Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 63

Gender and football
Following on from some digging around, I made this edit on the Premier League article stating that it is a men's football competition. This is a pretty obvious fact which has been missed despite two runs through the Featured Article candidate procedure and two more Featured Reviews. From an encyclopaedic perspective, we should not leave basic facts like this to our reader's imaginations! I've expanded more on the implication of this distinction here.

The Premier League is not the only featured article from this project which fails to mention the gender of its participants: Manchester United F.C., Arsenal F.C., Manchester City F.C....etc. The omission also occurs in FA Cup, Football League Cup and Football League Championship. It is worth a review of football articles (from competition to club articles) to state when they are men's institutions which exclude women. Needless to say, the point does not get missed when we're discussing things like the FA WSL or the FA Women's Cup. SFB 21:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that the Premier League article should specify it's a men's competition, but isn't Arsenal F.C. a club with both men's and ladies' first teams, along with various reserve and junior sides? Both genders are mentioned in the article, though I appreciate it's almost entirely about the blokes. U+003F? 22:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Far as I know, if Sepp Blatter woke up tomorrow and decided that women could play then they could. See here for the only evidence I can be bothered to find. Because of that fact, I don't think every article related to men's football should have "men's" included in it. I don't believe Arsenal of any other club specifically do not allow women to join, it is just that FIFA do not permit them to sign any women. Other than that I do not believe there is any need to clarify the gender, as I doubt any readers will be confused about the issue or need any context explaining to them. This isn't the negro leagues.--EchetusXe 22:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I really don't see the need to express this. In almost all instances, the women's league has the word 'Women' in it. In my opinion making it unnecessary to further emphasise the gender of the participants of the league. Adam4267 (talk) 23:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * We should be careful about this - Lindsay Kennedy and a few other women have played in some of the male-dominated soccer leagues in the United States. Perhaps it's clear that women are not allowed to be registered to play in some leagues, but obviously there are exceptions. Jogurney (talk) 22:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes definitely need to be careful because most men's leagues do not have rules prohibiting women from playing whereas women's leagues do have rules prohibiting men from playing. This is why it is often made clear in women's sport articles but not in men's. Most of the men's professional sport's leagues in North America atleast go out of their way to make it clear women can play in them if they can make the teams. -DJSasso (talk) 00:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well the FA specifically states that the sexes are segregated: "Save for matches in a playing season in the age ranges under 7, under 8, under 9, under 10 and under 11, players in a match must be of the same gender". I think an important aspect should be stated regardless of its simplicity – we don't leave our readers to guess the fact that the FA Cup is "known as the FA Cup", or that it is a "cup competition". A cornerstone of encyclopaedic writing is that of assuming little to no prior knowledge. (If an alien read the Premier League article, would it understand that only men play?) The beauty comes in making things explicit, not implicit. As for the Arsenal Ladies, the article states that "The men's and women's clubs are formally separate entities". So, by company law and the FA's rules, Arsenal F.C. is a men's club.
 * Also, thanks for the input Jogurney. Unlike many European countries, the United States explicitly allows female participation where possible via the framework Title IX, thus the distinction is more blurred there. SFB 18:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No, the cornerstones of Wikipedia are Neutrality, Verifiability and No original research. Although it is true that the F.A. Cup is a mens competition, it is almost never actually mentioned in sources. The reason is really irrelevant because the sources dictate what is in articles, not encyclopedic conventions. Adam4267 (talk) 19:21, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I did not mention the cornerstones of Wikipedia. Still, I have presented a non-original, verifiable statement from a primary source. Do you think it is neutral to ignore the issue of gender, even when it is an issue which de jure means the participatory exclusion of half the population from the subject? SFB 19:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes but that statement isn't relevant to the changes you are trying to make. When reported in the media Men's football teams are not called Men's football teams, they are called football teams. Whereas Women's football teams are called Women's football teams. Your opinion might be that having single gender football teams is unjust and other people might share that opinion, but it is really irrelevant to Wikipedia. If you really feel strongly about it then you could start up an article called Mixed gender football. Adam4267 (talk) 20:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I think there are two basic issues here: due weight, and worldwide context. Yes, everyone in the UK knows that if you say "professional football" you mean a game exclusive to men, but this isn't the case elsewhere in the world and our articles should provide sufficient context for readers who may be unfamiliar with local customs. The FA does, as pointed out above, codify that the Premier League is for male players only, and it does have a counterpart women's league. However, because football is so male-centric in the UK it's important that we not go out of our way to point out the obvious. As such, it's sensible to point out that the Premier League (and the Football League) are men's events, while we need not specify that individual clubs or other parties which lie under those groups are men's football (for instance, "Thierry Henry plays for the Arsenal men's team in the men's Premier League"). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree mostly with what you are saying there. But would it not be fair to say that in the majority of countries the men's game is considered important and the women's game considered less do (or non-existant). While countries like the U.S. break the trend. Adam4267 (talk) 20:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That's only if you count countries on your fingers. Population-wise it's far less clear-cut. Both the US and China have strong women's setups. A small amount of context is a select few articles is a small price to pay to avoid being unduly weighted towards European expections and prejudices. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 21:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Chris and the above Henry example is something we definitely should avoid like the plague. I only suggest that we include one word ("men's") to descriptively clarify competitions where the distinction is not obvious (for instance, the fact that Henry is a man is a bit of a give away). Never before have I seen the inclusion of one plain, descriptive word challenge the principle of WP:Undue weight. Also, Adam, your suggestions that gender should only be addressed on separate articles misses the point – my issue is that not stating the competing gender in the article is a descriptive failing when considered in a global context. Not once did I suggest here that the exclusion of women was unjust, merely that the exclusion of the fact that they are men's competitions was an editorial oversight worth correction. SFB 22:11, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Santos FC (women)
Apparently the women's team and the futsal team were closed in an effort to hold Neymar at the men's team. Wow, probably the best women's team outside Europe, 2 time Women's Copa Libertadores winner, just shut off for an estimated 400,000$ a year. If anyone might like to add something to that article it would be nice. Wonder if it brings down the whole Copa Libertadores. Should the team be marked as dissolved? Maybe they come back next year with a non-star team. -Koppapa (talk) 19:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Eyes, mouth, nose, etc all needed at FC Barcelona
Ongoing edit war nonsense there, would appreciate some regulars here getting their hands a little bit dirty.... The Rambling Man (talk) 20:08, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Premier League Manager of the Season
Just a heads up that I have nominated this for WP:FLC to add to the FL collection of Premier League awards: Premier League Manager of the Month and Premier League Player of the Month. Suggestions, critique - just any sort of feedback would be handy. Thank you, – Lemonade51 (talk) 17:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Warms the heart...
I'm pretty sure that Javi Guerra is unknown to 90% of the English public (if not more, but i'm not being elitist, i'm sure 90% don't know about him in my country, Portugal, as well). This past week, rumours surfaced he was to move to Rangers and...voilá! Suddenly he is "known", the vandalism (and of the lowest caliber) started (please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Javi_Guerra&diff=470699011&oldid=470132701).

Everybody enjoy that weekend, keep it up! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 21:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've seen vandalism like this before. Right after Malmö FF won 1–0 over Rangers at Ibrox in this summers qualification round to to the UEFA Champions League somebody started vandalizing the goalscorer of the game Daniel Larsson, somebody even went as far as this and this. --Reckless182 (talk) 21:11, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Why are we advertising vandalistic diffs on a page which gets permanently archived, again? Why did the last ten million polite requests to stop giving these vandals what they want fall on deaf ears? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 21:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry Chris, did not know this was also considered "feeding the troll" honestly. I'll stop if it's disruptive and, "gaining momentum", maybe i should learn too that 90% of my reports (if not more) end up in scolding :( ... --Vasco Amaral (talk) 21:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * @Vasco: I was looking at the edit history of the Javi Guerra article and noticed that you reverted an edit by an anonymous IP and added a "filho da puta" in the edit history, which translates to "son of a bitch" if I'm not mistaken?!?!? I'm sorry but for me that type of language and action is completely unacceptable, especially considering that the user simply made a minor change to a club name in the infobox. We all have little disagreements of this typeevery single day on Wikipedia but that does not give us the right to use those types of insults. This isn't the first time I've come across this type of behaviour from you and it's getting to be rather troubling. If you're going to take stuff like this personally, you might be better off not editing on Wikipedia at all. TonyStarks (talk) 04:41, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Football agent
User:Antondefoe, probably a football agent, creates articles with loads of unreferenced info and false stats. Could someone review this biography Esmond James, is this player even notable? He probably created an article about himself: Tony Awor, also doubtful notability.--Oleola (talk) 01:02, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The Watford stats for James appear to be false, can't find any record of him playing any first team games for them, which of course means the article fails WP:NFOOTBALL. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 01:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've mentioned him before here: [] (without much result) Cattivi (talk) 01:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Have your say. If I had it my way I'd block the guy. Believable hoaxes do more harm to the WikiProject and the site than articles along the lines of "FARMER BILLY HAS A SIX FOOT WILLY. LOLLLLLLLLLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ." —WFC— 01:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The Tony Awor article is now up for deletion - see Articles for deletion/Tony Awor.  --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Portsmouth F.C.
I noticed two problems in this article... and my suspicious mind wondered if they were connected:


 * 1) Interesting unsouced claim in lead: "Portsmouth F.C. is the most successful English football club south of London."
 * 2) "Honours" section in the article seems to have lots of entries that are dubious honours for a professional football team.

Any views?

I'll check the article history and invite the major contributor(s) to come here. --Dweller (talk) 11:14, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've removed that claim as unsourced + POV. Overall the article is in dire need off references, general pruning, and a re-format to bring it in line with other teams. GiantSnowman 11:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * With 2 league titles, 2 FA Cups and 3(?) losing apps in the Cup Final, they undoubtedly are the most successful English football club south of London, though there's not that many to choose from, and I suspect the statement's only there to show they've won more than Southampton... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Would that make Ipswich Town F.C. the most successful English football club east of London?! The Rambling Man (talk) 11:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe Tranmere are the most successful English football club west of Liverpool, with one Welsh Cup and one Leyland DAF Trophy. U+003F? 11:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Suffice to say that all it takes is a map, a ruler and a bit of ingenuity for any football fan to declare his club "the most successful" in a given region. In the interests of NPOV we should ensure that articles are freed of any such claims which aren't rigorously backed up by reliable secondary sources. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * If I may address the points in reverse order...
 * 2) Honours section has clearly been updated with details of small sponsored pre-season tournaments, or youth cups. I agree these ought to be removed.
 * 1) This shouldn't be too difficult to verify, and is undoubtedly true (2 league wins and 2 FA Cups). As for the "Ipswich east of London, Tranmere west of Liverpool", these are spurious points, 'North' and 'South' of London are widely used terms, and when addressing football in 'the South', then London is often excluded in this manner as it obviously is something of an anomaly, having so many large teams. I can recall reading various news pieces that have referred to football 'South of London', again probably easily found as sources if needs must. I think it is a point of interest, and wouldn't object to the same term being used for the 'most successful team in the North East/North West/wherever', though these geographic terms are not so easily defined for obvious reasons. Grunners (talk) 12:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There was a long debate not so long ago about this kind of thing on the Celtic article. Making up arbitrary geographical or political sectors in order to maximize the significance of a club is both POV and OR.  The only relevant divisions are those that are defined by football or political authorities that have a real-life significance to the club's existence. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 14:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

<-Do you have a source for the claim? --Dweller (talk) 12:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Adding to that: East Anglia is a far more notable geographic descriptor than "south of London", yet not even User:The Rambling Man would add a claim to the Ipswich Town lead that claimed them to be "the most successful English football club in East Anglia" unless it was a notable claim, made in reliable sources. Which it isn't. --Dweller (talk) 13:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure Real Madrid C.F. are the most successful club south of London? --Jimbo[online] 13:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm going to hell for this, but . :) Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You beat me to it, Chris! Love it! Jared Preston (talk) 19:49, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'm now devastated that being "south" of London is somehow (allegedly) much more significant than being east of it. My lot have even won a trophy in Europe, this simply isn't fair. Where do I claim my refund? (Although I do, in spirit, applaud the Pompey fans trying to "big up" their club right now, not that it's encyclopaedic or worthy of inclusion here...) The Rambling Man (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dweller and thanks for bringing this to our attention. It looks like the south of London thing has been addressed, so moving straight to the honours thing... I've tried to tackle the honours section, firstly pruning some of the most obvious non-honours, then using the Everton article as a guide for formatting and fixing the links to major competitions. I moved the other honours to "other honours", which may be deleted or incorporated elsewhere in the article. It's true that the article needs a bit more work though, especially in the history section. At least the external links are still looking tidy since I tidied them up two weeks ago. Cloudz 679 18:58, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Czech Fourth Division
This article was recently moved from 'Czech 4. Ligy', where I had originally moved it due to the only English language source referring to it as that. Whilst the latest move did go through an RM, there was not much input, and I'd be grateful for any further views as to whether the current article title is deemed appropriate. Eldumpo (talk) 09:19, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm interested why you didn't take part in the RM if you felt the move back was not appropriate. I welcome to chance to discuss this with you. I found a source at BBC referring to the league as Fourth Division Czech football. Cloudz 679 11:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That doesn't really refer to a league, it just states the fact that he was playing in the fourth division of Czech football. It doesn't imply that the name of the division is Fourth Division Czech football. Big  Dom  12:21, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't participate in the RM because I didn't see it until now. I agree with Big Dom's comment re the BBC source, it's making a general comment on the level, rather than referring to a specific league. Eldumpo (talk) 13:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Pre-1914 association football players
What is the rationale for this category? There is some text as an intro, but this mainly deals with inclusion criteria, rather than the reasoning behind the category. If it is felt to be useful to track early footballers this way (not convinced people would find it useful to search for all players from this era in a long list), why choose 1914 as the cut-off? Eldumpo (talk) 13:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing something to do with WW1. Don't know the history, but maybe plenty of players stopped playing? Just a guess. Could be just a random number. TonyStarks (talk) 15:00, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Was World War I any more disruptive to players' careers than the next one? I would have thought that there was a fairly steady transition over the years. The only significant date was 1888, when The Football League started, but to change the category would be very hard to do. --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * In England at least competitive football continued until 1915 in spite of the War, so I'm not sure either where the 1914 date comes from. Big  Dom  15:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If there is consensus to delete or otherwise change the category I guess a bot could change all the links? Eldumpo (talk) 15:15, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with a bot is that many of the articles will simply have the category removed while others will have it replaced with a new category. Can a bot distinguish those players whose careers started before 1888 and those that didn't? Furthermore, we should be careful to avoid becoming too Anglo-centric. --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Reasoning is stated on talk page and at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_July_11. Unsure of validity though. Nanonic (talk) 17:06, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not especially convinced by any of the arguments there. I don't personally see that there was a sudden and dramatic change in any major aspect of football after WW1.  One of the arguments used in that CfD is that tactics after WW1 were markedly different because teams used more strikers and fewer defenders.  Firstly, I don't believe that's the case (I'm pretty sure 2-3-5 was standard either side of the war) and also, so what?  It's hardly a major change.  Should we have a separate category for players who played before the current backpass rule was introduced.....? --ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:49, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * moreover, that debate was nearly 5 years ago and, as we all know, consensus can change.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for responses. At the moment I can't see any justification for keeping it. I don't see why it's a useful search, after all, we wouldn't want Category:Footballers of the 1930s.Eldumpo (talk) 21:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking at the cat, I see that the rationale is "This category is intended to assist readers locate footballers who played in the game's formative years". Well, people are equally likely (probably more so in fact) to want to locate players from the modern era, but we don't have Category:Post-1992 footballers.  I vote that the pre-1914 cat gets deleted, in fact I'm going to CfD it..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Soccer / Football
Hi! I'm working on a list of sports people, and I'm wondering when I should use "Football" versus "Soccer". Could someone let me know if there's a guideline or something on the difference? Perhaps on my talk page, since I'm not part of this group? Thanks much! -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 19:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The relevant guideline here is WP:ENGVAR. If you're subject has strong national ties to an anglophone country, use whichever term is used in that country (i.e. British footballers/Amercian soccer players), if not you're free to use whichever term you like, although football is the clearly prevailing term on Wikipedia. Sir Sputnik (talk) 19:29, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Women's football categories
I have to confess to not being much interested in women's football but can someone explain why the sub-categories on Category:Women's association football players all take the form Category:British women's footballers. Why the apostrophe S? To me, this should be Category:British women footballers. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:46, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The sport is "women's football", so a participant would be a "women's footballer". "Woman" can't be used as an adjective, so "Woman footballer" isn't grammatically sound. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:13, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry to disagree but "women" (not "woman") can be used as an adjective; there are similarly named categories such as Category:English women cricketers; see Category:British women by occupation for several others. --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 08:21, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The sport is not "women's football", it is "football" (actually it is "association football"), so DK is correct.--EchetusXe 11:21, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A while ago someone changed them all to "female footballers from X". Then they all got changed back again... My view is that it's not very important and that time/effort spent changing it back and forth could be channelled more productively elsewhere! Clavdia chauchat (talk) 13:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Adding representative league appearances to infoboxes
What are people's views on representative league appearances a player makes, being added to the 'National team' section of his infobox e.g. see this edit at the Billy Steel article. Whilst I'm aware that these matches were a big deal for a number of years, they were not full internationals, and it's not as if full internationals were not taking place in this era. I think it is therefore a little misleading to have them listed under National team, and perhaps it is just best if they are not included in the infobox? Eldumpo (talk) 08:57, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree strongly with removing the information. It's sourced and it was an important part of the player's career. I don't understand your problem with it. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 09:10, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it should stay too, they were important matches. Big  Dom  09:13, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * His problem was it being in the infobox, not its existence in the article... Jared Preston (talk) 09:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, my issue is it being included in the infobox, and specifically the 'National team' section. I agree the appearances are notable and should be in the article, but not every aspect of a player's career should go in his infobox. If consensus is that these should stay then many other representative teams should be allowed to go in here (e.g. Galicia) else it is a British-centric rule. Eldumpo (talk) 11:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Most articles also have youth national team appearances in the infobox. Therefore the nationalteam function appears to be more for the use of representative teams, rather than specifically the full national team alone. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 11:32, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure Galicia, Catalonia, etc are generally included in Spanish player's infoboxes. I'm unsure on this because are the representative teams not representing the league rather than the country. Which IMO means that they are not 'national teams', as stated in the infobox. Adam4267 (talk) 11:52, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If it's the best players of the league that participate, irrespective of nationality, it can feature players from different countries. Therefore, in my opinion, it should not be included in the infobox under the National Team section. However, if this teams were open exclusively to local domestic players (were they?), then I don't see a problem with having it there. TonyStarks (talk) 12:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

At present the infobox guidance only refers to 'national team', although it says the under-age categories can be included, but there is no reference to other representative sides. Therefore I believe this documentation should be amended in any case to reflect the consensus. The problem with including league representative sides is that they are not being selected by the overall lead football body in that country, and may not be limited to 'nationals' from that country anyway. If it was felt they must be included what about a new sub-section to the infobox headed 'Representative teams', although then you may have to list which sides are deemed acceptable for inclusion. Eldumpo (talk) 12:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If consensus turns out to be that these games are notable enough for inclusion in the infobox, can I go through adding all the additional appearances that e.g. Steve Sumner and Brian Turner earned playing against club sides and regional selections? -- Club Oranje T 12:32, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Brings us back to the debate about Pelé's goals total ;-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that if included they should be separated in some way. The Scottish League XI Steel played for was probably effectively a Scottish national team, so it's not completely out of place in his infobox, but Mirandinha played for a Football League XI and IMO to have his infobox show "national" team appearances for Brazil and the (English) Football League would look very silly indeed...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If these games featured foreign players, like the Miradinha example above, then we should NOT include these games in the infobox. It makes absolutely no sense to do so. They are nothing more than gala matches. TonyStarks (talk) 16:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Why don't we change the "National teams" section of the infobox to "Representative teams" then? That's what they do for rugby players who play for Barbarians or the British and Irish Lions. – PeeJay 17:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Alternativly it could be put into the senior career section. Adam4267 (talk) 19:24, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think that would be an appropriate place to put it. We should treat it in the same way as we treat national team appearances. – PeeJay 00:31, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Football player national team statistics
Would some kindhearted soul please add a Template documentation to Football player national team statistics with a decent description? Jared Preston (talk) 15:30, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Like this? Template:Football_player_national_team_statistics/doc. Pretty pointless template if you ask me. ;) -Koppapa (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just like that! Thanks buddy. Jared Preston (talk) 22:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

FIFA Club World Cup is not in 2010 in association football and beyond
I did not find FIFA Club World Cup info or results in artcles 2010 in association football and 2011 in association football and I dont know if we have a protocol about, also I am working a little in 2012 in association football --Feroang (talk) 01:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I hate articles. There is no inclusion criteria and everything is unsourced or redundant like the incomplete champions and cup-winners section. If even the world cup is not mentioned, what good are they? -Koppapa (talk) 09:10, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think this articles are great, but imcomplet. Help to fix it is very welcome. --Feroang (talk) 15:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking through the 2010 article - where are the references? GiantSnowman 15:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Stacking navboxes
Hello all. On Premier League Manager of the Season (which, incidentally, is currently looking for reviews at WP:FLC, hint hint nudge nudge), I'm seeing a weird effect on the navboxes at the bottom of the screen when they're collapsed, all the text is left-aligned... anyone else seeing that? The Rambling Man (talk) 09:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)


 * When you say "all the text", I take it you mean just the title text (as they're collapsed, so there's no other text)? Or am I missing something? Doesn't seem to be anything unusual from my end. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, when stacked, the text appears left-aligned, not centrally. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Nothing unusual for me either. The text is central. Argyle 4 Life  talk  13:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks normal to me as well. GiantSnowman 13:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Weird, must my "variant" of IE. And Firefox... Will try some other browsers.  Thanks everyone! The Rambling Man (talk) 13:43, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What IE are you using? I'm at work and I think we're 8... GiantSnowman 15:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Using Firefox, looks normal to me as well. (IE=Internet Explorer). Sir Sputnik (talk) 16:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Is this a CSD G4?
Robert Stambolziev has been recreated after previously being deleted at Articles for deletion/Robert Stambolziev (2nd nomination). Can an admin please check if it's substantially the same as before and can a Greek football expert advise whether his recent games moves him above the WP:NFOOTY requirements. Thanks The-Pope (talk) 16:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, the Football League (Greece) is a fully-professional league, so an appearance in it would meet WP:NFOOTBALL. GiantSnowman 16:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Rcardiffcity27
Just a heads up over a potentially disruptive user. He's gone around adding captain logos to squad lists, raplacing the existing text, even though these logos add absolutley no value and just create avoidable ambiguity. Not to mention his plain silly edit summaries; "i'm cardiff city, i'll do what i want", for me, is a classic. Here's another example of this user's apparent lack of maturity, on this occasion against a fellow Cardiff fan. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 22:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Now given a 24 hour block for vandalism, personal attacks etc, will probably be back for more fun and games once it expires. Mattythewhite (talk) 22:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ran into this user myself, adding flags where they have no business being. Why said user vandalised Lloydf640's page and he left it there until you reverted it is beyond me. I'm curious to know what this article contained... A 24-hour block seems very lenient for such idiocy. Argyle 4 Life  talk  00:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd hope a few bits about how great I am (!) but I doubt that. Ah well, he's not going to change overnight (literally), so he's likely heading straight for an indefinite block.  Mattythewhite (talk) 00:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For info the entire content of the article was "An editor who is a briefcase w**ker", only without the censorship. Heven only knows what that's even meant to mean....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Someone clearly didn't get this for Christmas! But as I predicted, the user has now been indef blocked after returning to his old ways.  Mattythewhite (talk) 21:59, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Iago Falqué
Would an admin mind de-salting Iago Falqué, allowing Iago Falqué Silva to be moved there? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 02:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and moved the article. Cheers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * All three articles cited under "References" refer to him as Yago Falqué - what is his correct spelling?  --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 20:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * More or less "FALKAY", due to the accent in "e". --Vasco Amaral (talk) 22:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, you meant (if you meant originally that) spelling, not pronunciation, as i understood originally. It's spelled F-A-L-Q-U-E (accent in last letter), and first name is, in his mothertongue, IAGO (not YAGO) 99,99999% of the time...hope that helps ;) --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:29, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Jacinto Elá
Both NFT.com and FIFA.com show nothing regarding international appearances. Out of respect for User:Kolins, i reinstated what i had removed (games in box and category), but the doubt remains, anyone "got" anything?

