Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/1904 Summer Olympics medal table/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Rambo's Revenge 22:34, 16 May 2009.

1904 Summer Olympics medal table

 * Nominator(s): Geraldk (talk) 00:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I did a lot of work on this before a veeeeeery long wikibreak and it seems to be ready for FLC (edited it as Le Comte, my editing handle at the time, not Geraldk, in case anyone checks the history and wonders why I'm nominating it). Thanks in advance for comments. Geraldk (talk) 00:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment: FLs do not start with "This is a list of..." or any similar statements anymore. See recently promoted FLs for suggestions on how to change the lead. KV5  ( Talk  •  Phils ) 14:07, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you have any ideas for how to modify it so it avoids that? I'm having trouble figuring out a way to word it so it still keeps the words 1904 Summer Olympics medal table in bold. And, unfortunately, the comparable FLs don't help, because they're all worded like this one. Geraldk (talk) 14:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Or is that no longer required in the lead? Geraldk (talk) 14:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You don't have to force it; if it works better without, you can certainly discard it. I will look here and come up with a suggestion. KV5  ( Talk  •  Phils ) 16:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say you can just start with "The 1904 Summer Olympics were held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States from July 1 to November 23, 1904 as part of the St. Louis World's Fair." I'm sure you can find somewhere else to fit in the link to National Olympic committees, and you don't need to say how it's ranked because this is a sortable table. KV5  ( Talk  •  Phils ) 16:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done and thanks, that reads a heck of a lot better now. Geraldk (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say that you can discard the "Mixed Team" section and incorporate that information into the lead after you mention the mixed team. It would help the length of the lead due to the increasing demand for prose at FLC. KV5  ( Talk  •  Phils ) 16:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done, thanks for the suggestion. Geraldk (talk) 17:11, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment I'm a member of WP:OLY, and this would obviously have to be discussed, but do we need these for the first few Olympics? The custom tends to be to list the top ten countries in the main article and all in the sublist, but for early Olympics, there were only 10 or 11 countries total. This entire list already exists at 1904 Summer Olympics. These lists are great when they're longer, but they should probably be merged when they're so short. Other than the length - and therefore likely 3b fail - this is a great list. Reywas92 Talk  23:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd argue that having a separate list has value, but am not the best person to comment on this since I've put a ton of time into a number of the early medal count lists and therefore don't exactly have a neutral perspective on the question.Geraldk (talk) 23:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's rediculous to have the table of ten in the main article and simply duplicate it in the list. There's really no need for a separate article. Reywas92 Talk  00:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This issue could certainly use more discussion. I've noted it at WT:OLY. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 00:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jonel. Reywas - there is more to these lists than the list itself. The main reason to have separate medal tables, even short ones, is because of the content and contextualization provided in the medal table leads. I'd argue that a reader of a general article about the 1904 Summer Olympics could care less, for example, about what exactly the term 'mixed team' means or that the water polo medals are not currently recognized by the IOC even though they were part of the games at the time. Having it separate allows one to be more detailed. Further, I'm operating under the assumption that at some point one of us editors is gonna get off our tookus and actually make the 1904 Olympics article not blow quite so much. When that happens it will presumably be a very long article detailing information about competitors and events and all that fun stuff, at which point taking up more space with a detailed discussion of what mixed teams are will make even less sense. There is also the point that there is a certain uniformity to the ancillary articles for olympic games, and that kind of makes sense for ease of user navigation. Further, since we always need to keep in mind the reader, I think there are plenty of people out there who are happy to flip through the medals tables without ever reading about or scrolling past text about exactly what the mascot of a particular games was or how much it cost to host the games. And finally (although this may be a larger discussion about the philosophy of wikipedia) who cares whether it's a separate list? It's not like it's breaking the servers to have it so long as it has some purpose and some readership. But, as I said, I'm a little biased on this one, though I certainly see your point. I would, however, avoid using words like ridiculous which may be a little inflammatory. Geraldk (talk) 00:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Gerald, I've read your comments and agree with much of them; however, on the general issue, I may have to side with Reywas on this one. I know you've been on an extended wikibreak, as you mentioned, and during that time there were substantial recent revisions to the FL criteria. A lot of this was to cut down on content forking, and I didn't realize when I first looked that this was largely recreated in another article. Honestly, your comments above about the information not being appropriate to the 1904 Summer Olympics article... well, I don't want to say that they are wrong, and won't, but I don't believe those concerns are justified (just my opinion, of course). Having this information in the article could prove very valuable because it gives context. Additionally, the table here is sortable, which the table at the main article isn't. Technically, this article is a daughter of 1904 Summer Olympics and, as such, that article should have a need to be split before it gets done. For an example, the contents of List of Philadelphia Phillies seasons used to be entirely contained in the article Philadelphia Phillies. Before it was split out, it took up a huge amount of space, and adding things to it would have made the article bulky and unwieldy. Once it was split, more necessary information could be added. However, in this case, the table is short enough, and the lead is short enough, and the parent article is short enough, that this may need to be merged back into the main article. I know that it's tough if someone wants to merge a lot of your hard work into another piece; it's happened to me before too. But think of it as motivation to improve the main article; it could become an FA too! KV5  ( Talk  •  Phils ) 02:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Gerald, I agree with your argument that there's more than a table, but that's not enough. Other than that, the other information is rather insignificant. Yes, it might not be fully relevant to the main article, but it can be condensed. You claim that eventually 1904 Summer Olympics will expand, requiring a separate article for the further information, but look at 1896 Summer Olympics. It's a featured article and has plenty of room for the table. Yes, there is also an FL for its medal table, but that is mostly redundant and could easily be merged. Since Olympics other than the first few summer/winters have more than 20 countries, they may be more qualified for a separate FL-able list, but I don't feel that the information must be duplicated for these early Olympics when there's insufficient info to require a separate list. Reywas92 Talk  02:27, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Withdraw - bah. You guys are right. Reywas - your reward for pointing this out is getting to help me merge the early medal counts and fix the template. Geraldk (talk) 14:30, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure. Sorry for the hassle, but separate articles aren't needed for everything. I'm sure you'll do a great job on getting the more recent lists to FL! Reywas92 Talk  20:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.