User talk:Green-eyed girl/Style guide/Short stage race

Consensus questions raised
Here are my answers

0) (can you tell I actually wrote that one last? :P ) Naturally, I think this is the proper order, since I wrote the page this way.

1) I don't think it's particularly a good idea to change the 1 to the jersey icon. Frankly, I don't see any use at all to the jersey icons.

2) My first instinct is to say no, but I'm really not sure why. It would make perfect sense to shade for the caretaker.

3) I don't think we really even need a guideline for this. This is not likely to happen very frequently.

4) I am strongly opposed to this. Finishing outside the time limit is a disqualification, and I am especially opposed to any use of HD outside of Tour de France articles (I was surprised to even see it).

5) I like Abandons, but either is fine. Nosleep  break my slumber 07:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I have far more than just these 6 to comment on, but I'll use those points to start off.


 * 0 Most articles have Jersey progress after the stages: I would retain that model rather than what you have here.
 * 1 No: the jersey ceases to be of significance, and the victory is what should be referred to (Sastre is the winner of the 2008 TdF: if he is still the Yellow Jersey wearer of the 2008 TdF, then he is badly in need of introduction to a washing machine). But note my comments on background colours below.
 * 2 No: not leader of the category, and that (not the shirt on his back) is what is relevant.
 * 3 (but relevant to 1 and 2 as well) I think there are real issues in terms of WP:Accessibility, lack of clarity to casual visitors to the page, and basic tastefulness about these backgrounds. Casual readers are left to guess about a veritable rainbow of shades, readers with colour perception difficulties are prejudiced, and in the example of Contador after stage 14 in your example, it appears that his Astana-ness has earned him a blue caption, but Leipheimer's Astana-ness is, for some unxplained reason, not worthy of shading.  Is the grey award more linked to his total time than other awards?  I think this practice needs serious reconsideration.
 * So what would you propose in terms of shading? Are you opposed to it altogether? Is textual reference to Contador receiving the three jerseys enough? Nosleep  break my slumber 17:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC) Would you opposed to shading if some explanatory language was included? I'm willing to do that in the future and go back and tag old pages that have it (there can't be more than about a hundred).  Nosleep  break my slumber 18:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Should we have shading at all? The people at WP:Accessibility ought to be able to give guidelines (I'll post a request that someone has a look): certainly the redlink for A Moos in the combativity section of the Tour de Romandie gives most of us a taste of what it might be like for a minority. But any coding should have a key: if not, it does not give information, and that is the point of an encyclopaedia.  Kevin McE (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment from outside the Project is always a good idea. Nosleep  break my slumber 20:56, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * 4 I see no justification at all for unexplained abbreviations, unless they are intuitive.  Abbreviations from other languages serve no useful purpose: at best they spread an exclusive jargon (although only if they are explained in footnotes), otherwise they just indicate to non-initiates that they are not really welcome as readers of this article. (but see other comments below)
 * 5 As in "Mark Cavendish did an abandon yesterday" or "Who might become an abandon on tomorrow's mountainous stage?"  Yuck.  The word abandons in English is a third person singular verb in the present tense, and nothing else.  It is not a noun, and we should not try to make it into one.  Withdrawals  seems to do perfectly well.
 * Well, the noun is abandonment and there is a verb form that fits well for cycling quitters 4.  To cease trying to continue; desist from  Nosleep  break my slumber 17:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If you wish to suggest abandonment, that could be considered, but I'd still prefer withdrawals (unless, of course, my point below holds sway) Kevin McE (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Withdrawals is probably fine. Nosleep  break my slumber 20:56, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Other contentious issues:
 * Complete lists of finishers and withdrawals seem to be pushing the purpose of an encyclopaedia: WP:NOT. Golf is probably comparable in terms of numbers of individual competitors in an event: I called up 2007 Open Championship fairly randomly to see what they do, and after the top few finishers, there is a link to an external page with full results (although I don't like the "Notable players who missed the cut" section, as it lacks any evident inclusion/exclusion criteria).  In encyclopaedic terms, it is irrelevant which mid-ranking French sprinter called Jimmy pulled out in stage 17, and which finished 138th. (Messrs Caspar and Engouvlement respectively, in last year's TdF, if anyone was wondering)
 * I'd really like a good reason to disagree with you on this, but nothing's coming to mind :( Nosleep  break my slumber 18:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Stage previews and reviews need to be written in formal factual style, and not in journalistic language. Prediction is not the function of an encyclopaedia, and so the likelihood of a successful breakaway or a bunch sprint is something that should be left for the reader to conclude from a factual description of the stage, not something for editors to suggest (WP:CRYSTAL).
 * Not sure I agree. If cyclingnews.com or whoever says "A breakaway will probably survive to the end of this stage," is that not something fit for us to denote? Particularly if they say that, and then a mass sprint occurs? I have probably been guilty of violating WP:NOR a time or two in my stage profiles without meaning to be, but if a statement can be reasonably cited, I don't see why it shouldn't be included. You seem to care greatly for casual readers when discussing colors in tables, but the fact that a stage with, say, three category-two climbs is perfect for a breakaway is something they should be expected to conclude on their own? Nosleep  break my slumber 17:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Particularly, what I want to discourage is what appears on articles such as 2008 Giro d'Italia - tables without any prose at all. I'd sooner have just prose and ditch the tables entirely than have just tables like that. Nosleep  break my slumber 20:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm certainly with you on the need for articles to be more than just a series of tables. I would suggest that it is OK for a journalistic publication to comment on expectations for how a stage might finish, but that is not the role of an encyclopaedia. Some readers might be able to extrapolate from description to prediction, but for those who can't, it would be overstepping the brief of an encyclopaedia to provide a prediction.  Kevin McE (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Describing distances: in the interests of version neutral English, can we use km and m as often as possible please.
 * Mmm? You mean the abbreviations in particular? Why? Nosleep  break my slumber 17:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Like I said, to keep version neutral: avoids me having to fight my instinct to "correct" your meters to metres :@) Kevin McE (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, you're lucky I even use meters :P (I had a great chemistry teacher who drilled the Metric system). I honestly didn't know it was spelled differently in other varieties of English. And actually, it might be more correct to use "metres" anyway. My tendency to use "meters" and "color" and "May 11" ahead of "metres" and "colour" and "11 May" is not jingoism or even a conscious preference, it's just what I've used all my life, even though I'm fully cognizant of WP:ENGVAR. Nosleep  break my slumber 20:56, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No accusation that color is less worthy than colour (if peepul in yore cuntree need fonetik speling that is not yore fawlt :@} ), there is no common alternative that is used in both versions (tone? hue?), and once it is in place the principle of WP:Retain applies, but where variant specific vocabulary is avoidable, it is good to do so. Kevin McE (talk) 06:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry if this seems negative: the principle is great and very much needed, and this is a very valuable contribution. But we all need to try to make sure that whatever is decided is the best it can be, and the most suitable it can be for a universal encyclopaedia, not a specialist interest subsection.   Kevin McE (talk) 17:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't worry about being negative. If I have assumed consensus where one does not exist, that needs to be addressed, too. Nosleep  break my slumber 17:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And on a more obvious level, we have to start with something and go from there. If people mention things because they're opposed to them, it means a little more than simply answering a question. I probably could have phrased a lot more of this page in question form, but didn't. Nosleep  break my slumber 18:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Here are my answers:

0: jersey tables after stage descriptions seems more logical to me.

1: No. To me, it would not make clear that the race was over if a jersey is there. And someone not into cycling might really be confused.

2: No, that would be completely irrelevant.

3: Apart from the expected input from the Accessibility project: I would use only the most important classification. Most important in the sense as the organizers of the race chose it. In the Tour de France, if a cyclist leads the general and points classification, he wears only the yellow jersey, so the yellow jersey is more important than the green jersey. I think it is safe to assume that the teams classification jerseys are ranked lower than the individual jerseys. And an idea that just popped up: Why don't we use the jerseys instead of colors? Example:
 * Makes sense, I suppose. Having two or more for one rider in the stage table makes it look the rider wore both or all three jerseys, though, which is the reason shading for that table was restricted in the past. Nosleep  break my slumber 02:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * All the more reason why we should have a key, stating that the Jersey icon indicates the leader of a specific classification. And as it is leadership, rather than apparel, that is relevant, maybe the jersey progress section should be renamed. Kevin McE (talk) 06:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

4+5: I don't like the abandon tables that much, they don't give that much information. If a notable cyclist stopped the race, it should be included in the stage details. I see that it is "needed" to give complete information about all cyclists that entered the race, but I have no opinion on details.

Further comments:
 * In the Stages section, you advise to use a subsection for each stage. If I remember the MoS correctly, in the title of subsections you should not images. So not
 * Honestly, my only reason for preferring the flag there is aesthetics, but as I said, the nation should be mentioned in the brief stage profile. Nosleep  break my slumber 02:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

but And in fact, you should not wikilink headers, so it should be
 * 21 May, 2009 — La Pobla d'Illet > 🇦🇩 Vallnord Sector Pal - 175.7 km
 * 21 May, 2009 — La Pobla d'Illet > Vallnord Sector Pal (Andorra)- 175.7 km
 * It's table of contents headers that shouldn't link. So ==Stage 21== would be a no-no, but this is just a description of the text to follow. The table of contents header would be ==Stage 4== or whichever, unlinked. Nosleep  break my slumber 02:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You are right, ignore this comment. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 17:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, I think the use of the angle bracket (>) in this case is not universally clear, so it would be
 * 21 May, 2009 — La Pobla d'Illet > Vallnord Sector Pal (Andorra)- 175.7 km
 * 21 May, 2009 — La Pobla d'Illet to Vallnord Sector Pal (Andorra) (175.7 km)


 * In the stage results, you advise to shade colors reflecting jerseys worn in the stage. Although this is general usage, I think it is bad, as it adds little information. If the Accessability project should say that we can keep the colors in the tables, I would still remove the colors in the stage results.
 * Small thing: in the stage results, I would center the stage numbers.
 * Somewhere in the discussion of Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's road race, it was said that times should be in the 55:56:58 format, not 55h56'58", according to WP:MOSNUM. It was not clear to me if this rule was applied correctly, but this should be solved before this is made a guideline. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Nosleep  break my slumber 02:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm an idiot
We don't need full GC/withdrawals in a race article, that's what List of teams and cyclists in the 2009 Tour of Foobar is for. There's a field that takes up almost no space in the tables that are used in the teams list article that's for final placing, and I've been filling it in exact replication of information in the race article. Clearly this is unnecessary! This does lose time relative to race champion and reason for withdrawal, but for a notable cyclist unexpectedly withdrawing from a race or a notable withdrawal (doping, a particularly spectacular injury, etc.) it should be mentioned in the cyclist's article, and time to race champion is interesting to me and maybe some of us, but beyond 10 it's probably stretching what's suitable for a general interest encyclopedia.

I don't see how there can be any problem with this, so I'd advise taking out full GC/withdrawals in race articles post haste. One question does remain, though - we currently only do teams/riders lists for the Grand Tours. This information is available in any race, though. Is there a reason we can't/shouldn't have, say, List of teams and cyclists in the 2009 Tour of California?

I think we should come up with some formal proposals for shading and stage profiles, and then determine which fits us best. At that point, the stage race style guide should write itself :P Nosleep  break my slumber 02:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

New questions
A new series of questions has now been put at the bottom of the page. We seemed to reach consensus on the others, so here's what I figured as still needing discussion after the above conversation. My answers:

My favorite for the tables is probably Proposal #2. I think it's a lot more accessible than the shading, and it looks kinda cool. I don't like Proposal #3 or #4, I think giving incomplete information is pretty much useless, and it also comes close to committing the cardinal sin of being decorative without being informative. It can be reasonably expected that everyone who reads an article on a stage race knows that the overall leader is given some sort of special jersey (if they don't know this, they can be reasonably expected to read more basic articles first before reading about a particular stage race - we don't need to explain what stage races are hundreds of times in hundreds of different articles). So only reflecting that leading jersey, in the case of when he holds another, doesn't actually give any information. I would consider Proposal #6 palatable, but only as a last resort. Proposals #7 and #8 are a bit sloppy - they would give the impression that a rider is wearing two or three jerseys during a stage when of course he is wearing only one.

For the stage headers, I like an emdash between the date and the start town, a right-facing caret between the start and end towns, and an emdash between the end town and the stage distance. I'd like the flag in the header, but I'm not wedded to that. I think the colons are probably more accessible for times in these tables.

