Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 5

Lower levels of the National League System
Is there a great need to have separate articles for each division of every league in the NLS? Steps 1-6 I can understand, but below there it seems a bit unnecessary, as there's not much that can be said about, say, the Anglian Combination that warrants four separate articles. I'd propose that all leagues at step 7 (level 11 overall) be merged into a single article for the league. By my reckoning, this would combine each of the following leagues into a single article each:


 * Anglian Combination (Premier, One, Two, Three)
 * I've re-formatted most of the Anglian Combination main page to show how much information can be included in a single league article, negating the need for separate divisional articles. I know it's not now the prettiest article on Wikipedia, but am hoping someone else can now pick it up and run with it. (I haven't checked all the spellings either - there may be a typo or two on there!) - fchd 18:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Bedfordshire Football League (Premier) (formerly Bedford & District League)
 * Brighton Hove and District Football League (Premier)
 * Cambridgeshire Football League (Premier)
 * Central Midlands League (Supreme, Premier)
 * Crawley and District Football League (Premier)
 * East Berkshire Football League (Premier)
 * East Sussex Football League (Premier)
 * Essex and Suffolk Border Football League (Premier)
 * Essex Olympian Football League (One)
 * Hertfordshire Senior County League (Premier)
 * Kent County League (Premier)
 * Leicestershire Senior League (Premier)
 * Manchester Football League (Premier)
 * Mid Cheshire Football League (One)
 * Middlesex County Football League (Premier)
 * Midland Football Combination (Premier)
 * Mid-Sussex Football League (Premier)
 * North Berks Football League (One)
 * Northampton Town Football League (Premier)
 * Northamptonshire Football Combination (Premier)
 * Northern Football Alliance (Premier)
 * Oxfordshire Senior Football League (Premier)
 * Peterborough and District Football League (Premier)
 * Reading Football League (Senior)
 * Somerset County Football League (Premier)
 * Staffordshire County Senior Football League (Premier, One)
 * Suffolk and Ipswich Football League (Senior)
 * West Cheshire Amateur Football League (One)
 * West Lancashire Football League (Premier)
 * West Midlands Regional League (Premier)
 * Wiltshire Football League (Premier, One)
 * Worthing and District Football League (Premier)

Also:
 * Kent League (Premier Division at step 5, but First and Second divisions are just for reserve football)

As well as being easier to navigate for readers, this would make Category:English football competitions more manageable. Thoughts? — sjorford++ 10:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds sensible to me. Oldelpaso 17:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree too. If you need a hand drop me a line on my talk page. Qwghlm 11:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree also. But there's just getting more and more of them. I'm not even sure of the notability of divisions at higher levels. Division names change frequently (see Southern League). Just one article for each league, explaining the current and recent structures as part of the intro seems sensible to me. - fchd 15:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to disagree here. One of the goals of Wikipedia is to contain as much information as possible. Having a single article for a league containing 2 or more divisions defeats the purpose because eventually, past winners as well as the runners-up of each division will be included in these articles. Having only one article to deal with two or more divisions would prove to be inadequate. Moreover, all the clubs within the English football league system have the potential to be promoted to the highest league of English soccer. If we base on notability criteria on which clubs or leagues to include in Wikipedia, it would mean that even some second division clubs will not be able to have an article of their own. The goal of this project is to expand the information and knowledge of the various clubs and leagues and NOT to decrease it. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  16:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Nobody's talking about decreasing knowledge. All I was saying was that we should organise things better, by not having hundreds of articles each only a page long. For the vast majority of leagues below level 10, as they are at the moment', there isn't enough information to warrant having seven separate articles on the Anglian Combination, for example, when it'll all fit perfectly fine on one. If we do start adding tables of past winners and runners-up and the article starts to get unmanageably long, then it can be split up, but I just don't see that happening right now. But I'm certainly not suggesting deleting any leagues from Wikipedia completely. Individual club articles are a different matter - see the discussion below. — sjorford++ 16:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I can understand your point of view. In fact, I was the one who created most of these articles. However, it is NOT in my intention to just create them as stubs and forget about them. I am planning to improve these articles further in content and style. All the articles which I have created have the potential for greater expansion of content. In the meantime, I have to gather more research and information about them. Moreover, I am concentrating my efforts for the time being, in the creation of other leagues within the English football league system. But rest assured, it has always been my intention to improve the content on the articles which I have created in the future. This may take me a few months, so I hope that you would be patient about this. This also applies to the club articles which I have created as well. My goal here is to include every football club within the English football league system into Wikipedia eventually. And most of these articles would definitely have room for expansion in the future. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  16:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Person data?
Is it new? User is adding some sort of "person data" template in several players' articles. Would somebody check his contribs and tell me what is it about? —Lesfer (talk/@) 05:49, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Persondata is special metadata which can be added to biographical articles. This metadata can then be extracted and processed automatically (unlike conventional Wikipedia content). It consists of a set of standardized data fields which include basic information about the person, such as name, birthday, place of birth, etc. This metadata can be used for a variety of purposes, including advanced search capabilities, statistical analysis, automated categorization, and birthday lists. The addition of persondata will not affect the normal display of an article since the information remains hidden unless a user sets their user stylesheet to display it. – AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 08:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks! :D —Lesfer (talk/@) 16:28, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Style of FIFA World Cup articles
I've been doing minor edits to 2006 FIFA World Cup, and I like the style that's used there &mdash; in particular, I think is much better than the tables used in 1998 FIFA World Cup, so I'd like to change other articles (starting with 1998 FIFA World Cup) to use that style... does that sound like a good thing to do? --StuartBrady (Talk) 19:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Flags or Emblems
After adding flags to the past winners part of Copa Libertadores de América, an inactive user returned, who had been working on the article last year. He expressed that previously, where now on the article below every team it says their country, and has its national flag, it previously had the club emblems. I noticed that User:Ed g2s removed on the grounds that use as decoration (i.e, they added no relevant information that could not be obtained from the link provided) was not fair use. User:Sebastiankessel argued in favour of the emblems, saying that the clubs enter to represent themselves, and no their country, where as I claimed that they do inadvertantly represent football from the league they come from, and as winnings are divided between the club and league federation of their home country, the country they come from was relevant. I thought it should be discussed here as this place works to make footballing articles uniform.

So, should international club competitions display the club emblems or the club's country's flag? Philc TECI 21:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The full discussion is here: Talk:Copa Libertadores de América. Like I said in the talk page club emblems look better and are more representative although I don't have problems with using flags either. And how about using both? Bruno18 21:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think Phil could've expressed my opinions any better. Sebastian Kessel Talk 22:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * From the fair use policy: "8. The material must contribute significantly to the article (e.g. identify the subject of an article, or specifically illustrate relevant points or sections within the text) and must not serve a purely decorative purpose." As the Copa Libertadores is the subject of the article, not the individual clubs, Ed g2s is correct to say that fair use logos cannot be used. Oldelpaso 08:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Oldelpaso - the rules on fair use are clear cut - they are quite clearly not allowed as decoration for templates or trophy listings. The choice is not between national flag and club crest, but national flag or nothing at all. I'm not bothered whether to include flags, but the main point is that we cannot use the club crest. Qwghlm 17:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeh that was one of the points raised if you read the initial question, Oldelpaso just confermed it for us. Philc  TECI 16:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggested Merge
Just to bring this to everyone's attention, Chuq has suggested merging aggregate score and the away goals rule into the Two-legged article. Post any comments you might have on this page. - Pal 13:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

FA Cup
It would be nice to do something like the 2006 Wimbledon Championships - Men's Singles with the brackets etc.. for this season's upcoming FA Cup and then try to fill-in previous years competitions. Jooler 16:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Like with the world cup articles? One problem is how incredibly huge the fa cup tree would be, considering it includes about 150 clubs. Philc  TECI 16:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd argue that including brackets in a non-bracketed, random-draw tournament is misleading to the reader. - Pal 16:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * And also the tree is uneven, not everyone starts in the first round. Philc  TECI 16:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The fact that it's uneven because new teams a brought in in each round, means you need to break it into sections, I'm not talking about one huge single bracket.I see what you say though about the unknown status of the following rounds, I hadn't considered that to be honest. I have a book here in front of me, published in 1960, which shows a bracketed table for every FA Cup from 1871/72 to 1958/59 (from the 3rd round on for the later competitions), so it could be done for past competitons anyway, but maybe for an ongoing competition you could break- it up by not having connecting brackets for the rounds which have not yet been drawn. Jooler 17:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Season templates
Has there been any work on creating pages for league seasons? Currently some leagues are similiar, but other season recaps are pretty different. I think this would be useful. Thoughts? Rballou 16:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Do you mean '2000-01 in English football' kind off thing, a broad look at that countries league season, or '2000-01 in FA Premier League' kind of thing, looking at the events off a specific league? Because if so they both have been done. Or do you mean something else? Gran2 11:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Championship Clubs
Recently I created the squad template for Portsmouth which meant every club in the Premiership had one. (I also created the Everton one)

There are only 3 Championship sides that have one Southampton, Wolves and Birmingham. I think that all championsip sides should have one and then we should move on to League 1. Basically all teams that have most of their players with wikipedia articles need one. Simply copy the code of another template and edit it accordingly. Use Birmingham as it has the code to put it in the championship squad category making sure you change the word Birmingham to the team you are making --SenorKristobbal 13:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I help with getting them done-- Ch ild zy talkcontribs 14:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've just added Ipswich to all the relevant pages. Budgiekiller 15:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

good to see response quickly SenorKristobbal 15:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

League One
I have just started the category for League One teams, and have created the template for Bournemouth. All of the Championship squad templates have now been completed, so we now need to get making the League One templates. --  MATTYTHEWHITE    yap    stalk   17/8/06


