User talk:Lajamibr

Football in Australia
Please read Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Football in Australia)/Archive 4, and stop wasting everyone's time, including your own. HiLo48 (talk) 08:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * We try to keep discussions in the one place. Your arguments are pointless. That earlier discussion was moderated by an Administrator from the UK. The ruling is binding. Stop wasting your time. HiLo48 (talk) 10:53, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh, and several editors were blocked and topic banned for doing the kind of thing you have been doing. Please stop. HiLo48 (talk) 10:57, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah thats certainly fair to have a handful of people with a moderator from the UK decide what the entire world will be calling the game of football in Australia. Give someone the smallest bit of power over something and look how they behave. Well done to you, you get to oppress the sport just a little longer in this country but don't worry only ethnics will care about this right, 'real aussies' know that its called soccer. Heres a thought maybe the people who support the game, play the game, and love the game get to decide what the sport is called not people like you who think they have the right to dictate. I'm sure this message will have absolutely no effect on you as you sit there at your computer feverishly editing other peoples wikipedia pages to your preferences. Lajamibr (talk) 11:11, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Lajamibr, I am Australian, I am a football (association football) fan, and I agree that it is the better term, but that isn't what the consensus on Wikipedia is. It is always going to be a controversial discussion, but the edits you are making (such as the copy-and-paste moves) are disruptive.  Please read the links provided above, familiarise yourself with the rules and guidelines a bit first.  Let me know if you'd like any help with this.  -- Chuq (talk) 12:02, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I understand but just because a handful of people on Wikipedia have come to a so called consensus doesn't make it right. The only evidence that should matter is that the governing body is FOOTBALL Federation Australia, we are part of the Asian FOOTBALL Federation and the teams that play in this country have FC in their name such as Melbourne Victory FOOTBALL Club. Im sure I'll get banned and I'm not following the rules but nobody asked me my opinion when they decided to change the name of my sport. Nobody who has anything to do with the game calls it Soccer only people who don't like the game call it this. The reasons for changing the name to Soccer are ludicrous, nobody is going to be confused by the term football in the context that it is being used there is no other team called 'Australia national football team' so where is the confusion, by the way it is not just Australians who will be searching, half the world will be confused by the term Soccer. If they are going to get away with this its not going to be without disruption from me. Lajamibr (talk) 12:15, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Fun fact: Did you know that the term "soccer" was actually invented in England as a nickname for the game (derived from the "soc" in the word association, and follows the slang for words like brekker for breakfast)? --SuperJew (talk) 13:19, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I am well aware of the history of the term and as I said to HiLo48 Its not the term soccer that I have an issue with its the use of the term and the fact that people who have nothing to do with the game think they have the right to tell me what it should be called. I am in no way ethnic or european I am typical Australian and all of my life "Real Australians" have told me how Un-Australian I am for playing and supporting "the round ball game", "Wog ball" or "Sokka" and can't even give us the respect of letting us call the sport what we want to call it. Again I have no problem with calling it Soccer I have a problem with people denying me the right to call it football which is what I, as well as everyone else involved in the game here in Australia, like to call it. It is one of the only forms of prejudice I have faced on a regular basis in my life and I take offence to it (The idea that I am somehow Un-Australian for the game I love). This is what the real issue is here and it can't be denied. If the problem was that people would somehow be confused by the use of the term football they could have simply had a redirect when people search Australia + Soccer to the football page but no as usual they have to get one up on us and impose their views on what "Australians" should call it. Lajamibr (talk) 13:31, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

