Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 41

Terry Austin (footballer)
I've looked through the prose there. While not having access to the source, it's pretty clear that this is not a copyvio. It says that the tag cannot be removed though, so I'm not sure how to proceed. WFCforLife (talk) 14:38, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd say the first thing to do would be to ask the editor who added the tag where it's alleged to be copied from, as I can't see anything that would indicate the alleged source........ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It appears that this has been tagged while an investigation on copyviolating is taking place on the articles creator User:Jcuk. This article appears to be a non-violation, but I'm equally not sure what to do about it. See Contributor copyright investigations/Jcuk &mdash;MDCollins (talk) 14:54, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is how it used to look. WFCforLife (talk) 14:58, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

All resolved now, I think -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:43, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Nice work! WFCforLife (talk) 18:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I've added a few inline citations, hope thats okay fellas. Argyle 4 Life (talk) 15:15, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Welsh International Cup
Are there any experts on Welsh football out there? I am currently working on expanding the article on Welsh international Moses Russell. On this web-page and this there are pictures of a medal awarded to him. The inscription reads "TLC In commemoration of Moses Russell winning Welsh International Cup 1912". The only other references I can find to the "Welsh International Cup" are for a Midlands based youth club who won the cup in 2006 and an Indian side competing in it in 2008 ; these references would imply that it is a youth tournament, although whether or not it is a direct continuation of the Cup "won" by Russell in 1912 is not clear. At that time he would have been 23/24 so was no longer a youth. In 1912, he was on the books of Merthyr Town, who were playing in the Southern League Second Division at that time; there is no mention of this cup tournament on their page.

Does anyone have any idea what "TLC" means, or to what it refers?

One possibility does occur to me: as Russell won his first Welsh International Cap on 2 March 1912, is it possible that the engraver simply made an error? Any comments/explanations would be most welcome. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:16, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If no-one here can help, this page gives an email address for Wrexham County Borough Museum who hold the medal. To this ignorant Englishperson, the slip of the engraving tool theory for Cup/Cap seems quite likely. T.L.C. could be something local, like Tredegar Labour Club (if such existed) or whatever. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:18, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In 1912 Merthyr Town did win a cup: The South Wales Senior Cup, but I can't see a connection between this cup and the medal Cattivi (talk) 16:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Bot which automatically updates unreferenced biography of living persons daily
RE: Bot requests/Archive 34

Hello wikiproject, I requested a bot which will update unreferenced living people (BLPs) daily. User talk:Betacommand is willing to create this bot. Since you already have a /Unreferenced BLPs page, this shows your project really cares about this issue.

I just need a list of projects who would like to test this bot. Please let me know here if your project would like to do this. Thank you. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 19:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd welcome it. But if it's only in the test stages it needs to work alongside our current list, so that we have a safety net if the bot malfunctions. WFCforLife (talk) 08:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The main editor who does /Unreferenced BLPs already requested a list on the bot request page. As you know, the beauty of Wikipedia is everything is saved in history, so anything done to one subpage is quickly reversible :) Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 08:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Major League Soccer players
I see that a single user (User:Bobblehead) has taken it upon himself to empty this category with the rationale "Due to the scope of this category, it should only contain subcategories and possibly a limited number of directly related pages." Surely these edits are totally contrary to the use of other categories such as Category:Premier League players. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The major difference between the two categories is that MLS is a top-down league, in that each club is a franchise of a league and remains in the league for as long as it exists, as opposed to the Premier League, where clubs earn their way into the league and could be relegated. A D.C. United or Los Angeles Galaxy player is, by definition, also an MLS player, therefore the club and league categories are redundant, so Bobblehead's moves are correct, I think. --Mosmof (talk) 06:32, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As I have explained to other users that have asked about my removal of the category, the edits are in keeping with WP:CAT in that as a member of a subcategory is also a member of the parent category. In this case, an article that is included in the subcategory Category:Los Angeles Galaxy players is also a member of the parent category Category:Major League Soccer players. Primarily this is because of the unique structure of MLS that is not part of other leagues:
 * First, the lack of promotion and relegation in MLS means that only in very limited circumstances can a player be a member of the league, but not a member of a team within the league. An LA Galaxy player is always a member of Major League Soccer. However, this is not the case with leagues that have promotion and relegation. Since a team can be promoted/relegated into and out of a league, it is not always the case that a player on the team is also always a member of a specific league. To use Fulham F.C. as an example, in the 2000-01 season the team was in Football League Championship, so any player that was playing for Fulham in that season is a member of Category:Fulham F.C. players and Category:The Football League players. However, in the 2001-02 season, the team was in Premier League, so any player that played for Fulham in the that season is also a member of the Fulham F.C. player category, but they are a member of Category:Premier League players.
 * Second, Major League Soccer has set itself up as a "single entity" and one of the features of this is that player contracts are signed with the league itself and not the team, so even if a player only plays in a competition not directly affiliated with MLS, i.e. CONCACAF Champions League, they are still a member of the league category because that is where their contract is. Yet again, this is different than any other league out there that I'm aware of. Players don't sign contracts with Premier League, but rather Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, etc.
 * Third, Major League Soccer owns all their of teams and franchise out the teams to ownership groups, so if a team were to fold, like Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion did in 2002, they can not reappear in a different league. Yet again, something that is different from any other league in the world in that if a team folds in one league, it can re-appear in another.
 * Or, what Mosmof said.--Bobblehead (rants) 06:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Cheers - thanks for the very full explanation. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * minor issue...Category:Chicago Fire Premier players is a subcategory of Category:Chicago Fire players, therefore Chicago Fire Premier players are now technically under Category:Major League Soccer players which is not actually correct as the USL Premier Development League is not part of the MSL -- Club Oranje T 08:43, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't consider that to be a minor issue. If the club categories contain any non-MLS players then the topology described by Bobblehead is invalid. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * One concern here is that Chicago Fire Premier players are not actually Chicago Fire players. Thanks to the rules of Major League Soccer that prevent teams from actually owning teams in other leagues, Chicago Fire Premier is just licensing the name from the MLS team. Its essentially the same thing as a youth soccer team located in LA calling itself LA Galaxy. --Bobblehead (rants) 14:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The easy solution here would be delinking Category:Chicago Fire Premier players from Category:Chicago Fire players and linking it to Category Chicago Fire. the same way Category:Excelsior Rotterdam players isn't a subcat of Category:Feyenoord players. --Mosmof (talk) 14:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That may be technically correct, but I'm not sure it's helpful to the reader, which is what we're supposed to be here for. The reader won't expect MLS to be treated differently from every other sports league, including the other American ones, because they won't know, and shouldn't be expected to know, that a player appearing for Miami Fusion, a team many casual readers won't have heard of, must be an MLS player. If a reader wanted to see at a glance whether a player had appeared in MLS, that line of links at the bottom of the article are often the second place they'd look (after the infobox, which won't tell them - much easier than reading prose). And if they know that category pages provide a useful list of people having played in a particular league, by removing the cat we're effectively removing that useful service. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The link to the category is still there because the team player category is also a member of the MLS player category. This is really no different than Category:African American soccer players being included on an article, but Category:African American and Category:American soccer players not being included on the article. --Bobblehead (rants) 14:30, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you miss both the points I was trying to make, both of which come down to the fact that treating the MLS as different from other football leagues just because of its different internal structure is unhelpful and confusing to the reader. First, on the player page, it's obvious at a glance to an intelligent general reader that African American soccer players implies African American and American soccer players: it isn't at all obvious that Miami Fusion players implies MLS players. Second, the category page for every other football league gives a list of all players who appeared in that league, readily available, without having to click on however-many-there-are subcats: from the point of view of the reader, which is who we're writing this encyclopedia for, emptying the MLS players cat is removing useful functionality. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that what the prose of the page is for? No one is going to skip over the prose of the article to get to the categories to find out what the Miami Fusion are. The purpose of categories is to group like articles for navigational purposes, it is not intended as a way to educate readers. --Bobblehead (rants) 18:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Whatever concern we may have for this hypothetical user, I don't see how it should supersede WP:CAT. Plus, if we're talking about consistency, why no concern for the hierarchy used for North American sports leagues, like Category:National Football League players, Category:National Basketball Association players, Category:National Hockey League players and Category:Major League Baseball players? --Mosmof (talk) 18:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I should really just wait for Mosmof to respond to comments and say "What Mosmof said". It would definitely save me a lot of typing. --Bobblehead (rants) 18:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I already had this debate yesterday with Bobblehead, and since I noteced the great amount of changes that he made, I suposed other of you guys are going to dicuss it if there was a need. The problem I raised is somehow different of what has been talked here. My point was that the League/Competition categories were suposed to be used only in case the player has played in the League/competition the category represents (at least, that is how I have been editing here). My point is, for exemple, that a player can be a member of a Serbian Superliga club Partizan, but if he didn´t played any Superliga match, he simply doesn´t qualify to have the Superliga category, despite his club playing in the Superliga. So, my point was that the players can be part of the MLS clubs categories, but if they didn´t cap for any MLS League match, they would just display the club category, but not the MLS league, since they didn´t played in it, despite MLS owning all the players. Bobblehead answerede me that even if a player didn´t played any league match, since they are all owned by MLS, they would all be entitled to have the MLS category anyway. The problem here was the understanding of the category itself. Despite understanding perfectly the reasons and the logic behind Bubbleheads changes, I still agree that all leagues should follow the general logic, and we wouldn´t be loosing anything by having both, clubs and leagues or competitions included. You can see better explained all this in our conversation in both, His and mine talk pages. FkpCascais (talk) 20:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that Category:Major League Soccer players should be included on the pages of any player who has made an appearance in Major League Soccer. User:Bobblehead has completely misconstrued the purpose of the league categories; they are not supposed to denote affiliation to a league but that the player has made an appearance in that league. The categories should be reinstated. – PeeJay 22:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If that is the intended function of the category, then the league player category is being grossly misapplied throughout the entire footy project as it is being applied based on what league their team is in at the time, rather than what competitions they have appeared in. As an example, Stuart Holden and Ricardo Clark both have the league their teams are currently members of listed as a category, despite neither of them having any appearances for their teams in those competitions. I could find many more if I spent more than five minutes looking it up. The project is also missing a ton of competitions that players appear in. Category:UEFA Champions League players, Category:UEFA Europa League players, Category:FIFA Club World Cup players, Category:CONCACAF Champions League players, etc are all missing. There is a major difference between intent and practice and, in this case, the overwhelming evidence shows that league player categories are being used to show what league the player's team is in, not what competitions the player has participated in. --Bobblehead (rants) 23:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That hasn´t been the case for Category:Serbian Superliga players. All players from the list have made at least one appearance in the Superliga. Players without stats (missing info, or some other problem) simply don´t display the category. And the edits for all players I´ve done (far from being all Serbian, and even Serbs have played in so many leagues), I have followed this logic in all of them. And, I usually, as a gnome, also see this applied. I think the exemples you gave, Holden and Clark, are a minority... FkpCascais (talk) 23:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Bobblehead, you do realise that "what about X?" isn't a valid argument here. Just because the categories have been misapplied in a few instances doesn't mean that you should use that as an excuse to misapply them yourself. And yes, there are many missing categories for players by competition, but that's not a good reason to continue your practice either. Correct Stuart Holden and Ricardo Clark's categories by all means, but don't remove categories from MLS players when you have been given a very good reason why they should be kept. – PeeJay 00:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You're misusing "what about X?". This is not a discussion about an article for deletion.  Looking for comonalities accross the body of work (sports categories on Wikipedia) is a legitimate investigation.  The tone of your last comment is bordering on uncivil.  He's not looking for "excuses" to "misapply" things.  He's trying to do what he thinks is right.  Don't attack him or question his methods, provide data or counter examples instead.  --SkotyWATC 07:43, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

FKP makes a good point - just because a player is contracted to a certain club it does not qualify them as being in a Category for the league his club are in at the time. The league categories should clearly state that the page is for players who have played in that league (not be contracted to a club...) This then ties with Bobblehead's point above that such players should really be removed from 'wrong' categories throughout the project. However, I think for ease the MLS players should be shown in the parent category, as then they can all be listed together rather than people having to click on each club. Eldumpo (talk) 23:23, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Tony Velasquez
Only two hours after being deleted (see nominations for deletion and page moves on the project page), this article was recreated. I've nominated it for speedy deletion, however the creator of the page has removed the nomination twice, even after I explained to him that he's not allowed to do that. Could someone please take appropriate action? Thanks. Sir Sputnik (talk) 21:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If it continues, I think we should report him to an admin. It's clear that an article's creator cannot remove a speedy deletion tag, but must use the hangon procedure. Jogurney (talk) 22:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Marcos Álvarez
I was trying to find stuff for him, but I am not sure how much he passes notability. The article really needs someone from Spain to help it, I don't know if has ever played pro football himself. There are links like this, Saying he is assistant manager at Real, articles like this one,  I feel he passes notability just know. Needs Real Madrid updates, Sevilla FC updates. Govvy (talk) 14:23, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Marouane Chamakh - protection requested
Can someone protect Marouane Chamakh entry until his next destination is clear? Lots of IP edits changing his current club etc to Arsenal without a deal being agreed (as yet) Steve-Ho (talk) 17:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Old Trafford TFA
Old Trafford has now been scheduled as Today's Featured Article for 19 February. Yay! – PeeJay 03:00, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Miljan Miljanić
Sorry! I'm not familiar here, so I'm not sure if I'm writing to the proper place. The article of Miljanić has been changed dramatically and the text is very POV. Can please someone look at it? Thanks, Cassandro (talk) 16:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * He has put his text back after King of the North East revert it.--Latouffedisco (talk) 10:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Help needed
Greetings,

For the love of all that is might and poweful, I can't figure out why the navigational templates for Brazilians club São Paulo FC and Sport Club Internacional do not come out like they are supposed to. The internal codes are exactly the same for other clubs and navigational templates, yet... well, you know. I could use some help trying to correct this. Thanks. Digirami (talk) 08:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Nevermind. Apparently tables in previous section were messing with the display of the navigation templates. Once they were changed to a normal wikitable, the templates displayed correctly. Digirami (talk) 09:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Misinformation vandle warning
Just a note - User:92.22.19.110 has developed a history over the last week of adding misinformation to football related articles, some of it quite insidious (ie fake loans of fairly obscure players). He/She also appears to operate as User:Cheesepants28. I don't know if this related to a similar set of alterations last month) to the England national football team article, which 92.22.19.110 also edited on, but it may be worth looking out for if there is someone with multiple IP access attempting to make these sort of changes to football articles. --Pretty Green (talk) 12:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The editor has received a short-term block, but may be worth looking out for afterwards. --Pretty Green (talk) 12:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Problematic edits?
A user was blocked for repeatedly uploading copyrighted images, as soon as he was blocked, he created a new ID and began editing the same articles he had been editing. Please see Special:Contributions/N0th1ngwow, I'm concerned that those edits may be vandalism, but I have no idea how to tell. Woogee (talk) 20:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

David Wilson
Right, this is a fairly major problem: David Wilson (Scottish footballer) is Hamilton Academical's record goalscorer. But he isn't Scottish, he's English. I can't move the page to David Wilson (English footballer); that is already a redirect since there is another English David Wilson, as well as an English Dave Wilson. His year of birth is unknown, so how on Earth should we disambiguate this page? Whatever we do, we need to get it away from the (Scottish footballer) ASAP, 'cause I'm sure he would be turning in his grave at that. -- Big  Dom  17:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This is a little bit of a mess; perhaps a starting point would be to have David Wilson (footballer) as a disambiguation page in itself? We have these articlees as it stands:


 * Davie Wilson
 * David Wilson (footballer born 1884), Scotland international footballer
 * David Wilson (footballer born 1969), footballer who began his career at Manchester United (1980s)
 * David Wilson (Scottish footballer)
 * Dave Wilson (footballer)
 * Davie Wilson seems fine where he is as the only one known as 'Davie'. David Wilson (footballer born 1884) could become David Wilson (Scottish footballer), if this does not cause too much confusion. David Wilson (footballer born 1969) seems OK; Dave Wilson (footballer) could become Dave Wilson (footballer born 1944) to distinguish him from the DAB page. That just leaves your David Wilson; I don't see why he could not then take over David Wilson (English footballer) - all with appropriate hatlinks? Pretty Green (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well that seems like a reasonable solution, an admin will have to do the moves over existing pages though and it will take a while to sort out all that mess. -- Big  Dom  18:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Given the number of moves needed, it would be best to list this at Requested moves. Pretty Green (talk) 09:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What you could do first is ask User:Cattivi, who has access to huge amounts of sources, nicely if he has a birth year for Mr Wilson. If so, then I'd just move David Wilson (Scottish footballer) to David Wilson (footballer born xxxx). If not, I'd be tempted to move David Wilson (Scottish footballer) to something like David Wilson (Hamilton Academical) and leave everything else where it is. Either way, then change (Scottish footballer) to redirect to the main dab page and make sure that all the backlinks to (Scottish footballer) are also changed to the new title. I wouldn't take the David Wilson (footballer) disambiguation page route: what tends to happen to intermediate dab pages is that someone from the Disambig project comes along and changes them to a redirect to the main dab page. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * According to Emms-Wells David Wilson was born in Hebburn ca. 1908 he died in Glasgow 22-2-1992 Cattivi (talk) 11:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Cattivi - sorry for being ignorant, but what is Emms-Wells? As things stand, I think the current moves still work; we could have David Wilson (footballer) as either a disambig or linking simply to David Wilson. David Wilson (English footballer) could later be moved to David Wilson (footballer born 1908) but given this is only a circa date I wonder if leaving him at English, with relevant hat-notes, might be best. --Pretty Green (talk) 12:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Emms-Wells is http://www.soccer.mistral.co.uk/books/scots3.htm Thing is, (English footballer) doesn't distinguish him from the other English footballers, and an approximate date is better than confusion :-) And procedurally, the page shouldn't have been moved while your move request was still open. Hatnotes can point to the existing David Wilson dab page, thus avoiding all the messy complications, and the reader can still find the one they're looking for easily enough, which is the object of the exercise. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * or I didn't think it should have been moved, anyway, clearly the admin who made room for it must have thought differently. I've been wrong before..... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I agree with that, it shouldn't have been moved before the full discussion had finished. I don't, particularly, see the problem with having one player at (English footballer) or (Scottish footballer), so long as links to the others are clear; I think having a player at (footballer) is a bit much though. Or is having them all at birthdates the best way? Pretty Green (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've now commented at the requested move discussion, didn't realise the move request had already gone in when I first entered this thread. Personally, I'm happy with the Scottish player going to (Scottish footballer), but I think that as there's already a David Wilson (footballer born 1969), then it'd be clearer if the other English one were dabbed by the same method, now that we have a date. Whatever comes of it, good luck to whoever gets the job of going through all the "What links here"s to make sure they all go nicely to the right new targets..... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Template:Scotland national football team
Can some-one look at this template as it has been vandalized so that the content is now "Although llamas can now be found in Kirkstall halls on the third floor in trinity and all saints university, however this one should not be approached as it has been known to take advantage of young girls asleep." repeated several times. I can't see where this has come from. Cheers. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Should be fixed now, it was vandalism of Template:,,. Camw (talk) 06:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that.  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Error about Uruguay national team titles
I think that this sentence, which is published in Uruguay page [], is not correct:

"Uruguay won more international titles (19) in the 20th century than any other country in the world and still holds this record"

Uruguay actually won only 18 titles, and not 19, because the Mundialito 1980 isn't an official competition. Fifa didn't organized it, any other confederation didn't organized it. So, if you agree, I'm going to correct the error. What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by VAN ZANT (talk • contribs) 14:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, plus it reads that they STILL hold a record for achievement in the 20th century. Which isn't too surprising seen as we are in the 21st century.--EchetusXe 12:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Gingerdave
This user is uploading dozens of blatantly non-free images of former Man City players and justifying it under "fair use", eg Talk:Bobby Johnstone. I don't see how this can possibly be justifiable, as adding one still image does not significantly improve the reader's understanding of the subject. The user also claims that it shows a "contemporary bias" if we have free images of all current Man City players (due to some fans having digital cameras at games nowadays), but not most of the former ones. Again, I don't think this is a sustainable argument. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 09:11, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that the Bobby Johnstone picture could well be kept under fair-use since there is no chance of creating a free replacement due to him being dead. From what I've seen on Wikipedia, that is usually a strong enough fair-use claim. -- Big  Dom  09:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a clause in WP:NFC which reads "However, for some retired or disbanded groups, or retired individuals whose notability rests in large part on their earlier visual appearance, a new picture may not serve the same purpose as an image taken during their career, in which case the use would be acceptable." I guess we could apply that logic here.  Bettia  (talk)  10:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * For dead people, there shouldn't be a problem, so long as the rationales are properly completed (disclaimer: though I'm no image expert). But I don't see how fair use could be claimed just to see what a living person looked like. A footballer's notability doesn't rest at all on their earlier visual appearance, and knowing that a player was blond or had particularly hairy legs doesn't add to the reader's understanding of the subject. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

International Country Tournaments - Squad Templates
When I look at some of these the text/grammar on the template banner doesn't seem to read that clearly i.e. if a country were winners or runners-up at the tournament that should be in brackets rather than normal text straight after the name of the t'ment. Also, I would like 3rd/4th place info to be not be listed. Finally, I don't think the number of titles won should be shown in brackets at the end. I know these are relatively minor points, but they always irrirate me every time I see them. Examples - Template:Mexico Squad 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup, Template:England Squad 1990 World Cup Anyone else agree? Eldumpo (talk) 23:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Irish A Championship in League of Ireland season articles
Since the creation of the A Championship by the FAI in 2008, the A Championship seasons have been included in the League of Ireland season aricles (2008, 2009, 2010). The rationale for the inclusion of the A Championship in these articles is given within the 2010 article as:
 * "While the A Championship is a separate entity to the League of Ireland, it is relevant to the League of Ireland as a result of its place in Ireland's league system and the fact that it consists mostly of League of Ireland reserve teams. Therefore, the statistics of the 2010 A Championship will be included in this article."