 * So far I've only created templates for the clubs who have articles for the majority of the players, which isn't the case for a lot of the third tier teams. I suppose it's because templates with loys of redlinks look untidy, and kind of pointless. Although there is an argument that they will encourage people to create articles. ArtVandelay13 20:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the speedy reply. There are still a few teams with lots of player links yet to have templates made, which I think I will make tomorrow, too tired right now. I think that could be true about the encouragement to make articles with red links, interesting thought. --  MATTYTHEWHITE    yap    stalk   17/8/06


 * Thanks for doing the Bournemouth template, though, that full squad table copied onto every page really needed replacing.... ArtVandelay13 20:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Cellpadding=0

 * I've just realised that the bordered header of certain templates looks ridiculously large in Internet Explorer (which is rubbish). It can be fixed by removing the cellpadding="0" text from the end of the second line.   SLUMGUM    yap    stalk    13:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Global template
I might be missing something here, but why are we creating templates for every page rather than just creating one global template to which the information can be added? It would be relatively trivial to create a template the looked like the ones above but where the team name, team colours and player names (maybe setting an upper limit of 22 players) could all be added in as variables. -- Daduzi  talk  16:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've seen that attempted bu Veila in his hard hats mandatory section its harder than it sounds. That would be excellent though. Also upper limit of 22 is just silly. SenorKristobbal 16:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Very complex stuff that you are talking about, BTW i added the template to the Burnley FC players. Another point, it wont be possible to do templates for lower leagues as there are not articles for all of the players, see Bury F.C.

It's not that hard, really. The reason I was suggesting limiting it to 22 player was because then it could be fitted onto one template, but then I realised it could just be split across 3 templates like the current football squad template. I decided to play around with it and here's what I came up with:

Creates:

Creates:

The squads aren't full simply because I was too lazy to do every player. So, what do you think, is this a workable solution?-- Daduzi  talk  19:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Nice. I would add a border colour aswell though, for 3-coloured teams (see Exeter City). ArtVandelay13 19:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, done, and the examples above have been changed accordingly. -- Daduzi  talk  19:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks good (despite my earlier manual labour!) but the current templates use only the surnames (or used names) of the players to keep the size of the template down a bit. That's where the hard work comes in really I suppose because you'd need to link to Green instead of Robert Green (or Groin as we like to refer to him as....).  But it's certainly an excellent start. Budgiekiller 19:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's easy enough, you just change the name field to a piped link like so:

-- Daduzi  talk  20:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Uh-huh, I understand the use of the pipe, but what I'm thinking is that by the time you go through all of this, you're not any better off than if you'd have used the original template. It took me about seven minutes to generate my template after i'd copied the current squad from the Ipswich Town F.C. page.  Job done.  It only takes one fan per club to do this and we're laughing, no real need to optimise things?  Budgiekiller 20:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, first of all by using variables for the colours anyone who wants to add their own team's template doesn't have to go looking through the code to find where the colour values are (and it also makes it easier to update the squads as it can be done from the main article rather than from the template). Secondly, it saves a bit of space by not having loads of separate templates all doing essentially the same thing, with each probably only being used on one page. Finally, and most importantly, it means that if it's decided later on to change the layout of the template only one template will need to be changed rather than having to go to every single club page and change the templates on them. Basically, it makes standardisation a whole lot easier, which is, after all, one of the main purposes of this project. -- Daduzi  talk  20:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, understood. Your third point is by far the most pertinent, and I do understand the main purpose of the project.  As regards your second, it seems usual to add the squad template to each player within the squad, so each template gets used at least 22 times (or more!), and as for colours, does every league club's colour have a definition like green and yellow (e.g. Burnley - claret & blue, Coventry - sky blue)?  Having said that, I totally, totally go along with the idea of a single template for all league clubs if possible.  And I think we're about 60% of the way there.  I do think that limiting squads to 22 is silly, especially with Chelsea, for example, who will have at least 22 world class players (as compared with Ipswich, who will have 22 world class toes!). Budgiekiller 21:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As regards colours, you don't have to use colour names you can use hexidecimal values too, like so:


 * The thing is, there's no way that the piping could realistically be automated by the template anyway - there's too much variation, some players go by first name, first name and surname, one of many surnames, a nickname, etc. Also some players' articles have " (footballer)" in them. It has to be up to the user. ArtVandelay13 20:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm very impressed by this idea, from a standardisation viewpoint. I have 2 easily remedied issues though:
 * 1- the cellpadding="0" text on the first line still creates a mess when viewed in Internet Explorer.
 * 2- for the last player, I've made Template:football squad2 lastplayer (without the pipe).
 *  SLUMGUM   yap    stalk    20:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of that myself, but was worried it might make things too confusing for editors. Thinking about it, though, there's no reason why couldn't be added to football squad2 lastplayer, making things even easier. I hope you don't mind but I changed football squad2 lastplayer to include the ending brackets, so now we don't need to use  . I've gone ahead and changed the usage guide at Template talk:Football squad2 start accordingly. Oh, and anyone who's worried about 22 player limits, there's no limit to the number of players you can add to this template. -- Daduzi   talk  21:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I've also gone ahead and removed the "cellpadding=0" -- Daduzi  talk  21:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, so the template looks fine, but in what sense is this easier to use (automatic) as compared to what we're already doing? Budgiekiller 21:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Because it means that anyone who wants to add a box to a page can do so without having to know HTML, and anyone who wants to change the squad list can do so direct from the article page rather than having to go to the template. It also means the look is standardised across all articles. -- Daduzi  talk  21:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes this is excellent as it creates templates identical to the current ones butmakes it easier to make new ones i.e. no need to change old ones. Only one change I would make - have background forced white. Colours of team are in header, good idea to have all backgrounds white. SenorKristobbal 21:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I understand the RGB values too (I'm an image processing engineer!) but I was just working out how your new template would make the generation of new templates easier. I understand that for the Wikipedia servers life is a bit a easier, but now, if we go ahead with this, we'd need to go back through all Premiership clubs and some Championship clubs replacing all the existing templates.  And we're just moving away from Wiki markup tables and towards the template.  And, once more, don't get me wrong, this is all heading the right way, but I'm just being cautious about the overhead involved (in either direction...).  Budgiekiller 21:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Mental breakthrough - deal. Daduzi, thanks for your patience in explaining the advantages.  They're all good.  Keep up the good (great) work.  Budgiekiller 21:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, and I'll try. -- Daduzi  talk  22:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: If users want to add the coach, it is possible to type "Coach" instead of the squad number for the lastplayer.  SLUMGUM   yap    stalk    21:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I updated the Everton one with the new template. It did show the tiniest problem which I have fixed. You put a normal space after a non breaking space which caused the template to get too big as between the player name and the | there were 2 spaces. I removed the standard space and left the nbsp in and now the template looks identical to before. I also removed customisation of bg colour on the names. As I say colours in the title are great but all white for this bit with the players in just looks better. AS for adding coaches I think its best we keep them off as they aren't eligible to play in most cases - obviously if they are include them SenorKristobbal 22:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem: When putting the categories on the templates it puts every player into the categories See SenorKristobbal 22:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Another problem - overlapping see Osman's page SenorKristobbal 22:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC) FIXED OVERLAPPING SenorKristobbal 22:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks like the categorisation problem's gone too now. Was that you or me? -- Daduzi  talk  23:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

neither its still there I was tinkering with the Everton template and I completely removed the categories from that page at one point as I saw you put a category in the main template but that removed the everton template from the category as well as the players SenorKristobbal 23:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Well that explains it. I'm absolutely baffled as to what has caused this, though, as the tags are on the template. I might raise this at Village pump (technical) as this is a bit beyond my capabilities. And by a bit I mean a lot. -- Daduzi  talk  23:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have raised it myself although you may be able to ask better questions if you want to add to it SenorKristobbal 23:15, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to have gone away now (I changed the first to ).-- Daduzi  talk  23:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

yep looking good I think its problem free now SenorKristobbal 10:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

New players
I was thinking about the guidelines for the global templates (seen here). As far as the squad number field (no=) is concerned, I think that the use of 'new' instead of '--' (or "tba" or similar) for new players should be encouraged since it shows that players are new signings rather than youth players who probably shouldn't be on the list anyway. The only loophole is players who've returned from loan and may not be restored to their old number. Is it prudent to make this minor guideline or just leave it open to interpretation? It is a problem that only really presents itself during preseason.  SLUMGUM   yap    stalk    01:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

perhaps instead of new "tba" could be used as this would suit loan returns as well as new signings. SenorKristobbal 22:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I dislike "tba" (as I mentioned above) as it doesn't explain why it's "to be announced". "new" does.   Slumgum   T.   C. ''  23:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you really need to know why? New cannot work due to loan returns. Any explanation would have to be an * with an explanation at the bottom which would make the boxes too big. SenorKristobbal 16:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Managers
Should managers be included on the club squad templates? They are included on the international templates, as Djdannyp pointed out to me, so what do you guys think? --  MATTYTHEWHITE    yap    stalk   18/8/06

Historical flags
Hi everyone, I was looking for feedback on an idea I had, of using parser templates to make flags change based on year. People tend to go to a lot of effort on sports articles to make sure, say, that the 1934 shows the Kingdom of Italy flag with the coat of arms. My idea (fairly easy to implement) is that we should add a parameter to flag templates (and templates which use flag templates) so that users need not lookup when the flags changed, but merely put in the year of the competition and the correct flag is shown. This would not only make life easier for adding new competitions (especially long result tables), but also save us a lot of work if a country's flag changes.

I posted this on a the flag-related wikiproject but got no responses...would people uses this, or is the current set up fine?