In Australia, the use of "soccer" is declining as "football" is rising. The sports pages of most newspapers reflect this. I'm happy to revisit the matter. It would be lovely to have a discussion on the matter with other editors seeking light rather than heat. --Pete (talk) 15:37, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Pete, apart from among some of the fans of the game, the use of "soccer" is not declining on the other side of the Barassi Line from where you now live. All the media you see is also from that other side of the line. Come back to Melbourne for a while and see what I mean. The school where I have recently taught, the home of a Socceroo, has "football" teams and "soccer" teams. Anyway, the argument was had. It was bitter. A number of soccer fans behaved so poorly they received serious blocks and topic bans. It didn't help their case. Nothing significant has changed since then. There is no reason to re-open discussion on such a dangerous topic. HiLo48 (talk) 19:53, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This is exactly what annoys me so much, who made you the authority on football/soccer. Your argument is basically that you and your friends don't like to call it football because you are AFL fans. You've proven my point that you are biased and simply pushing your own agenda here by constantly referring to this Barassi line all you are doing is adding to this mentality of us vs them where you will do whatever you can to make sure 'soccer' can't get ahead in this country because you see it as a secondary sport. You state your opinions as if they were facts trying to convince people that no one calls it football. No one person can possibly say what the majority of people in Australia call a certain sport you can simply state what you and the people around you call it, I have already stated that I know very few people who call it soccer rather than football, what does this prove. You are clearly an AFL fan and that is the source of your motivation here. If there is a push in the media and by the sports governing body etc. to move to the term Football then Wikipedia, as the widest used source of information on the internet, should certainly follow suit. Again I will say that if the sport is run by FOOTBALL Federation Australia and we are part of the Asian FOOTBALL Federation where the teams are known as FOOTBALL Clubs and the fans of the game wish to call it FOOTBALL then maybe its going to be far more confusing for people when they come across Wikipedia articles where it is referred to as Soccer. You are basically asking us to cater to the AFL fans who don't like 'soccer' and don't believe its fans deserve to call it by what they want. I really don't see how saying "Me and my friends who have nothing to do with the sport call it soccer so it should be called soccer" is a valid argument. Lajamibr (talk) 10:19, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * And Pete thank you for acknowledging the logic in the argument for using the term Football. I would gladly have a calm discussion on the matter and the only reason I resorted to doing and saying the things I did is because it is frustrating how futile it is discussing such matters with AFL fans, why shouldn't it be up to the fans of the sport to decide what they call it it just doesn't make sense to me how there is even an argument. Lajamibr (talk) 10:24, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Let us engage with those editors who use well-sourced facts to underscore their positions, and disengage from those who use their own opinions. They are welcome to their deeply-held personal views, but if such folk depend unsourced opinion to edit Wikipedia they have missed the point. An easy way to determine what sort of person you are dealing with is to ask what source informs their views. If they have links to reliable sources, all well and good. We can engage with such people and determine the truth. If, on the other hand they use personal anecdotes and their own opinions, they have no solid basis for discussion; they see their own views as overriding anything and everything.
 * I commend Plato's Gorgias to you. There is a delightful passage there. Socrates says, You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great experience of disputations, and you must have observed, I think, that they do not always terminate in mutual edification, or in the definition by either party of the subjects which they are discussing; but disagreements are apt to arise — somebody says that another has not spoken truly or clearly; and then they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing from personal feeling only and jealousy of themselves, not from any interest in the question at issue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one another until the company at last are quite vexed at themselves for ever listening to such fellows. Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot help feeling that you are now saying what is not quite consistent or accordant with what you were saying at first about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of my sort, I should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you alone. And what is my sort? you will ask. I am one of those who are very willing to be refuted if I say anything which is not true, and very willing to refute any one else who says what is not true, and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as the gain is greater of being cured of a very great evil than of curing another. For I imagine that there is no evil which a man can endure so great as an erroneous opinion about the matters of which we are speaking; and if you claim to be one of my sort, let us have the discussion out, but if you would rather have done, no matter; — let us make an end of it.
 * Consider whether your interlocutor is speaking from facts or from ego. Engage with facts, eschew ego. --Pete (talk) 11:35, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello Pete I understand and appreciate what you're saying but I'm not entirely sure who the message of ego was directed at. I would like to think my argument is sound in its logic when considered without the emotion even though I haven't linked to other Wikipedia pages for evidence. If infact you were referring to the other side of the argument then I would agree with you but don't know what you are suggesting. It could be interpreted that you're telling me to just let it go and that's not going to happen. I fail to see any successful resolution in this matter that doesn't end with the term football allowed to be used. Surely in a just world those being denied a right should prevail over those doing the oppressing. I know I am being a little dramatic but in this country where sport is so important to so many people it is a big issue and a personal one. If you believe the argument is about anything other than people wanting to call the game football and others who don't want them to be able to because they don't believe the sport deserves it then you are wrong. Soccer is used by many as a way to tell soccer fans that their sport is no good and does not deserve the title of football that is the issue behind all of this nothing else. Of course some people merely call it soccer because everyone around them does or because it says so on Wikipedia and that's the issue here. Lajamibr (talk) 14:23, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * No, I wasn't referring to you. In Wikipedia we are required to use reliable sources; we cannot just insert our own opinions into the article. There is one famous case of an author being reverted in an edit he made to an article on one of his books because he wasn't a secondary source. We really need good reliable secondary sources, and that basically means reporting or commentary in the media. So whatever an editor says here without any backup is just opinion and therefore useless, no matter how forcefully expressed and no matter how strongly they believe it. There are some editors here who battle here on that basis and when they are eventually forced into finding some facts to support their opinion it is evident that they have been wasting everyone's time. So I encourage you to find a reliable source up front. Sources. Put them into a bullet point list.
 * When I say disengage from those who rely on opinion, I don't mean to let the matter drop. Far from it. I mean to refrain from time-wasting behaviour by indulging their ego. Some editors are happy to talk round and round in circles and the end result is inaction and frustration.
 * I think we can get this matter back on the table. When someone says the common name is soccer and they have no sources to support this, then they are running on empty. The official name of the sport is Association Football, or more commonly, just Football. The tide is flowing in that direction and has been for twenty years, no matter how much some editors remain wedged in the Fifties. --Pete (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

