Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Snooker

This is a style guide for articles that come within the scope of WikiProject Snooker. This is only a guide, and may change depending on Wikipolicy or participant consensus.

Nationalities
In international professional and amateur competition, it is normal practice for snooker players to represent their countries. In the case of British players the constituent countries of the United Kingdom (i.e. England/Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland) are recognised independently as can be seen at the official International Billiards and Snooker Federation website, e.g. there. Thus, sporting country (sometimes erroneously referred to as "nationality") in snooker is used to denote the regional divisions within snooker, not the player's legal citizenship. The Wikipedia usage reflects the real life usage within the sport, to be consistent with Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy. The BBC have also adopted this usage as can be seen there.

This also applies to the Infobox snooker player, since its purpose is to present information about the player in relation to the sport. It is not a biography box, although much of the information is biographical. More information on how the infobox should be used can be found in the template documentation.

Country codes
While the WST is using its own set of country codes apparently based on ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, it is worth mentioning that neither its code set nor ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 is commonly used in the field of sports.

Current practice of WikiProject Snooker is to refer to FIFA country codes if available, since this code set covers most sport countries in snooker, including the home nations of UK.

However, when a snooker player competes in a multi-sport event representing their NOC or CGA, the respective codes assigned by the IOC or the CGF shall be used. The MoS of WP:OLY may also be observed when editing relevant pages.

Flags
On Wikipedia, flags are used to visually identify the sporting nationality of teams and individual players within drawsheets and result tables, for sports in which sporting nationality is recognized. This is as true in snooker as in other sports. A typical example can be found at the main draw of the 2009 World Championship. The sometimes-controversial Ulster Banner used to represent players from Northern Ireland such as in the case of Mark Allen. This, as with identifying players with sporting countries they are representing, is not a Wikipedian imposition, but actual practice in the amateur and professional fields of snooker.

The use of the Ulster Banner has been a source of contention and it is often removed from snooker articles by editors citing the Manual of Style for icons. However the its section about overbroad use of flags with politicized connotations only prohibits the "Use of the Ulster Banner to represent Northern Ireland in inappropriate contexts; see Northern Ireland flags issue for details."

The usage of the flag on snooker articles is consistent with the usage of the Ulster Banner within the game to represent players from Northern Ireland in draws and result sheets. To use another symbol such as a shamrock or some other identifier for Northern Ireland players that is not used within that particular context within the sport would violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view and no original research policies.

Currently the Ulster flag is not used on player profiles because its real-life usage in this capacity cannot be demonstrated. However this introduces an inconsistency between the profiles of Northern Ireland players (e.g. Mark Allen) and players of other nationalities (e.g. Ronnie O'Sullivan) where flags are used. Since the real-life use of national flags on player profiles cannot be demonstrated maybe all national flags should be removed from player profiles. This would not be to the detriment of the article since there is no need for a visual indicator as is required on drawsheets, and it would eliminate the inconsistency between Northern Ireland players and players of other nationalities.

References and external links
The "External links" section in snooker articles is often misused.


 * 1) If something is a textual source upon which anything in the article is being drawn (for snooker bio stubs, this is usually a bio page at World Snooker or some other big site, and is the only source, upon which everything in the stub has been drawn), then this is a reference.
 * 2) If it is something non-textual, like footage at YouTube (remember that YouTube is not considered to be a reliable source so should not be used as a reference) or an image gallery, it is probably an external link (an exception would be recorded interview material used as a source).
 * 3) If it is a webpage relating peripherally to the subject (Ronnie O'Sullivan's official MySpace page or, for instance) and it has not been used as a source for facts, it is probably an external link.
 * 4) Biographical pages at sites like World Snooker also make good external links, after the article is no longer a stub and is well sourced.

Do not duplicate a link that may be used as an in-line reference in the External links section.

It is important for stub survivability that sources be identified, so put them in the References section if they have been used as a source at all (if not, consider what usefulness they will have to readers of the article before adding them to the external links section). It is best to do this by citing specific facts in the article, using Cite web and the like, and using the  inline citation system outlined at WP:CITE.

For a new stub with one source, not cited inline yet, just do this:

The reflist won't do anything yet, but will ensure that any inline citations added to the article will instantly appear here in the refs section. The refbegin and refend tags ensure that the refs inserted manually here (like the one example we have above) are formatted to match the inline refs that will automagically show up here later as the article is expanded.

If you just put this in the external links section it may not get considered as a source if the stub is taken to WP:AFD. It is way more important for stubs and start-class articles to show multiple reference sources than to even have an "External links" section at all. It can probably fairly be said that snooker articles too often have such a section, and often have too many questionable things in them, especially if the article subject is popular and current.

Score format
In snooker, in which a higher score is better than a lower one, generally give scores in the same order that the players are mentioned in the sentence:
 * Joe Bloggs suffered a 5–8 defeat to Jane Q. Public.
 * Jane Q. Public beat Joe Bloggs 8–5.

However, consider that multiple reliable sources also use phrases such as "he lost 4–0". This is particularly true when writing about British English subjects.

Also, use en-dashes (the " " Unicode character or the character entity code " ), not a " " hyphen (minus), between scores and between date ranges, per the Manual of Style, on dashes.

Mid-match frame and match scores
Wikipedia is not Wikinews, nor is it a sports ticker tape. The current consensus is to not add visible match or frame scores to an article until the match or tie is completed. Wikipedia should only record the final results of the match, and is not a live scoring service as Wikipedia is not the place for news reports. There was a discussion at WikiProject Snooker's talk page, this can be viewed there. Only three editors participated in the discussion so the decision may need to be revisited at some point, but the consensus stands unless a new consensus is reached. An alternative discussion in 2008 independent of the snooker project arrived at the same conclusion at the Help desk. However, a 2014 proposal to specifically add such rules to the general "What Wikipedia is not" policy page failed to gain consensus, as some feared that enforcing such a policy would result in escalated edit warring between established editors and well-intentioned edits by newcomers. Therefore, it is still important to comply with the three-revert rule when removing live scores.