Basically, the result would be something like this:

Moszczynski 17:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

There still is a problem with your proposal. If a flag changed in 2006 for instance what happens when the year stated in the code is 2006? Which flag would appear? The one before the flag change or after? Even if you ask for a full date, there will always be a problem. Think of Serbia and Montenegro who split in 2006. After the country had split the national football team represented both new countries with the old flag if you follow me.

It is a good idea but I think it might be better if we keep it the way it is at the moment... Julien Tuerlinckx 19:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a great idea, since I have had the experience of having to trawl through several pages to find the right flag. As for countries maintaining their flags even after dissolution, you can simply put in the year before or whenever to achieve the desired result. Saves more time than the current method. Benjy613 22:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Infobox linking(?)
I just thought that this would be the place to point out the inconsistancies of the various style guides concerning football player infoboxes.

Note the differences between: Ideally the top three should have a good concensus, and all four have been quoted at me by various editors. Personally I've been making partially linked infoboxes like: Boudewijn Zenden. Basically some anal retentive admin got on my case that they should be like that soon after I started editing here. Anyway it's time that we came to a proper concensus and updated 1 & 2. aLii 19:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) WikiProject Football/Players (everything linked)
 * 2) Template talk:Football player infobox (nothing linked)
 * 3) Overlinking (ambiguous)
 * 4) Ignore all rules (unhelpful)


 * This might be something for the Infoboxes section on the templates page, that well, doesn't have any content whatsoever (I also believe the content should be available on the template page as well). I personally like 1 better. I think the info box is a good way to quickly navigate information that might be buried on longer pages (players with long histories, etc. might list all the clubs somewhere, but it is easier to get to them on the infobox). --Rballou 20:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Templates and rebranding of FIFA tournaments
Hi, I'm not part of the WikiProject, but I just wanted to point out the rebranding of several FIFA competitions (see Talk:FIFA), and wanted to ask you guys to change any of the relevant templates accordingly, as well as any categories. I was starting to do it myself, but noticed that templates are standardized so I didn't want to mess them up. I am however changing the relevant articles, but anyone willing to help is more than welcome. Thanks, --Gabbec 04:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Which templates in particular are you talking about?-- Daduzi  talk  17:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * In particular, Template:FIFA U-17 World Championship, Template:Women's football and Template:International club football, as well as Categories with the previous names of the tournaments. For the first template, it's the heading, the 2007 edition and the v-d-e links at the top right that should be changed; for the second, it's the U-17 women's (the U-20 women's isn't a "world cup" yet); for the third it's just the Club World Cup. Thanks, --Gabbec 22:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, all the templates have been changed to link to World Cup rather than Championship. For the U17 one I set the link to World Cup but set the title as "U-17 World Cup/World Championship", since otherwise it looked a bit weird on the past tournament pages. I'll have a look at the categories later. -- Daduzi  talk  01:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Regards, --Gabbec 02:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Notability of youth players
Recently I've discovered several articles (all stubs) of actually unknown players who simply are or were part of youth squads for teams such as Inter, AC Milan, Juventus and so on. Usually, these players appeared no more than a couple of match, or even did not appear at all, in the first team. Since I don't think these players are notable enough for having an article here in Wikipedia, I ask you if it would be a good idea to submit them all for deletion.

The players are: Alessandro Matri, Patrick Kalambay, Ignazio Abate, Ilario Aloe, Luca Antonini, Federico Piovaccari, Leonardo Bonucci, Domenico Criscito, Domenico Germinale, Leandro Greco, Pietro Pipolo, Marco Andreolli, Tijani Belaid. --Angelo 14:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd always thought that the general rule was "If they've played any top league level games then they are notable". From a cursory glance over those articles it looks to me as if those players are notable. The main problem is that the articles are just (sometimes untidy) stubs. Would you say that even Scott Carson was notable if you just looked at his stats? aLii 20:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Carson was part of the English team in the last World Cup, so he is a notable player. My question is: does a youth team player become notable by just playing a few minutes in a Serie A match? None of these guys plays regularly in the first team, and none of them is part of any national team. --Angelo 01:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * My point is that stats don't tell these players apart from someone like Carson, infact a lot of them have had much more of a football career, games-wise at least. Just because I've never heard of them doesn't mean aren't notable. I'll refer you to Articles for deletion/Danny Knowles for an example of what exactly is notable. (see also Articles for deletion/Danny Knowles (2 nomination)), cheers, aLii 12:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * According to WP:BIO, they should be fine:

The following types of people may merit their own Wikipedia articles... Sportspeople/athletes who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States. Articles about first team squad members who have not made a first team appearance may also be appropriate, but only if the individual is at a club of sufficient stature that most members of its squad are worthy of articles.
 * Looks like the articles are OK even if the players have never made an appearance, given that the clubs in question are at the very top level.-- Daduzi  talk  16:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Official Statistical Sources?
Apologies if I'm recovering well-trodden ground here, but I'm new to the association football articles. I started by trying to rationalize some of the World Cup articles, in the process of trying to build my own (non-wiki) database of World Cup goalscorers. What I quickly found was a morass. In the first World Cup, in 1930, there are at least a half-dozen major discrepancies in goalscorers between the various sources of information. The most famous example is of course Patenaude's maybe, maybe-not hat trick. You'd think FIFA would be the official source, but the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that FIFA is wrong. So that middle Patenaude goal: was it Patenaude, as claimed by his teammates and some articles at RSSSF? Was it an own goal by González, as in the primary RSSSF report? Was it Tom Francis, as claimed by FIFA's official report? And that's just one example. My question is, WHO does Wikipedia rely on as the deciding word? Right now, different pages claim different things, which drives me crazy. At the very minimum, if we DO accept multiple versions of the story, the fact of the controversy should be mentioned in EACH of the articles where it occurs, in the form of "some sources credit this goal to X, this article is relying on the version in source Y."

Some candidates I've seen for official reference are: FIFA (as archived online on the Yahoosports pages); RSSSF (whose pages also disagree with each other); Cris Freddi's book The Complete Book of the World Cup 2006; and presumably others. What I would LIKE to see is Wikipedia settle on a single preferred source. I think it should be RSSSF, but I'm open to other ideas. I'm finding it a little hard to believe that the world's most popular sport doesn't have authoritative base for its most important facts -- baseball in contrast has records of the most mundane imaginable facts about players who played in the 1870s. I mean, come on, these are WORLD CUP goals, and no one knows who scored them? \ Fnarf999 \ talk \ contribs \ 18:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think they are all valid sources. In cases where there is a dispute of some kind it should be noted as such. In the Patenaude case you could perhaps list two conflicting links or perhaps one like this from thefa.com. The FIFA website is pretty poor in my opinion. rsssf is usually good. I've decided that news portals (bbc, yahoo, etc.) are as good a source as any. However as you say there is a distinct lack of a comprehensive source - a gap in the market perhaps? One huge gap is statistics from the South American leagues - trying to find stats from when some random Brazilian was 19 can be almost impossible. Even Pelé is terribly documented! aLii 20:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I don't consider that link to be a valid source; it's the FA, but it's a general-interest article without sources. I'm referring to the difference between the rsssf report and FIFA's official match report. These are both "official" and yet in disagreement. I have in front of me a printed copy of The World Cup: The Complete History by Terry Crouch which echoes the FIFA report. Apparently Complete Book of the World Cup by Cris Freddi credits Patenaude with the hat trick, no goal by Florie and no own goal by González.


 * It appears that conventional wisdom around Wikipedia is that Patenaude's hat trick is a myth; the story is discounted with a great deal of sarcasm when it comes up. I have no axe to grind either way; I don't give a damn WHAT we decide, as long as we decide SOMETHING and stick to it and defend it rationally. I love football but I love data more! And, if anything, Subiabre's "four" versus "one" goal count bothers me more. \ Fnarf999 \ talk \ contribs \ 22:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but I don't see how rsssf is more official than theFA. In my eyes rsssf is good, but on a par with wikipedia in that it's written by knowledgable members of the public. We are talking about an incident 76 years ago which only 800 people witnessed and I'm almost certain there's no footage of. I guess if you could get two different FIFA sources that agreed then that would be the best one could do. If you're just looking at one half-FIFA webpage there's plenty of room for the odd error to creep in :( aLii 12:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's where I stand now, and what I've been making changes based on: official FIFA game reports ONLY. Other FIFA documents, produced by who knows what department of a vast international organization, especially when they are prepared for promotional purposes, as opposed to official record-keeping, bear much less weight in my mind. It all comes back to the OFFICIAL GAME REPORTS; these are the source of all else in the FIFA realm.

Now, these game reports may well be wrong. As you say, 76 years ago, a crowd of players with no names or numbers on their shirts in front of the goal mouth, no film or replay or probably even photos to go by -- there's bound to be differences. Wikipedia does not do original research. We collate the research of others. And by the standards of WP:V, our abiding standard is not TRUTH but VERIFIABILITY. If FIFA says Subiabre scored the goal, then we report that fact and a reference to it, regardless of what the real truth is -- if there is a "real truth".

RSSSF is NOT a verifiable source at this point. They make claims, but they do not support their claims with evidence of a standard that Wikipedia can rely on. I have no doubt that their research is solid and their facts more closely resemble the truth than FIFA's, BUT: they don't show their work. Unless and until RSSSF produces the actual evidence of the research that was done -- what sources, newspapers, eyewitness accounts, etc., that they used to arrive at their conclusions, they have little weight in an encyclopedia. The same goes for the printed resources people have used: if they actually discuss WHY AND HOW their facts differ from FIFAs, it must be considered speculation, I think.

