Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian rules football/Archive 4

AFL season match statistics
I notice that the 1998 through to 2007 seasons are complete (but not entirely consistent). If you would like me to, I could lend a hand inputting all the historical match results and ladder for years prior to 1997. I have from 1897 to 2007 in spreadsheet form so it should be relatively easy to generate the appropriate wiki-text to paste into the AFL season articles. Contact me if there is anything I should be aware of before I attempt this. CoreyPlover 02:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That would absolutely fantastic. Please use the templates for team names, as you will already see in most existing game results. Remy B 09:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Great. A few things I have thought about:
 * What is the reason for the {{AFL xxx} ? Is it just for naming consistency? Would I be right in assuming that once a naming convention is firmly established, the static nature of these templates would warrant substitution rather than transclusion? How about past clubs / Sydney-South Melbourne / North Melbourne-Kangaroos?
 * Any scope for including a small thumbnail of the club emblem / club colors with these templates? Or maybe such icons should go outside the template and in the results tables to avoid stuffing up inline transclusions?
 * How about a similar template for AFL venues? These would also possibly come in handy for venue name changes. For historical match results, should I use the historical or the current venue name?
 * I have seen the NRL season results articles and was thinking of using the same table design for AFL seasons because (as much as it pains me to say) these NRL tables look quite snazzy. Thoughts? CoreyPlover 15:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The templates are there for consistency, but I don't really have any opinion on whether they need to be subst'd. I don't know if any past team templates exist - feel free to create them. We can't add club logos because it breaches fair use to use them as decoration. Club colours that aren't the logo just look tacky, if you ask me, and don't contribute much to the article. I think they look very tacky on the NRL pages. Templates for AFL venues would be great because there are a lot of links to redirects out there. I'm not sure about historical ground naming - maybe just go with what has already been done. But if I can convince you of anything - PLEASE don't use those awful NRL tables. Tables of statistics should be as minimal as possible, and the NRL tables just try to take up far more room than is necessary. They also get contorted as the text starts to wrap when you look on a lower resolution. Good luck! Remy B 02:02, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * We have and  templates for  and  respectively. Beamerized 05:15, 3 October 2007 (UTChellow hello
 * Even they can be anachronistic. Apart from that, why do we include "Swans" and so on? It should just be South Melbourne - and there's no particular reason for having a template, anyway, other than making mass changes like this. JPD (talk) 09:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I've found the templates have been really handy for keeping some consistency in the links. Before they were used there were a lot of links to suburbs or to redirects of the real club articles. Remy B 10:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The templates are alright I guess. If they are simply for naming consistency they can be subst'd later, and they prevent spelling mistakes or links to old named redirects. Templates are most useful however for shared design or content so that one change can propogate to all, say, 100+ VFL/AFL season articles. But team names should remain absolutely static. Even mergers / renaming (like Footscray -> Western Bulldogs) can (and I argue, should) be handled by redirects because you specifically want to show, and keep the original team name at the time of the match. Yes, a template will enable you to do away with the redirects, but those redirects actually give you more flexibility because they give you a sort of version controlled / historical encyclopedic content. Besides which, you need 2 templates anyway (in this case AFL Foo and AFL WB). Having them point to two different articles which then redirect to "Western Bulldogs" is actually more flexible than editing the AFL Foo template to point at the "Western Bu
 * Templates only help with consistency when a consistent change is made, as CoreyPlover says. When pages where being moved about between things like Adelaide Football Club and Adelaide Crows, they could keep up with the change, avoiding the resulting redirects. Apart from that, they only give consistency if they are consistently used, which is about as likely as having consistency to start with. I agree that there should be a Footscray -> Western Bulldogs redirect, but there is no reason why a should not bypass that redirect, saving the servers. The important thing is that the text on the page uses the correct historical name - there is no need to reach the relevant article via a redirect with the correct name. JPD (talk) 12:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I've finished all the VFL premiership season statistics. With regards to the AFL templates, I'm currently designing a few possible replacements / extensions to them, will update you all when I have something to show.CoreyPlover 11:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism Patrols
I have been seeing a lot of vandalism lately, often repeated, multiple and with only some picked up by the bots. I think with trade week, the draft, school holidays and increasing awareness of WP, it will only get worse. Can I ask all editors to use the Recent Changes page to help keep an eye on more than just their normal watchlist. Add this to your favourites, I find it very useful (if you use IE7 or a similar browser with the ability to have multiple home pages on different tabs), to have it open up in a background tab behind your preferred homepage - with your watchlist on another tab. If you find a vandal, always check their recent contributions to see what else they've done. Warnings sometimes work, but often with dynamic IPs, they are pretty useless. Sometimes you need to be drastic to restore it to an unvandalised state... as I'm about to do to Carlton Football Club. Keep an eye out for the subtle vandals too... the ones who just change a number here, a year there etc, very difficult to repair unless you catch them in the act, which can be difficult is lots of obvious vandalism happens around them. The-Pope 17:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * In partial relationship to this, I have to say that, beyond Pokeman related articles, footballers' articles would have to be amongst the lowest quality I have seen on wikipedia (and obviously that's saying something). That low quality has nothing to do with the good denizens of this project and almost all to do with semi-literate 14 year olds writing what they know about. So while not outright vandalism it would be good to reign in some of the less notable efforts of well meaning 14 year olds. --Roisterer 04:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with both comments. I have recently seen heaps of subtle vandalism of articles, like changing numbers or names, and thats just from my watchlist. It is frustrating to admit, but I am sure many articles are out there with vandalised statistics and it might take a very very long time for them to get noticed. Remy B 08:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Squad templates
Each club seems to have two templates which list current squad members. For example: West Coast Eagles current squad

and West Coast player squad

The first one is transcluded in each club article and in List of current AFL team squads while the second one appears in each player article. This seems a bit silly from a maintenance point of view and that I think the 1st one is a bit plain. I propose that we rationalise this and have just one, and preferably the second as its less bulky. An edit link can be easily added. Comments? &mdash;Moondyne 05:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I second your motion. --Roisterer 05:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I should add that the only downside I can see to doing this is that the second one doesn't show player first names. Is that a big issue? &mdash;Moondyne 06:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, as the first one is used as and looks like part of the text of the article, while the second looks like and is used as a navigation box. This is one of the reasons why one contains first names and the other doesn't. JPD (talk) 08:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Maintenance is actually fairly simple, as it's a 2 or 3 times a year (delistings, trades, draft) type of major updates, with maybe updating captains, rookies at other times. The first one has more room for listing captains, veterans, leadership groups, flags (only joking!) etc.  I helped make the first one, and thought the second one was great when it was made.  I think they both serve their purpose. The-Pope 10:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I am happy with both but would prefer not to see any reference to veterans or leadership groups. Captains and vice-captains (if any of both) are worthy of a marker. Remy B 10:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Kevin Sheedy
Someone has made this a disambiguation page because the other Kevin Sheedy was a pretty prominent Irish soccer player. So because of this all wikilinks for him need to be changed to Kevin Sheedy (Australian footballer) and after a look through I can say there are atleast 100. Does this have to be done manually or is there some bot that can do this? Crickettragic 09:44, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Bit of a pain, isn't it. I don't beleive the page should have been changed, it had been how it was for a long time. Oh well. I haven't seen a bot that can change the links. Times1 08:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

New template
A user has added 2007 Port Adelaide Grand Final side to a bunch of Port players. Apart from the fact that as a template it should be on a template page I think it is taking it too far having a template for premiership runners up. Already these Port player's have a current squad template and many have the 2004 premiership players template which I made a while back so surely we don't need this one? Anyone support the removal of this template? Crickettragic 22:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolute support for removal. Template overload.  Even if it is kept (and templated) it needs redoing as it is verging on an attack with the reference to the record loss. -- Mattinbgn\talk 22:53, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should have been created as a template, and no, it isn't necessary. -- Longhair\talk 22:54, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I've moved it to Template:2007 Port Adelaide Grand Final side for now. -- Longhair\talk 03:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Player template
User:Boomtish appears to be applying a new version of the player template, the main differences being the removal of details regarding debut games and inclusion of biographical details. This would be a good place to discuss such changes, and if the are seen to be a good thing (I tend to think they are), then I'm sure Boomtish would appreciate help in rolling the new template out! JPD (talk) 10:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I felt the information box should provide quick, yet succinct and comprehensive details regarding each player. Looking at other player info boxes for other more-established sports on wikipedia (such as soccer and basketball), they seem to have achieved this. I felt previous information such as debut team, debut opponent, debut stadium etc was not of major importance (when I want to know who a certain player is, I want to know the main details), and that it overlapped in any case under the 'playing career' section of the box (which outlines the time spent under respective clubs - which I've also tidied up into a box).

In my opinion, I feel most of what should be in the box is currently there as of now, although of course any additional suggestions are welcomed. The only other additions I've thought of including are headings for Current Team, Guernsey Number, Draft Position Picked, and maybe nicknames (although this is very secondary, particularly since it's an irrelevant matter to many players). Thoughts? Can the format be tidied up more? Boomtish (talk) 12:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to create a new player infobox using a format used in cricket and soccer player infoboxes, but modified to suit Aussie rules. I think it's quite good, but I've had a few problems, like the whole box with details won't appear on a page. First of all can i have some feedback about the box, and secondly, if anyone knows how to fix it, can you please!! Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 06:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

South Australian Team of the Century
Just wanted to get a bit of a consensus on whether of not this warrants a page. The page was made by Rogerthat almost 2 yrs ago but it isn't a team put together by the SANFL rather the guy who made the website www.fullpointsfooty.com which I and others often use as references. So it is far from the 'official' South Australian Team of the Century. Crickettragic (talk) 05:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it's fairly obvious that an unofficial and personal list like that doesn't belong on an encyclopedia. Remy B (talk) 12:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree. JPD (talk) 13:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * My thoughts as well, I'll nominate it for deletion. Crickettragic (talk) 00:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there a SANFL sactioned SA Team of the Century? --Roisterer (talk) 01:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Get it off Wkipedia now! This sort of stuff doesn't belong here. Unless it was officially sanctioned by the SANFL or AFL, it shouldn't be here. Allied45 (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It's clearly not suitable for Wikipedia. Rather than wait out the proposed deletion delay or waste time at AfD, I've zapped it now. -- Longhair\talk 23:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Taskforce
Hey there, I'm currently in the process of converting player pages infoboxes to the new template - Template:Infobox afl player NEW. This is a slow, tedious task, but I think the end result will be worth it. So I think if any of you fellow editors out there want to help, please do, because it would help so much. I'm currently working on Geelong Players and will work club by club for all the current players. So if you want to work on certain clubs to save me the time, please let me know, or show your support by listing your name below. You can also try and go onto the massive task of past players.

For lists of players see either WikiProject AFL/Players or List of current AFL team squads.

THANKS EVERYONE! Allied45 (talk) 07:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * UPDATE: All current Geelong players have now got the new infobox. Feel free to go over them to correct and add details. Allied45 (talk) 05:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe you are in some way connected with all of the pointless problems, trouble and and issues of information concealment, totally anachronistic descriptions, and removal of the exceptionally relevant (pre-the-days-of-draft and pre-the-days-of-full-time-footballers) player debut information that are described at ? :Or, perhaps, it might just be that an over-zealous somebody, unaware that there was an entirely different state of affairs in an earlier era — whan, for example, players needed to have a day job, and often played as amateurs, etc. — has mistakenly applied your "modern-21st-century-afl-infobox" (apparently agreed upon as appropriate to all players on the 2008 playing list) in an inappropriate fashion to what is, by contrast, and "earlier-era-article", which requires an "earlier-era-VFL, etc.-infobox"? Anyway could you please comment on the questions I have raised at at ? Thanks heaps.Lindsay658 (talk) 05:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you noticed that the "cricket people" have been able to get by with two sorts of info box? If you look at Jack Worrall, you will notice that they are using something that they term "Infobox Historic Cricketer". Lindsay658 (talk) 07:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've been using the new infoboxes on the articles I create, but I've added a total for games and goals. Have a look at Charles Zinnick for an example. I think it makes it easier to see a players efforts over their career, but feel free to change it back if others dont think so. Terlob (talk) 10:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Players with no pictures
Just an idea for players where we cannot find pictures. Maybe we should place their jumper number in the image area instead. It would make the pages a lot more professional looking. And as we find pictures then we can replace them. Thoughts?!?InsteadOf (talk) 04:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, without seeing what this would look like, I'm not sure it would add much to an article. I could stand corrected though. --Roisterer (talk) 22:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * made a test at Aaron EdwardsInsteadOf (talk) 03:19, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that it is annoying that we don't have free photos of many players, but I don't like this at all. It distracts attention from the main part of the article - the prose - and does not convey any new information. Images are for displaying pictures, not oversized coloured text. Remy B (talk) 12:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thats a good argument. Ill remove it. InsteadOf (talk) 00:57, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Club Songs Page
I think there should be a general page about the nature of the club songs. How they are used (with banners, post-match renditions, etc.), the history of their use, and so on. It doesn't have to have the lyrics to the songs, as I'm aware they are most likely copyrighted to the authors. There seems to be very little mention of club songs anymore, apart from the titles appearing in infoboxes. Thoughts? Morstar (talk) 13:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Premiership Players Templates
Over the past few days, I've been busy converting all Premiership templates (found here), to a standard navbox. They include all relevant team colours (though some may need to be modified), they also are more uniformed and take up less space. I have also begun creating templates for Grand Final years that don't currently have any. So if you would like to help, please see here, and begin creating new templates that use the new navbox style. Thanks!! Allied45 (talk) 07:24, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * First off, good job on standardising the Premiership templates, but are the Grand Final sides (e.g. Port Adelaide of 2007) really necessary? I would argue no. Taking a leaf out of other sports, navigational boxes are only really used for significant awards/achievements - in the context of AFL, being the losing Grand Finalist doesn't really merit much here in my opinion. Cheers Boomtish (talk) 09:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I do agree with that, there is no need to have the runner-up Grand Final sides - it's a bit too much. I think we ought to delete that particular template, and just stick with the winning premiership teams. Allied45 (talk) 10:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I made a thread here a couple of months ago when that template first appeared on Port player's pages, complaining that it was overkill and we agreed to remove the template. Although it is no longer on anyone's page is it worth deleting it and if so anyone know how to go about that? Nice work with the templates by the way Allied, I was the original creator of them (except the Richmond ones) and agree that they look much better this way. Crickettragic (talk) 10:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've requested speedy deletion on the Port Adelaide GF 2007 Side template page under the proposal that it is a largely insignificant achievement to warrant use of the navigational boxes and results in overcategorisation Boomtish (talk) 14:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Player Infobox
I've just added a show/hide option to the Career Highlights section of Template:Infobox afl player NEW, I think it fixes the problem of extremely long infoboxes (for example the fully extended version of Jonathan Brown).

But there is a problem in that all the text in this section is now centred, would someone please fix this up so that the text is back to normal. Thanks, I hope you all like it. Allied45 (talk) 05:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be better to leave the infobox the way it was prior, and in the cases of extrememly long honour rolls (perhaps such as James Hird, for example) simply create a separate header in the main article to document all the players' highlights/awards. The infobox can then be shortened to include only major awards (such as the Brownlow Medal, but perhaps not his most recent AFLPA awards) Boomtish (talk) 06:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Managed to align the text left!! - Allied45 (talk) 03:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

SANFL clubs
Is there any reason why some club's page are not using 'Football Club' as the page name? For example both Central District and North Adelaide use their nicknames while all the others use Football Club. I can understand why Port Adelaide's page is entitled Port Adelaide Magpies for example because they need to differentiate it from Port Power's page but for the other two there is no reason that I am aware of for them to break away from the naming conventions. Would anyone have any objections if I were to change their names? Crickettragic (talk) 09:06, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I always wondered the same thing myself. The two clubs' articles I created; Woodville Football Club and West Torrens Football Club, are in the style you recommend. I have no objections. --Roisterer (talk) 12:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I imagine it would depend on the branding the clubs chose to use.Hack (talk) 04:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Broken Game Reports links
As you've probably noticed, all of 2007's links to AFL.com.au game reports are broken and the reports no longer exist. So for this season I would like to make a suggestion of instead of using the official site, we use links to the new Herald Sun Superfooty site, where each game has an independent match report which are much more detailed than the current AFL formats. And they are most likely going to be kept on the sites archives, as every story is, accessible for years to come. An example of the Superfooty match reports are here. - Allied45 (talk) 07:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Where are the game reports for 2007? Remy B (talk) 07:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, It only began this year, I meant from this season's games we start using the Superfooty site. - Allied45 (talk) 10:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you certain they archive their stories because if they don't we're only creating the same amount of problems for ourselves. Normy 04:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well here is a match report from Round 16, 2005 of Geelong vs Port Adelaide that I found in the Herald Sun archives. Its not the same detail as the new match reports, but shows that they do archive these reports. ANd we know that the AFL site does not after the season ends. - Allied45 (talk) 01:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

List of Asian footballers
The quiz question about the earliest Asian VFL/AFL player led me to think that we could create a List of VFL/AFL players of Asian background page (or similar). Any thoughts? --TheGrantley (talk) 11:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I struggle to see how that's a notable topic. What does being Asian have to do with playing in the VFL/AFL? Remy B (talk) 11:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Notability aside I don't think the list would be big enough. Apart from Peter Bell and Wally Koochew have there been any other players who have had an Asian parent? Crickettragic (talk) 11:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Sudjai Cook would be one but unless it is part of a greater article then it may not be notable enough. --Roisterer (talk) 11:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * We already have a List of VFL/AFL players by ethnicity which covers all players mentioned so far so unless over the coming years the AFL starts recruiting players on mass from Asia I don't think it warrants it's own article. Crickettragic (talk) 12:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * hadn't realised the players by ehnicity existed. Obviously not an exhaustive list but it was interesting to see how many players of Croatian background there have been. --Roisterer (talk) 10:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, List of VFL/AFL players by ethnicity pretty much covers what I was looking to cover with my earlier suggestion. Thanks for the feedback everyone. --TheGrantley (talk) 11:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * And on the topic of footballers with Asian backgrounds, I have now created an article on Wally Koochew, the first known VFL footballer of Asian background. --Roisterer (talk) 03:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

VFL/AFL Season "Footy Fixtures"
There seems to be quite an outstanding omission from all of the work on Aussie Rules. There is no article dedicated to what might be called "History of the VFL/AFL home-and-away system".

In 1897, the VFL's set of footy fixtures was very simple. Team A played seven matches, against B (at home), C (away), D (at home), E (away), F (at home), G (away), and H (at home) in the first half of the season and, in the second half of the season, played another seven matches against B (away), C (at home), D (away), E (at home), F (away), G (at home), and H (away), the "mirror image" of the first half season. Gradually things became more and more complex; for example, the 1931 changes to the Finals system gave the VFL, for the first time, a set date for the last match of the season, and thus made it possible to link the Grand Final with the Melbourne Show (thus, the last Saturday in September).

I believe that the article should deal with the manner in which the "fixtures" were set up in in 1897, and then listing every change that has been made to the structure of the home-and-away season (the Finals series has already been adequately dealt with — see Early VFL Final systems plus McIntyre System plus McIntyre Final Eight System plus AFL finals system).

Whilst it would be time-consuming, it is not very complex task; however, is far beyond the references and other VFL/AFL resources that are available to me.

Such an article, in its sequential account of the changes over the years, would also need to declare the things that have been fixed (such as there must be a game at stadium Y on date X, or that Essendon must play Collingwood on Anzac Day, or that the Grand Final must be on such-and-such a day, at such-and-such a location, at such-and-such a time of day) and those which are just a matter of the luck of the (random, rather than stacked) draw.

All of these increasing-over-the-years complications to what was once a simple matter of having two matching halves of a season have a detailed history.

Each experiment/innovation was introduced either to meet a particular need or to create a certain opportunity.

Each of the changes, and the reasons given for those changes, and the benefits and/or problems they brought in their train, or the weaknesses they revealed, are all a matter of record, and should be included in such an article. I believe that this account of precisely how the past explains and justifies the (otherwise confusing) present would very significantly embellish the manner in which the Wikipedia deals with Aussie Rules. Lindsay658 (talk) 02:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd certainly be gappy to help write such an article. --TheGrantley (talk) 05:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Very good idea for a new article. Remy B (talk) 07:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe, what I have just written at VFL home-and-away matches (1902-1930), based on VFL statistics, might provide some sort of starting data set for you to begin your work with? Lindsay658 (talk) 02:46, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

VFL Team Names
I am presently trawling through the sequence of VFL "year pages" and have come across an enforced mechanical anachronism that, due to the fact that it now seems to be established, seems to need some sort of discussion to change.

I refer to the fact that, just for example in the 1922 VFL season, The Melbourne Cricket Club Football Club, known either as "The Red-Legs" or "The Fuschias" (from the colours of their uniform), is referred to as "Melbourne Demons", The South Melbourne Football Club, known as "The Bloods" as a contraction of the term "Blood-Stained Angels", is referred to as the "South Melbourne Swans" (they were not called "Swans" until the influx of Western Australian players in 1933), The Fitzroy Football Club, known as "The Maroons" (from the colours of their uniform), is referred to as "Fitzroy Lions" ("Lions" was not used until 1957, when Fitzroy decided to abandon its unfortunately equivocal nickname "The Gorillas" that it had worn since before World War II), and The Essendon Football Club, most generally known as "The Same Old" or "The Same Olds", are referred to as the "Essendon Bombers" (a name they did not acquire until 1940).

Then, to further compound these factual errors which continue to appear, we find in 1925 VFL season, that The Footscray Football Club, known as "The Triclours" (from the colours of their uniform), is referred to as "Footscray Bulldogs" (the name "Bulldogs" did not appear until 1928), The Hawthorn Football Club, known as "The Mayflowers" (from the colours of their uniform), is referred to as "Hawthorn Hawks" (the name "Hawks" did not appear until 1942), The North Melbourne Football Club, known as "The Shinboners" (from the Pannam-like propensity of its players to kick opponents in the shins?), is referred to as "North Melbourne Kangaroos" (the name "Kangaroos" did not appear until 1954).

I could go on, but I hope that you get my point. Given that these nick-names change from time to time, and that it may or may not be clear which nickname had greater currency at any particular time, it would seem sensible to name the teams for what they were: viz., The South Melbourne Football Club, The Essendon Football Club, The Footscray Football Club, The North Melbourne Football Club, etc. However, such extended names would take up an enormous amount of page space unnecessarily. The conclusion would seem to be to name them far more simply, as South Melbourne F.C., Essendon F.C., Footscray F.C., North Melbourne F.C.. Yet, given that they are all "clubs", and that all of the "C's" also have the common property of being devoted to "F" (football), it seems that the best way out of all of this abominable mess is for the templates being used to be removed and replaced by what ought to be termed a VFL set, in addition to and separate from the current AFL set to continue to operate, which shows the Club's names as follows: Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Footscray, Geelong, Hawthorn, Melbourne, North Melbourne, Richmond, South Melbourne, and St Kilda. This would also encourage factual, realistic writing, in accordance with the ever-increasing proliferation of peacock terms (Peacock) within AFL articles.

I am certain that, with somebody sufficiently specialized in such a task -- and given the global nature of the extent to which these distressingly anachronistic intrusions have been made into the records of earlier eras of Aussie Rules -- it would be a relatively easy task to construct a "bot" to make a global search and replace of such a specific nature in the limited population of the series of VFL year articles (i.e., from 1897 to 1989).

