Talk:Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics

Untitled
There is a time value after "Heat n". Is that local time when the heat started? RedWolf 17:02, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes it is. Earl Andrew 17:28, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

World Record
Watching BBC coverage last night I seem to remember a World Record or two being broken... How are we going to note this? A particular colour - a graphic even? --80.225.59.28 10:52, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As I have written on Talk:2004 Summer Olympics these details should be included in a small write up of each event.Scraggy4 11:02, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If seems to me that if we're recording all the results for all heats, semi-finals and finals for all events, then this page is going to get very long (certainly over the 32kb limit for page length). Should we consider having one central page for the swimming overall (including overall swimming medal tally) and one sub-page for each individual event? Zaphod Beeblebrox 18:01, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think Yes, if someone is willing to do it. Or possibly sub page for each type of event: breast/ back/ free/ fly / and relay, so some elaboration on the rules, the history prior to the event that bears on the event... etc. would be good. Comments?Pedant

For world record and olympic record, I've been using world record and Olympic record for emphasis.Pedant 18:59, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC)

Possibly splitting the the swimming into 2 pages ie; Men's Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics and Women's Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics may fix the problem. I was thinking of splitting the volleyball later on tonight as that too has become too large but that's relatively easy splitting between indoor and beach.Scraggy4 19:13, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Proposed Template
I have decided to clean up a lot of the conversation and discussion that was going on here because it was starting to get difficult to read. A few people commented that the old template was far too large and took up too much space at the top over every page - I have therefore redesigned it ; let me know what you think -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 08:57, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I like it, but is there any way you can prevent the link for, say, the 4x100m relay splitting onto two lines? It would look much better with all the relay links, complete, on the bottom line. Impi 11:48, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Fanatastic job done on these Zaphod, it seemed to work quite well after our discussion the other night, having the template ready for the following day, although not complete, people seemed to take the idea on board very well. Having looked at the pages I think it might be an idea to have the template at the bottom of the page for each event, so that when a user visits the main Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics page and clicks on a particular discipline, they will immediately see the details for the event they chose rather than another version of the template.Scraggy4 12:52, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Ok, I put the template at the bottom of the page on the Men's 100m freestyle page, see what you think. Impi 14:23, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Yeh! I think that looks a lot better, it gives room at the top of the page for people to immediately see who won the medals and the write up for the event can go directly under that. I do think that is the correct way to go as if I clinked on the link to take me to the event I would expect to see the details for that event straight away without having to scroll down the page.Scraggy4 14:29, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Yeah - definitely looks a lot better with the template at the bottom of the page - let's get them moved for all the events... -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 15:37, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * One more thing - while we're changing things around - do you think it would look better if we listed the "Final" results first, then "Semi-Final", then "Heats" ? -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 15:50, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I have been thinking about this for a few days but can't make my mind up. I think it may look better with the final at the top but we may find an admin moaning that it should follow chronological order or something like that and reverting them. It also makes it more difficult to avoid duplicated links. You may have noticed on pages like the tennis, table tennis, badminton etc that I have only linked competitors names on their first appearance in the event so leaves all following rounds clear of wiki links and a lot easier on the eye. This wasn't only for the visual improvement but the fact that the wiki rules state you should only link on the first appearance of that word/name or something like that. If the final is listed first it then means all the heats/rounds following that will have half the names linked and half not.Scraggy4 16:02, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

fix text wrapping
I have cure the proble by inserting  in between the offending words that split across 2 lines.Scraggy4 11:53, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I was still seeing splits, so I changed all spaces in links to non-breaking. Splits are now eliminated for all window sizes.
 * Bobblewik 09:39, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Still splitting on Mozilla Firefox, works fine in Opera and IE. Impi 10:08, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. I now see that I missed a few first time but they should be fixed now. Please check again now.
 * Bobblewik 11:02, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Working fine now with both browsers, nice work! Impi 11:37, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Current Progress
I have to admit, I did panic a little this morning when I saw the Swimming section on the front page of Wikipedia this morning in the Olympic coverage as I thought it was nowhere near ready for public consumption ; I reckon it's been hammered into shape quite nicely though over the last few hours. Thanks to the folks who were inputting details of the Men's 100 metre freestyle heats section - it'll make things so much easier to update when the final result comes in.

I am going to be away tomorrow evening - so y'all have to manage without me for a few hours ; I think the format has settled down a little now, so should be easy enough to follow.

Only task left to do is update the medals table with the results of the most recent four events.

Still not 100 percent happy with the layout of the two tables on the main swimming page though - any suggestions for making that a bit more attractive? -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 19:45, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

2 Medal tallies ??
I came here this morning and noticed that last nights events had not be added into the country medal tallies so I updated the table. Then thinking that all was good I lokked at the page again and saw 2 copies of the medal tally. One had the update I did and the other didn't. This left me worried I've broken something, I'm about to look into history and see if I can figure it out. Steven jones 00:31, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Someone had accidentally duplicated the rtcl twice on the same page but it looks like I've cleared it up now.Scraggy4 00:44, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That was what I guessed, but I wasn't sure that there wasn't something clever going on that I missed. Steven jones 01:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Template placement/orientation
Been thinking about the template positioning ; does anyone think it would be better if we had a vertical template (two columns - one for men's events, one for women's events) instead of the current horizontal template ; that way, we could have the template on the right hand side at the top of every page.