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:34, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Playerhistory (see National team section) don´t mention any senior NT appereances, only U15, U16, U17, U18 and U19 (all Spanish I supose, as that info is only available for website members, although in 90% of cases is easily guessed). I´ll bring you anything else I find anywhere. FkpCascais (talk) 01:54, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Daniel Potts nationality
Evening all. Just want to confirm beyond all doubt that I am right in saying that wiki football policy with regards to International / Nationality status is defined only when a player has made a competitive appearance? Would Potts openly stating "I wish to play for the US" change our approach? Koncorde (talk) 00:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I see, he already represented United States men's national under-20 soccer team on one occasion, so he should already be considered primarely American footballer. I see his USA U20 appearance sourced by USsoccer.com, however it doesn´t mention if it was an FIFA recognised appereance, or non-FIFA friendly.  In case of being an U20 official FIFA match, I beleave he becomes primerily considered as American. FkpCascais (talk) 01:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If this is another flag issue I want to be the one jerk who mentions that we should just remove flags to identify players.Cptnono (talk) 06:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If the US under 20 cap was in an official international match then he his now a US player. However, the point of change occurs when FIFA approve the requested change in national association. This is usually reported but if it is not then we can only find out when they make the debut for their new team. Adam4267 (talk) 19:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It was a friendly. Koncorde (talk) 20:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you have a reliable source to verify that? GiantSnowman 20:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Friendly or not, it's still his representative nationality (as per MOS:FLAG) for now. --Jimbo[online] 21:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What I meant above was that if it was a FIFA recognised friendly then he must have had international clearance to play in it, obviously meaning he is currently eligible for the U.S. However, if it was a non-FIFA friendly then he wouldn't need to have international clearance. So wouldn't necessarily be eligible for the U.S. Although there probably won't be a source specifically stating this was a FIFA recognised match I think it would be safe to assume it is. So I would agree that he is currently a U.S. representative player. Adam4267 (talk) 21:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * He should be considered American and has flag should be that of the US. He's played for the US, albeit in a friendly, but has never featured for England, therefore he's American. Considering he's never featured for England, he wouldn't even need FIFA approval to represent the US, he would just need the regular paperwork that any international player would require. Pretty straightforward case in my opinion. TonyStarks (talk) 00:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Except that he isn't "American" at all. Which is the root of the problem here. He has represented the United States in a football match, one which was neither for the senior team nor a competitive fixture. We should be very careful to explain exactly why he has a US flag to avoid assigning it undue weight. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * But America is currently the only football team he is eligible to represent. Also he has to be a U.S. citizen to represent them, which surely makes him 'American'. So both personally and in footballing terms he can be considered American. He is in exactly the same situation as players like Patrice Evra or Miroslav Klose or Aiden McGeady. Born in one country but eligible to represent another through nationality. Adam4267 (talk) 12:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Is he an American citizen or is he being picked to play for an American youth team simply because his father was born in the U.S? He was born in the UK so is British of US descent.--Egghead06 (talk) 12:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Excerpt from FIFA regulations; a player may represent more than one Association in an international match so long as that player, in addition to having the relevant nationality, fulfils at least one of the following conditions:
 * - Either his biological mother or father was born in the territory of the Association; 12:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * He's available because his father was born there, yes. As per MOS:FLAG, his sporting nationality is the US as that's who he's last represented. I can't see how this has become such an issue! --Jimbo[online] 12:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's hardly "such an issue!". There's no need to try and make out this is some kind of stress point. It's an editing question and a formality for my benefit (and whoever else wishes) to establish the core facts to avoid reverting other editors good faith changes. I've reverted changes based on the understanding that a players nationality is defined by playing competitive games for a national team - not simply playing in a friendly. Admittedly that's a real world understanding and not wiki policy - hence the question here.
 * Meanwhile MOS FLAG is one thing, but his physical nationality is another. For instance, his article has now been amended to state that he is "American"] Is he? Is that correct to make him American on the basis that he played 21 minutes for the US U20 in a friendly? Koncorde (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A player's footballing nationality is defined by what FIFA think his nationality is, playing in matches is irrelevant. Potts' actual 'nationality' (whatever that means) is irrelevant. In footballing terms he is as American as Landon Donovan. Adam4267 (talk) 20:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * And that's total garbage. This edit and your even-worse followup make the article definitely less accurate, and if either you or TonyStarks are in the habit of making such edits then you should stop it immediately. The only truth here is that he has represented the United States. Gah. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 21:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * A players footballing nationality is defined by who the player is eligible to represent, and then goes on to represent. FIFA excludes or allows certain nationalities depending on their rules etc at that time. However when does someone such as Owen Hargreaves become English rather than Canadian, or Potts become American rather than English? Will George John be Greek, or American born Greek? Should Hargreaves be described as a "Canadian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for English Premier League club Manchester City and the English national football team"? At what point did he cease being a Canadian and just become "Canadian-born"? Koncorde (talk) 21:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A player like Potts is English when he plays for his club in England. Playing for the USA doesn't mean he suddenly needs a workpermit. He's American when he plays for the USA. Maybe an idea: Add an * next to the flag meaning: this is a domestic player in this country who represents country X. similar: # :This player has also a EU passport (very important in modern day football). Cattivi (talk) 22:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would assume he has Dual nationality. Adam4267 (talk) 23:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, and even after playing 100 matches for the USA, he would still be considered a domestic player in England by his club and the English FA. FIFA has no jurisdiction on these matters. The only difference is: he won't be eligible to play for England. Cattivi (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC).

I really don't understand why people love to complicate things. He has represented the US, therefore he's American. That does not mean to say he's not English or that he's not registered as being English with the FA. The two are not mutually exclusive. Tons of Brazilian internationals have a second or third nationality after spending years in Europe. Do you see Ronaldino's article refer to him as Spanish? No, it says he's Brazilian .. but then also goes on to say he has Spanish citizenship. Not to mention the thousands of cases where a player is born in one country to parents from another country. Therefore, in this particular case, he's American, but you can add in the article that he's born and raised in England, has English citizenship and explain that he was eligible to represent the US through his father.

PS. Like it or not, association football is governed by FIFA. So really, they have the final say when it comes to these types of issues. TonyStarks (talk) 05:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, just to add, when it comes to youth friendlies, there is no official/non-official tag like there is for senior friendlies. At youth level, FIFA only cares about official matches: qualifiers, contintental competitions and World Cups. That is why you see some youth players play for 3 different countries, off the top of my head, I can think of Alex Zahavi (US, Portugal, Israel) and Alix Bahlouli (Switzerland, Algeria, France). TonyStarks (talk) 05:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A footballer is an employee of a club. The club has to abide national labour laws, this always comes first (The FIFA doesn't rule England) The only thing FIFA does is add extra rules to prevent countries buying national teams. FIFA can decide Potts is not eligible to play for England, but they have no jurisdiction on his nationality at club level. Cattivi (talk) 09:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure. Just complicate things. TonyStarks (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we are all missing something, and that is that the lede sentence says American footballer... He is not simply American, but an American footballer (or soccer player, if you like). The American is/should be an adjecive to footballer as that is why he is notable for, not to his personal nationality, although ends up being linked because of passport issues. I allways read it that way, am i wrong? FkpCascais (talk) 07:19, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry to split hairs, but at present the lead describes him as "a professional football player". --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, American professional football player... I was talking in general terms, and the inclusion od professional doesn´t change my reasoning anyway, just a variant of the same. FkpCascais (talk) 23:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The general reader won't know what "our" conventions are regarding nationality in the opening sentence. They'll assume "American footballer" means either "player of gridiron" or "footballer of United States personal nationality", neither of which apply in this case. And we shouldn't be writing anything that's going to confuse the reader. So it should just say professional footballer, or something of the sort, and later on in the paragraph/section, say he represented the US under-20 team at international level, and if people think it's necessary, add that he was born in England and qualifies for the US via his father. And if that goes in the lead, it needs to go in the body of the article as well, with sources. Disclaimer: I haven't looked at the article, so I don't know what it says at the moment. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:57, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What are our conventions? I ask because it doesn't appear to be consistent whatever it is. Koncorde (talk) 18:21, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's anything written, as basically there is no agreement. Any reference to someone as 'American' or whatever should be properly defined. If that's all you know for certain is that they have represented a country just say that and stick to the facts. Eldumpo (talk) 21:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A way to resolve the 'American footballer' issue would be to call them a 'United States footballer'. In my opinion more accurate. Adam4267 (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * But they aren't. They're English (well, British) representing the United States, just as Eoin Morgan is Irish representing England, and Owen Hargreaves is Canadian. The issue appears to be a mixing up in many articles of the players actual nationality (passport) and/or general FIFA national affiliation (such as most footballers in England being considered "English" rather than British) with the representative nationality. In the case of Jamaicans such as Robbie Earle there's a real dissonance when he is described as only "English-born", what part of his life did he live in Jamaica? What does "English-born" actually mean, and would we apply that same logic to Jack Collison? Why is John Barnes in contrast only English rather than "Jamaican-born"?
 * It's inconsistent and leads to revert wars. Struways solution is clean and clear and would be consistent. Looking at the player profile template it does simply state "x is a professional football player for X". Their nationality (both footballing and otherwise) can be resolved later.Koncorde (talk) 23:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware, the current convention is to list a player by sporting nationality (i.e American for Daniel Potts). Although many people do no follow/know the rule and put different things. Like something-born something footballer. The thing is, you are saying that a player's nationality is 'this' because he was born there, but its not your decision to make. There are many complex reasons why a person's nationality is what it is and to say that if you were born somewhere it must be your nationality is ridiculous. It is much easier, less bias, more relevant and more in keeping with Wikipedia's rules to list a player's FIFA defined nationality. Adam4267 (talk) 23:30, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Adam4267 is right, we already had agreed about the convention to use sporting nationality, although I see nothing wrong in using Struway´s approach for more complicate cases where it could be usefull. FkpCascais (talk) 23:48, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

We've had this discussion over and over again, so it is remarkable that anyone is still saying "X-born Yish" is acceptable. Our convention is not to use nationality in the first sentence unless there is no real ambiguity. The rest of the lead can be used to describe the player's nationality and representative status in a fuller manner. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The reference you make to 'player's nationality' is a key point that needs to be discussed and understood. If all we know is that he was born in X country that doesn't mean that's his nationality. I would say there are relatively few cases where we truly know a person's 'nationality' (although you would need to define the word anyway), and one of the main occasions may be if the player makes some kind of announcement. The verifiable information we may well know is where he was born, and the country( ies) he has represented at football, and anything else we say will often be supposition. Eldumpo (talk) 08:38, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Thumper. Not just me who thought that "x-born" is completely unacceptable for encyclopedic entry.
 * And with regards to the allegation that I believe a players nationality is based on where he was born....no, I believe a players nationality is based on his actual nationality (Passport), and believe his International eligibility and who he represents at an International level are all entirely different things to each other. If we're going to say someone is a particular nationality we should be clear as to which one we are referring and not attempt to muddy waters with all this "x-born" or "American soccer player" nonsense. Carlo Cudicini would not become English on the basis he played for England and it's ridiculous to change a biographical description.
 * It should be kept to the templates clear and clean "Tim Template (born 1 January 1975) is a professional footballer who plays as a striker for Temp in Templatonia Premier League and the Temp International team." the players nationality and eligibility would be discussed in the article (or lede if it's of such a notability to require it). Koncorde (talk) 10:32, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Konkorde, saying "American soccer player" is not nonsense, specially not if the player actually represents United States at NT level. There may be an ambiguity, OK, we can discuss how to fix it, but I see no reason to call it nonsense, even more because it was established and adopted for a very long time now, I dare to say, from the begining.  The "X-born player" was established a long time now as unecessary, and I even add that breaks WP:OPENPARA point 3.2.


 * Don´t take me wrong, but it is not pleasent to hear someone´s ideas called nonsense, specially not when the user, myself, is absolutelly open to work in order to find the most adequate solution, and simply mentioning the options and what has been established until here. I´ll repeat myself from my last comment, I see nothing wrong in using "American soccer player" for cases where there is no ambiguity, but I equally said that I fully support Struway´s approach for players with ambiguities, which as far as I see, is the same as you proposed in your last comment.  Now, I´m just not sure if you are proposing that for all cases, or just for the ambiguos ones? FkpCascais (talk) 19:50, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I still think United States soccer/football player is the better alternative. The team is called the United States soccer team. Not the American soccer team. Adam4267 (talk) 19:57, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * So do you think David Beckham's article should say "is an England footballer", because the team is called England rather than English? American is just the adjective for someone from the US. For what it's worth, I agree with Chris, Struway and the others who are saying that nationality should only be included in the lead when there is no ambiguity. Big  Dom  12:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Nonsense is nonsense. It literally makes no coherent sense that someone might say that if Carlo Cudicini played for England he would be described as an "English professional football player". It's not an attack on a person, it's a statement that the current definitions are screwed up by inconsistent application.
 * And yes, I would suggest it is applied wholesale, given the flexibility of a player to potentially to switch national alliance it must be easier to maintain multiple articles if they are simply changed to ""Tim Template (born 1 January 1975) is a professional footballer who plays as a striker for Temp in Templatonia Premier League and the Temp International team." and avoids needless "American footballer / English footballer / Jamaican-born footballer" disputes. Koncorde (talk) 22:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What about players without NT caps with no potential ambiguity? FkpCascais (talk) 23:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * For cases where there is no ambiguity, including a nationality is okay. However, if there is any potential ambiguity we should avoid it. That's basically all there is to it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * At least it's correct now. I've been keeping an eye on certain articles because of nonsense like this. Argyle 4 Life  talk  13:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)fo
 * Nice example, when Lilipaly returned to Holland after his "naturalization ceremony" he said: It's something I might do when my career playing for Utrecht doesn't take off. Accepting Indonesian citizenship is a big step for a Dutch footballer: he will lose his Dutch passport. Indonesia doesn't accept double nationalities Cattivi (talk) 16:09, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, thank you Chris. Nice we agreed on this, I definitelly support it.  I´m cleared and out. FkpCascais (talk) 20:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Have to say I already thought consensus had already been reached over this, having discussed this issue with Chris at Talk:Richard Pacquette over two and a half years ago. Not that that constituted Project-wide consensus, but it's surprising to only just see it being discussed here.  Mattythewhite (talk) 20:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Clearly there isn't consensus on this. I prefer the option of having a player's sporting nationality where applicable. Otherwise place of birth. As far as I know that is what is supposed to be happening now, at least according to the squad template, but a number of people are operating by different rules and we should all to be doing the same thing. Adam4267 (talk) 22:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Consensus need not be unanimous. On any occasion where this has been thoroughly discussed, the position being proposed here (don't label players if there is ambiguity) has emerged as the position with the broadest support. That's pretty much the definition of "consensus" around here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:12, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Fun game
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (wise words from a mad man!)",

with that in mind, i dare you to find: which is the football club in the world with the least national players in its roster? My guess has to be F.C. Porto - the grand total of THREE! If you find any with less, i'll eat my hat (not gonna tell what it's made of though...)!!