In the absence of a "bot" I am not certain how such a task might be accomplished; but, it seems certain that the longer these errors remain, the more pervasive their contamination of historical fact will be. Lindsay658 (talk) 02:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting us know, I've changed the templates for the Victorian clubs by removing their nicknames. I think this is the best solution until a bot can be used to install a seperate template because obviously for recent seasons clubs like Port have their nickname but Richmond, Melbourne etc won't. Cheers Crickettragic (talk) 07:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Well done on knowing where to go to turn off the 2008 switch! Quite apart from the fact that each of these pages is now, thankfully, historically accurate, I also think that they look at least 300% better now that they are so much less cluttered. I think that the pages in their new form visually emphasize the data that the pages contain, rather then what it was doing earlier: emphasizing the competing clubs. In almost every sense of the expression, the names of the competing clubs is the "given data" and, therefore, does not require emphasis.
 * It also has an additional advantage. In the earlier format my eyes were so assailed and diverted by the swathes of blue colour that swept across the page that, certainly in my own case, I did not recognize that an additional convention was operating: that of coding the match winner in bold. Having looked at these pages continuously over the last two weeks, I have only just been able to notice this embedded convention on looking at the far more (visually) simple new format a few minutes ago. It really has made a substantial difference. Thanks for that. Lindsay658 (talk) 19:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Players numbers
There is a photograph taken during a match between Fitzroy and Colingwood that was played at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 23 May 1903. All of the players clearly have a number on their back. I have not been able to find any photographs of numbered players before 1911 (one from 1911 shows that Collingwood players wore numbers whilst their Essendon opponents do not). Another photograph (from 1914) shows both the Collingwood team and its opponents (? Essendon) with numbers. As I have not been able to find any mention of the history of players numbers throughout the Wikipedia (meaning that there is either no mention, or that a mention is extremely well-hidden), I would suggest that it should appear under whatever part deals with playing uniforms; and, also, that players (at least for the last 70 years) have been reported on the basis of the umpire taking their guernsey number -- leading to a number of famous incidents where players have removed their guernseys. Anyway, I have isolated six questions that I feel need to be answered, and for which I can find no information:
 * (1) Given that it would seem logical that the numbers on the backs of the 1903 players would have been there to assist the Sydney crowd, how were the players numbered? (according to position? According to location on the playing field? according to their Family name?)
 * (2) If there was a gradual introduction of player numbers within the VFL competition, which team first introduced the custom and why did they introduce it? (e.g., they might have sold team-lists to raise funds for the club).
 * (3) Whenever such a custom was first introduced how were the players numbers match-specific or position-specific (as in today's Rugby Union and Rugby League)?
 * (4) Was there any connection between the universal application of player numbers -- by this I mean every player of every team on any one particular Saturday having a designated number -- and the introduction of the Football Record in 1912?
 * (5) When was it that it became the widespread custom for a player to continue with a specific designated number for all of their career?
 * (6) Did the nomination of a guernsey number for each selected player eventually become part of the standard process of delivering over the names of the selected teams to the VFl on a Thursday evening? Or was it that, as part of a player's registration, they were "registered" as, say, "Player 31 for Melbourne" and that the name "Ronald Dale Barassi" was placed beside that number, or was it the reverse, or was it two separate registers, one "seasonal" for the player, the other "weekly" for the number? (The events at the end of the 1958 VFL season emphasize the importance of this issue.)

Also, slightly connected with the above, I can find no reference to the practice of umpires offering two footballs to the visiting captain, as well as checking boots of all players for protruding and checking hands of all players to see that no rings were worn, before the matches. Anyway, I thought that I should raise this matter. Lindsay658 (talk) 02:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't have my references in front of me but I seem to recall reading that numbers were not introduced until 1913 or so. This may have been for specific designated numbers so it is possible that temporary numbers were used prior to this. I will see if I can chase an answer of sorts down. --Roisterer (talk) 23:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Just come across something that seems to strongly indicate the 1912 introduction; and given that, I think that it is 100% certain that it is, somehow, deeply involved with the VFL trying to enhance its income stream through the 1912 publication of the Football Record. Compare the left-hand column at  and at  with the left-hand column at . This seems to confirm the adoption of numbers in 1912.
 * This, however, still leaves the questions of the numbering system unanswered -- although, it certainly appears that the player, regardless of where they played, carried the same number throughout the season, and that at least one, Frank Caine of Essendon (17 goals on the list) carried number 27 (Frank Caine played his first senior match in round 3 of 1912).
 * Using Maplestone's Flying Higher (1996), list of player numbers (pp.413-417) and comparing that with the list of players who actually played each game in 1912 (p.455), the numbering seems a little random. However, if you then look at pp.81-82, some of the mystery disappears, at least in Essendon's case. There is a photograph of sheet with "[Copyright]" printed at the top left hand corner, the sheet has the title "Official List of Player and Numbers", and it goes on to list 21 players for the Carlton and Essendon teams for the 1911 Second Semi-Final (although, of course, only 18 took part in the match). There seems to be no relationship between the numbers and the players' family names, or the positions in which they played (same for Carlton -- see ).
 * Each of the 21 numbers listed on that sheet matches those that are supplied by Maplestone at pp.413-417 -- so, from this, we can certainly state that however the 1911 numbers were determined, they stayed with the Essendon players throughout their careers. Mapleston states (a) that this is the fist time that numbers had been used in a finals match, and (b) that the Essendon players wore a small red number under their sash. On the basis that Maplestone was writing a history of Essendon, I would strongly speculate that, despite his apparent assertion, the South Melbourne and Collingwood players had also carried numbers in their First Semi-Final a week earlier.
 * It also interesting that one of the photographs on Maplestone p.82 shows one of the special boards that were erected at the two ends of the ground to display the players' names and numbers. The names seem to be at least as large as the names of the cricketers were on the old MCG scoreboard.
 * All of this, I suppose, raises another question: In that first year (1912), were the player numbers:
 * (a) issued by the VFL to all of its registered players; in other words, was the notice of the allocation of a particular number, however that number may have been determined (alphabet, position, seniority?), part of the VFL's formal acknowledgement of that player's registration for that season, or
 * (b)specified by the player's club at the time the application for registration was lodged. Lindsay658 (talk) 01:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You no doubt already have seen this but "The Complete Book of AFL Finals (2002) lists 1912 as the first year numbers were used, coinciding with the introduction of the Record. The book adds: "The experiments with numbering had been tried a few times before, first in the 1911 final between Essendon and Carlton, and also in the grand final. In the former match Essendon had small red numbers under their sash and Carlton wore small white numbers."

As an added piece of trivia, apparently the first goal kicked by someone wearing a number on their jumper was by Vin Gardiner of Carlton. --TheGrantley (talk) 05:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

My first article
Well, after months of minor edits and trying to not make a fool of myself on the quiz, I have finally got around to creating an article from scratch. Stan Reid played for Fitzroy in the first season of the VFL, played in their 1898 premiership and then became the first VFL player to die in a war. He was also a great, great uncle of mine. Unfortunately my family don't seem to have any photos of him. Anyway, I'd love to get feedback on the article. --TheGrantley (talk) 04:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks good, well done. I notice you mention that he was considered Best on Ground at the 1898 GF. If you haven't already checked, you may want to look at Jim Main's book "When it Matters Most", which covers all the players he retrospectively awards Norm Smith Medals to. Reid may get a mention in that. The important question to ask is, did you inherit his skill and, if so, are you actually an AFL player secretly beefing up his own article? --Roisterer (talk) 22:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, he seemed to have gotten all the football skills in the family. --TheGrantley (talk) 04:19, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Charles Moore of Essendon was the first VFL player killed in the Boer War. He died 12 May 1901 and there is a memorial to him in St Vincents Gardens, South Melbourne. Reid died 29 June 1901. Phanto282 (talk) 12:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Boer War Nominal Roll: Charles Moore Lindsay658 (talk) 16:04, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all this. I had only been told that he had died in the War and it wasn't until I read the article on "Fitzroy Firsts" on the AFL website that I saw that he was apparently the first to die on active duty. Now, I see I shall have to tell my Great Aunt that Great, great Uncle Stan wasn't actually the first VFL footballer to die on active duty. --TheGrantley (talk) 06:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

No free image
User:David Gerard has just used a bot to add Image:Replace this image male.svg to literally hundreds of VFL/AFL player's infoboxes. Does anyone else agree that this makes the pages look ridiculous? Furthermore what is the point of adding it to Carl Ditterich for example, is it really realistic to think that a Wikipedian will have a free image of a footy player from the 1960s!? Anyway I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts, if we can get a consensus against this then maybe we can go about removing the image without too much hassle from David. Cheers Crickettragic (talk) 23:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't really like the look of it and I can't see it being a benefit to the page. I think there was also a discussion about it in the Cricket project with the consensus being that it wasn't liked there either. --TheGrantley (talk) 04:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I think it is just awful. Wikipedia articles should not treat the reader as an editor. I think it's a clear case of crossing the line from Wikipedia being written by editors for readers to being written by editors for editors. If there is no image then just dont have one - it's not that bad of a sin to have a biographical article without an image. We shouldn't litter Wikipedia with requests for more images when the vast majority of readers of the articles are not interested in contributing. Remy B (talk) 07:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * How do we go about reverting back these edits? By my estimate David has added this to almost 500 articles so he's ensured that it's too big a task to do manually. Anyone here have this AWB thing? Crickettragic (talk) 13:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * At first I agreed with you all, but with a bit of a thunk, I reckon lets leave it for a while to see if it does prompt some new pics. I know I'll go through my pics when I get some time, to try to fill in some blanks. We just have hope that the quality of the photos are OK. As for the AWB, any established user can get it, just go to AWB & follow the instructions.  I have it, but won't be using it for this... yet.  We should remember  the 1955 rule as well for old Aussie photos too. The-Pope (talk) 00:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

VFL and Wartime
I have just removed a large section from The VFL during the World Wars and placed it within a newly created article VFL/AFL players who died in active service. I think it makes much more sense to do it this way; and, also, having the article on those who died in active service as a separate article might result in some additional contributions from those oriented to military history. Lindsay658 (talk) 04:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Were there no players who died in the Boxer Rebellion/Korean War/Vietnam War etc.? There were certainly players being called up in the Vietname War draft. --TheGrantley (talk) 06:12, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Given the two criteria of (a) having played at least one senior VFL game, and (b) having lost their lives, Main and Allen (Main, J. & Allen, D., Fallen — The Ultimate Heroes: Footballers Who Never Returned From War, Crown Content, (Melbourne), 2002. ISBN 1-740-95010-0) in their introductions (p.x) assert that "no VFL footballer was killed in any wars other than the Anglo-Boer War and the two World Wars", They also note that at least one VFL player (Geoff Collins) served in the Korean War (he was a fighter pilot), and a "number of VFL players" were servicemen during the Vietnam conflict; however they only identify one player, Wayne Closter and, given that fact, it may be that they were gently and implicitly indicating that he was the only VFL player to serve in Vietnam. Lindsay658 (talk) 17:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Debuts
Here's a list of debuts for use in info boxes. It's tersely formatted to reduce the page size http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AFL/Debuts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.211.104 (talk) 06:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. Where was it sourced from? --Roisterer (talk) 06:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * http://stats.afl.com.au/public/statistics/player_roundbyround.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.211.104 (talk) 07:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Most grateful for the tip. The database also lists the players who played for each team on a round by round basis for each year. This has allowed me to complete the 1924 round-robin Finals' South Melbourne and Fitzroy playing squads at . Thanks. Lindsay658 (talk) 09:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Cheers that is going to be very helpful. Previously I could only find debut information for Carlton players, thanks to Blueseum.com and nothing for players from other clubs. Much appreciated. Crickettragic (talk) 09:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This is the same source that I used to make the jumbo todo list that some of you have been reducing in size recently. More current, though, can I have some assistance in keeping List of 2008 AFL debuts up to date. Thanks The-Pope (talk) 09:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Problem with "Fremantle" in the 1995 tables
There is some sort of intermittent formatting problem associated with the rows in which the Fremantle matches appear in the tables at 1995 AFL season -- see, for example,. I have done everything that I can possibly think of to correct it without having any effect. Is there someone with a bit more skill than I have than can have a look at it and set it right? Thanks. Lindsay658 (talk) 04:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll have a look at it now but I can't guarantee anything. Normy 05:11, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it but it should be only temporary (as I've written in the edit summaries) until something is worked out. It definitely has something to do with the spacing between each of the column entries. Some of them were like Fremantle||Score when it should be Fremantle || Score. I don't know. My concentration isn't good enough to deal with such a problem as this. :D. I'm sure somebody will know how to solve it. Normy 05:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The Fremantle template was edited, which introduced the problem. Unintroduced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.212.217 (talk) 08:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Players who died in active service
I have just finished the final bit of the tables that contain all of the relevant information on VFL players who are known to have died as a consequence of their active service (see ). The list also includes the only VFL field/boundary/goal umpire known to have died in active service. I thought that it might be handy for users as ANZAC Day approaches. Lindsay658 (talk) 03:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Good job. I wonder if we can get a DYK out of it for ANZAC Day? --Roisterer (talk) 23:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that would be wonderful; however, I have no idea how to go about such a thing.Lindsay658 (talk) 02:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

article notability
While doing a review of B class Australian article AFL team rivalries is unsourced and lacks assertion of notability. IMHO in its current form it wouldnt survive at AfD. Gnangarra 14:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that as it's an AFL endorsed round (probably need a ref or two to their official positive view of it), coupled with the generally negative refs I just found should make it safe as an article as a whole.  Each individual section, however, really should have some references.  It can't be that hard to find a match report that says "Foo vs Bar is the latest chapter in their great rivalry" or a coach saying "we really respect team X and the rivalry we've built up over the years".   The intro could be expanded to explain that unlike some other major sporting rivalries we don't have to segregrate crowds and maybe some figures.  The year by year rivalry round results should probably go, maybe just a summary of annual attendances with the comparison/ranking compared to other rounds.  The-Pope (talk) 16:18, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree the article is keepable, but gee it needs a lot of work. There are some blatantly uninteresting rivalries, some seemingly based on the fact that they faced in a Grand Final, and some because once something interesting happened in a game between them. It makes the article seem like a bit of a soapbox, especially when it's not referenced. Someone needs to go through and be brutal in culling the silly "rivalries" and leaving the genuine rivalries. If there is no way to back up a rivalry by reliable sources then it's probably not interesting enough to stay. Remy B (talk) 08:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Inter rules question
Australian Football World Tour says the tour was in 67 which is supported by Meath winning the All Ireland in 67, However International_Rules_Football would seem to imply it took place after 67. It's quite unclear can anyone help clarify here Gnevin (talk) 21:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I have a feeling that the Galahs played Gaelic Football (that is, with the exception of being permitted to bounce the ball, instead of toeing it, the matches were played as if they were Gaelic football matches) on their first tour in 1967.
 * Whether they played under standard, "blended" rules (that is, the same rules for both teams) in 1968, I am not certain.
 * However, I am supposing that the difficulty you seem to have identified may simply be that one article refers to the privately sponsored Galahs playing Gaelic football (Australian Football World Tour), whilst the other refers to matches played by an AFL sponsored team according to an established set of "blended rules" (thus the name International_Rules_Football).
 * Perhaps a look at Burke, P., "Harry and the Galahs: Remembering the Meeting of Two Football Codes Thirty Years On", Australian Society for Sports History Bulletin, Vol. 29, (1998), pp.9-17. might help you clarify the issue. I would suggest that there is no connexion between the two articles (that is, except for the historical connexions of the two separate endeavours). Lindsay658 (talk) 00:49, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that i managed to find a reference as you can see from the tours where listed backwards Gnevin (talk) 01:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody please help with photographs
I have just finished adding lots of cross-references, relating to military service and football careers, to the section on the 1916 "Pioneer Exhibition Game" that was held in London between teams of Australian servicemen, the majority of whom had played senior Aussie Rules in their home states (see ).

The Australian War memorial has two photographs in its collection that were taken on the day of the match and show each of the teams lined up before the match had started:
 * (1) The "Australian Training Units Team", which lost the match — photograph at ; and
 * (2) The "Third Australian Divisional Team", which won the match — photograph at.

(By the way the date supplied by the War Memorial is wrong; the match took place on Saturday October 28, 1916.)

I think that the article would be greatly improved if a copy of each of these two photographs were placed next to the section for each of the teams. The information with each photograph says that they are free of copyright.

Is there anyone who has the time, knowledge and skills to be able to perform such a task? Lindsay658 (talk) 22:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I can do this once I get home from work. Nice find. --Roisterer (talk) 00:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

List of past and present Geelong Football Club players
I have been working hard at completing the list of Geelong players. I have managed to add all players from 1980 to present to the list, but it is still a long way off from completed. Please feel free to help complete, or even maintain the list (i.e. player's stats, links), it is also a useful tool for editors wishing to create new player articles, choose from the list. It will alos need constant maintaining of stats, and anyone who does this should update all stats at once, and state when all the stats are updated too. Please note: The only stats currently available for players pre-1991 season are the games and goals, but any player who debuted since then has all stats available. This is a tough job, it takes a bit of hard work to compile the list of players (who aren't listed in chronological order on the official site), and also to add all stats for all players in. So Good Luck to anybody who helps.

LINKS:
 * AFL Tables - Player Stats
 * List of Every Geelong Player

Allied45 (talk) 11:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I made a similar one for Fremantle at List of Fremantle Football Club players, and I think we should try to standardise on the article names and styles - is "past and present" really needed? I only put in details of their debut... should probably add games and goal tallies, but keeping up to date would be difficult. I don't think any other stats are needed.  Obviously it's a lot easier for the more recent clubs.  Once we get some more it should probably be linked to each other by a template or similar.  Search for Excel to Wiki translators to help to automate table generation. Good luck. The-Pope (talk) 12:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Nice work there mate, keep it up! I have to agree with The Pope though in regard to the article name, something like List of Geelong Football Club players would be better. The list of Geelong coaches is called List of Geelong Football Club coaches so they should probably match up. All the other coaches lists have been standardised as well and are called List of Football Club coaches. I also suggest someone makes up a template for players similar to Template:AFL club coaches which can include Geelong and Freo. This may encourage some editors to create pages for the other clubs which have redlinks. Crickettragic (talk) 03:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree with title change, it's unnecessary, i've changed it to simply List of Geelong Football Club players. - Allied45 (talk) 04:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Just made the Template:AFL club players template and added it to the five or six pages that exist. Need to work on a few more titles and work towards a consistent style and content. The-Pope (talk) 09:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Players with the same name
I know that if there are two people with the same name you just chuck (footballer) or (Australian rules footballer) on the end. I'm not sure what to do however when there are two or more AFL players with the same name, for example there are 3 Charles Youngs and 2 of them played for Melbourne. Terlob (talk) 08:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you know their middle names? So if one of their names is Charles Paul Young you can make the page Charles P. Young. If their middle names are not provided and two of them played for the same club then next best bet would be to go by their DOB, so Charles Young (footballer, born 1936) for example. Hope that helps. Cheers Crickettragic (talk) 09:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking of doing something like that, but some players dont have their birthdates available. For example, there are 6 William Jones'. 2 of them played for Geelong, and there is no information I can find that has birth dates or middle names for either of them.Terlob (talk) 11:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've done an analysis of the 2900 odd players categorised under Australian rules footballers and all the subcats. 335 have (footballer), 157 have (Australian rules footballer), 14 have (Australian footballer) and 35 have some other variation of AFL/Football/player and 17 are listed under some other field (cricketer, umpire, administrator, politician etc).  I'm going to try to move most of the 35 "something elses" to either footballer or Australian rules footballer.  I think we need to add a line to the AFL style guide on the main project page choosing either (footballer) or (Australian rules footballer) as the preferred disamb style, if middle initials aren't known.  We don't seem to have any (born 19XX) ones yet.  The only team related one was Matthew Campbell (Kangaroos footballer), but I've already moved him to Matt Campbell (footballer), so I think we should avoid that unless we have no option, especially for the current players as they can move teams.  If you look on the ToDo,  Someone Else, Disamb, Debuts lists, which were extracted from the AFL website history section, it has a heap of middle initials for the duplicate names.  And Messers Jones are listed under Bill, not William, and are listed as
 * JONES, Bill F. CARLT: 1931-32; KANG: 1935-36
 * JONES, Bill J. COLL: 1954-58
 * JONES, Bill Henry younger FITZ: 1941
 * JONES, Bill D. GEEL: 1915
 * JONES, Bill Herbert GEEL: 1920
 * JONES, Bill Henry elder RICH: 1911-12
 * I'm not sure if I just did the younger/elder myself to avoid a duplication (as opposed to a snr/jnr which implies father/son, which I have no idea about)... but if they are notable enough, we'll split them some other way! The-Pope (talk) 12:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * In regard to the (Australian rules footballer) vs (footballer) debate I've grown quite fond of (Australian footballer). Australian rules footballer is arguably too long and footballer often isn't enough to properly disambiguate from other sportsmen. I think it's a good compromise .. thoughts?Crickettragic (talk) 15:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I always preferred Aust rules footballer, but I think Australian footballer is probably better... from now on. I know there are bots now to do mass renamings... but I think we'll leave the almost 500 (footballers) and (A.r.f) alone for now and just start from now.  If there is some consensus we should add something like the following to the style guide on the project page.
 * When you create a new article and an article already exists for the player's name for someone else, the preferred format to use is John Citizen (Australian footballer).
 * If there are two Australian footballers with the same name, attempt to identify a middle initial such as Mark L. Williams and Mark M. Williams.
 * If one player is much more commonly known than the other, then it is acceptable to have Kelvin Moore and Kelvin W. Moore, with the appropriate hatnotes to facilitate easy switching in case someone ends up at the wrong page by following an ambiguous link.
 * If a disambiguation page already exists, please add the new page to the list. Please remember to also check the What links here link for each page and update any incorrect links.
 * or is that just too wordy and prescriptive? I think we need to get agreement on the (Australian footballer) descriptor first, then maybe just some links or copy/paste from other projects or WP guidelines. A quick look at the soccer/football one doesn't seem have any.  The-Pope (talk) 16:36, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I prefer (Australian rules footballer), mainly because it uses the sport name that we have for the sport's article. Breaking that consistency to save on length isn't really all that important (eg. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). Remy B (talk) 08:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Champion of the Colony dispute
RossRSmith is currently in the process of adding -

to the pages of every player to have been awarded a Champion of the Colony/Season. I thought this has all been resolved? Considering after discussions he is still the only person on Wikipedia who seems to dispute this award does this template need to be added to every page? Crickettragic (talk) 11:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I am in the process of assembling further evidence to allay the fears of RossRSmith. Once I have the last piece I will rewrite the head of the article, and request that RossRSmith removes all of his tags. For a start, Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897-1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996, page 161 has a photograph of Jack Dyer, with a Champion of the Season trophy in his hand, being congratulated by a representative of The Argus newspaper.Lindsay658 (talk) 23:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy to remove the disputed tags if I am made aware of evidence that the Champion of the Colony award existed in one or more of the seasons claimed for it. The Dyer photo you mention appears to relate to a Player of the Season award made by The Argus newspaper. I know of a few similar awards made by that paper in the 1890s, however, please note that about half of them are different names to those reputed to have won the Colony award. Perhaps a list should be created for each of those major media awards. I can help with details of the Bunton Medal (Sporting Globe) which lasted for about 30 years 1955-1985 or so. RossRSmith (talk) 15:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Lack of Australian rules related Featured Articles
I note with some concern that there are still no Australian rules related Featured Articles, and in fact only two Good Articles. The casual observer would think that Joel Selwood and Tom Hawkins are the two most important figures in Australian rules football.