If there is more that still needs discussion, please edit the page to reflect the questions you would like to ask. Nosleep break my slumber 09:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't really have a preference about including or not including (ITT) or (TTT). While the majority of stages are road races and thus the disambiguation makes a certain amount of sense, the length should also be a giveaway. Even an exceptionally long time trial will be shorter than an exceptionally short road race (the ongoing Giro d'Italia seems to prove this - there's a 60km ITT and an 83km road race later on in the Giro). Nosleep  break my slumber 08:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I slightly disagree about your statistics: the longest TTT in the Tour de France was 153 km (in 1978), and the longest ITT was 139 km (in 1947). In recent years (since 1990), the 70 km TTT in 2000 and the 65 km ITT in 1992 come to mind. In contrast, the shortest regular stage in the Tour de France was the 28 km stage in 1972. In recent years, the 115 km stage in 1991 seems the shortest. This has nothing to do with the argument, but I just like these statistics ;)
 * But seriously, I would recommend to include the stage type in the overall stage description table and in the stage description text, but not in the the stage title.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Neat. How the hell do you have a 28km road race? Remember, though, this style guide is for a short stage race. A short stage race will not have a stage description table - that's just for Grand Tours (since there will be so many stage profiles, they need to be put into separate articles). Nosleep  break my slumber 09:51, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Short stage race, must remember that... I got confused because you mentioned the giro ;). In that case I prefer to put in the guideline that (ITT) or (TTT) should not be included in the stage description title. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 13:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

EdgeNavidad's reply
Stage tables: I also prefer proposal #2. A legend for these jerseys is needed, but that is important information anyhow: in Giro d'Italia articles, the pink jersey should be explained always, even if it's just one sentence.

I think the emdash and hyphen are not allowed according to MOS:DASH. The endash is acceptable because endash role 2 in that guideline. That leaves the options endash, comma or nothing. My favourite is te endash here.
 * Between the date and the start town
 * Good find. Nosleep  break my slumber 08:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

For the same reason (MOS:DASH), we can not use an emdash or a hyphen. Here I prefer the word "to". The endash is allowed in role 1 of the guideline, but I would avoid it if we also use an endash between the date and the start town. I would use option six: (110 km). If you don't like a sixth option, I prefer option four, the comma.
 * Between the start and end towns
 * Between the end town and the stage distance
 * Go ahead and edit that option in. It works for me. Nosleep  break my slumber 08:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I really can not care about this one ;) I would prefer option two: don't put it in the title. I don't really care which one we choose, but I think it should be in the guideline, otherwise we will see all kinds of variants. I prefer h ' ", but I don't know if that will cause problems once an article gets reviewed.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 07:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * For stages that leave the race's primary nation
 * Stages that are individual time trials or team time trials (I added this)
 * Time in stage and intermediate GC tables

Another for #2
I like the jersey icon only approach, mainly because it would remedy the problem that occurs when the red-jersey wearer does not have a wikipedia page (red-on-red). Also, the white jersey shading is not usually visible against the off-white background. It doesn't really matter to me where the jersey icon goes, whether next to the rider's name or next to the number.
 * It would be next to the rider's name. Next to the number is a bit messy. Nosleep  break my slumber 06:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, most of the other proposals confuse the hell out of me. Honestly, since I've started contributing, I've just tried to mimic the format of the last year's article for that race, so it will be nice to have some consensus.
 * That's a really reasonable way to do things. Nosleep  break my slumber 06:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I like the ITT/TTT in the stage title.