November 2014
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, articles should not be moved, as you did to Australia national soccer team, without good reason. They need to have a name that is both accurate and intuitive. Wikipedia has some guidelines in place to help with this. Generally, a page should only be moved to a new title if the current name doesn't follow these guidelines. Also, if a page move is being discussed, consensus needs to be reached before anybody moves the page. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Hack (talk) 12:10, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * And did you say the same thing when the page was moved from its original title to its current one. There is an extremely good reason why I moved the page and its because it was wrong, the sport is not called Soccer in this country you merely have to look at the name of the governing body, the confederation we play in, and the name of the teams that play in this country i.e. Sydney F.C (hint: the F doesnt stand for soccer) I know a discussion should be had but clearly reason wasn't listened to in the last discussion and I'm simply restoring facts to wikipedia rather than personal opinion Lajamibr (talk) 12:19, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * There was extensive discussion before the change to "Soccer". The policy that carried the most weight was WP:COMMONNAME. A sporting body changing it's name does not change the common name for the whole population of Australia. This includes the majority that aren't serious fans of the game. HiLo48 (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Showing your bias again, believe it or not but it is a hugely popular sport in this country and I would bet its popularity is greater than that of any other sport. Do not confuse fans of the A-league with fans of the sport itself because the majority of 'soccer' fans do not support the A-league but are fans of the game none the less. By the way Wikipedia is on the WORLD WIDE WEB if we are going to be using common names then Football wins hands down, unless of course this is www.wikipedia.vic.AFL then you have a point Lajamibr (talk) 10:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This is not about me and my biases. (And if you learnt more of my background, you might be surprised about what those biases might be.) All I did was tell you that the basis of the decision made in the consensus discussion was WP:COMMONNAME. That's the way things work on Wikipedia. It cannot be about what you describe as an official name. There is really no such thing for any sport. The word "official" has no real meaning in this context. HiLo48 (talk) 10:38, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Your argument would have some merit if it wasn't for the fact that football is infact a widely used term used to describe the sport in this country including fans and the media. In every example given in that article the common names are almost exclusively used in relation to the topic i.e. nobody, including the media, calls lady gaga or bono by their real name because nobody, not just a few, would know what you are talking about. You would be hard pressed to find a single person in Australia that wouldn't accept that football was the most common name for soccer throughout the world, so I don't see how that argument applies. Everyone, including Australians know the sport as both soccer and football so why not use the preferred term of everyone involved in the game. Not one person would be confused by the term football when on the A-league article for example. The only time I accept that soccer should be used is when discussing multiple codes at once i.e. Aussie rules, Rugby league, Rugby Union, and Soccer. In the overwhelming majority of articles found on Wikipedia this is not the case. There is also absolutely no way you can possibly say that the majority of Australians call the sport soccer it is just a ludicrous statement based off of your perception of Australia. Again I will tell you that in my world there are very few people who refer to the sport as soccer rather than football but this proves nothing.Lajamibr (talk) 10:55, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Again, this is not about what you or I think right now. It's about what a very firmly moderated consensus process decided eight moths ago, and why. If you have the patience, have a read. There is no point arguing with me now about about the reasons and the decision. HiLo48 (talk) 11:16, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * What an absurd thing it is to call that process a consensus. Had I known about it I could have very easily had 50 people in that discussion to reach the consensus that I wanted. Would you be happy to let it go if that was the case. Perhaps I should go about reopening the discussion and have it go my way? The one and only reason you want me to drop this is because the outcome you wanted was reached if it had of been the other way around you'd be doing everything you could to change it. Lajamibr (talk) 11:22, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * You're making this all about me. I won't play that game. Goodnight. HiLo48 (talk) 11:25, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This discussion is between me and you why would it be about anyone else. You are quite clearly the one that made the biggest push for the use of the term soccer and the one monitoring for anyone who dares to go against the 9 people and moderator who decided they represented Australia. I look forward to hearing from you once this decision has been rectified. Lajamibr (talk) 11:30, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Request
I read the long discussions above. If you wish to revisit the consensus established in March, you would first of all need to start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Football in Australia). Working against that consensus and especially edit-warring will result in a block. I would very much rather avoid this. --John (talk) 07:32, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