I would suggest Australian rules football as the logical article to put forward as our first FA. I think the biggest problem with the Aussie rules article is that some of the prose would be difficult to understand for a non-Australian rules fan so we need to just polish it. I am going to list it on the Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight page, so if people want to vote for it we can work on it and then put the page forward to Featured Article status. --Roisterer (talk) 11:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Been there, failed that. Have we improved the citations? Once I'm finished with my player page crusade, I'll dig around in my library to get some better/other sources for some parts. First recorded game was on Aug 7 1858... maybe we should aim for a FA by then to get on the main page!  but we need to get to Good first.  And remember FA does not equal importance... Hamersley, Western Australia was a main page article, but most people in Perth, let alone Australia wouldn't know where it is located! The-Pope (talk) 12:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed that it would be nice to get some more notable pages toward FA status. I've worked hard so far on the Selwood and Hawkins articles (moreso Selwood in recent times), to get them up to GA status, and I'm also continuing to edit the Gary Ablett Snr article to get it up to standard. Hopefully once I'm happy with the quality of all three, I'll help touch up what should be the major articles for this WikiProject, such as Australian rules football and Australian Football League.Boomtish (talk) 08:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

If the project is looking for potential featured content perhaps a list might be an easier way to start. List of Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees would be a good one to start with. I would break it into two lists; one a basic list of the inductees with some context on each inductee (club, games played, years active etc.) and then a "legends" list with more detailed information, an image etc. The current list needs some work as it looks full of OR and doesn't quite meet NPOV but I am sure it could be done quickly. I would also rename the article Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees removing the superfluous "List of". Just a thought. -- Mattinbgn\talk 22:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

List of sportspeople by nickname
Hi WikiProject AFL. You may or may not be familiar with List of sportspeople by nickname, which I notice contains relatively few Aussie rules footballers. I added a couple (Dipper and Plugger), but I'm sure there must be plenty more. I would recommend only adding people who have an existing article. DH85868993 (talk) 15:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * See List of nicknames used in Australian rules, which would appear to be the more suitable list for such nicknames rather than adding to a potentially massive list of sportspeople in general. -- Longhair\talk 09:18, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for alerting me to the existence of that article. I have raised the topic of duplication between lists at Talk:List of sportspeople by nickname. DH85868993 (talk) 23:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK
I have just proposed the following "Did You Know" at :
 * === Articles created/expanded on April 30 ===
 * ...that Australian rules footballer, Charlie Moore, the first Australian to die of gunshot wounds in the Anglo-Boer War, played in the 1898 Victorian Football League Grand Final against Stan Reid, who died in the same war six weeks later. . (the Moore article, created by User:Roisterer on 26 April 208, is "new"; and the Reid article, created by User:TheGrantley on 22 March 2008, has been recently revised). Nom by Lindsay658 (talk) 23:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I am hoping that the fact that it includes references to two separate articles may be given some weight. Lindsay658 (talk) 23:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Great stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheGrantley (talk • contribs) 05:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

the "Modern Game"
Reviewing the article on Adam Goodes the lead has He is regarded as one of the greats of the modern, faster game.... While I realise its a term thrown around in the media all too frequently but what is it referring to, when did the modern game start, what was before it...maybe it needs an article or do we need to consider our usage of the term. Gnangarra 05:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I always considered "the modern game" as being the last decade or so. So when I first heard the phrase back in the late 70s, the modern game would have started in about 1970, while using the term today would refer to probably either the start of the AFL in 1991 or 1997. Others may have wildly differing understanding of it. --Roisterer (talk) 01:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Therefore under that analogy the use of the description He is regarded as one of the greats of the modern, faster game... shouldnt be used as the term itself leaves the player behind. Gnangarra 00:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

All-AUstralian templates
I was just doing a routine search when I found that several 2007 All-Australian squad tempaltes have been created. It looks like Template:2007 All-Australian Team is the accepted version, but there are alos at least two more. These two tempaltes should be deleted and the accepted version kept. The other versions are: Allied45 (talk) 08:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Template:2007 All-australians
 * Template:2007 All-Australians

Player page naming standards
I think we need to get something agreed on and published on this. Opinions?
 * 1) Disambiguation qualifiers: I am happy to leave it up to each page creator/editor to have Joe Bloggs (footballer), Joe Bloggs (Australian footballer) or Joe Bloggs (Australian rules footballer). But, as per the naming conventions, I think we should avoid using AFL in the  section, as the say to avoid abreviations.  (football player) seems to have been claimed by the NFL, other sports such as ice hockey are trying to switch to the sport's name ie (ice hockey) to avoid the less natural (ice hockey player), but I think it should describe the player, not his sport (I also prefer (musician) to (music) and (politician) to (cane toad) (politics)).  Avoid capitals for anything other than Australian - do not use (Footballer)
 * 2) Junior/Senior: Crickettragic has been doing some good work on the Junior/Senior issue... Bill Bloggs, Jr. and Bill Bloggs, Sr. is the preferred format throughout the en.wikipedia (comma, space, Jr or Sr then full stop).
 * 3) Initials or middle names: Where you have two or more AFL players with the same name, middle initials are preferred to using (footballer) for one, (Australian footballer) for the other or similar. H. C. A. Harrison is the only "initials only" page we have.  (the spacing is as per the wikipedia standard) Should he be Henry C. A. Harrison?  What is the common name for a guy who died in 1929?  Is it just matching the "quaint politeness" of yesteryear that we use the initials, or was he called "HCA" by his mates?
 * 4) Nicknames: Should it be Mark "Jacko" Jackson, Mark 'Jacko' Jackson or Mark Jackson (Australian rules footballer)? I'm leaning towards the no-nicknames one, as although the overriding rule is "use the most commonly called name", I think he was called "Mark Jackson" just as often as "Jacko" and probably a lot more than "Mark 'Jacko' Jackson".  In a similar vein, I've already moved George "Blue" Johnston and Reginald "Old Boy" Wilmot to their no-nickname equivalents, as I don't think they were ever referred to in that way... but Wilfred "Chicken" Smallhorn, Frank 'Checker' Hughes, George 'Jocka' Todd, Henry 'Ivo' Crapp and William 'Nipper' Truscott I'm not sure about.  Should they be Chicken Smallhorn, Ivo Crapp etc or Wilfred Smallhorn, George Todd like we have Graham Farmer and Tony Lockett, not Polly Farmer and Plugger Locket. If we decide to keep the nicknames, should it be in single or double quotes - as you see above we have both?  How do we determine what was the "common name" of a guy who lived 100 years ago?  I've tried to find other pages with both the real and nickname in the titles... even most of the professional wrestling pages are either real name only Randy Savage or nickname only The Rock (entertainer), not a mixture (although there is Stone Cold Steve Austin without quotes at all!)


 * Changing (politician) to (cane toad) seems reasonable so be Bold as for the players, using (AFL) would be wrong for dabs in cases like;
 * someone from Polly's era or earlier -- they was in the VFL not AFL
 * for a player like Stephen Micheal -- as he only played WAFL
 * or for someone like Hayden Bunton -- who played sanfl,wafl
 * That leaves the full (Australian rules footballer) option.


 * For the Nicks names Im less inclined to have a standard format, article should be at the more commonly used name ie Polly Farmer with redirects from Graham Farmer and Graham "Polly" Farmer, etc. Though would prefer to see "Nick" rather than 'Nick', where there isnt any certainty that the nick was more common then at the person actual name is the way to go. Jacko IMHO should be at Jacko rather than Mark Jackson, likewise Gary Ablett should be at God rather than that religious/mythological Icon or at least make it a dab with links to God(Gary Ablett) and God(Religious Icon) even then one could be excused for getting it mixed up. Gnangarra 17:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * In regard to the nicknames I think we already have problems with consistency. For example Lance Franklin is almost always called Buddy Franklin so if we're going to have a page called Frank 'Checker' Hughes then technically his page should be Lance 'Buddy' Franklin. It's a tough one but on official VFL/AFL records for many of the early players guys such as Hughes and Smallhorn are listed as their current page name states so we should probably go with that.Crickettragic (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Question re Hall of Fame tribute match
Was it considered a State of Origin encounter? I'm trying to work out whether or not the 20 odd Victorians would be eligible for Category:Victorian State of Origin players. Crickettragic (talk) 07:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would suggest not, because if so what about those who played in the Dream Team? What do we do with them? Especially if this game ends up being a once off? AFL-Cool (talk) 11:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you could make a case for it being a State representative honour. The team selections, after all, were concerned about players representing the state of Victoria or any of the other seven states (comprising the "Dream Team"). So indirectly, I would certainly argue that this 'accolade' is a state representation honour, but whether you want to then pigeon hole into the State of Origin cat is another thing. The Victorian players would definitely fall into the Victorian State of Origin players cat, but whether or not you consider the Dream Team players as 'representing their respective states under the unified jumper of the dream team' is debatable. Blame the AFL. Boomtish (talk) 12:03, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah but they do all fit into a Category:Hall of Fame tribute match, that could be considered a subcat of "State of Origin" in principal it is a VIC SoO team, with about 50 players in the cat its an ideal size. Gnangarra 13:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we need to review the entire Category:State of Origin players category... I'm surprised the NRL boys have let us have it (I know we invented the concept, but common name use etc... they win, but they use Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players etc for their guys). As we have it now, I think the Vics should go straight into the Category:Victorian State of Origin players cat, the Dream Team needs it's own cat, we need an Allies cat and we need to decide if we are going to split up the State team reps (ie before 1977) from the SOO reps (1977-2000ish) from the recent WAFL/SANFL/QFL/TFL/VFL state team reps. And how do we make a worldwide appropriate, unambiguous no acronyms label Category:Western Australian Australian rules football state representative players is a bit of a mouthful and Category:Western Australian Australian rules football State of Origin players isn't any better. Category:Western Australian State of Origin players doesn't state which sport (ie Hockey/Basketball/Swimming/Judo could start up a SoO comp and want to use that cat, Category:Western Australian (AFL) State of Origin players has an acronym and is incorrect for pre-1990 VFL era, likewise (VFL) would be wrong for the post 1990 players.  The whole cat misses all the pre-SoO players such as Polly, EJ and Jezza.  Not sure what the answer is.  Just don't think we've found it yet, but we should start getting prepared incase it ever gets CfD'd. The-Pope (talk) 16:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Gold Coast Team
Do we have an article about the proposed Gold Coast team (or for that matter, the proposed Western Sydney team)? With the amount of ink already spilt about the teams, they could make solid articles. Also, could an article like Australian rules football on the Gold Coast, covering the old Carrara Koalas and the current developments, be a goer? --TheGrantley (talk) 02:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * See GC17. -- Longhair\talk 03:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Player Category Titles
Currently, in contradiction to our style guidelines, the player categories are of the style Category:Carlton Blues players rather than the more correct and preferred Category:Carlton Football Club players. Before I or others nominate this at WP:CFD is there a general agreement to do this for all bar Bris (both Bears & Lions), Eagles and Swans?The-Pope (talk) 09:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You have no arguments from me. --Roisterer (talk) 10:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No brainer obviously club name is the best, though I'd make Fitzroy players as a separate cat and a subcat of Brisbane lions dont waste time at CFD be a pair of boots, "Just do it". Gnangarra 11:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll get it done... but the last one just help me up a touch... Category:Western Bulldogs players or Category:Footscray Football Club players or both? Category:North Melbourne Kangaroos players to Category:North Melbourne Football Club players is obvious... but the doggies, not sure. I'll ask Pip.The-Pope (talk) 12:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Tough one. Not many may know, but they are still legally Footscray Football Club Limited (trading as Western Bulldogs).  I have to confess, I really don't like the idea of splitting it up, afterall, they are meant to be the one ongoing club (the entity never changed, just the name).  What have we done about South Melbourne/Sydney?  I would have thought that that is the exact same situation.  On the whole, I much prefer the sound of "Carlton Football Club players", "Collingwood Footbal Club...", etc, however, with the Bulldogs, they now do go under the name "Western Bulldogs", so it is possible to argue that what we have now should remain.  It's harder to argue that everyone, including the modern day players should come under Footscray Football Club because of the confusion that might cause (would we put modern day Sydney players under South Melbourne?).  On the other hand, it is possible to argue that everyone goes under Western Bulldogs, afterall, the Western Bulldogs have won one flag in the record books, even if it was under another name a long, long, long, long time ago.... (reaches for a tissue) --πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  13:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * My reasoning for what I am about to say is flimsy, but I reckon that the following categories can stay as is (all modern names, 1982 onwards): Adelaide Crows players, Brisbane Bears players, Brisbane Lions players, Fremantle Dockers players, Port Adelaide Power players, Sydney Swans players, West Coast Eagles players, and Western Bulldogs players.  The others ought to be changed along the lines of University Football Club players.  Why?  Because in the modern era the above names are used regularly and they don't grate, but the combination of names like Carlton Blues, St Kilda Saints, Melbourne Demons, etc - they absolutely grate and no self-respecting Australian football fan would ever be caught dead using those combinations.  Having said that, I understand that they might have to be used as names of articles for disambiguation purposes, but if we have the liberty of using the correct terms in the categories, let's take it!  πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  13:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * As I said on the CFD page I support the move but suggest we keep Category:Port Adelaide Power players as Port Adelaide Football Club is ambiguous and could also refer to the SANFL club's players. I know it's been discussed before but I am still a little uneasy about saying Bob Skilton for example played for the 'Sydney Swans'. For some of the US sports where team relocation is fairly common they have different cats for each city. Eg. Category:Vancouver Grizzlies players is used even though the club still exists after relocating to Memphis.


 * So maybe Category:South Melbourne Football Club players could be used for the pre-1982 club and for cases where a player's career took place on both ends of the relocation then just have the two categories. Crickettragic (talk) 01:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * What you say about Port Power is consistent with what I have written about all the names post 1982. I understand what you are saying about the Sydney Swans, on the other hand, they do remain the same sporting entity, in the same way we would describe the Swans as having won 4 flags (3 of them as South Melbourne eons ago).  Perhaps the top of the category page can make it clear that the name Sydney Swans also includes those players who played for South Melbourne?  Needless to say, Brisbane Bears, Brisbane Lions and Fitzroy Football Club are different again because they do represent three separate entities.  I note that scattered throughout Wikipedia we find precedents for the one article existing for an item that has undergone a myriad of name changes.  One example I am familiar with is Akragas (ancient Greek name), Agrigentum (ancient Latin name), Girgenti (latinisation of Arabic name), Agrigento (modern Italian name).  πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  02:06, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


 * We have to be a bit careful about the pre/post 82 distinction. Fremantle aren't allowed to use Dockers officially, so it shouldn't be used here for a title.  Port also HATE using Port Adelaide Power, just as much as Hawthorn Hawks or St Kilda Saints.  Looking at their website it says the nickname changed from Port Power to just Power.  Maybe we need Category:Port Adelaide Football Club (Power) players and Category:Port Adelaide Football Club (Magpies) players.  The Weagles, on the other hand are NOT the West Coast Football Club.  But Freo, Adelaide and Port ARE their respective FCs.  Brissy is actually the Brisbane Lions Australian Football Club I believe.  As for the name changes (and yes same applies to Sydney/SM) I have no problems with having a comment at the top of the page for the Category:Western Bulldogs players explaining the former name.  The issue is should pages like EJ Whitten's have Category:Western Bulldogs players on it? The-Pope (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I just noticed that our bible:  Holmesby, R. & Main, J. (2002) The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers, splits players into Foot, WB or Foot/WB, ditto for South/Syd.  As I already wrote, there appears to already be a precedent in Wikipedia that you stick to the one article for something with mulitple names - but should that principle apply to categories as well?  That's the question for me.  If someone can answer it adequately, I guess it's only a very short step to doing what Holmesby and Main already do.  πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  12:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the pre 1982 names should just be crossed categorised ie south melb into sydney swans and vikkyverca, with an explanation at the top of the category page highlighting the distinction. Like wise the brisbane and fitzroy incantations also with the doggies and the North Melbourne canberra goldcoast Kangaroos football club. Gnangarra 14:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * So are these changes going ahead? I think at the very least we are all in agreement that Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Hawthorn, Nth Melbourne, Melbourne, Richmond and St Kilda should all have their nickname replaced with Football Club. Crickettragic (talk) 03:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Australian rules football article status post ACOTF
People may be aware that Australian rules football was the Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight. Looking at the article now, I would say it is getting closer to Good Article status, although there are probably still a number of statements that need to be referenced. If people could have a look over and see where more references are needed, that would be great. --Roisterer (talk) 10:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

E.E. Gunn ?
I'm working on the article for Aurora Stadium and have a question that people here may be able to answer. Was there a famous player from Tasmania called E.E. Gunn? One of the stadium's stands appears to be alternatively known as the "EE Gunn Stand" (I presume named after a person) or the "Gunns Stand" (I presume sponsored by Gunns). Two problems - I don't know which one is correct, and I don't know who E.E. Gunn is - the only google hits I can get appear to refer to an "E.E. Gunn Reserve" in Ormond, Victoria. Can anyone shed any light on the subject? -- Chuq (talk) 01:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration
Im thinking it might be a good idea to start a weekly collaboration/review of an Australian-rules football related article. It could be a bit like WikiProject Australia's Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight. It would be an oppurtunity for everyone to review and add their opinions on what should be done to the selected article. I believe this would greatly improve the quality of AFL articles, and hopefully get some feature articles out of it!

Please have your say about this below. - Allied45 (talk) 11:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I meant to comment on this earlier. While this sounds good in theory, I am mindful of the fact that sometimes the Oz Collaboration of the Fortnight isn't really supported. Perhaps if someone who has been working on an article lists it here then others could help build it towards FA/GA level. Just my thoughts, of course. --Roisterer (talk) 11:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Linking to Port Adelaide Football Club or Port Adelaide Magpies
For articles on people who played for Port in the SANFL prior to 1997 which article should we be linking to? When I made pages for some of Port's Magarey Medalists a while back I linked to the Magpies article but have since changed the link to Port Adelaide Football Club as it has a more detailed section on their history. Thoughts? Crickettragic (talk) 13:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My rule has been to link to the Port Adelaide FC article for any pre-97 SANFL and then the Magpies for 97 and beyond. I know the Port Magpies page (or at least the last time I looked) makes it sound like the Magpies preceded 97 and that is an issue that I once attempted to tackle but merely sigh in a resigned way about these days. --Roisterer (talk) 00:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Pardon my ignorance, but aren't the Power and the Magpies two separate clubs? πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  07:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, they are. The Pre 97 Magpies and the Power are the same club while the club now participating in the SANFL was formed in time for the 1997 season. --Roisterer (talk) 07:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * So pre 97 maggies became the Power, and a new SANFL club was created with the traditional name and colours? I can recall 11 years ago that Cunningham was trying to distance the new AFL club a bit from the SANFL club to broaden its appeal.  πιππίνυ δ -  (dica)  10:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, it can be confusing to the uninitiated. Just remember that pre-97 there was a Port Adelaide Football Club. Post-97, there is the same Port Adelaide Football Club which, like Hawthorn, Footscray etc. before it, joined the VFL/AFL (but without the same colours, unfortunately) and a Port Magpies Football Club.--Roisterer (talk) 10:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Taking into account what has been discussed here it seems that the Port Adelaide Magpies page needs a complete rewrite. There is barely anything on the club post 1997 and the article focuses on the history of the Port Adelaide Football Club. Crickettragic (talk) 00:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion discussion
Just letting you know that I've put the Ed Clarke article up for AFD but it's not really going anywhere so your input would be appreciated. I assume I'm doing the right thing, basically he's a guy who was rookie listed at the Sydney Swans but ended up playing for the Northern Bullants and Wangaratta. See: Articles for deletion/Ed Clarke Crickettragic (talk) 11:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Bob Skilton
Just read an article on the Real Footy website where Bob Skilton is interviewed. Part of it reads:

- According to information he (Skilton) has since read on the internet, the black eyes were courtesy of the elbow of tough Collingwood player Des Tuddenham in the last home-and-away game of the 1968 season. And this has bothered the South Melbourne champion for some time. He wants it cleared up.

"Tuddy had nothing to do with it," Skilton says.

The eight stitches to his right eye and seven to his left, plus depressed cheekbone fractures, were a combination of several unfortunate incidents.

The story that Tuddenham had elbowed Skilton in the face appears on the internet. The entry also states that the Swans' champion missed the whole of the following season because of injuries inflicted by Tuddenham. Incorrect.

-- On the off chance that Skilton was refering to his wikipedia entry I checked out his page and there was a section which stated (I've since corrected it) -

"It was his appearance on the front page of The Sun News-Pictorial in 1968 with two black eyes that earned him the Douglas Wilkie Medal. The black eyes were a consequence of a severe facial injury, which included depressed fractures of his cheekbones, due to having been elbowed in the face by Des Tuddenham in a match against Collingwood.

The injury was so severe that he stood out of football for the entire 1969 season"


 * Reckon we're the culprits? lol. Crickettragic (talk) 14:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot ( Disable )  22:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:2007 All-australians
Template:2007 All-australians has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Allied45 (talk) 02:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:2007 All-Australians
Template:2007 All-Australians has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Allied45 (talk) 02:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Mathew Stokes Refs
I'm currently working on the Geelong footballer Mathew Stokes article, and am striving to make it a good article. I feel I've done a reasonably good job on his Early Life section, but I need more refs to complete his AFL career section. If anyone else can find some refs and list the links here for me, that would be great. Or better yet, put the info directly into the article! I need refs covering from the beginning of his career (2006) to the current season. Thanks, - Allied45 (talk) 05:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Just did some very quick research only, but perhaps you could look at incorporating links such as or even any simple AFL stats site as refs to back-up any information regarding Stokes' achievements during the seasons. Additionally, you may want to include refs such as.


 * Just another quick comment though, you may want to look at tidying some of the grammar up in various parts of the article if you want to get it to GA status. Snake sentences (some are way too long), and lazy punctuation (use of commas) are a couple of things I picked up during my very quick skim read that may need addressing. Good work so far though. Cheers Boomtish (talk) 13:54, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I could echo Boomtish's comments on the article. It shows great promise but you may need to avoid writing in the vernacular for it to reach GA status. Keep up the good work. --Roisterer (talk) 23:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for the feedback and refs. I will get around to adding these refs to the article soon, and have already done minor grammar improvements to the artcle. I appreciate it still has a far way to go before GA status, but this sort of feedback definitely helps improve the quality. Thanks again, - Allied45 (talk) 12:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

List of sons who swapped codes?
With players swapping codes recently in the news, I thought it would be interesting to have an article listing the sons/grandsons of former Australian rules/league/union/soccer players who had swapped codes (if we do not already have one). For example, Tom Williams & Kieren Jack are the sons of former Rugby League players and I understand Silvio Foschini's son now plays professional soccer. No doubt there are a lot of other examples. Would this be a good idea? --TheGrantley (talk) 04:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Mike Pyke
Wow, we're recruiting Canadian international Rugby players now. If he becomes a success, his article could be a good candidate for higher honours. --Roisterer (talk) 03:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

My new stub page
Hi, all. I took the liberty of creating a new page at Coast to coast goal and adding it to your project. - Richard Cavell (talk) 03:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I hadn't heard it decribed as cost to coast before. --Roisterer (talk) 03:11, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This concept exists also in icehockey and soccer. I think the article should cover the sporting concept in general, rather than just Aussie Rules in particular. I can't find any reliable sources though. Reyk YO! 04:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

New style team templates
I've just updated the Template:Geelong Cats to a dramatically changed version. The new version is a more compact style, and I believe is more handy and nicer looing than the old version. The new version also is easier to edit as it uses the navbox style, whereas the old version is hard to access for editing. I intend to change all clubs to this format as soon as possible. Please have your say about the changes, and I hope you like it!