Cheerio - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 02:02, 18 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I know it's a technicality but Berwick Rangers are an English club despite playing in Scotland & they only have Two English players in their current squad beat that. &#9733;&#9734; DUCK IS JAMMMY &#9734;&#9733; 02:23, 18 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Fewest national players ;) How about Jerez Industrial CF? Or is that article now out of date? --Pretty Green (talk) 10:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well seeing as in March 2011 the Hoddle Academy & the club ended their agreement, and all the players (apart from 12) returned to the UK, I'd say it's out of date. I've removed it as out of date & unreferenced. GiantSnowman 10:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * And Vasco Amaral said that this was going to serve no purpose! --Pretty Green (talk) 10:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's justified itself already. Plus Porto have 4 players (João Moutinho, Rolando, Emídio Rafael + Silvestre Varela). GiantSnowman 11:00, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Forgot about JEREZ, good bet also (what good did it do them, playing in the fourth division now). And Porto have THREE not FOUR, Rolando is Cape Verdean, naturalized players do not count. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:20, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Joe Dixon (footballer born 1989)
Anyone throw some light on this player? Article deleted as either a hoax or not notable but reported here on the club website as having played 'top-flight' football in Romania. --Egghead06 (talk) 07:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * At the time of the last deletion, the only remotely reliable reference given for his "stint" at Gloria Buzau was a Romanian blog. Pretty much all of the blog comments suggested a level of disbelief that he was being described as a former player of the club. Hack (talk) 08:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Previous discussion - Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 60. Hack (talk) 08:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The BBC are also confirming this news. Very odd. GiantSnowman 09:19, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * 'Been contracted to' = "played for". I have done it myself for English players abroad and pre-war players where there are no statistics. You assume they didn't travel all the way out to Romania or whatever to sit on the bench for a year but hey, they might well have done! Also if he played reserve team football then he might be considered to have played for them. Whatever the answer, neither he nor his agent will have been keen to point out that he never made it onto the pitch.--EchetusXe 09:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * My reaction to that report when I saw it earlier was that these were presumably "development partners" of Man U along the lines of Royal Antwerp. I think this is a simple case of non-notable activity not being widely reported. Obviously simply being on these clubs' books is not individually notable, and I don't imagine we'll be seeing an article on this particular player for a while yet. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:01, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * He may have been contracted to Gloria Buzau when they were in the top flight, and thus able to claim he played for them if he turned out twice for the reserves, but the reliable source RomanianSoccer.ro doesn't list him as their player in the relevant time period, either 2007/08 or 2008/09. The Turkish Football Federation website lists every player registered with clubs each season, regardless of whether they play or not. And they do list every player: professional and amateur, down to under-16s and possibly younger. The only Dixon listed on that site is the Liberian international Jimmy Dixon. So (unless the TFF inadvertently omitted him) Joe Dixon was never registered with Kartalspor and was never a licenced player in Turkey. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Whatever the truth, it seems he has one hell of an agent. Hack (talk) 05:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Caps of two Burkinabé internationals
Can someone help me with the caps of the following two Burkinabé "internationals". First is Hervé Oussalé. His article says he has 4 caps and 1 goal for BF but I find nothing on NFT.com with regards to this and the link to his NFT profile points to an empty page. I didn't want to remove the caps before being sure. Second on the list is Saidou Sandaogo. He recently signed in Algeria and all the articles refer to him as an international. However, I haven't been able to find any proof. Also, it says that his former club was Al-Masry, but haven't been able to find proof of that either. In fact, now that I mention it, his article shows no proof that he is notable (although he'll probably make his pro debut for his club this weekend). Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 10:19, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Neither player is listed at NFT or FIFA. A quick look through the article histories show Zombie433, and his army of IPs, have been involved, which means much of the info in there is probably falsified. Remove anything & everything that isn't directly referenced. GiantSnowman 10:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Good enough for me! Thanks Snowman. TonyStarks (talk) 10:50, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oussalé stats comes from User:Zombie433 so they were falsified. He was called to the national team, but there are no evidences that he played in any match.--Oleola (talk) 16:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Expert eyes please...
Would someone please take a look at World Goalgetter? It desperately needs help or perhaps deletion. Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 21:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Previously deleted by PROD a few weeks ago under a different name, now taken to AfD at Articles for deletion/World Goalgetter. GiantSnowman 21:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It was Afd'd (Articles for deletion/IFFHS World's Top Goal Scorer of the Year 2011) so I'll speedy it. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That AfD refers to a different article, but which has also re-appeared as The World's Top Goal Scorer 2011. GiantSnowman 21:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, that should have been Articles for deletion/IFFHS World's Top Goal Scorer of the Year. Thought I was going nuts for a moment as I was sure I'd looked at the deleted versions to check they were the same before pressing the button, only to then see a different article. Oldelpaso (talk) 22:12, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Russian Premier League
Hi all. There seems to be a problem with the Russian Premier League article in that it confuses readers: The thing is, the league/competition itself is called the Russian Football Championship (Russian wiki article: Chempionat Rossii po futbolu) while Russian Football Premier League (Russian wiki article) is the organization responsible for organizing the competition (as well as the Youth Championship). The two (the competition/league itself and the organization) are clearly distinguished on the Russian Wikipedia. While on the English Wikipedia it is one article and it may be confusing. I do realize that outside Russia the league/competition is called the Russian Premier League, however it is not factually correct. My suggestion would be to move the current Russian Premier League article to "Russian Football Championship" ("Russian Premier League" would redirect to it) and create a new article named "Russian Football Premier League (organization)" that would explain that it runs the Football Championship and Youth Championship. What do you think? --IJK_Principle (talk) 00:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * By watching the official website, it does seem that what is presented here as Russian Premier League is in fact named on Russian as - ChEMPIONАT ROSSII - (Russian Championship), meaning, your proosal of naming the content of Russian Premier League into Russian Football Championship would seem correct. Another question is to see if there is enough content for having a separate Russian Football Premier League (now a redirect) and include the content from ru:Rossiĭskаi͡a futbol’nаi͡a Prem’er-Ligа (Premier League at ru.wiki), as it could be merged into the original article, if it comes to be renamed into "Russian Football Championship".  Not sure what other established editors may think or suggest, but your questions raised here are valid. Also, I am not sure if WP:COMMONNAME inteferes in these decitions, if it comes that what most English langauge saurces use "Russian premier League" as name for "Russian Championship", even if wrongly, as indeed seems to be the case. FkpCascais (talk) 04:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That would make it consistent with the Russian women's football championship. But as most english sources refer the league as the premier league i'd not move it. Especially if the organisation is not notable by itself?. -Koppapa (talk) 09:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but why two separate articles? The league is a corporation owned by its constituent clubs just like the Premier League, right? And we've got one article covering both the league tournament itself and the corporation that runs it in that case. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well since the organization itself (the RFPL) might not be as notable on the English wikipedia as it is on the Russian one, I suggest I create a section on the Russian Premier League page that would explain the difference between the RFPL and the Russian Championship. However how should the section be named? Russian Football Premier League vs. Russian Football Championship? --IJK_Principle (talk) 07:09, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok I created a section named Russian football Premier-League. I would like to ask a native English speaker to spell check my edit and it would probably also be wise to add citations, mostly from The English version of RFPL website. Thanks. --IJK_Principle (talk) 07:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Scottish Premier League young player of the month awards
- is it overkill? GiantSnowman 15:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * One obvious point is that the correct name should actually be "Scottish Premier League young player of the month award winners", as the articles in the category aren't about the award........ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I created it a and personally i like it just like i did the older ones that don't exist any more and don't see it as overkill although i do understand the other point of view on it although its easily referenced and well populated. Although Chris is correct the name is wrong. Edinburgh  Wanderer  16:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Chris - hate to be pedantic but shouldn't it be 'Premier League Young Player of the Month award winners'? GiantSnowman 17:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the category is valuable & informative. It seems well populated & accurate & don’t see any issue in having the category once the people included are reference with the fact they won this award. &#9733;&#9734; DUCK IS JAMMMY &#9734;&#9733; 17:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The main article is pretty weak List of Scottish Premier League monthly award winners. Who awards those? Fans, players, media? -Koppapa (talk) 00:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * IIRC there's a panel consisting of journalists, former players et cetera. But yeah, we need substance on things like that more than we need yet more almanac material. Of course we can't force people to work on certain things to the excusion of others. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Re the article - it is completely unreferenced prior to 2008 - where has that info come from? GiantSnowman 10:28, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Fairly easy to track down, as every media outlet in the country would have covered these at the time. It was dumped on us fully formed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * the spl had a different sponsor previously and when it changed the website changed as welll. This means you can't use the site where that info probably originated. However they are widely reported so it shouldn't be too difficult to source that. Edinburgh   Wanderer  11:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Statistics for cancelled/rescheduled match
Recently, Ajax vs. AZ KNVB Cup match on 21 December 2011 was cancelled and was replayed in full on 19 January 2012. How do players statistics counted if there is a cancelled match like this? Does the players appearances and Gregory van der Wiel's goal in the cancelled match recorded?

On another case, Catania vs. Roma Serie A match on 14 January 2012 was abandoned and the last 25 minutes of the game will be resumed on February 7. Could Catania and Roma fielded a different "starting eleven" if any of the players in the January match could not play on February 7 due to injury? If they do field a different player, how do players statistics counted here? — MT (talk) 03:51, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It depends on how the reliable third party sources are dealing with the issue. Soccerway make no reference in the results to the original AZ- Ajax game. Eldumpo (talk) 08:40, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually if you click on the further info link Soccerway do confirm that the original match was abandoned, but the stats are only for the replayed game, and in the club results list, the original game is not shown. Eldumpo (talk) 08:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The usual practice among statisticians for abandoned matches that are replayed is to strike the abandoned game from statistical records. For those places that simply play the remaining minutes it is a bit more complex, but I have seen sources treat any differing players as if they were substitutes, as that is in effect what has happened. In any case, we here on Wikipedia should be citing a third party reliable source and thus following their lead. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the answers. Cheers! — MT (talk) 18:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Categories for football clubs by country
This recent CfD resulted in a change to a number of football categories. I don't recall it being mentioned here and it should have been, for something affecting a lot of pages. Eldumpo (talk) 08:36, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It was listed at WikiProject Football. GiantSnowman 09:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, wasn't aware of that section, although I still think items affecting as many articles as that should have a direct post here to ensure the maximum views. Eldumpo (talk) 10:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * True, though it wouldn't - and shouldn't - have changed the outcome in my eyes. GiantSnowman 10:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Ballon d'Or
Just to let people know that some IPs fail to understand that the Ballon d'Or and the award Messi recently won the FIFA Ballon d'Or are separate awards and are arguing that the former article should include Messi's victories from the last two years. Would appreciate it people could corroborate what I'm saying so they get the message, especially as the article will on the mainspace soon as a TFL, so would be better if it didn't go there in the middle of an edit war. NapHit (talk) 22:13, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You are right of cause. I stopped reverting those edts a while ago. Problem is the press doesn't differentiate and says Messi just won his third. So a combined total of both awards isn't that far stretched. -Koppapa (talk) 22:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * the press report reality. reality is reliable sources. all sources claims this is third ballon dor. no sources claims it is not. ipso facto this is the third ballon dor. Sandman888 (talk) 21:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Saying the press reports reality is a stretch. Look the simple fact is the award he received in 2011 is not the one he received in 2009, rsssf recognise this, fifa recognises this. He can't be listed be listed on the Ballon d'or page as the winner in 2010 and 2011 when the award ceased to exist in 2009 can he? NapHit (talk) 21:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * While the press may be reporting that he's won his third Ballon d'Or, the only thing that links the two awards together is that they share the same name. The old Ballon d'Or was awarded to the European Footballer of the Year and the new FIFA Ballon d'Or is awarded to the World Player of the Year. It is clear that the two are separate awards, and they should be treated as such. Mattythewhite (talk) 21:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Who are you to know better than FIFA, BBC and The Guardian? I have sources backing my claim, do you have ANY secondary sources backing the claim that they are not the same award? Sandman888 (talk) 20:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok so tell us then if an award clearly ceased to exit and cannot be given to anyone then how has it been given its impossible can't happen. They are two different awards. The statement has won three balloon Ballon d'Or is correct purely because the two awards have the same name. Does not make them the same award. For you to be correct you would have to prove to everyone that the first award has been recreated and the latter somehow ceased to be. Edinburgh  Wanderer  21:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * (Reply to Sandman888) Why does anyone need bother providing any sources when the ones you've provided contradict your argument? Let's go through them one by one.


 * FIFA indeed say Messi "...will find out tomorrow if he has become the first man since Michel Platini to win the Ballon d'Or for three years running ", but it's not explicitly stating that the Ballon d'Or and FIFA Ballon d'Or are a single entity. Rather, it's that he's simply won the trophy called the Ballon d'Or three years running (which he of course has, but they're different awards, with one applying to Europe and the other to world football).  Further, the  source itself admits that the two are separate awards.  "Messi won the inaugural FIFA Ballon d'Or, a combination of the France Football Ballon d'Or prize and FIFA's World Player of the Year award, last year, having picked up both awards in 2009."  That spells it out pretty clearly.


 * BBC Sport opens with "...becoming only the fourth player in history to win the trophy three times". Indeed, it's referring to him winning the Ballon d'Or trophy three times, but nowhere are the BBC ascertaining that the Ballon d'Or and the FIFA Ballon d'Or are the same award.  Continuing with the same trophy does not mean the award that has been bestowed is the same.  A link is also provided to this BBC report from Messi's 2010 vicotory, which the BBC refer to as the "inaugural Fifa Ballon d'Or award", again showing that the FIFA Ballon d'Or is separate from the Ballon d'Or.


 * The Guardian refer to how Messi has "...extended his reign as the world's best player for a third year on Monday", which he indeed has, having won the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 2009 and the FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2010 and 2011. The Guardian very kindly explain the situation that we already know, which is that "Fifa's world player award merged last year with the Ballon d'Or trophy awarded by France Football magazine since 1956."  Pretty clear again that the two are separate awards.  Another quote is that "Messi joins Michel Platini winning the Ballon d'Or for three consecutive years, though the Frenchman won from 1983-85 when only European players were eligible".  As I've explained, just because he's won the Ballon d'Or trophy three years running does not mean he's won he's won the same competition three years running.


 * It seems you're trying to flog a dead horse, but judging by the reaction of others at this discussion unfortunately noone appears to be interested. Sorry.  Mattythewhite (talk) 21:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Preposterous semantics. Should the trophy be the same but the award somehow different? Where is that explicitly stated? Sources? is the award different when the set of eligible winners is widened to every player on the planet as opposed to only european players? Should we then create a list for european-players awards, worldwide awards and so forth? The fact is, you have no sources backing your claim that the award messi won is different from the award platini won. " Pretty clear again that the two are separate awards" no it is not at all clear that they are seperate. in fact almost everybody treats the award as the same, your ploy to ascertain it is merely the "trophy" that is the same and not the "award" as if the award is seperate from the trophy, does not make much sense to me, and I fail to see any sources backing your reading of that claim. Reg dead horse, every day ordinary users try to revert the wrong information on the ballon dor page. So yes, users of wikipedia are in fact interested. Sandman888 (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Arrrrrgh. Is this yet another case of people fighting over something which has the extraordinarily simply compromise of simply adding a bit more descriptive text to clarify the situation wherever the "third award" comment is made? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:08, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sandman it would help if you actually read your sources. When the governing body who issues them say they are separate awards then they clearly are. Although as Chris said adding a descriptive text should solve the issue but it's extremely clear they are not the same award. Edinburgh   Wanderer  10:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

"Managerial changes" section
Greetings,

There has been a strong "debate" (read: edit war) in the 2011–12 Serie A article over the layout of the "Managerial changes" section. An anonymous IP user (from various IPs in Italy) insists that it should be two tables--one for pre-season and one for during the season--because of some league rule. I, however, insist that it should be one table because 1) there is not a another league article with these two sub-sections because 2) there isn't any consensus for it. I would have dealt with this properly, but my time on this site has been limited due to work and travel. Could someone else interject with their two cents on the matter before it gets any worse (no need to comment on that), please? Thanks. Digirami (talk) 07:09, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Greetings,

It is necessary to distinguish the changes before the start and during the regular season. In the Italian league a coach can not coach in the same season 2 different teams, after the start.

It is therefore necessary to distinguish 2 separate tables to avoid unnecessary confusion in cases of the coaches Pioli and Donadoni, because they were enrolled with another club to league started, seen that they have been sacked to the first club before the season.

Digirami, has changed the 2009–10 Serie A that already reported the two tables, to delete the previous that already include the.

Digirami has been blocked always repeated violations two times in May 2010, after repeated warnings. He seems recidivist

Thanks. --93.56.243.78 (talk) 09:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Why not have one table, arranged chronologically, but with an extra row at the cutoff date explaining the ruling? That would seem to satisfy the requirements of both parties. Oldelpaso (talk) 12:11, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * One rule does not make it necessary to have two table. The contents of the table already distinguish which changes were made during the season and which were made pre-season. That's the way it has always been across similar articles in all other countries and the Italian league should be no different (think consistency across the project). Therefore, Oldelpaso's suggestion is fine by me. Digirami (talk) 14:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

PROD
List of notable Blackpool F.C. players has been prod'd. Obviously it meets the criteria, but I'm hoping someone can handle the template removal for me. Thanks. -  Dudesleeper  talk  12:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've removed the Prod, although I think the article could do with a bit of tidying. I think it would be better if players are listed by firstname and not surname. Eldumpo (talk) 12:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Issues I have with the article - the name & the 'decades' section. Personally I think it should be one table, sorted alphabetically, at 'List of Blackpool F.C. players', with every other player who has played in the FL listed in one table, sorted alphabetically, at an article called 'List of Blackpool F.C. players with fewer than 50 league appearances'. GiantSnowman 12:30, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The inclusion criteria aren't clear. Are Bouazza, Carney and Kingson included because they're not from the British Isles?! And, in my opinion, the "By Decade" section doesn't add anything to the article. U+003F? 13:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

What on Earth is that "for players with a Wikipedia article" bit about? Apart from being an egregious self-reference it's wholly unnecessary. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It is necessary: only those ex-Blackpool players for whom an article exists are in the category. Kevin McE (talk) 15:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That is implied by the whole concept of the category system. The question is why on Earth it is being specifically pointed out in the prose of one particular article. Is this commonplace in these lists? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:10, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Rename as List of Blackpool F.C. players with 100+ appearances, remove those with less than 100. Title is POV, criteria are POV (in terms of making them notable, not in terms of meeting criteria). Why do Eardley's international appearances make him more notable as a Blackpool player ? If someone eligible for a minor Caribbean team played for Blackpool reserves, but got a brief run out as a sub once, this would make him a notable Blackpool player according to this. Rimmel Daniel is not a notable Gillingham player (never got anywhere near the first team squad), but he did did represent Grenada while on their books. Is a player who played 14 games a season, but was mainly in the reserves, but stayed around because he was cheap, really notable? Kevin McE (talk) 15:16, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's now at AfD.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Can I just double check. I take it from this discussion it's ok to have lit of all players and a list of notable players for a club. Edinburgh   Wanderer  10:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No. The only "notable players" list that currenty exists (this one) is at AfD and there, as here, the principle of being said to be notable by an ill defined set of criteria as the basis of establishing a page has no support at all.  The work that has gone in to the content can, nevertheless, be acknowledged as valuable.  Kevin McE (talk) 10:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The Scottish ones are lists of notable players I.e made over 100 appearances or other..I I have come across very few that have full lists. That's the reason I'm asking. Edinburgh   Wanderer  10:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For instance List of Hibernian F.C. players or List of Heart of Midlothian F.C. players. Edinburgh   Wanderer  10:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Player lists written years ago pretty well all followed the 100-appearance players plus notable extras model. Eventually the featured list process made it clear that notable extras were original research and thus unacceptable, so more recently player lists went over to straight number-of-appearances. Think the target is to have "a" complete list, but generally split into 2 or 3 actual list articles: as List of Manchester United F.C. players, List of Manchester United F.C. players (25–99 appearances), List of Manchester United F.C. players (fewer than 25 appearances), the latter two effectively being spun off from the first on grounds of size. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:10, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that because I don't stray into english articles very often I only had the Scots ones to go by and they universally all go along the notable route. So basicly it's acceptable to have lists of every player that's why I was confused re which was acceptable or both. I honestly wish I'd known that before. The problem for me with notability is that it's very difficult to have a clear criteria other than 100 plus. I actually prefer the all approach.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  11:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify: the title List of Manchester United F.C. players might imply it's a complete list in itself, but it actually contains just players with 100+ appearances, and ought really to contain explicit links to the spinoff articles. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * the spin offs have players who have made less than 100 that's where I'm getting the virtually all approach. Yes there will be some it misses but wouldn't the vast majority be there Edinburgh   Wanderer  11:34, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Should be all there, though I was still finding missed ones ages after the Birmingham City lists were supposed to be complete. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Pepe (footballer born 1983)
User:Sujith realmadrid - obviously a fan of the club no? - has been edit-warring over this player's article. Since he is a fan of the club - die-hard so it seems, watch some of his summaries - he refuses to acknowledge Pepe may have deliberately stepped on Messi's hand, and has rewritten the storyline to meet his standards, replacing a reliable source (The Guardian) with a completely biased one - Real's website, where the player is seen apologizing to Messi - and a totally unacceptable one (YouTube).

Furthermore, both myself and User:GiantSnowman have been insulted and threatened with legal action by the individual for our part in the article in the last two days. I can say that i exaggerated in one of my summaries - wait, not that much really, i used the word "vandal" because i ALWAYS assume it is vandalism when ref'd info is removed without one word in summary (the case being that). I have apologized to the user for that.

In a related matter, i asked for admin intervention for a possible page protection - the article was being vandalized right after the game itself, continues to be so four days later! - was sent packing without one word of feedback. You people have been briefed.

Attentively, happy week all - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Revert, warn, report. Argyle 4 Life  talk  02:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Since I can't sleep and am watching NFL, I've tidied it up and provided more sources. Describing the incident, the media reaction and the apology. No accusations, no POV, neutral coverage and about as much as needs to be said. Argyle 4 Life  talk  03:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Indian Premier League Soccer
Hello this new "special" leagues and event is coming and every collaboration in the article is welcome--Feroang (talk) 04:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Club season articles with minimal content and no references
I've recently come across several such articles, e.g. 1981–82 Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. season, 1985–86 Birmingham City F.C. season, 1983–84 Leicester City F.C. season. The first two contain a random selection of players registered with the club during the relevant season, an infobox with not entirely accurate contents (apparently Birmingham were relegated from 7th in the league), and no sources at all. The Leicester one has an infobox, some section headings, and one sentence saying what league they played in. There are numerous similar.

Now I know that Football League club seasons are considered notable, so in theory these pages should be improved, not deleted. But I really don't see the point of keeping dozens of completely unsourced articles of very doubtful quality on the offchance of their being improved somewhen in the future. Redirecting to the seasons list for the relevant club, which at first glance seemed a sensible idea, would create spurious bluelinks in the club's seasons navbox. Don't mind taking them to AfD, but would like to hear other people's views on the matter first (or instead). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with what you're saying. In theory these article titles are notable, but without references and much content they are candidates for AfD. I would try sending a small number to AfD and see what the consensus is. Eldumpo (talk) 17:24, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Same with 2002 COSAFA Cup etc. GiantSnowman 17:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've they havent any meaningful content then they shouldnt be there. They are notable but what use to anyone. There are severel Rangers F.C. ones like that as well. Edinburgh   Wanderer  19:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

AfD is often more trouble than it's worth with these, as you'll inevitably get folk showing up to oppose deletion in principle. I'd just boldly redirect them to the appropriate section of the club's history article. seems to be a key contributor to these. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:50, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Recreation of deleted articles
Please can admin (i.e. someone with more clout than me) have a word with, who keeps on recreating the same article under different names - one, two, three - and doesn't respond (either in writing or actions) to requests on his talk page. I'd also advise that all three are SALTed. GiantSnowman 15:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Speedied the new one, final warning issued for the recreation. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:26, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Cheers. GiantSnowman 16:30, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

English Non-league Step 5 restructuring
Just thought I'd bring it to the project's attention. We shouldn't need to worry too much about it until the end of season 2012–13, but Step 5 of the National league system looks set for a reshuffle. Seems to me from the preliminary proposals here that the United Counties Football League and Sussex County League will effictively be split up among neighbouring leagues, and the boundaries of the Hellenic Football League will be moved east. Every league gains some new teams and some of the leagues may be in for name changes. May be quite a bit of editing on the horizon if the FA plans go through. Editing of club info, deciding whether the new leagues are continuations of old ones or new entities needing new articles, and the inevitable restructuring of Step 6 after all that.  Del ♉ sion 23  (talk)  19:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Go, go,go the Women soccer fans
We need help and assistant to write on 5 Major leagues of women's soccer in North America (WPS, USL-League, WPSL, NCAA and CIS ). This is in the section  Women's soccer leagues of the new page Major women's sport leagues in North America. Please Want to help us? thanks so much, merci beaucoup, תודה --Cordialement féministe ♀ Cordially feminist Geneviève  (talk) 00:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Rivaldo article edits.
Past half year on action is a user:Raulseixas, who is reverting edits in Rivaldo article. In the early days he was editing without creating a profile. You can see his revert content here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rivaldo&diff=472906823&oldid=472906777 + he deleted goal statistics section. I made a discussion on article talk page(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rivaldo#Recent_edit_war) with comments about my version with disputed content to get a consensus, but this user didn't respond and despite this kept reverting information, which should be correct. I don't know any way how to stop him, and I am tired of fighting with him on my own. So please review this situation.

