Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Watford F.C. seasons/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 promoted by Dabomb87 15:23, 17 August 2010.

List of Watford F.C. seasons

 * ''Nominator(s): User:WFCforLife, User:HornetEd and User:Bazj

In short, I think this is the best list I have ever been involved with. Although I have made the most edits, I can only take credit for reducing redlinks, writing the lead and minor cleanup. The true credit for this gem should go to HornetEd, for his collosal effort in creating the thing from scratch. I've also listed Bazj; he added the scorers and did the lions share of the sourcing. I believe that this is only the second fully sortable seasons list, building upon the good work done in List of Nelson F.C. seasons. I humbly submit this for review. Regards, --WFC-- 07:48, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Can't see any problems; the list appears to meet the FL criteria. Always good to see some more football lists, and I especially like the sortability present here (although as the creator of List of Nelson F.C. seasons, I would do). Big  Dom  08:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments Pity you didn't take it to peer review first, most of this is trivial stuff that could have been cleared up there.
 * In my defence I nearly did. I changed my mind because I felt any issues, however numerous, would be relatively minor. That and a hit-miss experience of PRs for lists in the past. Sometimes FLCs fail due to lack of reviews, but never due to none.


 * Sorting. Nominator and I differ on the value of sorting a season list. However, if it is to be sorted, it should work, and it should be helpful to the reader per FL criterion 4.
 * You make some fair points below. As for criteria 4, I question how a sortable table could be failed on that point by a reviewer who would not object to a completely unsortable table.
 * Don't get me wrong, If consensus is that sorting a season list is a good thing, I wouldn't oppose on WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT grounds. But until the Wikipedia sort function can cope with a complex table like a seasons list, including content like secondary league detail appearing in the league tables section, or multiple cup competitions in one season (which Watford haven't got, at least in the league era, but many clubs have), I genuinely don't see that adding sortability is helpful to the reader. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Having the pre-league and league eras in separate tables means the club's FA Cup achievements can't be sorted together.
 * In an unsortable table, a pre-league/league split would be both logical and aesthetically preferable. To do as you suggest in a sortable table would mean introducing a lot more of those dashes, for a minimal benefit that your next comment calls into question anyway.
 * "logical and aesthetically preferable", not convinced, sorry. But this point is independent of my next comment. If you think it helpful to the reader to make the FA Cup column sortable, then it doesn't seem particularly helpful to split that column into two bits depending on whether the club was playing league football or not. Though I do see that combining the tables might make sorting some of the rest of it rather messy. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The dash issue has been fixed, so this is technically possible. I'm still firmly of the opinion that it would be undesirable though. Once the FA Cup and division issues are sorted I'll demonstrate this with an edit, enabling other reviewers to look at both versions and express their preferences. --WFC-- 16:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Answered at the bottom of the page. I still disagree with you, but I'm happy to leave this to wider consensus. --WFC-- 10:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The same would apply to name of Division. You've gone part-way on this, sorting the Premier League to the top by value rather than alphabetical name. But Division 1 until 1991/92 was the top level of the system, and between 1992/93 and 2003/04 it was the second level, yet you sort them together.
 * This I agree with. Furthermore I agree that this is exclusive to sortable tables, as non-sortable tables can use one footnote in the 1992/93 season to cover it. I'll have a think about how to do this, but rest assured that I'm on it.
 * I think this is resolved now. --WFC-- 05:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's genuinely irritating that the full-width colspanned lines come to the top as soon as you try to sort something
 * Answered below.
 * There are some peculiarities in the sorting. E.g. if the table is initially sorted on Division ascending, with the colspan lines at the top, and you then sort on one of the league table numeric columns, say Goals For, the 1945/46 row comes to the top, then the colspan rows, and only then the first row with any numeric content in Goals For. Sort again, so the Goals For is in descending order, 1945/46 with its emdashes stays at the top and the colspan rows disappear down the bottom. Sort again, so the Goals For returns to ascending order, the colspan rows return to the top, but 1945/46 disappears to the bottom. Stabilising at these last two orderings. Except, sometimes you start with Division ascending, sort on Goals For, and it brings the first row with numeric content to the top, and then goes through the cycle described above... This behaviour is the same on 3 different browsers: IE6, Firefox3.6 and GoogleChrome5.0
 * In mathematical logic, we would describe the colspan and emdash rows as "don't care states". In plain English, provided that they do not interfere with our main aim, we disregard them. Aesthetically questionable? Perhaps. But they would still look ugly wherever they went. For the values that matter the sort function is robust here.
 * If you want to take the last two comments together, I'll answer here. In plain English, if a row comes to the top when a column is sorted ascending, and stays at the top when the same column is sorted descending, then the sort doesn't work. That is what happens with the 1945/46 row in the cycle described above. We're not presenting to logicians. We're presenting to the general reader, and if the general reader sorts a column and gets presented with a wodge of colspanned text bars when they're expecting goals scored, they're not going to be overly impressed with what purports to be Wikipedia's best work. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm 80% sure that the irregularities with 1939/40 and 1945/46 are now fixed. I can only vouch for that on Firefox though; I didn't try this earlier due to this being a live DYK, and having no way to test it on Internet Explorer. As for the colspans, it is possible for me to configure them so that they display as the lowest or highest value for any given row (i.e. I can make it sort as A in one row, Z in another, A in a third and so on). AFAIK, the only way to truly exclude them from sorting would be not to have a year next to them, which would in turn mean that once you started sorting they would never return to their original position.
 * It seems that with some homework on my part, and potentially third party input on the 1896 split, we can achieve consensus on all of your other points. But I think that four or five colspans sorting in an irritating way would not on its own be a good enough reason to scrap sortability. --WFC-- 16:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * sorts one or more rows to the bottom, but again, they won't come back unless you refresh the page. Struway2 (talk) 17:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's the issue. While I do understand your point, sortbottom would do more harm than good, due to the colspans not sorting by year. I've made them less prominent, and am doing some work to mitigate how annoying they are (for instance ensuring that when sorting by goals scored, they sort as the lowest tally), but unfortunately they'll have to remain sortable. --WFC-- 18:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If the point of sorting the FA Cup column is to compare achievement in different periods, sorting by name of round doesn't do it, because it takes no account of what that round actually was. E.g. in 1904/5, there were four rounds between QR6 and the final, in 1919/20 there were five. In 1905/6, Round 2 was the round of 32, so there were three rounds between it and the final; today, the round of 32 is Round 4, and there are five rounds between Round 2 and the final ...
 * I understand how sorting has brought this issue to the fore, when it might not have been thought of in the past. But surely that would be an issue for all seasons lists?
 * Indeed. And it has been thought of in the past, to some extent: e.g. at List of Darlington F.C. seasons, not a featured list, where note D clarifies Darlington's best FA Cup progress was to the last 16, linked from rounds of different names. But in an unsortable table, it's easier to accept that those are just the names of rounds; when sorted, it heightens the perception that all Round 2s are the same thing, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in sorting them together. Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Obviously from the quarter-finals onward this isn't an issue. Further back, perhaps "Round of 16", "Round of 32" or "Last 16", "Last 32" would be better terminology, with some introductory or supplementary prose to explain the situation? That said, I would need to verify this in some way. At the moment I have verification that Watford reached the fifth round in 1995, but not that this was the last 16. --WFC-- 16:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The FA's FA Cup archive will verify each season. Thing is, today there are 40 teams in the Second Round proper and 80 in the First, the Round of powers-of-2 only comes in at the Third Round proper aka Round of 64. In the very early days of the competition, numbers of teams in any given round was pretty random. In between, I've no idea. So calling rounds Last 128 is probably more misleading than calling everything Round 2..... Don't know where that gets you. Input from more voices would be nice :-) Struway2 (talk) 17:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