John above is a good egg. Listen to him well. The way forward is not to engage with or attack other editors. Some have their minds made up beyond all reason and it is pointless to attempt to sway them. There is a long list of editors who had the same intention - to rationalise the naming of Association Football articles - and found themselves goaded into making some serious transgression against the rules that govern Wikipedia and consequently blocked out of any discussion. That's the way some editors operate. As indeed we see in football, where fouls may be called against the opposing team by feigning injury. You have been warned.

I suggest you study up on how things are done here - ask for assistance if need be, and it will be freely given. Most editors are happy to advise and help newcomers. Let's work on something achievable, first.

Now you mentioned the name of Sydney FC. I've looked at the article and I think we can work on a few things there. You know your football better than I do, and I dare say I know how Wikipedia works a little better than you do. We can educate each other. --Pete (talk) 12:41, 20 November 2014 (UTC)


 * John, I will not be going against the rules or participating in edit warring anymore now that the topic has been raised again. I'm at a loss for how to resolve this problem. The way I see it is that neither side of this argument is going to let up and the previous solution was not exactly fair when all it comes down to is how many people happened to be on wikipedia at the time that supported one side or the other (I know that you didn't exactly have many options though). It seems that the side in favour of using soccer in all instances are far less willing to compromise on this matter and it is a shame that they have won for now. You've read my arguments above so I don't think there is any need to repeat my main points. I believe the only right and logical solution is to have the term football used when referring to official team names and competitions for example I don't see any sense in an article reading "Football Federation Australia is the governing body of soccer in Australia" its just ridiculous for anyone to claim that this is a logical outcome. I believe that soccer should be used only in articles that discuss multiple codes of football at once with something at the beginning along the lines of "The term Soccer will be used in this article in place of Football/Association Football" because after all it is people all over the world reading these articles. Nobody is going to be confused by the use of the term Football when reading an article about Football Federation Australia or even the A-league and even to be safe the first use of the word football can be linked to association football much like it is on certain articles now with the use of the term Soccer. I believe any impartial and clear minded person would agree with that option but unfortunately thats not going to be the case here. In this country it really is a matter of the old guard of AFL fans and a few others who have a problem with us using the term football Ive faced it all my life you should not believe their tales of "Nobody calls it football here trust me" they are simply doing whatever they can to push back against the rising tide of football in this country and it is quite a bizarre part of the culture in AFL especially when you consider that the two sports do not directly compete against each other in the sporting market except for a short period of time when the seasons overlap.
 * If you look through articles relating to football/soccer in an Australian context you will find that the term has completely disappeared and replaced by soccer, I know this was not the intended outcome and it really frustrates me that editors seem to be monitoring this topic so very closely. That should probably tell you something about what their motivations are.