Sincerely,                                                                                        user:87.110.43.106 (talk) 02:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Is this vandalism?
A certain user (User:Maxi1992) continually adds unreferenced information or just generally fails to follow or understand WP guidelines. I continually have to revert his work, which is almost exclusively done on Algerian football. Considering that I work on Algerian football by myself for the most part, it's a lot of work having to continually revert his work. Do his actions constitute vandalism? Is there anywhere I can take this? Frankly, it's getting kind of tiresome to do this on a daily basis. His latest edits involve a transfer that hasn't take place and might never take place, but he seems convinced it's already went through and keeps updating the pages: CA Batna, Saïd Bouchouk and Al-Qadisiyah FC. I've already trying contacting him through his talk page but he doesn't reply. He's already been blocked twice for failing to understand WP policy and continues to do so. Also, all the new articles he creates are just copies of existing ones with minor edits and without references. It's getting very frustrating .. any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 02:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It sounds like uncooperative editing, particularly if you're leaving detailed comments on the user's talk page. But vandalism has some clear markers and that doesn't sound like it meets the criteria. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:18, 24 January 2012 (UTC)


 * No edit made in good faith is ever vandalism. However, WP:competence is required is a well-respected essay, and over the last year I've seen plenty of occasions when editors have been blocked under the rationale there. Simply put, editors who cannot or will not abide by our guidelines on collaborative editing here cannot expect to be permitted to contribute. That goes doubly for editors who work largely on BLPs. Warn him and point him at this thread. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 06:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I don't doubt that his edits are in good faith so like the previous poster indicated, it's more a case of competence, or in-competence to be exact. I'll try to communicate with him through his talk page but I don't really expect a reply. TonyStarks (talk) 10:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just an update, I left him a message on his talk page. Also, he's created a bunch of unsourced BLP's about players and admin seems to have caught in and has also left him a warning. Hopefully this will take care of the problem. TonyStarks (talk) 05:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Trouble with
Antony1994 is removing or adding  players to football squads without providing a source, introducing false statistics  and information  to players (always without providing a source), and has been warned a lot of times for that behaviour:  Today he's removed yet another player from AEK's squad without providing a reason:  What should be done about him? Also, for your consideration, here are my concerns about Antony1994 "possibly" being a sockpuppet of blocked user Antony1821, as I discussed them with the blocking administrator a while back. Cheers. – Kosm  1  fent  15:09, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Have you launched a WP:SPI? GiantSnowman 16:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Nah, I'm not entirely familiar with the procedure... and although the user seems to pass the duck test, I don't know if my suspicions are enough to open a case. If one more experienced editor than myself could help, I would be grateful. –  Kosm  1  fent  17:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The user is clearly socking and it's probably the worst attempt at block evasion I've ever seen. I crossed paths a few times with Antony1821 and none of them were constructive. The clues are all there: the epic fail of a name, the familiar editing pattern (Olympiacos in particular), introducing unsourced material and factual inaccuracies, not listening to advice and blanking their talk page.  Argyle 4 Life  talk  18:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have taged Antony1994 as a suspected sock, and have initiated WP:SPI found here. Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:54, 24 January 2012 (UTC)


 * In some of his messages (he did not reply 99,999999% of the time though), he said he understood what was asked and would strive to improve. In one instance, i remember well he wrote in his own talkpage: "PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ME MORE...LET ME HAVE A NEW START OF DOING MY JOB BETTER THAN EVER!!!!" (please see right below the "Welcome" message).

ANTONY1821 allover, block more than granted (of course, in old-school approach, that won't stop him from opening another account) :( --Vasco Amaral (talk) 18:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot, guys! Indeed it seems like an obvious sockpuppetry case, starting with the username (which first caught my attention) and then his similar disruptive editing behaviour. By the way Vasco, if he evades his second block (most likely), we'll know what to expect. ;) – Kosm  1  fent  20:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kolins
Give that we have had a number of discussions about this here, and that it affects footballer articles, some editors might be interested in Requests for comment/Kolins. Thanks, GiantSnowman 17:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Duplicate categories
Hi there. There is two categories for logos used in football/soccer in the USA: there is Category:American soccer logos and Category:United States soccer logos, and I don't know what to do about it, so I came here. Any help would be much appreciated :) It's Malpass93! (drop me a ___) 17:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi, you can nominate one for deletion at WP:TFD - let me know if you need any help. GiantSnowman 18:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure which one to TFD name-wise... It's Malpass93! (drop me a ___) 23:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would get rid of 'United States', as other similar categories follow the nationality format, such as (not 'England football logos'). GiantSnowman 09:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A rename to "North American" might be a sensible suggestion, as presumably this category covers Canadian MLS franchises as well? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That's another question I was going to ask but forgot about - thank you Chris! Essentially, for teams such as Swansea City or Toronto FC who don't play in the league of their own country, does that make their logos the 'nationality' of the league or the stadium? It's Malpass93! (drop me a ___) 17:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * We shouldn't ever use flags where they are ambiguous. I can't say much for the Canadian teams but the Welsh teams in the Football League / Premier League have a very complicated relationship with the Welsh FA and in many cases have played in Welsh competitions; they certainly cannot be represented with English flags in general. Quite honestly needs renamed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:28, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * So, erm, what do you recommend? Something like "Football logos of England"? It's Malpass93! (drop me a ___) 19:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)


 * "Logos of clubs in the Football League or Premier League" would do. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Mervan Celik
Can an administrator please sort out the mess at Mervan Celik. The page was blanked and then redirected to Mervan Çelik without any discussion, for the second time I might add, and now the wrong page is being protected. The latter page was created as a copy before being turned into a redirect by myself. Another user did the same thing, blanking the original and moving it to Mervan Çelik. If any move is to take place then it needs to be discussed via a requested move. I suggest moving the content back to where it should be, protect that page and delete the copy. I would move it back myself like I did last time, but then it would leave a redirect that is protected. Argyle 4 Life talk  18:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually WP:BEBOLD says it doesn't NEED to be discussed at WP:RM first. I just moved it to include the correct Turkish-Kurdish accent. IJA (talk) 19:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Controversial page moves should always be discussed. Every source I've seen does not include a cedilla. Regardless, the move isn't even legitimate. The contents of the article, which has two-and-a-half years of history, was simply copied and pasted to another address. Argyle 4 Life  talk  19:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Controversial? Now you're making me laugh. IJA (talk) 23:49, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it is controversial - see all the ANI threads here. GiantSnowman 09:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I sorted out the page history last night, so the cut and paste moves issue is solved. Number  5  7  10:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Cheers, Number 57. That's my main gripe taken care of. If there is agreement somewhere to use diacritics regardless of what is commonly used then so be it. However, I thought a discussion would be merited because the cut and paste job was the first time I'd seen a diacritic used in his name. Argyle 4 Life  talk  17:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * There's nothing inherently wrong with moving a page to a title with diacritics (it may not be the right answer, but that's a matter of individual discussion). I'm rather more concerned about the cut-paste job. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Template Fb
User:Cnrgndz has found it fit to go and change the color attributes of the Global Round by Round Template Fb eg Template:Fb 16. This is not the first time someone in their infinite wisdom modified these. Maybe it was time that these were protected. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 21:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC) ‎
 * Where are those templates used? In the positions-by-round-sections? It's just a 16. Writing the template in brackets is 9! characters while writing a 16 only takes 2. -Koppapa (talk) 12:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That is correct. They are used in positional round-by-round sections. However, there has be a train of thought that positional colors match those of qualification to European competitions and relegation. But those colors are dependant and variable on the league. With regard to this there has been a proliferation of similar templates. If you look at La Liga the colors match the standings. That is because the template used is Fb2. e.g. Template:Fb2 1. Although it looks that this template is global it really is specific for La Liga. Seria A is similar but it uses a designated template which is named to identify that it is specific. e.g. Template:Fb Italia11 1 (Italy r-by-r template 2011). There were members of this project who were in complete ire with the proliferation of templates and there were other members who were completely against the notion of round-by-round and last there were some completely against color... The fact remains that round-by-round is used in many season articles and when global templates are changed, the implications are not always understood by the editor. Hence, my query about have these Fb templates semi-protected and with a reason. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 13:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

1987–88 Football League
Could someone have a look at this article as the maps are hiding some of the tables. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 08:52, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This has been mentioned before. "standardised" a large number of Football League and other league articles, but introduced shedloads of errors like overlapping maps, overwide league tables etc. Despite being made aware of it by several users, they have not repaired the damage.  Number   5  7  09:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Apanuggpak has a facination with there being a colour code for absolutely every outcome at the end of a season. I think if were left up to them there would be a different colour for every finishing position in the league table. Instead of readable league tables we'd just have rainbows. Not too sure why there are always separate maps for London, particluarly with the Fourth Division. Hurray, we can see that Leyton Orient are in Waltham Forest... It's not like it's solving an overlap of names on the England map.  Del ♉ sion 23  (talk)  17:47, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd remove the London map for the fourth division, serves absolutely no purpose since it only has one club. Why have it for London and no other club? In fact, I'm going to remove it. TonyStarks (talk) 06:02, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for responses. I have now also removed the London maps for Div 2 and 3. That's not to say the Div 1 map should definitely stay, but it is at least more meaningful. I have also removed the infoboxes for Divs 2 to 4. They were saying very little that was not already in the tables, and the only sourced info I have moved to a section at the bottom. It still needs a lot of work, not to mention other seasons which are presumably in same format. Eldumpo (talk) 09:44, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * One way to solve the overlapping of maps and league tables would be to have a seperate section for the location of clubs (see 2011–12 Northern Premier League. That's become the standard way of formatting season articles at non-league level. I don't think people are desperate to be able to see the league table and map at the same time.  Del ♉ sion 23  (talk)  14:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

One of the major problems with the articles is that a very odd league table format is used that has fixed widths, and is far too wide, resulting in some lines in the table spreading over two rows, and the table ending up very distorted. Is there any way we could get a bot to "fix" all these tables and use the actual league table template we have? Number  5  7  12:36, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Having had a look just at the accessibility nightmare which is the article linked in the section header, I'd be surprised if a bot were capable of parsing these effectively. Just how many pages are using this format? Sticking them in a category would at least let us do a cleanup drive. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I think they have done most Football League season articles, plus several non-league ones. Number   5  7  13:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * So long as that "several" isn't significantly more than the FL articles, that's at least a manageable amount of articles (less than 200 in total) which can be attacked decade by decade. Do we have a specific, blessed format for league tables these days to convert these to? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:01, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


 * If we're thinking of addressing these issues, can I put in a request that we also move the league tables to templates, as I brought up here before? The benefit of this would be that it allows the tables to be used not only on the league articles, but also clubs' season articles. For example, Template:1921–22 Football League Third Division North table is now used at 1921–22 Football League and 1921–22 Tranmere Rovers F.C. season. Cheers! <tt style="color:gray">U+003F</tt><tt style="color:red">?</tt> 14:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a proper league table template (the one that uses the fb templates), but it does have its drawbacks (i.e. the need to creating thousands of mini templates for it to work). A classic example of how it fails is 2009–10 Football League, because whoever designed the system didn't allow editors to just have a text entry for the table (it has to be another template), so as there is no template for each of the play-offs in that season, the tables are cocked up. Perhaps we need to get this format sorted out as part of this. Otherwise I would just suggest using much simpler wikitables, as I did on articles like 1985–86 Southern Football League, which allows you to enter any random comments on what happened to the clubs at the end of the season, without faffing around with creating more templates. Number   5  7  14:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, these mini-templates just containing the club's name are a nightmare. I don't know who thought of that. It is solved however in using Template:Fb cl2 team instead of Fb cl team, which works on the strangest of leagues, e.g. Kyrgyzstan League Women 2011. -Koppapa (talk) 17:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually my idea was not about using templates within tables (which must be a good thing) but transcluding the whole table as one template to allow its use on multiple pages. <tt style="color:gray">U+003F</tt><tt style="color:red">?</tt> 10:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry, I understood what you meant, but was replying to Chris Cunningham. I think your idea about having the league tables as a separate template is a good one, but we need to sort out how to display league tables properly.
 * Would it be worth creating a new league table template that doesn't rely on subsidiary templates? Something that has
 * {{League table template
 * club1 = |pos1 = |p1= |w1 = |note1= |colour1=
 * so it can be filled in like
 * |club1 = AFC Sudbury |pos1 = 1 |p1 = 32 |w1 = 22 |note1= Promoted to Isthmian League Premier Division |colour1=green
 * then automatically sorts clubs based on the pos input? Number   5  7  11:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

{{od}} I'm loathe to overthink these. Other than enforced standardisation, does the use of templates here have any significant advantage over a wikitable here? As for moving the tables into templatespace, I don't see the advantage there either: ideally these will only need to be edited once, so there's no convenience advantage to moving them to their own page, and if they're only used on one page each there's no reduction in duplication either. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As U+003F? points out, league tables are used on both the league season article, and club season articles - so a table of a 20-club league may be required 21 times. Number   5  7  12:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Ahh, missed that. I'd rather we resolved that by removing it from the club season articles. Articles should not contain tables where only 5-10% of the content is actually important to the subject. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The template tables are better as these templates also hold information that is used in result grids. They are very useful in more recent seasons as they calculate points and game played totals, meaning less info has to be typed in. Also want to point out that it is possible to write whatever you like next to the team. See 1993–94 Northern Premier League for a good example. One club transfered league, and another one folded. Plus the team that finished champions did not get promoted. They can also work out points deductions and you can add in notes with references. Only problem I've found with the template tables is that it can't work out points totals in old leagues where it was 2 points for a win or Goal Average is used.  Del <sub style="color:black;">♉ sion 23  (talk)  12:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Hence it would be impossible to use this for the majority of Football League articles. So, do we create a new template that doesn't do any calculations except ranking, or just agree on a standard wikitable layout? Number   5  7  13:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you need 2 points per win, just deduct one point per win. -Koppapa (talk) 13:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a template for 2pts, see use on 1978–79 Yugoslav First League. There is also a switch for goal average. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 13:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks like that template can be used on all the seasons. Thanks for pointing that out Vicodine. I suggest using it as the standard as it combines flexibility with ease in updating/creating.  Del <sub style="color:black;">♉ sion 23  (talk)  13:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The ultimate question here is, does the use of multiple sets of templates here result in a net positive for the consistency and maintainability of our league articles? It's difficult to argue that the automatic calculation of such things as goal difference and points is really that valuable when the contents of these tables has almost certainly been pulled in its entirety from sources which already include these calculations anyway! Meanwhile, we have to maintain this stack of oddly-named utility templates that confound editors from outside the project and that even familiar editors primarily use by copying them over from other articles. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm arguing more for ease of data entry rather than help with the sums. The calculations mean that up to 72 different bits of info don't need to be individually added to the article (24 teams x games played, points, goal difference/average). This also makes it much easier to update the tables as only 1–3 bits of info per team need to be changed each matchday (win/loss/draw, goals against, goals for), compared to 4–6. The layout is also much easier to edit. Result grids also use the club templates so they will also need to be addressed if a new kind of table is to be created. I do however agree that a large amount of templates are created in the process which can be confusing even to people inside of the project. Perhaps a renaming and recategorisation of the templates is necessary?  Del <sub style="color:black;">♉ sion 23  (talk)  15:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the results grid is one of the main issues with this format because of the huge amount of coding required (and the side effects on article size), as opposed to a wikitable, which is much more concise. Number   5  7  15:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The results grids are definately a problem, I was shocked the first time I added one to an article at the difference it made to article size.  Del <sub style="color:black;">♉ sion 23  (talk)  16:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * May I ask why are all of the divisions on the same page? Why don't you split it up into four articles? Dr. Vicodine (talk) 16:11, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I vaguely remember some people agreeing that it wasn't necessary last summer. Individual pages for each division were merged into the main article. I'm not a fan of the tables being split into home and away sections, but that is what the source goes with I see. The empty columns are a waste of space. Argyle 4 Life  {{sup|talk}}  17:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm also not keen at all on the tables being split into home and away sections - I'm for keeping these league season pages simple. Further detail can always be found at club season articles etc. I'd like to echo Delusion23's comments about ease of data entry, as I update a bunch of non-league tables throughout the season, and I wouldn't want it to become more complicated. But I think the important thing is to somehow reverse the terrible changes made by, including the scandalous mess of the maps overlapping the tables, the ludicrous array of colours and the London map overkill. I challenged Apanuggpak a while ago about his "standardisation" while reverting him wholesale at a Conference season article, and he sent me a very lengthy diatribe defending his work. He claimed that the maps overlap the tables because our screens aren't big enough. He actually said, "Computer owners should understand that the less they invest in their computers, the more likely it is that they will have problems viewing everything", and he also threatened to report me for vandalism, which just made me want to revert everything he's ever done. Mercifully, he stopped wrecking these articles after this. I'd love to see these articles kept fairly simple. Also, I completely agree about the size of the results grids. Bretonbanquet (talk) 00:13, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

International Federation of Football History & Statistics
I wouldn't mind some views on this article - the organisation may well be notable, but is there any need for all the tables & tables of stats they produce, which seem to violate WP:NOTSTATS? GiantSnowman 13:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think they are needed or notable by itself. -Koppapa (talk) 14:06, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree the article needs significant pruning, and at present it seems only the organisation itself is being used as a reference. I can't see we really need to list all the historical winners of the club of the month award! Eldumpo (talk) 15:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll be bold and remove it then. Thanks, GiantSnowman 12:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Just a comment. Although the amount of statistics was way over the top, the massive prune that was done is it justified when you have these kind of statistics as well e.g. UEFA coefficient, FIFA Ranking. Understandably, these are official organizations which we keep an eye on but the statistical information wouldn't that be in consideration of the same kind of action just performed on International Federation of Football History & Statistics. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 16:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Kind of a digression but would this organisation be considered a reliable source? It seems to be just a loose grouping of amateur statisticians (not unlike RSSSF). Hack (talk) 06:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Michael Ball
As you may know Mr Ball was involved in some controvercy recently regarding | homophobic twitter posts. What is the best way to deal with it in his article? Should a new section be made, or keep it within the Leicester City section? Also, should it be mentioned in the lede? By my interpretation of WP:LEDE it shouldn't, but another editor disagrees so I would welcome some more opinions. doom gaze  (talk)  15:49, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My view is that 'controversy' sections are bets merged into the main article. However, as the club have denied that his comments have anything to do with him getting released then this controversy has nothing to with his career, and should be in a separate section.


 * I put the rape trial Clayton McDonald is facing in his 'personal life' section, seen as he has signed new contracts since the allegations have been made public, therefore it is not affecting his career at the moment. If he were to be found guilty then that would end his playing career, therefore 'playing career' would then follow directly onto a newly renamed 'Rape conviction' section. If he was to then make an unlikely comeback, then I guess 'Rape conviction' would become a sub-section within 'playing career'.--EchetusXe 18:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd include it in a "Personal life" section since, like EchetusXe said, it had no bearing on his release from Leicester City. It shouldn't be in the lead since making a stupid comment doesn't make someone any more interesting or notable, and I don't believe that including said stupid comment on the encyclopaedia is necessary or wise. Argyle 4 Life  talk  18:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Tabloid controversy should be withheld from articles unless there is some abundantly clear impact on perception of the subject. We do not routinely include every single negative incident that a public figure is involved in on articles on said figures. Certainly any attempt to include it in the article lead should be reverted on sight and the party responsible warned for inappropriate edits to a BLP. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The correct place for this discussion to begin is on the article's talkpage so that all interested parties are aware of it. To seek to establish a consensus on a board very few contributors are aware of and not to give any notice of having done so is likely to elicit the least informed responses and looks suspiciously like WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Exok (talk) 13:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Please don't misuse terms like "forum shopping": ideally matters concerning a single article should be discussed on that article's talk page, but if an editor starts by posting to a central forum (especially one of the most active on its type on the whole of wikipedia) then there's nothing to suggest this is an act of bad faith. That said, I've replied over there. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The accusation of forum shopping is entirely wrong - that refers to multiple places, not the incorrect one. Ideally it should have been raised at the article talk page first, but I'm 99% positive that many more people watch this page than the article in question, so this was a logical place to come. Now that we're aware of the issue, we can continue the discussion on the article talk page. GiantSnowman 13:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Remove per WP:NPF. It has absolutely no relevance to his notability as a football player. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * NPF refers to notable people who are "not generally well known" - I'd argue that Ball is well known, hence all the media attention regarding this situation. If we remove this from his article completely - rather than deal with it appropriately - then should we also remove John Terry's accusations of racism, Luis Suarez biting people etc. etc.? GiantSnowman 13:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not been removed entirely, just removed from the lead. Suarez's lead is a good example of how to handle this: particularly notable negative aspects of his career are noted in the lead, but not every single incident that's filled a column inch. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Anon IP
Probably not the right place to do this .. but any admins around? An anonymous IP is just going around and removing stuff from infoboxes. If someoen can block and revert or point me to where I can get help with this. Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 21:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:AIV. GiantSnowman 21:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Snowman, I was there just before starting the topic here. It said "2. The user must be given sufficient recent warnings to stop." so not sure my request qualified and decided I'd be safer off here given its footy related. TonyStarks (talk) 01:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well your request is not qualified, since the IP has not been given level 3 and 4 warnings. If he continues vandalizing after level 4 warning then an admin in WP:AIV will definitely grant your request and block him. — MT (talk) 04:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah that's what I figured. Just for future reference, where am I supposed to go with cases like this? Or do I just have to warn the user myself and undo the edits? TonyStarks (talk) 05:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can revert and warn the user yourself. WP:Vandalism has a whole section on how to respond to vandalism, but it's basically just revert and warn. To warn the vandals, you can use the warning templates from Template messages/User talk namespace or Template messages/User talk namespace/Multi-level templates. Hope this helps. Cheers! — MT (talk) 06:58, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help, I'll bookmark it for future reference. TonyStarks (talk) 10:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Association football clubs by county
There is an ongoing discussion here regarding Category:Association football clubs by county. Comments and suggestions by this project's members would be highly appreciated. Thank you, -- Black Falcon (talk) 09:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Standardized player season stats
I've been looking at the player season stats for various clubs and various leagues recently, and I noticed they're all different. I've seen Template:Fb ss player and Template:Fb ss player 3 on various clubs' histories, and many clubs use a regular table instead of a series of templates to describe this information. Is there anybody trying to reach a consensus on these templates? They seem close, but still have problems (on many, the header is off, but the first example I found, 2010–11 FC Barcelona season, has a correct header). I'm also curious if the template names should avoid using a number, or if the number held any meaning. Template:Fb ss player has 55 uses, Template:Fb ss player 2 has 0, and Template:Fb ss player 3 has 41. Is anybody working on standardizing these? — Bryan Burgers (talk) 22:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

2012 Africa Cup of Nations
As you may or may not be aware, the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations kicked off today. I think it would be a great occasion for editors to take this opportunity to focus on African footy in the next few weeks, especially the teams and players involved. While a lot of the players in the competition are based in Europe, meaning their articles are pretty well done, that is not the case for the domestic based players. I know I've already started similar topics before and got some good response to develop African footy, so I'm just taking this chance to remind everyone again. Cheers. TonyStarks (talk) 21:40, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll have a go at some biographies later tonight. GiantSnowman 22:11, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Are there any particular major subjects or people that need articles or improvement? Hack (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * National teams. Just by looking at the map Africa is the continent needing improvement most. <span style="-moz-border-radius:1em;border:1px solid black;font-size:11px;background-color:red;color:white;padding:1px 4px 1px 5px">BCS  (Talk) 03:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's probably worth an effort to get all of the African national teams up to at least start or C-class by the day of the final (12 February). Hack (talk) 06:40, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me; reading your edit summary, you mentioned having an article improvement drive? <span style="-moz-border-radius:1em;border:1px solid black;font-size:11px;background-color:red;color:white;padding:1px 4px 1px 5px">BCS  (Talk) 20:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I just had in mind a concerted effort, not necessarily anything formal. Hack (talk) 06:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay. <span style="-moz-border-radius:1em;border:1px solid black;font-size:11px;background-color:red;color:white;padding:1px 4px 1px 5px">BCS  (Talk) 20:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * what would be ideal is if matches were not updated as though Wikipedia were a scoreboard. A full discussion may be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 55. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Tim Ream
I'm having trouble updating the statistics table for Tim Ream, can some please update it to fit with the PL, League Cup, FA Cup, European competitions ect please? IJA (talk) 10:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've removed it completely as unreferenced. GiantSnowman 12:46, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Restored with sources. Perhaps a Citation needed or Unreferenced section tag might have been enough, rather than removing the table? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No harm done in the end, though I believe we should have a pretty much zero-tolerance attitude on unreferenced information about BLPs. GiantSnowman 13:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I tend to go with what WP:BLP says about contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced. Not convinced that two seasons' worth of career stats for a well-known player from a stats-rich league counts as sufficiently "contentious" to remove without waiting for discussion. Though it certainly wanted explicit sourcing, and one source was already in the article: his MLS profile in the external links section, which I suspect was there as a source in the same way editors of English football articles habitually put Soccerbase statistical references in the ext links section. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I use the first half of WP:BURDEN which states "You may remove any material lacking a reliable source that directly supports it (although an alternate procedure would be to add a citation needed tag)", but I can see the merits of both viewpoints, and importantly, we have managed to source information about a living person, which is always nice. GiantSnowman 14:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't you think it would have been more productive of you to hunt down a reference rather than just removing it all together? They're not exactly hard to find. The first few things that came up when I did a quick google search. IJA (talk) 16:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * All of those sources are MLS stats only - none of those sources detail cups etc. GiantSnowman 09:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

2012 Coppa Italia Final
Not sure if there is call for this article to exist yet so have PROD'd it. Please feel free to CSD or remove prod depending on your thoughts. S.G.(GH) ping! 11:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Reading that article tells you who is playing, where they are playing, and when they are playing. It is common practice to have articles on major sporting events scheduled for later in the year.--EchetusXe 14:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

FLC List of Israel State Cup winners
Hi everyone, There is a Featured list candidates of List of Israel State Cup winners. People with experience in WP, please have a look and apply your concerns, Support, or Oppose. Thank you. Please note: have you say before it closes with Stale nomination. – HonorTheKing (talk) 06:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Fully pro status of the Scottish First Division
I see the Scottish First Division is listed as being fully pro under WP:FPL, but I'm wondering whether this is actually correct. It is currently sourced using 10 references that cite the professional status of each club, but would it not be preferable for a source to be found which explicity states that the division is fully pro, rather than synthesising a number of sources? Also, I'm given the impression that the SD1 has only been fully pro since the start of the 2011–12 season; should this not be noted under the division's entry at WP:FPL, as those who played in the division before that time would fail WP:NFOOTBALL? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * As with above, this is answering the wrong question. The right question is "are players who participate in the Scottish First Division implicitly notable per our expectations on the existence of sufficient reliable sources which cover them"? The answer is, screamingly obviously, yes. The First Division isn't currently "fully professional": the majority of Ayr United's squad train part-time. This does not make one lick of difference to the degree of coverage the league gets in reliable sources. SFL1 is listed at FPL for one reason only, which is that we sadly have too many editors who treat FPL as some golden rule rather than using a degree of common sense when nominating articles for deletion. Put more bluntly, if anyone goes around PRODding SFL1 players from seasons where there happened to be part-time teams in the league they deserve to be whacked with a large, preferably deep-fried, trout. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It was listed there long before this season however was removed at the start of this season and re added. Its extremely notable is covered heavily in the press just as much as the SPl. The divisions below are all semi pro so sometimes when a team are promoted such as Ayr they choose to keep thats status. Saying that not all Ayr's players are part time. As was mentioned further up this page the whole fully pro thing needs to have some degree of commonsense as clubs are finding it harder to stay afloat and there are going to be far more teams going semi pro in notable leagues. I think you should look at the talk page to see there was already a discussion there and one here that got rather heated. its been debated to death. Edinburgh   Wanderer  16:19, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The Scottish first division is not and never has been "fully professional". Part-time, semi-pro Ayr United consists entirely of a motley collection of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. This is actually confirmed in the source! This has been pointed out a few times before only for the disproportionate number of Scotch editors to engage in some fairly hysterical examples of WP:FILIBUSTER and WP:GANG. Some of these adolescents have clearly struggled to get out of their bedrooms, let alone their backward wee country! Of course, most of it can be explained by bigotry. In their myopia, the smidgen of coverage enjoyed by the part-time SFL (after Celtic... then Rangers... then the rest of the lowly SPL...) still outweighs that of other top-level national leagues. It's bizarre and needs urgently to be corrected. There is no perspective. Until the late eighties even the top Scottish league was not "fully pro". 94.2.8.11 (talk) 23:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * above comment is likely made by User:PorridgeGobbler who also used several ips including this one User talk:94.2.51.78 which lead to various ANis regarding there behaviour towards myself and a few others in previous discussions which as you can see isn't getting any better. Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry came across this discussion late. As the IP states Ayr are part time, the ref for Ayr "http://www.ayrshirepost.net/ayrshire-sport/ayrshire-football/ayr-utd-fc/2009/05/29/ayr-united-won-t-play-the-full-102545-23724174/" shows in the URL ayr united wont play the full and extracts from it included "But they won’t risk putting the future of the club in jeopardy by abandoning their part-time status." and "“We have part-time players with jobs and can’t ask them to give these up to go full-time. We will still be a predominantly part-time club but we will have some players in during the week." and from the chairman “Now we have got to the First Division, the target is to keep ourselves there but we have to remain financially sound at the same time. We’re not going to throw away all the hard work to get the club on a stable footing by going full-time for the sake of it.” So are Ayr pro? No. Is the division fully professional? No.Murry1975 (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you read the discussion on all the talk pages the overriding consensus was the common sense was to be used. The list is used to determine whether a player meets N footy. One club in the leauge i.e ayr has a mix of part time and full time players. It was decided on the talk page of the article and at various discussions at the main project page to leave things as they were for the time being. One club does not make a league non notable. Several other proposals were brought up to calculate notability but things were left as status quo this does not mean that further disuccuion can't take place as is happening at the main project just now which is where ip made his latest personal attack. He was advised many times he was welcome to take part in the discussion however every time people disagreed with him he resorted to attacks and socking. He also went on a war whilst the discussion was ongoing prodding articles which he was advised not to do because even if it was decided that we no longer treated it as notable previous season still would be as notability is permanent. As i said this isn't a content dispute because there was clear consensus. He is socking as he was advised not to do as part of unblock. Edinburgh   Wanderer  00:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok what we need to decide here is whether we accept that one club having a mix of pro and non pro players make this league suddenly non notable previous discussion indicate that not to be the case. The League gets high coverage in the press similar to the spl. It needs noted than one club does not make the league non notable. Every team coming up have to decide whether or not to go fully pro or stay semi pro. Some will some won't but that has no influence on notability given financial problems around the world this is going to happen far more often and this is opening a weakness in our system of fully pro. Edinburgh   Wanderer  01:53, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've noticed some errors in fact made creeping into this section: 1) The League does not receive coverage similar to the SPL. That is absurd. Within Scotland coverage is 80% on the "Old Firm", with much of the remaining 20% on the other SPL teams or England. 2) The league did not suddenly become non-notable. It has always had part-time and/or semi pro teams in it. Unless anyone can name the last time that it didn't? 3) Ayr United are not the only team currently in the league with part-time/semi-pro players. Far from it. 94.2.8.11 (talk) 02:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No errors at all this league has always been considered notable within this project. Two you are aware of all previous discussions where all of this was pointed out to you we have sources showing other clubs are not part time. Also every team in the uk has part time players i.e. youth contracts or apprenticeships. Media coverage it does easily get similar coverage to the SPL. Matches are all covered in the press including articles on players rumours excetra. May is ask where you live because it its not in scotland then i doubt you would see all that you will just see your localised coverage and Rangers and celtic. I doubt you do live in scotland because your two comments like struggled to get out of their bedrooms, let alone their backward wee country! or Better yet get out of Scotland and see how things work outside of a parochial backwater. This shows you have a major grudge against the country. Edinburgh   Wanderer  12:25, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Edinburgh Wanderer, normally you get all huffy when personal remarks are made towards you, so I presume you are going to strike that? All national leagues would meet the criteria then, only the like of Andorra would fail with regards to a mix of pro- and semi-pro,and for coverage all get media coverage within their own area, the basis that notability comes from reliable local coverage- I doubt that a first division Scotland team gets much coverage in France or Germany- is absurd.Murry1975 (talk) 12:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Muray if you can't see they are personal attacks then i worry for you i have never had any interaction with you anywhere so the fact you say i normally get all Huffy when personally attacked then i have my doubts about you If anyone has a go about your own country then you get pissed off. Please read all disusisons held previously involving multiple editors. It should also be noted there is an ANI ongoing re this. Edinburgh   Wanderer  12:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The BBC cover it the Scotsman cover it the Daily Record, The sun, The Herald and more all large news companies. Hardly just local coverage. The Scottish government describe it as the oldest and largest professional League in Scotland. Its clearly well covered. Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The BBC cover the IFA premiership in Northern Ireland, so do the papers that pertain to Northern Ireland it has the same mix of Pro and semi-pro that the first division does and probably more internationals, the LOI gets the coverage from RTE and the papers there and again has pro-players and semi-pro (some labeled semi-pro despite being on €24,000 for 40 weeks) yet we agree that they are not fully professional even with teams that compete in Europe within those leagues.Murry1975 (talk) 13:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Please answer the question where have i interacted with you before I'm getting concerned here given something you have just quoted. Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

You havent as far as I am aware. My advice earlier to you was based on what I have read. What part have I qouted that worries you?Murry1975 (talk) 13:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * normally you get all huffy when personal remarks are made towards you. Thats shows you have had some interaction with me or strongly gives that impression then your irish comments. The Ip and porridge gobbler was strongly believed to have a grudge because of previous discussion regarding leagues in Ireland which never went his way and every time something didn't go the way he wanted he would change. There has been so many discussions over the last two years all which have ended in the status quo and adding WP:Common Sense. The difference between pro levels in the irish leagues and in Scotland is huge It was suggested that we change the system to something which truly follows notability rather than fully pro that may have meant other leagues being included but also possible removal of the first division this was turned down and agreed that the current system was the best we had and common sense needed to be applied. . Edinburgh  Wanderer  13:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What I am failing to see is use of common sense in including the first division. I would like to point out that the IP seems to be living in Scotland and I am not fimilar with Porridge Gobbler. Your comment could have been less sharp back, if there is an ANI on, firing shots back like that are not is not going to do your side any good is it? Again I fail, an others do too, see how the first division is listed as such. Here is a BBC journo highlighting the issue including Raith Rovers as part-time, mind you the article he wrote is more to do with the way Scottish football is heading, including the SPL. I also agree that on what criteria I have seen the Irish top-flights are not pro leagues but I am failing to see the criteria for the first division, you say common sense I think a leaning in one direction.Murry1975 (talk) 14:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think that was sharp at all you asked why i had my suspicions and i told you why i had them and as is strongly suspect he has other accounts as i have said repeatedly at ANI its a valid concern. Porridge Gobbler is clearly not editing in Scotland his comments show a major grudge against the country and editors from it. That source talks about future of clubs does not state anyone isn't fully pro it says at one point st Johnstone was semi pro which as they were in lower league is the case. Hearts are fully pro as are all in the SPL and All but one in first division. Please go off and read previous discussions before you comment further no point covering old ground once again. Edinburgh   Wanderer  14:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you explain your comment normally you get all huffy when personal remarks are made towards you would not know that from this discussion or from the current ANI Edinburgh  Wanderer  14:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It mentions, for my second time of mentioning, Raith Rovers- a first division side.
 * As for my advice on your response above, as a person not envolved I found the language you used as sharp as the language used against you, and from what I read this is your reaction response. Yes we all can be snappy back but raising an ANI about something and doing it yourself? I dont care for the condensending "please" you added after your last full comment, an after thaught to be polite? Now can we try to stick to the topic raised?Murry1975 (talk) 14:42, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Im sorry you have never edited this page or anything like this until today or anything to do with Scottish football apart from in ireland given your comments about me which i clearly feel needed some prior knowledge and your comment about Ireland i have fairly valid concerns given this i suggest we move to the ANI Discussion re this if you have nothing to with this then fair enough but your comments make me suspicious so until this has been looked into at the Ani i will not comment further with you.14:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC) Edinburgh  Wanderer
 * Yes I saw that, the admin seemed to agree with me about your reaction "But choosing to stoke the fire instead of dropping the stick is just making the matter worse than it needs to be". The point you just made, are you trying to tell me I cant edit pages which take my interest? What type of attitude is that? Or is the bring of this to an ANI just a way of getting me away from this subject?Murry1975 (talk) 20:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ive said I'm not discussing this with you until the ANI/SPI recommended is finished if you have nothing to do with any of the behaviour directed towards me and others then i will talk with you. Edinburgh   Wanderer  20:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * SPI? lol Are you including me in an SPI aswell because I have a different way of looking at this?Murry1975 (talk) 21:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just for everyones ref Raith Rovers manager has clearly said they are full time this season.. The Ayr quote states We have part-time players with jobs and can’t ask them to give these up to go full-time. We will still be a predominantly part-time club but we will have some players in during the week.This means they have some fully pro players which backs up what i have said above when a club is promoted they have to choose whether to go pro or not Ayr financially cant does not stop the league being notable. Livingston were fully pro even whilst in the third division. This project on several occasions in previous discussions decided to keep on the list its a borderline case for pro but it was also agreed the league got enough coverage to be notable. Im just pointing out that the ref re Raith is wrong. Other input is clearly required if this is going anywhere. I will not be around to comment further but a look in archive four and three show previous discussions whilst search in the archive for the project page will show previous discussions here. The whole world of football is in financial trouble which will mean a lot of clubs no longer being pro this is why in a previous discussion it was brought up that using pro as a measure is no good. The different options would have meant some leagues no longer being considered notable maybe this one or not but it would of given a clearer indication of notability. Change was not wanted or is it really needed if common sense is applied to borderline cases of which there are few.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:42, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The Raith Rovers source says McGlynn will work with a squad of around 15 first-team players, supplemented by youth stars, and, with the exception of keeper David McGurn, a full-time squad will be at his disposal. 15 minus the part-time goalie is 14 full time pros. They've used 27 players so far this season. Is that fully professional? I'm all for "common sense" but why the double standard for Scotland when other partly semi-pro leagues like Ireland, the Blue Square Premier and even the WSL are excluded from the list. The idea that SFL1 gets "similar" coverage to the SPL is ludicrous. PorridgeGobbler (talk) 19:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * First of all i welcome you using your own account rather than abusing multiple accounts. At least your not hiding who you are thats the way to talk to people. Every single squad has a youth team. Hearts have loaned 5 players to them this season all are fully pro. on top of their main squad. Hearts have 30 youth players they play frequently that does not make it non fully pro. Your argument has been rejected five times already since last August and its drawing at straws. The argument that SFl1 receives less coverage is ludicrous it receives a very similar amount. There are four leagues in england that get less coverage. Oh and thanks for bringing up ireland again wonder how long that would take you. Ireland isn't even close to being pro in any way shape or form The SFL1 has one team that class themselves as semi pro and that is Ayr. Raith are pro. There is no point in this discussion when five already have went the other way. If you want to debate it further the end of the season is the correct time as after 5 debates its very unlikely to change consensus in the middle of the season.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  19:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I removed a tag from the footie league article as a discussion is on going it doesnt need to be highlighted as such. BRD and guidelines mean that we have to reliable prove that the material being removed should be, not insinuate it in the article. Agree with EdWand that the Irish leagues are no where near pro, but I dont believe that the SFL1 gets near as much coverage. I look at this as someone not from Britain, and in the media I read and look at the SPL is the only mention other than scorelines, and in the same respect very few non-topflight divisions are mentioned.Murry1975 (talk) 19:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well yes I suppose the coverage received by the Scottish First Division is similar the that received by, say, Celtic. It is also similar to coverage received by Real Madrid and Barcelona. David McGurn is also similar to Gianluigi Buffon, except that Buffon doesn't earn a couple of hundred quid a week playing in a part-time team, or supplement his income by working in an FE college! PorridgeGobbler (talk) 19:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Murry i don't know where you live but say league one and two in england do they receive much coverage there. Here there is no coverage of the leauge of ireland in our press at all. As I've already said above there was other ways of determining notability and nobody wanted the change. It was fairer but every one thought that it wasn't worth it. SFl1 has always been perceived to be notable by the project going back along time. i can show you multiple AFDs years before i started showing that so the argument laid out that its just this season is false.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  20:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