Old Version:

New Version:

Thanks! - Allied45 (talk) 05:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good mate! Only thing I'd suggest would be that with the premierships we could perhaps link to the relevant Grand Final articles instead of linking to a VFL season twice in the same template. Of course only about 30% of the season's have a Grand Final page at the moment but that is something to keep in mind for when they're completed and if more templates are made. 1925 VFL Grand Final and 2007 AFL Grand Final links could be included now though. Cheers. Crickettragic (talk) 15:07, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure if I really like the listing of 110 seasons... I guess the one I'll look at the most will only have 14. For Geelong you should probably omit 1942-1945 (?) when Geelong didn't field a team. How do you default them to hide or show... must go searching for that one day.The-Pope (talk) 15:41, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have removed 1942-1945 seasons, as well as linking premiersips to grand final pages. I have also bolded the seasons in which there is a season overview page for the club. Thanks for the feedback, - Allied45 (talk) 01:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Champion of the Colony problem again
As someone has sensibly pointed out, Hugh Gavin couldn't have won the award in 1903 as he was playing in the Western Australian Goldfields, even though many sources say that he did. It seems likely then that he instead won it in 1902, which is backed up by some other sources. The COTC article states that Gavin won the award in 1903, with Ted Rowell the 1902 winner. If Gavin did win it in 1902 then who won the award in 1903? Was it Rowell? Crickettragic (talk) 08:36, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we either need someone to go to a library or wait until the NLA Newspaper Digitisation] program goes back that far. Currently the automated OCR is extremely poor, so doing text searches is painful, but I think it will get better. If we can find out when (ie after the GF/SF/H&A) the award was awarded it would help with manual searching. Also the AFL online history files seem to be back online.The-Pope (talk) 23:06, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The NLA project does now allow some searching on The Argus files for example - 1915 to 1925, plus 1945. No hits on phrases "champion of the colony" or "champion of the season", and no hits on other combinations for player name and club in reference to an end-of-season award. Hits for the "Brownlow Medal" are there however. As noted earlier in the year, I don't think the COTC award ever existed. As well as the gaffe with Gavin's listing, hasn't anyone ever wondered about Bruce in 1858 ? There was no such club as Richmond Cricketers ! And George Coulthard in 1877 ? Spent more than half the season in Sydney. RossRSmith (talk) 02:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Help with reference re. West Torrens player
I've been adding references for each sportsman in List of Australian rules football and cricket players but there is one which I am having trouble with. According to our West Torrens Football Club article, Test cricketer Barry Jarman played with the club but I can't find a reference for it anywhere. Firstly can anyone confirm if he did play for the club and if he did do you know of anywhere online such as a SANFL database where he is mentioned ... or perhaps a book? Cheers. Crickettragic (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Depending on what you class as a good source, the SAFooty website forum mentions Jarman. This thread, for example also mentions that Martin McCague played one game for North Adelaide in 1990, becoming surely the only English Test cricketer to play top level Australian rules football. --Roisterer (talk) 02:40, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess that also depends on what you class as top level footy! Generally for WAFL Players 196?-1990, the annually published Football Registers are your best bet, since then the Grand Final Budget (The WA version of the Record).  Not perfect though... Geoff Marsh is listed as Jeff when he played for South Freo.  No idea if there is a similar reference for Sanfl. The-Pope (talk) 04:25, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Player Notability
I know the current overall position based on WP:N is that WP:ATHLETE says Competitors who have competed in a fully professional league with the end of the season I think maybe that we should be extending the requirement be Competitors who have competed in more than 10 games or been the recipient of an award nomination(ie Rising Star, polled votes in the brownlow). All it means is that instead of 50-100 new stub articles being created immediately after the draft the articles wont happen until the player does something thats notable, probably, hopefully, maybe even associated with something on field. Gnangarra 10:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Disagree. Personally, I think that given the extremely tight playing squad rules that the AFL runs, just getting onto a squad is generally notable.  Pre-draft days I agree with the single game rule, and I'm not going to go and make stubs for Douglas Headland or John Neesham, but generally there are some WP:RS you can find other than just the player listing about each of the draft picks.  I'd hate to see a bunch of redlinks in the team squad - I liked the old secondary line in WP:Athlete that was about being on the squad of a team where most other players were notable.  Rookie lists I'm probably more happy to wait until they get elevated, but again I think if you have the RS then I think the "fully professional league" requirement can be too high - see David Gault for instance.  Should he be deleted as he only played in the WAFL, or does he survive as being a premiership captain, or because he has some RS about his football career? The-Pope (talk) 13:23, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * under WP:ATHLETE WAFL and SANFL could be considered as amateur leagues in which reaching the top level of an amateur is also considered notable. Gnangarra 00:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If I could add an example of questionable notability, Des Drogemuller played ten games for Port Adelaide back in the 80s, won the Reserves Magarey (and played for another SANFL club whose name escapes me for the time being. Not particularly notable but I thought I'd ask for advice in line with this dicussion. --Roisterer (talk) 23:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I say he'd be considered notable even under what I've suggested, 10 games and an award even if its reserves, what I looking at is the players that get two or three games over two seasons then get delisted never to re-appear. Gnangarra 00:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * In the history of the world, or even Australia, they aren't notable, but to their club and the sport they are. All I can suggest is that each regular editor stick all of their favourite team's players (even the redlinks) on their watchlist to ensure things don't go silly in the post draft "he's an exiting small/tall/mobile/inside/outside midfielder/forward/defender with good hands/penetrating kick/footy smarts who's going to be the next Buckley/Harvey/Goodes/Judd" frenzy.  And a 10 game SANFL player from the 80s with a second grade award from a second grade league is really stretching the limits.  Whilst you could argue that in pre-AFL expansion days the SANFL/WAFL was just as professional as the VFL, I'd stick to a higher level of notability for WAFL/SANFL players - major award winners/Hall of Fame definitely, club captains probably, 100 game/premiership/state players/club award winners possibly, the rest, not likely to be notable.  This approach  does suffer from some recentism, but finding independent RSs for those lesser lights is near impossible.The-Pope (talk) 05:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I was going to nominate Ben Colreavy for deletion but after seeing this thread thought I'd get your opinions first. Following on from what The Pope said, for a modern WAFL or SANFL player to be notable they would probably have to be a Sandover/Magarey Medal winner or premiership captain etc. This bloke doesn't seem all that remarkable, according to the entry he represented WA in 2007 but that's about it. Does he warrant a wikipedia article? Cheers. 07:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)Crickettragic (talk)
 * I'd say Ben Colreavy doesnt meet our notability requirements as they currently stand, being in the state team is probably the only reason for the article. Gnangarra 14:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thinking of a Panther example, one of my favorite players is Greg "Clanger" Klenjens, who played a few seasons with South back in the late 80s/early 90s. Normally not notable enough for WP. However, he is/was one of the more colourful characters to play in SA, including an impressive array of tatts, doing a somersault whenever he kicked a goal, making the news when he discovered the woman he was chatting up was a transvestite, naming his son Elvis and generally being the club joker, earning himself a cult following at the club in the process. Perhaps not as notable under the guidelines but his article would be a lot more interesting to read than that of many 200 game VFL/AFL players. --TheGrantley (talk) 04:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * with a "cult" following he'd have some notability, Gnangarra 14:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * But lets just remember that Notability is only a guideline, with the nutshell comment of If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable. Cult followings often suffer from relying on original research or verifiability issues, which are policies, which outrank the notability guidelines.  Being only a rookie listed player, I wouldn't have (and didn't) start the Colreavy article, but did try to improve it, as I'm not a deletionist and lean towards the "I'll find the sources" approach rather than delete first, search later.The-Pope (talk) 15:27, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest adding some clear notability guidelines to include in the WikiProject AFL page similar to what the Cricket guys have done here.


 * Eg. Wikiproject:AFL have adopted the following guidelines for which Australian rules footballers can qualify for an article on Wikipedia:
 * has played in at least one VFL/AFL game
 * has played in at least 200 SANFL/WAFL games or kicked at least 500 goals
 * has achieved All-Australian selection
 * has won a Sandover or Magarey Medal
 * has been included in the AFL Hall of Fame


 * Thoughts? Crickettragic (talk) 12:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree we a standard requirement that clarifies the requirement for notability, and agree with all but 1 game, IMHO the player needs to have played more games or have additional factors for notability. Gnangarra 04:28, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * And I'd disagree with increasing it over 1 game and go the other way and add a "or has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" comment to remind us all that notability can't be covered in 5 bullet points, and have it as a catch-all to cover those notable types who don't fit the other points. Do we need to expand the WAFL/SANFL proviso to include the NT, Tas, Qld, NSW, ACT, VFA/VFL, Country Vic comps?  Is a 200 game player or league B&F winner for South Freo or Norwood between 1996 and 2008 really any more notable than one who did it for Sandringham, Glenorchy, Southport, St Mary's or Pennant Hills?The-Pope (talk) 13:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * : I think as Wikipedia has developed and gotten bigger, what defines notability has changed. When I joined back in April 2004, I wouldn't have dreamed of creating articles on anyone that would not have been considered notable by usual encyclopaedic standards (such as Hall of Fame members). Now, I don't bat an eyelid at one VFL game wonders. While I don't want to see articles on blokes whose greatest achievement was playing for Manangatang, I can see that the bar will continued to be lowered re notability. --Roisterer (talk) 02:57, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Jeff White
Hey, I have just been doing a bit of work on the Jeff White article. Could someone rate it or review it, so I can see where it is at? Rusty8 (talk) 17:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)Rusty8.

New template
Template:Australian rules football has been added by someone to all major Aussie rules articles, is it really necessary? Perhaps it should made into one of those horizontal templates that can be put down the bottom of the pages but at the moment it's just too distracting. Thoughts? Crickettragic (talk) 09:32, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. In most of the articles it doesn't fit well, as in its stuck under another infobox or something else. Its a good template though and a great picture, so if it could be made into a collapsible horizontal template it would be great. Terlob (talk) 07:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've made it into a navbox, same style as the premiership players template, which sits unobtrusively at the bottom of the articles. Not sure if it's possible to add a picture or not, even if it is I think it may be against Wiki policy. Crickettragic (talk) 05:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Bob Quinn (Australian footballer) 1915-2008
Just thought I'd mention that the player my grandfather rated as the best he'd ever seen died today. Odd that I'd have learnt about his death via an anon editing the article to add his date of death. RIP Bob. --Roisterer (talk) 11:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

University players complete!
Well it took a while, but over the past couple of weeks I've created 101 articles on University players and its finally done! Of course there isn't much information available on most of the players, and in some cases even basic information such as birth dates are missing, so if you have anything to add go ahead! Alternatively, point me towards a source where I can find additional information and I'll do my best to add it. Terlob (talk) 09:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Didn't take you long! Good work mate. As you would have found, only a very small minority of Uni footballers played with a second club, and even less would have made it to 100 VFL games so it's understandable that information is going to be limited. On the list - VFL/AFL players who died in active service, there is a link to each person's Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial website. For example Arch Corbett's gives his middle name which isn't provided in the Encycolpedia of AFL Footballers. At this stage though I can't suggest any other source which would help greatly expand any articles. Except for - The last two profiles have pictures of the subjects which you may wish to download if you know how.
 * Jack Brake
 * Leo Seward
 * Tom Fogarty

Cheers. Crickettragic (talk) 09:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I'll get onto it. I'm not sure what permission or license to use though - any advice? Terlob (talk) 11:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Any picture, by an unknown author, taken in Australia prior to 1955 is in the public domain so you can use Template:PD-Australia for Seward and Fogarty. Crickettragic (talk) 12:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Keith Miller
Just to let you know that a few members of WP:CRICKET are moving Miller's biography on toward WP:FA.

It'd be really good if some of you guys kept an eye on the Aussie Rules aspects of this extraordinary man's article, esp. with wikilinks, jargon-busting and correcting any errors / omissions. (Hopefully not too many omissions: the article's enormous as it is)

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 12:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Keith Miller also represented New South Wales at the 1947 ANFC Carnival at Hobart. Not sure if you think that a small snippet of info like that is worth adding to other football refs, but thought I'd alert you in any case.

RossRSmith (talk) 14:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've no idea how notable an achievement that is; I need you guys to guide me. What do you think? Is it like a State of Origin match in Rugby league? That's a big potato. Or is it more of a charity kickabout no-one takes very seriously, as "Carnival" implies? --Dweller (talk) 15:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry if "Carnival" misled you, but that is what they were known as. It means national level of competition, and representing your state at them was the highest level that could be attained. They were taken very seriously. RossRSmith (talk) 08:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Then we'd definitely want it in the article, if it's not there already. Is there a RS attestation to his appearance? --Dweller (talk) 14:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. NSW 18.22 d Canberra 7.8 on 30 July 1947. The Mercury (Hobart) issue dated 31 July 1947 included a column titled Carnival Highlights by "Drop-Kick." The second paragraph begins: "A special cheer was given the Australian Test cricketer, Keith Miller, when he took towering marks for New South Wales and when he kicked five goals.." RossRSmith (talk) 13:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for AFL
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nothing too controversial either on the list or missing out, although one could argue that the SCGs inclusion on the list (compare to the eclusion of AAMI, Subi & co.) was more to do with its cricket links than anything football related. --Roisterer (talk) 00:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Large number of AfD's in progress
There are (at present count) 58 pages up for deleletion in AfD Discussions at the College Football Project (American football at the college level). Since your project is listed as a related project, your project members may wish to participate. This large volume is really more than we can handle in such a short period of time and the project asks for your input. Please review Articles & Pages being considered for deletion immediately.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Caption problem


This says it was taken during the 1945 VFL Grand Final, when the '45 match was played at Princes Park...... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.68.185.185 (talk) 07:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've notified the uploader of the image of this error. Not only that, there's no way South Melbourne is one of the teams in that pic. I wonder if it's supposed to be 1946? AFL-Cool (talk) 07:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Pre-season comp
User:BrianBeahr, as I assume isn't yet familiar with the move page function, has already made duplicate articles on the VFL/AFL's pre-season competition under different names. Having discovered this I have, along with another user, redirected them back to the one article. His latest solution to the naming dispute has been to create and article called: Australian Football League National Cup Winners, Victorian Football League Night Series Winners and Victorian Football League Consolation Night Series Winners. Now seeing as that heading is so long that it could qualify as an article itself, can someone with knowledge of this area please suggest an compromise? Cheers. Crickettragic (talk) 07:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to clean it all up. Might need a few more mops though. Australian Football League National Cup Winners and Victorian Football League Consolation Night Series and Night Series Winners exists as a redirect as well! The-Pope (talk) 11:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sweet Jesus .... we've now got List of Australian Football League (formerly known as the Victorian Football League) Premiership Teams ... a duplication of List of Australian Football League premiers. Crickettragic (talk) 11:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Has anyone got a response from this user to all the notes on his talk page? AFL-Cool (talk) 22:02, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * He has responded to a few comments left on his talk page, so he's familiar with how messaging works.  . -- Longhair\talk 23:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope. I feel we've given him enough feedback/warnings so if he continues to revert our edits we have grounds to take it to admin. Crickettragic (talk) 23:46, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you guys please keep an eye on the St Kilda Football Club article. He keeps reverting back to his version of the article which breaks almost every manual of style rule in the book. I particularly like the subheading 'AFL Highest finishing team based in the State of Victoria at the end of the Finals Series'. I've informed him of the problems on his talk page, which he's deleted, so he has no excuse. I'm at risk of 3RR so if you could help me out here it would be appreciated. Cheers. Crickettragic (talk) 00:21, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I've left a note on his talk page pointing to this conversation in the hope we gain a reply. -- Longhair\talk 00:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Are my edits too factually correct for you - or do you just like to harass people who make a genuine contribution instead of adding a dot or a colour box to other peoples work (which is factually correct and correctly ordered) to get your number of edits up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrianBeahr (talk • contribs)


 * Those who have problems with your edits have detailed the issues for you on your talk page. -- Longhair\talk 06:59, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * BrianBeahr has now provided an answer of sorts at his talk page at User talk:BrianBeahr It might help to take the discussion of his edits there. -- Longhair\talk 07:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

He's copped a 24 hour ban, but I suspect when he comes back he'll start again. He's following a pattern typical of a person who doesn't have much respect for WP:RS. I think he should be watched. AFL-Cool (talk) 12:50, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * You're not wrong. He's back to butchering the St Kilda article. I've reverted enough of this guy's rubbish over the last few days so I'm going to take a step back ... don't want to get into an edit war. If you fellas could keep an eye on things that would be great. Jevansen (formerly Crickettragic) (talk) 11:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I've slapped a test3 on his talk page. Another user cleaned up the article. I wonder if he'll target me now. Also if you look at his recent contributions he's also created another template. AFL-Cool (talk) 03:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If he's created templates that duplicate efforts already in place, just remove the templates from whatever articles they are attached to (use the What Links Here function to check this), then mark them for speedy deletion. Of course, if any new templates actually improve the original templates, please extend good faith to this editor and incorporate any improvements into whatever template version is in popular usage. -- Longhair\talk 04:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks like someone got onto him and speedied the template because the one that shows in his contributions now appears to be the original. Or I was seeing things! I noticed on the SFC page that he'd edited under his IP and you reverted it, Longhair! AFL-Cool (talk) 11:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * My revert button is working overtime. He's now decided he's going to hide under the anonymous ip address(es) of
 * and at times,
 * . -- Longhair\talk 05:59, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Has anyone reported this to an admin for a checkuser to connect these IP's to this user? Once the connection is made I think we have a case for a perma-ban - given the history of disruptive edits under both IP's. AFL-Cool (talk) 08:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm confident to say only one editor is behind the repeated edits to the SFC article -- we don't need a checkuser result to determine that. The ip addresses in use are nothing that can't be rangeblocked if this nonsense keeps up. BTW, not all admins have access to perform a checkuser report. Very few actually. -- Longhair\talk 09:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, it would be an idea to bring an admin in to make an executive decision. Not all of them will act without a check user no matter how obvious the similarity in edits is. Sort of like the public service "cross t's and dot i's" mentality if you like. I guess I'm doing that myself admittedly! AFL-Cool (talk) 11:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I am an admin. You don't think I blocked him using supernatural powers do you :) -- Longhair\talk 22:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Erm.....ooops! Sorry, Longhair, I didn't know you were an admin! Jesus, how red is my face right now? AFL-Cool (talk) 02:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Never mind. You're here to build an encyclopedia, not read userpages :) -- Longhair\talk 03:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Player Notability again
6 weeks out from the influx of new players and new 2 line stubs on the next James Hird who's been picked up at #59 in the draft, one from last year got the chop today. Articles_for_deletion/Eljay_Connors was deleted due in part to it's poorly written style and lack of citations, which let the WP:ATHLETE guideline overrule the fact that if you google his name (ie a three second search not really looking that hard), I found two articles solely on him, so regardless of the "played in a professional sport" guideline, he should be considered notable because there are two reliable sources that have non-trivial coverage of him being selected by the Saints &   So I think we need to be better prepared to weed out the poorly written fan articles and get them at least looking professional (because despite the fact that it shouldn't be a part of an AfD, if it has too much guff and not enough substance, it will be marked delete by many) and get the reliable sources that are almost certainly out there for each of the new draftees. The-Pope (talk) 14:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

International Rules players
Should there be International Rules stats option on the player infoboxes? Sort of like how we have representive stats for state representation, but an International Rules version? Please share your thoughts, as I'm unsure. Thanks, - Allied45 (talk) 05:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, didn't realise it was already on there, oops. That is for International Rules though isn't it?? - Allied45 (talk) 05:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Covered under the National Representative Honours section, below Club and State info. 128.250.6.244 (talk) 06:47, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

List of Geelong Football Club coaches
The List of Geelong Football Club coaches needs to be updated with several coaches missing and years missing. Thanks, - Allied45 (talk) 07:55, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Any idea who is missing? According to All The Stats.com there have been 30 players coach Geelong and all seem to be included in our list. Jevansen (talk) 14:01, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, all coaches are there, I meant coaching years - not every season is covered, but I think some seasons didn't have any coaches, is this correct. - Allied45 (talk) 05:29, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * For some strange reason Geelong didn't have a coach from 1915 to 1919 and then from 1921 to 1922. All other clubs had coaches during this era so no idea why Geelong opted not to. We should probably make note of this somewhere on the page. Jevansen (talk) 10:08, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clearing that up. - Allied45 (talk) 09:01, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Michael Cousens
I note some criticism of the Eljay Conners AfD above, so here's your chance to contribute to another AfD. Michael Cousens has now been listed at AfD. Having only played in the WAFL, this may be an interesting discussion, considering I have heard the argument that the WAFL was the equivalent of the VFL in the past. Does this still hold? Is there two stories in the Worst that mention Cousens (surely)? And if so, can we extend general notability to all WAFL players given that this is likely to apply to them as well? (Given the comprehensive coverage given to the Ovens & Murray Football League in The Border Mail, half the OMFL would be notable too!). Views for and against would be welcome. -- Mattinbgn\talk 22:18, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It wasn't intended as criticism - more a heads-up and request for discussion, which didn't happen! Cousens is the perfect 'not quite there' article - no AFL listing, not quite 150 games, not quite 10 years, not quite captain (vice-captain), not quite premiership player (3 losing GFs), no (AFAIK) state games or B&Fs.  All up a poster boy for the good ordinary players.  But is he notable?  Don't know yet.The-Pope (talk) 23:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * No I don't think he is - there is one thing that would have got him over the line if all else failed. A Sandover Medal. But he hasn't won that either. That's a key if we are talking about state league players that haven't played AFL. The Sandover (and the Magarey) are notable awards. I don't think we should consider this as a State League v AFL issue, or even if we take leagues like the O&M into account. It's up to the individual and what that individual achieved. Michael Aish never played VFL/AFL. Barrie Robran never played VFL. As examples. AFL-Cool (talk) 01:09, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * As The-Pope said above, what the player has actually achieved can be seen as irrelevant if the player meets the General notability guideline: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." In practice, this means two independent sources about the subject are sufficient. The list of players who would meet this criteria is much greater than I would consider appropriate. The cricket project, has its own non-binding guideline at WP:CRIN that does at least provide a benchmark that seems to be missing here. I do have trouble seeing that a draftee who has not played a game may be notable for the mere sake of being drafted and on a list where a WAFL player with a reasonable career isn't. -- Mattinbgn\talk 01:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

List of Geelong Football Club captains
Just created List of Geelong Football Club captains, please have a look because it isn't overly impressive at the moment, for starters some names need to be expanded from initials, and a proper intro needs to be written. Please tell me of your feedback so I can improve this list. Thanks - Allied45 (talk) 09:03, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I see you have only listed htose appointed captains at the start of the year. I know Tom Quinn (Australian footballer) captained Geelong in Hickey's absence.--Roisterer (talk) 11:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I was using info from the offical Geelong website. Should we add fill-in captains, and if we do, should it be in the same table or a seperate table?? - Allied45 (talk) 06:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That could be difficult to gain information on everyone who filled in for one match, although I would include cases where the captain missed a large chunk of the season (eg. Neale Daniher) or missed a premiership (Matthew Primus). --TheGrantley (talk) 04:17, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Major Notability Discussion
ATTENTION WP:ATHLETE is being re-written. There is a very big discussion here. The re-writing is focusing mainly on amateur athletes. You may well wish to participate.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

New draft picks
I have PRODded a range of new articles on new draft picks, but figure my actions are likely to meet some objection from this project where the prevailing view seems to be inclusion on the team list is notable enough; needless to say I disagree. I am sorry for any inconvenience, but if and when the PRODs are removed I will more than likely list them at AfD as I think their inclusion is crystall-ballery. Regards, Mattinbgn\talk 03:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * And you will get a fight. If there are reliable sources about them, then WP:ATHLETE is irrelevant. I'd really prefer to be spending my time improving these articles, not fighting off the Prodders.The-Pope (talk) 08:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have been invited to come here by The-Pope, (can't help but smile at that sentence) and whilst here I must note that I concur completely with Mattinbgn. The interest in writing articles about draft picks for the 2009 season does not only break guidelines in terms of seeing into the future but also appears to be a case of first to write ownership by one or three users who would do the community well if they were await their transmission into mainspace until start of the next AFL season.  As alluded to above to not do so appears to be more about writing the first articles on these potential players than about meeting guidelines.  Further there is nothing stopping those editors writing these articles into separate sandbox areas with the intention of moving them to mainspace when (if) the time comes.  The alternative is to have an extraordinary mess on our hands simply because of a desire to play before the umpire bounces the ball.-- VS  talk 00:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Firstly the crystalball issue. It's not that I think that they will be notable in the future, or they'll be stars.  If the articles are full of "will the be next James Hird" or other unsourced future predictions, then delete the words, not the article.  The articles I've seen are full of the past - who they played for, where they were picked, what position they play.  And I honestly think that being on an AFL senior list is notable - but only just - as I constantly say, I still believe they need RS, but I think they should be allowed time (months, not hours) to get them.  I'd also argue that a guy like Luke Molan, a first round pick from 2001 who never played in the AFL, is more notable because he didn't play senior football than if he played a few games.  I a realist enough to understand that especially for past listed players who didn't play senior footy and I know I'm never going to find good sources that they shouldn't have a page - so see the incomplete table on this page for a way of recording all players who've been on the list, but didn't play a game.  I'm not going to push to get articles for them.
 * I'm also not sure where you get the OWN idea from. If you mean we want to have articles that profile all the players on the 38 man squad, then yes.  If you mean we don't want anyone else to edit, well, there is no evidence of that unless I missed it.  I generally only keep players from my team on my watchlist (mainly for vandalism patrolling), so in from this year's draft there are only 3 players with articles so far, 2 have been nominated.  Speaking of vandalism, I think sticking a great big ugly AFD box at the top of the pages like Watts and Naitanui, when they are clearly notable to everyone but the WP:ATHLETE devotees is tantamount to vandalism.  I guess that's what made me so fired up about this.  The blinkered view that this single line in a additional criteria outweighs the overarching notability criteria.
 * I feel I'm about the only the one pushing for a middle ground - the strong keeping of those with good sources, and the weak keeping of those without (with the tagging as unreferenced/refimprove), with the aim of finding sources in the coming weeks/months. Most of the delete voters are simply using the "WP:ATHLETE rules" line.  I just think that between now and next year, many people might want to find out information about the new players on their team - about them now, not their future.  I also think that this problem won't go away.  Others (don't worry, it won't be me - I'm not going to go against the umpires decision) will continue to create articles or not really improve on some of these players - as you can see by todays edits on one of the least notable players, Shane Savage, pick 75 and only google news story is from a regional paper.  3 editors doubled the article size, but both sources are not independant and the pic has copyvio issues (I've speedied it).  I would guess that if most of the current crop of articles were deleted, at least half will be recreated before the season starts.  And then of course some/most will become notable under WP:ATHLETE during next year, so is all this worth it for a 6-10 month wait?  I know notability isn't temporary, but why should the first major, enabling step to that "confirmed" notabilty not be notable?
 * Good luck to whichever admin(s) try to close out the 16 AFDs. Some are fully debated, others barely touched, but the precedents set in one should apply to most.  Could be just as much of a mess if different closers take different views, or don't see all the "common" arguments.  I hope we do get some reasonable precedents and then maybe we could add them to the project, so that like the cricket project, we'll have a bit more certainty for the future.  I'd like to just get on with writing an encylopedia.  But then again, our previous discussions on the issue here haven't formed any concensus within the project, so it's a bit like our footy teams... loyal to our own views. The-Pope (talk) 15:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry if you expect as long an answer in return. I will only pick up on your view that you think that sticking a great big ugly AFD box at the top of the pages like Watts and Naitanui, when they are clearly notable to everyone but the WP:ATHLETE devotees is tantamount to vandalism and that is what fired you up. In fact (as per the history of each of these and other articles) what appears to have fired you up was that other editors had actually dared to put a PROD notice on these articles. In each of these cases those other editors had quite rightly questioned the notability of the subjects of these articles (as others have about similar articles) and you removed the PROD.  Those editors deserve the opportunity to have their view of notability discussed also rather than have another view imposed them, and from that perspective the great big ugly AfD box (as you put it) is simply the non-negotiable automatic template that arrives as soon as a nomination is placed at AfD.-- VS  talk 21:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

See also sections
I noted that the see also sections on a alot of articles have links to this WikiProject. See also is meant for related articles, not WikiProjects. I guess you can get aroudn this my creating some kind of AFL-stub label and gluing it to the bottom of short articles.  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 03:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Notability - lets sort it out
After the last week, lets use the AFD results (assuming that they are fairly consistant in their outcomes) to determine what our project's guidelines should be.

I've added a generic reproduction/summary of the notability guidelines and added it to the main project page. I've also written up a bit of "how we should apply it", but I'm not bold enough to publish it, so we'll discuss it here before inserting it. Tto see how some of the other sports projects define notability, see football (soccer), cricket, ice hockey, College football (gridiron) (one of the most detailed essays), Arena football, rugby league and union. Basketball (NBA) and baseball appears to be proposals and Notability (sports) is a failed proposal. I've read some of these, not all, there will be more out there, some may be relevant, others less so, many might be sourced from the same document. But they exist and ours doesn't.

My first pass, incomplete, proposed text is as follows.
 * This additional criteria is generally taken to mean that every player who has played senior AFL or VFL(pre-1990) is notable and can have an article.


 * For players from any era or league, winners of major awards such as the Sandover or Magarey Medals, major Hall of Fame or official Team of the Century members (the AFL or major leagues, not just club or unofficial website/book teams) are inherently notable.


 * For players in leagues other than the AFL/VFL there is no "inherent notability" and each player's notability must be proven by the existance of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. This generally means coverage in a more than just a list, game report or similar (which is trivial coverage, not significant), in a major newspaper or book, and not just the club or league website (as they are not secondary sources nor independent).


 * In regards to players drafted onto AFL lists, but yet to play a AFL game, the outcomes of a number of Article for Deletions held in late 2008 can be used as a guide. Articles that clearly satisfied the basic notability requirement of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, were allowed to remain - see Nick Naitanui and Chris Yarran.  Those that did not have any of the required references were deleted - see Shane Savage and Liam Jones.  (Expand this section for the less obvious ones once they are closed.)

There probably needs to be something about the notability of teams/leagues, but I've generally avoided that side of things, so don't feel comfortable writing anything at the moment. Might need something about administrators, and maybe even commentators, as a bunch of SEN commentators were deleted a few weeks ago. Maybe the chasm is still too wide between those who want a high bar for articles and those who feel it should be lower for this section to achieve consensus, but I think we should at least give it a serious try. The-Pope (talk) 15:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Bottom line is that this isn't going to be binding, isn't going to change the WP:ATHLETE guideline or anything, but will hopefully it will stop the mess that we've had this past week from happening again. The-Pope (talk) 15:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * My initial thoughts;
 * For a start, I think we need to figure out some sort of inherent notabilty for at least the SANFL and the WAFL - especially pre Eagles and Crows. How to do that with just words I don't know aside from the medallists as you mentioned, Pope. I think the TFL should also be considered along those lines, given that I would consider the Mercury just as reliable a mainstream source as the Advertiser or the West Australian.
 * The thing about issues beyond the base of WP:ATHLETE is where do you draw the line at "senior football". Personally I would consider any open age football to be senior football. But that would open a whole can of worms particularly in Victoria where there are a number of daily newspapers that could be pulled up as passing WP:RS - especially the Geelong Addy, the Ballarat Courier and the Bendigo Addy.
 * I don't know if it's worth mentioning re leagues, but what about the age of the clubs? The older the better for notability purposes per se. I know that Norwood is just as old as Port Adelaide. Not sure where the WA clubs stand given that the WAFL was formed later. Those clubs would have their own Hall of Fame and Team of the Century and because of age I would consider that inherently notable. For example - a Norwood Team of the Century; inherently notable. A Central Districts Team of the Century; not inherently notable (1964 is hardly a Team of the Century in my book).
 * I'm just throwing a few things out there and after thinking about it more and getting feedback I may think differently. AFL-Cool (talk) 01:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Bob Lee
Does anyone know if Bob Lee, the SANFL Hall of Famer is the same person as this guy who played cricket for South Australia? Both are named R.W Lee (Bob) and both played around the same time but I can't find any confirmation on the internet. As the cricket reference has his date of death my best bet is to find out when the SANFL player/administrator passed away and see if it matches but so far I've had no luck. Can any of you guys assist in any way? Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 10:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, they are one and the same. An Advertiser article from 16 June 2001, entitled Loyal servant to a game he held dear by Michelangelo Rucci confirms this. --Roisterer (talk) 12:32, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh very good. Thanks for the prompt response. Jevansen (talk) 14:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:2007 Port Adelaide Grand Final side
Template:2007 Port Adelaide Grand Final side has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Allied45 (talk) 01:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

A couple of questions/comments on articles I am working on
Hey people. I'm currently slowly building Laurie Nash towards what I hope will be FA status. It's still a bit of a mess at the moment with lots of blanks missing so any assistance gratefully accepted. I'm trying to chase down the biography on Nash ("The Great Laurie Nash") but without success, so if anyone can get their hands on that it would be a boon. A Nash related question. I see that in the late 1980s, the Swans' Best & Fairest Award was called "The Laurie Nash Medal" but I don't see any evidence of it being called that now. Does anyone know more on this?

Another article I am working on (which won't be much more than a stub) is Peter Chitty, who only played two games for St Kilda in 1936 but is famous for winning the "Changi Brownlow", in the Changi Football League, the POW League played at Changi in 1942. Do people think the League, which was run by Wilfred "Chicken" Smallhorn and featured many a talented player, be worthy of an article? --Roisterer (talk) 23:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * In regard to the Changi Football League, perhaps instead of creating an article you could add a section on it to a page we already have called The VFL during the World Wars? Jevansen (talk) 14:12, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea. When I get a spare minute I'll add it. It reminds though that the article name should really be something like Australian rules football during the World Wars as much of the article's contents are about football in general. Thoughts? --Roisterer (talk) 23:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd support that move. The article was originally just about how the league was affected by the war but User:Lindsay658 has done some great work expanding it and including stuff on the Pioneer Exhibition Game etc. Jevansen (talk) 23:45, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. And once I get a spare minute I'll add some info about the Changi League. --Roisterer (talk) 00:21, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Notability again ...
Where would someone like Donnie Lucero stand? He is a B & F winner in the Californian Australian Football League, which is good for him, except in reality he would probably be about as skilled at Australian rules as someone from the Broome Under-19s. Although Lucero is an American, one would assume that the league is principally made up of Aussie expats. I think he should be nominated for deletion but would be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this. Cheers.Jevansen (talk) 14:22, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. Although I wouldn't be putting down Broome footy like that - they play a good brand up there! AFL-Cool (talk) 22:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Image for Laurie Nash article
In my efforts to eventually build Laurie Nash into a Featured Article I was looking for an image of him in action on the football field. This one has been referred to as the "iconic" image of Nash the footballer. The photo was taken in 1936 and so should be Public Domain, although does anyone know if there be a problem with the Wiki powers that be if this particular image is sourced from the Age? --Roisterer (talk) 03:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The Australian copyright law seems straight forward - if the pic is pre 1955 it is now out of copyright. But a discussion on the WP:Aust Noticeboard raised the issue of does the digitisation raise a new copyright?  I'd ask there, or somewhere similar.  I've in the past scanned in obviously/clearly pre-1955 photos from post 1955 books, thinking it was OK.  I'm not so sure anymore. A cropped version of your iconic photo is in 'The Clubs' book and a nice front on kicking photo is in the '100 Years of Australian Football' book that I could scan in, if it's decreed that you must do your own scanning to qualify. Copyright expiration in Australia has an overview, with the links within providing more fun for amateur wikilawyering.  The-Pope (talk) 05:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll follow it up and I may yet take up your offer of scanning in that other image. --Roisterer (talk) 07:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * For info, my reply on the media desk was: "As long as you can attribute where you got the image and explain why it is public domain, it's fine. Stifle (talk) 20:01, 10 January 2009 (UTC)". So, I'm whacking in the image. --Roisterer (talk) 01:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Playing style
I'm working on Ben Cousins for GA, but based on the other footy GAs, it needs a paragraph on playing style. However, I cannot find anything anywhere that discusses how he plays. The article had an external link called "Analysis of Ben's game style", but the link is now dead. It's not archived at web.archive.org, and I can't find the article in Factiva -- does anyone know if RealFooty archives are available online anywhere, and if not, where else I could find something about Cousins' playing style? Thanks! Somno (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Club Best & Fairest pages
There are a couple of things I'd like considered for change re: the various club Best & Fairest lists.

It is wrong for example to show a St Kilda player from the 1940s or 1960s etc as if they won the Trevor Barker Medal. They didn't !

Perhaps a page designer could come up with a template that allows the list to run pretty much as they do now. However, a visual break would indicate the year the award began under that name.

The other point about the B&F lists is that practically all winners listed prior to the mid/late 1920s did not win a best and fairest award for the year claimed at all. It was probably an award under some other heading: most consistent, best all-round player, or some such title. At St Kilda for example: C Watson (1924), C Gambetta (1925), H Mason (1926), H Matthews (1926, 1927), W Cubbins (1928) did not win the award known as best & fairest.

In each of the cases noted above, the players named won the club award known as best [or champion] player.

- see The Argus issues of 10 December 1924, 15 December 1925, 9 December 1926, 4 May 1928, 13 December 1928.

RossRSmith (talk) 13:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * For inline text, for the ones you mention use Best Player . On the actual Trevor Barker Award page, it would be very easy to insert extra lines and note when the name changed.  The info box already uses Best and Fairest award, which I think is OK... again you could change this to Best Player on those pages that you believe is more correct.  The tough one is the categories.   You could make up new cats called Category:St Kilda Football Club Best Player Award winners or similar and make them a subcat of Category:Trevor Barker Award winners (and maybe others such as Category:St Kilda Football Club Best & Fairest Award winners to be strictly correct) but I'm not sure if it's worth doing and if it would create more confusion.  Even for Freo, I know that the Doig Medal name was only first used in 2003. We have a similar problem with Category:Western Bulldogs players... surely it shouldn't include Ted Whitten - but it does.  Category:Footscray Football Club players doesn't exist. If it did, you'd lose out on seeing a single list of old and new players for the same team, just a different name.  An explanation on each page explaining the change in names is probably the best we can do. The-Pope (talk) 15:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers
I would think that most of the regular editors would have a copy of Holmesby & Main's The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers. After getting sick of filling in the cite book template or trying to remember where the publisher belongs in a citation, I've created Ref AFL Encyc to make it easier. I've found the ISBNs and years for each edition from the National Library website, but I only have the 4th Ed, so could anyone who has a different edition please check the details are correct. To use it, just put in the edition and page number... ie opening my edition randomly... so on the Simon Madden page, next to "he was offered a half a million dollar contract by Sydney in 1986" would have a ref of. No excuses now for not referencing details of past players (unless the Encyclopedia doesn't have any info other than name and games played!) The-Pope (talk) 15:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good job. I used to have a copy of the Encyclopaedia but it seems to have gone missing along the way. --Roisterer (talk) 22:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Keith Smith DYK
Keith Smith (Australian footballer) is currently on the front page as a DYK? Thanks to whoever nominated the article. Have we had many VFL/AFL DYKs? --Roisterer (talk) 04:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Punk Boi nominated it, but I'm surprised it made it to the main page, as the hook was a bit ordinary (but the article is good).  I'll try to get one from the NSW Scholarship article that I'm aiming to complete soon.  Might try to expand a stub to get some more, but the 5x expansion requirement is pretty onerous. The-Pope (talk) 08:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Results table

 * - bgcolor="#CCCCFF"
 * Home team||Home team score||Away team||Away team score||Ground||Crowd||Date||Report
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * Fremantle|| 12.8 (80) ||Collingwood|| 8.8 (56) ||Subiaco|| 35,106 ||Friday 29 August|| AFL.com.au
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * North Melbourne|| 10.12 (72) ||Port Adelaide || 23.10 (148) ||MCG||22,144 ||Saturday, 30 August|| AFL.com.au
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * Geelong|| 24.20 (164) ||West Coast Eagles|| 10.5 (65) ||Skilled Stadium|| 21,752 ||Saturday, 30 August|| AFL.com.au
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * Adelaide|| 10.16 (76) ||Western Bulldogs|| 9.13 (67) ||AAMI Stadium|| 37,545 ||Saturday, 30 August|| AFL.com.au
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * Carlton|| 12.9 (81) ||Hawthorn|| 24.15 (159) ||Telstra Dome|| 49,057 ||Saturday, 30 August|| AFL.com.au
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * Sydney Swans|| 17.12 (114) ||Brisbane Lions|| 6.17 (53) ||SCG|| 24,076 ||Saturday, 30 August|| AFL.com.au
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * Melbourne||6.5 (41) ||Richmond||18.13 (121) ||MCG||37,046 ||Sunday, 31 August||AFL.com.au
 * - bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
 * Essendon||5.9 (39) ||St Kilda||21.21 (147) ||Telstra Dome||46,161 ||Sunday, 31 August||AFL.com.au

The currently used results table is cramped and not visually appealing. A lot of information is cramped in a small space, and the table design looks dated and ugly compared to others in use for other sports. I suggest we should try and come up with a alternative that is clean and eaily readable. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 06:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment on use of team colors in sports infoboxes
Please stop by and voice your opinion in the ongoing discussion on the use of team colors in sports infoboxes.-- 2008 Olym pian chit chat 06:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:AFL 2008 Rounds
Template:AFL 2008 Rounds has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Allied45 (talk) 03:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

York Park GA
York Park is currently a Good Article Nomination.  Aaroncrick  ( Tassie Talk ) 01:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * York Park, Passed the GA criteria.  Aaroncrick (Tassie talk) 04:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Top work with that. I had a look over it when it was first nominated but couldn't see anything that needed attention. --Roisterer (talk) 02:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

It's currently a FAC, but I'm not too sure how it will go because of it being a relatively small stadium, there isn't a lot of references about it.  Aaroncrick (Tassie talk) 07:38, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Represented two states in football and cricket
For the Keith Miller article I wanted to add who else (besides himself) has represented two different states in football and cricket. Along with Miller (Victoria and NSW), I have Laurie Nash (Tasmania & Victoria) and Neil Hawke (South Australia & Western Australia). Looking at List of Australian rules football and cricket players, that seems to be all of them (I don't think Craig Bradley represented Victoria in football). However, I thought I should ask here in case I have missed someone.--Roisterer (talk) 02:06, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I went through the list and Miller, Nash and Hawke seem to be the only ones. There's a small possibility that Jim Atkinson may qualify, he represented both Victoria and Tasmania at cricket .... and he certainly played football for Tasmania but I can't find any reference to him playing footy with Victoria, even though he had a quite decent career at Fitzroy. So I'd say you've already found the only two players to add to Nash's article.


 * Great work on Laurie Nash by the way ... it would probably now be the highest quality article WikiProject AFL has! Jevansen (talk) 07:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * thanks for the feedback. It's still got a long way to go but if I don't get utterly sick to death with Nash, I'll get it to FA status eventually. --Roisterer (talk) 07:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group
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Article alerts
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Dale Thomas
Just wondering whether someone with a bit of time on their hands wants to have a go at improving this article (and potentially pruning it a bit). If his article is this large after three seasons it will be the longest article on wikipedia if he plays 300 games. The Hack 03:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Nothing wrong with having a long article for a young player as long at it's good quality, like Joel Selwood for example. Selwood is a gun and unless he has an injury riddled career he looks more likely than not to reach 300 games so I understand your concern about page sizes. When cricketer Keith Miller's page got too large they divided it into separate articles like Early life of Keith Miller and Military career of Keith Miller. The problem with the Dale Thomas article is that it looks like an collaborative effort from his fan-club. At one stage the page was littered with about 20 pictures and remained so for quite some time. I will take a look at it and see what I can do, certainly rubbish like "Thomas stated in the May 2008 issue of Alpha Magazine that he cuts his own hair" can be removed, regardless of whether or not it's referenced. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 15:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * We're still breathlessly informed that he once saw a shark. Get the name of his dog, and we're talking FA status

TfD nomination of Template:2007 AFL season/Ladder
Template:2007 AFL season/Ladder has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Allied45 (talk) 05:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:Template-Class AFL articles
I've created a category for all of WP:AFL templates. Templates can be listed by adding a WP:AFL project banner to the talk pages of templates and adding: class=tem. Thanks, - Allied45 (talk) 06:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Career highlights
I think it might be a good idea to remove the Career highlights section from the infobox template. This section is probabbly unecessary, and just makes the infobox really larghe and cluttered. The point of the infobox is to contain important infrmation such as DOB, club and games played and gioals scored. The career highlights section is just out of hand in many articles, adn the information is often located in a sperate Honours section on many players articles (like on Joel Selwood). I believe that we should remove, or probably create a new template without the career section to avoid all the current articles' infoboxes stuffing up, and move all information to an Honours section. This would clear up many of the articles, and keep the infoboxes less cluttered like the one sused in other sports such as cricket and soccer. An alternative o this may be just including a couple major awards (i.e. Bronwnlow, premierships), but I think it would be easier just to remove the section entirely, as the major awards are often listed in the lead section. Thanks, - Allied45 (talk) 09:47, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think perhaps an infobox consistent with the soccer infoboxes would be good. --Roisterer (talk) 10:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I can understand why there would need to be more consistency with the approach to outlining player achievements. I'm happy to get rid of the career highlights section, but we should also be careful with what goes down in any 'Honours' section within the main article too. Looking at various sport-related FA's or even GA's, only notable achievements are noted (and not so much achievements such as being in Mike Sheahan's Top 50 players etc) Boomtish (talk) 06:44, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That is a fair suggestion. I would like to see WP:AFL develop some guidelines for writing player articles which we can refer to when wrtiting articles. What to include in an honours section etc. would be included in these guidelines so we have a sort of set standard in which player articles can be maintained. Thanks, - Allied45 (talk) 06:41, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Whatever you guys decide to do, please for the love of god don't create another infobox. The last thing we want is tonnes of different styled infoboxes floating about like there are with the cricket project.
 * On another note, if you decide to keep the honours section on the current infobox would it be possible to make it optional? See: Jim Gosnell for example, it would look a lot tidier if the infobox ended at 'Playing statistics to end of 1929 season'. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 13:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be an option I would think. We should probably do that anyway. It should've been done like that when it was created. - Allied45 (talk) 01:39, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I've removed the career highlights section completely in the template. Any hounours/awards/accolades can now be displayed in the main body of the article. For example, see Joel Selwood. I believe we should strive to keep note of only major awards won by the player, and not every little achievement. Boomtish (talk) 10:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Nationality of AFL players
A user has recently populated Category:Australian rules footballers by nationality with a bunch of subcategories ... eg Category:Welsh Australian rules footballers. Aside from the fact that there haven't been many Welsh players compete in the league over the years so the category isn't going to get very populated ... the problem is that many of the people he has given these categories to don't even qualify. James Gwilt is given the Welsh category because his father "is of welsh descent", Daniel Kerr has the Indian category and Luke Beveridge is somehow considered to be of Greek nationality, just to name a few. I'm guessing he got such people from our article - VFL/AFL players with international backgrounds, which should probably be looked at too considering Jim Krakouer is listed under Poland just because his great-grand father happened to be from there. Jevansen (talk) 10:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I could perhaps see merit in categories for players actually born overseas but this seems a bit over the top.The Hack 06:27, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a related discussion at Categories for discussion/Log/2009 March 23, stemming from someone wanting to rename Category:Australian rules footballers to the ridiculous Category:Australian players of Australian rules football. Your voice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 09:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with the logic but in this case the logic results in an illogical conclusion. I will add a comment once I get my head around it...The Hack 23:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Ridiculous new category
The folk at CFD have done it again. Most player pages now have the ingenious name Category:Australian players of Australian rules football, just because .0005% of Australian rules footballers are foreign. I should have made more of a fuss at CFD but I was naive enough to assume that the proposal (by a Canadian) was too stupid to pass. I also thought there were enough objections for the proposal to be unsuccessful. Surely the word of WP:AFL members carry more weight on this issue than North Americans who wouldn't even know what an Aussie rules ball looked like?

This all came about from the issue I mentioned in the above discussion, where some chap went nuts, allocating all sorts of 'nationality' categories to players. I'm still confused how Category:Australian rules footballers is ambiguous but most puzzling was the rationale the admin gave for deleting the catgory -

"The result of the discussion was: rename all, allowing for renomination to delete the inappropriate fooian categories"

So if we nominated categories like the heavily populated Category:Spanish players of Australian rules football and the dozen others, than do we have grounds to create another discussion at CFD, opposing the original move? The only two 'nationality' categories that warrant keeping, in my opinion, is the ones for Ireland and for Indigenous players, the latter of which seems rather out of place grouped with Ireland and friends but that's another issue. So now that the Ireland category has been changed to Category:Irish players of Australian rules football, and there is no reason why that category can't be a subcat of Category:Australian rules footballers, as last time I checked Jim Stynes was still an 'Australian rules footballer', surely there can be no ambiguity issues? Not that there was in the first place.

The cricket project recently got another silly move reverted, after the CFD people decided that Category:Victoria cricketers was ambiguous, even though they clearly explained that there has only been one team called Victoria that played first-class cricket. Regardless, it was changed to Category:Victoria (Australia) cricketers but a month or so later WP:Cricket managed to get it changed back. Hopefully we can do the same. Jevansen (talk) 23:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Let me see if I'm following this correctly. Someone's apparently taken an issue with Category:Australian rules footballers, a category for players of Australian rules football, claiming it could be mistaken for a category of Australian players of the nonexistent sport "rules football"? Really? And the "consensus" was to give the category the most stupid and ridiculous name possible, as well as create a multitude of pointless empty or nearly empty categories like Category:Zimbabwean players of Australian rules football? Really? Firstly, there was no evidence of consensus at that CfD as far as I can see- and even if there was, the CfD was that vague and muddled it's meaningless to even talk about what the so-called "consensus" was. Nobody in their rightmind would advocate the dog's breakfast we now find ourselves afflicted with. I'd be taking this to WP:DRV, as a nonexistent consensus to solve a nonexistent problem in the dumbest possible way. Reyk YO! 01:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That about sums it up. Don't worry, I'm as confused as you are ... even after reading over the CfD several times I am still strugging to understand the rationale. I wasn't aware of DRV, it looks like that may be the best way to go. I'll take up the issue at DRV tonight, unless someone wants to start up the discussion in the meantime. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 02:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok step one is underway, I've nominated 17 of the 'nationality' categories for deletion at Categories for discussion/Log/2009 April 1. Jevansen (talk) 00:51, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Category:Players of Australian rules football by nationality is now nearly empty, all those silly subcats have been deleted. The two subcats that remain are the very valid Irish one and the NZ one which is pretty well populated. Now we can look at making a CfD to get Category:Australian rules footballers reinstated and hopefully get rid of Category:Australian players of Australian rules football. Jevansen (talk) 01:12, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Article improvement drive
Hi everyone, I think it's a shame that this Wikiproject doesn't yet have a featured article and I'd like to do something about that. So I'm calling for a concerted effort to improve the article on Australian Rules Football, which is obviously the most important article within our scope. Anyone up for it? Cheers, Reyk YO! 23:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * PS. I've made some suggestions at the article's talk page. <b style="color:Maroon">Reyk</b> <b style="color:Blue">YO!</b> 23:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Good stuff. There has been talk on and off of building the article to greater honours so as long as we can stop vandalism, it should be good. --Roisterer (talk) 10:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be great. I'll be sure to help out where I can. I reckon straight away we could do something about the hatnote.

To make it simpler, does either Australian rules football or Australian football perhaps need a disambiguation page which can be linked to? Jevansen (talk) 01:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is also very long, and it needs a big cleanup.  Aaroncrick (Tassie Boy talk) 08:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking about starting an article on AFL Dream team. Anyone not like this idea.  Aaroncrick (Tassie Boy talk) 09:09, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * As in the online fantasy competiion? - Allied45 (talk) 06:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yer, but on second thoughts it may not be such a good idea.  Aaroncrick (Tassie Boy talk) 06:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe if its necessary it should be Australian rules football online fantasy games or something like that. That way it can cover all fantasy games such as Dream Team, SuperCoach etc. - Allied45 (talk) 09:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, agreed. The problem is, how would the article get set out?  Aaroncrick (Tassie Boy talk) 10:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Check out Template:Fantasy sports and Category:Fantasy sports for some examples of fantasy games for other sports...The Hack 00:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I ended up making an AFL Dream team page. It may eventualy get merged with and AFL Fantasy article in the future.  Aaroncrick (Tassie Boy talk) 07:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Gary Ablett or Gary Ablett, Sr
I think we have come to the point where we need to discuss whether Gary Ablett should be moved to Gary Ablett, Sr. (currently a redirect)

Haydn Bunton, Sr. would have been known during his career as just Haydn Bunton but as his son became a good player he is now refered to as Haydn Bunton senior.

Like with the Buntons, should Gary Ablett be a disambiguation page? Surely Gary Ablett, Jr. has become such a prominent player that 'Gary Ablett' by itself can't just refer to his father? Jevansen (talk) 13:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would agree that Gary Ablett be a disambiguation page. It seems amazing that I would be agreeing with such a statement, considering God is one of the all time greatest but Jnr may well win the Brownlow this year. --Roisterer (talk) 11:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Another new category
Category:Current Indigenous Australian Players of Australian Rules Football has just been created today and has already been populated with 47 articles. Just wondering whether this cat is really necessary.The Hack 10:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Completely unnecessary category in my opinion. I'm not aware of any other sports on here that categorise their players by 'current' or 'former', for good reason. How would you define 'current'? Someone may leave the AFL but continue playing country football well into their 40s so technically they're still current Australian rules footballers. In this case especially it's unnecessary as Category:Indigenous Australian players of Australian rules football isn't exactly over-populated.


 * Our Canadian friend who deleted Category:Australian rules footballers, would have a field day with this one. One could argue that it sounds like a category for Australian rules players who are currently Indigenous. I'd take it to CfD, this is the type of category that they usually have no qualms deleting. Jevansen (talk) 11:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Shifter Sheehan
I noticed that Kevin Sheehan didn't have a page, so I knocked up a stub for him, but it's very hard to find info on him, rather than quotes from him about others (ie every draft pick ever!). Could anyone else help out... I think he's one of the most important people in footy and I was amazed he didn't exist here. The-Pope (talk)


 * Well, he's there now. Notice Z Taylor among Sheehan's team-mates in that Reserve Grade set of flags, presume he's the chap who went to Queensland and rep. that state a few times.

RossRSmith (talk) 13:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT
Apologies for the notice, but this is being posted to every WikiProject to avoid accusations of systemic bias. Hiding T 13:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Page style for AFL debut page
I have created a page for List of 2004 AFL debuts, which uses tables and so forth, rather than the more workmanlike List of 2008 AFL debuts. Could people have a look at the 2004 and see if there is anything else we could add as I would like to see a standard design for this type of article. --Roisterer (talk) 12:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks good, nice work. I'd try to "hide" the URLs with a link description, rather than the bare URL in the reflist and we should probably have a template to link them all together.  Can everyone try to help out with keeping List of 2009 AFL debuts up to date as well (in either format!) The-Pope (talk) 12:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've cleaned up the 2004 page a little bit, and added an example of what the refs should look like on the first reference. I would also like to recommend that the page, along with other debuts pages, be moved to the more appropiate title of List of AFL debuts in 2004 etc. to avoid confusion (i.e. a list of 2004 (the number, not year) players debuts, not a list of players making their debut in 2004). Oh, and Nice work! - Allied45 (talk) 07:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. If anyone has a problem with Allied's suggestion of the title change to "List of AFL debuts in (year)", speak now or forever hold your peace. --Roisterer (talk) 00:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. I've changed all seasons' debut lists to the "List of AFL debuts in (year)" format. Thanks, - Allied45 (talk) 09:00, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Page name problems
I must be in a picky sort of mood. There are two AFL related pages that I think have dodgy names. I've started an official requested move section at Talk:The ANZAC Day clash as I think it should be Australian Football League Anzac Day clash or similar, and a unofficial page title discussion at Talk:Gold Coast Saga, which is actually about the proposed move of the NM Roos to the Gold Coast! When I saw that title on the new articles list I thought it might have been a movie or book title or something about the indy cars or schoolies or something... didn't even think about the Roos. Opinions? The-Pope (talk) 14:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * How about something like Australian rules football/AFL in South East Queensland for the Gold Coast article?The Hack 11:06, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Name change
There appears to have been a name change for the article on the sport! Did I miss a requested move discussion somewhere. I don't mind the name change myself (That is the official name of the sport) but I would be very surprised if this name change was supported by consensus here or at WP:FSIA. Cheers, Mattinbgn\talk 22:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've left a comment on Anthony's talk page. This should never have been listed as an uncontroversial request and seeing as our entire WikiProject is based around the sport you'd think we could have been informed that a 'discussion' had taken place. Jevansen (talk) 01:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I think a move of this import would require a prior discussion at least (which I don't think has happened). --Roisterer (talk) 03:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This was the 'discussion'. User:Rulesfan posted the proposal under a section entitled "Uncontroversial requests" and without anyone else getting a chance to comment the move was made. Jevansen (talk) 04:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Bomb kick
Just thought I'd bring this discussion to the attention of this project.--Jeff79 (talk) 14:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of past players (who didn't play a senior game)
From time to time I come across player articles for footballers who were listed at an AFL club but got delisted without making their senior debut. As these people fail WP:ATHLETE more often than not they will be deleted. For Dockers players, articles have in the past been redirected to List of Fremantle Football Club players, except I suppose if they had a particularly remarkable WAFL career (Sandover Medal wins etc). Others clubs don't have such an extensive list of players as an article so with not redirect option they tend to be deleted at AfD without too much fuss.

Now there seems to be quite a few of these articles floating about so I'm thinking that it would be easier if we could compile a list and nominate them as a group, instead of individually. Firstly does anyone object to such articles being deleted/redirected? If not can you please post any articles here when you come across them. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 02:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

List - Jeremy Stiller, Stephen Owen, Todd Grima, Chris Kangars, James Thomson, Jonathan Simpkin, Phillip Raymond, Michael West, Matthew Davis, Hugh Minson ......

Maybe this should be a discussion of its own but where is the line drawn for state league players?The Hack 07:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I remember seeing the Phillip Raymond article and thinking that unless he either was redrafted or won a Magarey Medal, he should be deleted. The point has been made previously that while 1 VFL/AFL game is enough to be noteworthy, people have frowned against someone with 150 SANFL/WAFL games. I would agree with articles being deleted/redirected but more of a guideline for non VFL/AFL players being developed. --TheGrantley (talk) 23:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * SANFL/WAFL players, pre 1990, who had decent careers tend to pass the notability guidelines. I don't think many people here would object to the inclusion of a player from either of those leagues with 150 games to their name, as long as it was in the VFL era. Some time ago User:Hughesdarren made a dozen or so articles on Swan Districts premiership players to fill in some redlinks on the club article and to my knowledge none have ever been nominated for deletion. Eric Gorman and Cyril Litterick for example, both played less than 200 games. Gorman certainly had more of a contribution to Australian football than William Birrell but are they notable enough for articles? I think so, but we need to make some clear notability guidelines if possible.


 * The way I see it, before the expansion, the WAFL and SANFL were the premier leagues in their respective states. So if a Western Australian or South Australia who played one first class cricket match qualifies for an article, technically so should someone with one WAFL or SANFL game to their name. Major problem however is a lack of sources on the internet, the WAFL and SANFL don't have reliable databases like Cricinfo and CricketArchive. Jevansen (talk) 01:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * For WA players, the WAFL Online site has improved (though still has some pretty big holes). On state players generally I would have thought there'd be a pretty good case for notability for a player who has done one of the following - *Won a League Best and Fairest Award (Magarey, Sandover, etc) *Captained a state league team for a season or more *Been leading goalkicker *Has represented their state *Played in multiple premierships *Has met club life membership criteria (usually 150 matches). Any thoughts? The Hack 01:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The discussion page has been created at Articles for deletion/Phillip Raymond if anyone here wants to make a comment either for or against deletion. Ten players are part of the nomination. Jevansen (talk) 02:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that there are many non-VFL/AFL players who ought be included, especially those have played representative football, or won a league best-and-fairest award, or league leading goalkicker. I presume state Hall of Fame members would also be added. The WAFL and SANFL information online is increasing, and of course the National Library's newspaper project has really taken off again in the last month [Adelaide Advertiser early 1900s now available]. I'd hoped to load some Tassie research online soon, but recent news about GeoCities closing has forced a re-think!!
 * RossRSmith (talk) 13:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation
This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under its scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 21:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Australian rules football - Renaming
User:Rulesfan has put in a move request for the Australian rules football article. The proposal is that it is renamed Australian football. If you'd like to vote for or against this move, or just make a comment, please go here. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 00:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Joel Selwood
I'm hopeful this article can become a FAC/FA by the end of the year. Nominated for a Peer review.  Aaroncrick (Tassie Boy talk) 06:59, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability concerns
For those who were around during each post-draft deleting season, I am no deletionist, but even I am a bit concerned about the stretching the definition of notability that User:NimChief has done by making articles on True North magazine, North Melbourne Under-17s, North Melbourne Under-19s and North Melbourne Reserves. Looking closer at his contributions, there is also Roo Tube and Murray Kangaroos Football Club. The last one I think is notable... the others, I'm not so sure about. Opinions? The-Pope (talk) 12:58, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Had a look at the Murray Kangaroos page - definitely notable. One thing that I noticed after reading it was that there was no page for the Victorian State Football League (referred to in the article as the AFL Reserve Grade).The Hack 13:09, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't know what the notability guidelines are for websites and magazines but I'd imagine Roo Tube and True North Magazine probably wouldn't pass an AfD. The Under-17s, Under-19s and Reserves teams could and should be sections in the North Melbourne Football Club page, as oppose to being articles on their own. It would be unfair to single them out though because when you look through Category:Australian rules football clubs there are some pretty dodgy articles that wouldn't pass notability guidelines.


 * By the way, an article on the Victorian State Football League would be great because plenty of player pages refer to stints they had in the 'reserves' .. so it would be good to be able to link to it. Jevansen (talk) 13:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I've created a rough stub for the VSFL but reliable references are a bit hard to come by...The Hack 03:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * We need a source because what I'm about to say is original research, but actually the AFL ran it's own reserve grade. The Victorian State Football League never had anything to do with it. The VSFL was formed in 1992 to look after statewide Victorian issues and link with the VFA, the VCFL, the VAFA and the now defunct Victorian Metropolitan Football League. The VSFL became Football Victoria in 1999. FYI. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 10:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should just call the article something generic like AFL Reserves? There's a list of premiers here, dating back to 1919. Jevansen (talk) 10:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * From History of Victorian Football League - "In 1990, the VFL renamed itself the Australian Football League (AFL). In 1991 (?) the Victorian AFL clubs' Reserves (2nd teams) competition became known as the Victorian State Football League (VSFL)." So are we saying that the AFL reserves competition is a successor of the VFL reserves?The Hack 03:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The way I understand it is: The VSFL was formed in late 1991 and operated a competition from the 1992 season incorporating an AFL reserve grade competition and an under-18 competition which is now the TAC Cup. From 1996 it took over administration of the VFA which was subsequently rebranded the VFL. Its administrative function was succeeded by Football Victoria and its competitive function was replaced by the VFL.The Hack 03:41, 7 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hack, again (with WP:OR in effect) the VSFL had nothing to do with the AFL reserves. Jevensen is right. There needs to be a seperate article, and you're right about the VFL reserves and the AFL reserves being the same thing. The VSFL never had a competition that it was solely responsible for. The WP article you linked is wrong with what you quoted. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 01:56, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I keep coming across stuff like this

"The reserves (second grade) competition is officially a VSFL competition, as is the U/18 competition. In this paper, AFL will be used to mean the senior age club competitions (both AFL seniors and VSFL reserves) to differentiate from the U/18 competition. The term VSFL will be avoided in the results section because of the ambiguity."

"The Victorian Football League renamed itself the Australian Football League (AFL) in 1990 and following year the Victorian clubs' reserves (2nd teams) competition became known as the Victorian State Football League (VSFL). The VFA merged with the VSFL in 1998 and the new league (somewhat confusingly) renamed itself the "Victorian Football League". Like the ex-VSFL teams, the former VFA clubs became aligned with AFL clubs, as part of a feeder competition like the WAFL and SANFL."

"The AFL Reserves was known as the Victorian State Football League (VSFL) for a few years after the original VFL became the AFL in 1990."

"For 1994, AFL lists were reduced to 42 players, except Sydney which was allowed 50. All AFL clubs were allowed supplementary list players (State League listed players). The State League list was introduced primarily to allow the eleven Victorian-based clubs to continue to operate their VSFL senior teams (commonly known as Reserves teams)."The Hack 02:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * You'd better let sources 1, 2 and 4 how wrong they are about the VSFL. The VFA became the VFL in 1996, not 1998 re source number 2! <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 03:31, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Given source 2 is History of Victorian Football League, feel free to edit it with an appropriate reference.The Hack 03:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I only needed to delete a sentence at first glance and that has been done. Your reference to 1998 contradicts the article (it also says 1996 for the name change). The one reference definitely fails WP:RS. I'll be looking into it further because I think the tag of merger is probably correct. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 04:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * That article is in a bit of a mess. I think this source might be useful.The Hack 13:19, 11 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Not with the VSFL issue it wouldn't. A correction to something I said above. I said that the VSFL was never responsible for any competition by itself. I'm correcting that, because they were responsible for the Under 18 competition. It was a state based comp after all, and still is today (the TAC Cup). <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 00:27, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:North Melbourne Kangaroos
Does such a template belong on player articles? My understanding of Navigation templates is that they should only be on articles which the template links to. So for example Template:Manchester United F.C. is included on the Busby Babes and Munich air disaster articles. The North Melbourne one would go on North Melbourne Reserves, Roo Tube and perhaps 1996 AFL Grand Final. Surely having it on Richard Abikhair and Keith Batchelor for example, like User:NimChief has done, is unnecessary? Jevansen (talk) 10:06, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I also noticed and raised the issue with NimChief on his talk page. Coincidentally I also checked the Man U template and noticed that it wasn't on any player pages.  I also checked some FA class sporting bios - Michael Jordan has the team templates on his page, but he is listed on the templates under either the "notable players" or "hall of fame players" sections.  Other FA sportsmen such as Tim Duncan, Wayne Gretzky, Thierry Henry and Yao Ming don't have their team templates on their pages.  The talk page at Nav Boxes has a similar discussion, but in reverse - they wanted to put the Batman template onto minor characters that weren't listed on the page.  There was no real concensus, but they were generally in favour.  I generally wouldn't be in favour putting it on every player's page - links (inline, infobox or see also), achievement boxes and categories do enough for me to get more info or move around. The-Pope (talk) 13:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, are North Melbourne Under-19s and North Melbourne Reserves really notable in their own right? -- Mattinbgn\talk 22:35, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The discussion above this one relates to them. Likely AfD candidates. Jevansen (talk) 01:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Article styles
There is a large amount of inconsistency throughout AFL articles, particularly in player articles. I propose we resolve this issue by introducing an agreed "Article style" design, that provides guidelines and an example on which to base articles on. There should be seperate style pages for clubs, players etc. The style pages would list the correct order/name/placement of headings, templates, categories etc. A similar process is used at WikiProject Cricket, and it has been proposed at WikiProject Tennis. Any thoughts? - Allied45 (talk) 05:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Ideally this would be great, although I can imagine it would be an enormous amount of work for us. --Roisterer (talk) 12:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think a bit of variation is good - I'd prefer to see our efforts attempting to fix up what we have, rather than set up for the future. WikiProject AFL/Cleanup listing is a good place to start. The-Pope (talk) 14:35, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Having a basic outline of what we want out of an article might make the cleanup less onerous...The Hack 07:10, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Auskick
I'd really like a clean-up of this article as there have never been any references for it ever and some facts are untrue (i.e. it was created in 1998 as Vickick), whereas it was actually created a lot earlier, 1976 to my knowledge. I Googled Auskick but couldn't really find a good history of the program.

Could anyone please help in a clean-up of this article? I believe it deserves a good article. Thanks, Gibbsyspin 10:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Joel Selwood
Once again this article has been nominated for FAC. Please feel free do join in on the discussion. Hopefully third time lucky :)  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>) 06:00, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Passed and so did York Park. :)  Aaroncrick   (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>) 01:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Gary Ablett - Requested move
I have started a discussion at Talk:Gary Ablett, proposing the article is renamed Gary Ablett, Sr. Your input would be most welcome. Jevansen (talk) 01:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

List of Port Adelaide Football Club players
Recently I've been working on the List of Port Adelaide Football Club players article, and I've managed to completely restructure the article with a sortable table and new intro amongst other changes. Let me know what you think of it, as I plan to eventually complete all the clubs' player lists, and aim to one day have them promoted as featured lists. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 11:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I like it. --Roisterer (talk) 12:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) – Allied45 (talk) 04:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Laurie Nash article
I was wondering if people could have a look at Laurie Nash and see if you think it is up to GA status yet. There's still a couple of references that need to be chased up but I'd appreciate any feedback on what else needs to be followed up. Cheers --Roisterer (talk) 15:47, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages
I'm about to sign up WP:AFL to the Popular pages tool. The outcome will be listed at WikiProject_AFL/Popular_pages. Should be interesting to see this ladder.The-Pope (talk) 19:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Good idea. We should ensure that the WP:AFL articles that are the most popular are also of a high quality. There's also this tool where you can search for an individual article and it shows you how many times it has been visited over a period of a month. Jevansen (talk) 06:50, 15 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It does't seem to be working, can we fix this somehow?? - Allied45 (talk) 09:08, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * None of the new sign ups seem to be working yet. I think it has to be run, maybe at the end/start of the month?The-Pope (talk) 12:26, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Well here's hoping! - Allied45 (talk) 05:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The linked page above is still red, but this one works. No real surprises in the top 100 so far, but it's only a couple of days worth of data so far.The-Pope (talk) 13:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'm not sure how to take the fact that Warwick Capper is the most popular former player page. --Roisterer (talk) 15:51, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You have to be a bit careful with taking them too absolutely... they can be adjusted by external foces - for instance St Kilda is probably just as much the top team not only because they are the top team, but also because Eric Bana went on the Jimmy Fallon late night show the other day wearing a St Kilda jumper and taught Jimmy (who was wearing a Pies jumper) how to kick and handball. Probably bumped up their two pages a fair bit.  Quite sobering though to see that only 60 pages get over 100 hits per day and only the two main pages over 1000 hits per day.  And very disappointing that Freo is the bottom of the 16 clubs - only just above Gold Coast! Could be worse - This list looks like an index to Who Weekly or similar.  Interesting bunch from 90-100 too!  The Don, The Wiggles and this project's two main pages.The-Pope (talk) 13:11, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a really cool feature! Excellent work. Except that the 'Pies are the no. 1 club. :( ROxBo (talk) 20:10, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox AFL club season
I've started creating an infobox for club season pages, but I have encountered some difficulty in terms of half the fields not displaying when the template is used on an article. The template is supposed to be something like Template:Infobox football club season, and if anyone who knows how to create templates like these could help fix this that would be great, as I'm not the best when it comes to creating complex templates! Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 04:56, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats
After a recent request, I added WikiProject AFL to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at WikiProject AFL/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 01:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

GAN backlog reduction - Sports and recreation
As you may know, we currently have 400 good article nominations, with a large number of them being in the sports and recreation section. As such, the waiting time for this is especially long, much longer than it should be. As a result of this, I am asking each sports-related WikiProject to review two or three of these nominations. If this is abided by, then the backlog should be cleared quite quickly. Some projects nominate a lot but don't review, or vice-versa, and following this should help to provide a balance and make the waiting time much smaller so that our articles can actually get reviewed! Wizardman 23:39, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

2009 VFL season
I just ran across 2009 VFL season, which looks rather sad compared to, say, 2008 VFL season. Would anyone like to take this on, or should it just be put up for deletion? <span style='font:bold 1.0em "Apple Garamond","Adobe Garamond Pro",Garamond,serif;color:#369;'>Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 04:13, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I've just began a "rescue mission" of the article by doing a few minor clean-ups like adding categories and an infobox. I've also added in a finals series summary template with the results for starters. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 08:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Problem: the "knockout chart" doesn't match up and I'm unsure about the correct placement of the games. Could someone please help fix this up? Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 05:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Brownlows and round by round listings
Back in 2007, the 2007 Brownlow Medal article was nominated for deletion and one of the main criticisms was the round by round listing of the votes. User:Aussieman92 has done a lot of work to add some of the round by round vote tables, but I think that we should expand the other areas of the article, and remove the round by round voting - leave the lists to the newspapers/other sources. Opinions? The-Pope (talk) 11:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree, although a list of the top 10 is notable enough or the top three from each club.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>) 11:30, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've been working on the 1924 Brownlow Medal which I've just recently released from my sandbox. In my opinion, the voting system, ineligible players and presentation should all stay, and as for the voting - top 10 votegetters, club totals, and top votegetters by club is what I believe could or should stay. Gibbsyspin 00:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds all good to me. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 01:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Matthew Scarlett
Just finished cleaning-up the majority of Matthew Scarlett's article, as it was simply quite disgraceful. It's just a quick clean-up and I haven't yet had time to completely proof-read the article and tighten things up, so I appreciate it may not be entirely good grammar and have some issues. Nevertheless, I would really appreciate any feedback anyone has on the article. Also, I haven't yet had time to find and attach refs so they are lacking. The majority of the info is sourced from his profile on the Geelong website. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 12:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

George Coulthard
This may lead nowhere, but can anyone shed light on the provenance of the photo we have of him? He played for Carlton in the early 1880s. Any clue would be useful. –Moondyne 07:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The Coulthard portrait is the centrepiece of a work titled "Victorian Footballers 1884." There are 21 portraits in all, apparently printed by Messrs Cooper & Wicks. A colour photo of the complete work appears between pp108-109 in the book A National Game: The History of Australian Rules Football, by Rob Hess and others, published by the Penguin Group in 2008. The source is given as: Troedel Collection, State Library of Victoria.
 * RossRSmith (talk) 10:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Brilliant work Ross. I owe you a beer.  Here she is –Moondyne 12:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thats spooky. I started the Charles Troedel article in Nov 2005.  A copyvio no doubt. –Moondyne 12:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidates/York Park/archive2
This article about the AFL stadium needs more input  YellowMonkey  ( bananabucket ) 06:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Failed despite no opposes.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>) 08:29, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * How did that happen? I swung by the FAC the other day and thought it was on its way to passing --Roisterer (talk) 10:20, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, probably because it didn't have enough reviews. Another day it might have passed; however, not to worry, with a copy-edit it should be fine. Anyone willing to swing by the article and fix anything? Fresh eyes might help the article as I'm a bit sick of it.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>) 04:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

And another thing
With the Hey, Hey It's Saturday blackface skit causing controversy, I thought I should mention that while researching Mr Nash's 1935 season, I came across an article in The Age in July 1935 that mentioned that the South Melbourne players had a "n....r minstrel group" that was very popular with supporters. --Roisterer (talk) 05:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes
Hi all. I'm wondering what the consensus is on images in infoboxes showing team colours and player numbers, like for example, at Nick Riewoldt. Do they add anything to the infobox or article? Just following up on my comments here. Thanks, Somno (talk) 06:44, 25 October 2009 (UTC) <bR> Yes they do. Color and info. BrianBeahr (talk) 06:49, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry Brian but I can't understand what it is that these images are supposed to bring to the infobox? The reason infoboxes are used on articles is to give a quick summary of information about the person or topic. It is not there to be decorated (with the exception of an image which illustrates who or what the article is about). It is already clear in the infobox that the footballer played with St Kilda so the red, white and black image is rather redundant. There is already a space in the infobox for the player's number to be added so likewise the 12 at File:Stkfcnumber12.jpg for example isn't of any use. All this does is further stretch the infobox so the important information like their career span and games tally etc is in many cases another scroll down the screen. Jevansen (talk) 08:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh no; please get rid of the new additions.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>) 11:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I also think St Kilda Football Club Leading Goalkickers and St Kilda Football Club Captains are unnecessary decoration. They do not link topics that a reader would wish to navigate through (and the topics are already covered by separate list articles and categories), and the templates themselves are large and confusing to readers. Somno (talk) 13:53, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Templates in general are becoming a problem. Nick Riewoldt has no less than 12 at the bottom of his article. Fortunately St Kilda didn't win the premiership because that would have added another. Recent additions have been All-Australian templates, which I don't necessarily disagree with, but once they're all created Mark Ricciuto is going to have about eight. This is why we need to be very selective when deciding which templates we should keep and St Kilda captains/St Kilda leading goal-kickers seem to be ones we could do without. Perhaps just create Category:St Kilda Football Club captains and Category:St Kilda leading goal-kickers instead? It would be good also if we could get some more input here from Brian. Considering he has made 500 edits over the weekend, his six word contribution to this discussion can only leave me to think that yet again he is disinterested in dialogue (he has previously been wiki-blocked for this). Jevansen (talk) 15:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I too have to vote against the new colour schemes that are being added. I also might add, that template is the older version. The current one that should be implemented into articles is the Template:Infobox_afl_player_NEW infobox. As others have pointed out, the reason for infoboxes are to quickly summarise. The infoxbox should not be lengthy (the large images are expanding the infobox). With regard to the many templates floating around (such as the St Kilda captaincy one), perhaps these are better off as lists, rather than templates. Boomtish (talk) 07:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I've nominated the files (St Kilda colours/numbers) for deletion, if you wish to comment. Jevansen (talk) 06:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that most of the topics would make better lists than templates. Templates are supposed to link topics that readers may want to flick between, and in Riewoldt's case, there is already a template that links to the previous captain, another template that links to the previous and following winners of the Rising Star Award and the number 1 draft picks, and then templates below those templates repeating this information... I can't imagine someone reading this article, then thinking, "now I'd like to read about Harold Moyes, who led St Kilda's goalkicking in 1922". Somno (talk) 11:28, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've just nominated the 1997 "MPT" template for deletion.The-Pope (talk) 07:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I want to kill whoever taught Brian how to create templates. Anyway ... thanks for making the effort to nominate the 1997 MP team, you forgot to sign your name though. Jevansen (talk) 08:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Note that the resulted in a "delete" decision, but only one of the images was actually deleted... I'll contact the deleting admin. Somno (talk) 09:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Deleting admin Explicit said "The remaining 49 files weren't tagged with ffd, so they'll have to be tagged and relisted at today's FfD." Any volunteers? Somno (talk) 02:13, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Reference reliability
At the Laurie Nash GA Review, the reviewer asks whether Stats.rleague.com and Full Points Footy are reliable sources. While I personally believe both to be reliable, I can understand others being less confident. Is there something we can point to with these (and any other "non-official" sites) to prove their reliability (or at least that they are no more unreliable than printed sources? --Roisterer (talk) 11:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * rleague is usually reliable. I have had a few issues with FPF in relation to accuracy.Hack (talk) 06:03, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Argh.. not the first time Stats.rleague.com has come up. Suggest not using unless completely necessary.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)  Review me! 06:41, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * As in the Nash article, you've failed to say why. I'm not claiming to be 100% accurate (there's certain to be typos in the tens of thousands of player stats, for instance), but I've not exactly just been randomly mashing the keyboard to come up with the info. So if you elucidate on the problem areas, editors can bear that in mind before referencing.
 * For the more recent players would you use the AFL/club website profiles?Hack (talk) 06:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I've probably found more errors in Main & Holmseby's Encyclopedia of AFL/VFL players as I have on AFL Tables (stats.rleague.com). The big difference is any errors on the website can be fixed in days, compared to probably left untouched until the next edition.  And given how others (see above) regard the official AFL stats guides... I would trust those two sites above most.  The other site that suffers due to it's web address is Kevin Taylor's [footystats.freeservers.com Footystats], that lives on a free server.  Never shows up high on google searches, but I'd trust it above almost all others.The-Pope (talk) 13:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * We've had similar debates at WP:FOOTY in the past. Given that wikipedia allows Soccerbase (one of the least accurate stats sites I've ever seen, only any good for 1996 onwards), I don't think the bar is particularly high. The basic rule of thumb we have there is "what makes this more than just a bloke with webspace?" For instance, has someone involved with it published anything? Do parts of the media occasionally use or refer to it? Do pundits or commentators refer to it? Or a club/clubs? I know we're talking about a different sport, but does rleague.com endorse the Rugby League statistics on the site? Even that would probably do. WFCforLife (talk) 23:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * what makes this more than just a bloke with webspace? Nothing really, so I fail that test :p

List of VFL debuts in 1933
Bedridden with the cold, I've tried to put my spare time to some sort of use and came up with List of VFL debuts in 1933. I'd forgotten that in the pre-list days clubs used to regularly debut up to 20 players each year. --Roisterer (talk) 07:24, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Nice work. Lucky there were only 12 teams, not 16! Only about 110 more years to go. I'd still prefer to see the club name in the table, not as a subheading, so that you could sort by team, or name, or round, or other things like games played or similar (if they get added).The-Pope (talk) 08:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I meant to incorporate the team names in the heading but forgot at the crucial moment. --Roisterer (talk) 10:24, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Appears to be missing this chap. Incidentally, 1933 ranks 12th on the most debuts (162). 1897 tops the list naturally enough with 284 debutants, the 1925 expansion brought 222 debuts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.45.98.97 (talk) 02:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for McIntyre. I recall adding him to Footscray's list because I remember thinking "I doubt I'll need to disambiguate him" but he must have been lost along the way. I plan to pick another random year and see if I can get a relatively low year for debuts. --Roisterer (talk) 10:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Based on WikiProject AFL/Debuts I compiled User:The-Pope/Sandbox3 as a guide for you. If Mr 202.45.etc wants to complete the list with the total including club change numbers, then please do.  Excel2wiki makes cut and paste table generation very easy. The-Pope (talk) 14:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I could produce a "skeleton" page for every year simply enough, just needing comments and/or proper wikilinking. Which I'll think about doing. but a settled format best be defined first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.45.98.97 (talk) 03:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Just completed List of AFL debuts in 2008. What does everyone think of the format? Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 03:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I probably would add a "comments column" for things like "won Rising star", "brother/son of" etc. Otherwise, shows promise. --Roisterer (talk) 04:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Would it be really all that necessary to include a "comments" section? Judging by other articles (i.e. the 2004 debut list), the majority of comments sections would be empty, and the ones that do contain info are mainly trivial information. It wouldn't be necessary to include brothers etc. in a debuts page. Any info like this can easily be incorporated in the actual player articles. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 09:37, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer the comments column to the VFL/AFL cap number column, as this is by no means official. AFAIK, it's just been created/compiled/calculated by the AFL tables site.  All you need is for them to find a missing or duplicated player from early on and everyone changes number.  Borders on WP:OR in my mind.  Would prefer a photo of a true debutant, rather than Judd as a club changer.  Other than that, it looks good.The-Pope (talk) 13:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, it's just been created/compiled/calculated by the AFL tables site Yes, it's just my take on things, I'd also omit it. I'd hope I'm reliable enough to dip into for various tidbits, but wholesale (semi-original) ideas such as that are probably best left for me to take the blame if wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.45.98.97 (talk) 00:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, fair points. In reflection, maybe it would be better just to number the debuts in order 1, 2, 3 etc. for the season, for ease of sorting. And I totally agree on the Judd picture. Thanks for the feedback, Allied45 (talk) 09:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I just want to clarify that I don't consider the AFL Tables as a whole as not-reliable... just this aspect of it. Paul does a fantastic job and it's an invaluable resource.  Have you had any recognition or awards from the AFL, media or other organisations that we could use to improve your standing to those who think that unless it has a Telstra, News Corp or Fairfax logo on it, it isn't a reliable source? The-Pope (talk) 15:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd rather keep a lower profile :p But really, it doesn't matter to much to me, my readers can take it or leave it, or, as many have done over the years, point out any problems. they do encounter, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.45.98.97 (talk) 00:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've renumbered the 2008 debuts in the order of their debuts in the 2008 season, not the overall "VFL/AFL cap" that was used previously. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 04:27, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've taken the initiative and changed Juddy to a picture of Cyril Rioli. Would have preffered Kreuzer (#1 draft pick) or Rhys Palmer (Rising star winner), but there was no Kreuzer pic and Palmer's pic is blurry and small. Decided on Cyril because of his runner-up in Rising Star, and of course he's well-known. Thanks, and if anyone doesn't like it / wants to edit it, go ahead. Gibbsyspin 05:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Good move. We really need to get more, and better-quality, pictures. Allied45 (talk)
 * And, I've done some more tinkering and come up with this List of VFL debuts in 1914 (I picked 1914 so University wouldn't miss out). Thoughts on the table's look? --Roisterer (talk) 03:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Reference required
In the light of the discussion above about reference reliability, I am trying to find a reference for the following sentence in the Laurie Nash article: "Nash's best return for the year (1945) was seven goals against St Kilda in Round 12 and he twice kicked six goals in a match; against Geelong in Round 15 and Fitzroy in Round 18".

If anyone has a copy of "Every game ever played" or similar and can source this, I'd greatly appreciate it. Cheers --Roisterer (talk) 00:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Presumably, the author has just looked at the stats. If you don't like mine, here's is the source, http://stats.afl.com.au/public/statistics/player_roundbyround/1945/15/player_roundbyround_15_1945.shtml, or a bit of newspaper work http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/32074?zoomLevel=1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.45.98.192 (talk) 01:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. As mentioned, I certainly don't dispute the accuracy of the stats site. --Roisterer (talk) 01:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Brian
Brian is adding 2010 fixtures and 2009 results in list format to the St Kilda article. Could we have eyes on this? As I've already reverted twice. Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)  Review me! 08:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * He has just been 'blocked indefinitely' after once more reporting you, as well as Afterwriting and myself for 'vandalism'. Jevansen (talk) 12:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * He's refusing to accept his ban and he just tried to argue the point with Aaron on his Brian's talk page. I made a couple of points. It may be needed to shut off his talk page (not yet) if he persists. Hopefully my points were right. From what I could tell of what he was doing I think I may be right, but I'm free to be corrected. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 10:18, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Good job. ;) Let's not worry about him for a while, if we do that he will not get his attention.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)  Review me! 10:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * To be fair to Brian, I don't think he's seeking attention. If you google his username you'll see some posts from a forum he used to visit and his behavior is similar to what it is here. He shows signs of disorganized thought, paranoia/delusions etc. Jevansen (talk) 11:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I wasn't suggesting he was seeking attention, Jevansen, but if he persists in his line (and I will ignore his reply if there is one) it may be that the talk page might have to be locked IMHO. That's all. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 12:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Shadrach James
I've been updating the Glenn James article recently and have come across a couple of sources (none that I would consider particularly reliable) that are suggesting that the Shadrach "Shady" James who played for Fitzroy in the 1940s was either Glenn James' father or uncle. Does anyone have any ideas on finding a source to confirm this? Hack (talk) 05:30, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I have to say that I've never heard this link before and I've read lengthy articles on Glenn James. That's not to say there's no relation but it's the sort of thing I'd mention if I wrote an article about Glenn. --Roisterer (talk) 00:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I've done a bit of digging but am no closer to working it out. Apparently there was a an Aboriginal activist of the same name (probably notable in his own right) who was a contemporary of Doug Nicholls and was active in the Fitzroy area in the early 30s. It would seem the footballer was too young (being born in 1917) to have been the same person. What complicates things is that it seems that there was a prominent Indian/Sri Lankan teacher named Thomas Shadrach James in the Cummeragunja community (where the James family apparently came from) after whom a series of Shadrach James' were named (some of whom were his descendents).Hack (talk) 00:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * According to this article Glenn's father worked at the Ardmona cannery near Shepparton. According to this bio on Shadrach Livingstone James (b. 1890) worked for Ardmona in some capacity. Tucked into this article there is a mention of the fact that there were three descendants of TS James who were named Shadrach. Therefore it is entirely possible that Shadrach Livingstone James (b. 1890) was father to Shadrach James (b. 1917) but I can't prove any material link to Glenn. Do I sound bored? Hack (talk) 03:46, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Not yet but we all know that football research can be a harsh mistress. --Roisterer (talk) 11:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

AFL Match Template
Hi I'm new to wikipedia and have an interest in helping out with the AFL Project. I have not been able to find a template for AFL games. Is there one available? or is anyone working on one? I have noticed other sports have good looking templates that suit that particular sport and I believe I could adapt one to suit. I believe this would give the afl pages a similar look to other parts of wikipedia.

I'm guessing that this would have been considered in the past, but perhaps the number of games that are currently listed in tables (for each season) and that would need to be changed for it be consistent made it a difficult task.

As a start, perhaps I can make the template and post it here for comment.

Please note I have read a bit about edit warring etc.. and have no intent of starting an argument on this, nor trying to push my own point of view. At this stage I am just interested in finding out if this is something worth persuing.

Matt5AU (talk) 05:06, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Welcome, I hope you make yourself at home here. As far as I know there isn't a specific template for individual AFL matches (if this is what you mean). Feel free to post your creation here and we'll have a look. Cheers. --Roisterer (talk) 12:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, welcome Matt. Not sure if it's what you're after, but we do have the oddly named Template:AFLScorecardGF2006. Have a look at the 2009 AFL Grand Final article for an example of how it looks filled out. Obviously you'd have to take out the section down the bottom regarding Norm Smith Medals etc but that template is something you could use for regular season games. If you have a better idea for a template or if that one isn't the sort of thing you are looking for, please feel free to make one of your own. I'm sure it would be a great addition to this project. Jevansen (talk) 12:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * On that Grand Final template, should that or something like that be used for all Grand Finals? Hack (talk) 12:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't see why not, although of course it will need a bit of rejigging for many of the earlier gf's. --Roisterer (talk) 14:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I actually did use that template when working on the 1897 VFL finals series article I created a while back, and apart from the Reports, Injuries (which both are hard to find for earlier days, obviously no reports before 1912), Norm Smith Medal, Coin toss, and TV broadcaster, it was fine. Just seems like those add-ons will need to be taken off for the earlier GFs. Gibbsyspin 05:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If those fields were made optional (ie not visible if no text is entered) there shouldn't be a problem. Hack (talk) 05:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome messages and input. I'll create a template and post here for comment. I was thinking of trying to make it comprehensive to cover regular season games and finals, with most fields optional (as suggested by Hack). I'm thinking that I'll have more fun creating this template than I would watching the Live coverage of the Draft on Thursday.Matt5AU (talk) 06:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Laurie Nash now GA
I'm pleased to report that Laurie Nash is now a Good Article. Thanks to all those that assisted with getting it to this point. The aim is to get it to Featured Article status so any assistance/advice will be greatly appreciated. Cheers. --Roisterer (talk) 01:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Great job.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)  Review me! 05:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Champion of the Colony
I think it is time for this debate to be resolved.

Some time in the next few days I intend nominating the COTC article for deletion. The category too should go, as well as any ref within general articles.

Optical character recognition at the National Library newspaper site has now advanced enough to allow a search of The Argus to find the phrase "champion of the colony" or champions of the colony, or champion of the colonies, more than 30 times. Numerous sports and events relate to that phrase: billiards, cycling, tennis, athletics, rowing, ploughing, quoits, boxing, and swimming. The dates range from 1856 to 1899.

Not one reference relates to an individual player winning that award for Australian Football. Check it out at: http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home

A number of issues of the annual publication "The Footballer" (mid to late 1870s) have been read too, and again although this is the era of Coulthard's great play, there is not one single reference to the COTC award being made to any player.

Using the NLA site 1901-1945 to search for "champion of the season" award is almost exclusively devoted to the popular vote undertaken by The Argus in September 1909. A significant fact about that event is often missed but I'll hold further comment and see how many recognise it for what it is.

Your support for the deletion would be appreciated. RossRSmith (talk) 00:05, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * (1) provided we accept everything that you say -- and I can think of no good reason to not to accept it, given all your research, etc. -- we must agree that, the same as in the case of unicorns, bunyips, Santa Claus, etc. that many people, who only have access to particular levels of popular literature, very honestly believe that such a thing exists (or existed).
 * (2) Given (1), it would seem a very non-encyclopaedic act to delete an entry that describes a widespread delusion, simply because it is unfounded in historical fact.
 * (3) I strongly oppose the deletion.
 * (4) I strongly support a short piece simply describing the history of the claims made for such a thing, and then a brief description of the extent to which you have found no primary documentary evidence to support the claims that have been made.
 * (5) In view of the subject matter (a non-veridical, retrospective claim), I am certain that this evidence of its non-existence would not be considered "original research".
 * (6) Given how long you have been at this, it seems very stupid not to make a record of the fact that it never existed, and stop new generations of people taking on the folk-myth that such a thing existed.
 * (7) Maybe you should change the title to Champion of the Colony Controversy (and, then, there would be no need for the long list of players names).
 * In closing, if you were to delete it, you would have to delete other historically unsubstantiated fanciful nonsense -- such as Marn Grook -- as well. Far better to keep it in, and reveal that it is total B.S. Lindsay658 (talk) 03:36, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, Lindsay. Fair points, and well made. I'd be quite happy to see the article retained with the change of title you suggest [and the list of names removed]. Will do some more checking on the background - CC Mullen is I think the original compiler in the mid-1950s.
 * RossRSmith (talk) 07:34, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I strongly oppose the re-titling of the article (and don't even consider deletion). I have in front of me a reliable reference that says that it existed. It doesn't say that the Argus reported on it, or any other specific paper.  It says that it was award to Wills for "allround sporting excellence in 1856 and 1857".  It may have been awarded by a single person, or by a town council or by the Freemasons.  I don't know.  But AFL 2005 (p486) goes onto say it was transferred to the captains gathering at the end of the season to decide who was the best player of the year and then later by writers and critics, but doesn't say from where - maybe from a paper that hasn't yet been digitised - and maybe just like the Herald Sun won't refer to anyone as winning The Age's best player award, no-one else reported it (How many newspapers would report on the Ch 9's Lou Richards Medal or if the Footy Record gave out awards).
 * Who knows how important/respected/what esteem the award was held in. But someone, somewhere, at sometime did write down the list and it's made it into the official AFL records (was also in the 100 years of AFL book from 1996).  Have you contacted Col Hutchinson, Michael Lovett or others at the AFL to ask where the list came from?   Until you have proven that the list published by the AFL was a fabrication by someone, at sometime, then it must stay.  Proving that you can't find the source is not the same.
 * And "holding further comment" isn't really Assuming Good Faith for the rest of us... For those who don't like playing games, The Argus held a plebiscite in Sept 1909 and received over 100,000 votes for the best player in both the league and association. It was called "champion of the season" on the coupon, but in most other references it was labelled "Football Champion".  Still doesn't prove anything.The-Pope (talk) 12:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * So you stand by the details listed on p486-487 of AFL2005 do you ? RossRSmith (talk) 13:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Until I see real proof that it was a fabrication by someone in the 60s in an office in Jolimont or similar... yes. The rules may have changed year to year, the name may have changed, it may have been the exclusive award of the Toorak Times.  I don't know, but I do know that the AFL considers it enough to be listed in their book.  I also know that things from that era are often found to be wrong (ie Dave Clement and the confusion over Fremantle/Union's premierships from the 1880s)... but prove it first, then get it published by a reliable source.The-Pope (talk) 13:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * AFL2005 guide lists winners of alleged COTC award including:
 * 1856 - Tom Wills (Corio Bay). Nonsense, Wills had been studying in England for some years, and played a number of cricket matches in UN & Ireland during 1856 cricket season, arriving back in Victoria on or about 23 December 1856. Not known to have played for Corio Bay during the remaining week.
 * 1858 - George Bruce (Richmond CCFC). Nonsense, no such club known to have existed.
 * 1903 - Hugh Gavin (Essendon). Nonsense, Gavin played in WA Goldfields comp that year, not in VFL.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by RossRSmith (talk • contribs) 12:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * From the intro "was awarded to Tom Wills for all round sporting excellence in 1856 and 1857". Maybe the award was made in the beginning of the year for the previous year, or for his performances in the UK, and had previously been registered with Corio Bay.  "From 1858 the award transfered to Australian Football with the captains gathering at the end of the season to decide who was the best player of the year."  Maybe they meant after 1858, not from 1858.  Again, maybe the award was given at the beginning of the year to Gavin for the 1902 season, but awarded in 1903.  Raise your concerns with the publisher and see if AFL 2010 makes any corrections, or supplies any evidence.The-Pope (talk) 13:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Fair enough suggestion...however, I've been doing exactly that since at least Feb 2008 and despite a number of requests the AFL provides no evidence at all. RossRSmith (talk) 07:12, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Northern Football League
I need someone to revert an IP who is edit warring on Northern Football League. He is trying to add information with a primary source that is early and a case of WP:CBALL by the source concerned - given that I understand (without a reliable source at present) that a club will be applying to leave, destroying Division 3 in the process. This IP won't listen. He needs a reliable secondary source and won't provide. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 10:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Or a second primary source, AFL-Cool. I'll watch it. Despite the rumour you speak of which is irrelevant incidentally. MetroFooty (talk) 09:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm ... user created November 21. A little suss. Jevansen (talk) 00:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Problem solved! He found a secondary source. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 23:22, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Lolsen657
has been adding fair-use logos to Grand Final articles. Can someone will better knowledge of image policy please follow this up.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)  Review me! 11:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Reliable Source needed...(Carlton related)
There is some material online about how the nickname 'The Cockatoos' was linked to Carlton in the 1930s but did not gain traction. I wonder if anyone on this list has the book The Carlton Story: A History of the Carlton Football Club by Hugh Buggy, which contains the origianl material and I can get into Popular culture section of Cockatoo. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Gold Coast Football Club cats
Now that the new club has some notable players (Karmichael Hunt, Daniel Harris, Danny Stanley) it may be time to create a player category; i.e. Category:Gold Coast Football Club players. -- Mattinbgn\talk 07:31, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I notice on Daniel Harris there is a redlinked "Template:Gold Coast player squad". Does such a template exist or did an editor jump the gun? --Roisterer (talk) 02:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Tasmanian Football League
I suggest we split up the prose with the list of premiership/goal kicking ect winners? But what should be name the new article?  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)  Review me! 21:15, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Long careers
How would we go about writing an article on Sheedy or Barassi - seeing that their careers have been so long? We can't go year-by-year like Selwood.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   10:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess by doing it in chunks of years or periods. Don Bradman might be a good guide. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * cricket's easier in some way because it has been done many times before and there is series-by-series; always throws up something different.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   11:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know. Was trying to find another --> Steve Bruce better (has been a player and coach)? not the same code I know.... Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Thanks for finding that, trimed a bit much for my liking though.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   04:09, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You could probably have separate articles on their coaching careers...Hack (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Aaroncrick, did you have a particular player-coach in mind? Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:44, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Kevin Sheedy .... read his auto and am inspired - wonder how long that will last for?  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   04:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * SHEEDS ....ok, will take a look a bit later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Team Squads
Currently, we have two main templates styles for current team squad listings. There is the "in text" version, which are all listed on List of current AFL team squads and are in each team's main article. They are named Template:Adelaide Crows current squad or similar and look like this: Then there are the footer navbox style ones, which are on most player pages. They are called Template:Adelaide player squad or similar and look like this:

Now, before we get into discussions about whether we should change them all to be Foo Football Club current squad, rather than Foo Nicknamians current squad, or Foo player squad footer navbox, our dearly departed banned friend from the Saints went off and made up his own templates... Template:St Kilda Football Club Squad. It looks like this: St Kilda Football Club Squad and the footer navbox (Template:St Kilda Football Club Current Player List) looks like this:

So, do we want to jazz up all of them to match the Saints, or get revert to the standard plain ones for the Saints too? (Please don't mention flags!)

My opinion is that they are the Saints footer navbox is much worse than the standard one - too big, too spread out, nothing wrong with a surname only, small font list. The other one I think needs to be compressed back into 4 columns, don't mind the idea of the squad headers, but "First Team" sounds a bit Rugbyish, and I don't think you need the main red header - it's to be used on pages where the topic is not in question. As for the coaches, well they aren't really in the "current squad". So, I am correct to want standardisation across all teams, or should I just ignore it?The-Pope (talk) 15:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've never really been a fan of the 'in text' squad template which we use, not that I could come up with anything better though. Hate to admit it, but Brian's version does seem a lot better. As you said, it would need to be compressed, could get rid of the coaches column but maybe find a way of adding the senior coach's name into the heading (so he is still listed but not as part of the squad). The navboxes seem fine as they are. Jevansen (talk) 22:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That Saints footer navbox has way too much white space. To me the only relevant squad information needed in the footer navbox is included in the Adelaide example ie numbers, surname and rookie status. The other stuff like NSW scholarship is unnecessary. For the in-text version I think with a few tweaks Brian's version could work well... Hack (talk) 02:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

External links to fan/club wikis
A dynamic IP user (203.217.83.225, 210.84.21.15 and 203.217.74.79, maybe more) has been slowly adding links to the Demons Wiki to a bunch of Melbourne player pages. S/He's up to 20 pages so far. Is this an acceptable external link? The Links to be avoided guideline #12 states that you should not include Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. The front page of the Demons Wiki has a top users section, with one user having over a million edits (probably this former wiki editor), the 5th at about 1000 and the 10th at almost 300. No 3 is probably the same user as User:RossRSmith who contributes here as well. There is currently a youtube clip on the front page, probably from the 80s/early 90s, but almost certainly a copyvio. The poll has had 7 votes. Before I start to delete them, should we have some form of list of what links are acceptable. We've discussed the AFL Tables/stats.rleague.com site before, I think we all agree that fullpointsfooty bio are vital, the main newspapers are obvious, I strongly believe that Kevin Taylor's Footystats Diary is reliable, but what about any others - [www.blueseum.org Blueseum] is probably the other one that is well established. Any more for the other clubs? The-Pope (talk) 15:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless I've missed a site (which is highly possible), I can't add any to those you've already mentioned. I make use of the safooty forum which has club statisticians and historians contributing but I can imagine the hassles trying to prove reliability. --Roisterer (talk) 05:20, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Joffa
I happened upon a red link to Jeff Corfe, better known as Joffa of Collingwood fame, and was wondering if he warranted an article given the amount of coverage he has received for his efforts. He seems to meet WP:GNG by virtue of receiving significant coverage from reliable sources. Any thoughts? Hack (talk) 01:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, probably does, as long as it's well sourced. I'd say the Herald Sun would have a feature about him somewhere.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   02:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

North Melbourne B&F
Anyone else ever wondered why the winners of North's Best & Fairest prior to 1937 are not shown on the Syd Barker Medal page ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RossRSmith (talk • contribs) 11:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC) ..oops..anyway, am surprised by this 'cos the 1935 (Carter) and 1936 (Skinner) winners have been found via simple check of newspapers. RossRSmith (talk) 12:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems like we're about to lose a number of articles
People may be aware that due to being unreferenced, we are about to lose about 150 footballers, including Peter Hudson and Damien Hardwick. See here for details. I'll try to save some but I welcome anyone else to contribute as well. --Roisterer (talk) 13:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, no, no, no, no. It's all about saving them.  3 rogue admins went crazy the other night, deleting/proding unreferenced articles - Neville Bruns and Matt Rendall were the only two WP:AFL articles attacked.  Surprisingly, Arbcom and Jimbo supported their actions.  So rather than fight a lost battle complaining about them, I suggested that the WP:Aust project be proactive and try to reference them in the next month.  Today someone from the WP:Article incubator moved a bunch of articles into the Incubator, but I think I moved them all back.
 * Bottomline is it appears that unreferenced BLPs are now public enemy #1, so lets get rid of them - the proper way, by supplying references. WP:AFL is lucky that we have the AFL Tables website and the Encyclopedia of AFL footballers book, so referencing players is simple.  Doing executives/commentators etc is a bit harder, but it should be do-able.  I've done about 20 in the last couple of days, and am planning to do heaps more this coming week but all are welcome to pitch in and help out.The-Pope (talk) 14:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The difficulty with the usage of these references is that editors have been adding these to the see also section rather than as an inline citation, leading to incorrect identification of an unreferenced article.Hack (talk) 00:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This is unfortunately a common problem with Wikipedia. It's basically NOT a worldwide encyclopedia as far as ArbCom is concerned - by their actions rather than by their words. North America and Western Europe get treated differently to other countries and that includes us. What would happen if one of us went to town in the same way with soccer players? There would be uproar and ANI would be as busy as heck as a result. It all boils down to the number of editors on WP. Us Aussies are in a minority and this shows it. Peter Hudson in trouble indeed! What is wrong with that article anyway? I can't see anything wrong. Let's see some details on the talk page instead of this vague threat. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 03:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Paul Hudson (Australian rules footballer) looks worse than Peter.  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   03:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * They should be easy to do, and if there is a meat, you know these guys aren't going to check to see if the refs actually work....especially if it is just a generic ref to their entry in the encyc or the profile in the A-Z of Australian cricket and whatnot  YellowMonkey  (<i style="color:#FA8605">bananabucket</i>)  04:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In response to AFL-Cool's comment - until a couple of days ago the Peter Hudson article didn't have any inline citation but it did have an external links section. The way I see it articles like this - there are a lot of AFL articles with similar formatting - should not have been tagged as unreferenced. Hack (talk) 05:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not sure why he thinks that Aus articles will get targeted more, but anyway, teh unreffed list is down to 50 odd

Rleague website use for FAs
Does anyone know how to prove this website is a Reliable Source, or find another site, or a book, where stats of olden day players such as Sam Loxton can be found, because I know that someone will query whether it is good enough on Featured article candidates/Sam Loxton/archive1  YellowMonkey   (<i style="color:#FA8605">bananabucket</i>)  05:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Just on basic stuff already in there, which games he played in, how many goals in which game etc  YellowMonkey  (<i style="color:#FA8605">bananabucket</i>)  05:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I had the same trouble with Laurie Nash's GA nomination. Eventually I had to replace all the rl references for something else for the GA nom to pass. Personally I find it very reliable but as the rl webmaster says (s/he posts here under an anon IP occasionally), s/he is just someone with web access and hence it would be difficult to substantiate. You can try of course and see if it slips through. --Roisterer (talk) 03:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * York Park slipped through...  Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   03:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The only one bagging me is this person ^, who then fails to explain why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.45.99.28 (talk) 00:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a stats table on AFL for all teh players, so those work.  YellowMonkey  (<i style="color:#FA8605">bananabucket</i>)  04:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you find the AFL one though? Will it still work next week/month/year or whenever they decide to move it again?  For GA/FAs, maybe it's worth searching for it, but for everyone else (ie the BLP referencing drive, I'm sticking with  .The-Pope (talk) 10:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Interchanges
Couldn't believe when I read how in 2000 there was an average of 17 interchanges per match and in 2009 there was 91. This probably deserves a mention in the main article - opinions? — Aaroncrick  (<i style="color:#FE2712">talk</i>)   01:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

New AFL Match Templates - Comments Please
A while back I asked about creating a template for AFL matches Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_AFL/Archive_4. It has taken me a while (got a bit distracted by cricket, xmas and summer) but I have come up with a few templates for both the weekly summary of each rounds results, as well as a detailed template for feature games like the grand final.

These three templates are for summarising each rounds results: Template:AFLGameHeader, Template:AFLGame & Template:AFLGameFooter. The documentation pages explain their usage and provide some examples. I have also made revised copies of the 2009 AFL Fixture and the 2010 AFL Fixture on my user page to demonstrate how it would look for a whole season.

The Template:AFLGameDetailed template is for feature games like the AFL grand final, NAB cup final etc.. This template is not quite finished, I need to add an optional field for Supergoals to cover the NAB cup games. I'm also going to make the goal kickers, best, injuries and reports optional fields.

I have not listed the templates in the AFL templates category yet, but will do so if there are no objections.

Please provide comments/feedback/objections on these templates. Matt5AU (talk) 12:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I have changed the NAB Cup fixture as a bit of a trial and also to perhaps spark some comments and discussion. If it does not work out, I will restore it to the original formatting. Matt5AU (talk) 11:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry about the lack of response, this place tends to be pretty quiet in the off-season. Just saw your new template at 2010 NAB Cup and I was very impressed. It looks great. I also quite like the look of Template:AFLGameDetailed. Don't see any reason why you couldn't add that template (when finished) to some articles as a trial like you've done with the NAB Cup. If anyone has an issue with them then they can comment here otherwise we can look at implementing them further. Keep up the good work!. Jevansen (talk) 11:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. Was keen to get the templates in use before next weeks start of the NAB Cup, I assume there will be more people viewing and editing the AFL pages then.  I have updated both the fixture for 2010 and the season summary for 2009 to the new template and will try to do the 2009 NAB Cup during the week to give people more examples of how to use the templates.  Cheers Matt5AU (talk) 12:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've changed the 2009 NAB Cup to use the new template to give some examples for the upcoming round of NAB Cup games and I will also try to alter the 2009 Finals so that all of the 2009 season is using the new templates. At this point I will stop to allow people to check it out and see if they like it.  Cheers Matt5AU (talk) 08:55, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The 2009 Season has been updated to use the new templates, although I haven't looked at club specific pages. Happy to leave it for now, until there is more feedback.  We probably need to decide if we want to retrospectively apply this to all seasons, or just from this point on.  Matt5AU (talk) 03:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd look at the lack of feedback to be a sign that no one objects to your changes. Your efforts are greatly appreciated though, the 2009 AFL season article looks much better than before in my opinion. Although it would be preferable, changing the VFL/AFL season articles from before 2009 would be too time consuming. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 00:30, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Category:Australian players of Australian rules football
What should be done with Category:Australian players of Australian rules football? For me it is as stupid as having a category for Australian winners of Australian Idol just because Damien Leith won it one year. It was previously Category:Australian rules footballers. Should we look at changing it back (knowing the folk at CfD it probably won't be worth the effort), delete it, or keep it as is? Jevansen (talk) 00:35, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I would like it changed back, it should have never been changed in the first place. – Allied45 (talk) 06:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Having spent a fair bit of time doing multi-level category scans for the recent BLP issues, there is a site wide problem with subcats of high level cats like Category:Australian people. Obviously it should include the stupidly named Category:Australian players of Australian rules football, but it really shouldn't include all who could fit in Category:Australian rules footballers.  The cricketers have two cats, Category:Australia Test cricketers or the state team cats for those who played for Australia and Category:Australian cricketers for all those who are Australian.  Basketball doesn't have separate cats so all the Yankee imports who played for NBL teams end up in an Australian people catscan - whereas all of our by club cats aren't subcats of the footballers cat. So, whilst I understand the silliness of the current name, and that our sport is probably 99% actually Australian, I can also appreciate it's usefulness.  And I think we should pick our battles with the CfD overlords... and this is probably one that has passed us by.The-Pope (talk) 13:03, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Black Diamond Cup
Hi. I've been having a discussion with User: AFL-Cool about the statement in the Australian rules football in New South Wales. Quote "In 1888, the Black Diamond Cup, Australia's oldest sporting trophy began." I asked for a source because I found the statement fairly dubious. This is the source provided, which I don't think is a reliable source:. My main problem with the statemnet is that it's a superlative. If it had some caveats I wouldn't be so concerned but as it stands I don't think the statement is true. I thought I'd bring it here before I start and get some other opinions before I start a revert war.Ticklemygrits (talk) 06:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree, seems to contradict some other claims on this site. The SANFL article rightfully states that it began in 1877.

"Originally formed as the South Australian Football Association on the 30th of April 1877, the SANFL is not only the oldest surviving football league of any code in Australia, but one of the oldest football competitions in the world, forming just a few years after the United Hospitals Challenge Cup (1874), the oldest rugby football competition and over a decade before The Football League (soccer). Additionally, the Magarey Medal awarded to the league's best and fairest player is the oldest individual award in Australian rules football."


 * The article Oldest football competitions provides other examples. Jevansen (talk) 08:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And those are just football trophies. The BD Cup is claimed to be the oldest sporting trophy, which I would assume covers the Melbourne Cup amongst other sporting trophies.Ticklemygrits (talk) 09:40, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The Black Diamond Cup is the original. That is distinct from the other awards. Is the Melbourne Cup of 2009 the exact same cup as the one presented for Archer's win in the first race? That is the point that TickleMyGrits is missing. Which other Cup can claim to be the original that is still being contested today? I asked for evidence and all Grits can do is discuss it. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 22:28, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Does the Ashes urn count as a trophy? Hack (talk) 05:29, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I can see your point AFL-Cool. But that makes it the oldest trophy still in use. It doesn't make it the oldest trophy. And I'm not sure about the Ashes being Australian, although it is older and is still in use. Ticklemygrits (talk) 06:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The Ashes urn was originally awarded by a group of Victorian women. I've added a reference from the AFL that makes the same claim about it being the oldest trophy, though I'm not particularly convinced it's true.Hack (talk) 06:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The Ashes don't count because it's not in the strictest sense Australian. It's an international entity as such, and the original Ashes are held in England no matter who actually holds the Ashes. Grits, the point is that it IS the oldest trophy still in use. That is the core claim. Not that it's the oldest trophy name - which is a different matter entirely (that would indeed cover the Melbourne Cup as an example). <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 09:30, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * But that doesn't make it the oldest trophy, it makes it the oldest trophy still in use. That's my problem with it, it needs a qualifier after "oldest trophy" otherwise it gives the impression that it's something that it isn't. Ticklemygrits (talk) 05:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I take it you haven't looked at the page since before Hack was on it. <b style="color:green">AFL-Cool</b> 09:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No I didn't AFL-Cool. Looks fine now, sorry for the angst.08:21, 21 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ticklemygrits (talk • contribs)

New player infobox (with total career points)
Just wondering what people thought of the new infobox that has been included on some Brisbane Lions pages such as Luke Power and Jamie Charman. I can understand listing behinds but not total career points. This isn't basketball, I've never once come across AFL player statistics which have such a tally. How we present players records should be consistent with the norm, instead of just making up a new stat. Has anyone seen this done elsewhere?. Jevansen (talk) 07:47, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the old infobox, as seen in the Gary Ablett, Sr article, is fine as it is. When you look at any player's career, it is summed up by games played and goals kicked. I have not once seen total behinds recorded as a main statistic, nor the 'total points' scored by any one player. Boomtish (talk) 10:39, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I also think the old user box is fine. The only thing I'd add to it is the player's guernsey number. <b style="color:Maroon">Reyk</b> <b style="color:Blue">YO!</b> 10:57, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * In fairness, behinds are at least tallied on AFL Tables (which we often use), from the late 1980s. However as Boomtish said, a player's statistical career is summed up by games and goals. If we include behinds we couldn't argue against someone including total career disposals, kicks etc. The idea of mentioning total points seems to have been made up whoever made the infobox. For example, Matthew Richardson scored 5351 points in his career. If you google his name and the number and you get just one relevant hit. Jevansen (talk) 11:32, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I've at least made them optional/hidden but as I said back in October on the template's talk page, it doesn't belong on any page as it's not a key stat for AFL players.The-Pope (talk) 14:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)