It came up in the Giro article, is it written somewhere that we use "s.t." instead of listing every individual time? Malo0178 (talk) 20:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a common convention in cycling results to use "s.t." for times that are the same as the leading time (so if riders are tied two seconds after the stage winner, we'd list all of them as +2 seconds). If there's an overriding Wikipedia guideline, I'm not familiar with it. Nosleep  break my slumber 06:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking it could be in this style guide, if there is an appropriate place for it. I think it should always be done (s.t., that is) as it indicates at a glance the groups that finished together. Malo0178 (talk) 12:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I cannot find that common convention that s.t. is only listed for times the same as the leading time. [letour.fr] just lists all the times, [memoire-du-cyclisme.net] lists nothing if the time is the same as the previous cyclist, in the olympic results " if used to show that the time is the same as the previous cyclist, cyclingnews shows nothing, uci shows all the times, l'equipe uses m.t. (the French version of s.t.) always, the BBC uses "same time" everywhere. It looks like every source has its own style, but I can not find any source using s.t. only for times the same as the leading time. Not the official sources, not newspapers, no source at all. I checked only the online sources I could think of, maybe the paper versions are different? --EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh. Well I guess it's not as common as I thought then. . What do we want to do? Nosleep break my slumber 10:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Your sources show that it is used, I forgot about the vuelta! For accessibility reasons, I think we should use the time everywhere or use "same time" everywhere, not shortened to "s.t.". For layout reasons, "same time" might be too long (I haven't checked this!). Can we "defend" the use of something else than the time? How important is it to use "s.t" or something similar? --EdgeNavidad (talk) 14:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, the one thing you're never going to see on a cycling website is '+ 0"' for riders finishing with the same time as the stage winner. I know we're not a cycling website, but I think that would look, well, dorky in actual practice. I don't really have a problem with using a shorthand for riders tied but behind the stage winner, it's just not what I'm used to doing. Nosleep  break my slumber 21:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So the UCI website does not count as a cycling website? :p --EdgeNavidad (talk) 08:04, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, well, I still think that looks goofy. I would prefer to do almost anything else. Nosleep  break my slumber 11:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The ideas that seem to still be under discussion:
 * Classification leadership: icons (with alt text for the benefit of casual visitors) rather than shading, but only for leaders of classifications, not for those second or third in a category carrying the jumper.
 * I'm gonna declare consensus achieved on this one. I think I need to slightly tweak the alt text I used for this on 2009 Volta a Catalunya to say "Valverde was awarded the white jersey as General Classification leader," but otherwise I think we've found a winning proposal here. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that's unnecessarily detailed: I'd go for The Yellow jersey is awarded to the leader on overall time(GC is jargon), The polka dot jersey is awarded to the leader of the mountains competition and the green jersey is awarded to the leader of the points competition: no need to change the alt text each time it is awarded. Kevin McE (talk) 07:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't really see any problem with it, though, even if it is 'too detailed' (unless you go waaaaayyyyy off the deep end, 'too detailed' can almost never be a problem). And if "general classification" is jargon, how is "points classification" not? I wouldn't want to say "The green jersey is awarded to the rider who most consistently has high places in stage finishes," but "points classification" is not really a term that's immediately accessible (particularly since the "points classification" and the "mountains classification" are both awarded "points," different though they are in nature - this greatly confused me when I first became interested in cycling). Honestly, though, there are wikilinks in a very visible place (the jersey table) that offer explanations to all of this - we can (and probably should) find places for them in prose as well. Nosleep  break my slumber 18:08, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Time: I would only use the three colons for time of day, never for duration; stick with h ' " (Are we meant to use some code rather than the apostrophe and speech marks?)
 * By the strictest definition, yeah I think so. Something like &prime; which (if I even got it right) looks exactly like '. We'll stick with h ' " for now, but the reviewers for our FA, the last Olympic road race, preferred the colons. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Time gaps: s.t. might mean nothing to non-cycling followers, it needs alt text, a key, or linkage.  Alternative: is it worth showing same time by stretching the column?  Our obligation is to Wikipedia's presentation style, not any cycling site's.  What is maybe more a concern is the clarification of intervals.  A casual visitor may not know whether, in the 2009 Volta a Catalunya, Zubeldia finished 22 seconds behind Martin, or 22 behind Valverde.
 * I think both of these are actually reasonably well covered by article prose. Every stage race has at least one stage that ends in a mass sprint, and the stage recap will say that, so it's clear what "s.t." means for that stage, and the reader can then extrapolate for other stages (though those are probably also made clear in prose). Time gaps being relative to the overall leader should also be covered in prose. I'm not tied to "s.t.", if there's a reasonable alternative to it, that'd be okay. I'll even grit my teeth and accept "+0" " if that's what everyone wants. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll be honest: I just don't think that the coverage in prose will happen: it rarely does at present. I'll take the liberty of posting a few alternatives on the subpage, and suggest that others do likewise, to illustrate our options.  (hmm: having now done so, I think my favourite is the dittos: quick to type, same function as S.T. but universally understandable.  Not sure why the colspan option hasn't displayed as I would have wanted: if anyone can fix it so that it doesn't have the cell separation for times between Petacchi and Cavendish on the stage, and between Renshaw and Rogers on the overall, please do so!) 07:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the ditto marks a little problematic, since we use the same symbol (") to mean seconds in the times for the stage winner and intermediate GC. Frankly, what else could "s.t." mean? I totally get not wanting to assume that our readers are cycling fans (although, honestly, they probably are), but I think we can also not assume them to be complete idiots. I don't know, I guess it's just hard for me to think about this from the perspective of a non-fan. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:19, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The "definite s.t. once" option is probably the best, but I would not use s.t. at all in intermediate GC tables, except for teammates who legitimately did get the same time on the road in a team time trial. More than "same time," "s.t." indicates that riders crossed the line in the same group, and two or more riders tied behind (or with) the GC leader almost assuredly weren't in the same group on the road. Nosleep  break my slumber 06:52, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Indication of time trials: yes, and in my opinion the stage type icons add nothing on those tables for grand tours. Must be links, not just letters.
 * Stage start or finish outside home nation: name country in brackets: more people will recognise the letters A, N, D, O, R, R and A than will be familiar with that flag: Luxembourg and Dutch flags very similar.
 * Got it, seems I'm outvoted on this one. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Punctuation of stage headers: I really can't get excited to argue for or against any reasonable presentation.
 * I used an endash, "to," and a comma on 2009 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, and I think that works. It's what I'll continue to use unless there's a problem. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I seem paranoid for the protection of casual visitors, but these pages can't become treated just as an alternative results service for the cognoscenti. I was interested to read about Rebecca Romero after her olympic success, only to find that the rowing community assumed that anyone would understand their sport's jargon abbreviations like 1x and 2- (apparently single sculls and coxless pairs respectively): we shouldn't make equivalent errors. Kevin McE (talk) 22:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, your "paranoia" is great. I think we can expect a little from readers, but accessibility should always be a high concern. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

More on the points currently being discussed: I think "s.t." has been done enough that we could use it without explanation. Otherwise, I would be okay with the ditto mark as a alternative. I would recommend ITT/TTT in the title with wikilinks for explanation.

Severo's replies

 * Times - It was questioned at the Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's road race FA but when taken up at WT:MOSNUM it was taken as an incorrect application and that the guideline didn't say anything. We should possibly take this back to MOSNUM, get something put in to say "it doesn't matter" when noting total time in a table.
 * Key - Jerseys should be covered by a key, as mentioned above.
 * Foreign countries' flags - pretty sure the use of "Andorra 🇦🇩" in titles and prose is ruled out by WP:FLAGS.
 * I don't think that was ever proposed. Any use of the flag would have been " 🇦🇩 Vallnord Sector Pal (Andorra) ", which I think looks kinda cool, but it's not necessary at all. Nosleep  break my slumber 01:24, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Great work so far chaps :) SeveroTC 00:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to mash out the first draft for a Grand Tour style guide in the next little while here. Most of what we've decided here will transfer over, though not all. After that will be a style guide for a one-day race, and I'm gonna need some help with that one - most of my knowledge and experience is with stage races (that Olympic road race might actually be the only one-day race I've ever watched). Nosleep break my slumber 01:24, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Another accessibility concern
And I'm surprised it took this long for anyone to think of it - the jersey tables. They're great, and I love having them, but the fact that they reflect jerseys awarded on the podium after the stage and not jerseys worn during the stage is quite a bit less than obvious. If memory serves, this has even confused prolific WP:CYC contributors before. It's especially compounded by the notes below the table telling who wore a jersey as second placed in the classification when the same rider leads another (which I think are immensely valuable in any case). We need to add some sort of explanatory language to the...hundreds of jersey tables in existence and start doing this in the future, too. Nosleep break my slumber
 * Seems to me that it is most easily solved by changing the title: they show leadership of category. Besides, there are not jerseys for team competition or combativity, so it was always an erroneous header.  Kevin McE (talk) 06:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's another good point, although I don't really see how it solves the problem I first mentioned. A cursory check of cycling articles from other languages shows phrases like Évolution des classements and Evoluzione delle classifiche used as headers for the same section. We'd do well to come up with something equivalent in English. "Evolution of the classifications" sounds weird as hell, though, any other ideas? Nosleep  break my slumber 15:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Category leadership history? Category leadership progress?  Progression of category leadership?  Changing the title solves both the potential confusion of "he wasn't wearing polka dots, he was wearing yellow", and my observation about the categories not marked with jerseys.  It seems intuitive to me that it reports what happens after the stage: after all, it says who the stage winner was, and that is not normally known until the end of the stage, and it shows awards on stage one, when obviously no-one wears a leader's jersey.  A simple sentence below the header to the effect of The following table shows the leader of each of the categories at the end of each day's racing might be useful.  I would suggest that the info about who actually wore a jersey without leading the category is not of lasting relevance, and therefore not relevant to an encyclopaedia, even if it might be handy to someone using Wikipedia as a viewers' guide while watching a live broadcast.  Kevin McE (talk) 21:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the 'caretaker' wearers are significant enough for a few sentences' mention. And if they aren't, well, then let's take this to its logical extreme: what's the significance of leading the KOM in the Tour de France after stage 3, when all you've done is be in the breakaway to get over a couple bumps in the road first? What's the significance of leading the points classification for a day by virtue of winning the prologue? Only the leader's jersey (and even then, maybe only in the Tour de France) is something that's really seen as a career highlight when 'worn' but not 'won.' Everybody remembers Thomas Voeckler wearing (but not winning) the yellow jersey in the 2004 Tour de France, but I doubt even Voeckler cares that he wore (but did not win) the polka-dot jersey four years later. Now, I'm not suggesting that we should remove intermediate classification leaders, but I think they're of equivalent significance to the 'caretaker' jersey wearers.
 * And I think "classification leadership progression" sounds ok. Nosleep  break my slumber 22:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

For which races does this apply?
I see that you changed the introduction to "For a short stage race, one with ten or fewer stages (as it does not seem that there are races of more than ten stages other than the Grand Tours), the following style guidelines should apply.", where it used to be eight stages. If you find a race with 11 stages, will you change the introduction again?

I think it is better to explicitly say that the guideline is for stage races (races of two or more stages), excluding grand tours (tour, giro and vuelta). I think that is what you mean, so say it that way. I looked at the rules to see if there is a maximum length, but I can only find that a 'grand tour' should be 15 to 23 days (including rest days), for UCI historic races the maximum length is the length in 2004 (or 5 days), and for protour races it is determined by the protour council (article 2.6.007).--EdgeNavidad (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Longest I can think of is Vuelta al Táchira, 12 stages. I think it would be easier to say stages races excluding Grand Tours. SeveroTC 17:51, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So edit the darn thing. I know it's got my name on it, but that's only because I'm the one who started it. But moreover, we've done individual articles on the Tour de Suisse before (lacking though they are) - we've never done one on the Vuelta al Táchira (which I had to click on to know that, I've never heard of that race). Is there are any reason there are races for which we've never done individual articles? The Tour of Belgium is going on right now, but there are no articles on individual editions of that, for example. Honestly, the distinction isn't so much short race/Grand Tour as it is strictly in the number of stages. Eight or nine stages, and the article follows WP:SIZE; 20 or 21, it doesn't. I honestly don't know about 11 or 12. Nosleep  break my slumber 18:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't edit it because I didn't know what your intention was... At first I thought this was meant for stage races of 8 or less stages, and stage races with 9 or more stages would be covered in a "Long stage race". But when you changed 8 to 9, and then 9 to 10, it looked like there was another division. I'm glad it's sorted out now. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 10:02, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I made it clearer. For now, this guide is for any stage race that is not a Grand Tour. If someone writes an article on an individual edition of the Vuelta al Táchira or the best example, the Vuelta a Colombia (15 stages; 2009 edition currently ongoing), we can revisit that. It may well be that the 12-stage Táchira wouldn't violate WP:SIZE by following this guideline, though I have to imagine the Vuelta a Colombia would. Nosleep  break my slumber 15:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Two more MOS considerations