League One league two recieve minor coverage but the conference and below only in an exceptional insatnce. Unfortunately the same can be said of SFL1, 2 and 3. Serie A and B do, la liga and segunda and I could go on but this isnt a list, do recieve quite a bit. I think maybe at the end of season (or at least a more appropriate time) the list should be worked on, with constructive discussion. Maybe even a small discussion on the talkpage about eachs merits and whether they meet the criteria. This could be used if this type of discussion was to happen again. I am in favour of leaving this until then, any objections?Murry1975 (talk) 20:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * SFL2 and 3 receive minor coverage even here there is no debate at all that they should be perceived as notable they just aren't. Only the premiership and championship and obviously Spain and italy have some due to the size of the league. Im willing to have another discussion for another idea for what is perceived to be notable but its been dismissed repeatedly and i would be willing to discuss again but it will probably go the same way again. Mid season is the best time for this. All seasons before an including this one have always been notable. This one is as well and no change should be made in the middle of a season it would cause chaos down the line at afd's. Edinburgh  Wanderer  20:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't be AfDs it would be straight forward PRODs. Except for players who have done something notable in their day jobs. PorridgeGobbler (talk) 20:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Prods would be removed straight away as they were the last time. Prods are for non controversial deletions only. Edinburgh   Wanderer  20:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Horribly written articles
Could you take a look at the articles recently edited by User:ChrisAnorthosis: Matúš Kozáčik, Vincent Laban, Ricardo Laborde, Valentinos Sielis, Cristovão da Silva Ramos. They are horribly written with a lot of unreferenced and pov info. So could someone clean up them?--Oleola (talk) 16:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If I find some time tonight I will clean them up. GiantSnowman 12:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have gone through Matúš Kozáčik for the grammar only, there is POV which still needs to be removed. - Cloudz 679 22:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio image on Commons
File:Chatham excelsior 1890 kit.gif is a clear copyvio from historicalkits.co.uk, but I don't know how to get an image on COmmons deleted. Anyone.......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've tagged it for speedy deletion as copyvio. Hope it works... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Delay in deleting PROD's
Does any one know why articles proposed for deletion by this project since 20 January have not been deleted. At present there are 17 articles that are due for deletion, but have been ignored in some cases for as long as four days. I have no objection to the delays, but would simply like to know if there is a reason for it, and what that reason is. Thanks. Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't know why Sputnik, but there are currently articles from 19 January PRODed for 12 days and not deleted, listed at Category:Proposed deletion. What's strange though is that normally the eligible pages are automatically categorized with the Category:Expired proposed deletions tag, but not at the moment. Cloudz 679 14:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Have a look at Administrators' noticeboard GiantSnowman 19:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Nothing yet at ANI but I noticed the 19 and 20th January ones have finally been deleted. 21 January still has 5 pages. Cloudz 679 21:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreement between Home nations for national eligibility
Where's the most appropriate article to add information about the Home nations / FIFA eligibility criteria? TheBigJagielka (talk) 08:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * FIFA eligibility rules maybe. -Koppapa (talk) 14:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Football banners
Has anyone else noticed the banners, which link to the project's assessment department, have two links, one for quality and one for importance. The quality one has no problems (good quality!) but the importance link seems to be broken and I don't know why. I have a feeling it's connected with the broken header of the Template:WP Football Importance Scheme but I am reluctant to play with it. Does anyone have a solution? Cloudz 679 14:39, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Records and statistics
I'm having a go cleaning up List of Arsenal F.C. records and statistics, specifically the contents and references yet I've encountered a problem with European statistics. Looking around other lists from football clubs which have passed WP:FLC, some (for instance Birmingham City and Aston Villa) provide a game-by-game account, others (Barcelona and Manchester United) don't and in Liverpool's case, a wikilink to its European section is provided. What is the consensus here: should I go with Barcelona's – the last list which has passed FL successfully or should I provide a European record? Or is the table needed for clubs who have played less than say 100 European games? – Lemonade51 (talk) 15:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * At the time I wrote the Birmingham list, they'd played four seasons in Europe and the most recent was 47(?) years ago, so it was something special and the game-by-game account took up a truly minimal amount of space ;-) If you're going to follow an existing FL, I'd suggest going with the "big" English clubs. As (surprisingly) there isn't an Arsenal F.C. in European football article, you can't link to it – though it'd be a good project to start from scratch, if you're looking for something to do, both Liverpool F.C. in European football and Manchester United F.C. in European football provide a sound structure to follow, with different approaches to the statistical part of it. Perhaps in the absence of an Arsenal in Europe, you might consider using a summary table in your stats and records page, along the lines of Liverpool F.C. in European football. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I echo Struway's comments, I would definitely exclude European records from the list and have a separate article along the lines of the liverpool article above. Arsenal have played numerous seasons in Europe and the info warrants its own article, and would be too big to include in the records and stats list. Plus, if you do create the Arsenal in european football article, it should be prose based like the liverpool one due to the amount of seasons that Arsenal have played in Europe, you could easily get a good article out of it. NapHit (talk) 21:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Watford current squad
The current squad & loan section on Watford's page are listed in a wikitable. Should this be reverted to look like the general format or is it ok. &#9733;&#9734; DUCK IS JAMMMY &#9734;&#9733; 23:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking back through the edit history, I see that this change was made by User:WFCforLife in August 2010 (by this edit:), although I can't see that the change was ever discussed. The table is based on rather than the conventional  . As far as I can see, this template is only used on the Watford and Luton Town articles and a handful of clubs on the west coast of USA/Canada (see:). There is an ongoing discussion about the use of the new template on the Vancouver Whitecaps FC talk page (here). I have invited  User:WFCforLife to comment here.  --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * p.s. Incidentally, what's with the Alt. Text on many of the images on the Watford FC page? For example, if you hover your mouse over the image of Aidy Boothroyd, you see this "The head and shoulders of a man in his thirties. He has short hair and is wearing a black tracksuit top. A grass field and two sides of a sports stadium are visible in the background." As I say, what's that all about? --  Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * First things first, you can't blame me for the Luton article, User:Cliftonian did that. As for the alt text, I'll look into it: alt text is supposed to be a literal description of an image for users who can't see it. It should only appear instead of an image, not when you hover over one. My stance on the Watford squad section is that the current version should remain until a final decision has been reached on Football squad player2. Notwithstanding the Manual of Style, sortability etc, it simply looks better in the context of the article as a whole. As for the "undiscussed" jibe, while the aesthetics of the implementation on the Watford article were my own doing, the decision to use #2 was discussed when the aforementioned template was first implemented. —WFC— 06:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Alt text is a good thing. The standards have changed over the years but overall it is a good thing. It isn't meant for you. It is for those who have a disability. Browsers have changed, though, which means we actually have to do more work.
 * The "general" (commonish?) format of the tables we use isn't compatible with the current standards of FA/FL. Again, we will have to do more work since the bar was raised a long time ago. Cptnono (talk) 06:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I thought there was recent consensus to go with the #2 version, or perhaps that related to the international squad list. Anyway I prefer the Watford one because it deals with the issue of 'nationality' in a better way. Eldumpo (talk) 07:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Responding to both the template and the alt text issues:


 * 1) The template was discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 62. The outcome there was a general agreement that the new format is superior to the old (both in terms of general aesthetics / consistency and in MOSFLAG compliance) and should be rolled out more widely.
 * 2) The use of alt text in the Watford article is exemplary. Would that all images had such excellent alt text as Boothroyd's image in that article. Daemonic Kangaroo, are you using Internet Explorer? It mistreats alt text as title text, which is a misfeature of the browser.

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I seriously don't like that table if so few articles use it then clearly there is consensus that th other is better. As far as I can see they should be changed and ole template deleted. Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Policy doesn't allow me to respond to the above comment with the veracity it deserves, so let's stick to what I can say. WP:IDONTLIKEIT carries no weight in isolation, and inertia does not override the outcome of a series of widely publicised debates. —WFC— 23:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the Football squad 2 template would be better if it was split into two columns. That would mean the whole squad would be visible on the screen at the same time. I like how it can be colour coded. I personally don't think either of them in their particular form are great, although could it not be possible that Fs player could be edited to make it better. Adam4267 (talk) 00:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Splitting it into two columns makes it less accessible for only a minor aesthetic gain. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:37, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * WFC ther sheer fact it's only used on two articles in the uk show that it's disliked. And as chris said the newer one is more in line with policies and as to the look im intitled to my opinion and that is its too long are garish looking. Why do you thi kits correct that two articles in the uk should look different to the rest. And I don't like your reply much eithier. Edinburgh   Wanderer  11:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * given it is used so little and the newer one is far superior I think we should take this to a TFD. Edinburgh   Wanderer  11:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Think you might have got the wrong end of the stick. The Watford style is the new format that complies with MOSFLAG where the older, widely-used one doesn't. It was invented when some football club article, can't remember which, would have failed its featured article candidacy with the old standard-format squad list. As far as I remember, the Watford F.C. article was used as a stable article for experimenting on when the new format was under development. And I'd guess the main reason the new one isn't more widely used is that no-one's yet commissioned a bot to do the conversion. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * it's far too long a table. Really I still feel the same there is clearly a reason it's not being widely used whether a bot is comissioned or not. Sorry I still feel a TFD is necessary if it not being used it shouldnt be there at all. And I personally don't see how it meets the policies better than the one that is use on masse. Unless agreed now by majority that should be widely used then it should go to a TFD to decide. Edinburgh   Wanderer  11:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Edinburgh Wanderer, please calm down and actually take the time to read through the huge amount of discussion over the formatting and design of these templates which led to the creation (over a year ago) of the new design. Your replies give every impression of being rushed through, and a TfD here is actively counterproductive (especially when the arguments are so flimsy). I can assure you that the reason the new template isn't much-used is simply because there hasn't been any particular push for it yet. When the player infobox was redesigned and I actively pushed for people to test it, the process took three years from initial implementation to the commissioning of a bot to go and update pages. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * chris I'm perfectly calm but would be strongly against the implementation of this without further full discussion it's wrong to implement something this long after. I still feel if it was well liked it would have been implemented. I also see no reason why it shouldn't be split into two its far too long as one. A TFD is appropriate if it is little used which is the case. As we all know consensus can change and after this length of time that is possible. I would also argue that it is no better than we what we have already they both have flaws.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  12:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I still think it would be better in two columns so the entire squad is visible in one page view. The primary purpose of this table is to show people which players are currently in the playing saquad. This is being sacrificed. While other things like the nationality of the players or the table being sortable are given more prominence when they are less relevant. Adam4267 (talk) 12:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * EW - it isn't being implemented (as said earlier, it's only on two English club articles) and we are discussing it - this vry thread in fact. I'd advise against a TFD - it would be unsuccessful and a waste of time for everyone involved. Can the templates be merged at all, so we have the best of both worlds? That'd be the ideal solution. GiantSnowman 12:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with that, or either one be edited so it includes the best aspects of the other. Adam4267 (talk) 12:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * what I'm saying is shouldnt be further implemented and Agree merging the two would be the best option although chris and struaway give me the impression it will be implementedI. Two clubs does not merit a rollout at all. Especially without a change to take the very good points or the old one as the new one is as flawed as the old but for different reasons.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  12:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that no changes should be made either way - i.e. X to Y or Y to X - while a discussion is under way. GiantSnowman 12:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * EW, Could you give your reasons for liking/disliking certain aspects of them? I don't think anything will be implemented without consensus, either. Adam4267 (talk) 12:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * first of all the design of the old one is better most main club pages don't use tables or rarely do so it looks nothing like the rest of the content. It needs to be able to split into two without affecting the functionality as is two long and would make sections such as clubs who have first team and reserved and people out on loan. Edinburgh  Wanderer  12:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * secondly there is no need to have the flag and country our editors aren't thick the majority will be well aware of what country a flag represents. if this has been done to meet the flag guidelines why whats wrong with hovering over its still very clear. The roster format is far more used further afield than in europe. Basicly i good go on all day. Edinburgh  Wanderer  13:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting tired of reading through walls of text which basically don't say anything more constructive than "no consensus" and "I don't like it". So let's focus on the actual substance of the discussion.

The reason for the lack of a column split is that the limitations of HTML tables mean that tabular data which is split into columns is more difficult for screen readers (as used by blind and partially sighted users) and automated programs (which could be used for further analysis of our content) to comprehend and navigate. The advantage of a two-column view is primarily aesthetic, in that it results in less dead space on pages and for long lists (such as the squads of Premier League players) ensures that on devices of a certain screen resolution readers don't have to scroll to see all the players. Unfortunately, nobody has come up with a technical compromise which would give us the best of both worlds.

So our choice is:


 * 1) Inconvenience users who use screen readers or other devices which have difficulty with tables which split tabular content over multiple rows (which incidentally includes the Wikipedia mobile view IIRC) for the sake of making articles prettier and slightly easier to follow on high-resolution devices.
 * 2) Inconvenience readers on high-resolution devices for the sake of users who use screen readers or other devices which have difficulty with tables which split tabular content over multiple rows.

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * if that's the case then we shouldnt be using it if the technology isn't there to equal what we have then the change is useless. Why cant we use a simmilar format to the existing incorporating the aspects of the new one.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:08, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * also basicly the new one will always cause problems to someone then that's just crazy. Edinburgh  Wanderer  13:11, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That is precisely what I just explained. If you are unwilling or unable to take the time to actually understand points when they are explained to you slowly and carefully then there's little point in your involvement in this discussion. The current template is inadequate because various user agents have a problem with it. The new template fixes that problem, just not in a way that certain parties like. Nevertheless, better to have a fixed template which a few editors blessed with good eyesight find annoying than a broken template which said sighted users approve of. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ok chris your attitude here is totally wrong first of all you said above the new one can't be split because of HTML issues read it again. Coming from and admin I seriously think you should be civil to other users. They are civil to you so don't say thing like that I can read. you were aske twice if the new one can be split and you said no both times.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:22, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * that is a clear technical issue as I said above and if it can't be sorted we shouldnt use it can you imaging how long that table will get. It's tottaly not fit for purpose. Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * and lastly in your speech above you dont even say anything about the old one just why the new once can't be split therefore what am I misinterpreting nothing. Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

IMO the new style of infobox is better all round; it looks better (I can't understand the obsession with columns), it deals with the MOSFLAG issues that the old template had, and it is more accessible to people who use screen readers or mobile devices. All your arguments boil down to is not liking it for some reason. Big Dom  13:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * don do you have a modern mobile device if you do go and have a look neither template is broken and the old one is viewable very easily whereas you not to scroll a long way to view the new one.
 * On my phone's browser (we can't all afford an iPhone) the new style works fine but the old one doesn't. It tries to treat it as a table but fails miserably when the text is too long to fit on one line (e.g. when there is a loan player). Also, the table headers don't align with the contents. Wikipedia should not only be accessible to those who can afford the latest state-of-the-art gadgets. Big  Dom  14:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree not everyone has an iPhone or htc but these Are becoming the standard and scrolling is funnily enough harder on them. So the lengthy causes issues to these devices. therefore it's no better and as tech moves forward the new one is going to be harder. Have you tries looking at struways version I don't now if thays better on yours it's fine on mine. Edinburgh   Wanderer  14:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * BigDom - how does the Boca possible compromise look like on your phone? GiantSnowman 14:32, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I've just got my phone (an HTC Desire S, Android 2.3: certainly no ancient device) back from repair and on the system browser's default settings the Boca Juniors squad list is cut off on the right while the Watford list is perfect. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's better than the first one, but I think that's only because Boca don't have any loan players, and as Chris says it is cut off at the right hand side. Am I missing something or is the Boca one exactly the same as the original apart from three letters next to the flags? Big  Dom  15:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Correct. As stated below, the Boca one is interesting for its own reasons, but it doesn't do anything to resolve the primary sticking points regarding layout. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * My argument is based In the table format being totally different to anything we use already as secondly it has to split. The section will be far too long. Mobile devices will be a nightmare on it can you imagine how long the squad section will be on english premier clubs. Nobody even bothers to answer why the old one cannot be amends to meet the mos for flag policy. Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * i have looked at both using the iPhone I'm using and it is easier to view the old than the new. It takes for ever to scroll the new one.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Not sure where I should indent to, so I'll start again here. In last week's discussion, Digirami pointed out the existence of templates used on Argentina clubs e.g. Boca Juniors Boca Juniors squad, which combine both navbox and squad list functionality, of similar layout to the current widely-used one, while including country text alongside the flag. They only have the FIFA trigramme rather than the country name, and if I were redesigning each entry I'd put the flag/country on the RHS as per the Watford version. I was wondering whether that sort of template might be a basis for negotiation, or are there good accessibility or other arguments against? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You mean Boca Juniors squad right? I think going forward, that would be the ideal solution. GiantSnowman 13:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * struaway just so I know do you mean just using a naxbox not a squad template. Edinburgh   Wanderer  13:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It does both. For a club current squad section, you put a format=table parameter. See Boca Juniors.
 * Please understand that I'm not advocating this ahead of the Watford version, just suggesting it might be the basis of an alternative to the wikitable if there's a general objection to the wikitable format, which as yet there hasn't been. Always assuming there aren't any accessibility or MoS arguments against it, which I don't know. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. That's certainly a clever hack. It would leave us in the position of using a template for article contents, which is typically frowned upon, but given our need to keep the squad lists and navboxes in sync it's worth proposing. Obviously it's suboptimal that the templates use the names fs2 start, fs2 player and so on when we've got a parallel development at fs start2, fs player2 etc, but ideally we want these all merged, right? But when it comes down to it, it doesn't actually resolve the key sticking points with thO Edinburgh  Wanderer  14:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)e existing template, which are that it cooks up its own template style rather than just being a wikitable and that it has a split (I've given up on explaining here why that's a bad thing for the sake of my health, but feel free to ping me if the explanation above isn't good enough). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm particularly stupid this afternoon. Does that mean screen readers etc struggle with the current widely-used version? if so, I'd strongly favour implementing the Watford version forthwith, whether we like it or not. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have looked at all three on the iPhone an can read all three clearly. The worst is the table because of its length. The best idea put forward is this one from struway. what annoys me is people saying its better for mobile devices when clearly the current mon devices can handle it. Edinburgh   Wanderer  14:11, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. There are ways of making this less terrible, but the strong advice given is "make your tables as simple as possible". Note that at present we don't do any of the clever  or   stuff that article #2 suggests to help mitigate the problem, and we can't guarantee that it's supported by any given screen reader anyway. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * FWIW, we do use column and row scopes. They're a requirement at FLC for lists containing wikitables. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, yes. Unfortunately that's the one that doesn't help us here, as we don't use row/colspans on the squad templates. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * we have given the wiki table one a full test and I would suggest we do it on stuways version. If that dosent have as many problems it is a better option. I would be willing to help fully test it. Edinburgh   Wanderer  14:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * why haven't we tried the more technical option it's worth a try and also do we know if the scream reader issue is on all of them or just older devices. Edinburgh   Wanderer  14:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A screen reader is nothing to do with how old a device is, and it's nothing to do with mobile devices. It's a software program that blind or partially sighted people use so they can hear what's on the the screen instead of reading it. Big  Dom  16:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * actually age is appropriate things change in time it's called progress. Edinburgh   Wanderer  16:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * So many indents and out-dents I'm getting confused! Is there a possible way to merge the best elements from all three of the templates as a compromise? Let's think of solutions, not problems. GiantSnowman 16:08, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * There are four key differences in the templates:
 * General styling. The new template is styled like a standard wikitable. The current templates use a hand-cooked style invented waaay back before template standardisation was ever really an issue: aside from minor things like colouring, it doesn't include grid lines.
 * Placement and presentation of region options. The current template uses just a flag: the Boca template uses the FIFA trigramme: The new template uses the full country name. While this is generally a hot topic, so far we've mostly avoided it in this thread.
 * The split. The new template omits support for fs mid. See up-thread for arguments as to why.
 * The dual-purpose feature in the Boca template, which allows it to be used both as an in-article squad list and as a navbox.
 * Of those, this thread is mostly about #3. #4 is a neat feature, but needs discussed separately as it a means big changes to how we edit articles (squads will now be on dedicated pages rather than included in the article body). #1 is mostly trivial, and I think we've got general consensus that #2 is progress when it comes to MOSFLAG compliance. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd favour the trigramme + flag combo personally. What about players from the Democratic Republic of the Congo? GiantSnowman 16:22, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * concur with GiantSnowman on this it's by far the best option as far as I can see. You are never going to solve all the problems chris all you can do is come up with something that causes the least and design is equally as important as functionality and this is both Edinburgh  Wanderer  16:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * While mindful of what Chris says below, I do feel the need to at least explain the other side to this. One of the biggest cons to a single column is the amount of whitespace it can leave. On that basis I don't consider spelling out Congo to be a problem at all. My opinion on the likes of 🇨🇩 COD had been done to death, but I'll take this opportunity to note that it's the same as ever. —WFC— 23:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Let's leave the flags issue aside at the moment. In fact, let's leave everything save for the split aside. Does everybody understand at this point why a split is undesirable? If we can at least agree to that, it gets it off the agenda. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * not why it's undesirable as I think we will find the length of these tables are going to be a major issue on the clubs who have big squads plus reserves plus loans. However I understand why the two templates we currently use have issues with a split. Im yet to see that this is an issue on the latest idea. Another issue not just on the current templates is how they look for teams that do not have squad numbers the one used the most is a bit bad but on the table it stands out like a sore thumb. This was brought to my attention and have a look at what it would look like by doing a quick check on a Scottish football league club. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edinburgh Wanderer (talk • contribs) 18:01, 13 January 2012‎