On the main screen, this would mean that we would be able to see the "Medals by country" listing without having to scroll past the templates ; and also on the individual event pages, it would be immediately obvious that such a navigational tool was available.

I might knock up such a template tonight after work (about 1730 BST) and see what it looks like. --- Zaphod Beeblebrox 06:26, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I have made a little progress in constructing a vertical template - there are no links in it just yet - that would be easy enough to implement though - you can see what it currently looks like at User:Zaphod_Beeblebrox/Work_In_Progress -- 06:59, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I like this format, fits in with similar templates on many project pages. Ok, you've got my vote to change to the vertical format. Impi 07:20, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Would you like to have a look at that page again now - it gives you some idea of how the front page might look with that vertical template in place - feel free to tweak and change things around if you think you can improve the appearance. --Zaphod Beeblebrox 08:44, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Looks good. You've got my vote. By the way...are we all up to date, event-wise, including heats? Ambi 09:32, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Yep, I like it, better than the horizontal format.Impi 10:31, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I've partially converted Zaphod's layout to one that takes *slightly* less space at User:Chuq/test - it's not all converted but you can get the idea. See what you think! (Ignore the crap in the body of that document, thats other testing gone wrong!) -- Chuq 10:34, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Chuq - I like your improvements to my vertical template ; I reckon we go ahead with that ; Ambi - I have just updated with details of this morning's heats. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 12:09, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * (BTW - size isn't necessarily an issue with the template if we go with the horizontal format because we'll be able to "float" the template at the right hand side of the page without impacting on the vertical position of the rest of the page's contents)-- Zaphod Beeblebrox 12:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Error but I can't edit it
There is a problem with list of events. The womens 4x1 medley relay has the incorrect text, (it says 200m freestyle) and incorrect time it should be 20:10 according to the official web site, but for some reason I can't seem to make the fix. I keep getting an empty page return when I hit either save or preview. Can someone else make the change. Steven jones 04:12, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Fixed it. - Jonel 05:00, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * They were installing new servers yesterday, that's why there was some downtime and a couple of technical errors when trying to either preview or save pages. Everything should be back to normal now.Impi 07:48, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks Steven jones 08:16, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Suggestion to improve the articles on each event
I was reading the articles on each event and I thought something was missing. Since the articles list the participants in each heat, semifinal and in the final race, I thought it would be interesting if we somehow point out on each list who qualified for the subsequent stage (does not apply to the final of course). I mean, there have been instances where up to 70% of the final eight came from only one of the two semifinal races, but the eventual reader would have a lot of trouble to visualize that right now, since he would have to go back and forth comparing the names from each list. So maybe we could add the letter "Q" (for "qualified") after the individual times, or maybe come up with some symbol or color code? Just thought it would be interesting. Redux 04:08, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I have used the Q for automatic and q for fastest losers on the athletics pages that I have done / edited do so far, but I left the swimming alone as there appeared enough people working on that. It would be a good idea to format all the results pages as near the same as possible but I feel that this will not be completed until after ther games. I think I'm correct in thinking that the swimmers either qualified or didn't as all heats qualification was done purely on timing so only the Q would be needed.

Abbreviations I have been using. All times shown are in seconds. Q denotes automatic qualification. q denotes fastest losers. DNS denotes did not start. DNF denotes did not finish. NR denotes national record. PB denotes personal best. SB denotes seaeson's best although I don't think I have used them consistently as I thought of different things as I went along.Scraggy4 09:30, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I happened to be looking at one of these pages and was wondering what the Q was. The notations used need to be either on each page or linked in somehow.   — KayEss | talk 07:07, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Swimming event format
Scraggy - Do you have a source on the web anywhere that gives details of World Records, Olympics Records, National Bests, Personal Bests, etc for swimming? The BBC's website is very good at giving these details for athletics events - but doesn't give them for swimming events.

It has been commented to be also that the swimming pages currently feature a lot of repeated links within each event's pages (country links and athlete links) ; I have removed these from the Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Men's 50 metre Freestyle page - this left the page looking very drab, so I have added national flags to make the page's appearance more attractive.

I have also included the Heat's ranking and the Semi-final ranking for the event to show how each athlete progressed.

Have a look and let me know what you think -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 11:02, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi Zaphod, looks fine to me might want to Q to make it stand out.

Referance sites. world records, [olympic records, seasons bests not sure about personal bests or national records. But the athens2004 results pages show whether they have broken world, olympic, area or national records. [[User:Scraggy4|Scraggy4]] 11:22, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Hi Scraggy - I have added -Q to the heat's listings as well as emphasising them in the heat rankings list. See what you think.  Will add any PB/SB, etc. info later -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 11:44, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I have started work on an expanded format for the swimming pages - the top of each page will eventually feature details of World and Olympic records and (if applicable) details of new records set for that event during these Olympic Games. I have also used the Olympic website statistics to indicate new European/African/Asian/Oceania records.


 * Qualification from heats and semi-finals has also been made easier to understand with expanded "heat rankings" and "semi-final rankings" sections appearing. So far, 12 of the 32 events have been converted and I anticipate I should be able to convert the rest of them to this format tomorrow. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 20:56, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)