The solution I arrived at was to base the articles on FIFA game reports, with FOOTNOTES that point out discrepancies with RSSSF. RSSSF has enough weight to be a "mentionable" source. Other discrepant sources could be added, if there are third opinions that hold some weight. What I really want to avoid is "some sources say" -- these are "weasel words". If you have another source, NAME IT. I also want to avoid the use as sources of third- or fourth- or fifth-party journalism, such as a newspaper article about "ten interesting facts about the World Cup" or some such.

I'm open to arguments from other points of view, but so far I'm not hearing any. I have already completed modifying the 1930, 1934 and 1938 World Cup pages to this standard. I hope that's acceptable. I also hope that if people think it's wrong they'll discuss it on the talk pages before just throwing out my work! \ Fnarf999 \ talk \ contribs \ 16:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Just to note that I personally agree with your solution. aLii 17:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to confess to using RSSSF as a source, and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that provided it's clearly cited. Users can determine its validity got themselves. While I do agree that FIFA is a more reliable source, they are themselves not infallible and so are subject to similar, though lesser, caveats as RSSF. I think taking FIFA over RSSSF is a reasonable guideline, but RSSSF also provides a lot of statistics FIFA does not, and which are difficult, if not impossible, to find elsewhere. If you want to find out who was the top scorer in the Iranian league in 1971, for instance, it's unlikely that FIFA would be much help. I don't think it's reasonable to state that RSSSF can never be a source, then, just that it should be approached with caution (as should 99% of sources). -- Daduzi  talk  21:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, I totally agree. That's why I am including the RSSSF information as a footnote. But where OFFICIAL results exist from FIFA, I think we have to use them. Even if we know they are wrong. \ Fnarf999 \ talk \ contribs \ 21:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

assists?
Are assisits actually recorded? If they are a documented stat, then they should be recorded on players' pages.
 * Sometimes at the highest level, but in general, no. While for some competitions, a company called Opta Sportsdata issues a plethora of semi-official stats for various things, such stats are frequently unofficial (often recorded solely for the purposes of fantasy football competitions) and can vary depending on the source. Unlike, say, ice hockey, relatively little importance is given to assists, for example, in the World Cup assists are used as a tiebreaker for the Golden Shoe, but are otherwise ignored. Oldelpaso 08:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

England-footybio-stub split
This has become very large, and the existing permanent categories aren't much use in finding enough sufficient stub types to split out to reduce it significantly. I've proposed two types for full and U21 internationals; if you have any comments on those, or additional suggestions, please contribute them there. Alai 20:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Standardisation
Can we sort out which infoboxes we are going to use for both Stadiums and players? I have seen two which I particularly like. Gustavo López for the football players infobox and Estadio Azteca for the stadium infobox. They are not mine but I think they are the best. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Oscar86 (talk • contribs).
 * After digging around in the archives I've found the discussion which took place about the stadium template when it was first created. I thought that template was deprecated but evidently it is still used in places. IIRC the difference between the player templates is that one is for current players and one is for retired players, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Oldelpaso 17:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Referees/officials?
Hi, I'm relatively new to contributing to WP. I noticed that several referees have their own WP entries (Collina, Frisk, Merk etc), but little in terms of standardisation. I wonder whether it's worthwhile to have a template for notable match officials, since "player" ones are not appropriate (eg. referees don't "change clubs")?--Alexio 05:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea. The one problem I could foresee is difficulty in getting statistics, but if that can be solved it'd definitely be worth putting in. The only other question is what to put in. The usual biographical stuff would have to be there (full name, date of birth, place of birth and so on). Then there could be a section for games refereed (split into domestic and international). Aside from that, possibly number of yellow and red cards issued? I'm not sure, I'd be interested to hear what others think. -- Daduzi  talk  07:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I thought the Graham Poll article was very nicely done; a little too nicely done perhaps, full commends to the author, although replicating those results would bump into the problems you brought up: gathering the information will be very difficult. Tentatively I'd say the number of domestic games, international honours, plus any major controversies. Frankly, I do not see the point of focussing on the perceived prejudices of officials and how they're perceived by the public (Mike Riley being case in point).--Alexio 13:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I get you now, for some reason I thought you were talking about an infobox for referee pages, rather than a style template (though it might also be worth creating an infobox). I guess given that "honours" is out of the question (unless there's a golden whistle I'm unaware of) a basic intro->biography (if possible)->matches refereed (ie statistics)->see also/links/references structure would be a good start. It might also be an idea to include a section on high profile matches refereed (though that could go in the biography). As to perceived biases, I'd agree that the Mike Riley article doesn't handle it well, on the other hand a "media scrutiny" section, dealing with press and/or managerial comments about them, might be an idea given how big an issue that is for modern day refs. -- Daduzi  talk  13:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Club manager and Club staff categories
It seems to me that the club manager categories, e.g. Category:Liverpool F.C. managers, are pretty redundant - most clubs' pages have a list which does the job much better, being presented chronologically and having other information. I think the category could be made more useful by expending it to staff, i.e. non-playing staff, encompassing Chairmen, Coaches, Scouts, etc. This would enable a lot of people to be categorised with a club when they haven't really before. Even if it's felt that the manager category ought to be kept, I think that staff categories would be useful. Any thoughts? ArtVandelay13 12:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. -- Daduzi  talk  12:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, so, next question, how do you rename categories? Or get them renamed? ArtVandelay13 15:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, well that's the fun part, you'll have to manually change the category links on every article to point to the new category, then put the old one up for categories for deletion. It might be an idea to consider using a bot to do the link changing, you can ask someone else to set one up at Bot requests. -- Daduzi  talk  17:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

International Football Squad Templates
With the continual addition of more and more international football squad templates, I thought it would be a good idea to change these templates to have them collapsable as below.

World Cup Squads

So far I've made a few adjustments to it, but I can't get it perfect.

I've made a list at on the discussion section of Template:World Cup Squads that needs to be done to the new template to make it useable on wikipedia.

Hopefully this will be used on all past international templates as it doesn't take up so much space on players pages. Could also be used on squads of special importances, such as the Liverpool 2005 squad who won the champions league etc.

Please note any changes you've made to the template on the templates talk page and please advise anything else which should be done to it.

Thanks

Niall123 22:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem
Smaller and smaller football clubs are writing articles. Up and Under, for example, are around level 18 in England. Some threshold is needed or every pub team will decide they are encyclopaedic! Whatever threshold that is picked will be arbitary with hard cases but we do need some standard. My initial thought is level 11 and above. What do others think, please? BlueValour 01:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

 * For English clubs, I've seen CTOAGN's criteria of keeping clubs eligible to play in the FA Cup or the FA Vase, and deleting those lower down used in AfD a few times. Off the top of my head this is about level 9 or 10. The opinions of some project members on notability can be read here. Listing a club for deletion who plays below level 10 is unlikely to meet with much disagreement. Oldelpaso 09:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * After clicking a few links from low down in English football league system, wow, didn't realise so many tiny clubs had articles. For those where a one line substub with no substantial content has been created for every team in a division, merging and redirecting to the league page could be in order. Oldelpaso 09:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Other criteria that could be used are:
 * Fully 'pay at the gate' to watch (has more international application); or
 * Eligible for the FA Trophy. (Levels 5-8); or
 * Eligible for the FA Vase. (Anyone know which levels?) (BlueValour 13:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * According to Tony Kempster's list, the Vase covers most of level 9, much of level 10, and a handful of levels 11-12 (generally the stronger leagues). The only non-Vase divisions at level 11 that we have full sets of articles for are the Essex Olympian League, the Kent County League, and the Anglian Combination Premier. Since there are 40+ leagues at level 11, and few of them have any notable clubs (if we take the FA Vase as a starting point for notability), perhaps we should allow all clubs at level 10 and above, and decide not to have most clubs at level 11 and below, with specific exceptions (which might include the EOL and KCL, but probably not the AC). — sjorford++ 18:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This is most helpful.

1st proposal for discussion is: May we have further views on this, please? BlueValour 23:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Clubs in Levels 1-10, together with those in the top division of the Essex Olympian League and the Kent County League are deemed inherently notable.
 * Other clubs need to make an individual notability case.


 * One immediate thing that springs to mind is that the position of a club in the present day should not be the only deciding factor. Clubs may have reached certain notable positions in their history and these may be worthy of an article in their own right — although none spring to mind to illustrate this, I trust that the point is made. Alias Flood 00:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Corinthian-Casuals F.C. would be one good example. -- Daduzi  talk  00:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree; a notable history can, of course, be a justification by the editors for their club to be included. BlueValour 03:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

1st revised proposal for discussion is: May we have further views on this, please? BlueValour 03:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Clubs in Levels 1-10, together with those in the top division of the Essex Olympian League and the top division of the Kent County League, are deemed inherently notable.
 * Other clubs need to make an individual notability case which can be based on past or present achievements.


 * I can't really work out from the above discussion - why include the Essex & Kent Leagues, specifically, and not the others at the same level? I would just be consistent across the board and say levels 1-10, and that's it. Qwghlm 16:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I would say the following level 11 divisions have some above-average claim to notability:
 * Sussex County Football League Division 3, Spartan South Midlands Football League Division Two and Wessex League Division Two - these are lower divisions of level 9-10 leagues, and several teams are relegated to these leagues from level 10 each season
 * Kent County League and Essex Olympian Football League - there is no level 10 league in either of these regions, so these leagues are sort of surrogate level 10 leagues
 * Midland Football Combination Premier Division, West Midlands Regional League Premier Division, and Leicestershire Senior League Premier Division - these sit below the level 9 Midland Football Alliance, and so are also effectively level 10 leagues; in particular, the MFC and WMRL regularly promote clubs to the MFA. These two in fact seem to be officially level 10 leagues now, although the future status of the LSL is uncertain.
 * The various other leagues that enter the odd team in the FA Vase, in particular the South Western League (which probably would be higher up the pyramid if the Cornwall clubs could afford the travelling)
 * So that is why we already have searate club articles for those leagues. Those leagues also get covered by sources outside WP that don't cover the whole of level 11 (e.g. Rothmans Football yearbook, Tony Kempster's website, FCHD, etc). — sjorford++ 16:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The list of exceptions is starting to get quite complicated. Why not just disregard looking at it from an NLS point of view and go back to making participation in the FA Cup/FA Trophy/FA Vase the best determinant? For me, I would strongly prefer to keep it to FA Cup (preliminary and qualifying rounds included), as that way we can use participation in the senior national cup as a good rule of thumb for other countries (as Alias Flood points out below). Qwghlm 16:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It should also be bourne in mind that this debate covers only the English leagues at this point. What provision, if any, is planned for Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Australian, American, ... and all other leagues? -- Alias Flood 20:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * As you can see just sorting out criteria for the English league is complex enough; if we try to bring in other leagues at this time, the whole thing would collapse! I suggest that once this is sorted editors nominate other leagues they are interested in for discussion. BlueValour 20:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

2nd revised proposal
Having looked at the various leagues that have been suggested for exceptions, none of them seem to have worthwhile articles for their clubs. In all cases that I have looked at the very limited information for the clubs can easily be incorporated into their League articles. We need a straightforward standard that the folk at AfD can cope with :-)

Please note - the standard is one for inherent notability only - in other words clubs who meet the standard are entitled to an article. As always, any other club can assert notability in their article on the basis of present performance, past history etc. On that basis I propose:


 * English football clubs in Levels 1-10 are deemed to have inherent notability

Does anyone have strong objections, please? BlueValour 21:08, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I would agree with that. I would also add the clubs from lower levels that are allowed to enter the FA Vase as thay highlight deficiencies in the pyramid system in their areas, but that would be notability based on individual criteria rather than an inherit one, so I'm with you. - fchd 08:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with BlueValour's proposal as well. Qwghlm 10:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There's got to be a cut off somewhere and this seems like a sensible place to put it. aLii 11:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. In the absence of objections I declare Agreement and will move it upstairs to WP:CORP and ask them to take it. BlueValour 23:57, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Notability criterion
This has now been added at WP:CORP and can be referred to during AfD discussions. BlueValour 22:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Template overuse, to extent of clutter
I've noticed people have been creating templates for past squads, and so forth, this really is just clutter thoug isn't it, surely a mention in the article of the fact a player played (or plays) in a team, with a link to the appropriate page, with a full team/squad list is enough, for example why does this need to be at the bottom of the Thierry Henry page.

All of it is explained in the text, so why does there need to be uneccessary box after uneccessary box at the bottom of the page? Also see Paolo Maldini or other useless templates such as this

This is just duplicate information that is already on the page, and already on the 2006 FIFA World Cup article.

They're pointles clutter, adding no useful information, duplicating things that are there, and things that are on other articles, so really shouldn't it all be removed. These things are just legitimate infoboxes, however they are as annoying and pointless as ever. Personally I think the club ones were pushing the boundaries, because they are pointless, but the world cup ones are just a joke, now that the hype of it all has calmed down, can we just delete all these pointless templates. Keeping in mind if there is a template for one world cup, someones going to make a template for all of them, and it will just get ridiculous. Past squads are also pointless, any relevant information can be written in the article, it doesnt have to put in a box at the bottom of the page. Philc TECI 23:17, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Phil about squad templates; the information for both the France and Arsenal squads are available from Wikipedia articles about the tournaments or teams in question, and the text in the article will almost certainly mention the relevant facts anyway. I'd delete them all. Qwghlm 13:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Although I find that a few of them can brighten up an article by adding a little colour, I have to agree that these cases are completely over the top. I cannot believe that the Template:2006 FIFA World Cup finalists has been added to the pages of all involved national teams! I can understand it's use in a few pages about the 2006 World Cup, so perhaps it needs some very specific rules written for it? I mean are we honestly going to allow the Brazil to have one of these for all 18 World Cups?

I think a call to delete all templates from all football pages is going too far, but some serious thought has to be put into what should and shouldn't be allowed. aLii 20:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not keen on any of them, as I think if we draw the line, it will be repeatedly moved budged and broken by people who may or may not know about the project and its regulation. As a compromise I think it should be limited to the current squad of the team the player is currently contracted to for players. And others, notably the world cup one, should be deleted, as although the information is relevant to several pages, it is not going to change, so the information can be put there. The demand is not great enough for a template to be needed to display this information. Philc  TECI 20:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Something needs to be done about the succession boxes too. Do we really need to have BBC Sports Personality of the Year or PFA Young Player of the Year succession boxes?? A mention of those awards in the article (with a wikilink of course) is enough. In my opinion only the most important ones should be left, like European Footballer of the Year, FIFA World Player of the Year, South American Footballer of the Year and so on (related to continental achievements). Bruno18 15:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * True, again the boxes have no redeeming value which is not covered in the article and by appropriate links. Philc  TECI 16:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

A month ago I nominated the squad templates of all the old world cups for deletion. They survived due to lack of consensus. It seemed that several people didn't think it was right to remove mementos of WC involvement. Perhaps the international section of the football player infobox could be used to notate WC squad callups. Now WC06 is over I would support deletion of all the international templates, with the possible exception of winning squads.  Slumgum  T.   C. ''  21:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I would support the deletion of all of the templates discussed. Philc  TECI 18:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * So what, it makes a little clutter? I'm sure you'll all live. --  MATTYTHEWHITE    yap    stalk 


 * You'll live if they're deleted too. Philc  TECI 19:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

1994 FIFA World Cup
I seem to be getting into an edit war with SndrAndrss, over the 1994 FIFA World Cup article. I need support, as I can't stop them alone. Thank-you for your help. --StuartBrady (Talk) 13:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Report it at WP:ANI. If it continues they can semiprotect the page to stop anons/new accounts editing it. HTH. BlueValour 13:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I doubt it'll be semiprotected, as semiprotection is for vandalism only, not content disputes. I'm pretty sure it's not a new user anyway, IIRC that user has done something similar before, a long time ago, on the 1990 WC page. Anyhow, I've watchlisted the page in question. Oldelpaso 17:48, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Listing famous players
Should a club's famous players be listed by nationality or by the time that they played at the club? I'm currently in a discussion at Talk:Arsenal F.C. over the matter - I think it makes much more sense to group players of the same era, since they played together, rather than split them into separate lists just because, e.g. one happens to be English and the other a Scot. Anyone with an opinion feel free to make it known over on that talk page. Qwghlm 21:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Chelseas ones are listed alphabetically. Philc  TECI 21:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Era rather than nationality, definitely, though there's an interesting discussion going on at Talk:Liverpool F.C. about removing such lists altogether. Mind you, having seen the current list for Liverpool it isn't suprising - the list there is enormous. Oldelpaso 21:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The listing by nationality seems to have given people the false impression that every nationality needs to be covered. Titi Camara, for example, despite an excellent first season, doesn't really belong on Liverpool's list. ArtVandelay13 09:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * As for the "removing altogether" option, most clubs have annual "player of the year" awards which would be much more npov to include, than the overtly long, ungovernable lists where everybody want their own private favourite included. For an example, see Brøndby IF. Poulsen 09:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your thoughts. As for an official list of PotY - it's a very good idea but I've been unable to find a list of them anywhere for Arsenal, alas. Qwghlm 13:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Given the controverys, it might be a good idea if we tried to work on a set of criteria for notable players over on WikiProject Football/Clubs, off the top of my head a minimum number of international caps and/or being a club/national record holder for a time might be decent starting criteria. -- Daduzi  talk  15:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No doubt some legendary players will be ommited from this still, you have to remeber that fame doesnt have criteria, so trying to make criteria for famous players will not work. If you use caps, it will be a list of players with so-many caps, not famous players. For example players like George Best, Eric Cantona and Duncan Edwards incredible ability and fame is not reflected in their number of caps. Philc  TECI 18:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The kind of criteria I was thinking of would be exlusive rather than inclusive (i.e. someone who doesn't meet the base criteria would be excluded, not that anyone who meets the criteria should be included). Best, Cantona and Edwards I'm pretty sure all broke records at some point or another. In any case, the above is just conjecture and not meant to be an exhaustive list, it's just that I think it would be useful to develop some basic guidelines that editors of club pages can take on board when assessing whether players warrant inclusion in a "notable players list" (there would of course, have to be flexibility since it would be ridiculous to hold Liverpool F.C. and Forest Green Rovers to the same standards). -- Daduzi  talk  21:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't believe that club's own "player of the year" awards are justifiable for inclusion in the main page about the club. Most clubs would therefore have to have a list of 100ish players, which would be both ugly and a waste of space. In my opinion we want this to be as short a list as possible. I like the "hall of fame" thing for american sports, but it isn't really mature enough to use for English football. Perhaps players that have won the Football Writers and/or PFA player of the year awards? I guess that would be a relatively small list for each club. aLii 13:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Would people back the idea of having a straw poll on this topic? I only put it forward as this discussion is going no-where. My suggestion is that a set of various alternatives will be written, and everyone should vote for which they prefer. Yes? No? aLii 11:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

