many people have no idea that the cue types are different from game to game (to be honest, even I didn't know that carom billiards cues were different from pool cues, though I was well aware of the differentness of snooker cues.) &mdash;  SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 23:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Game list categories inconsistent with billiard categories
I noticed that the game categories (billiards and pocket billiards) are inconsistent with the game type listed above (carom and pocket.)

The article should be consistent.

I believe 'pool games' is appropriate for games such as 8-ball and 9-ball. I believe snooker while similar to pool games is probably in its own category. Billiard games that don't use pockets can probably be grouped under the term 'carom games'.

If its desirable to group pool and billiard games together, the term 'pocket billiard games' seems reasonable with the other category being 'carom billiard games'.

I will have to look carefully at some of my sources such as Shamos to see what their usage is.

Another option is to avoid the use of categorical terms as much as possible. So the game list could have a header like 'Common billiard games' or something like that. In the types of games section, there could be sections like 'carom games', pool games, snooker etc. Whatever makes the most sense.

MichaelJHuman 19:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Made the suggested change. --Fuhghettaboutit 13:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * And category cleanup has been one of the first (and thus far most successful) tasks of WikiProject Cue sports &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 08:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Blackball vs. Eightball
I know they are different games, but does anyone have more information on how the "world standardization" is going? I know they want to standardize the "8-ball" rules and they've come up w/ the blackball rules, with the only difference being where to rack the balls, with apex ball on the dot or with the 8/black ball on the dot. Anyone know any differences too? 70.111.251.203 01:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

US/non-US terminology
The current article seems very much written from the US viewpoint, with some asides about the UK (which would largely apply to the Commonwealth generally, or at least the "snooker/(English) billiards-playing world" -- doubtless Canada is "a little in column A, a little in column B", as in many things). Right down to the non-MoS punctuation and the title, which has led to about the longest disambiguation header I've seen. Can we start with the latter, and move this article to billiards games, or some other terminology that's more explicitly about the whole family, and is less US-specific? Alai 21:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Snooker pool variant
{{Resolved|Topic moved to Talk:Snooker Isn't there a "mini-snooker" game which is played on a Pool table using just the set of pool balls? The reds are 10 balls (all the stripes, plus 3 solids), and the point balls are the remaining ones which coincide with their point values. There is a shortage of one ball, so I'm not sure how it works. 71.250.17.62 13:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * If you can document it, please add it to the snooker article. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 12:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Tangent Line
Because Billiard balls are not inelastic, the resulting tangent line is slightly less than 90° from perpendicular to a line formed by the contact point between the balls. There is a double negative here, billard bars are not inelastic, implying they are in fact elastic. --Atechi 23:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Um, they are elastic; that's the point. It could be reworded to "slightly elastic", but this isn't a true double-negative, in the sense of "I don't want no asparagus, Mom"; it's just a precise usage conveying a nuance, like "a not unpleasant odor". &mdash;  SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 12:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

History
What about the history of Billiards? When did people first start playing this game? Let's see some timelines! Come on!


 * At one time I thought I had created a section or article on that. Not sure what happened to it.  I agree that its needed.

MichaelJHuman


 * Restored it. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 22:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Totally overhauled Three-ball article!

 * &#91;Moved from Talk:Cue sport.&#93;

I'd worked up a draft article several months ago on three-ball, then someone else put up a very skeletal public one (that nonetheless had info mine didn't.) I've merged and expanded them into the current public article, with citations to several (not very authoritative) sources. Additional source citations supporting a) various consensus points about what the overall rules of the game are, and b) several unsourced facts, would be very appreciated. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 23:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Note: Marked this topic "resolved" since that article has its own talk page for any further discussion. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 01:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Please review: Consensus and consistency needed on spelling to prevent ambiguity &amp; confusion
Especially for nine-ball but also for eight-ball, one-pocket, and even snooker, etc., I firmly think we need to come to, and as editors enforce in article texts, a consensus on spelling conventions and implement it consistently throughout all of the cue sports Wikepedia articles. I advocate (and herein attempt to justify) a system of standardized spellings, based on 1) general grammar rules; 2) basic logic; and 3) disambiguation.

This is a draft submission to the active editor community of billiards-related articles on Wikipedia. It is intended to ultimately end up being something like " Wikipedia:[something:]Billiards/Spelling guidelines", or part of an official Wikipedia cue sports article-shepherding Project, likely it's first documentation output.

Anyway, please help me think this through. The point is not for me to become world famous&trade; for having finally codified billiards terms and united the entire English-speaking world in using them (hurrah). I simply want the articles here on pool and related games to be very consistent in application of some new consensus Wikipedia editing standards about spelling/phrasing of easily confusable billards terms that may be ambiguous to many readers in the absence of that standard.

Compare: That's the super-simple "use case" I make for this proposed nomenclature. If you think that the differentiation didn't cut it please TELL ME, and say how you would improve it.
 * 1) "While 9-ball is a 9-ball game, the 9-ball is the real target; pocket it in a 9-ball run if you have to, but earlier is better." (Huh?)
 * 2) "While nine-ball is a nine ball game, the 9 ball is the real target; pocket it in a nine ball run if you have to, but earlier is better." (Oh, right!)

So, here's the article draft so far (please do not edit it directly! Post on its Discussion page instead; thanks.): User:SMcCandlish/Pool_terms

(PS: This intro text is repeated at the top of it.) &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 04:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Update: This is now a "live" guideline proposal, at WikiProject Cue sports/Spelling conventions or WP:CUESPELL for short. Marking the topic here "Resolved" since the new page in question has its own talk page for discussion. &mdash;  SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 01:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Cue sports
I think the entire cue sports realm on Wikipedia needs to be organized under a Wikipedia "Project", like the ones that regulate the biology, medicine, etc., articles and keep them consistent with each other, develop sidebar templates for them, etc. Any support or opposition to this idea? I've already developed a spelling convention draft Guideline I'll be sharing here for input soon; that could perhaps be the first output of the Project. Also, I would propose that the Project (until such time as other projects arise to cover them) also include closely related games such as finger pool (not technically a cue sport), and ancestrally-related games such as grass games (croquet, bocce, etc.) and bowling. The Project might need a more generic name than "Billiards" - perhaps "Cue and Lawn Sports"? &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 23:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It now exists, at WikiProject Cue sports. Seeking other interested editors to participate. Marking this topic "Resolved" since the WikiProject has its own talk page for any further discussion. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 01:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding a pin billiards game
I remember when I was a kid that my Dad used to play a game on a table without pockets and three balls... plus a cue.... with three (I think)small wooded (I think) pegs.... where the object seemed to be to hit the pegs... or hit the balls... any ideas what this was??? I always thought it was "billiards" different from "pool" which has pockets.67.142.130.35 21:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC) Dandy, SC


 * Unless you're sure it was three pegs, it was probably the Italian game "five-pins" or "five-pin billiards", which apparently enjoys the same popularity (televised tournaments, etc.) there and in some parts of South America that snooker does in Britain. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 22:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I may have to take that back, depending on how long ago you're talking about. Before five-pins was standardized, which I think was in the last 30 years early 1980s, it was actually a pocket billiards game.  I know there have been other pin (a.k.a. skittle) billiards games, though, so whatever your dad played I'm sure it was related. &mdash;  SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 22:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC)