Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Assessment

Beginning discussion
I blatently copied the Military page on this topic and converted to college football. The importance scale is open for discussion, as in creating it, it was hard to define the levels. Generally, current information should be rated higher and more global information covering all of college football should be rated higher. Perhaps, for example, a person should rate an article on it's currentness and globalness on a scale of 0 to 5 and add the two numbers and if it's 8-10 it should be top, 6-7 high, 4-5 mid, 2-3 low and 0-1 why does it exist? Thus, items about the current season would automatically get a 5 plus the globalness, (say a team page) would get a 1 or 2 so it would be a 6-7 and rated high. An item about a current player would be the same. An NFL player, if currently playing in the NFL would be a 4, if retired a 3 or 2 depending on how long ago. Let me try and sort this out with a chart: Still seems fairly random. I guess it can't be an exact science. Mecu 15:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Current (0-5 points)
 * Articles that cover more than this (team page?) should take the value when the most current info of the team. A current team, 5 points, a defunct team, whenever their last season was.
 * This year or last year, 5 points
 * A few years ago, 4 points
 * A decade ago, 3 points
 * A generation ago, 2 points
 * General Historical Info, 1 point
 * Globalness
 * Covers all of college football, 5 points (BCS, NCAA)
 * Covers a general event (Rose Bowl), 4 points
 * Covers a general group (Conference), 3 points
 * Covers a player, team, specific event, 1 points
 * Bonus points for signifigance (up to 3 points?)
 * More important items, must be generally agreed upon
 * Joe Paterno

Importance ratings

 * It certainly can't be an exact science but it is a start. I notice that Big Bertha has been tagged Low importance while Sooner Schooner has been tagged medium.  My first thought was that they should both be the same level since they are each a tradition of a major college team.  However, on reflection, I think the Sooner Schooner is a more famous symbol of OU than Big Bertha is of Texas.  Hook 'em Horns and Bevo are both more famous and should probably be ranked higher. Johntex\talk 16:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I've been doing nothing but rating for hours. I rated Big Bertha Low since it was a unique tradition. I almost gave it Mid since it's a special college football tradition, but since it's not the mascot it doesn't matter. One should think about it like this, I think: If someone knew nothing about college football, what would you tell them? What is more important? A mascot seems to be Mid, and Big Bertha seems Low. The more important players, coaches, schools, history, rivalries, bowls — the things that make college football college football should be higher. Special traditions like that are unique to college football, so it's a grey area. Besides, it's quite well developed (though that may be the exception to items like this since the UTTalk people are active) and doesn't really need us to take a big look at it. It's hard to classify everything into 4 categories without there being some dispute since there are so many shades of grey. If you want to change a rating class or importance by 1 level, I wouldn't have any problem with that. More than 1 level and there should be clear evidence for a reason for change or discussion is needed. The 1 level up or down should be only allowed once and if conflict arises, a discussion should occur. Mecu 17:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I partially agree with you, but not fully. For example, but I disagree about Hook 'em Horns.  This is a major symbol of UT and is virtually synonymous with UT football.  It is also used an insult and taunt by opposing teams like OU that don't have their own hand symbols.  It is well known across college football.  It is far more important to college football than the mascot of the "119th team".  It is also far more important to college football than something that happened in one game, such as Fifth Down.  I won't change the rating myself since I am a major contributor to the article.  Also, as I have said over on the main project Talk page - I think this whole system can use some refinement.  I know you have been putting a lot of work into these rankings, but I think major systems like this should be discussed and refined first, before someone spends a lot of time utilizing them. Johntex\talk 17:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. Popularity should increase importance. I re-read the guideline listed above the table which I'll quote here: they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students or fans of college football. Thus, the key item should be popularity. So the BCS schools should be higher than all the others and all other divisions. NFL players/coaches increased in rating as well. I think in general I've been following this with a few exception where I'll read a stub on a coach and see they're listed in the hall of fame so I'll put them High instead of Mid (or Low) just because of that, which now seems wrong. Mecu 17:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think creators of the article or major contributors should rank the articles. Thoughts? CJC47 13:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think we all agree with that. Johntex\talk 14:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That is, I think, the best policy. Z4ns4tsu 14:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Some of the ratings are peculiar, the Miami Orange Bowl is rated high, while Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and Doak Campbell Stadium are low. Why would the stadium that competes with the Citrus Bowl as the biggest piece of junk in the Sunshine State be more important than the Swamp, which never has an attendence below 87,000 (where the Orange Bowl occasionally has crowds of less than 25,000) and is Kirk Herbstreit's favorite on-campus stadium, along with having the reputation being one of (if not the) most intimidating places to play and having existed nearly a decade longer than the Orange Bowl. I just don't get it.--Porsche997SBS 04:53, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Miami Orange Bowl hasn't been rated by WP:CFB, it's not even tagged as part of the WP:CFB. -- MECU ≈ talk 05:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Awards at Top
There were several awards, like the Maxwell Award, that were rated at Top. I went ahead, was bold and changed them to low. I left the Heisman Trophy at Top. My question is whether or not those should be low. Bornagain4 22:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd saw awards that are 2nd level (ie, not Heisman) should be High since they are both important, and cyclic in popularity so that it should receive enough attention. Someone who hears "so and so won the Maxwell Award" then wonders and searches for information on the Maxwell Award would want a suitably nice article written on it. --Mecu 22:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Deal, I'll switch it. Bornagain4 23:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Classification determinations
We had a discussion awhile back about how to classify certain articles (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football. I've taken those determinations and compiled a list below. Please review. Maybe this should be included on the main page for people to refer to when ranking articles.

Athletic programs are not under the College football Wikiproject. MECU ≈ talk 19:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, some are tagged. Don't know which off the top of my head, but I added those fields after coming across them. I'll remove them as I see them.--NMajdan &bull;talk 20:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Top 25 ambiguous
In the above scheme, I find this phrase to be ambiguous: "Articles on the current coach of a BCS/Top 25 team". In context it looks like it could be saying an all-time Top 25 team, but it could be referring to the current Top 25. I really want to see people like Chris Petersen get their due (because I think the stories of programs like that are interesting), so I'm hopeful it's the latter interpretation. Regardless, it should be clarified. Cheers, PhilipR 01:57, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I do believe it is the latter: It could be written: ''Articles on the current coach of a current BCS (ranking) team. Articles on the current coach of a current Top 25 ranked (AP or Coaches, not Harris) Team." -- MECU ≈ talk 03:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

What's up?!
Why's it takin' so long to get any assessments done? Come on people. I think I'm the only one who's reiewed or commented the assessment page this MONTH! Let's get some work done people!!! -- Cra sh U  nderride  18:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There's no requirement to have someone else rate an article. While you may be biased since you heavily edited the article, you could make an attempt a rating, especially if you are familiar with the rating. It is not specific to WP:CFB and standardized across all projects. Lastly, most CFB editors (at least I) make assessments without the need to come to this page. With the low volume of work to be done here (at the page, there is tons to be done in rating), the page is probably not heavily watched. MECU ≈ talk 20:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Nah, I'd be too tempted to rate it just above start or something. lol I think it's better if I don't rate my own, especally for WVU football players lol. -- Cra sh U  nderride  22:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Classes
Could we add a template class for college football for items such as Template:2009 Big East football standings, Template:NCAAFootballYearlyGameHeader, or other such items. I think it would be helpful if there were something like that so that all templates related to college football could be more easily grouped and eventually standardized, rated, and updated. Any thoughts? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that is a terrific idea. I have worked on several of the templates, and a grouping like you mention would certainly be welcome. Cardsplayer4life (talk) 05:29, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * We have a Template class now. Setting class=Template will place the page in Category:Template-Class college football articles. There's a bit of a backlog of templates that need to be updated at Category:College football template pages. I've knocked the list down a bit, but there are still over 600 articles to get set as Template-Class. We also have Category-Class with a corresponding backlog of over 100 articles at Category:College football category pages. In addition, there is now Future-Class for articles referring to events that haven't happened yet (like next season), Current-Class for events that are in progress, Needed-Class for needed articles that haven't been created yet or only exist as a redirect, like 2010 Fiesta Bowl. DeFaultRyan (talk) 21:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Streamlining reassessments
Please see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_College_football. Thanks. DeFaultRyan 15:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change
I'm proposing a change at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football. Please visit that page for discussion.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Reinstating importance assessment
Per discussion (and no objection) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football, I am beginning the process of reinstating importance assessment. I thought a good place to begin would be some basic principles, in no particular order:

Thoughts? cmadler (talk) 13:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We are only considering importance within college football. This is the basis of project-level assessment.
 * Some topics are more important than others. This is the basis of importance assessment.
 * Some types of topics are more important than others. For example, College football is more important than Sparty.
 * Primary topic categories are:
 * Team articles (such as Virginia Tech Hokies football)
 * Season articles (2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team) - less important that team articles
 * Rivalry articles (Army-Navy Game) - less important than team articles
 * Bowl games (2006 Chick-fil-A Bowl)
 * Key terms (Touchdown, Defense (American football))
 * Mascots (Sparty) - less important than team articles
 * Pageantry (Aggie Bonfire) - less important than team articles
 * Players (Elmer Gedeon)
 * Coaches (Bo Schembechler)
 * Within a type, some topics are more important than others. For example, Brutus Buckeye is more important than Northeastern University Paws.
 * Generally, a more-successful team is more important than a less-successful team. This applies both in the short-term (season articles) and long term (program articles. For example, 2010 Auburn Tigers football team is more important than 2010 Michigan Wolverines football team. Michigan Wolverines football is more important than Eastern Michigan Eagles football.
 * Although notability is not inherited, to some degree importance is. Accepting that Michigan Wolverines football is more important than Eastern Michigan Eagles football, the same relationship can be expected for sub-topics; List of Michigan Wolverines head football coaches is more important than List of Eastern Michigan Eagles head football coaches, and Bo Schembechler is more important than Elton Rynearson.
 * We should strive to avoid recency bias. For example, the 1900 Michigan Wolverines football team is of similar importance to the 2000 Michigan Wolverines football team.
 * With five importance levels (including the optional bottom-importance), it is inevitable that articles of slightly different actual importance will be assessed to the same level; each level must be seen as encompassing a range of importance, not just a unitary degree.
 * Importance is entirely indeependent of article quality.
 * Article quality improvement does not result in article importance reassessment unless new information is brought to light.

Matrix proposal
With consensus, an article may be assessed as one level lower than given for its type. In exceptional cases, with consensus, an article may be assessed as one level higher than given for its type. * Based on level at the time, e.g. 2010 UMass Minutemen football season was in FCS but 2013 UMass Minutemen football season will be in FBS. This principle also applies to now-defunct programs, conferences, and post-season games.


 * National champion team seasons, Hiesman Trophy winners, consensus first-team All-Americans, should start two levels higher than given; conference champion seasons, All-Americans, and other major national award winners should start one level higher than given.


 * Based on the highest level coached; coaches who have won a national championship should start two levels higher than given; coaches who have finished a season in the top 10 of a major poll or won a conference championship should start one level higher than given.


 * Facilities that have always been primarily practice facilities should start one level lower than given. Facilities that have served as the home site for multiple national champion team seasons and/or regularly hosted a top-tier (BCS/top-10) post-season game should start two levels higher than given; facilities that have served as the home site for one national champion team season and/or regularly hosted a post-season game should start one level higher than given.


 * National player of the year or MVP awards (e.g. Harlon Hill Trophy) should start two levels higher than given; other major national awards (including positional awards, coaching awards, All-America teams, and national halls of fame) should start one level higher than given.

Sub-topics
Often, as an article grows, sections of it may be spun off as separate articles (see Summary style). When this is the case, the sub-topic should generally be one importance level lower than the parent article, or infrequently the same importance level. Only in exceptional cases will the sub-article be of higher importance than the parent article. Among others, this rule applies to a team history (History of Ohio State Buckeyes football) and lists of bowl games by team (List of Alabama Crimson Tide bowl games) relative to the team article; football by conference (Big 12 Conference football) and lists of champions by conference (List of Big Ten Conference football champions) relative to the conference article; bowl games by season (2010–11 NCAA football bowl games) and yearly rankings by season (2010 NCAA Division I FBS football rankings) relative to the association season article.

Special assessment levels

 * Unknown-importance articles are those that have not yet been assessed, or where the importance is in dispute.
 * NA-importance pages are pages outside articlespace, including project pages and templates.
 * No-importance pages are non-articles in articlespace, such as redirects and disambiguation pages.

Comments on proposed importance assessment schemes
The matrix above may look complicated, but keep in mind that this WikiProject has nearly 30,000 articles in it. The more explicit we can be as to how the articles should be assessed for importance, the easier it will be to apply an assessment scheme, and the fewer arguments are likely to result. With such a matrix, it should be relatively simple to assess the importance of even a stub article, it being necessary only to determine the applicable category, the level of competition, and whether any special considerations apply. cmadler (talk) 16:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Nice work, Cmadler. This is a great starting point for discussion.  I have several comments and/or proposed adjustments:
 * 1. On the typical WikiProject importance scale, there are four, not five, importance classifications: (a) Top; (b) High; (c) Mid; and (d) Low.  I have not encountered a "Bottom" classification for importance.
 * 2. Starting all notable college football players at "Mid" strikes me as too high; they need to be more finely classified.  The starting category should be presumed to be "Low."  Add one classification (Mid) for "All-American" honors of any kind, two classifications (High) for consensus All-American honors or other major national awards (using a defined list of awards), and two to three classifications (High to Top) for Heisman recipients, depending on their historical importance to the game.  As a floor, College Football Hall of Fame members should be ranked no lower than "High"; CFBHOF membership should be a Big Deal on our scale.
 * 3. Team seasons should also be more finely graded.  Start all of them at "Mid" importance, and add one classification (High) for either a major conference championship or a top-ten BCS finish (but not for both), and add two classifications (Top) for a BCS or consensus national championship.
 * 4. Start head coaches at "Mid" importance.  Add one classification for a BCS or consensus national championship, and two classifications (Top) for "dynasty" coaches (e.g. Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, Bobby Bowden, Urban Meyer).  Like players, CFBHOF membership should be treated as a floor for coaches, and inductees ranked no lower than "High."  Subtract one classification (Low) for retired coaches who never won a major conference or national championship and were not elected to the CFBHOF.
 * 5. Rate all mascots and pageantry as "Low."  Rate the Tournament of Roses as "Mid."  After that, I wouldn't trade ten Brutus the Buckeye articles for one well-written article on Woody Hayes; in my ideal world, the mascots would all be buried in an appropriately obscure paragraph on the football team or athletic program pages . . . but, to each their own.
 * Those are my thoughts. Others may differ.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments. I'll respond on each point.
 * 1. Per Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria, "Bottom" and "No" are optional importance levels. Given that this WikiProject is fairly large (nearly 30,000 articles), it seems to me that we should use all possible levels.
 * 2. Beyond a few high-level type articles, I don't think any group of articles should automatically get "Top" importance. My thought was that a Heisman Trophy winner or consensus first-team A-A gets an automatic bump to start at "High" importance, and per the introductory text ("In exceptional cases, with consensus, an article may be assessed as one level higher than given for its type.") could be upped another level to "Top" based on discussion. I'll adjust it to indicate "Low" importance for playes who have not received any All-American honors or major national award.
 * 3. After thinking about it, I mostly agree, and will change it accordingly.
 * 4. I did mostly what you suggest; my thought was that a D-I national championship coach starts as High, and per the introductory text ("In exceptional cases, with consensus, an article may be assessed as one level higher than given for its type.") could be upped another level to "Top" based on discussion. I'll add a note that coaches who've never won a conference championship are "Low".
 * 5. Per your suggestion, I'll change the starting point for AQ mascots and pageantry to "Low". Assuming we use all five levels, I think we should keep non-D-I mascots and non-FBS pageantry as "Bottom" rather than raising it to "Low".

Changes made. cmadler (talk) 18:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Cmadler, thanks for all your work here and for kicking off the matrix. The following is a list of things missing from your matrix that ought to be added in:


 * Core topics, e.g. College football, History of American football, bowl game, touchdown ✅
 * I think touchdown and similar articles should be beyond the scope of this project, and I've requested discussion on the matter at the project talk page. cmadler (talk) 15:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Formations and strategy, e.g. Single-wing formation, Student Body Right ✅ (included in "general football concepts")
 * Similar to the above, I think formations should be beyond the scope of this project. cmadler (talk) 15:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Stadiums and venues (active and defunct), e.g. Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor Fairgrounds ✅
 * Awards (national, conference), e.g. Heisman Trophy, List of Heisman Trophy winners, Big Ten Conference football individual honors
 * College Football Hall of Fame and related, e.g. List of College Football Hall of Fame inductees (coaches), 2007 College Football Hall of Fame ballot
 * College Football All-America Teams (main article and yearly articles)
 * National championships and rating systems, e.g. College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS, Bowl Championship Series, AP Poll, Dickinson System
 * Yearly rankings, e.g. 2010 NCAA Division I FBS football rankings ✅
 * Bowl games seasons, e.g. 2010–11 NCAA football bowl games ✅
 * Team histories, e.g. History of Ohio State Buckeyes football ✅
 * Football by conference, e.g. Big 12 Conference football (this may be the only article of its type) ✅
 * Lists of conference championships, e.g. List of Big Ten Conference football champions ✅
 * Lists of seasons, e.g. List of NCAA Division I-A/FBS football seasons, List of Alabama Crimson Tide football seasons ✅
 * Lists of head coaches by team, e.g. List of Michigan Wolverines head football coaches ✅
 * Lists of players by team, e.g. List of Michigan Wolverines football players, List of Michigan Wolverines football All-Americans ✅
 * List of bowl games by team, e.g. List of Alabama Crimson Tide bowl games ✅
 * Lists of statistics, e.g. List of college football coaches with 200 wins, List of college football coaches with a .750 winning percentage, Lists of Michigan Wolverines football statistical leaders ✅
 * TV coverage, e.g. ESPN College Football, ESPN College Football Thursday Primetime, College Football on ABC, List of Rose Bowl broadcasters
 * Media figures, e.g Grantland Rice, Chris Fowler, Brent Musburger
 * Historical films, e.g. Rudy (film), Knute Rockne, All American ✅
 * Lore, e.g. Game of the Century (college football), Four Horsemen (American football), Quarterback U ✅
 * Fights songs, e.g. The Victors (does this go in pageantry?) ✅

Jweiss11 (talk) 01:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the additional article types. I hope you don't mind if I use your comment as a bit of a checklist. cmadler (talk) 15:32, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not mind at all! Jweiss11 (talk) 17:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking through it, Jweiss appears to have listed all the things I thought were missing, so I'll restrain myself to just saying that cmadler has done an incredible job.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  15:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Per what Dirtlawyer has said above, iconic head coaches of major programs (current or historical), e.g. Paterno, Bowden, Bryant, Neyland, Hayes, Shembechler, Yost, Stagg, Camp, Warner, Heisman, Dodd, Royal, Wilkinson, Switzer, Osborne, Sutherland, Zuppke, Parseghian, Rockne, etc..., should be top priority. These guys have been the faces of college football. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Still to do from the above list:


 * Awards (national, conference) (Heisman Trophy, Big Ten Conference football individual honors, awards on Template:College football award navbox)
 * College Football Hall of Fame and related (List of College Football Hall of Fame inductees (coaches), 2007 College Football Hall of Fame ballot)
 * College Football All-America Teams (main article and yearly articles)
 * National championships and rating systems (College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS, Bowl Championship Series, AP Poll, Dickinson System)
 * TV coverage (ESPN College Football, ESPN College Football Thursday Primetime, College Football on ABC, List of Rose Bowl broadcasters)
 * Media figures (Grantland Rice, Chris Fowler, Brent Musburger)
 * Thoughts on these? cmadler (talk) 15:41, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In my completely unqualified opinion regarding awards, the Heisman (only? maybe one or two others like the Maxwell) is high, while everything in "Positional awards", a couple of the bigger coaching awards, the College Football All-America Team and College Football Hall of Fame are mid. Everything else on that template seems low, especially compared to the other low-importance items in the above matrix.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  21:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ cmadler (talk) 20:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * All mentioned categories are now done. Is there anything else missing, or any part that people see a problem with? cmadler (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Importance
Has anyone looked at articles importance rank recently? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Top-importance_college_football_articles ...I think that we might have one or two more important articles to get to than say, the 1901 Michigan Wolverines. 199.190.61.128 (talk) 17:48, 12 October 2013 (UTC)


 * In hopes of getting things closer to how the table dictates so we can then discuss things further I've added and changed many importance ratings. A national championship season gets a "top" rating, and the 1901 Michigan squad was the first of those "point-a-minute" national championship teams. Cake (talk) 07:07, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

AQ and non-AQ in Importance section?
Can someone add links or footnotes on the importance section to explain the terms "FBS AQ" and "FBS non-AQ"? I added the FCS one, but the other distinctions are not obvious to folks outside of the project. AngusWOOF ( bark  •  sniff ) 22:37, 9 September 2016 (UTC)