A.S. Fortis Spoleto F.C.
I ask you a suggestion. This team, A.S. Fortis Spoleto F.C., which won Serie D (5th level of Italy) this year, was cancelled by the Football Federation because of financial troubles and it won't play next season at all, neither in Serie C2 nor somewhere else. What should we do? Should we submit it for deletion or leave it as it is, or something else? Thank you. --Angelo 14:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds keep-worthy to me. Defunct football clubs are worth an article, and their story alone seems notable, and the kind of thing people would be interested to look up. ArtVandelay13 15:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have copyedited. Have we any info about what happens next - have they gone out of existance? Also, have we a reference that gives info about the scandal? BlueValour 18:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Out of existance, yes; the team cannot enter any Italian league, in this case. Here are some references (all in Italian)  . Anyway it's not exactly a scandal: in facts, all happened because the club did not pay the registration fees. --Angelo 11:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you Angelo; I have re-written the article. Would you check my translation of the bylines in the external links, please? BlueValour 21:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It looks good. I've also include the article in the "Defunct football (soccer) clubs" category. --Angelo 14:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Managers templates
While people are deleting templates with the one hand, here I am thinking up new ones with the other :-) What I should like to do is create a template for Huddersfield Town managers, to put below the succession boxes. Whilst for someone who has managed many clubs it could all get out of hand, in many instances it would be very useful. Has this been tried/still being tried/abandoned in a flood of tears? BlueValour 22:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think it would get out of hand - very few managers actually go through more than half a dozen clubs in their career. There's the odd exception like Bob Stokoe, but even there I think it would look ok. — sjorford++ 14:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Personally I'm going off the idea of sucession boxes. Whilst "ok" in some cases, I think in the main the personal information should be contained within the article and the manager sucession info should be contained within the various club pages. As it's obviously going to create ugly problems on quite a few pages I think that they should be avoided if possible. aLii 15:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Succession boxes are slightly different. The key advantage of those is that you can navigate easily between the various managers articles in order. I find them rather useful. BlueValour 20:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * My point is that it should be contained within an article, rather than repeated on 10 different articles. I don't disagree that they can be useful, but if every piece of info was on every page where would we be? If someone can be bothered to write a succession box, then surely they can be bothered enough to sort out a list on (or linked to) the main page? For example (and this was the first I tried) Leeds United F.C. and Kevin Blackwell. At the bottom of Blackwell's page happens to be a succession box, click the link to the previous guy, Eddie Gray, and now the succession box trail is dead! Having no boxes is easier, less ugly, and the info is on the Leeds Utd page anyway.
 * A few further up the Leeds list is Terry Venables. He already has 3 succession boxes, but should have at least 8 purely management ones (+extras from his playing career). Is this really the best way to construct wikipedia? Many of the best players and managers are going to end up with 10+ boxes if we just let it continue unabated. Can you imagine if someone went around adding "Player of the month", "BBC goal of the month" awards etc., to add to these found on Zidane's page


 * Where does it stop? People will just continue adding more and more and more unless there are obvious guidelines somewhere. aLii 21:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Former World Cup squad templates
The Scottish squad templates are up for deletion but I don't think they should go unless all the previous squads from all countries go. We need to be consistent and have a policy. If the mood is that they all should go then we put them up for a huge block delete. I don't feel strongly either way but it should be 'One out, all out' on good trade union principles:-) Views, please! BlueValour 22:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I would oppose all deletions on the grounds that they are historically relevant. Deleting them would be like deleting Apollo 11 because it is not current. -- GW_Simulations |User Page 22:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Apart from the fact that one's an article and the other's a template which contains information readily available in articles. -- Daduzi  talk  22:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Ditto. This area is pretty much covered above. As I have said, I'd happily see all deleted, as we have the subcats of Category:FIFA World Cup squads and Category:FIFA World Cup players which denote involvement in two standard ways.   Slumgum   T.   C. ''  22:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree with Slumgum. I'm happy enough to see them all go. Mention of the fact that someone played in various world cups is better put into the article than having ugly templates everywhere. aLii 23:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree with deleting templates, so long as the information is not lost, of course. World Cup squads are well recorded with categories/subcats/squad list pages. Same goes for manager templates, so long as the information is somewhere that's reasonably easy to find. Wantok 01:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed, these templates serve absolutely no purpose, and just repeat information that is in the relvant articles. Since that is valid criteria for deletion of text, I think that it should be so for these templates aswell, and would support the deletion of a lot of templates, including the world cup ones. Philc  TECI 19:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed - delete them. The information is already contained in a normal page, e.g. 1994 FIFA World Cup (squads). Qwghlm 19:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think there's a case for keeping the winning squads, but the rest should definitely go. ArtVandelay13 19:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree with Slumgum, this sort of thing is what categories are for. Oldelpaso 10:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I urge everyone who has expressed a view here, to make it hear at the deletion processe of these template Thank you. Philc TECI 21:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Template:Scotland Squad 1990 World Cup
 * Template:Scotland Squad 1986 World Cup
 * Template:Scotland Squad 1998 World Cup
 * Template:2003 AC Milan Squad.


 * My view on the Scottish templates is that it would be wrong to delete them in isolation. If we get a concensus on here that they all go then we can have a big bonfire but punching small holes in the collection of templates doesn't seem logical. BlueValour 23:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have some reservations about the AC Milan template, given that they were a Champions League winning squad (I think, like World Cup winning squads, there's maybe a case for keeping such high profile templates). Maybe it should be renamed and the content changed to just the players whon played in Europe? I'd recommend it on the TfD but it seems to have vanished, which is weird. -- Daduzi  talk  04:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with BlueValour - better to agree a policy for inclusion here first, then take every template that fails to agree with it to a single mass TfD, rather than pick each one off in isolation. Qwghlm 09:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe the templates are a good, easy way of seeing who was in a particular World Cup squad. I oppose their deletion. Although, I do believe the "AC Milan winning team" and "Greates ever squad" templates are rather pointless. --  MATTYTHEWHITE    yap    stalk 


 * Daduzi &mdash; I don't see any reason to keep the AC Milan CL winners template either. Write an article and link to it ffs.
 * MattytheWhite &mdash; I think it would helpful, for now, if you stopped adding new template info to the many many articles that you are doing.


 * 1) You are just giving people like me more ammunition to argue for their deletion (ick, I just looked at Michael Owen's page) :-)
 * 2) You could very well just be wasting everyone's time.
 * aLii 11:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Part of that comment alludes to one of my bugbears about a lot of football articles: the overuse of lists and templates to express information which would be better served by prose. To me, it is far more preferable to add a brief sentence such as A.N. Other represented Wikipedia in the 3333 World Cup, playing in all three of Wikipedia's matches than add a template. This might take more effort than copy-pasting in 23 articles, but its hardly the most difficult of tasks. Oldelpaso 11:39, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * aLii, I'm hardly pushing hard for the retention of the AC Milan template so there's no need to swear, even in abbreviated form. It just seems to me as there (seems to be) a case for templates of World Cup winning squads so there may be a case for CL winning squads. I'll be happy to bow to consensus, whichever way it goes, though. -- Daduzi  talk  21:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Bluevalour, I would support the deletion of all of them, I am by no means limiting my argument to the Scotland templates. Philc TECI 14:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It is unsustainable to add templates to every player for every 'notable' squad they were involved in throughout their career (and it's not clear what level of notability is being pushed for here- CL winners at the moment, when will the debate happen about domestic league winning squads for templates. Frankly, too many templates tagged onto the end of an article look a mess, and detract from the text of the article, which should really be the focus, in my opinion at least.--Robotforaday 21:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Football Barnstar
I made this as a draft of a possible award for exceptional work on football-related articles. At the moment the best we have is The Running Man Barnstar which is for all sports, but world-wide there must be a lot of people (like me) who have no interest in other sports but love football. Is it worth taking forward? --Guinnog 02:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It's at Barnstar and award proposals if you're interested, either for or against it. --Guinnog 03:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Can I also ask you if you (as a project) would support this? Sorry to be a bother but it is important in the debate on adopting it. Please indicate below whether you would support it or not. --Guinnog 20:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As this is quite a large project in terms of number of participants it might be hard to get a unanimous agreement, but I personally don't see why anyone would have a problem supporting it. Dan1980 21:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. I don't know what we would be looking for in terms of a consensus; maybe if we can get six to ten for with none or one against within a week or so? In return, I promise to join the project! I already do quite a lot of work on wikifying and NPOVing football articles. --Guinnog 21:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Support, great idea to have a football barnstar. Wantok 01:53, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I just added my support :) Bruno18 21:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! We still need more support though if it is going to be successful. --Guinnog 15:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Add me to the supporters. -- Daduzi  talk  16:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I approve I'm surprised it hasn't already been done SenorKristobbal 10:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I placed the barnstar back on Wikiproject Awards.--Ed 15:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, all who supported this idea. It can now be awarded, to those who make exceptional contributions to football-related articles. --Guinnog 09:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Quick show of hands for the Bonfire (of templates)
Seeming as a mass deletion proposal is imminent, I thought I'd get it out there, here is a non binding poll I am going to use to get a rough dead of peoples stances, and for everyone to exchange their points of view, and make an informed decision. Please everyone, express your reasoning, as this is the point of the poll.

Reasons;
 * 1) Duplication of the category system already in place
 * 2) Duplication of text
 * 3) Duplication of the relevant articles
 * 4) They are clutter, before we know it there will be on for every club season and every international competition. That would mean about 15 at the bottom of the beckham page for example.
 * 5) They are spreading, maybe it's best to kill these things off before there is a squad tempalte for every year of every club and squad.

'''This is not a proposal to delete any articles or information. Please do not use the argument that they are historically relevant, as that is not a reason to keep duplicated content.'''

World Cup squad templates
Proposal, mass deletion of world cup squad templates of all competitions, and any continental championship ones, as no doubt they will begin to spring up.