Should these be broken off into their own articles, e.g. 2008 A Championship, 2009 A Championship, and 2010 A Championship? It seems to me that any season article that includes both the LoI & the AC would be a national article in the vein of 2009–10 in English football, though I wouldn't know that to title it seeing as Football in Ireland is a disambiguation page with 5 different links. 2010 in Irish association football? 2010 in Republic of Ireland association football? 2010 in association football in the Republic of Ireland? Do we have any Irish task force members here or anyone more familiar with the sport in Ireland? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 12:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Ideally, there we'd just keep it as is but that would be factually incorrect. "Should these be broken off into their own articles" - This seems to be the simplest solution in my opinion. Fionnsci (talk) 20:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism magnet
Hi all. Martin Hansson was semi-protected last night after he made a somewhat unpopular decision and many people took it upon themselves to vandalise the article. Would someone mind keeping an eye on it for a while? I suspect it'll be getting drive-by commentary for a couple of weeks, and I'm really not sure what is and isn't reasonable comment to make on this sort of thing...

Thanks. Shimgray | talk | 13:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

National football teams with most titles
Dear friends, I have an idea. Why don't we altogether carry out a page dedicated to the National teams with the most victories? A similar list was already published, but it only considered the clubs, as you can see here []. For example, if we consider only the "A" National teams, and the official competitions recognised by FIFA and its confederations, we have:

URUGUAY 18 TITLES (2 World Cups, 14 Continental Cups, 2 Olympic Games) ; ARGENTINA 17 TITLES (2 World Cups, 14 Continental Cups, 1 Confederations Cup)

and so on...

I think that it can be interesting. Opinions? --VAN ZANT (talk) 20:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Format an article in a sandbox and we'll see. Has possible potential I guess.-- Club Oranje T 08:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * How would you sort or weight the various continental championships? Hack (talk) 10:16, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I have found the official sources: FIFA COMPETITIONS [] and CONTINENTAL COMPETITIONS []. I remember that we must consider only the "A" National Teams. Therefore, the Olympic Football Tournament must be considered only for the editions between 1908 and 1956, because starting with the qualifiers for the Olympic Football Tournament in 1960 (Rome) the teams aren't no longer considered "A" teams []. --VAN ZANT (talk) 20:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Fergie Time
Has anyone seen this article? Personally, I think it should be deleted; the facts are all wrong ("Fergie Time" has been referenced in the media since long before the 4-3 win over Citeh this season) and, to be honest, it just seems like a thinly veiled attempt to have a go at the amount of injury time that is played in matches involving Man United. I'm certain that this isn't just a phenomenon specific to Man Utd. – PeeJay 11:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It certainly predates the Man City match this year. That in itself proves that this is a well known phrase which someone could conceivably come searching for - perhaps a simple redirect and merge into Alex Ferguson? --Pretty Green (talk) 12:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It also looks like a dictionary exmplanation rather than an encyclopaedic article on the research on whether or not Man U get extra stoppage time when behind or drawing against weaker teams as compared with what happens with other times.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Premier League
I noticed the table below in articles for the Libyan Premier League and thought it could be useful for the English Premier League articles, to replace the simple stadia table, possibly without the sponsor and kit supplier columns:

What do you think? Also, I have seen that in MLS and similar articles, the league table has links to the club season article for that particular team, e.g. Manchester United F.C. season 2009-10, rather than the main club article i.e. Manchester United F.C.. Do you think we could employ this for English football and other European leagues? 92.10.13.57 (talk) 09:34, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think consolidation of tables is always a good idea, provided that we lose as little info as possible. By the way, did anyone else notice the club called "Shat" . – PeeJay 17:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Not bad at all. You think that name is bad though, spare a thought for this guy. Argyle 4 Life (talk) 20:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of United Kingdom national football team
I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as this project's banner is on the talk page. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:United Kingdom national football team/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

African Nations Championship matches
Does anyone know if these matches are considered full internationals by FIFA? I noticed that they are not listed on FIFA's website, so I suppose they are not. Accordingly, I would guess that those matches are actually B internationals, and wouldn't cause a player to pass WP:ATHLETE? Jogurney (talk) 16:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd say that the fact that expatriate players are ineligible would render it a B international tournament (since the vast majority of top-rated African players are plying their trade in Europe) and the lack of listing on FIFA seems to confirm this. So in effect you're right – players who participate in this tournament would not become automatically notable under WP:ATHLETE and since many of the African leagues are not professional they wouldn't meet the guideline that way either. -- Big  Dom  17:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I made the mistake of adding an international footballer category to an article about someone who only played in this tournament, so I'll remove it and have to think about whether he meets the notability requirements. Jogurney (talk) 18:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds like the league internationals that used to be played between the Home Nations, which the national teams basically used as trial matches for the Home Internationals and/or World Cup. (see here) Jmorrison230582 (talk) 18:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Kit not displaying properly
Any ideas what's going on here? The kits in the infobox on Almondsbury UWE F.C. are showing properly in Google Chrome, but are just plain white in both Firefox and Internet Explorer (see screenshots to the right). I can't see what's wrong, so hopefully someone here will be able to figure it out. &mdash; Gasheadsteve Talk to me 20:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed the colour word values green and yellow to their hexadecimal formats which I am pretty sure is the standard way in this template. I've tested the change and it seems to work in Firefox, IE 8 and Chrome now. Let me know if it doesn't come up right on your side still or if the colours need to be tweaked and I can help. Camw (talk) 23:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That's fixed it, thanks very much. &mdash; Gasheadsteve Talk to me 07:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Templates proposed for deletion
There are some football-related templates proposed for deletion at Templates for discussion/Log/2010 February 23, such as Fb fm3 match. They appear to be unused and may not be needed, but they lack documentation so it is hard to tell what they are supposed to be used for. Folks who might be more familiar with these templates are encouraged to visit the discussion page and comment. Thanks. --RL0919 (talk) 23:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Dida
OK, we have two footballers commonly known as "Dida": Dida (goalkeeper) and Edvaldo Alves de Santa Rosa. Surely Edvaldo Alves de Santa Rosa should be located at Dida (footballer born 1934) and Dida (goalkeeper) should be at Dida (footballer born 1973), right? What say you? – PeeJay 17:30, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well from a cataloguing perspective it would be neat and tidy to have them organised by year of birth, but in terms of practicality, Dida (goalkeeper) is more useful - I would need to double check that Dida (footballer born 1973) was the one I meant, whereas I know at a glance who Dida (goalkeeper) is. Yes, it's easy enough to tell when you see both options together, but alone, not so much. I suspect that I wouldn't be alone in that. – Toon 18:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Consistency is only valuable insofar as it is helpful. As Toon05 said, "Dida (goalkeeper)" is the least worst name for that article. The other Dida is a judgement call; personally I'd like for us to use nicknames for any Brazilian known exclusively by the moniker in English sources, but I'm not sure we've had a big argument about that yet. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Spectator videos
I recently uploaded File:Amsterdam Arena Feb 18 2010.ogv to commons. However I just found out that UEFA has contacted the Ajax Supporters Association and notified them of the fact that it is forbidden for spectators to film at UEFA matches, so they may not distribute any video material. Should we delete files like the one I've uploaded? I imagine that this would apply to all clubs that fall under the UEFA banner. JACO PLANE  &bull; 2010-02-20 18:15
 * I was under the impression that taking any kind of photograph or video in a stadium during a match was prohibited in all professional matches (it certainly is in the Football League in England). Only licensed photographers and cameramen are allowed to do it there, so I assume it is the same in other countries. -- Big  Dom  18:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that imply that 95% of all images related to football on Wikipedia would have to be deleted? JACO  PLANE  &bull; 2010-02-20 18:56
 * I suppose technically, yes it could mean that. The rule in England is that you can't take videos or pictures while play is in progress; before and after the game it is fine to do so. Then again, the onus is on the club to prevent these pictures and videos being recorded during the match so once they have been taken there isn't much anyone can do about it. -- Big  Dom  19:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely it's no different to photographing a band against the wishes of their management company, or photographing an artifact in a museum, both of which are legal? It's certainly against Football League rules, but we're bound by the law of the land, not by the regulations of a business. WFCforLife (talk) 19:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose that in a way that's what I meant by saying that there's nothing anyone can do about it once the photo/video's been taken. -- Big  Dom  19:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I know most of our in-game footage is taken by people with photographer passes (they aren't that hard to come by for individuals, and every club has fans who get pitchside access for the same). It would be better to take this to wider discussion on Commons if you still have concerns. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. JACO  PLANE  &bull; 2010-03-7 18:16

Navboxes
If a navbox predominantly contains links to category pages, is it still viable? I've been looking through Category:English football (soccer) club navigational boxes and a few of the smaller teams' navboxes have links to category pages instead of lists of players or managers. Could those navboxes conceivably be deleted? – PeeJay 23:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. Navbox templates are not mandatory; they should be created if and when there are too many team-related links to fit into the article prose appropriately. If there are only a couple of links to articles then the navbox should be deleted. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I basically agree with Chris. If it would be unreasonable to link to every other club article on every article in the navbox, then the navbox itself is necessary. If it wouldn't be, then it isn't. Although if a navbox should exist, I think the link to the category is better than no players link at all. WFCforLife (talk) 18:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Co-ownership (football)
On the co-ownership (football) article, I have removed the redirect to third-party ownership in association football as this is an entirely different system, and that article doesn't deal with co-ownership at all. Have replaced with a stub for now, pending further research, but hopefully someone with more knowledge of how the system works, a fan of Italian football for example, can add more in the meantime. Have also gone through and fixed a fair few links on player articles from co-ownership to co-ownership (football). Grunners (talk) 22:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Injury logo
Should this be added to the current roster section of a club's article when the players is injured.  GoPurple 'n  Gold24   03:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No. WFCforLife (talk) 03:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Definitely not, it looks ludicrous and is far too recentist -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. There's no need for such a graphic. – PeeJay 11:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No. WP:NOT, WP:RECENT, WP:OR, unverifiable in many cases - a player with a broken leg may be obvious, but is Crouch injured? Cech? Bullard? Who pulled a muscle this morning? Who has now "recovered"? What about those "doubtful" players in the pre-match reports that end up on the team sheets? what about the ones that don't; is it because they are still injured or just didn't make the match day squad? How could you determine and verify these?-- Club Oranje T 12:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Only if there was something verifiable like the disabled list or injured reserve list systems they have in American sports, where the club concerned officially declares that the player will not be active for at least a certain period (15 days and 60 days are the two main ones in baseball). There's no such system in place presently for football in Europe, apart from the fact that in some leagues and in continental competition, clubs are limited to a (usually) 25 man roster which they have to set at the end of each transfer window. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Even then we do not sprinkle little icons around articles for the sake of it. Any gains in informational value here would still be rank recentism. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:31, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, but that doesn't prevent the use of a symbol (eg asterisk) next to players who are on the DL or IR list, which is done in many of the American sports teams articles. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If the consensus was that injuries are verifiable, notable and worthy of inclusion, this icon would be more useful than an asterisk. But for the reasons given by ClubOranje above, I disagree with the use of either for "current" injuries. Injury may (and I can't emphasize "may" enough) be worthy of note in a historical article (i.e. season article) after the extent of the injury is known. WFCforLife (talk) 17:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Such injuries as Ledley King has affecting his career is worthy of noting in his article of course, as is mention of Michael Owen's previous and well documented issues, but even then there is no need for a little icon.-- Club Oranje T 07:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Ronaldo (name)
Please feel free to introduce your constructive opinion, There's some problems with 2 pals( mosmof and favinian) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ronaldo#Ronaldo_.28name.2995.68.34.127 (talk) 21:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with you. It's perfectly reasonable for Cristiano Ronaldo to be mentioned in a hatnote from (the Brazilian) Ronaldo. You are clearly in violation of WP:3RR. Please desist from reverting. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 21:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Football (soccer) categories
As anyone with a watchlist will have noticed all these categories have been renamed as per this discussion. I can't say I disagree with the move, but am very surprised that a football specific decision of this scale was reached without anyone thinking to list the discussion here. King of the  North East  21:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This change has been necessary for a long time. I tried to get it put through almost a year ago, but it got shouted down by the CfD regulars who said that "Football (soccer)" was clearer as a category name than "Association football". Obviously they were wrong... – PeeJay 22:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Not so obviously. Six people supported a nomination that wasn't publicised amongst the probable interested parties. I agree with User:King of the North East that it would have been civil to at least have been notified here. Consensus isn't consensus when no input is sought from stakeholders and interested parties. -- Club Oranje T 07:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I did think about listing it. I then decided not to. Most members of this project would want to see soccer removed regardless of the merits of the argument, and it would therefore have been a form of canvassing. The fact that non-football regulars from the USA endorsed the decision makes it far more valid than if a hardcore of "anything but soccer" football fans had carried it through. WFCforLife (talk) 12:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Listing at WP:FOOTY couldn't possibly be considered canvassing: please see the definition of "friendly notices" at WP:CANVASS. Struway2 (talk) 14:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Canvassing is informing a certain group of editors with the intention of influencing a discussion.


 * >50% of wikipedia editors are American, and the vast majority of them would know the sport as "soccer". To inform a small group where 90% know it as "football" would mean that the discussion would not have accurately reflected community-wide opinion. Regardless of what that page says, a notification would most certainly have stacked votes in favour of the proposal, however neutrally worded and well-intentioned it was. The noticeboard is for instances where WP:FOOTY can contribute to the discussion. I don't think it should be used in cases where we clearly have a POV or conflict of interest. If others disagree, fine. If other editors want to make sure that discussions I start are unconditionally posted there, fine. But I'm not obliged to use it, and if I feel it is inappropriate, I will not do so. WFCforLife (talk) 16:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem I've found with this move is purely the logistical one of watchlists. Various players in my watchlists are showing as having the above change, but without clicking on each one you don't know if the article has had any other recent changes. I assume there's no way of changing settings or something to take account of this is there? Eldumpo (talk) 08:28, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Do these edits mean that we want to start changing over more categories from "football (soccer)" to "association football"? First off, I'd like to let everyone know that I am an American and use the word "soccer"; however, my belief is that WP articles related to the sport should utilize "association football" unless it is a region-specific topic, in which case a more appropriate term such as "football" or "soccer" should be used. In short, I'm in favor of making more changes in this same fashion. On to business... One of the first categories I'd like to have revised would be the Category:Seasons in football (soccer) by year, of which there are 227 subcategories that also use "football (soccer)", over half of which improperly use a hyphen-minus (-) where an en dash (–) would be appropriate. I think that we ought to kill two birds with one stone by simultaneously fixing both issues within these categories. I realize that each season has many subcategories, but you have to start somewhere, right? Also, Category:Seasons in football (soccer) by year's only parent category is Category:Association football seasons, so I think it only makes sense to make these changes. Thoughts? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, we want to eventually get them all moved over. The categories are the last remaining hangover of the original naming debate (at least until such point as someone decides we need to move this to Wikiproject Association Football), so any progress there is a good thing. I would say that it would still have been a better idea to mention the proposed moves here; the issue of canvassing isn't applicable, as the decision we reached here on naming was through debate and consensus rather than having some innate want for a particular outcome. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

FC Unirea Urziceni
Looked in on this article as they are playing Liverpool tonight and wasn't sure who they were and the article has details of their match tonight in the lead and also the league standing from their recent Champions League campaign, is this not WP:RECENTISM and should it be removed? Mo ainm (talk) 21:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yup, I'd say so -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Editors are continuing to add the score in their recent gane against Liverpool to the lead, could someone throw an eye to this article as it is getting into a revert war, thanks. Mo ainm (talk) 13:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

fb start et al.
I don't know if anyone noticed, but I changed all of the navboxes in Category:Manchester United F.C. templates so that they no longer require fb start and fb end tags to function. At the minute, those tags force our navboxes to be displayed in a non-standard width, and considering the changes we made a few months ago to make our navboxes use navbox, I don't see any reason why we should continue using fb start and fb end. In my opinion, we should make every effort over the next few weeks to completely deprecate those templates. Who's with me? – PeeJay 18:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I would definitely agree with this proposition. By the way, why were these templates introduced in the first place when only football navboxes use them? Like you say, there is no need to utilise these templates and I also think we should get rid of them. -- Big  Dom  18:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree to proposed changes. I always assumed that those template were created before the WP-wide stadardization of Navbox, but instead used custom tables and/or Tnavbar-header. There are still a few legacy navboxes out there that are rarely seen that haven't been updated... JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Found one! That was easy. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 19:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I assume that isn't the only one, but yeah, all of those will need to be changed to use navbox. – PeeJay 20:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I feel like we didn't get enough conversation, for or against, on this topic. Is anyone opposed to this transition? JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm very much for this, looks ten times better. I reckon I've adjusted all of those regarding my club this afternoon. Is there a way to list all the ones still using fb start and fb end? Argyle 4 Life (talk) 15:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Try the "What links here" tab in the toolbox to the left on the fb start or fb end page.  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Awesome. Glad to see we finally got here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * FWIW - IIRC we introduced fb start and end back in the day because navbox at that point in time wouldn't let you stack templates - they'd always leave a gap between each of them - and because of this different templates would have different widths etc, which just made the bottom of the page look crap. The smaller, non-standard, width was chosen as it fit on the screen of 800x600 displays where navboxen at that time were designed for 1024x768 and thus made you get creative with br's to stop the horizontal scrollbar appear. Having said all of that, it was a right bugger to make them work with fb sometime - so if going back to navbox helps everyone, go for it. Nanonic (talk) 00:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Notability question
Does taking part in the German cup confer notability to a player even if did not play for a for fully professional club? WikiProject Football/Notability suggest otherwise but according to WikiProject Football/Notability the club is notable, so maybe the players are notable, too. Could someone please clarify this? --Jaellee (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd say not. It's perfectly possible for a club to be notable but its players not to be.  That's the stance we take with clubs who have played at a high level of semi-professional football in England, certainly -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is the stance taken with the FA Cup at least (otherwise practically every footballer at every level of the pyramid would need an article). Of course GNG overrides if a given player did something which attracted significant coverage, as usual. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:CITE
Could somebody from the WikiProject Football please urgently  point  me to  either a guideline or a  consensus that  states that  football  articles, and their BLPs, are exempted from WP:CITE ? Thanks in advance.--Kudpung (talk) 23:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Can you give some background as to why you are asking? As far as I know there is nothing to suggest that there is a blanket exemption, but guidelines are meant to be followed with common sense so a specific situation may warrant doing something else. Camw (talk) 23:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree. You are implying that editors of football articles are actively ignoring it, which requires evidence before we can give an opinion. WFCforLife (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * As an active member of another project (and involuntary  leader, sigh!) concerned with  cleaning  up articles that  fall  within the project's scope, I am coming  across a huge number of footy  articles that are unsourced, too numerous now for me to  even attempt to  remember them and list  them here. The problem has begun  to  cause me concern since I  noticed that  the noref and refimprove tags are being reverted by  anons, and without  es.  The extent  of all this naturally  lead me to assume that  I  and other editors have been in  the wrong for tagging these articles, and that  there may  be a WP:CITE exemption of some kind for footy. I am  certainly not  suggesting that  members of the footy  project are flagrantly  disregarding  the WP:CITE rules which after all, are some of the most  explicit and least  ambiguous of all the acronymed bureaucracy  we have to  contend with.--Kudpung (talk) 00:12, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Could you give a few examples of anons removing these tags? Two, three or four examples would be fine, just enough for us to attempt to spot a pattern. There are undeniably hundreds of articles that aren't tagged that should be, but I reckon that's got more to do with the sheer size of this project than anything else. At the moment most people are focusing their efforts on dealing with the problem articles that we are already aware of. For disclosure, I have incorrectly removed these tags in the past due to lack of knowledge. Once aware of the correct procedure I ceased to do so (and the edits of that nature have since been dealt with, usually through sourcing). WFCforLife (talk) 00:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think there is a pattern. It's probably as you say, that  footy  is such  a huge project, it follows that  it  has a large number of naughty editors. I haven't  reverted these tag removals, a) because I try to  avoid edit  wars at all costs, and b) because as mentioned above, I began to  think  that  because of the high frequency, footy  enjoys some kind of exemption or amnesty. Here's one very  recent  example that comes to  mind: Worcester_City_F.C.. I  hope this helps. --Kudpung (talk) 00:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Is it churlish of me to point out that article isn't a BLP, as it's about a club, not a person........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Neither can I see that it has ever been tagged as "Unreferenced"  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 10:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * In general, I don't think football's any worse than other popular-culture fields for lack of referencing, and as others have said, we're trying quite hard to rectify the problem. However, we shouldn't forget that WP:BLP still applies to mentions of living people on non-BLP articles. Specifically, the Worcester City F.C. page stated, unsourced, that a named director had been sacked, which is defamatory, given that he'd actually resigned (I've added a BBC source). That is a BLP issue. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Kudpung could have been a weeny bit clearer in the point he was trying to make there....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * True. I can't see any unref'd tags on it, and I only noticed the sacking thing because I was actively looking for something on that particular article which might be a problem. Tis true that people remove BLPunref tags without doing the work, or when only adding 1 ref to a long article. But I don't see that as a particularly football problem. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no reason that football BLPs should be exempt from normal BLP policies on verifiability and notability. This project has been working to reduce the backlog of football BLPs tagged as unreferenced for many months (at last count we had cleared over 8,000 of them), however, we still have 3,000 or so in the backlog and many others that are yet to be tagged. You can see more detail at WP:FOOTY/unreferenced BLP. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 00:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) As far as I know, this project was one of the first to set up a unreferenced BLP list to combat the high number of unsourced articles. WP:FOOTY were very slow to react to mass creators of unsourced articles, such as Mario1987 (now banned) hence the massive number of unsourced footballer articles, but thanks to the dedication and hard work of several regular wp:footy editors the backlog is gradually decreasing. As for IPs removing tags without providing reliable sources, they can be given vandalism warnings and will eventually be blocked if they persist. King of the  North East  00:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed. There's nothing to see here. IPs misbehave everywhere on the project, especially on BLPs. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks to everyone who  took part  in  this discussion. There have been some less friendly  comments  (especially  on  my  talk  page) about  my  genuine interest to  be of help, but by a nd large my  original  question has been answered. I  will continue to  delete any  potentially  contentious unreferenced statements about  living  persons in  footy  articles, and to warn creators of any  unsourced BLP about  players, PROD the articles if there is no  response, and ultimately  delete the article if there is no  response to  the PROD. However, I am not  a football fan and have no  vested interest  in  the game, so  I shall  only  be intervening  on  articles that  fall  also within  the scope of other Wikipdia projects I work  on - and then only when I come across them  by  accident. I  will certainly  treat  any unjustified  removal of tags as vandalism, or at the very  least, as disruptive editing.--Kudpung (talk) 18:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

New administration article
Just to let people know I've created an Administration (football) article I developed in my userspace. In my opinion there is quite an interesting history (loopholes etc.) and I believe it is very notable to football clubs. I'm thinking of also having an WP:Embedded list of clubs that have been in administration however between 2000 and 23 November 2008 apparently 42 professional Football League clubs entered administration. Anyway, just thought this might be of some interest to peeps. Rambo's Revenge (talk)  23:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Nice one. Oddly, the parent article is rather underdeveloped. We're normally quite good for UK law articles. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I would seriously recomment a renaming: the article is not about the administration of British football. And I'm afraid that it is so incomplete as to be vulnerable to a charge of recentism. Kevin McE (talk) 13:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As the concept of "administration" was only introduced by the Insolvency Act 1986, the content of the article will be mostly "recent", especially as, prior to 1997 only 11 clubs had gone down this route (see the article mentioned on the talk page), out of 60 or so clubs altogether that have entered into administration. As for the title, do you have a better suggestion?    Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I worked for a company that went into administration last year which had nothing to do with football, so it is not a term specific to football (which the current title certainly suggests), surely a more general article on Administration (UK law) or some such would be more appropriate........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a separate article at Administration (law) which deals with the more general aspects.   Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 22:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Football templates
What's going on with the football templates at the bottom of individual pages? Someone must have changed something in the coding that they no longer display properly until you fix/alter the individual pages. Basically, they're not displaying properly and some now appear to be altered and some not. It seems like someone has either done half a job on the templates or not bothered to fix the pages or not done both, or possibly should have got a bot to fix the changes. Looks amateurish to me. 91.106.111.12 (talk) 23:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The changes are necessary, but there's a lot of templates to change and a lot of pages to make the necessary changes to in order to make them look good again. The work will get done, but it's just a matter of time and effort. I suggest, instead of moaning about it, people should expend their energy on helping us get to the stage where we can do away with fb start and fb end, as mentioned in an earlier discussion. – PeeJay 23:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What's the specific problem here? Is it something which can be mitigated as we work on the full navbox transition? Is it affecting high-profile articles? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Champions League attendances
At 2009–10 UEFA Champions League knockout stage, an anonymous editor has been changing the attendance for the recent Porto v Arsenal match from 40,717 (as reported by UEFA.com) to 45,600 (apparently reported by various news sources, including BBC, Sky Sports, ESPN, et al.). This user refuses to accept UEFA's authority on the statistics for their own competition, claiming that since multiple sources are all claiming an attendance of 45,600, that figure should also be reported here. However, as I have been told many times on this site, most news sites get their facts from the Associated Press, and therefore they would all corroborate each other. Can we please come to a decision about which sources should be considered the most trustworthy in situations like this? – PeeJay 22:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

End dates on international careers
Many players see their international careers end while continuing to play at the club level. Now, some retire voluntarily, but for others, it's not by choice. In the case of the latter, how long do we wait before adding an end year for the international career in the infobox? I've been involved in a dispute with and his various alternate accounts over Ronaldo and Raúl González.

My argument is that they haven't been selected for 3.5 years, missing two major tournaments (Copa America/Euro and Confederations Cup) and qualifying campaigns for two major tournaments, and neither seems likely to be called up for the upcoming World Cup. Ronaldo has suffered serious injuries during the period, but the quality of his replacements for Brazil means he probably won't get a consideration. Raul has been healthier, but two different coaches have declined to use him.

Considering the length of their absences, it seems reasonable to consider 2006 the end year for their international careers. If they are called up again, (a) it would be a major surprise, and (b) we can edit the article. Otherwise, it would give the impression that they still have active international careers. Thoughts? --Mosmof (talk) 18:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, more than a couple of years seems reasonable to add an end date. As you say if they get re-called then the article can be quickly edited without any fuss.--EchetusXe 13:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Sharing subjective opinions about player who hasn't played for a while and didn't announce retirement from international football or career have no profit. I don't now anything about user gigsons but looking in his contributions on these 2 players he was right. Even more, Ronaldo has shown interest in playing 2010 world football event and coach Dunga didn't close doors to him giving such opportunity to prove himself in Serie A. Raul missed only 1 major event which was led by coach Aragones, Spain national team now has Bosque which also is a Raul's former coach and good friend of him. Look here: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1A1-D922VB202.html 87.110.130.165 (talk) 18:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In my mine he did not received call-up for 1-year after his last cap, just tag the date with last cap. Matthew_hk  t  c  18:47, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should add an end date to a player's international career until he officially announces his retirement from international football or football as a whole. – PeeJay 18:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Stick to what is verifiable, and you won't go wrong. If their last cap was five years ago, just say that - let the reader make their own conclusions. Knepflerle (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

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Players international career is just like club career. When contract expires, the end date of club is set, it doesn't matter how long he didn't play for the club due to injury or other problems. When player announce his retirement from international or football career or even change of his nationality like Di Stefano, the end date of international career is set, so active players international career cannot be cut by some minor wikipedians like mosmof.95.68.35.91 (talk) 22:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * A few things:
 * FWIW,, and  are the same person.
 * An end date doesn't mean the career's over. It just means his caps came during a certain range.
 * I agree that we should stick to verifiable information as much as possible, but what's more verifiable than the last time he played internationally? Sure, a reader can get more information further down the article, but the infobox should give a quick summary. And what the end year does is put the caps and goals in better context. It makes a difference to know that Ronaldo's international goals came between 1994 and 2006, as opposed to 1994 and some unknown date. Wikipedia is concerned about what has happened in the past, not what will or what might happen in the future. If all of a player's international appearance has come in the past, that should be reflected, and no mind should be paid to whether he might get a surprise callup.
 * There's no such thing as an "'official" international retirement. A player is always available to be called up - he's just letting the FA know that he won't show up.
 * And I don't find retirement announcements to be particularly helpful. In the last World Cup, we saw France suit up four players, Zidane, Vieira, Makelele and Thuram, IIRC, who had previously announced retirement from international football. Totti announced his international retirement in 2007, but he continues to be subject of speculation.
 * Plus, for most players, end of international careers don't come voluntarily. We wouldn't be having this conversation about Nick Barmby, would we?
 * Raul didn't just miss "only 1 major event" under Aragones. He also missed most of Euro 08 qualifying. And why do we care if Del Bosque is his friend? In fact, isn't it more damning that his supposed friend ignored him for World Cup '10 qualifying and the Confederations Cup?
 * I'm not sure what is meant by "international career is just like club career". International career is nothing like a club career. Players sign multi-year contracts with clubs, while their presence on the national team is game-to-game, tournament-to-tournament.
 * I am not cutting a player's career short when I enter an end date. I'm simply showing when the most recent cap came. That's something even minor Wikipedia editors like me is allowed to do. Mosmof (talk) 03:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

87.110.130.165 is different person, I don't know him you just attach him to me because he has the same thoughts. You can edit and put his last cap date into his biography as a minor wikipedian but don't touch infobox. It's for official contract expiration and retirement announcements only. 95.68.37.12 (talk) 09:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Rubbish. Plenty of former internationals have never made retirement announcements despite being long past their prime - what are you going to do? leave the infobox open indefinitely?. And as stated before, international selection is not contractual - you are selected or not as the selectors see fit.-- Club Oranje T 19:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Even players who haven't won any caps recently may still have been included in international squads. I'd say this was actually very common indeed. I rather think this is analogous to thinking to putting "former" in the ledes of players who have been released from contracts and not yet found themselves new clubs: it's jumping the gun. On the specific subject of Ronaldo, I would agree that it is premature in the extreme to simply consider him retired when he is repeatedly stated to aspire to regaining his international place by the media. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * But specific to our example, neither Raul nor Ronaldo has been called into camp, let alone picked for squads. And I don't think waiting more than 3 years is exactly jumping the gun. We're talking about guys who have missed almost an entire World Cup cycle, two major tournaments and two major tournament qualifications. And of course he's stated his desire to come back internationally. Most players want to keep playing even when they're not wanted. Players who actually announce international retirements are rare - that's why it's a big deal when they do.
 * I can't stress this enough - in the vast majority of cases, there is no "official" end to an international career. Players stop being called up. And as I brought up before, many "official" international retirements turn out to be less than permanent.
 * I'm not for tacking on end years prematurely, but a longer a player is gone from a setup, the less likely he is to return (especially if the absence is involuntary), and we're talking about players who haven't been picked for 3, 4 seasons. That's an eternity in international football.
 * And whatever risk there might be of prematurely putting an end date to a career that's not yet over is more than mitigated because (a) it's easily fixable, and (b) it provides better context for the appearance and goal numbers. Mosmof (talk) 20:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I shouldn't need to cite anecdotal evidence to point out that a three-year break is hardly uncommon in international careers (my lot have rather specialised in it of late). Furthermore, I believe that leaving it open-ended is precisely how other biography infoboxes handle "active years" ranges in occupations where one's employment is irregular (actors are a good example). As for "context", we don't highlight per-season activity for clubs even though it is very often the case that a player may spend a good bit of the beginning or end of his contract without any games. It's simply never been a consideration as it's too much information for the infobox. Keeping it simple is a good idea, as is following the precedent of existing usage both on footy articles and on the encyclopedia in general. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * When do you propose an end date IS put on a player's international career Chris?-- Club Oranje T 10:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Take a player like Robert Edwards who last played for Wales in 1998. He's now 37 and playing for Exeter City in League Two. Is it realistic to say that his international career hasn't ended, even though he's still actively playing?  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Or Nick Barmby, as mentioned he's previously. He's a perfectly good Premiership-level player who has represented England at Euro 2000. And he only missed Euro '04 (at least using the logic employed above)! He has not announced his international retirement and I'm pretty sure he wants to play for England again.
 * Edited to add And I don't think the analogy with acting holds. There is no natural cycle for acting jobs, and actors are not chosen from a set pool. Plus, if an actor wanted continue acting even when big Hollywood actors ignore him, he can always pick up roles in low budget films and made-for-TV movies. Which is to say, an actor can stay active as long as he chooses, while a footballer's international shelf life is much more limited and out of his control. Mosmof (talk) 13:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * But again, these are personal judgement calls. Oh yes, ho ho ho, imagine 37-year-olds getting called up to international squads! Imagine players in the lower divisions getting called up to international squads! Both are perfectly commonplace when one considers the entire range of articles we cover. Or are we to set rules where if you haven't played for England for a year then you're retired, but if you play for Dominica you get an extra five years? Can of worms. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know, it seems like you're using "man bites dog" examples to determine (or not determine) a basic rule of thumb for "dog bites man" cases. Which is to say, how really commonplace are the examples you cite? To me, they seem like outliers that we can treat outside of any basic guideline we set. Given Wikipedia's WP:N and WP:ATH guidelines, we aren't (or at least shouldn't) be covering that many players for minor international sides.
 * Again, I don't see an end date as "retired", just "his last cap came this year", while a blank date tells me "this player is currently an active international selection candidate". I guess what I'm trying to figure is, how long is reasonable? Because I think we can agree that we wouldn't get much argument over leaving Barmby's international career end at 2001, while I wouldn't, as you suggested, set an end date after just one year. Is there a happy medium somewhere in between? --Mosmof (talk) 03:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I would not think it at all unlikely that it is rare for players to have full years (or even full campaigns) between selections. It is definitely less common at the top of of the FIFA coefficients, but you don't have to go too far down the list before you get international teams whose selections are far more scattershot. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, and to answer ClubOranje's question: when a reliable source or two has the player retiring from international football. You're still going to get the odd problem, but far better that than introducing yet another level of complete OR when we're finally making some headway on the nationality issue. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not OR at all. You can legitimately put this year for any current international, and year of last call up for former internationals....because they have not represented their country next year. Pure verifiable fact to show that Ronaldo represented Brazil from 1994 to 2006. Speculative to imply his international career is continuing. Funny how everyone +  /+   is happy to consider Sol Campbell's international career over despite him playing considerably more recently than Ronaldo, playing for a leading team in one of the most challenging leagues in the world and also expressing a desire to represent his country in South Africa. -- Club Oranje T 09:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

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 * Insomuch as we use the year field for clubs to donate their retention by the club on contract rather than the specific period in which they featured in first-team games, it would be confusing to use the year field for international games only for first-team appearances. Adding a "final date" is outright misleading if, say, a player has been on the sub bench in the current calendar year but wasn't used. Again, this is not at all rare. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * So why don't we just keep it simple, stick with verified, inarguable facts and say, "Player X earned Y caps and scored Z goals between 199x and 200x", instead of worrying about how often that country plays or whether he was on the bench or, worse, crystal balling about Raul and Ronaldo might suit up for their countries again?
 * Again, the infobox stats simply say "Player X earned Y caps and scored Z goals between 199x and 200x", not "Player X played until 200x and will likely never play again". Mosmof (talk) 16:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see how that's any "simpler" than the status quo, which says that unless a player has explicitly retired that we let the clock run on players who have received international caps. The issue is that for clubs, the end date means "and did not play for this team again", whereas the suggested end date for international apps would mean "and the player has not yet been capped after this date". This introduces another level of complexity, and more importantly would require a huge amount of work to roll out over existing articles to ensure consistency. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:17, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's simpler because it relies only on verifiable facts and leaves no room for interpretation or tea-leaf-reading. Plus, international retirements are never official and often so temporary - just off the top of my head, I can think of Zidane, Thuram, Makelele, van der Sar and El Hadj Diouf, who have all prematurely ended retirements - that they're simply not reliable.
 * I'm not bothered by the complexity of the difference in meaning between club career and international career end, simply because club and international careers are different in nature. A player is a member of a club and remains on the payroll for as long as the contract is valid, while a player is only a member of an international squad from match to match and tournament to tournament. If the infobox reflects that fundamental difference in nature, then so be it.
 * Honest question - since you mentioned status quo, I'm looking in WP:FOOTY, but I don't see any place where the international career end year = retirement. Is there a past discussion I should be looking at? Mosmof (talk) 01:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if there's been central discussion of it before, but it's certainly the case that the majority of existing footy bios leave it open unless there's been an explicit end date. As for it being "tea leaf reading", the point is that currently an end date on a club year means "stopped playing for the club after this date": you would have it that an end date for a national year meant "was last brought onto the pitch on this date", which is a different kettle of fish. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * How did you figure "majority"? As I see it, there isn't any consensus or status quo. In fact, in the case of Raul, it was who made a change to a long-standing edit and most recently in the Sol Campbell article, while there doesn't seem to be any uproar over Nick Barmby.
 * And because of how national team call-ups work, players do effectively stop playing internationally once the final whistle blows and they're called up again.
 * Anyway, how do you define "explicit end date" when there is no such thing for an international career? Italy can call up Maldini (Paolo or Cesare) if the federation wished. It's demonstrably clear that retirement announcements aren't binding, and there are odd cases like Zidane or Hidetoshi Nakata where the international career extends beyond their club careers (albeit only by a couple of months). --Mosmof (talk) 18:46, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I figure "majority" because that's been my experience in several years of editing football biographies on here. And no, players do not "stop playing internationally" if they don't get capped in a game; they may still very well have been in the squad called up and may even have been on the bench. A couple of counterexamples isn't enough to suggest to me that anything has changed in that regard. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a little frustrating - you're throwing out "majority" and "status quo", yet you're not actually sure that it's either majority or status quo, but it's simply your guess based on experience. But just look at Brazil's 2002 World Cup squad. It's a mishmash of players who have end dates and those that don't. Whatever the merits of including or not including end dates, "Well, that's just the way we've done it" clearly doesn't fly. And yes, players can get called up to a squad and still not get capped. But who cares? That still doesn't change the fact that caps are earned during a certain range of years. Mosmof (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm yet to see an adequate response to the argument that having the "years" parameter mean different things in the club and international sections is confusing. And if I'm pressed I could easily find dozens of bios for internationals who haven't had a recent callup but who still have an open date ranger right now, but I really don't think that either of us think that this is really necessary to point out that this is the default situation across most of our bios right now (the exceptions are, as far as I can see, all players who happen to get a lot of media attention regarding their current intl status). If we're going to change that then so be it, but let's at least accept that it would be a change. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

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(unindent) How is it confusing? Is it any more confusing than seeing only league appearances and goals for club, but ALL national team apps and goals for countries, including friendlies and random corporate-sponsored tournaments? Is it any more confusing that start years for club and country mean different things too? See, a player could spend an entire season on the senior squad without seeing any league action, but the start year is for whenever his professional contract began, yet for international, the start year is whenever he earned his first cap. Yet Wikipedia manages not to explode. I honestly don't think people are that easily confused, but maybe you can prove me wrong.

And of course you can find dozens of players with dormant international careers with open end dates, just as I can just as easily find active players with end dates, but I'm not going to arbitrarily declare one to be the default and the other to be "exceptions". Somehow, I don't see a whole lot of media attention over international careers of Rogério Ceni or Sol Campbell or Rivaldo or Nick Barmby or Ulrich Ramé or Sylvain Wiltord or Fernando Morientes or Lee Chun-Soo or Emmanuel Olisadebe or Tony Sanneh or Robbie Fowler, but hey these are just exceptions.

Here's the thing - you think open dates are the majority and status quo, and end dates, but you really have nothing to back up your assertion, so you're trying to get me to "accept" with a rather arbitrary reasoning for all the cases that contradict you. Look, I'm happy to discuss and find a solution that works for both of us, but don't just decide your way is the right way and suggest I'm being unreasonable for not accepting your assumptions as fact. Mosmof (talk) 04:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

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 * I think we shouldn't put an end date on international careers until retirement from it is not announced.Zigemas (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have any reason that isn't covered in the above discussion? Because I've made it plainly clear why it would be silly to rely on retirement announcements. --Mosmof (talk) 20:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Read Cuningham's comment. There's no need to add more reasons. He got it clear. Lol, I wonder why this conversation is so massive. It's just one little unimportant thing, which you can't compromise . Maybe that's why we are in global crisis. You guys take it too seriously.Zigemas (talk) 17:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

No need to add examples. mosmof's pretty sure thoughts already failed a lot of times. Each case need to view individually, those mentioned players didn't show any interests to play for national team a long time, but in Raul's and Ronaldo's case is different, which shows that their inernational career ain't over and as I said you just can put into biography last cap date but don't touch infobox until official announcements aren't released in public. 95.68.45.232 (talk) 15:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Chris stating about actors made the point, look at the Kurt Russel's page. International career is not only like club career as I mentioned before, it's even like marriage. When 2 people are married the end date cannot be set if they aren't officially divorced even if they're seperated( analogue to player not being called for a cap a while) and sleeping in bed with other subjects.95.68.34.213 (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Put the question another way: does Michael Owen have a current international career? I'd argue that he does, even if this is on the basis purely of media coverage linking him to the team. Retrospectively, if he is never picked again, then we can state that his active England career ended in 2008, but at the moment it would be wrong to claim he is not linked to international football. Both David Beckham and Gary Neville have come back into England squads after extended gaps. But is a standard needed? Why not just leave it open so long as a player is still being linked to the squad - and if he has not been linked for an extended time then close it? --Pretty Green (talk) 09:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think the Michael Owen question is one we should be answering. Whether a player currently has an international career is ill-defined and using past examples amounts to WP:OR. We should look at the international end date for exactly what it is - the year of his latest cap. Unlike with a club, where a player is a member of a club for the length of his contract, international careers aren't continuous. They are match-to-match (or more accurately, international match day window) or tournament-to-tournament, and essentially. And being "linked" to the squad is even more ill-defined. All it takes for a "link" is for a journalist or a player to say, "Hey, shouldn't Brazil be calling up Romario? He's still kicking around in a not-terrible league!"
 * Or, if you do think about an international career as something that continues even when a player is not actively on international duty, then there can't be an end year, because a player will always be subject to callups (and I've already addressed the fallacy of international retirements earlier). --Mosmof (talk) 17:24, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I would far rather than we never gave an end date than we gave a wrong one. Indeed, everything about our BLP policy would suggest the same. And once again, there's still a strong argument that it's a bad idea for the end date to mean "no longer associated with a club contractually" for clubs, but to mean "didn't get a cap in the last international game" for international appearances. Especially because it means that an appearance on the substitutes bench leads to a different result in the latter case. As for the argument that the start date means something different already, I'd far rather we took the intl start date from the time of the first international callup rather than the first cap. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * First things first. There's no such thing as a "wrong" end date if we're using a verifiable, inarguable date of a player's most recent cap.
 * Second, I'm confused. I never suggested an end date to mean "didn't get a cap in the last international game". I'm not sure what you're exactly misreading here.
 * Third, you do realize that a player can be called up by an infinite number of countries and not be cap-tied until he makes an appearance? So using your criteria, the infobox for international teams for Bojan Krkić would show his Spanish international career beginning in 2008 and his Serbian career starting in 2007. And what of Dennis Bergkamp who had retired years before, but was still called up by van Basten in the run-up to the 2006 World Cup. Weren't you claiming you wanted simplicity earlier?
 * You say you want the infobox to meet WP:V, and that's exactly what I want by using the most recent cap date (as long as it's a full calendar year or longer in the past) to avoid any WP:OR. Yet you're the one suggesting criteria that are unverifiable like "linked to international football" or indefinite like callups and retirement announcements.
 * If anything, your suggestions would actually confuse matters because once you want the end date to remain open while a player might earn a cap, but use the last cap/callup for players whose international careers you have adjudged to be sufficiently moribund, essentially making the same piece of data mean different things for different players. --Mosmof (talk) 04:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * A player's last international cap may not (and indeed often is not) the last time a player was associated with a national team. A player can be repeatedly named as a substitute, for instance, without winning any caps. Should this take a player over a year boundary, the article would have the "wrong" end date, at least for readers who assumed that the club and intl caps sections meant the same thing.
 * You've suggested that the end year should denote the year in which a player last won a cap. That implies that any player who didn't get a cap in the last game should be end-dated.
 * I'm prepared to accept that there are difficult edge cases here, but also that it's the least bad option across our range of biographies.
 * Yes, but the infobox header (for the club at least) says "career", not "caps". One's career cannot be verified to have ended simply by virtue of a player not having had a recent callup.
 * It's not who we consider to be "sufficiently moribund", but who reliable sources do.
 * Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, don't worry about readers who overcomplicate matters needlessly and assume things not stated. It's not our job as editors to make sure they don't read into things what isn't actually on the page. A player's association with a club and country differ in so many ways, and most reasonably not-stupid readers can understand the difference, and far more detailed information can be found in the body of the article. Rather than take pains to do the impossible, ensuring every parameter in an infobox mean the same thing, it seems better to keep things simple and simply show "X number of caps earned between this year and that". A player only earns a cap with an appearance, so it makes sense for the years directly next to that number reflects the years the player earned caps.
 * What exactly do you mean here? All players should be end-dated, though I think it makes sense to keep it open if the end year is 2010 (or 2009, even).
 * Of course. We are talking about a line in the infobox that shows career caps. And the years show when those caps were earned.
 * But using "reliable sources" to judge an international career's moribund-ness is WP:OR.
 * Here's the thing. Wikipedia concerns itself with verifiable things that happened in the past. It doesn't care about caps that may possibly be earned. It doesn't care about unverifiable things like "Does this player have an active international career?" or "Is this player still 'linked' to a national team?" So we use verifiable information like, "Raúl González earned 102 caps and scored 44 goals for Spain between 1996 and 2006." No sane person can argue that, it's easily verifiable, and here's the best part - should he get to 103 caps, the end year can be updated at the same time. --Mosmof (talk) 04:29, 6 February 2010 (UTC)


 * As I understand the issue, problem can be solved for an end date if person has or not any contact with national team. Like, if person is showing his interest in public about wining a cap, for example Raul or Ronaldo in this case, it doesn't matter how big time gap is between last played international match, end date shouldn't be put. It just wouldn't be a fair treatment to a player. We are no judges, we just mention the facts.Blackcat69 (talk) 10:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * But by using "contact with the national team" or "showing interest in public" as criteria, we would be acting as "judges" and conducting WP:OR. And what you're basically suggesting is that if Robbie Fowler or Nick Barmby or Romario say in an interview, "I'm really looking forward to playing in South Africa. I've spoken to Capello/Dunga about it and I hope to impress him with my club performance." Why use some vague, undefined date for "contact" or "interest" when we have a perfectly verifiable fact in the year of the last cap. If you look at Raúl González, the infobox says "1996–2006	Spain 102 (44)" - those are the facts. It tells the reader he earned 102 caps between 1996 and 2006, and nothing about retirement or never ever ever playing for Spain again. And since when do we care about the feelings of article subjects, and how is presenting verifiable, uncontroversial and inarguable facts "unfair treatment"? --Mosmof (talk) 14:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Late to the debate, but in my opinion putting an end date in the infobox looks like we are declaring that the player's international career is over and that's blatant WP:OR. I think it should only be added when (a) the player retires from international football or (b) the player retires from professional football (even if these decisions are sometimes reversed). Otherwise, there is simply no source/reference to say that it's over, and Wikipedia is all about verifiability & sources. BEVE  <font style="color:#FF8C00;"> (<font style="color:#FF8C00;">talk ) 20:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's irrelevant whether it looks like we are declaring that a player's international career's over, because that's not what we're doing. We're simply showing the years during which the caps were earned. Look, I understand it's easy to assume the infobox says something that isn't there, but you shouldn't also assume everyone else makes the same assumption.
 * You concede that international retirements are often quite temporary. So why rely on something so unreliable and unofficial when we can be consistent with reliable, verifiable data?
 * Look at Romário for example; it would be less informative and arguably more misleading if the infobox didn't tell you that his 70 caps were earned between 1987 and 2005.
 * Think of it this way - an international career is not a continuous appointment, but a series of callups for matches and tournaments, so there is no active international career.
 * And because WIkipedia relies on verifiablity and is not a crystal ball, it makes sense to simply focus on what happened in the past and not worry about caps a player may or may not earn in the future, so the infobox can simply tell you how many caps a player has earned, and when those caps were earned. And in the event that he adds to his international career, the year can be updated then too. --Mosmof (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You already made 100 posts in this section. You again repeated your unclear point and Chris Cunningham reversed it earlier. Please do not trash this section anymore. Goodbye.195.13.144.185 (talk) 10:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I returned Ronaldo and R.Carlos articles in position when this dispute was started. So please don't edit these articles end dates until compromise here will not be declared.212.93.100.147 (talk) 13:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, someone please undo mosmof's edit on Ronaldo article to it's original status. Dispute's resolvency is not achieved yet.95.68.46.22 (talk) 00:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, then, due to inactivity and obvious victory by defendants( greatest comments in the universe by Chris and not registered users ) It has been declared, that consensus is not to put end date until official retirement is announced from professional or soccer as whole. This topic can be archieved now.95.68.49.63 (talk) 12:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Soccerbase template
Could someone add an |accessdate= parameter to soccerbase? I really like it due to its simplicity, but to use it as an actual citation I think the extra parameter would help. WFCforLife (talk) 18:43, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Why would you need an accessdate? It's not as if historical data will change over time. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Because if it's used in an article which is put up for Featured status, full citation details are expected, including accessdate -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:16, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Historical data shouldn't change over time, but Soccerbase's does. Wouldn't it be acceptable to include a full citation to Soccerbase, including publisher and accessdate, in a general references section, and then use the current-format soccerbase template for individual references? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Footballer year of birth question
Does anyone know the year of birth of Jim Hall, who played for Peterborough United in the 1960s and 70s, in-between two spells at Northampton Town. Eldumpo (talk) 15:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * According to allfootballers.com, it's 21 March 1945. -- Big  Dom  18:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Cheers Eldumpo (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you do another allfootballers check for the birth date of Frank Noble, who played for Peterborough 1967-72. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 09:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 26/10/45 according to my dusty old copy of Football League Players' Records 1946-1984 -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

African Football Tournament
What is the proper name for the CAF competition featuring domestic international teams; is it African Championship of Nations or African Nations Championship? It's been reported as both in the past.
 * It's Africa Cup of Nations according to the Confederation of African Football Eldumpo (talk) 09:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was referring to the competition that features only players based in in Africa. It's known as CHAN.
 * I should've clicked on your links first. Hadn't heard of the tournament until now - sounds interesting. Eldumpo (talk) 12:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The tournament's website refers to it as the "AFRICAN NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP". Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 11:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

National team template suggestion
Please see Infobox national football team

— Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBigJagielka (talk • contribs) 12:54, 28 February 2010

Grammar
Almost daily I'm seeing an incorrect comma (is an English footballer, who...) placement in player introductions. We're not doing ourselves any favours by having this in the opening to an article, so please keep an eye out and amend accordingly. - <span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.4em"> Dudesleeper  talk  16:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Tournament
There is a man in Dubai who said you are organizing a tournament for foreign players. There are a lot of players who have paid so much to be part of this tournament. It is said Al Ahli Club is sponsoring the teams coming. I would like to know whether this is true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.3.117 (talk) 14:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Somehow I doubt that Wikipedia is organising a football tournament...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Tell the players it is me that they should pay their participation rights. I´ll give you my account. :) FkpCascais (talk) 06:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

UEFA.com links again
Hey folks,

So I was asked to pick up on this but dropped the ball (sorry Vasco). There was a discussion here about links on UEFA.com breaking when EUFA stupidly broke all their permalinks during a site update. Can someone provide me a few example links? Are the all the same format? I'm going to cook up some external linking templates (a la soccerbase) to use in the future so that these can be easily fixed centrally if UEFA ever break them again. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked into it extensively but during the last discussion I found that for a few example links changing www.eufa.com to en.archive.uefa.com worked. Broken Link and Working Link. The problem is that I don't think it works for new stories and I'm not sure where the cutoff is. Another change that worked for the above example was to change it from /competitions/ucl to /uefachampionsleague/ Broken Link to Working Link but this change will be different for every competition. A real mess. Camw (talk) 08:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay. What are the most commonly-linked pages? If, for instance, the Champions League pages are often linked, I can create a championsleague template which can be used to link them in future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * These are not pages I usually work on, so I am unsure what is most commonly used. At a guess I'd say the champions league pages, the various euro national tournament pages and wherever the player profiles are. Camw (talk) 02:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Possible hoax
A user just added Mohamed Taidara to the squad list for Cardiff. He's never played for Cardiff, didn't join the club on loan and seemingly has no profile at Soccerbase. The Manchester City F.C. Reserves and Academy page has no listing of him and states Karl Moore is assigned the squad number his article claims he has.

There is a mention of him in this BBC report as a PSG player so I thought I'd bring it up here in case he ever played for the PSG first team and therefore does qualify for an article. Thanks. Kosack (talk) 21:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * An interesting character... According to this French article (Google translation here) he seems to have played in PSG's youth teams, possibly had a spell at City, tried to reinvent himself as Mohamed Haidara, age 15, and then done a runner when his paperwork didn't check out. His French WP page appears to have been deleted as non-notable. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The stuff about first team appearances at Manchester City is nonsense, and there is no record of a Taidara or Haidara playing for the club at any level. If my schoolboy French isn't mistaken (it often can be), that French article appears to cite Wikipedia for the bit about MCFC. Oldelpaso (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Kit template prolem ?
Can someone take a look at Canning City Soccer Club as some strange text is appearing on the kit template, Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 00:31, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * pattern_b3 was missing the _ before thinwhitesides. Should be fixed now. Camw (talk) 00:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 14:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

NPSL notability?
Hi, I'm wondering if players in the National Premier Soccer League meet WP:ATHLETE. User:Darbaki has created quite a few biographies for members of this league, but I'm not sure the league is professional.  Them From  Space  03:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The article for FC Tulsa describes the league as amateur, and it's the 4th tier in the US, so both evidences are circumstantial at this point, but I'm guessing it is not. matt91486 (talk) 05:40, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And a quick look at the league's "about" page tells me that the players are either amateurs or former professionals, so all indications are that the league is, at best, semi-professional, so WP:GNG should be the litmus test. --Mosmof (talk) 06:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No, NPSL players are not notable enough in and of themselves. Former pro players now playing in the NPSL pass WP:ATHLETE, and I daresay one or two of them would pass WP:GNG as a result of exploits in American college soccer, but the vast majority of them are not notable. --JonBroxton (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Groundhopper article
You football fans might want to take a critical look at Groundhopper which is not the most shining tribute to this project's coverage of the bootiful game. 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go. Signed: E I Addio, our man in the stand with a pie and a speedy deletion tag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.108.232 (talk) 17:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

When should a reformed club have its article merged with the original club?
I guess the answer will be 'on a case by case basis' but my original question referred to Halifax Town A.F.C. and F.C. Halifax Town, but I was surprised how many of the clubs who have reformed still have separate Wiki articles to their original clubs e.g. Maidstone United F.C., Aldershot F.C., and perhaps most surprisingly AFC Wimbledon and Accrington Stanley F.C. (the latter being separated from the earlier Accrington club that was in the Football League until the 1960s). In Halifax's case they seem to regard themselves as taking on the history of the old club Eldumpo (talk) 22:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Why on earth are you surprised about the Wimbledon article being separate? AFC Wimbledon came into existence whilst "Wimbledon FC" were still going, albeit about to move to Milton Keynes. What should really be questioned is why MK Dons and Wimbledon FC have separate articles when they are the same club with a continuted existence. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  22:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is a link to an agreed accord whereby MK Dons give up their rights to Wimbledon's history - it is a 'Wimbledon Independent' website but have no reason to doubt accuracy. Eldumpo (talk) 23:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That does not make AFC Wimbledon a direct continuation of the old club. The fact remains that AFC Wimbledon and Wimbledon F.C. were both active at the same time, so there is no way AFC can be regarded as a continuation of the old club -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. There's an agreement that they're the "spiritual successors", but the former club's awards are being returned to the Borough of Merton, not put in AFC Wimbledon's trophy cabinet. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * While we're here, how about C.A. Peñarol and Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club? The Peñarol article suggests continuity from CURCC while the CURCC article (and Nacional fans) suggest they were separate entities...lol Hack (talk) 13:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm surprised there's no separate Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. and Bradford Park Avenue A.F.C. articles. The former club went bust in the 1970s and the new club was a "phoenix" type club which was formed a few years later and originally a Sunday league team and has equally as much links to the previous clubs as the examples above of Halifax Town, Scarborough, Aldershot and Accrington Stanley, of which each one is separate and two different articles. 91.106.107.17 (talk) 22:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying
All links to match reports are dead links. What should we do? --62.204.152.181 (talk) 02:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Try mailing UEFA. It's their website which is broken (as usual). If the links remain broken beyond the time that it would take a sysadmin worth his job to fix, then we can either find alternative sources or use the Internet Archive to link to old versions of the pages in question. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

British football bio stub
I think we need to set up a British football bio stub to deal with those instances where the 'nationality' of the player within the 4 UK nations is not certain. As per previous discussions here, this is actually likely to be the majority of circumstances, the only exceptions being where the player has played representative football for one of the 4 or otherwise confirmed their nationality for football purposes. Is there agreement for such a proposal, and if so how do you go about making a new stub category. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 10:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds useful for 19th-century and early 20th-century players who's exact place of birth is unknown. Record-keeping back in those days doesn't seem to have been as rigourous as it is now, and it can be very difficult, or impossible, to trace the relevant info for a lot of people who played professionally back then. &mdash; Gasheadsteve Talk to me 11:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, it would work well for those where the place of birth is unknown, but my point is wider than that. Just because someone is born in x place it doesn't mean that's their 'nationality'. Eldumpo (talk) 11:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If someone is born in a particular country then they automatically qualify to play for that national team, even if their country of birth is not their actual nationality, i.e. it can safely be regarded their 'sporting nationality' as long as they haven't been capped by someone else of course. See page 62 of the FIFA Statutes. &mdash; Gasheadsteve Talk to me 12:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That is not what that statute says. It says A Player who ... is eligible to represent more than one Association on account of his nationality, may play... for one of these Associations only if, in addition to having the relevant nationality, he fulfils at least one of the following conditions: (a) He was born on the territory of the relevant Association; (further conditions follow: my bolding)  Kevin McE (talk) 23:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I was just about to make the same point - this is a crucial and subtle point that is lost on many editors here. A birthplace confers neither nationality nor eligibility to represent a national team automatically.  Other information is required to decide eligibility, and this is often information we are not given on a club's website. Knepflerle (talk) 11:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, the stub templates/categories do not necessarily imply nationality. They usually just indicate the nation with which the player is most closely associated. For example, if a hypothetical John Smith of unknown nationality played most of his football in Gabon, we should use a Gabon footy bio stub template. – PeeJay 12:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Gasheadsteve. In response to your question on my talk page Eldumpo, I'm happy for the page to be moved as suggested, if you feel that would help. WFCforLife (talk) 17:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think there is an issue relating to the phrasing of the stubs as well. Template:England-footy-bio-stub uses the wording 'This biographical article related to English football is a stub.' which I think is fine, as it relates to the country generally, as per PeeJay's point. However, the more detailed sub-stub of Template:England-footy-striker-1900s-stub says 'This biographical article related to an English football striker born in the 1900s is a stub', thus assuming nationality. Would it be better to try and keep the more general wording? Gashead Steve agrees with the idea of a British stub as well - anyone disagree? Eldumpo (talk) 13:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In football, we decide whether a player is English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish in the same way that we would normally decide whether someone was British, French, German or Gabonese. If it cannot be determined that a player is English, it therefore cannot be determined that he is British. WFCforLife (talk) 20:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as I'm concerned that's a bug in the stub templates. From experience these aren't even standardised to that great a degree yet (at least outwith western Europe), so this would be a good time to address that. "This biographical article related to a strikerin English football", for instance? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Would that mean that a player who played in both England and Scotland whose article is a stub would need to have both "....striker in English football" and a"....striker in Scottish football" templates? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Stubbing is not an exact science. If it helps to draw additional attention to the article from parties who may be able to expand it, use both. If a Scottish player had half a season with York City and then moved back north then it's probably not worth it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I can see that a British footy bio stub would largely involve the same assumptions that someone is British as if they are English etc using current stubs. However, I see Chris Cunningham agrees with my point about the wording on some of the detailed stubs - is there a wider agreement to change the stubs to the less specific wording? Eldumpo (talk) 21:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The wording is presently inconsistent across countries (and indeed across positions) anyway. I don't think it was ever discussed in detail. For now, feel free to boldly correct the stub wording. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. If you can improve the wording so as not to assume nationality, I'd support a bold move. I suggest avoiding use of the word "British" though, as it would open a whole can of worms. WFCforLife (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I have changed the wording at Template:England-footy-defender-1880s-stub to read 'This biographical article related to English football, referring to a defender born in the 1880s, is a stub'. However, I'm not sure what to rename the category, as presumably there are more conventions for that, and it wouldn't be appropriate to introduce hyphens etc. Anyone got any thoughts on the wording and how to rename the stub, and then I can hopefully push on and rename a few, perhaps with some help from others here? Eldumpo (talk) 19:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't sticking a comma between "football" and "defender" be a neat fix for the category name? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Wikipedia can be complex at times can't it! I tried just editing the template to change the category name as your suggestion (add a comma), but it then shows up as a redlink, and says category doesn't exist. Reading some of the WP guidance I'm not sure if the way to do this should be to make a posting at WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. In addition, WikiProject Stub sorting/Naming conventions suggests that stubs should not just say 'football' as they don't disambig with other sports! Finally, all these football sub-divisions by decade of birth/position got me thinking as to the rationale for them all existing in the first place. Does anyone ever think 'I fancy expanding an 1880's born defender who has an association with English football'. Do we need any subdivision within English footy stubs, or one level at the most? I realise I'm moving away from my original post into different stub questions, but queries keep arising! Eldumpo (talk) 12:07, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Categories need to be manually renamed; there's a process for it. As for the intricacy of the stub cats, while "English defender born in the 1880s" is pretty obscure, "English striker born in the 1970s" certainly isn't. I think this comes down to that foolish consistency that people go on about to some extent, but so long as there's a hierarchy people can work from higher up if they please. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Awarded matches
There's a team I'm building stats for, and there was one match back in 2008 when they drew 1-1; about 2 months later, that match was awarded 0-3 for the other team. Should I add one match played for every player that played and also add one goal scored for the scorer? LaUr3nTiU (talk) 11:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You should follow the lead of the authoritative body for that competition, and could make a comment on the article of the player(s) whose goal was subsequently scrubbed out. Kevin McE (talk) 17:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no article in the league's manual of rules regarding this aspect. I've asked the question more like for... statistical purposes. I'm not sure yet if I should add another appearance for those 11+3 players or not. LaUr3nTiU (talk) 17:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I can only agree with Kevin. If you're asking for an uninformed general comment, I'm pretty sure that amending a result is against the laws of the game, and therefore can't envisage a scenario where a match result would be "changed". Procedurally, I would have thought that the match would have to be declared null and void for a forfeit result to be declared. If that were the case, the appearances would almost certainly be removed from the records. WFCforLife (talk) 19:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It was complicated. The home team had one player suspended, but appealed for that decision and it was successful, and the ban was removed, so that the player could play. That player was fielded the following match, which ended 1-1. The following day, the visitors appealed against that player's ban removal (saying that players banned for only one match can't have their ban removed), and surprisingly, won the appeal. Then, the executive board instead of punishing the board of appeal for making a mistake (removing a 1-match ban), decided that the home team fielded a suspended player (!!!) and forfeited the game. It was awarded 3-0 for the visitors.LaUr3nTiU (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If the game was forfeited then I would assume that any official bodies would consider it not to have taken place and that appearances and goals in that game would be rescinded. I don't think it matters whether the game were forfeited at the time or three months in advance. There are special cases, such as with the recent Serie A match-fixing scandal, but in the absence of reliable sources common sense would be to discount that game from statistics. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:54, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Are there no reliable appearance statistics for this league we can quote with citation? If so we should do this, perhaps with a small footnote as to whether this game was or was not included. Knepflerle (talk) 11:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Combine footballbox and footballbox collapsible?
It has been proposed by User:Thumperward Chris Cunningham that footballbox and footballbox collapsible be merged into one template. If you think these should be kept separate or have requests/concerns about how they would be merged, please join in the discussion here. --SkotyWAT<sub style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">C 06:05, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the two templates should be merged to footballbox and that collapsibility should be an optional parameter. I don't think people would appreciate having the "hide/show" button on display when they want the template permanently expanded. – PeeJay 16:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Cliff Lloyd
Is this the same guy as the former PFA secretary? His obit here mentions that he was born in Wrexham, but makes no mention of his having managed that club. If it is the same guy then the article needs serious beefing up, as it doesn't mention his playing career at Fulham (only two games, admittedly), his time with the PFA (which won him its Merit Award) or the minor matter of his OBE! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:16, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like there are two of them, with enough of an overlap to cause confusion. The obit gives a DOB of 14/11/1916, as does this Wrexham supporters Hall of Fame page, but Joyce's book gives DOB 27/12/1913 in Brymbo (which is in/near Wrexham) and death 1973 for the one who played 12 games pre-war for Wrexham. The obit's signed for Liverpool in 1936, and YNWA has the Fulham/PFA one signing for Liverpool in 1936 but never playing for them, where Joyce's had a trial with them in 1935/36. The obit's Lloyd is a fullback, Joyce's is an outside right. The supporters HOF has him return to Wrexham after the war, the obit has Fulham and Norway. And I don't see how anyone could have managed Wrexham simultaneously with secretarying the PFA. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Red Knights
Is this article appropriate at this time? The entirety of the article seems to be conjecture, and much of the content can also be found at Malcolm Glazer ownership of Manchester United. – PeeJay 18:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, it's purely speculative at this time, as none of the Red Knights are anywhere near wealthy enough individually or collectively to buy the club - they don't have the funds in place and there is no suggestion that the Glazers will sell anytime soon. It would be like having an article about a proposed Glazer takeover in 2003 / 2004, or about the suggested takeovers of Arsenal by Uzmanov or Kroenke that have been rumbling on for the last couple of years. Perhaps worth a redirect to the main Glazer MUFC ownership article at this stage, nothing more. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 19:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * IMO this is WP:ONEEVENT and all purely speculative. Mo ainm  ~Talk  19:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It should be deleted. But good luck with that. WFCforLife (talk) 22:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Top goalscorers query
Scott McDonald scored 10 league goals for Celtic in the early part of this season before being transferred to a club in another country (Middlesbrough, as it happens). Some reliable sources, including BBC Sport, have deleted McDonald from their list of top scorers in the SPL, even though he would still be well inside the top 10 if they counted his goals (which were scored). Is it correct to keep him in our list of SPL top scorers? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 19:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems perefectly reasonable to keep him on the list in my opinion. I suspect that the BBC removed him from their list simply because he can no longer become the league's top scorer this season. It may be worthwhile to add a note indicating the transfer. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the proper answer to this question is that the leading scorers tables on Wikipedia should follow those found in reliable sources. If McDonald's name is not included on lists found elsewhere on the Internet it should not be included on Wikipedia; that would be construed as original research. -- Big  Dom  21:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That is the concern that I have, that it could be perceived to be original research. On balance I don't take that view because he definitely scored the goals, and (fortunately) he is still in the SPL's own list. If Kris Boyd had been sold in January (and there was speculation that he would be), you could have had the ridiculous situation of the league's top scorer not being on at least one of the top scorer lists! Jmorrison230582 (talk) 21:49, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There are more sources than the BBC!! I think you'll find they probably have a template and once a player leaves the SPL, he's taken off the list. Try find the top scorers table once next season starts and then by your definition the whole table is OR. Anyway, here's the official site stats page. Oh, there's Scott McDonald. 91.106.123.21 (talk) 22:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I know there are more sources than the BBC and the league's own top scorers table is probably the most sensible one to use as they will know their rules about transferred players' goals counting in the leading scorers lists. However, if the majority of sources do not include him, a footnote would definitely be required to justify his inclusion on Wikipedia's table. "Try find the top scorers table once next season starts and then by your definition the whole table is OR" – I don't really understand what you mean here but at the end of the season, the web page containing the list could easily be archived (e.g. using WebCite) so that a permanent reference would always be available. -- Big  Dom  22:50, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's fact that McDonald has scored 10 goals this season, so even if no source had him in the overall table, No_original_research says it is not OR to do the maths from facts. 91.106.123.21 (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is nothing to do with the number of goals scored or any kind of calculation. The fact is that if no sources had him in the list, it would be unverifiable OR to include him on the list on Wikipedia. Since he is included on the official table, I see absolutely no problem with having him on ours. -- Big  Dom  23:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you're trying to find a problem where there isn't one irrespective of sources. McDonald has scored 10 goals in the SPL and that is an undisputed fact; a list of the top goalscorers will therefore include McDonald on 10 goals because you can't take them away from him otherwise you take them away from Celtic in the league table. 91.106.123.21 (talk) 23:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Since when did we start KNOWINGLY removing facts because a percentage of reliable sources have (deliberately or otherwise) done so? If we know it to be true, and we can reliably source it, there's nothing more to it. WFCforLife (talk) 02:02, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * (re-indent for readability) There was a similar case in Austria last season, when Adi was transferred from Austria to Germany's Energie Cottbus during the winter break: See here. I would suggest, as Sir Sputnik already did as well, to put the McDonald issue in this form. The only thing I would have added in the diff is a source for the transfer. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 15:14, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest that if we're listing all this season's SPL leading scorers, and the BBC are listing leading scorers currently playing in the SPL, i.e. something different, then that BBC list can't be considered as a reliable source for our list of all this season's SPL leading scorers, and we made a mistake in the first place thinking it might be a valid source. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

List of Manchester United F.C. players for FLRC
nominated List of Manchester United F.C. players for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:24, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Chester City
Following the sad demise of Chester City, their record will be expunged by the Conference. Does this mean that all the players who have played for Chester this season need the stats removing from their infoboxes? I see Soccerbase has already removed the stats for Adam Kay, who had a loan spell at the club earlier in the season. It would be misleading to completely remove all traces of the loan from his infobox, but it would just be wrong to leave them in there when technically it is as though Chester never competed in the Conference this campaign and all the matches they have played are null and void. Is there any precedence for cases like this? -- Big  Dom  09:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * King's Lynn had their records expunged earlier in the season, no? I imagine there must be a fair few historical precedents as well. As for the infobox, I suppose we could always use "expunged" for the apps/goals appearance in cases like that. I'll modify footybio2 to allow for individual instances of "apps(goals)X" to be mixed in with appsX/goalsX rows to account for this if people think this is the right approach. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:08, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Players should certainly still be reported in their infobox as being at Chester City this season, whether on loan or all season: it is part of their contractual history. As regards whether the stats count for individuals, we would need a lead from the relevant authoritative body: soccerbase is useful, but not authoritative.  At present, www.footballconference.co.uk still includes CCFC in the league table, and the Conferences statement says that the removal "will not be activated until any right of appeal process has expired or such appeal dealt with."  When they do activate this (and I don't think anyone envisages a successful appeal) we will have to watch to see whether they remove goals scored against Chester from top scorers' tables, and appearances against them from the stats of players at the remaining clubs.  That will be the authoritative lead on whether matches that will not have contributed to the league table can still be considered part of a player's record, and that is what we will have to wait for.  Consistency would demand that if we don't count the appearances of Chesater's players in those matches, we will also have to reduce the appearances and goals scored tally of every player who has opposed them in the league this season.  What have we done to the stats of those who played for, or against, Aldershot in 1991-2?  We should do the same, but any changes to data will be challenged far more vigourously. Kevin McE (talk) 12:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * When a team's record is expunged it's as if they had never played during that season, so all player appearance stats for games involving Chester are null and void, both for Chester players and their opponents. As for Adam Kay, I'd leave his time at Chester in the infobox, but with zero appearances and goals. In the article itself you could explain that he played in however many matches, but Chester's record was expunged. This shouldn't be done until the Conference have officially removed them from their records though. &mdash; Gasheadsteve Talk to me 13:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It is certainly the norm for all such games to be removed from all players' records. One close to your own hear, Kevin - Roger Triggs' book "The Men Who Made Gillingham F.C." specifically states that the stats listed for one player (I forget who, and can't find it at the moment, but it's definitely in there) have had his apps and goals against Aldershot in 1991/92 removed.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:22, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely at least 11 Gills players appeared against Aldershot that season! Kevin McE (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What I meant was that it's specifically mentioned in the prose of the profile on one particular player...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's important to mention in the prose however many appearances/goals a player did garner for them. matt91486 (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Remember it's not just Chester players, but those who played against Chester who will need to have those games removed. 91.106.111.79 (talk) 01:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * True enough. matt91486 (talk) 17:22, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If a similar situation occurred in the Football League or the Premier League, would a player whose notability was solely based on an appearance for or against an expunged team no be longer notable under WP:FOOTYN? Hack (talk) 02:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Heaven knows :-P -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:54, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

This is not a question for us to worry about. We do no calculate appearances statistics ourselves - we just quote the appearance statistics from a reliable source and cite accordingly. That's is the point of WP:V. Let the sources agonise over the statistics' methodology. If the methodology is published, a link to that would also be useful however. Knepflerle (talk) 11:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Expunged. 91.106.125.15 (talk) 18:23, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The same appears to have happened to Farsley Celtic though there are likely to be far fewer players at the Blue Square North level who have articles who it will affect. However, there may be one or two. 91.106.116.94 (talk) 21:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

List of Ipswich Town F.C. players FLRC
nominated List of Ipswich Town F.C. players for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Sandman888 (talk) 16:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Please come along and join the fun!  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Fan park
Is there any scope for a Fan park article under WP Football? TheBigJagielka (talk) 14:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Play-off matches
A few years back, places 13 and 14 from Romania's Liga I played a two legged tie against runner ups from both Liga II series as a promotion/relegation playoff, after the regular 30 week league was finished. Do you think I should add to some players 32 appearances? Or the two playoff matches don't count towards league appearances? LaUr3nTiU (talk) 16:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Certainly in England, matches in the play-offs are considered "other" matches on a player's record, not league games -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:22, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, that's a start, thanks. I would like a second opinion regarding other countries :D LaUr3nTiU (talk) 01:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think promotion/relegation matches should be treated as league matches. They can be noted in the text or even in tables, but shouldn't be in the infobox. Even matches that are pretty close to league matches like the Mexican Primera Division play-offs or MLS play-offs don't really belong. Jogurney (talk) 04:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Plymouth Argyle F.C.
Is there any chance that this page can be semi-protected? I've had to correct two petty acts of vandalism in the last couple of hours from different IP's and I've done the same many a time in the last couple of months. You have to draw the line somewhere and I've put up with it for long enough. Argyle 4 Life (talk) 23:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * More cleaning up done this morning. A random IP added an American player called Jeremiah Walsh into a number of sections. Not the first time I've had to clean that up either, as I distinctly remember the name from a few months ago. How much longer can this go on? Argyle 4 Life (talk) 05:44, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Past Champions of Second-Tier Montenegrin First League
I stumbled across this article and – quality aside – I couldn't figure out a more appropriate title. It's obviously a list, so it should start as "List of...", but beyond that I wasn't sure. I understand that this league wasn't first tier until the last few years, but as it is now it's just very awkwardly named. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:02, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Why not "List of Champions of Montenegrin First League"? The list can contain an explanation of when the league was second-tier and first-tier. Jogurney (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That/Whatever's fine by me. I didn't know if that would be appropriate since it had a different name whenever it was a second/third-tier league. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 14:43, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Notable player lists
Over the past few days, User:Knepflerle has tagged the notable player sections of numerous club articles with and , and in my opinion rightfuly so. Unfortunately, these tags do little to address the actual issue. I know this issue has been addressed before and we've been unable to reach a consensus. However, with so many reminders in place that we haven't done anything about it, now seems as good a time as any to try again. Personally, I feel that these lists are inherently point of view and should be avoided. If a club hall of fame or a greatest ever team exists, obviously it does make sense to include it, but where no such thing exists, the logical thing to do, in my opinion, would be to replace it with a list of the top goalscorers and most capped players as seen in many of the national team articles. Your thoughts? Sir Sputnik (talk) 02:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * There was a discussion on this a month ago - it's archived here and well worth reading.
 * The main result is that we shouldn't have general catch-all "notable players" sections per se - they should be replaced with sourced and tightly-focused lists such as "Players with over 250 appearances", "Hall of Fame players" etc. The important thing is the sourcing.
 * Although removing the unsourced and unfocused "laundry-lists of editors' personal opinion favourites" is supported (strongly) by our content policies, I have tagged them to give editors of those pages a period of time to salvage them into something acceptable. If they are not improved after being tagged for a decent amount of time, the sections should be removed. Knepflerle (talk) 10:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Many thanx Knepferle. I did made a proposal that nobody wanted to discuss any more. It looked the issue was dead, what is the sudden interess now? Are this lists that anoying? This lists also allow many biographies of older players not to be orphan, and give links between club and players articles. What is the point and purpose of deleting them? How is that going to make WP a better place? More exact? Yes, but, better? I doubt. Please, I think my proposal is worth having a look, changes and adjustments can be donne of course... FkpCascais (talk) 08:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * In the previous discussion it was agreed something should be done, and that the general lists should be be replaced with focused, sourced lists. The tagging is to encourage editors to do just this - to replace the list with something sourced and focused, or (even better) work the players on the list into the main text prose to really explain what these players did. Knepflerle (talk) 09:35, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I am sure that if you went around chopping these lists to inherently flawed club primary sourcing such as hall of fames, or to arbitrary random stat limits which are just as much pointless OR as anything else, or worse, stripping them out completely because someone hasn't replaced it with an enormous wall of text explaining why 20/30/40 odd players were worth noting, then while it might look to you like you've done something to improve the pedia, the people actually reading the pages and know about the club will just be laughing at Wikipedia's inability to understand football, and particularly their club, at all, and the people who knew nothing about the club will simply be worse off, full stop. Unless or until people get out of this ridiculous mindset that just because a list is unsourced it must have been the work of a crazy lunatic or total fanboy, this whole issue will never be solved in the proper way, with a solution that actually produces benefit for the reader and is tailored with specific club knowledge, rather than a one size fits all system, which all prior discussion has shown is the holy grail. Sure, you will get plenty of people rocking up here claiming that their GA/FA has done it this way or that with arbitrary limits/primary sourcing, and its just great, but frankly, when I see a page on a club I actually know about that does it that way, I just laugh at it, because its usually more than evident that a square peg has been forced into a round hole for reasons that have little to do with informing the reader. The outliers/vandalims/fanboy entries on any particular page are always obvious to spot with the most basic research, and any shenanigans will easily be preventable through individual editor/page DR. The remainder of entries, for all but the most insignificant clubs, will usually be easily referenceable to independent, third party sourcing, detailing why the particular player was worth noting over and above the average contemporary clogger (who, if he was there long enough, would likely meet any arbitrary stat limit). Tag bombing these lists, without ever engaging the readers/editors who know why a player is on a list, will never ever improve these pages. I frankly don't know how anyone who still remembers what it was like to be totally unfamiliar with Wikipedia, would ever think that tags like {famous player} are anything less than useless, and easily ignored through simply not having the first clue what it means, let alone how they are supposed to fix it. MickMacNee (talk) 13:03, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Mick, I sympathise to an extent, but I think this section does a pretty good job of it. --Dweller (talk) 13:24, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You could improve the Famous players template to explain better how to fix the problem. A lot of new editors don't understand any maintenance templates, but we still use them.  I agree that if they are to prove useful, it'll probably be because they have been spotted by experienced users.  Football club articles seem to attract a lot of poor quality material, but they also attract a lot of particularly dedicated editors who work hard to make good articles which also satisfy our sourcing policy.
 * You could also go and reference some of this easily referenceable material - feel free. Removing it is another completely valid option, however.  That's what happens to unsourced material that isn't trivially true - be it "crazy lunatic or total fanboy", or just simply unsourced by oversight.  It's not an encyclopaedia if the material can't be backed up, traced-back or supported - it's just a collection of opinions.  It's the fundamental principle which differentiates this project from Knol or h2g2.
 * Not doing anything because you haven't got the perfect one-size-fits all solution isn't helpful. It's a first step. Knepflerle (talk) 13:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You cannot improve the wording of the tag when the football project doesn't even have a clue whether it wants these lists verified to the club, the fans, other football authorities, or truly independent football journalists, which are funnily enough, all also just 'opinions'. No, the real issue has always been, whether these opinion type lists have any place in the team articles at all - and that is true of both unreffed and ref backed lists. The presence of obvious outliers which could never be supported has always been an irrelevant side-show - despite your lack of faith in it, the wiki model is pretty good at fixing those. No, the real issue is, even if you go around demanding sources before you drop your assumption that these lists are defacto personal opinions without reffing, you won't find many independent sources agreeing with each other's lists, single sourcing for individuals has inherent issues regarding balance and recentism, fan polls just have a ton of inherent issues for use as a source, and if done on the net are also notoriously open to all sorts of abuse and distortion, and anything coming directly from the club is a primary source and thus not reliable for asserting anything from a third party perspective, and will never represent the npov. Frankly, most if not all of these sourcing solutions require the reader to have just as much club knowledge as for totally unreffed lists, if they want to truly believe they are getting an accurate, reliable and informative list. The worst solution though, is to not try and deal with all that within policy, and instead, trying to make up and apply arbitrary limits, just because its easy or understandable. Out of all the options for doing something, that is probably the one most likely to guarantee unwarranted inclusions and exclusions, and I would bet would produce worse quality lists than unreffed ones. In the absence of anybody even attempting to draw up agreed upon guidance through that minefield wrt the usual policies of or, npov and rs, then I see absolutely no point in threatening editors, particularly the ones that know their own club, with blanket removal, because nothing will happen apart from you having to turn up and blanket remove it. We probably have fundementally different ideas if that outcome represents improvement, but one thing is for sure, if the past is anything to go by, you will experience high levels of pushback, and for all the reasons above, it is not exactly unwarranted either. if you don't want that to happen, you need to come up with something better than 'it needs a source', and be prepared to explain not only why, but how and where and whatif, over and above saying 'because it is not verifiable'. The fact nobody has ever agreed some sensible responses to these reasonable queries, is why this issue has merely been a rinse repeat cycle of tagging, blanking, unblanking, and failed proposals. MickMacNee (talk) 21:53, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Notable reliably sourced opinions are fine. You're measuring these list against some sort of "truth" yardstick that doesn't exist for something this subjective, and isn't what matters.  "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" - the very first line of WP:V.  You may prefer "true" unverified lists as content over "untrue" verified ones, but the decision to prefer the latter over the former was made a long time ago. Knepflerle (talk) 23:52, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I told you they were subjective myself, reffed or unreffed, did I not? I told you all about what has happened to the various attempts at trying to deal with this with the stock phrases before, did I not? I outlined in great detail the various issues with sourcing these particular types of list to show how 'abide by RS and N' just doesn't cut it as a demand in this field, did I not? And you come back with this? I can only presume you think I'm an idiot, or just didn't read half my post at all. Either way, I'm done here, I've no time for this. Have fun on your blanking spree and the inevitable grief that will entail, because as said above, on the evidence, that is the only direction you are heading at the moment, which is Not A Good Thing, WP:V or no WP:V. MickMacNee (talk) 04:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I still don´t understand why are this lists anoying that much. They are only anoying if they are too large, but that isn´t the case in the vast majority of the club articles... And, it is specially usefull for minor clubs that usually have 5 or 10 players that played for the national teams or were just known, and that is it. We have countries and leagues that don´t even have official club websites, so sorcing them it is difficult. But I do prefer to see what important players have played for some Indonesian, Estonian or Costa Rican club. And Knepferle, many clubs have just too short and simple texts to include them (the players) in it. And I did noteced that we have here editors that are divided by geografical regions, that take care of those lists and other situations. Again, only the major clubs of the major leagues have "Halls of fame". The rest, wich is something like more then 80% of the club articles, are just middle or minor size clubs, wich having this lists is very much the only relevant information they have. Many of you here know, I think, that I mainly edit Serbian and ex-Yugoslav national and foreign players and club articles, so for me, it would be possible to source something like 10 clubs in Serbia. But, what about the rest? Many of them have lists of 10 players that are notable, and removing them, even if unsourced, wouldn´t be beneficial in any possible way. In many cases it was a hard work that was done by some editors to gather them. Again, I think this lists are needed because for many middle and small size clubs it is the most important information that they can offer. And a inclusion in the text can be donne anyway, but a short list provide a more direct info. What I have proposed were the pssibilities of inclusion criteriums for the lists, would they solve the case then? FkpCascais (talk) 08:57, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not a matter of these lists annoying anyone. They must be based on verifiable facts.  Removing unsourced lists is beneficial because it rids the encyclopedia of unverifiable material.  Agreed, not all clubs have a "hall of fame."  But they usually have some mechanism for reconizing players each season.  Best XI?  MVP?  Golden Boot?  A list of the previous winners of these awards (with appropriate inline citations) would be an excellent replacement for an arbitrary list of players based on unverifiable criteria determined by Wikipedia editors on a talk page.  --SkotyWAT<sub style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">C 07:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I do understand well the verifiability obrigatority. That is exactly why I did propose as solution having the list of choices (NT players, more than X caps players, more than X goals players...). The main issue here, that I see many of you really don´t know, is that the "Best XI, MVP or Golden Boot", are only found in the anglo-saxon wourld, Western Europe, plus only major world clubs. And we still have 80% of world clubs without any of those things. You are missing one point. I´ll give you an exemple. In a medium size club in Serbia, you have the squad list, players play during season, and at the end, the club starts preparing the new season, and the best players are sold at the best possible price. Nobody there cares much about any of those possibilities (bestXI, or others...), and the only names recorded in the official website, are the ones that maybe got a call for the national team, and that´s it.
 * I know that many "8th Divition league suburb town Championship" teams have this kind of entretainment (best XI, MVP...), but many even big world clubs just don´t have this sort of things, so some solution must be found for them...
 * I consider that a very valiuable information, because I think we all know the best Real Madrid or Man.Utd. players... The Necaxa´s, Velez Sarsfields, Al-Ahly´s, Steauas, Changsha Gindes, Persepolis´s, Dinamo Tbilisi´s, Petro Luanda´s, Millonarios Bogotá, Raja Casablanca´s... those are the ones I´m defending here. And I doubt many of them have it (I even numbered a big ones, what about smaller?) and even if they do, many are recent, so much of the historical periods of those clubs would be left and forgotten.
 * The NT players can be perfectly sourced, for exemple... FkpCascais (talk) 09:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

fb si player AGE field
Regarding the fb si player template, used on club season articles; don't you all think that editors should swich from  36  to  21 , where the second date is the start of that specific season? I mean, looking back at Real Madrid's 2008-09 season we see that Iker Casillas is 28 years old, which, although true for the present day, is false for the 2008-2009 season. He was 27 years old at the start of the season. This means, 20 years from now, he will be listed as 48 years old, which frankly isn't very relevant to the article. I'm thinking of using 1 July for seasons that start during summer and maybe 1 March or 1 February for seasons that start around spring.LaUr3nTiU (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with you TheBigJagielka (talk) 02:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Is this change only for single season articles? matt91486 (talk) 23:43, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Football player infobox2
I've come across a few instances lately (e.g. Mike Bernard (footballer) where people have put in a version of the infobox whereby all their info on one club (i.e.team, years, caps and goals) is on a single line. This seems easier to me than the long rows of text when you do it the other way. Is this generally regarded as an easier approach and if so is there any way this version could be added to the template example pages e.g. . Eldumpo (talk) 21:26, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If laying out the code in that way helps you edit, go for it! It's got nothing to do with the templates themselves. WFCforLife (talk) 02:55, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep. If you don't do it that way than it came look like Microsoft Excel came and threw up on the article. I have used it in all the Port Vale player articles.--EchetusXe 08:54, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you are interested, I have a small Python script I use to convert old infoboxes to new ones. It doesn't work perfectly (at least not always), but it's quite helpful and I've already used it to convert a lot of infoboxes. And, by the way, it already uses single-line format. A recent example of how it works can be found on Stuart Pearce article (here's the diff). --Angelo (talk) 09:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Can I suggest you use:  |years1= xx |caps1= xx |goals1= xx |clubs1= xx  order? It just lines things up better (club names being vastly varied) which makes it easier to read in edit mode, and makes no difference to display. Be aware I have also had an editor change some infoboxes I did using single line format because s/he didn't like it that way!-- Club Oranje T 10:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I´ll grab a chance to expose my main difficulty with the Inf2. The numbering 1,2,3,4,... when I want to add a club in beggining... It´s painfull. Just a question, or idea. Isn´t there a posibility of making some kind (well, in the fiture) of "numbering" using the # instead of numbers, so the display will automatically number them corectly without needing to do the hole sequence change? Like I do it in my User:FkpCascais/List of saved unreferenced football biographies. I just add them in the begining, and the numbers are actualised naturally. I don´t know if that is possible, or viable, but I couldn´t refrain from asking. FkpCascais (talk) 08:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I have done my first new article/stub using the single line approach (Bobby Brown (footballer born 1940)). It seems there is general agreement this is the best way to do the club stats, which reinforces that it would be useful if this format could be included at the template guide pages.

Angelo - could you post your script somewhere, although as a wider point, is a bot supposed to be automatically chnaging to the new infobox at some stage?

Club Oranje - Have you got any examples of articles created with clubs last. I can see the point you're making but wouldn't it just mean the club is then displayed last?

FKP - I also agree with the point you're making about having an auto-number. Would be very useful when a player has been with various clubs. Eldumpo (talk) 08:22, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Shane Smeltz or Michael McGlinchey are single line examples, clubs last. As you can see, they display as per any other arrangement. I have a widescreen and max width edit box so ones with long names display fine on single line. Narrower views wrap the long lines in edit mode.-- Club Oranje T 10:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I keep the years/clubs/apps/goals order, but bring the years back nearer the LHS and pad the clubs with spaces to the length of the longest one, so that apps/goals still line up. As at Paul Fewings. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:31, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If people are going to invent new ways to order the parameters, could we discuss it before rolling it out please? I'm aware that people have their own ways of doing things, but it would be better if we didn't have five different layout methods on the go. As for auto-numbering, that isn't technically possible to do so without significantly complicating the syntax right now. Sorry. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem, I just wanted to post it as a idea for future (or not), for solving a specific difficulty, since for some leagues, a more complete players careers websites are just appearing now, so a initial career update is needed in many biographies. Thanx Chris. FkpCascais (talk) 04:43, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be possible to create a new template named Fb player history which could be called like   and this template just prints out a TR TD /TD /TR segment? I'll try one in my sandbox and tell you about the results. LaUr3nTiU (talk) 03:55, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I've accomplished that, but only for senior history for the moment. You can view the result here User:LaUr3nTiU/Sandbox. The syntax is quite simple:  |history1 = , where a is the number of appearances, g is for goals, y is for year(s) and c defines the club. I've made a&g optional parameters. For the moment only history1, history2, history3 and history4 is ready, but in 5 seconds it can be expanded up to history10 or history20, you name it. Anyone thinks that I should continue this little project? LaUr3nTiU (talk) 05:59, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, to address User:FkpCascais's request. It can be done easily into  |whole_career =   - So You could easily add a new  at the beginning of the line, so that would be the first to appear in that player's history. LaUr3nTiU (talk). Also we could have |youth_career= and |manager_career for the other two situations.LaUr3nTiU (talk) 06:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, that would make much easier to add clubs (much less numbers to be corrected). FkpCascais (talk) 09:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That was precisely the "significant complication" I was talking about. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:45, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Okie, goodie. I'll create a new template by tomorrow, until then I'm waiting for name suggestions. LaUr3nTiU (talk) 18:12, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Is this really necessary, though? I find it difficult to believe that the amount of code this requires is genuinely worth the effort, which at this time still seems to primarily consist of one user's anecdotal evidence of workflow problems. It means that every other user has to learn this new syntax as well to edit infoboxes so formatted. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Gary Brabin
I'd appreciate it if someone with access to The PFA Premier & Football League Players' Records 1946-2005 would correct either the infobox or the prose in Brabin's article. Gateshead (12 league apps in the infobox, 13 in the prose) aren't listed as one of his clubs in the external links, and also the years don't make sense in the infobox. Thanks. - <span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.4em"> Dudesleeper  talk  16:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1990-91 Gateshead 10-0 loan (+ 1 match in the FA Trophy against Altrincham) 1991-92 2-0 Gateshead 1991-94 Runcorn 98-10 Source :from Alliance to Conference the first 25 years by John Harman and the Non-League club Directory books by Tony Williams (the 1988 edition is the first one with detailed stats) Cattivi (talk) 03:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Nice work. Was the second stint at Gateshead as a permanent signing, or was it still part of the initial loan? - <span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;text-shadow:grey 0.4em 0.4em 0.4em"> Dudesleeper  talk  11:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I know it was a permanent signing (August-Early September 1991) Made his league debut for Runcorn vs. Bath City 21-9-1991 (Non League Club Directory 1993) There is still an error in the infobox, Stockport should be 1989-91 not 89-93 soccerbase.com made an error (Soccerbase is very unreliable at conference level) Cattivi (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

First league game for Gateshead was on 26th January 1991 Cattivi (talk) 13:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Infobox 3
I've updated Infobox2 (read why). Instead of using youthyears1, youthclubs1, years1, cap1, goals2, goals3, nationalyears1 etc I've created a new Template which builds a row consisting of a particular career period. It takes 4 parameters, of which only 2 are required:
 * y - used to insert the time frame; req
 * t - used to insert the team; req
 * a - used to insert the number of appearances;
 * g - used to insert the number of goals.
 * Example:  
 * Also, after updating Infobox2, these are the new parameters which you have to use when you enter a person's career details:
 * youth - parameter used to insert youth career;
 * clubs - parameter used to insert senior career;
 * international - parameter used to insert international career ;
 * managerial - parameter used to insert managerial career.
 * Example:  |international = 
 * I'm waiting for suggestions to name the new templates and I'll transfer them from my sandbox to wiki. Should we use Infobox_football_biography_3? What about the club_year_app_goal template, what name should we adopt?

Edit: You can play around here ;;;;; LaUr3nTiU (talk) 13:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the creation of this template. We do not need yet more templates, especially ones with ambiguous one-letter parameter names as these are confusing. What we need is for people to read the usage documentation on the template page, and if they don't conform to that, we can simply correct it for them. More and more templates is not the way to go. – PeeJay 13:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I can modify it and make it use apps, goals, team, years instead of A G T Y; I've created the template because a number of users thought it would be easier to edit a person's history without having to edit the ending numbers (years1, years2, years3). From my point of view, I don't really care, so if most users agree I'll move it. LaUr3nTiU (talk) 13:15, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You mean people thought it would be easier to implement an extra template instead of changing four characters per line? That's mental. – PeeJay 13:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That is correct. Some people thought it would be easier that way, and I've modified it; that's all :P I'm neither for neither against it's usage. LaUr3nTiU (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I dislike this as well. Two reasons - one, there is such a thing as too much abstraction; two, we still have not finished moving from infobox 1 to 2 - and two is not very hard to use, really. I agree with PeeJay that a comprehensive and understandable documentation that people follow. Madcynic (talk) 13:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As with my reply to the section above, I would oppose moving this into templatespace at this time. The evidence that this is worthwhile is anecdotal at best, consisting primarily of FkpCascais's comments regarding how difficult it is for him to retrospectively add old clubs to infobox2. While that may be a pain, and the solution presented definitely solves it (and as elegantly as is possible - the code is certainly very good), it is not at all clear that significantly complicating the infobox is the right answer when that means that everyone on the project has to learn the new syntax. Even if we do choose to add this facility, it can be incorporated into infobox2 rather than having to fork the template again. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Could you at least Chris not be rude and not call my opinions "anegdotal"? I only pointed one difficulty, and I wasn´t demanding anything... Please reafrain of pointing other editors opinions as "anegdotal", that is not very educated, isn´t it? And we are all here working out to turn this better and more practical... (we are all in same side, remember?) FkpCascais (talk) 20:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My apology for any offence caused; I didn't intend for anecdotal to imply anything about your evidence other than that it was particular to yourself. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, we all know what anecdotal means... Nobody is saying we have to change to this infobox, I pointed out a difficulty I found, LaUr3nTiU was very kind and tryied to see if there was a possibility of fixing it. We´ll see the result and see if it is worth it. Hey, I´m the first one not wanting to complicate the template just to have solved one problem! But please, don´t attack me, or anybody, just for wanting to point or solve some problem... But there isn´t a better moment for trying to fix something with the template than now, and not latter, when all infoboxes are going to be swiched... FkpCascais (talk) 21:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Notability
Can notability be achieved by a player who appears in the media a lot despite not having a club and blagging himself trials with Manchester City/Portsmouth and linking himself with Manchester Utd and Arsenal? TheBigJagielka (talk) 12:06, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't have said so. This sounds like a case of WP:ONEEVENT. – PeeJay 12:29, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Fairs Cup and UEFA Europa League
This IP say that Fairs Cup "was organizated by FIFA" based in this Italian website (but without a UEFA recognition according it), but in that edition of Champions Magazine (official UEFA publication) and FIFA does not confirm that "influence" in that European competition. In the Stanley Rous biography and in the list of FIFA competitions (see p.4), Fairs Cup is not nominated. UEFA not recognize Fairs Cup in the European records and club honours (see p.99). Only recognize that competition as historical predecessor of the Europa League.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 21:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Not sure exactly what the IP has an issue with. They've twice deleted a sentence from Inter-Cities Fairs Cup which describes the UEFA view; perhaps they think that by stating UEFA's view, we're agreeing with it?
 * The Fairs Cup was originally proposed by Ernst Thommen, who was a vice-president of FIFA, and he was supported by people (including Rous) who became senior officials of FIFA, but it wasn't organised by FIFA. (Source: Keir Radnedge, Encyclopedia of Football, ISBN 978-1-85833-979-5) UEFA never liked it because it competed with "their" European Cup, but they accept it as the predecessor of the UEFA Cup/Europa League. Because they didn't organise it, they don't count it as a "European" club honour, which they naturally define as a UEFA-organised competition.
 * Things were different 50 years ago, neither UEFA nor FIFA had the sort of control over football that they do now. The Fairs Cup was a "recognised" "official" competition, in that clubs were keen to enter it and didn't get into trouble with their FA's for doing so, but it wasn't organised by either governing body until UEFA took it over and turned it into the UEFA Cup in 1971. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 22:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

New proposed major change to Football squad system
The nature of this change will be as follows.
 * Fs player will be changed so that if a reference is not included a no reference template will automatically show otherwise the hat note will show.

This change is being requested because often the nationality information shown in the Fs system is at best unreferenced ,inaccurate, out of date or at worse just made up. There is a misconception amongst project members here that nationalities can be referenced on the player pages. This proposal will make it clear that this is not correct and that nationalities in the Fs system which are often controversial need at least 1 reference.

This change will highlight too our readers where nationality have not been referenced and as such may be dubious and too us the editors where references are required.

See User:Gnevin/sandbox3 and User:Gnevin/sandbox4 for examples

I've split this up into several sections. If you disagree or agree with this proposal please indicate so here and not confuse the other sections. Please don't WP:Vote Gnevin (talk) 19:13, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

clarification request
This is still a very confusing proposal to me (User:Equazcion). Some things that I think could do with clarifying:
 * What is "the FS system" you refer to? Is that Template:Football squad start?
 * Yes, Fs system is linked Gnevin (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)


 * When you say "nationality information", do you mean players' nationalities?
 * Yes Gnevin (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If yes to the above question, are these players' nationalities unreferenced in the players' articles, in the team articles, or in Template:Football squad start (or all of those)?
 * In some cases all of the above but this proposal is only concerned with team articles. Aren't the team articles one and the same the same as Template:Football squad start ? [User:Gnevin|Gnevin]] (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)


 * When you say "There is a misconception amongst project members here that nationalities can be referenced on the player pages", what does that mean? I would think player pages would be the place to put references for their nationalities. Do you mean references should be placed in the template as well? Or instead? Why?
 * Reference should appear where ever the contraveral information is i.e the squad template on the club page and the players article as per WP:V and Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/Archive_36 Gnevin (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The discussion below seems to revolve largely around "flags". Could you clarify how they fit in?
 * The trouble with soccer is that players can be eliable for several countries. Now if someone plays at full international level then it's clear they can use the flag of this nation. However the issue arises for players who haven't played full international and may never play full international but are under FIFA rules, eliable for several countries. In cases like this which flag should be used. Currently the pratice has seemed to ranged from the clear cut the player is X to wildy guesses and lets make it up. This pratice can't continue thus I and others are seeking to have references included when claims about nationality are made. Gnevin (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Equazcion ( talk ) 19:24, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * If this is a proposal to change a template, why is a bot needed, and what is its proposed task? <font face="Century Gothic">
 * The bot is needed to notify the relivant pages as to why all of a sudden a template is appearing when no edits have been made and how to deal with it. The notification message will also give editiors the chance to add the references before the second change is made to the Fs system which will automatically show the unreferenced template, if you just have a issue with the bot run can you make that clear as the bot run isn't core to this proposal Gnevin (talk) 19:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of proposal (new)

 * It's a far gentler variation of the original ideas, a very reasonable compromise, and actually educates people on how to use the template if they get to the 30 day mark and are genuinely stuck. I'm very happy for this to go ahead. WFCforLife (talk) 09:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this is a totally unnecessary intervention by an editor who seems to have some kind of personal crusade to rid Wikipedia of flags. The system works fine as it is (yes there are disputes here and there, but there can be disputes even when references are called for because often you can find two sources that contradict each other). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  11:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Ad hominem won't help here and this suggestion was originated by User:Kevin_McE and what harm does it do if we highlight that something doesn't have a reference? Gnevin (talk) 11:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As noted in the comment, references won't always help because you can find contradictory information. As for highlighting this, not everything in Wikipedia has to be referenced - see WP:V, which notes that references are required for "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations". 95% of player nationalities are not going to be challenged. The appropriate place for the other 5% to be dealt with is on the player's article, and definitely not in the squad list. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  13:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If we find contradictory references then they have to be dealt with. This proposal doesn't affect that process . Most of the squads here could be challenged and are challenged a lot. And a RS go on the pages where the information is posted not some where else . This idea of the we have references on one pages and information on a other is quite simply wrong . It's not how wiki works and as a Admin you know this. Gnevin (talk) 14:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As an admin, I don't "know" this - we are not talking about text here, we are merely talking about flagicons next to a link to the player's article. And really, squads are not challenged a lot. I've been a member of this WikiProject for over three years and I can't remember too many cases. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  14:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Nationality and flag dicussions on this project only, not including players pages, clubs pages etc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=flag&prefix=Wikipedia+talk%3AWikiProject+Football%2F&fulltext=Search+archives&fulltext=Search . The flagicon conveys information and information should be referenced inline or at least on the article in quesiton Gnevin (talk) 15:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Can we please just end the bloody discussion and get to a vote? I don't think anything new will crop up here, despite one editor's persistence in keeping us all on our hindlegs on an issue that is absolutely minor and not important enough to be squashed with something this huge. I agree with пﮟოьεԻ  that there have not been many cases of challenging squads and I therefore believe that this proposal its entirety is breaking a butterfly on a wheel. It just adds to unnecessarily strict rules that may prevent some from editing - and I think we all can agree that this is a bad thing.
 * Naturally, controversial nationalities should be verified, but this can happen via the player article, not on the squad page. Madcynic (talk) 17:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * How does this prevent anyone from editing?
 * Show me where WP:V says x fact can be verified on page y sorry but this is patient nonsense.
 * It seems to me you mention flags here and some will automatically jump to never, never, never.
 * User also claim it's not a major issue or flags/nationalities are often disputed ,despite the fact we've a 10 section discussion above, 48 discussions that mention the word nationality and 51 that mention the word flag. That's not including debates on club pages and player pages. All this proposal does it automate something I could manually add if I wished
 * Also WP:Vote Gnevin (talk) 18:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * So we have about 90 discussion regarding issues you intend to fix with that. That of course is the majority of the 3771 discussion on this talk page (archives only). I can see that. I do not claim that WP:V says anything about secondary verification. What I -am- saying is that the majority of nationalities are not likely to be challenged and hence your proposal, especially the post-threshold hatnote is over the top. You are suggesting to add 20+ references to most team entries on wikipedia, when in actuality this is only necessary in a small percentage of these cases. This is what is bothering me. Also, and that's what I meant with "may keep people from editing", this adds additional burden on editors to provide a reference for stuff that in most cases is terribly difficult to actually reference, because it is a non-issue for most players out there. And as soon as people start seeing the post-threshold note, saying basically (i'm aware it's a standard phrase on wikipedia, but it is bad nevertheless) their addition will be removed, they might (mind you, I said might) hesitate to add anything else.
 * I repeat - I believe your intentions are valid, yet the method you suggest is not good.
 * P.S. including the existence of a 10-section discussion to which opponents and proponents contributed as an argument for your proposal is an ... interesting way of arguing.
 * Also WP:VINE. Madcynic (talk) 21:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The post-threshold is like all unreferenced templates, I copied unreferenced but I've no objections to a softer tone or stick with the first template for longer. I am suggesting adding 1 reference. Every club here should be notable and as such have sites with squads . Some may require more than 1 reference but I'd suspect very few. Gnevin (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Case in point my home town club, 1. FC Magdeburg, notable, has a site (in German). Does not mention players' nationality. I'm sure this is the case with more than just this club. As I've said before - and which you obviously disagree on or just chose to ignore - nationality is not generally something that needs to be referenced. Madcynic (talk) 22:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't this work for 1. FC Magdeburg? Jogurney (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In theory, yes, but it lists our captain as Austrian exclusively. He has never played for either Serbia (birth country) or Austria (citizenship), hence a problem with the source. Anyway, I didn't want to reduce this to a discussion about an example, but point out that this proposal creates more workload without actually creating the benefit. I think I've made my point, so I'll refrain from restating it again and again. Madcynic (talk) 23:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * or would do no? I'm aware that several users feels that nationality isn't something that need to be referenced I am also aware that several users feel its fine. If you take number57's 5% of articles references on the players page which WP:V says isn't correct. We've 275 articles in need of references. If you include a other 5% for other articles with general flags issues that is 550! I think 10% is a very low ball number tooGnevin (talk) 23:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The Radovan Vujanović example illustrates precisely why such a thing is necessary. His nationality is not simple and beyond dispute, but there is no consensus for no flag or multiple flags, therefore, as a basic principle of Wikipedia, any potentially questionable statement we make must be justified by reference to a reliable source on the same page as that claim is made.  There is an element to which the RS will be chosen according to an editor's preference as to whether he is to be regarded as Austrian (per www.kicker.de) or Serbian (as www.soccerway.com would have it): that debate would have to take place on the club's article.  But whichever is chosen will be displayed, and the hatnote will explain that there might be room for contention.  Kevin McE (talk) 00:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I respectfully agree that yes, there is controversy there - but what kind of solution is it to resort to editor's preference? Picking any of the two flags over the other is basically violating WP:NPOV in my opinion. This conflict cannot be resolved by adding a reference as per the proposal, but only by adding support for a second flag - which is out of the question, as players may hold more than two nationalities. Hence, deep doodoo that the proposal here does not remedy. But no more of me, I'm opposed to it and that's that. Madcynic (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * We allow one editor from a random section of the world to set spelling conventions for the entire article they have contributed to, regardless of how similar articles are spelt ("color" in red, "colour" in blue being classic examples). It's certainly nothing new to say that editor discretion is involved. In the case of two good faith, set in stone conflicting views backed by reliable sources, nothing is stopping us from adding a footnote for that player. WFCforLife (talk) 02:32, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * What I should have said last night (it was late...) was that the RS should be selected in accordance with the principle of sporting nationality (although the definition of this is less than clearcut). Hopefully this would be the goal of the debate at the club article; such debate should mean that we have the result of consensus rather than editor's preference.  But at least when there is debate, there will be recourse to an external justification of the choice made, which there is not at present. Kevin McE (talk) 07:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Such debate would of should go along the lines of well and   back up claim that he's serbian. I'd suggest perhaps maybe kicker is mistaken. This is all an a side as these sort of debates would happen with or with out this change Gnevin (talk) 09:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought most squad lists on club articles were already sourced to a club website, so I don't think this proposal is very controversial. If I understand correctly, it simply adds a clarifying hatnote to the reference. As such, I support the change. Jogurney (talk) 17:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The hat note is already live, this proposal is if no ref is supplied User:Gnevin/sandbox1 will show Gnevin (talk) 18:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * That is fine with me, so long as someone doesn't read that notice as the go-ahead to summarily delete all unsourced squad lists (without at least trying to source them first). Jogurney (talk) 19:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability, saying x fact can be verified on page y is not allowed! Gnevin (talk) 20:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm happy with the current proposal. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:59, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry but I will oppose any possible attempt of sourcing players' nationalities within the team itself. Every player may have its own unique case, and also official websites aren't always that correct in them. So sporting nationalities should be sourced in the only place around that actually fits it, that is the subject's article. Also, I don't really understand the reason for all your concerns involving sporting nationalities, but that's another thing, so I will stop here and just reaffirm my refusal of this (and any other potentially similar) proposal. --Angelo (talk) 21:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As per Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability your claim the only  only place around that actually fits it, that is the subject's article is totally incorrect Gnevin (talk) 23:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't really think a short talkpage discussion represents policy, so my claim stands. --Angelo (talk) 08:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If you doubt the discussion then challenge it. As such until you do you opinion is against policy and risks not be considered when this discussion is concluded Gnevin (talk) 10:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm neutral on whether it should be that way, but Gnevin is correct. WP:V suggests that we should always source in the article. If you want to challenge that interpretation, it might be worth contributing to the discussion there, and/or starting an RfC on it. My opinion is that it's easier to give a simple source in the article, with each player's going into more detail on their individual page. Requiring a ref on the club page goes a little way towards compensating for the real problem- player articles are often poorly referenced. WFCforLife (talk) 14:19, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:V says that we are supposed to source information that is likely to be challenged. It does not say that everything in an article has to be referenced. In the case of squad rosters the only piece of information that is regularly challenged is the flag next to a players name, not whether or not they are on the team, what position they play, or what number they have. There is also the problem of teams not having their player's sporting nationality on their team roster pages. As an example, the roster for Seattle Sounders FC rarely has edit wars over anything other than what flag should be next to Steve Zakuani's name and, currently, whether David Estrada should have the #9 next to his name. A link to the team roster would not solve this problem because the Sounders only list a player's hometown and David Estrada has not made it onto the team's roster page yet. Not even the roster on the MLS main page is overly helpful because it lists the country of birth, rather than a players sporting nationality. It seems to me that the current proposal is using a sledgehammer to address a minor issue and still doesn't resolve the minor issue. --Bobblehead (rants) 19:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah a other this won't work just look at X. Yet when X is looked at a RS is easily found. If Estrada hasn't been given a squad number then we should show none Gnevin (talk) 20:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S This says Estrada  isn't number 9 yet! This is the point of adding this template its about encourging people to actually look for sources rather than pretend its not broken, make up stuff or claim it's so broken it's beyond fixing Gnevin (talk) 20:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * P.P.S Sebastien Le Toux should have an american flag at Philadelphia Union as per his declared preference . So in summary, English flag no number, American flag as per the refs supplied  Gnevin (talk) 20:45, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Correction |Steve wants to play for congo Gnevin (talk) 20:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for proving my point here, Gnevin. There are sources out there with contradictory information. You pointed at Steve Zakuani's combine bio on MLSnet to justify him needing a English flag, but someone else could point at the Sounders roster also on MLSnet to justify him needing a DRC flag. It wasn't until Zakuani was interviewed by a blog (not a reliable source) that the edit warring stopped. As for Sebastian Le Toux, your evidence is incorrect. Le Toux is not a US citizen and has no ties other than having lived here under a work visa for a short period of time, so even if he would like to be called up by the USMNT, he couldn't be. Putting the US flag next to his name would be incorrect. The point of putting references is to actually prevent edit wars and so far you've just proven how hard it is to support one claim versus another when trying to establish the sporting nationality of a player that hasn't been called up. Requiring references at a squad level when that reference does not even remotely resolve the problem is not a solution that should be explored. --Bobblehead (rants) 22:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not an expert about soccer players, gah and ruggers are my games. The point is when we going looking for references these issues become fair clearer not less clear even if they contradict each other as the balance of evidence allows us to say well its 10 saying DRC and 4 saying english, we use a DRC flag but perhap a note beside his name. Blogs can be RS and in this case it is. I didn't read about Le Toux, I assumed he had egilablity it he was declearing he wanted to play for America Gnevin (talk) 22:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * For most of the players where there are edit wars over which sporting nationality they should have, the problem is that there are an equal number of sources showing that the player would qualify for each country's national team, because more often then not, the problem is from the players own biography. Just to keep using Steve Zakuani as an example, if it weren't for that interview his own biography shows that he can be both a DRC and an English player. There simply wasn't a way to decide which flag he should have until he made that declaration. There is also a difference between a source that can be used to end an edit war and a source that can be used in the article. By any stretch of the imagination, Zakuani's interview with Sounders At Heart is not a reliable source that can be used in the article, but it is the source that ended the edit war. --Bobblehead (rants) 22:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * . It's a RS. So what is your solution here ignore his ambiguous nationality? I don't see how this affects the proposal. No doubt you'll be able to find dozens of examples like this but so what? It's clearly an issue and I don't see how requesting references will make it worse? Gnevin (talk) 22:42, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * So I have a question. What happens if you can't find a standalone link which shows a squad's nationalities, but each individual player's nationality is verified on their individual page, only from different sources? For example; let's pretend for a second that the only place that shows squad lists for the USL Second Division squads is the USL website at . The squad lists on that site do not show nationalities. However, each player article has a link to their US college bio, which DOES confirm their nationality. How do we source the squad list? Any link we provide for the team as a whole will be useless because it doesn't show the nationality, but we can't put in the individual player links either. --JonBroxton (talk) 21:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Example User:Gnevin/sandbox6 Gnevin (talk) 21:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, but I still don't know how you did that. --JonBroxton (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If you tell me what you don't understand I may be able to explain but in a nutshell . I added a wiki link to the references sections at the start of Fs start such as (currently this is only in my sandbox) . I also added references after Fs end as you normally would . Gnevin (talk) 21:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't understand which link we're supposed to use. If the squad has 28 players, but there is no one link showing the nationality of all 28, are you seriously saying we're supposed to add 28 individual links which show up at the bottom of the squad list? If so, that's utterly stupid. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec)Your example does not resolve the problem, Gnevin. You're divorcing the references from the material they are supposed to support. No one is going to click through six links at the end of the roster table to find the link that supports that Nigel Marples is Canadian. Why not have the link showing Marples is Canadian next to his name? That way there is no question about what the reference is for. --Bobblehead (rants) 22:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Or, better yet, click on Marples' name and find plenty of links confirming Marples' nationality in his references section. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed ref to after players name and click on Marples' name and find plenty of links confirming Marples' nationality in his references section >> Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability Gnevin (talk) 22:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * But that still doesn't address the issue of the original reference. Without having a reference to a single external squad list link at the top of the template, that big ugly warning sign is still going to appear. We can't put all 28 references (or however many) in there - unless there's some complicated formatting issue to do with referencing other references which I don't understand. If it's the latter, again, you're making it massively over-complicated for the average editor. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No wiki markup isn't that smart. All you need to do to make the template disappear is to add |gibbish after Fs start. Incases like this an internal wiki link will do ,as per User:Gnevin/sandbox6. Gnevin (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Wait, what? Doesn't that negate the point of having the template change? If anyone can just put anything in there to make the template disappear, what's the point of even making this change? I was under the impression that you HAD to have an EXTERNAL LINK to a source showing the squad list. If I can just write "blah blah blah" and have the same result, as soon as people figure this out, we're going to be back to square one before long. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's the same for all wiki pages. It will be removed as vandalism or caught before too long. Are you looking for any excuse to say no? Gnevin (talk) 22:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, I'm looking for reasons to say yes to this, and I'm having trouble finding any. From what I've seen, what you're proposing is no better than what we have now (the new disclaimer at the top of the squad lists), potentially brings up a whole load of new problems when we have valid sources that don't fit the narrow criteria of the template, has formatting/layout/line alignment issues through the uses of superscript references in a table, and has an easy work-around where anyone can put anything in the template reference and have the warning box disappear. --JonBroxton (talk) 23:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * when we have valid sources that don't fit the narrow criteria of the template what do you mean?
 * WP:RS are more important then formatting.
 * A lot of thinks have an easy work-around. It's doesn't mean we don't do it . If I add unreferenced the workaround is simple just remove it. Gnevin (talk) 23:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Where are we with this? Should we post the nofication message? Gnevin (talk) 13:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm going to start making the chances for this Gnevin (talk) 22:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

How the change would happen (new)
If this change is accepted. The change will occur in the following way.