that'll do for now, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As I see it, with the resources we have there are three broad options:
 * 1. Do nothing in the table, explain where Watford entered the competition in a footnote: At first glance the lazy option, although I do think that a case can be made for it. In every season that we reached the fifth round, the sixth round was the quarter final. In every season that we reached the fourth round, either the fifth round was the quarter final, or the fourth round was below the fifth round (in other words, they belong alongside one another, albeit one was slightly closer to winning the competition than the other). The footnote would have to be very carefully considered, but this is potentially the way to go, and should not be dismissed out of hand.
 * 2. Sort by distance from final The FA Cup archive does not allow me to say that Watford were one of the last 32 teams, for the reasons outlined by Struway above. However, it does enable me to say that Watford were four rounds from the final. Instead of a footnote stating where Watford entered, the footnote would outline how far they were from the final. I believe this is the most precise option, although it will be more confusing to the reader than approach one.
 * 3. Sort by how many rounds Watford progressed through This is not really an option, because putting 1931–32 on a par with 1983–84 defies all logic. But I am stating it as an "option" for completeness. --WFC-- 06:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I have moved the FA Cup conversation downwards, both to encourage other opinions, and because my previous edit made the whole conversation look very confusing.--WFC-- 06:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * After much thought, I've made the FA Cup column unsortable, added a brief note to explain that achievements are not necessarily equivalent and that 1984 was our best year, and will leave it there. Stru and Sandman were right to raise this point, but all the solutions I've seen on this page would either be misleading or overly confusing to the reader. It may require further tweaking, but I think this edit tries to strike the appropriate balance. --WFC-- 00:33, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment—no dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 15:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Nominator comment In response to a couple of Struway's comments, I have merged the two tables to graphically demonstrate the pros and cons of doing so, and have also added the second leagues. I'm still unsure as to whether it's a help or a hinderance though. Split version, combined version. Comments welcome, regards, --WFC-- 10:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Unsure whether it should be sortable or not, as Struway I'm not keen on it, but apart from that the list certainly has its merits. Sandman888 (talk) Latest FLC 15:43, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The above is quite messy. For the benefit of people who are interested in the list but might be put off by such a long review: I can't say hand on heart that everything else raised above is resolved, but I believe these are the two points that will require wider scrutiny. Regards, --WFC-- 18:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * We're looking for input on whether the sort function is a good thing at all, and whether the way the colspans sort is appropriate.
 * We need input on whether the current solution for the FA Cup is appropriate.


