Category talk:History of sports

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[edit] Proposed forum

I propose that this page be used as a forum to discuss sports history in terms of how it is presented on Wikipedia and perhaps as the forerunner of a dedicated project. All contributions welcome. --Einar 20:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


I agree we should have a central forum until a formal WikiProject is started, though unless there is prolonged and growing interest in such a project, I'd be loath to start one. I've a few thoughts about sports history:

I've tried to integrate the cricket history material into the "years in sport", "seasons in sport", centuries in sport" series with a view to that being a standard practice across all sport projects, so we ought to encourage all projects to do that. From what I could see, soccer and baseball were well ahead of cricket in this regard and part of my incentive was to catch up with them!
I can see that Einar has done some good work on this category and tidied it up. I'm interested in his idea of having both an article and a sub-cat for each sport within the category and I'd like to know if he thinks there is sufficient material already to do this across the board or if a lot of sports are short of historical material.
We should leave messages for user:P64 in the hope that he will return as he did most of the early work on the "years in sport" series.
I think the article Pre-1850s in sports is a bit of a sticking point, although it is very good, because as the cricket articles have shown, modern sport at an organised level goes back into the 18th and even 17th centuries. I think we need to break up this article and expand much further into the past, although I've no real alternative at present for a better cutoff. At a guess, and using cricket as a yardstick, I might go for 1550 as that marked the earliest definite cricket reference, but it depends on the histories of other sports.

Those are a starter for ten. I'm not going to be available much over the next three weeks but I'll look in and perhaps make a start on the pre-1850s somewhere.

All the best. --BlackJack | talk page 07:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I entirely agree with the points made. To answer the second one, I think the majority of sports do not have a history article and few have enough material to even start a history category. I'm afraid most sports editors focus on the present (as you must have found when doing your cricket history). It will need a lot of work to create the necessary material.
I certainly think for starters it would be a good idea to decompose Pre-1850s in sports and work backwards in time but I would only create a "year" if there is actual content for it. I would not have a cutoff. I think we should go right back to 3000BC and beyond if the content is there.
Well, now I must apologise. Having kick-started this, I must now take my leave for a few weeks due to a secondment at work which involves relocation. I doubt very much if I will have any time for WP but I will try to stay in touch if possible. Good luck. --Einar 07:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Hope your secondment goes well, Einar, and that you will be back before too long. I think you're right that we should not have a cutoff and only use years whci have an actual reference. I'll try and do something with pre-1850. I'm afraid I don't really know much about the sports that are lacking a history article. --BlackJack | talk page 17:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hear, hear. Come back soon, Einar. I am not really qualified to delve into the early history of sport other than folk football which prevailed before 1850. I will pick up a few of the history overviews, though, and see what I can do with them. --GeorgeWilliams 20:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Flying visit. Thank you both. Shall be doing a couple of things with pre-1850 today. --Einar 06:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi all. Another short visit while I'm on a weekend leave. I've given this some thought and decided that I doubt if we can generate enough interest at present in sports history as a dedicated WikiProject. But there is this project: WP Sports and I've decided to join it. If anyone here is interested in joining, can we reconvene to their talk page where there is more chance of attracting contributions. Many thanks. --Einar 10:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)