If you have any suggestions please post them here Gnevin (talk)
 * 1) Fs start will be modified to accept and display a field called reference but it won't auto display the template
 * 2) A bot run will post a notification message on every talk page where the FS template system is in use.
 * 3) After X days a second change will be made to Fs start at that time any unreferenced templates will shown User:Gnevin/sandbox1.
 * 4) After 30 days the template will be changed to User:Gnevin/sandbox5

How long to give to add references (new)
It needs to be decided how long we give the user before we make the second change to the FS system. I'd suggest 30 days Gnevin (talk) 09:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Notification message (new)
How should we word the notification message .I've no opinion on this at the moment Gnevin (talk) 09:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Should we post a notification message on the talk page in order to generate more discussion if so on all 5,000 pages or a select number? Or should we start to get to work on the notification message? Gnevin (talk) 21:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Again I ask, where do you get off saying there has been "agreement"? What is that we you keep talking about? Madcynic (talk) 15:20, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the first time you've asked me about my usage of the term agreement. I suppose I get off (nice aggressive tone by the way) by wanting to discuss it in case there is an agreement. As this template shows what would be posted if agreement was achieved Gnevin (talk) 23:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well yes, I get that the template shows this. However, I am - and hence my usage of the term "get off" somewhat annoyed by the form of the whole discussion which always resorts to using a "we" when it comes to your proposal where I'd suggest using a terminology along the lines of "I". Then there's your resorting to a tiny bit of talk on another page which -you- initiated when someone questions the validity of adding these references. Add to that -your- using the discussion your proposal spawned as a supporting argument for your proposal. Then the relative lack of a widespread discussion, but maybe I just don't see that widespread discussion. Taken all of these together, I get the feeling that this is more of an ego trip than a sensible addition to the project, whether this term be used to designate WP:FOOTY or the whole nine yards. Madcynic (talk) 00:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Feel better for that rant? I've no I idea what this of the whole discussion which always resorts to using a "we" when it comes to your proposal where I'd suggest using a terminology along the lines of "I". is about. I have no idea seriously. If you disagree with my tiny bit of talk then challenge it don't moan at me for asking people who know better to clarify something. The discussion my proposal spawned directly supports and contradicts a common misconception amongst project members here, it is entirely apt here. As for your Ad hominem about a ego trip, I'm not overly invested in this proposal if it passes it does, if it doesn't I ain't loosing any sleep of it . Gnevin (talk) 01:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Changes to hat note (new)
The current suggested hat note reads Note:Flags indicate most recent FIFA national representation, or for a player who has not appeared internationally, nationality as verified .Individuals may hold other eligibilities if you've any suggestons please post here Gnevin (talk) 09:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the wording needs to be tweaked on this just a bit. Sometimes the most recent FIFA national representation a player had is no longer valid (and that's why they don't represent the team any more).  Take Taylor Graham for example.  He has only ever represented Puerto Rico 3 teams.  However, it has been determined by FIFA that he is not eligible to represent Puerto Rico now.  That mean's he's only currently eligible to represent the US, but his skills are not good enought to actually ever get a call-up.  Therefore, Puerto Rico will always be his "most recent representation", but is no longer valid for him.  I propose adding a paranthetical clarification to the first clause of the sentence such as Note: Flags indicate most recent FIFA national representation (if still valid), or....  Alternatively, I think this could be solved with some clear documentation and possibly some examples on the template doc page.  --SkotyWAT<sub style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">C 16:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Poll
Can you please indicate your support or not for this proposalGnevin (talk) 00:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Support, with reasons

 * 1) Having been part of the discussion that resulted in this formulation, I support this formulation.  However, even if it is rejected, the phrasing currently displayed should not stand, for reasons that have been stated before, and so those opposing really should make their counter-proposal.  Kevin McE (talk) 23:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) I also support. As with the BLP situation, it's clear that forcing editors to deal with this in a very short space of time, or drammatically altering articles, is not an acceptable solution. It is equally clear that leaving nationalities unverified is against policy, regardless of the opinions of this project. This is a sensible, well thought out solution. While I have disagreed with you at times, I commend you for your persistence and patience on the matter Gnevin. WFCforLife (talk) 17:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) I support requiring verifiability in this manner.  --SkotyWAT<sub style="margin-left:-1.0ex;">C 16:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) There ought to be some verification of nationalities assigned in the squad list, and typically this is easy to find on the club's website or at a general football website, because although most nationality assignments are not controversial, some are. This seems like a reasonable request that some source is provided to verify the assignments used in the article. Jogurney (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) Tentative support, we need a reliable source for the addition of flags, but I don't feel that the players club is a good source because IMO they just use birthplace which on wikipedia is contary to WP:FLAGBIO  Mo ainm  ~Talk  09:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 6) Support This needs to be referenced. The WP:BAG won't do the bot run unless support is clearer, if you support can you please indicate if you support Gnevin (talk) 17:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Oppose, with reasons

 * 1) Oppose. I feel this change is too strict and harsh in both tone and manner, following from what I think is a unnecessarily strict interpretation of WP:Source. Madcynic (talk) 20:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment a unnecessarily strict interpretation of WP:Source which your unwilling to challenge ! Gnevin (talk) 20:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - is this a vote or yet another discussion in which you ignore arguments and go back and forth with the same sentences? I've said several times that WP:V says content that is likely to be challenged needs a ref, but not all nationalities are likely to be challenged, hence my opinion that this proposal is overblown. Madcynic (talk) 10:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thats fair enough, thanks for making that clearer. So if one was to challenge a nationality you'd have no problem with a reference being added to the squad list? I'd contend that me and the users who are voting yes are challenging the whole nationality system currently in placeGnevin (talk) 13:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, challenges must be met with a ref, but I deny that a reference is always obligatory for the nationality. Madcynic (talk) 13:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose I feel this is a solution looking for a problem. Not necessary - player articles are the place to dispute nationality, not squad lists. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  21:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment player articles are the place to dispute nationality, not squad lists wrong Gnevin (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Why is that wrong? I don't understand. – PeeJay 21:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/Archive_36 Gnevin (talk) 21:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * In that case, I think we need a complete overhaul of the system we use to display teams' current squads. Perhaps a table containing any relevant information might be a better idea. Such a table would obviously include squad number (if the club's league uses squad numbers), position, name, nationality and a reference column, as well as other info such as date of birth, loan status, captaincy status. – PeeJay 21:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe so but I've no interest in getting involved with that particular can of worms Gnevin (talk) 21:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * @ PeeJay2K3, When you say nationality what are you referring too? What about a player who is uncapped and is eligible for more than one country? Mo ainm  ~Talk  14:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As per the hatnote we use the nationality that can be verified by a Reliable source Gnevin (talk) 14:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Which is usually their birth place. So do you then add the flag of the birthplace? If yes is this not against WP:FLAGBIO? Mo ainm  ~Talk  14:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If their club site or other RS has a flag or a nationality field then FLAGBIO doesn't apply Gnevin (talk) 15:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course it does, the clubs will only be using their birthplace, they don't have to abide by flagbio. Mo ainm  ~Talk  16:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Club will be using they flags to indicate nationality not place of birth or death, flagbio doesn't apply Gnevin (talk) 18:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose automated placing of tags on large numbers of articles, except when dealing with exceptional top-importance issues such as potential breaches of BLP. Possibly getting people's nationality wrong doesn't do it for me. --Dweller (talk) 16:43, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Aren't the majority of players currently playing football alive? Thus they are BLP and as such should be cited per BLP. What other facts about living people do you not mind we get wrong? Gnevin (talk) 19:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Saying that someone who is Welsh is Scottish on a club squad list isn't going to get Wikipedia sued. Saying someone has sex with gerbils is. I don't buy this "any mistake in a BLP is a disaster" meme we're seeing at the moment - that's not what prompted us to adopt WP:BLP. --Dweller (talk) 06:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If I wanted to get all pointy I would remove all these flags in a bot run pointing to Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.
 * And you'd be reverted and warned for, as you correctly say, being POINTY. Contentious material needs to be contentious, in order to be contentious. --Dweller (talk) 10:25, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Once it is removed, by definition it is contentious so warning would be wrong. Mo ainm  ~Talk  10:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Something doesn't become contentious because someone has removed it. Otherwise, we wouldn't warn and block vandals for blanking text. Nationality is not a blanket contentious issue, which is what it would need to be. --Dweller (talk) 10:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It is with players born in Northern Ireland, eligible by birth to play for either NI or ROI. Mo ainm  ~Talk  11:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not a blanket issue. --Dweller (talk) 13:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * At least 4 users here, the users saying yes fell it's contentious, just because you want to stick you head in the sand doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist Gnevin (talk) 14:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, how is that a helpful reply? First, I'm not sticking my head anywhere. I disagree with you that the accuracy of a tiny flag against a footballer's name in a squad list without a source is contentious or contentious enough for a proliferation of horrible bot-placed tags to festoon our articles. Furthermore, if 1,000 or 1,000,000 people thought I was wrong, that's not a reason for me to change my mind. And even if that were a reason (which I would argue against until my final breath), you seem to have overlooked the inconvenient fact that it's not just me that doesn't want you to do this. You'll need to persuade me using real arguments, not POINTY irrelevances or bluster. --Dweller (talk) 16:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well if you don't accept there is a problem even if a vast majority of users said there. That's fair enough. I don't know what if anything would change your mind. My final argument is that removing the automatically added tag would be extremely simple, a reference is all that is required and would solve the flag issue but if your happy with nationalities invented on a whim or worse then carry on Gnevin (talk) 16:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose I don't feel that there is a real problem with occasionally having a slightly incorrect flag next to a footballer's name; it's not really the end of the world is it? In any case, this proposed "solution" is far too overblown for a thing as minor as this. -- Big  Dom  07:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue is not the danger that a flag may be incorrect (that is something that can be corrected), but that the correct (by Wiki standards) nationality is often not obvious: a person who is by any usual standard Brazilian will be listed as Croatian, Tunisian or German, and we need to explain why. Kevin McE (talk) 23:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that is an argument for removing flags completely. With some players there may be no correct answer. Do we really know whether Eduardo considers himself to be Croatian or Brazilian? Maybe he (as a high profile player) has given a media interview where he confirms this, but many players won't have. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * My raising questions over the whole assumption that we should show a flag, or indicate one nationality exclusively, was the indirect catalyst for this proposal, so I won't disagree with you, but to many people it seems unthinkable that we omit this assumption. Kevin McE (talk) 17:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)#:#
 * "I don't feel that there is a real problem with occasionally having a slightly incorrect flag next to a footballer's name; it's not really the end of the world is it" - well, it should worry you. You're writing an encyclopaedia, people come to it looking for accurate information, not speculation, supposition or guesswork. The entire point of this project is reliable, accurate information. Knepflerle (talk) 11:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, if we're properly writing an encyclopaedia then perhaps a current squad has no place in the articles at all because it is fairly blatant recentism. If we're looking for comprehensive factuality, why choose a group of players that happens to be at the club at the moment rather than one of the hundreds of other teams that will have played for the club during its existence and may well have been a damn sight more successful? -- Big  Dom  06:55, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a major difference between recentism and just being wrong. Recentism presents information that many not be relevant in the longer term but doesn't harm the accuracy of the project while being wrong does. To put it other way one is an essay the other is the core of the project Gnevin (talk) 08:53, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose The vast majority of players do not appear at international level, therefore for many players it would be impossible to accurately say which nationality they are. There should be a general reference from the squad listing to the club's website (which should have a page listing their current squad), anything more than that is excessive. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 09:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And for many that have played internationally, the country that they have represented is more a case of availing of an opportunity that a reflection of their nationality as it would normally be understood. Kevin McE (talk) 17:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment This proposal is requiring exactly that a a general reference from the squad listing to the club's website in the vast majority of cases Gnevin (talk) 10:01, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * In that case, I misunderstood the proposal. I thought it would require a reference for each individual's nationality. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:16, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * NO it's not required the proposal is that at least 1 reference be added, be it club or soccernet or whatever. I've one size fits all then no need for extra workGnevin (talk) 10:34, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you support this proposal now ? Gnevin (talk) 12:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "therefore for many players it would be impossible to accurately say which nationality they are" - but you're still proposing that we say something nonetheless? This is an encyclopaedia, people trust our information to be accurate.  If we can't be accurate on something, we shouldn't say anything. - that's the entire point of WP:V, we don't just use guesswork and supposition. Knepflerle (talk) 11:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose -- This seems to be some sort of special application of WP:V for certain article types, which I see no special need for in this case. BLP issues already have their own templates to deal with verifiability issues. Also, it's not entirely clear from the intro of this discussion section what exactly the proposed change is and what its rationale is. It makes reference to some proposal made "above", which I'm assuming was perhaps archived? Anyway, for those not privy to previous discussion, a simplified listing of rationale and proposed changes seems to be in order before your advertising of this vote on other pages will bear fruit. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 18:28, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I assume when you said advertising that was a long typo and you met informed in a neutral fashion? So my understand is you voted no because a link was broken? Wouldn't it be better to try to understand the issue before voting? There is a massive discussion above, reading that should of make the rationale clear, the proposed changed are listed Gnevin (talk) 18:37, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We refer on Wikipedia to such information as advertising. That was not a typo nor a characterization of your postings as improper. Making people read through the hullabaloo above will not be conducive to any constructive result. It's better if the proposal were spelled out simply. As I understand the proposal thus far, I oppose it, and if you think I need clarification, you should provide it as I suggest, because it probably means others who come here will be similarly confused. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 18:43, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of it referred to as such and it brings to mind WP:PARENT at least to me but maybe that's just me. I've updated the intro. I agree it was unclear Gnevin (talk) 19:11, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems I pretty much understood what this proposal was about, and I still oppose it. If information in a table is unverified, that doesn't mean we need to plaster unref-type messages across all articles containing it. Which flag a player has next to his name seems like a relatively trivial matter to go through all of this for. Furthermore I don't think tables with large lists of players as their data should really require a reference each to show that the flag displayed is accurate. That really seems like overkill, and impractical. The references in the players' articles are enough. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 20:26, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * The references in the players' articles are enough well if you just want to ignore policy ... Gnevin (talk) 20:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * When I feel a strict interpretation of policy harms the encyclopedia, that is exactly what I do, as policies are not laws. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 20:41, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:IAR please ! We all know IAR doesn't allow us to invent ,steal or slander. WP:BLP,WP:COPY and the WP:5P which includes WP:V can't be ignored. So should I just go steal some slanderous text and paste it on an article as per WP:IAR. I some how don't think the banning admin is going to acknowledge my defence. Quote WP:IAR to ingore WP:V is extremely worrying to me. p.s if you took the time to read the discussion or look at the examples you would see the vast majority of these will require 1 reference not a reference per player Gnevin (talk) 20:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Saying that a player plays for the wrong country isn't slander, and I don't see it as any other significant BLP concern. I'm not ignoring WP:V per se, just your interpretation of it, which I see as excessively strict. There's lots of info in articles that doesn't have referencing, and even according to policy doesn't necessarily need it, unless it's challenged. To suddenly say that for a certain type of info, references are always needed, when there's no real slander concern, is actually contrary to a leniency that is specifically built into policy. So really, you could say that if anyone here is ignoring the rules, it's you. Bottom line is, we disagree on policy interpretation. You can keep telling me I'm wrong (as you've been doing with others who disagree), but you'd catch more flies with honey. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 20:56, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not my interpretation its the people at WP:Vs, I and other are challenging the information in the FS system as a whole. So it is being challenged the only difference is we are doing it centrally instead of adding unreferenced to 6,000 articles. I never claimed it was slander just pointing out the quoting IAR in this case is  nonsense how does leaving made up fact on wiki unchallenged  help improving or maintaining wiki? I've only told people who have maintained The references in the players' articles are enough. or similar they are wrong. I asked WP:V and they said this is wrong. Now challenge WP:V if you wish but until you do I am maintaining this is wrong Gnevin (talk) 21:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And I'm maintaining that it's not wrong. So again we seem to disagree. Perhaps the editors who responded to you at WP:V might agree with you; they're allowed to. But, that doesn't change much, as they are no more of an authority on the subject than me, or the other people commenting here. As for challenging all the info in all player tables -- Can I challenge all info in every TV show template then, too? They tend to list actors, who are BLPs. As long as we're making across-the-board challenges, why not challenge all info across all articles? Can we do that too? You see where I'm going with this. The policy is intended to mean that a particular fact can be challenged at a particular article, and if no one can produce a source, it can be removed. Suddenly declaring that you challenge all flags next to players' names isn't really what was intended, because if you can make broad challenges like that, it would defeat that very leniency. Even if you insist on saying policy supports doing something about this, I maintain it is not such a big deal as to warrant all of this. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 21:22, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * If you think WP:V is wrong then I respectfully suggest you go there and open a discussion. They may not be a authority but together they have formed a consensus, maybe you will not be like every other editor here who chooses to ignore the con from V because it doesn't suit there agenda.What info would you be challenging in the TV show template or actors, I'm not aware of any information that has so consistently proven contentious and is so often wrong. If a certain set of facts has been proven to consistently contentios a centralised challenge is fair game to me, it just means I'm challenging here than spaming fact everywhere. What does warrant all of this mean? It's a simple change to a template, a bot run and some editors finds references ,which I could challenge them to do anyway if I had the time to start at A FC and finish at ZZZ FCGnevin (talk) 21:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I've said what I came here to say. Just a note, I never said WP:V is wrong. I disagree with your interpretation of it (and perhaps the interpretations of those who you're speaking for at WP:V, but I wouldn't know without looking at the actual discussion there). And, I have no agenda, yet still disagree with you. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 21:50, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me get this straight, you've spent the last 2 hours here and you never clicked the link I've posted multiple times. I think it's time to WP:TEA because I am very close to saying something I'll regret . Gnevin (talk) 21:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yet again you haven't read the link. It's not my interpretation, as I've stated at least 5 times. Why don't you read the link?  Why don't you challenge their interpretation of policy? Like everyone who opposed here they want to ignore it because it disagrees with them.  Gnevin (talk) 22:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That discussion doesn't convince me. You asked a more general question, in essence, "Can references be provided in one article and affect another article", and I would've responded in a similar way to those who did there. I have a feeling some of those editors, at least, might feel differently if they knew the actual situation you were referring to, with these flags. And if their interpretation were enough, and any vote here that contradicts it is invalid, there would be no need for this discussion. But there is, and we're having it. Don't strike other people's comments again, no matter how wrong you think they are, or how wrong you think the people at WP:V think they are. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 22:26, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * Striking vote might of been pointy but at least it got you to read the link, it only took 2 hours. Now if you disagree with it challenge it Gnevin (talk) 22:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As I just said, I don't disagree with the WP:V discussion. I disagree with your proposal. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 22:33, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * You said numerous times you disagreed with it but I suppose that was before you read it . I guess your entitled too change your opinion after you've read the thing you have offered your opinion on at least 5 times! You disagree why or are you keeping it vague in the hope I don't ask any more questionsGnevin (talk) 22:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I said I disagree with your interpretation. You kept saying "It's not my interpretation it's theirs," so I said I might disagree with them too then, but I wouldn't know for sure til I read the discussion. I've already described, extensively, why I disagree with your proposal. See above. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 22:53, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * No you haven't you said The references in the players' articles are enough but this is directly contradicted by Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/Archive_36 now you've also said I would've responded in a similar way to those who did there. So do you agree with it or not? If you don't agree with it then there is no point in discussing it you need to discussion it there. If you agree with it then please clarify your positionGnevin (talk) 23:21, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with what they said, and disagree with your proposal. I don't share your assertion they they are both one in the same. Saying that references don't apply across articles is different from saying I think a bot needs to plaster templates around because the little flags next to players' names might be inaccurate. I've explained my position pretty well above. If you don't get it by now, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to let it go and accept the fact that there are people in the world who disagree with you. <font face="Century Gothic"> Equazcion ( talk ) 23:32, 19 Mar 2010 (UTC)
 * To quote myself I've only told people who have maintained The references in the players articles are enough. or similar they are wrong. I asked WP:V and they said this is wrong. I've never claimed the discussion at V backup you this proposal just that you can't say fact X is referenced at Y . Now the only other reason I can see you oppose is you claim it would never multiple references which isn't correct Gnevin (talk) 00:36, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Other
Can I propose just removing flags for footballers altogether based on this being yet another example of them simply not working? I'll strike if this is counterproductive.Cptnono (talk) 10:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Nationality is an important piece of information for football players and even if we used words they would need references. The best solution would be only to show a nationality when players have played for a nation team ,however others would say a players potential national team is important. Also don't some league have limits on foreign players ? Gnevin (talk) 08:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * International is defined differently in soccer/football than it is in the rest of the world. In MLS a person is an International if they aren't a citizen or have permanent residency status in the country the team is located in. As an example, if you look at the roster for Toronto FC, only have 6 out of 21 players on their roster are Canadians, despite MLS rules saying they can have at most 13 internationals on their roster. The reason for this is because many of their players have permanent residency status in Canada, so for MLS purposes they aren't counted as an international. --Bobblehead (rants) 01:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "The best solution would be only to show a nationality when players have played for a nation team": got it in one. I suggested the very same at the start of the year . Knepflerle (talk) 11:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)