In favour of deletion

 * 1) Per above  Philc  TECI 19:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Delete all, as per above. Qwghlm 15:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Delete all, the information is best left in prose or the appropriate articles. aLii 16:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Delete all. Amounts to redundant clutter. - Pal 16:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Delete some. I would keep the templates for the winning team only. So for this world cup, only keep the Italian template. Ajaxfan 20:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Delete most. Keep the winning squads. ArtVandelay13 20:43, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Delete. I'm undecided over winning squads (happy to go with consensus on that).   Slumgum   T.   C. ''  20:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Delete all. BlueValour 01:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Delete. They clutter articles way too much although I wouldnt mind if winning world cup squads are kept. Bruno18 21:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Delete I agree with keeping the winning squads. Can 21:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 11) Delete Keep the winners. --Andymarczak 07:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Just a thought for all those saying "keep the winners". Actually playing in a World Cup finals is much more of an achievement for Trinidad and Tobago than actually winning the Cup is for Brazil. I still don't see any point in keeping a template for the winners. Various players, like Pelé, will still end up with cluttered pages full of templates. aLii 08:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) Delete. The World Cup is over now so they can all go. SenorKristobbal 10:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Delete ALso don't mind winner templates being kept. Dodge 04:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Against deletion

 * 1) I think it's ok to leave World Cup squad templates; will be no more than 2-3 per player, doesn't seem to clutter page. --Monk 07:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep current/most recent World Cup team templates, delete old ones.  Team templates are a convenient and quick way to navigate around the team - useful for casual browsers, which are a very large part of the Wikipedia audience.  Forcing them to go to a team page, to a player page, back to the team page, to another player page, etc etc, is inconvenient.  It's a matter of balancing convenience and clutter, so I support keeping the most used templates and removing the less used templates, as a general approach.  If we only have the most recent World Cup teams as templates, there should never be more than one per page. With the proviso that, before every deletion, a check is made that the information is accessible with one click from the page where the deletion is made. Wantok 01:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) They are useful, maybe a good idea would be to add a expand/hide link to the templates. Mxcatania 19:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Club squad templates
Proposal, mass deletion of club squad templates past and present seasons, regardless of achievement.

(in case people have different views for clubs than countres)

In favour of deletion

 * 1) Per above  Philc  TECI 19:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Partial Delete. I can live with a current team template, but anything to do with "Champions League squad 2004–05" or similar should go. aLii 16:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Against deletion

 * 1) For sure present squads templates should be kept. while past seasons templates could be deleted, except of, may be, Champions League past winners squad templates. --Monk 07:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Present squads should absolutely be kept. IMO, they are primarily a means of navigation (as opposed to information, which could of course be accessed on the club page but would take extra clicks to find), and help people quickly move between articles of players from a certain club. Neutral on previous squad templates - a bit pointless. – AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 09:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this vote should be split into "delete all", "delete past but keep present" and "keep all"? Qwghlm 15:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree, and would support "delete past but keep present" option. - Pal 16:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Strong Keep The current squad templates are very useful for navigation between player bio pages. I see no reason to delete them. The past ones should probably go for all but the most notable squads however. Dan1980 17:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep the current club squad templates. These are really useful in my opinion. Get rid of the succession boxes and definitely all the world cup templates. Ajaxfan 20:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * In case it's not clear I am definitely not for keeping club templates for previous seasons. Ajaxfan 20:40, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Keep But only current squads. ArtVandelay13 20:44, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Keep current squad templates; if the issue is clutter then I don't see why leaving 1 current squad template is problematic. -- Daduzi   talk  21:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Keep current squads. Old ones can be tossed, as far as I'm concerned, as we can use "Awards" sections for trophy wins.   Slumgum   T.   C. ''  20:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Keep current team templates, delete old ones. See my World Cup templates comment above for reasoning. If we only have the current club squads as templates, there should never be more than one per page.  With the proviso that, before every deletion, a check is made that the information is accessible with one click from the page where the deletion is made. Wantok 01:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Keep, but only for current squads. Delete the old ones. Bruno18 21:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Keep For current squads. Can 21:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Keep current squads.--Andymarczak 07:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Keep As above really. The current ones add a lot...no need for Champions League/FA Cup winners or whatever SenorKristobbal 10:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Keep As above. Current squads only Dodge 04:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment It should involve reserve team template in this discussion. It may created sooner. Matt86hk  talk  22:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Succession templates
Proposal, mass removal of succession boxes from player and club (if any) articles

In favour of deletion

 * 1) Per above  Philc  TECI 19:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Delete - any relevant info should be in the text of the article. - fchd 08:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Delete all. While some are more worthy than others, any kind of halfway-house system will be a real pain to police. Also the information would be better kept within the prose of the player article, or in a list in the specific article, e.g. "List of top FA Premier League scorers", etc. aLii 16:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Delete all succession templates - too much (potential) clutter.  With the proviso that, before every deletion, a check is made that the information is accessible with one click from the page where the deletion is made. Wantok 01:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Delete can maybe see the point in managerial succession boxes but any awards etc should be in article, which would link to a list of winners in most cases Dodge 04:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Against deletion

 * 1) Why?? Succession boxes are great, since they can give insight on any positions or awards that player had... --Monk 07:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) I'm fairly OK with succession boxes - I think they take up less space are much less visually jarring than the squad templates, and with some (golden boot, player of the year) it's rewarding to be able to navigate through them. Qwghlm 15:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) *Addendum - I think it is worth keeping succession boxes for posts or awards only when the subject can only receive the accolade once or twice. If say, someone started adding "FA Cup Winner" boxes for each club article, then that would soon become ridiculous for the likes of Liverpool and Man United. For that reason, I would specifically delete the FA Premier League top scorer succession boxes for players, which could easily be taken many times. Qwghlm 15:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Keep 'em, although some notability threshold needs to be established to prevent over-use. I particularly like them for managerial tenures.  Slumgum   T.   C. ''  20:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Keep them, but only one to a page; maybe in exceptional cases have two. There are too many at present. The information is on the pages and some of the pages are now clutteresd with templates. --Guinnog 02:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Keep significant ones. By that I mean awards related to continental achievements such as European Footballer of the Year, FIFA World Player of the Year, South American Footballer of the Year and so on. Bruno18 21:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Keep them they provide context for a player, and a useful tool to explore other players' pages.--Andymarczak 07:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Keep but go a bit easier on when they are included. SenorKristobbal 10:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Pelé's goalscoring record
Pele's goalscoring record is somwehat controversial. It is widely asserted that he scored over 1000 first-class goals; even official sources such as FIFA quote this number. However, I've got hold of the stats and it appears that a lot of these goals were scored in friendlies, exhibition matches, and even matches Pele played for army teams during his national service.

In an attempt to rectify this, I have started to copy tables which give the result for every game Pele played in to sub-pages of my talk page. The list of tables can be seen at:

User:James Kemp/Pelé

What I have in mind is that each game should be noted as either valid or not, with a source, and that every game that is checked off has the appropriate username appended to it.

I would really appreciate someone with some knowledge of Brazilian soccer to help me out with this, to let me know what the Brazilian conventions are for counting goals.

I will add more details as to how this project might run as soon as I get the time... Jim (Talk) 12:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * While is fascinating research, and well worth doing, I'm not sure that Wikipedia is the right place for it. It would probably fall under the heading of original research, in that you're trying to decide which goals to count. As an encyclopedia, we should only cover information that already exists elsewhere, and has been reviewed by the general community. A simple list of Pele's matches is one thing (although this too might be considered to be unsuitable for WP), but any new analysis of that list is something else. — sjorford++ 13:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I take your point. Obviously this is a decision for the entire community, but in my opinion this does not count as original research. It seems to me that the problem is that while most players' stats include only goals scored in competitive games, Pele's stats include every single non-competitive game he played in. I intend this work to be not original research, but kind of a really complicated reference: all people will in effect be doing is providing a reference for each goal. The table itself will be a kind of aggregate of all these references and will therefore, IMO, be a reference itself. I only said that I wanted to know about the Brazilian conventions for counting goals to preempt criticism; in my opinion, if Thierry Henry's stats do not include goals scored in friendly matches, then neither should Pele's. The only reason for doing it like this is to keep everything transparent, as it is a very controversial subject. Jim (Talk) 13:15, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * His article should note, if it can be proven, that his famed record of 1000+ goals includes many scored during friendly games and while playing for the army/coast guard teams while on national service. Obviously such goals should not be included in his statistics as a professional player. aLii 13:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I should add that wikipedia should not be quoted as a source in a wikipedia article. We need outside sources for his record. For all I know you could have made that list up (I'm sure you didn't, but you see my point?) aLii 13:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I completely take your point - it's a very valid one. I originally took the list from http://rivelino.caltech.edu/~pelesl/pele/english/pele_statistics.html. They were apparantley compiled from a book called Pelé: O Supercampeão by Orlando Duarte. I have not checked every single result against other sources, but the 30 or so that I have checked were accurate. Jim (Talk) 13:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Obviously the main problem with the stats on his wikipedia page is that they definitely weren't all league games, like the info box states... I mean 1265/18 = 70.3 games per season! I know that Brazilian teams now play two different leagues, but they didn't back in Pelé's day (from what I can tell from wikipedia). aLii 13:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * From what I can gather Brazilian teams did play in more than one league back then, but Pele certainly didn't play 70 games a season for Santos (competitive or otherwise). Some of the games included under the Santos statistic are for combined state teams, some for the Army, some for other teams based in Brazil. Jim (Talk) 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

rsssf.com says he scored 537 league goals, still pretty impressive. Now all we need is his appearances record! aLii 13:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * One useful source is http://soccer-europe.com/Biographies/Pele.html, but the problem with this is that even though it's based on the list I'm gradually adding to my User Page, it only gives final totals and doesn't precisely reference its sources. Jim (Talk) 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and I just checked the rsssf.com source and it's pretty good, although it doesn't seem to include goals which maybe should be included!! God this is complicated... Jim (Talk) 13:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: I have copied this conversation to Talk:Pelé. Overall it is better discussed there, but getting some extra publicity here is no bad thing. aLii 14:27, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