 * Ah yes, missed that one. The squad numbers thing is already a problem. Presently, omitting squad numbers leaves us with an empty table column. Screen readers are known to have problems with such things, and it's ugly from a markup point of view anyway. So that's five differences between the old and new designs. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * chris everything to you affects mobile devices. Not all mobile devices have this problem and you are yet to answer what testing was done to show this.  Any new tenplate would need to have a version based on a wiki table base would need to have a option where you can remove the option of squad numbers because if it looks bad on the current it's ten times worse on the new one. Edinburgh   Wanderer  22:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * What if we just edited the current template to have FIFA trigrammes. Then we would have improved MOS:FLAG compliance, while still retaining other features which are good about it (i.e not as noticeable when there is no squad numbers or having the whole squad on one page). I personally think that if the top could be colour coded that would be even better because I think that feature on the Watford one is really good. Adam4267 (talk) 20:37, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not at al clear what you think the point of the new template is, if that's your suggested compromise. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Adams point is very clear it would comply with mos flag dosent look as bad when no squad numbers addressed the colour issues on the old template. I know the next point what about mobile devices well as I'm yet to be advised what testing was carried out and what percentage this effects it's really hard to say if there is any heavy merit in changing it because of that reason as we will be causing problems for many others in doing so.
 * In EW's defence, I agree that we need to think about what to do for squads without numbers. However, it's worth saying that this issue already exists on fs player, albeit less prominently. —WFC— 23:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't realise this existed, but User:ClubOranje already coded a solution for numberless squads. An example of it in action can be seen here. —WFC— 00:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * that looks a lot better I have to say. Could we trial these on a wider scale.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  00:22, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem. Jared Preston (talk) 00:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Single vs split columns
I've started this section so that we can focus on the pros and cons of single and multiple columns, while continuing to have the more general discussion above. —WFC— 21:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay: I guess I'll start, and I'll make this argument ignoring factors such as sortability and whitespace. For me the most important thing is not the length of the table, although this is undeniably a factor. For me, priority number one is that every bit of every line is readable by every user. Any solution, one column or two, currently on the table or yet to be invented, needs to meet this standard. —WFC— 22:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * are we certain that the version proposed by struway does have these problems to these devices/software it's clear the first one does. I agree we need to make as much of wiki accessible to the masses however why percentage are we talking. The reason I state that as A apple mobile device user there is problems scrolling large volumes of text that's an issue I imagine a low percentage but then is that lower or greater than the first. My certain preference is a split is needed is just far too long otherwise why don't we Have a look at the arsenal page how long a table would that be masses of white space and an age to scroll through. Edinburgh   Wanderer  22:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As you've volunteered it, I'll take Arsenal as an example. They have pretty much the same number of first team players as Watford, so it's reasonable to assume that the end result would look similar to the current Watford squad. Given that Arsenal F.C. reserves have an article, I don't see why we need to list the reserve squad (its inclusion or exclusion is beyond the remit of this discussion, but if I ignored it this would likely be pointed out). And the loan section is a very good example of why one column would be preferable: it looks cluttered even on a fairly high resolution laptop, I dread to think how bad it is on a smartphone. —WFC— 23:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * it's tottaly fine on my smartphone thank you very much however the watford one isnt is tricky to view.  The reserve squad is notable that is a ridiculous length for squad sections.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * you missed the point anyway does struways version have the issue for screen readers because It looks far better and is certainly more accessible for apple mobile devices. I know that htcs are simillar yes we are talking very modern devices but they are all going that way. This means the wiki table version will cause major problems for them so in two years maybe less we will need to change again hardly accessible to everyone. The split is their on that version as well.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)F
 * Reading through this thread some of the arguments against single columns are quite astounding. Opposing because it will be too long is ridiculous you're only going to scroll down a little bit, is that really too much trouble? I'm in favour of the table in use on the Watford article. It complies with MOS mainly ACCESS and FLAGS and allows the squad to be sorted. This is something which would not be possible if they were split in two columns. That's my two pennies worth on the issue. NapHit (talk) 23:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As NapHit says, the problem you have highlighted can be solved by scrolling down. If I've understood Dom and Chris correctly, content on the right hand side of "Struway's version" can't be viewed at all by some users. —WFC— 23:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I was trying to respond saying that before I had to start again due to edit conflict. An iPhone has problems scrolling large volumes of text which is why I'm having problems editing this so you woulld be creating a problem for me. You are giving in one hand and taking with the other. As a compromise can I suggest we try a wider rollout and get more comments. I would suggest a page like arsenals for England and a few more ransoms maybe even the hearts page which would kill me as its me that edits it the most but wider discussion is needed. Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * the reason I think a wider trial is necessary is its clear we can meet the mos flags policy by amending and or merging these templates so it's the accessibility that's the problem a wider trial would allow us to evaluate if this fully solves it and tweak it. I feel a split is neccesary but of the majority of people don't after a wider trial then fine. WFC can this template be amended to have an option to remove the squad number column if a club dosent have them. It's a total white space that looks wrong if you can't. That would be something that would really help make it look better. Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, I do like the new template (WP:ILIKEIT, haha), and the Watford squad can be viewed in its full glory on my big laptop screen, but save for the space on the right and the possibility of missing squad numbers, there is obviously still the issue about usability, if the third resort template really is the future of squads on Wikipedia and future updates... This is actually getting a lot more confusing than it needs to be. I'm tired. But the old template, as widespread as it might be, is a bit too old. We, as WP:FOOTY members, are probably getting too attached. We needn't be. Change can be good. And what I was thinking was, that if the old template were to be kept, it would make sense being able to update the two (squad list on article and navigational squad template) in one edit. Just, there is a lot of work to be done on this third template suggested..... Scrolling the mouse or flicking your finger once on a touchscreen device can't be a big problem though surely! Jared Preston (talk) 23:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Jared it's a nightmare at times it jumps constantly on the touch screen you scroll down and it scrolls up I've had every iPhone since they came out and I stood in the freezing cold. It's a design flaw but it's there. My compromise suggestion would be a wider trial and If we move forward mere these templates into one.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  23:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As good as these iPhones are, they certainly seem to be as flawed as the templates are! Yep, I hope so too, that we can find a solution. More testing seems required though, you're right. And #3, as I say, is a good idea. Just the other day I was looking at a Turkish Süper Lig team's article and its squad template had less than a third of the correct/updated players. This has got to be sorted (somehow). Jared Preston (talk) 00:03, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Put simply, a "wide trial" isn't happening. We don't have the resources to go asking a large amount of partially sighted readers to go testing every change to a template, and nor can we ask editors to go out and purchase expensive screen reader software. We know there is a problem here because there is abundant documentation to that effect on the Web; the counterargument so far has been, in its entirely, "I don't believe you". FWIW I'm not inclined to consider "the iPhone has a problem scrolling large amounts of text" to be authoritative either, as the device is optimised entirely around the paradigm of vertical scrolling. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:22, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Though if anyone wants to have a listen to screen-reader output, the Opera browser has a screen reader built-in, and a Firefox add-on is available: see User:RexxS/Accessibility. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * chris I'm starting to think you are just being ackward for the sake of it basically because you feel its me causing trouble. A wider trial is necessary to gauge opinion on its format not just tech issues. It's clear here from not just me that there are other options re the flags additions of squad numbers and other elements. We're not just talking from a tech point so why on earth would you suggest getting further input isn't necessary. We have no idea what the wider scope is. To role this out now fully without eithier a wider trial or much more of a discussion on all elements is inappropriate. It's just isn't ready for that. As you are aware I have offered to do the setting up of it and to help gain opinion. After that it can be reviewed an if the majority want it then it should be rolled out quickly rather than waiting over a year whilst people can clearly change consensus again   Edinburgh   Wanderer  12:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've just been on the watford page on my iPhone to see where Edinburgh wanderer is coming from, and i don't think there is a problem at all. The table is not too long there are no issues with it messing up, so I'm not really sure what you're argument against these tables is. NapHit (talk) 17:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * thanks I genuinely do have an issue with it on this phone but maybe it's mine or me even. However dropping the technical stuff I think the best way forward Is to trial this template as I've suggested below not on the grounds of tech but on sorting all the other issues.
 * I would like to ask a tech question of anyone who can answer it.  On articles we can align two sections or wikitables to sit along side each other. Does this cause screen readers to have issues. The reason I ask is if it dosent can this be done with two templates. Obviously it means the template isn't broken and would in theory look split. It's a speculative question as was just and idea.  Edinburgh   Wanderer  21:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. Anything which splits the table cells up creates problems. We cannot at present make a single table column display in two using CSS like we can with lists. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:05, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh well was just an idea if it didn't cause the same problem but if it does then obviously not an option. Edinburgh  Wanderer  14:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Trial
I would like to take a poll on who would be opposed to a further trial. I suggest picking several high volume articles putting the new template in place and seeing which version of the design I.e flags, squad numberless table and section headings are correct. It's clear to me although not all users have the issue with mobile devices and screen readers as I have said above however I know feel we have to accept that some do and we need to move forward so to me the sticking points mentioned above including a tweak to section headings, flag versions and squad numberless table. I would propose a months trial on between 5 and ten high volume articles before bringing back for a final discussion. Edinburgh  Wanderer  13:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Re your comment about 'flag versions' have you read MOS:FLAG? Eldumpo (talk) 15:07, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * yes I have although i find it complecated I'm talking about the proposal above for use of the trigame system used in the mod option and discussion further down my understanding from reading that is it does meet that policy.  I like that system but saying that im not overly inclined to any of them. What I'm trying to establish is whether not people would object to trying these options out and sort the other issues. The flags isn't really the main issue for me a flags a flag and if it meets that policy then fine.   If we are rolling out it needs to be as good as we can make it and have a firm consensus. Given that it's been well over a year the template isn't perfect yet it's time to get this sorted and implemented. Edinburgh   Wanderer  19:54, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I do actually agree with a trial, not for technical reasons but to ensure that opinions expressed here are representative of the silent majority that don't frequent the project. My suggestion would be for the trial to stay in place for a defined period of time (a fortnight or a month?) and to direct would-be reverters to this discussion so that we can enlighten them on the reasons and they can add their feedback. To achieve this I would suggest trialing on a high-profile English league, the Championship perhaps. I'd be happy to do this manually, adding images + alt text along similar lines to the Watford article. —WFC— 20:43, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * a high profile English league would probably be best. What about ones without squad numbers what leagues in England don't use them. There are three in Scotland but unsure of England. Edinburgh   Wanderer  21:19, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If we want to find consensus then I say we put the new format on, at least, the 'Big 6' English clubs, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Celtic and Rangers. Adam4267 (talk) 21:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Adam: That's a possible alternative. And I assume by the big six you mean Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Watford? EW: the highest English league that doesn't use numbers is Conference South, which really isn't high enough up the pyramid to expect meaningful feedback. I don't think it's really an issue, given that the non-numbered format clearly works. —WFC— 23:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't be silly - Watford already have the template. Adam4267 (talk) 23:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah it would be nice to try it out even if just one club but yeah i agree. Edinburgh  Wanderer  01:01, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need to target specific articles, so long as we link back to this discussion. When footybio2 was deployed we basically just added it to articles as we saw fit. What is important is that we ensure all the edge cases are tested (very long lines, odd nationalities, no / partial squad numbers et cetera). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Is the trial not more about establishing consensus than testing technical issues? Adam4267 (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd have presumed so, Adam. Jared Preston (talk) 14:23, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * A little bit of both it needs to be perfect there are a few minor sticking points which can be sorted and obviously it allows us to get a clear consensus on it. Edinburgh  Wanderer  14:26, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, in a few hours I'll post a notice to the talk pages of the 33 clubs mentioned (the 23 other Championship teams and the 10 Adam mentions) informing them of this discussion, and see what comes of it. From past experience, and having been on both sides of this, it's likely that at least one editor will strongly object to their club's article being part of the trial. There is no point in deliberately antagonising such people; by informing them, we've made contact, can invite them here so that they can understand the reasons behind this and provide their feedback, and restrict the initial expansion to articles with receptive or indifferent editors. —WFC— 22:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've notified the ten articles Adam suggested. I'll notify the 23 Championship clubs this time tomorrow; contributors to those ten clubs are likely to give quite a bit of feedback anyway, and therefore this section will be more manageable if we spread the notifications out. —WFC— 00:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Fancy introducing it at Bradford City? I'm pretty much the only regular contributor there, and you won't see any opposition from me. GiantSnowman 12:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The point of the trial is to try and find out the opinions of the 'silent majority' who don't contribute here. Adam4267 (talk) 12:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The current system is fine and works perfectly. It looks much neater too, not to mention it is a lot easier for transferring players/ loan deal to other clubs by just copy and pasting. The box table looks tacky. IJA (talk) 14:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Dates and refs
I've added support for dates and references to the template's sandbox, and am just waiting for approval before putting it into the main template. The full proposal can be seen here. —WFC— 05:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Happy to see this moving forward. Not wanting to muddy the waters, but I really like the way you can display both squad list or navigation box, using the one Boca Juniors squad template. They are able to do that because their template separates out the surname, using <tt>|first=Joe|last=Bloggs|link=Joe Bloggs (footballer)</tt> rather than <tt> |name=Joe Bloggs </tt>. Whilst updating, should we consider having this (more flexible) syntax as an alternative? Also, since we're in the process of making changes, should we think about adding row and column scopes as per WP:DTAB? <tt style="color:gray">U+003F</tt><tt style="color:red">?</tt> 18:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I am slowly working on a way to incorporate Football squad player2 into a navbox in my userspace. I see it as more of an "in my own time, let's see if I can do this" thing than a serious proposal, but would work faster if there is consensus that we should go ahead with the idea. —WFC— 20:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have also developed compatability for the first/last thing, at User:WFCforLife/Fsc player. —WFC— 20:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Moving forward with the new format on MLS articles
We've had a bit of success on two MLS articles and I plan to roll it out on the remaining team lists this coming week. I will now place notices on the MLS team articles about the pending change.

The argument above that the new format is not useful because it used in so few articles is like saying, in 1890, that the automobile is not useful because so few people own them. The reason it's used in so few articles is because it's new and the old one has been incorporated in so many. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * there are still problems with it but the only way that getting sorted is through more articles having it same with consensus when nobody can see it. However for some reason when i see the template it does remind of me of America. For the life of me i can't think why. Edinburgh  Wanderer  17:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know, perhaps it's because in North America we treat all people with respect and dignity while in other parts of the English world it's either "keep a stiff upper lip" or "feed 'em to the dingos"? The fact that table is sortable probably doesn't have any bearing on it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * With that said, the reason I am planning on rolling it out on MLS first is because it's already implemented on three team pages and it's currently pre-season and will disrupt the least now. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:22, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Correction four MLS articles. Another editor moved another article's roster to the improved template. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:17, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah that's good ol' fashioned family racism... I shall help with the MLS effort, then move on to another league. :) It's Malpass93! (drop me a ___) 19:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * DC United done. Movin' on to RBNY. It's Malpass93! (drop me a ___) 19:41, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I support rollout at MLS, particularly given that they're not playing at the moment. An IP (67.87.225.78 has been going around reverting. In fairness he hasn't made a revert since I invited him to contribute here, so let's see if he does that. I'd caution editors against getting involved in edit wars, and to invite anyone and everyone that disagrees with the template to read this discussion and contribute. —WFC— 22:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My thinking exactly for rolling-out to MLS. The anon's IP changes but is always from from New York. Anon has been reverting the one at the Vancouver article for a while, but leaves both Portland and Seattle alone. Now anon has six to tackle. The most recent revert at the Vancouver article was actually to an different version of the same table. I believe the one used at Vancouver and Watford work better when a player does not yet have an article: you can use the sortname template and add a nolink=1 parameter so there isn't a redlink. I haven't figured out how to do that with the one with the sortname variant of the template.
 * The Watford article seems to have given an editor at Toronto FC the idea of using team colours. That may also be seen at other MLS team articles. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:26, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * On that subject, football squad player2 and fs player2 sort can and should be merged, based on the code here. From my testing, I'm pretty confident that one template will accept both |first=Scott|last=Loach and |name=Scott Loach . The nolink issue raised above would continue to be solveable with |name=Scott Loach . —WFC— 06:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Merged, as one with a redirect to the other or something else? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, one as a redirect to the other. No editing would be required on articles using the affected template. —WFC— 08:26, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Nice. Whilst we're at it, what do you think about adding a <tt>|nonation=yes</tt> flag to the start article template to allow the template used in typical lower level squads where no nationalities are known? <tt style="color:gray">U+003F</tt><tt style="color:red">?</tt> 10:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Or ideally, everywhere except for on capped internationalists. But that's for the distant science-fiction future where we're fully compliant with MOSFLAG I suppose. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The only problem with a redirect is that they don't have the same parameters. The <tt>nolink</tt> is still useful in the sortname. If that could be included, it might make sense. Best to bring this up on the talk pages of both templates.
 * I would argue that <tt>nonation=yes</tt> should only be used in extreme cases if added at all. Is there and "unknown" flag that could be used instead? (that was irony for those who didn't catch it) --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:23, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I've added support for the functions mentioned in this section in the sandbox, the results of which can be seen on the test cases page. One of Adrian Mariappa's lines includes a demonstration of what happens if no nationality is entered under normal circumstances (along with the corresponding results for no position and no number). There is a slight aesthetic problem that I haven't been able to fix when <tt>|nonation=yes</tt> is used: help would be appreciated on that one. —WFC— 06:54, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There's a comment suggesting that the player's name should be the final column to give the player more weight (and the nation less weight). I tend to agree here, what do others think? <tt style="color:gray">U+003F</tt><tt style="color:red">?</tt> 11:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That was my comment. I wasn't aware that there was an ongoing discussion here still, I'm sorry if I spoke in the wrong forum. The point I wanted to express is exactly what U+003F said above. --Reckless182 (talk) 11:18, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As I stated on the template's talk, it's not a reasonable argument. Readers should be reading left-to-right and so if they're English, they see club number, position, name and then nationality. If you want to reduce the size of the nationality, that may assist. Personally, I don't even think nationality is needed, but I understand I'm in the minority. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

MLS articles are done. The only negative feedback is the size and possibly the layout (see above for the latter). I would suggest that other North American leagues should be next. Are there any others that are presently on a break that we could convert? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The League of Ireland is a summer league, so you could try those clubs. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

No consensus for this new horrid format
Don't you think consensus should be achieved before making such drastic changes? The new table system looks horrible and it makes it a lot harder to transfer players between clubs now. Not to mention the new table system increases the KB size of articles which are already far too big per Article size. We should be looking to decrease the KB size of articles not increase them. Now articles are going to take longer to load up for people with dial up internet and people on mobile devices. Also there has been no proper consensus achieved, there are thousands of editors who edit football articles and only a small amount have editors have come to this unilateral decision to change the players system. it should have been well advertised to editors who contribute to football articles say that they can have their say instead of leaving this major decision to a few editors who religiously check the talk pager here. IJA (talk) 15:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have to agree that the new format is simply awful, and fail to understand why the original football squad template wasn't simply amended to use trigrammes next to flags. These are in everyday use on sports programmes, so I don't see any problem with using them. This example shows how it looks on an article, and does far less disruption than the other alternative. Number   5  7  15:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The regular contributors to football articles should have been consulted about these proposals instead of a handful of deciding to change the format league by league secretly without the rest of us knowing. The should be an agreement made by the vast masses of this wikiproject, instead of a small amount making radial changes without the rest of us knowing. It all seems a bit rushed too. Unfair on the rest of us wikipedians who edit football related articles, we should have had a say in something as major as this. IJA (talk) 16:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There are two issues here - yes trigrammes/flags (which the Boca example solves, and which I approve of), but also readability (which the Boca example fails) for partially-sighted/blind who use screen readers. GiantSnowman 16:54, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * How does it fail? Number   5  7  17:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As discussed (extensively) above, it doesn't appear to work on screen readers, or certain smartphones. Apparently the new one (which I agree is horrible-looking) works anywhere & everywhere. GiantSnowman 17:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Then surely the problem is to try and fix the existing format, without fixing how it looks. This is what was done with navboxes (they are being converted to flatlist format and their coding has been fixed to ensure they still look the same). Introducing a radically new (and awful looking) format seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Number   5  7  17:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I am under the impression from above that it cant be changed fully to meet the requirements which was why this was done. The more technical users will need to confirm that but there was a discussion about just tweaking the old one above. There hasn't been major objections to a trial on the talk pages if any. My feeling is that the rollout trial sample for consensus should continue to allow further comments with no prejudice to return to old template if not what the majority want as we are a consensus driven community. It has been on the Heart of Midlothian F.C. page for eight days with no objections. Edinburgh  Wanderer  17:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Number 57 - I agree fully, and have suggest a few times above to try & combine the two tables - appearance of the first (specifically the Boca example) with the readability of the second. However, I'm not sure how feasible that is. GiantSnowman 17:45, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Some nonsense on here, "there has been no proper consensus achieved," that's a laugh, coming from someone who performed a page-move, that is not clear-cut in any way, without discussion. Had you taken the time to look, you would see that notices regarding this table have been posted on the talk pages of many leading clubs, directing them here if they want to comment on it. If we can't discuss the table here, on one of Wiki's largest projects, then where should we discuss it? I don't see a problem with the new template, apart from the white-space which is unavoidable, and it solves many of the issues with the old one. A number of editors volunteered to test it out, including myself, on a certain number of pages after it had been discussed at length on here. Secrecy? Don't make me laugh. Argyle 4 Life  talk  18:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No need to be so insulting. Do you disagree or contest that move? It is the correct spelling of his name. It wasn't a controversial or major move. That sort of criticism should have been left on my talkpage not on this space. Also I never stated that it "can't" be discussed here, that is you putting words into other people's mouths. I said editors should have been made aware better due to it being a rather big proposal affecting all club articles, instead of being left to editors who check this talk page religiously. I see now there have been messages on talk pages of certain clubs, but as someone who edits football league articles primarily I have not seen any messages on talk pages. And correct me if I'm wrong the Championship is the 4th or 5th most watched league in the world and I haven't seen a single message on a Championship Club talk page. These proposals are quit extensive for this wikiproject and I was raising the point of how many people are in the same boat as me and are unaware or this proposal because most of my edits are football related and the other day was the first I had seen of such proposals. IJA (talk) 18:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * (As an aside, if you find an article that has been newly created and duplicates an existing one, the new one must be redirected to the old one, not the other way round). Number  5  7  19:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Getting back to the topic at hand, I too am not a fan of the new squad template, however to say that there has been "no consensus" would be incorrect. Yes, maybe more people should have been made aware of the change, but it doesn't necessarily follow that because of that, no consensus exists. And who am I to go native and go against consensus? It's Malpass93! (drop me a ___) 19:31, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * All championship clubs have now been notified. I suggest leaving 7 days for them to give opinion and if no major objections to a trial proceed. Im checking the ten first notified to see if any have been objected to the trial lets bear in mind thats what it is at the moment. Edinburgh   Wanderer  19:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * To IJA, if anything that I said was insulting then I apologise, but I did not like the tone you used. I consider myself to be an active member of the project and give my two-penneth when I feel the need to. That does not mean I am in any way superior to a non-involved editor or I check this talk page religiously. Apart from linking each club's talk page to this discussion I'm not sure what more can be done to promote this issue. Those involved in this have gone about it as best they can. Argyle 4 Life  talk  19:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

One day I will come to understand how it is that someone can in good faith make a comment like "no consensus", which connotes some basic understanding of how discussion works here, and back it up with "because I hate it and it looks horrible".

There was one constructive point made, which was the article size comment. We've discussed moving squad lists to dedicated template pages and combining them with the squad list navboxes: this would significantly reduce the basic wikicode footprint of our squad articles, but we haven't fully discussed the implications yet. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
 * And even if the navbox thing doesn't happen, I have coded compatibility for colours to be included in the template, which would add ~35 bytes to an implementation (less is the text is black). I haven't added it to the main template yet, pending feedback on whether it would be a welcome addition, hence the popping up of a few custom tables during the trial in an effort to get feedback. Throw in the addition of roughly 30 "2"'s onto previous football squad player's, and the potential to save one or two sentences by using the |date= and/or |date= parameters in football squad start2, and the net change in bytes from adding the templates will be negligible. —WFC— 08:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, I brought this up twice with not objection here. Consensus was reached. That does not mean that consensus cannot change, but the problem is you not the new format. The old format is not WCAG compliant. That's accessibility. The old format also makes it more difficult for users of mobile and touch-based devices to know what a flag represents. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Response to notices on club pages
I've added this in response to the notice of intent to alter the structure of squad lists across all football club articles. Asking people to jump into the discussion above makes it very difficult as it is far too rambling and complicated in terms of points and sub points to add anything to without fear of it getting lost.

My response to the suggested change is that the request for input is based on potentially inaccurate statements and editors are being asked to respond based on certain suppositions which may prejudice their views. My points are as follows:

1) Screen readers - I am unclear why such prominence has been given to this being an imperative for change I've run both versions of the tables through a screen reader and emulator and there is little difference between them. Neither are great, both could maybe improved, but to claim that the existing version is unusable and the proposed version is compliant is to vastly overstate the issue - unless you have picked up on specific issues that my tests (admittedly quick and unscientific) did not throw up.  In reality if we wanted Wiki Articles to be properly accessible to W3C standards then tables shouldn't be used at all - layout and formatting should be achieved through CSS and templating not within content divorcing content from design.  Then bots and screen readers can act without having to strip out often complicated mark-up language.  Obviously the reliance on tables is an issue with the Wiki platform itself but my point is to claim that one type of table is accessible whilst another isn't is untrue, they're both differing levels of not great in reality. in fact I'd suggest that the proposed new format is worse as it brings in excessive repetition of of words which is very annoying when it's been spoken.