 * Support – I can see alot of effort has been put into this. The sort function looks better than I thought it would. Argyle 4 Life  talk  14:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Comments –
 * "the club entered the FA Cup and Herts Senior Cup for the first time in the 1886." Excess "the" at the end.
 * Done.
 * Early history: "The teams met on eleven further occasions, with Rovers/West Hertfordshire winning six times, St. Mary's four times." I assume there was a draw as well? Also, the Manual of Style usually discourages slashes like the one seperating the team names.
 * Good spot. Indeed an important one, because the tally of six wins included the first match, contrary to what the wording probably suggested.
 * Sorting is nice to see in a list of this type, but I did notice a small issue in the goal-scorers column. The 1977–78 leader (Ross Jenkins) is sorting by first name, not last. This runs counter to the rest of the column.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 21:21, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. I was fooled by the fact that there were four of them; at Vicarage Road I'm constantly told that there are only two ;) --WFC-- 23:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Support – Meets FL standards.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 23:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

One more comment hopefully only one. You originally had the supplementary leagues (United etc) in footnotes, but then moved them into the table proper. On some rows, e.g. 1898-99, you've put the supplementary league above the main league, which is a little misleading, and for such rows, the league position sorts on Watford's finishing position in the supplementary rather than their main league. If we're meant to be comparing like with like, shouldn't that column sort on the main league position throughout? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I lied, sorry. Jones's books in the General refs are missing publisher information. Struway2 (talk) 10:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Publisher done. I've had a good think about your sorting point. If 1898–99 was the worst example, it might not be so much of an issue, but 1905–06 is a problem. My conclusion was that there is enough context for the reader to judge the relative achievements of winning the leagues. Given that, sorting 1905–06 as a 14th-placed finishing position would probably not be helpful to the reader. A possible solution would be to always put the Southern League on the top line, sort based on the Southern League statistics (comparing like-for-like), but sort by the higher of the two league finishes (for the benefit of readers wanting to see league championships), and obviously add an explanation. Thoughts welcome. --WFC-- 01:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Neutral I still think applying table sorting at its current (lack of) capability struggles with the "where helpful" bit of Criterion 4 There's quite a bit of added complication, both visible (e.g. the superscripts on the divisions) and particularly in the table markup, some of which I struggle to understand, so heaven help the average WP editor coming along and wanting to fix a mistake or add something. And it still can't cope with sorting the FA Cup in a meaningful manner. However, the nominator has put in an enormous amount of work (and willingly accepted the need for some of it) to improve the list from when first reviewed, when I'd have had no hesitation in opposing. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:53, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your kind words. I think the FA Cup is something we need to think about as a WikiProject, as mentioned above. In the longer run I do intend to take your points into account, through discussion on how to denote divisions at WT:SEASONS, and through the development of a template to change input like this:


 * into input closer to this:


 * I think it would be inappropriate to start a "do you like sortable season tables?" type discussion during an FLC, and I think that a template should be left until most other issues have been ironed out. But rest assured, I will pursue both of these things once this has run its course. Once again, thanks for the review. In the past I haven't always taken your criticism well (and with the benefit of a few months worth of distance I apologise for that), but even where your comments are addressed without going entirely where you would like, they always result in a better list. We're lucky to have you. Regards, --WFC-- 19:11, 11 August 2010 (UTC)


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