New category - unattached footballers
I've created a new category for players currently without a club - Category:Unattached footballers. I think this would be a useful resource, so if you could help populate it, that would be great. Also, as it's supposed to list currently unattached players, it will need to be kept up to date. ArtVandelay13 15:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment
Because of an ongoing dispute, a poll has been opened on this page regarding flags to display next to teams in UEFA competitions. The dispute regards what flags should be displayed next to clubs that qualified through the FA of Serbia and Montengro. Comments and opinions appreciated. - Pal 20:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The page has been protected; please help arrive at some agreement. Conscious 07:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello
Hello, how can I join the project? --:::::100 % Bogotano:::::: (Quejas y reclamos) 17:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Just add your name to the bottom of the table! There's no voting for who's allowed in or anything like that :) All help is welcomed! aLii 18:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Welcome. In case you're wondering which table aLii is talking about, is this one: click here. Bruno18 20:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ariba Ariba
I have nominated Ariba Ariba for deletion...please vote SenorKristobbal 09:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency
Dear all, I saw the Scotland national football team templates deleted, while other teams' were not. Why? I don't understand the isolated deletion. I support the NFT templates (I try to compose template for every squad in every WC), but I want the same conditions for all of them. Mxcatania 14:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I would advice you not to compose any more templates for WC squads, as they (according to the TfD) are not wanted, and will probably get deleted anyway. – Elisson • Talk 15:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * So whos going to do it, and delete all those things, its seems there is overwhelming support to get rid of them all. Philc  TECI 16:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Articles for deletion and I'll support you for one. --Guinnog 17:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually it'll be Templates for Deletion. There seems to be adequate consensus to delete all but current, so go for it. Qwghlm 17:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Duh! Of course it would be. Sorry for my elementary error. --Guinnog 17:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Do we have to track ever single one down and list them for deletion, and then vote on them, or can we list the pricniple for deletion, and use the result to delete (or protect them depending on the consensus) them as we find them. Philc  TECI 18:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * In theory they should all be somewhere in Category:Football squad templates. Oldelpaso 19:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't say there's overwhelming support to delete all of them. I'd say there's overwhelming support to delete all but current/latest (for national squads and club squads).  No matter whether the comments were in the 'support' section or the 'oppose' section, most are saying that, I think. -- Wantok 02:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

So, let's vote. Please consider previous votations: 1 and 2. Mxcatania 13:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * We already voted! The result was 12:3 in favour of deletion. aLii 14:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I mean, let's vote for a policy regarding totally, partially or never include these templates. I suggest: keep actually football squads, keep top-4 World Cup squads of every World Cup tournament. Mxcatania 14:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Pelé again
I wasn't going to bring this here, but seeing as Loudenvier already deemed it necessary to add the page to the WikiProject's watchlist I thought I might as well explain and ask for some mediation.

As per the above discussion, and it's continuation at Talk:Pelé, Pelé's goal scoring statistics have been researched by me and Jim. This was yesterday added to the main page as a new section Pelé. Loudenvier has taken exception to this fact and labelled it original research. I argue that it is all fully sourced and referenced, and as such is not original research.

Please see the discussion at Talk:Pelé and help mediate this disagreement. cheers, aLii 14:34, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Specifying where the mediation might be needed
The talk page for the Pele article is now pretty cluttered, but one thing I have managed to work out is that no-one is entirely sure what exactly counts as a "domestic league" in Brazilian football in the 50s, 60s and 70s (i.e., when Pele was playing). There was no national championship until the introduction of the Campeonato Paulista in 1971. We seem to be counting the following competitions:


 * Campeonato Paulista - Sao Paulo state championship
 * Torneio Rio-São Paulo - Rio-Sao Paulo interstate championship
 * Taça de Prata - a national competition which (I think) was partly league-based and partly knockout
 * Campeonato Brasileiro - national league championship

This is a problem because the football player infobox states that "* Professional club appearances and (goals) counted for the domestic league only". So, which of these competitions count as "domestic leagues" for the purposes of the infobox? The infobox seems to assume a modern European league structure, which wasn't really present in Brazil in the period in question. Can someone help arbitrate? Jim (Talk) 16:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

We might als need some sort of mediation regarding precisely what is meant by "advancing a position" in the context of "original synthesis". See WP:OR. Counting goals they way we have done is certainly "advancing a position" through "original synthesis" in one sense of the phrase, but does it really apply here? We are, after all, only showing which of Pele's goals were scored in which competitions, not providing some sort of revisionist interpretation of statistics relating to the Jewish Holocaust. Jim (Talk) 17:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I took the liberty of inserting a full stop into your comment, as I assume you don't want it to look like you go by the name Jewish Holocaust Jim ;-) Oldelpaso 21:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Needs separate articles for different divisions
I would like to start a discussion regarding the Manchester Football League. This league has two divisions (excluding the reserve divisions) and I feel that we should have a total of three articles regarding the subject matter of this league. The reason is clear. This is consistent with the other leagues within the English football league system. This also creates a greater amount of consistency with league articles. In terms of content, I feel that there would be major differences between the Manchester Football League article and the Manchester Football League Premier Division article. A Division One article has also been created as well. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  21:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * As you have shown there are three articles, what are you proposing? Philc  TECI 21:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * No. The Manchester Football League Premier Division article is a redirect page. I have created this article some time back but a user had transferred this article as a redirect page to this article. I am proposing that thses two articles should be seperated as with the other league articles having two or more divisions in the English football league system. -- S iva1979 Talk to me  21:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Is there enough information to warrant 3 articles considering how obscure they are, and how small the articles are anyway. Philc  TECI 21:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * What information could possibly be included in a separate article for Division One that wouldn't be better off placed in the main league article? I don't even think there is anything relevant for the individual divisions of say the Isthmian League, let alone leagues this far down the pyramid, and my proposal would be to either delete or re-direct all divisional articles to the relevant league page. Why don't you please expand one of the divisional articles before we get too far down this road, and then the community can have a clearer idea about the best way to proceed. I wont make any of the divisional articles into re-directs in the meantime (although if I have time I might still work on expanding league articles) - fchd 05:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * All leagues are not equal and I don't see how a league at levels 11-12 of the pyramid should deserve three separate articles. I agree with fchd in that many minor leagues do not deserve to be separated out. Perhaps a cutoff point could be discussed and agreed upon, and all leagues below a certain level (perhaps level 10 - as that is the agreed minimum level of club notability) only have a single article about themselves for consistency's sake. Qwghlm 07:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm working through the Step 7 leagues alphabetically and merging the individual division articles into the league article. There just isn't anything about individual divisions that can't be concisely stated in the league article. --Balerion 05:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Agh, edit conflict. Verifiability is difficult for information about the Premier division, never mind Division One. I'd prefer to see one article used for all divisions, as there is a real possibility that material would fail WP:V for a full article about the lower division. I live in Manchester, and these divisions and teams receive little or no coverage in the local press. I didn't even realise the team West Didsbury and Chorlton existed, despite living a few minutes walk from it and occasionally going to non-league matches at Maine Road F.C. (level 9) a few streets away. Oldelpaso 21:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Continental football
Since a lot of nations have their own football pages (eg Football in Brazil), I was thinking should a similar thing be done with continents eg, Football in Africa, giving an insight into how the sport reached the continent, how the cultures reacted, how it set in, a general overview of football and its history in the continent with reference to continental competitions and federations. Similar to the national counterparts, but on a broader scale. Philc TECI 21:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good idea to me. – Elisson • Talk 21:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] Support. Sounds worthwhile.  In some cases (Asia) there's a lot of diversity across the continent.  Overall, it's a good idea that fills a gap in the coverage. -- Wantok 01:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] Support. Fantastic idea. Jim (Talk) 09:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] Support. Good idea! Alex Feldstein 16:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yearbox
Category:FA Cup Finals is growing. I think it would be good if something like Template:Yearbox could be created (see right) to navigate the articles. Then again, perhaps is could be adapted so that the competition could be one of the parameters, so that it could be used on FA Premier League seasons or any given competition. Slumgum (who often refers to his or her self in the third person) lacks the nouse to adapt such a template and wonders if others think there is a need for such a thing or if anyone has the desire and skillz to make it happen.  Slumgum  T.   C. ''  22:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Rangers "Greatest Ever Team" template
I just noticed this template on a player page and this seems like a template that should be deleted, but I wasn't sure if this related to an acutal team teamplate that should be kept. Thoughts? --Rballou 19:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It is an actual team I think, but only the starting squad, and wether it is the greatest is subject to the creators opinion.  Philc  TECI 22:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete it. We've all agreed only current team templates should be kept, at most. Qwghlm 23:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Having never setup a template for deletion, I did all that I could find to do... I hope I set everything up correctly :) --Rballou 00:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There's a similar one for Celtic, see Kenny Dalglish. Apparently it was voted for by fans or players or some such, and is covered on the main Celtic page. It doesn't offend me enough to call for it's deletion though. Maybe this Rangers one is the same kind of thing? aLii 08:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The greatest XI can be included in the articles about Celtic and Rangers (where it can also be mentioned that it's an "official" greatest XI and given an appropriate citation) - it's just the use of it as a template that is contentious. Qwghlm 08:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Featured Article Candidate - FA Premier League
I'd like to point out that the FA Premier League is currently nominated for featured article status. Discussion on the nomination is located on this page. I've been working with Oldelpaso to bring this article up to FA quality over the past few days and I'd appreciate it if you could support this article's candidacy (assuming you believe it to be of FA quality, of course). If you see any glaring omissions or sections needing improvement I'd also appreciate any feedback you might have. Thanks. - Pal 20:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)