Neutral tone in biography articles
A frequent problem in snooker biography articles (and also event articles when players are mentioned) is the use of weasel-wording, peacock language and wikipuffery in describing the individuals and their accomplishments/failures. Do not write Wikipedia articles in such a vein, as all of these tactics are blatant violations of Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view policy, and please fix problems like these when you encounter them.

A very common example is the use of "managed to", as in "Joe Bloggs managed to make it to the semi-final, but was eliminated by Jane Q. Public." This phrase implies that we are totally surprised that Bloggs ever got that far, because we think he's a weak player. Another frequent example is the use of overly-emotive adjectives and win/loss synonyms when mentioning outcomes, e.g. "crushing defeat", "shocking upset", "stomped on", "was thrashed by", and so on. While arguably appropriate in sports journalism, which is intended to be exciting and help the reader feel "present" at the event, this is completely inappropriate for encyclopedic writing. Wikipedia has no opinion on anything, ever. In order for any such phrasing to appear in an article, it must be a properly cited direct quotation, from a reliable source. And even then it might constitute undue weight toward one viewpoint.

Final, semi-/quarter-finals
Final (in the tournament bracket context) is singular – there is only one final match per event. Semi-finals and quarter-finals are plural when used as nouns unless in the context of a particular group: "Joe Bloggs lost in the semi-finals" and "the quarter-finals were held on 14 July", but "Bloggs' quarter-final victory" and "Jane Q. Public lost her quarter-final match" (adjective usage), and "Bloggs advanced from Group C to the quarter-final" (a specific, singular q.-f. being referenced). The plural "finals" can be used in unusual constructions, e.g. "Bloggs was defeated in two UK Championship finals in a row, in 2008 and 2009."

Semi-final[s] and quarter-final[s] are hyphenated, not single-word, and not two separate words. When appearing at the start of a sentence, in a heading or in another capitalised context, only the first part is capitalised, as with any other hyphenated compound. In any other context, none of these words are capitalised.

Champion, championship, championships
Championship is always singular when speaking of a specific event, and always plural when writing of a series or multiplicity of events:
 * "Joe Bloggs won the 2009 Isle of Man Championship." (single event)
 * "Joe Bloggs has won three Isle of Man Championships." (multiple events)
 * "Joe Bloggs is a frequent competitor at the Isle of Man Championships." (series of events; if you wrote "frequent competitor at the Isle of Man Championship" this would rather crazily imply that this year he competed in the championship several times!)

"Championship" is only capitalised when used as part of the official name (or common short or extended version) of an event, e.g. "UK Snooker Championship", "UK Championship", but not "his third championship" even when in reference to the same event.

"Champion" is only capitalised when in reference to an official title or common alternative form of it: "Bloggs is a three-time World Champion", "...three-time Snooker World Champion", "...three-time World Snooker Champion", but "Bloggs is a three-time World Champion and seven-time national champion" (unless we have already said what nation it is and the event is actually called the [COUNTRYNAME] National Championship, not the UK Championship or Azerbaijan Championship or whatever), and "Jane Q. Public beat reigning champion Joe Bloggs, 1710" ("champion" by itself is not a capitalised title like Reverend, Pope, Duke or Admiral, even if it precedes a name).

Masters
Masters in this context is always "Masters": "Masters" is basically always capitalised because it is never really used outside of an actual event name (e.g. if Bloggs won the Isle of Man Masters and the Botswana Masters, we would not write "Bloggs is a two-time Masters winner", since "Masters" would have no clear referent in this sentence). In context of snooker, "Masters" by itself means the non-ranking event held in London (formerly known as Benson & Hedges Masters). There are many other snooker tournaments (for example the Shanghai Masters, the German Masters, etc.) which have this word in the title. These tournaments shouldn't be abbreviated simply to "Masters", because the term denotes a specific and completely different tournament.
 * "Joe Bloggs won the 2009 Isle of Man Masters." (single event)
 * "Joe Bloggs has won three Isle of Man Masters." (multiple events; "Masters titles" would be better here, though, for clarity)
 * "Joe Bloggs is a frequent competitor at the Isle of Man Masters." (series of events)

Division/group
Division and Group are capitalised when but only when used with the official name of the division or group. Women's Division would be capitalised if the event organisers use that term, but would not be capitalised if an editor used "ladies' division" instead in some construction. Likewise capitalise C Group but not group C or the third group if the official term was C Group. Basically, Wikipedia is not here to make up titles. By way of analogy, the first-released and chronologically fourth Star Wars movie is Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope or Star Wars Episode IV for short, but not Star Wars: No. 1, Star Wars 4, Star Wars – New Hope, or any other shorthand an editor here might like to make up.

Season titling format
The XXXX/XXXX format (i.e. 2008/2009 as in Snooker season 2008/2009) has been adopted for denoting snooker seasons, which is the standard nomenclature within the sport. There have been various calls to replace the forward slash (/) with an En dash (–, &amp;ndash;) based on Manual of Style guidelines. However, this reasoning is erroneously based on the misunderstanding that the snooker season spans the denoted years; the Manual of Style on slashes clearly indicates that the forward slash may be used for indicating "regular defined yearly periods that do not coincide with calendar years (the 2009/10 academic year, the 2010/11 hockey season)". This reflects the consensus arrived at in a previous discussion there.