 * Pete, Thank you for your interest in the topic. I'm not sure how we can go about changing anything whatsoever yet as even the slightest edits I have made have quickly been changed back I will have to discuss further with you and John tomorrow. Lajamibr (talk) 14:47, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * In Wikipedia, there is always a way forward. We have processes in place to govern disputes, because we've been handling these sorts of dogma wars between obsessive geeks for a decade or so. When one editor goes off on his own and obsessively changes (say) every instance of "BC" to "BCE", then we work things out in a fair and/or reasonable fashion. --Pete (talk) 17:55, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Please name the obsessive geeks to whom you refer. HiLo48 (talk) 20:53, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
 * That'd be most of us here. Myself, for one. --Pete (talk) 21:27, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

SPA
HiLo48 is correct about the difficulties of being a single purpose account. It automatically raises suspicions that the editor is not really there to contribute to the project, but to game the system in some way.

I'm not too fussed about football and getting the name right. It'll happen in due course because that's the way things go. The evidence piles up and after a while even the most conservative of deniers is buried by the facts.

If you really care about this, here's the way to go. First, get some more experience of the wider world of Wikipedia editing. Find some topics that interest you, where you have some experience and knowledge. Your home town, your hobbies, the films you watch and the books you read. People you admire. There's always something that we don't have a good article about.

Or learn the style of Wikipedia and make small corrections to get everything the way it's supposed to be. Chasing down good photographs from Creative Commons. Finding and fixing spelling errors. Learning how to cite references. Whatever. There's always more work than editors to do it. Various lists exist of articles to be patrolled, articles with issues, articles without sources.

If you want to learn something about how we sort out problems, browse through the Requests for Comment lists. Editors seek wider involvement, often because a couple of editors are butting heads and can't resolve some point. More eyes on the thing and a solution is found, whether through force of numbers or force of facts, or whatever.

The system works. More or less.

HiLo - and I've pinged him above, even though I am sure that he is obsessively checking my contributions and yours - isn't a bad person. He works hard here and he knows how things work. He has his admirers - I'm one of them, up to a point - and he can count on help if he feels he is unfairly done by.

Where he falls down is holding onto things too tightly. Attachment to cherished notions. So much of the world's problems stem from desire and attachment. We think that our idea of the world is the way it should be, and when others have a different idea, all sorts of evil results.

It's not even that important on Wikipedia. Whether we call football football or soccer here, it doesn't have a real lot of effect on what the true situation out in the real world is. We may have an opinion on whether (say) Craig Thomson is a lying scoundrel or someone worthy of the complete confidence of the Prime Minister, but in the end it's up to the voters and the courts, and what we think isn't that important.

HiLo is a vulnerable person, and although he is quite incapable of finding reliable sources and he abuses other editors most shamefully, that's the way he works and when he is challenged he suffers immense discomfort. Press him hard and he blows up and melts down. Others will cheerfully admit that they got it wrong or they don't have a clue, but HiLo - and he is just one of many, many editors in the same situation - takes things very personally. It's cruel to push him to the point of explosion.

So please don't push him that hard.

My advice to you is to have fun playing around in other areas of Wikipedia, get a feel for how things work here. There's a lot of jargon, a lot of arcane lore. But it works, and the evidence is all around us. A collection of nerds and geeks and unwashed bearded hackers have created one of the most popular sites on the internet.

Get a few friends involved. Get your sources lined up to show that yes, football is the best word to use in certain articles, and you'll find that when the right time comes, you will prevail. Not because you have more noses on your side than the other guy has on his. But because you are in the right and you can demonstrate it. Wikipedia, after all, is about checkable facts.

Thanks for listening - all of you reading this - and let's keep the thing harmless fun, okay? --Pete (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It's interesting that you describe that psychological analysis of me as harmless fun. You truly have no idea about me. Or the common name of soccer. HiLo48 (talk) 20:22, 25 November 2014 (UTC)