 * Participating teams - surely this over-emphasising nationality (MOS:FLAG). I have a problem with assigning "nationality" to teams because half the time it's an arbitrary country of registration.
 * That link says nationality should not be assigned without a good reason. I see no reason why assigning nationality to a team is any worse than assigning nationality to a rider (did Sastre win the Tour de France for Team CSC, or did he win it for Spain?). This is not a case of nationalistic pride being advanced. Nosleep  break my slumber 19:41, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Before I started editing on Wikipedia, there were few people who put much effort into cycle racing. In articles from those times, we see two ways nationality is mentioned, either with a full flag template, or not at all (compare 2006 Paris-Nice and 2006 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré). We've now moved towards the use of flagathlete and it makes a nice compromise for athletes, noting their nationality but not going overboard about it. You will still some articles where a cyclists nationality is noted with flag but the team isn't even mentioned. I would argue the team is more important. However, the nationality is always noted, by the results service, by organisers, on captions etc. Also, like it or not, cyclists are representing their country (as a tertiary concern after themselves and their team) and gaining points towards it. Also, they are eligible to compete for their country and in national championships. The nationality of an athlete is worth mentioning, but of much lesser importance than themselves or their team. The same cannot be said of teams. At the higher levels, cycling teams (the French aside) do not compete in a national league or competition. They have absolutely no obligation to the country they are registered in. The same cannot be said of many sports. Teams do not win points for their federation or represent them at any level. SeveroTC 20:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I fully agree here. Take registered in Ireland for example. Malo0178 (talk) 19:18, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So what would you propose instead? I think there needs to be some way of sorting the teams. I really wouldn't want just an alphabetical list - why even have something like that? A list of ~20 teams is too big to have in prose, so we need something here. Nosleep  break my slumber 19:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why does there need to be any way of sorting the teams? There's no convincing case for it. Just put them in a table. SeveroTC 20:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Why indeed? It does what it says on the tin, tells the reader what teams are in the competition.  Why do we need decorative colourful ways of adding incidental info that is of at best technical legal interest? Kevin McE (talk) 20:55, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So let's just make our articles as ugly as possible, then. Nosleep  break my slumber 21:58, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I would have to agree. Arranging them under the flags looks cute, but I think it would work just fine to have a table of participating teams without nationalities. Malo0178 (talk) 21:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And I don't think it's really that arbitrary. What would be wrong would be to call LPR Italian. Sure, their ridership is mostly (or is it all?) Italian and they're thought of as an Italian team, but is what they're "thought of" backed up by reliable sources? I know you're not proposing this, but would we really group teams by their "perceived" identity? Would that make Astana Kazakhstani or American? I just don't see this. Nosleep  break my slumber 19:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I remember a few years ago people kept trying to change the "nationalities" of teams on their articles to what they perceived to be the nationality (usually of the majority of riders or the main sponsor - and yes Astana were subjected to this quite a lot). We argued at the time that the only non-arbitrary method of giving a team a country was to note it's base. It's still not perfect and something we will probably have to revisit at some stage (such as changing the categories from to ). My choice of the word arbitrary is probably a bit misguided - I'm sure the teams have a reason for registering wherever they register and don't just pick a country out of a hat. It is an interesting fact for their articles but it doesn't travel much further. SeveroTC 20:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Stage distances - should be in km and miles (MOS:CONVERSIONS)
 * Is there a quick template-ish way of doing this? If so, edit it in to the style guide. Nosleep  break my slumber 19:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done (convert). SeveroTC 21:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

SeveroTC 19:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Look, just edit this page (and the other one) with a few options, or whatever you think is best if you have something in particular in mind. I just don't think two or three lines of text (which is what this will be if the teams aren't sorted somehow) should have a TOC header. Maybe that's the issue, then, take that out, I don't know. Nosleep break my slumber 22:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Can you guys do me a favor with future style guides - actually read them? It seems everyone and their brother is in agreement on this, and my guideline for something entirely different was in place the entire time, for a good ten days after people first started coming here. If you object to something, do tell, but it's important that you don't unwittingly reflect tacit agreement with things you do object to by not raising the point. I don't care if everyone disagrees with everything I put out in a first draft, we just need to get it out there, and we need to have a starting point. Nosleep break my slumber 19:39, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The "problem" is that your first draft looked fine. And although I could see some minor corrections, most of the small details that you didn't see, won't be seen by me until somebody else points them out, even if I read it ten times. If one if the questions were "should the stage lengths be given only in km or also in mi?", then I would have answered it immediately, but I the question never came up in my head, I liked the way it was. I am afraid that if we want to make a good styleguide, we can not do it by just reading it once, but several iterations are needed, maybe also from persons outside the project.
 * But here is some detail that I found: in the result tables, do we want to make the winner's row bold? Here are three options: (only the first two rows are included)

Option one: make the first column (ranks) bold for every cyclist, and nothing else.

Option two: make only the row for the first cyclist bold, excluding his time. Option three: make only the entire row for the first cyclist bold, nothing else. Option four: no bolding at all. If the MoS allows it (I have no idea), I would prefer option three. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 08:27, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Minor preference for no bolding (we can see that they are top from the fact that they are at the top of the column), but I can't feel very strongly either way. Kevin McE (talk) 10:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I forgot that option :S. I have to agree that no bolding is the most logical thing. Not that it matters much... --EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

There's another way to do option 1 - using ! instead of | (which also gives a grey background as it's a "row heading"): I don't have a strong preference to any of them, but standardisation would be nice :) SeveroTC 13:34, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

All right, well, there's a lot to cull here. I haven't been feeling well the last few days, so I've mainly been doing some lightweight work here. Give me a little time to revise the page (or if anyone else wants to, go ahead). Nosleep break my slumber 01:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it seems pretty well updated. Good job, people. Nosleep break my slumber 15:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)