1a) Mobile browsers - again I see no issue here. Having tested both versions (and used various mobile devices to view the existing style for years) I would say that the proposed new style is considerably worse as it entails unnecessary scrolling.  The current version will happily fit within modern mobile browser widows - on some (eg my HTC Android) you just need to turn the phone to landscape and it all formats perfectly - but this is how those devices are intended to be used.  Admittedly I haven't tested them against Blackberrys but I still don't feel this is a major issue.

1b) Cluttered columns - the example given of the Arsenal loans is, I agree, a very poor bit of page. However, I would suggest that it would be much better to revise the Arsenal page than to change the entire face of football club articles on Wikipedia to accommodate it. I personally don't see the need to for extensive notes on the length of loans to be included in such sections anyway.  I also feel that the proposed 'traditional' table format will encourage a move to add more content into them such as age, previous clubs, transfer fee, length of contract and any of the other host of wonderful stats that some editors try and introduce from time to time.

2) Flags - there does seem to be an imperative based on the flags MOS. Personally I think the constant repeating of country names like this generates is excessive, ugly and unnecessary but that's a debate for the relevant project.  However the notice given implies that moving to the proposed layout is the only way to fix this when the current format could be revised to improve MOS compliance.

3) Sort function - is that really very useful on such lists? Articles are ordered by squad number (or alphabetically if squad numbers don't exist) already and the only real benefit would be to swap from one to the other?  I don't think the current format suffers for not being sortable and don't think there has been a major call for this to be changed.  I'll hold my hands up to often adding sort function to tables I've created on articles but that's out of habit more than anything and I'd not object if it was suggested that sorting of such simple lists is unnecessary.

4) Space for images - this is not an imperative, and is in fact a suggestion to fill the huge amount of dead space created by the proposed tables to visually improve it. As the current version of the Watford page shows (as it seems to have reverted to the traditional layout) if editors want to provide illustrations of squad players they work just as well with the current format.  It should also be recognised that may clubs will not have relevant images that can be used (particularly smaller ones or in less 'popular' leagues) and as such the change will inevitably introduce considerable amounts of ugly wasted space into hundreds of articles.

The main thrust of my argument is that I don't believe that some of the imperatives for change that have been put forward are correct or as important as has been stated and on that basis the decision that users are being asked to make is flawed. This proposed new layout is being presented as the only way to fix some issues when that is not the case - the current template could be revised but this is not being presented as feasible. It would be much better to gain consensus that the existing format is inherently wrong and cannot be continued before asking for contrition with a role out of wholesale changes.

If some of the reasoning for change is removed, as I have outlined, then the only choice being asked for is one of visual style and on that basis I would strongly object as the proposed table is both ugly and old fashioned and wastes page space necessarily. it is not a standard used across wikipedia (having viewed NFL and Baseball articles for the first time ever I can confirm they use considerably more complex squad tables than ever appear on football articles) and although addressing the flags MOS issue, by allowing squad lists to be coloured by team kits this does (I am led to believe) violate the MOS regarding colour use as decoration so is swapping one MOS infringement for another.

My suggestion is that the proposed trial be halted until there is a clear understanding that the current version is unusable and that it cannot be updated to fix what issues there are. Only then should consensus be sought from users about it's roll out (limited or otherwise) when they can be confident that the reasonings are clear and unequivocal. I would also actually take issue with the prosed method of gaining feedback through trial anyway - most editors take no notice of talk pages or project pages and would be unlikely to comment one way or another whatever they thought. As this change would be such a major revision surely it would be better to engage with users who have actively suggested they wish to participate in such a manner (ie the membership of WP football) and provide the full options and ask for consensus from there as conversation above seems to be limited to about ten people. Personally as it's such a major change I'd also say that a quorum of those should be required to move such a change forward.

Bladeboy1889 (talk) 16:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed, like I said, I'm dyslexic and I was given a screenreader by my University to assist me with my essays. Anyway I've tested it out and it reads everything that is there. It could be improved but the table version doesn't improve it much. Also the table version increases the KB size of the article and per Article size we should be looking to reduce the BK size of several club articles. Also repeating the same link over and over again as proposed in the proposed table version also increases the KB size of articles. As to adding more images, that will further increase the article KB size. This is causes problems and long loading times for people with dial up internet and on some handheld devices. I think we should explore other options instead of going ahead with this table system. Not to mention adding club colours to the table system goes against WP policy. IJA (talk) 16:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The talk page notices are only an indication of possibly taking part. When started there would be a link in the edit summary that directs to here and a hidden message when someone tries to edit it saying the same. I agree with a lot of the points above but see no harm in a trial all articles can easily be put back to old template and we are talking a very small percentage of articles as a sample. The trial will highlight the new template, help fix issues with and determine consensus on its possible use. Edinburgh  Wanderer  19:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * But my point is that the 'trial' would be replacing existing content and asking people to make a judgement based on what I believe to be incorrect premise and therefore precluding their response. By 'trialling' it there is an implicit indication that this proposed format is the way things should be headed and I don't believe it is - consensus should first be sought on a) whether the current template is an issue and b) whether it can be updated if it is rather than immediately moving to ask for consensus to go in a complete other direction without addressing points A and B.  Beginning a roll out (no matter how small or 'trailed') at the current time is presenting a fait acomplis Bladeboy1889 (talk) 20:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe at the time over a year ago there was consensus the old template had an issue which is why this was created. Can you explain how you propose to get consensus as to whether this template should be implemented without letting people see it and become aware of its existent. Members of this project are aware of it but not outside it. So how do you propose we get there opinions that was the main point of a trial. Edinburgh   Wanderer  20:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * But as I've stated above I maintain that the existing template does not have the issues that have been claimed and that some of the reasoning for change is flawed. Rolling out changes based on a flawed argument and then prejudicing any response by repeating a list of incorrect imperatives is not a 'fair trial'.  There is also mention in the above or updating the existing template in line with the Boca Juniors version - shouldn't this be trialed as well rather than a single option?  I'm not saying some sort of 'trial' shouldn't be undertaken to gage feedback but that the proposed one is flawed and will pre-empt an outcome, and so would suggest that an alternative method should be undertaken.  As the only real reason for change seems to be a stylistic preference (for the reasons I have already given) then a much better trial would be to mock up multiple options for an updated table template (based on the suggestions in the discussion above) and invite every member of WP Football (via their talk pages) to state a preference without prejudicing their response by making claims that the existing table must be removed.  That would serve as a much more scientific trial and to be honest would probably invoke much more response than what has been proposed.  Starting to add a revised style of table to articles will provide it with unwarranted legitimacy and pre-suppose any response. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 09:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback Bladeboy1889 except you're wrong. The old format, because it uses only a flag will not correctly be ready by a screen reader. And touch devices cannot use the tooltip to determine the country. It's narrower than the current format so it requires less scrolling on a mobile/touch device. So I'm not sure how you came to your conclusions. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My reading of the comments here was that the issue re screen readers was an inherent problem with the table and it's use of two columns - this has been used as the justification for an enforced change. Any issue regarding the flags as you state could be solved by refining the existing template and does not require a wholesale change to a one column tabular format with cell borders.  As for scrolling on a mobile device I'm really not sure what you're getting at - if a page is twice as long it will require greater scrolling.  If you're referring to side-scrolling, as I explained - the existing template works fine on touch screen mobile devices if you hold the phone landscape - which is standard user experience for such devices. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 10:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually thinking about it Walter it is you who are wrong re flags and screen readers as they all have alt text stating the name of the country which will be read out by a screen reader.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 10:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You do make a good point though, WP:OVERLINK or specifically WP:REPEATLINK indicates that the first time a link is displayed is the only time it should be listed in a table. You suggest it's a WP:MOSFLAG issue, which wasn't quite correct but did have the principle correct. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The over-linking is I believe an issue, but the repetition of the same information (eg country name) is also ugly and in my view unnecessary.  As the flags use alt tags (which satisfy accessibility criteria) if there is a concern that some users would not recognise some flags then a simple key above / below / alongside the table listing the differing flags and their relevant nations would solve that - much better than a squad that only contains English players having the word England repeated thirty times.  Also that would actually improve the experience for screen readers as under the proposed as having the flag and country named gives the experience of: "Link graphic England Link England..." etc Bladeboy1889 (talk) 10:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * While I stand by the opinion that #2 is an improvement on what we currently have, a key is a viable alternative to spelling out country names. Although I've yet to see a squad template + key that didn't look worse than both of the templates we're talking about. —WFC— 10:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Using a key to explain icons is a standard thing in any data visualisation both on or offline. I don't think it's ideal but then as I said previously I believe the MOS for flags to be overkill.  And as I said, the suggestion that the current flag icons don't work for screen readers is incorrect - in fact using an icon and then an explanation of that icon in each row is a worse experience for screen readers as it is unnecessarily repeating data (from an aural point of view).Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

OK. I'll bite. I'm just learning WCAG, but if you can show me where in the guidelines any of this is verified. To the best of my knowledge, tables are not prevented in the accessibility guidelines, so in short, Bladeboy1889 is wrong. But I'll wait for a response from Internet policy rather than opinion. And the sort functionality has come in handy several times so far on the MLS articles. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No that's true - in the current guidelines there's nothing specific about tables aside from trying to make them accessible. However they haven't been updated for several years mainly because there similar arguments as this about elements such as tables going on amongst it's authors.  In general terms for the spirit of pure accessibility and within HTML5 guidelines tables should be avoided if possible as they are generally poor accessibility wise (and are more usually badly coded than other forms of layout). The other more trying issue for coders is that tables often perform hideously differently in different browsers which is why there has been a significant drive to move away from them in recent years.  To come back to the specific points about the squad tables - there's also nothing in the guidelines to say that something formatted in 'two columns' is inherently inaccessible either.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:11, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * IF WCAG 3 ever comes out, it will be well after the current HTML standards have changed and we may already have changed the template to use a data feed rather than a table. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Time to end the trial?
The above comments from Bladeboy read to me like a fairly thorough debunking of the claims of necessity of the new squad template, as well as confirmation that the original one is fine for screen readers. Time for the trial to end? Number  5  7  13:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * given the trial really hasn't started as was giving time for responses which there haven't been many it's easy to stop. I'm split on it and happy to go eithier way. Edinburgh  Wanderer  14:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's worth pointing out that this isn't a single-issue template. Flags were the initial driving force behind this design, accessibility is a factor, and there are several other things that various other people would like to see. While it's too soon to say that there is consensus to roll out this specific template, what is clear is that there is consensus that we should consider alternatives and/or improvements to the current version. After 18 months worth of periodic discussion, to make a snap decision on feedback from two editors working in tandem (one of whom is even more combative than me), followed by a motion to close from an admin who is notoriously anti-change, would be an example of the sort of thing that gives WP:FOOTY a bad name. The trial is doing no harm in its current scope, although I agree there is no benefit to expanding further unless editors at a specific article actively want to switch. I don't expect the editors I elude to above to accept any of what I say though, so let's focus on accessibility for the time being. I suggest we get input on football squad player and football squad player2 from neutral users that we know are competent on these sorts of matters, such as User:Graham87 and User:RexxS. Partly because I don't want to be accused of trying to sway them, partly because I'm not the one claiming that there is a problem, I'll leave it to editors who want to end this trial more quickly to contact them. —WFC— 09:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Please try and avoid veiled and inaccurate personal attacks - it doesn't really help advance any cause. Number   5  7  10:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My comments were neither veiled nor inaccurate, nor personal attacks. Thank you for that constructive contribution. —WFC— 10:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Accusing other editors of being combative and "notoriously anti-change" are clearly personal attacks, and the latter (which was aimed at me) is also inaccurate - I am not resistant to change, I am merely resistant to "improvements" that actually make things worse. Number   5  7  11:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Taking your points one by one:
 * 1. I don't think anyone disputes that this is a single issue template.
 * 2. Flags are an issue in regards to their MOS - personally I don't like the way flags are deemed to be dealt with in tables such as this by that MOS as it's over-complication but that's another issue.
 * 3. I never claimed there was no reason to adapt the current template or rebuild something else I was responding to the request for feedback which implied that the existing template could no longer be used based on several criteria I don't believe to be correct. There are certainly things that could be improved with what we've currently got (an attempt to deal with flags, improvement of the way the columns work etc).
 * 4. Why would halting any roll out of a new template - as a trial or not - until the questions and issues I had raised be a snap decision? What is the point of asking for feedback from other editors and then just continue on anyway?
 * 5. I'd say the lack of feedback goes some way to proving my point about the 'unscientific' nature of the trial as proposed. Most editors take no notice of talk pages or projects.
 * 6. As for "two editors working in tandem (one of whom is even more combative than me)" - what exactly does that mean? I don't get involved WP:Footy stuff because a) I have no interest in researching the national side of Gambia or debating the nationality of obscure players from the Belarusian leagues and b) the hectoring that often goes on here makes me want to give up editing Wikipedia all together.  I only took notice of this discussion because I saw IJA getting a kicking (along with Edinburgh Wanderer) in a discussion that at times began to feel like bullying.  IJA is someone I've collaborated with on a lot of articles so against my better judgement I got involved to show a bit of support as I disagreed with some of the claims being made - had I agreed with the reasoning then I would have simply objected based on aesthetics.  I kept my points concise and open for further discussion if anyone had counter points.
 * 7. '...an admin who is notoriously anti-change'. Isn't that rather an aggressive statement?
 * 8. '...would be an example of the sort of thing that gives WP:FOOTY a bad name.' Why would taking on board feedback (as asked for) and reviewing future actions based on it do that?
 * 9. As I pointed out - what would any changes made to articles be trialling? My objection was to phrase it in such a way as to suggest that the existing template had to be removed and this new table is the only way forward based on contested reasoning. If you want to have a trial and ask whether users prefer table one or two purely on aesthetic grounds then fine.  If there's a feeling that either template could be used and editors working on specific articles want to change then great.  As Edinburgh Wanderer pointed out right at the beginning of this however - had there been much interest in a move to the proposed new template it would have spread further than it has over the last twelve months.
 * 10. '...I don't expect the editors I elude to above to accept any of what I say though,' Another aggressive statement?
 * 11. Accessibility - you don't know anything about me or what knowledge I have about accessibility. Are you are implying that I may have made it up as a 'non-neutral'?  As I explained I did various tests against the two tables and found little difference - the existing table could be improved for accessibility purposes but but it is not inherently worse than than the proposed version.  I suggested in my response if others had more exacting evidence that I hadn't encountered / considered then fine but no one has.  I'd also ask why there was no suggestion of getting a 'neutral' reviewer when the claims about the existing templates accessibility were being so vigorously made?
 * Let me make this clear - I have no objections to change, no objections to a trial and no objections to moving forward based on consensus. My objections are that any consensus to date may have been based on inaccurate information and that the proposed trial was repeating those disputed claims as imperatives and thus influencing any response. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The comments in this thread, and the lack of response to my suggestion of calling in accessibility experts, both reinforce the things I said, and demonstrate why saying them was relevant. Nonetheless, Bladeboy makes some good points which I'll respond to shortly. —WFC— 11:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * 1. I do, and I'm certain I'm not alone.
 * 2. They're an issue but not the issue. As you've pointed out above, this table is not the only way to deal with flags, a key would be an alternative.
 * 3. I'm glad we agree.
 * 4. I'll deal with this in the following answer.
 * 5. The fact that most editors take no notice of talk pages of projects is precisely why we need a trial (which in fairness you don't seem to dispute), and also why the trial should continue while we try to work issues out. Only by having a live trial on live articles can we ensure that editors who don't like some or all of what we're doing can give feedback on what the problems actually are.
 * 6. There is nothing at all wrong with yourself and IJA working together – I've worked with other editors in the context of this discussion too – nor is there anything wrong with the two of you agreeing. It becomes relevant when there is a proposal to end a trial on the basis of your feedback and IJA's agreement.
 * 7. I considered it relevant in the context of a pointing out that this is premature motion to end the trial. I stand by its accuracy.
 * 8. There is a difference between taking feedback seriously, and suggesting that we use the first substantive bit of negative feedback to kill off an 18 month process in three days, before we have even looked into the points made.
 * 9. As you say yourself, most editors don't look at talk pages or project pages (and I'll add the Watford and Seattle Sounders articles to that list). Therefore, the major contributors to the vast majority of articles would have had no way of knowing about its existence. Had we tried to raise awareness about the template, it would doubtless have been branded canvassing. The only other way to get people's attention would have been to nominate football squad player at WP:TFD and use the discussion to promote football squad player2. That would have been a clear enough breach of WP:POINT to get whoever did it blocked.
 * 10. Again, I considered it relevant. Accurate too – you have contested and Number 57 has ignored almost everything I said prior to that comment.
 * 11. I don't know anything about your knowledge of accessibility, and for that reason I don't know how much weight to attach to the points that you make. I do know that Chris knows a fair amount, but am sure if he were to refute what you have said he would be considered "non-neutral". Hence my suggestion that we ask a couple of people who are well known on Wikipedia for their expertise in accessibility. In response to the final question, there was up to now no reason to doubt the accessibility argument; now that there is, I am suggesting that we clear up that doubt. —WFC— 11:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK - to respond to some of the above. First - my mistake in the first point - I had meant to type "isn't a single issue" rather than "is a single issue" so I'll hold my hands up to that.  I've never said that the existing template can't be improved or there is no need to attempt to for accessibility reasons or otherwise.  My main point is that I don't agree that a 'single' column table which creates a thin dataset with acres of white space is the only way to proceed or to sort out any of the issues.  Basically it think it looks crap and amateurish. My objection to the proposed trial was that it was couched in terms that it is the only way to proceed which I still maintain will prejudice any feedback.  At least one other option was suggested in the discussions so far - the Boca Juniors version for want of a better name - why not trial that as well?  As I said, I'm not against change, trials or anything else - merely that being presented with a 'single option' to which anyone disagreeing with the merits of is shouted down with claims of accessibility that I don't believe to be accurate, is not a fair trial.  I really don't want to get into a lengthy bitchfight on here - I don't have the time or the patience - but at the same time I don't see why you need to take such an aggressive tone with anyone who happens to disagree with you.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as the Boca Juniors one is concerned, I would oppose its rollout on the grounds that I feel we should grasp the opportunity to make more radical changes to an outdated template. However, given that I do see that as an improvement of sorts, I would not oppose a trial similar in scope to the one already in place – perhaps the Argentine Primera and a couple of English clubs? —WFC— 11:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I do actually agree with you - I'd welcome an improved squad template and that it should be considered radically. I'm not attached to it. My point all along has been that the changes should be done for the right reasons.  Personally I think a thin 'single column' layout sucks (and I'm not the only one judging by the comments in the discussion).  You don't agree and that's your prerogative.  At this risk of opening further cans of worms - an even more radical solution would be something like this New York Yankees which includes all squad, loan players, coaching staff etc etc.  I'm not saying we should adopt that format - just that it's a radical solution that is already widely used on wikipedia and worth considering.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

He hasn't made a compelling argument as it's full of inaccuracies. So nothing has been "debunked". So it's not time to end the trial. Nice try though. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * In regard to the comment above about landscape mode being the predominant mode of use for internet browsers on smart phones: first, that's a ridiculous assertion to make, I prefer portrait because I don't have to scroll as much on a mobile site, and b) the official Wikipedia app on iPhone does not support landscape mode. I'm sure somebody can confirm that very easily. An example from the iPhone app: old template and new template. DemonJuice (talk) 01:25, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that landscape was the primary method of browser use on smartphones - however the ability to switch between portrait and landscape is. Are you really saying that you don't turn your phone to landscape to watch youtube videos for example?  As for the iPhone Wikipedia app not supporting landscape - as I don't use an iPhone I can't check that but if it doesn't then it's pretty shoddy UI (and I know of iPhone apps that apple have rejected because of just that - but that's more an issue with the arbitrary and inconsistent way Apple judge apps that are submitted to the store).  If so then fair point but I still maintain it doesn't make a 'two column' table completely unusable to the point of needing to make the PC/Laptop/Tablet view of the page look considerably worse. (see point below) Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You said that's how these devices are intended to work and I say, says who? You. No, I don't always turn my phone sideways to view a video and I rarely turn it sideways for other reasons. I also can't turn it sideways in the Wikipedia app. This isn't a discussion about the app's UI, it's a discussion about how squad lists look across multiple platforms. The old one looks like crap on mobile devices. DemonJuice (talk) 14:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * In the interest of full disclosure, you can scroll to the right to see the rest of the squad in the second column of the old template. The text is all justified within a screen width so you'd have to scroll back to continue reading the prose but then you won't have to scroll sideways again while reading. Of course, that's only because the heading collapse on the mobile site. If the old template wasn't collapsed under a heading, the text width would match the width of the old template. Unlikely to happen, sure, but a concern nonetheless. One column is far superior for mobile devices. I'm all for going back to abbreviations for the position column (while at the same time using the abbreviation Pos. in the header) and using the 3-letter code for the flags in the nations column to make it look even better on a mobile device in portrait mode. DemonJuice (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree - when viewing the table in question in portrait that is the case - and isn't the greatest user experience. However the same can be said for pretty much any data table on wikipedia that has numerous columns (eg 2011–12 Arsenal F.C. season)Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * So you're saying that other things look like crap on Wikipedia when viewed from mobile devices so squad lists should emulate that? I don't get your argument here. DemonJuice (talk) 14:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The beauty of a wikitable is that it will expand or shrink to fit a screen for the most part, whereas columnar layouts like the old template will not. This means it has the potential to look good on a desktop and a mobile. We should strive to come up with a wikitable solution that satisfies most of the concerns of both sides. DemonJuice (talk) 18:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)