Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive-Apr2007

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What is this user doing?

I see this user moving lots of articles out of the American Football category. The user is relatively new, and is not using an edit summary. Some of the changes might be OK, but others baffle me. For instance, why change the category of a photo of Ralphie from "American Football" to "Photos in the United States". I have tried to contact the user but I think he/she may no longer be online. I am tempted to revert all these changes but I would like a second opinion first, please. Johntex\talk 01:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I randomly clicked on a few. They appear to be in good faith ... and most of them seem to be good ideas ... although the Ralphie one [1] doesn't make any sense. I wouldn't suggest reverting all of them ... but some of the strange ones could be. Ralphie should be in Category:Colorado Buffaloes football, not American football or US photos. --BigDT 01:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
This user might need a polite reminder to use edit summaries and talk pages, but it certainly appears that they are doing good faith edits. As BigDT implies, I may disagree with the results of some of his moves, but this does not to be, on the whole, a vandlism or disruption problem. He's being WP:BOLD, but isn't that what we want. If there are questionable moves, bring it up on the users talk page and on the article talk page. In general, categorization should always be moved down to the lowest level category, and it appears that he is simply doing that. Really, Category:American Football is quite a high-level category, and should have very few articles directly assigned to it. This doesn't appear to be a problem upon further investigation. He SHOULD be encouraged to always use edit summaries, since seeing MANY changes made in a short time does send up red flags, but that's about it... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you for your feedback. I never meant to imply these edits were vandalism. If I thought that, I would have reverted them on sight. Personally, I think WP:BOLD is quite over-rated though. When one person makes a lot of bad-bold changes, someone else has to do a lot of work to undo them. In this case a few edits I looked at look to me like bad moves. He is NOT universally moving things inot lower down categories. Moving something from Americna Football >> US photos is moving the wrong way, or laterally at best. That is why I wanted a second opinion. If the changes are to be undone, it is easier when they are the most recent changes to the article so that the undo button can be used. Johntex\talk 04:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing the questionable moves. Just be careful when dealing with new users, though. Remember to treat them well and help rather than correct. Look at this guys contribs list, he seems to be doing a lot of categorization work, and such mundane tasks are some of the most thankless work at Wikipedia. We need to be careful that while we are helping him become a better editor, we don't discourage him from helping out with this much needed job. I notice that you left some notes on fixes you have made to his questionable moves. Thanks and please continue to do so, as well as letting him know how to properly categorize articles. Thanks again, and happy editing! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Of course. I left him a polite message before I ever posted here. The fact that he did not reply, coupled with the fact that his contributions record showed no recent edits, is what motivated me to come here to seek added input. Johntex\talk 07:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion about modifying {{College coach infobox}}

An editor is proposing changes to the above template. Please review his changes and comment on them on the template talk page.↔NMajdan•talk 15:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Help with the CFB Yearly Record templates

I am trying to use the {{CFB Yearly Record Entry}} template on the Coach-Team page for OU and Bob Stoops. I've had a bit of trouble getting it to show up right, though. For some reason, there is an extra column at the end of the table. I didn't change any of the default options since there was a warning about that, so I don't know what's not working.

Also, the whole "name" field is really kind of bugging me. I don't need it to be about either the coach or the team since the whole article is only about their combination, but the column is (understandably) required. Could we add a fourth "type" option that doesn't use it or possibly make it so you can turn it off like the other fields? Anyway, any help would be appreciated on getting it to look right. z4ns4tsu\talk 17:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Fixed it for you. You needed to add "ranking2 = no" to all of the rows so that the {{CFB Yearly Record Entry}} template didn't insert a column for the second ranking. Both the first and second rankings are used on a number of pages (AP and Coaches) so it's default on. I've updated the docs for {{CFB Yearly Record Entry}} so that this is more clear. -- Billma 00:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! z4ns4tsu\talk 15:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

AfD notice

2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game is up for deletion. (This notice is not intended to violate WP:CANVASS, it is merely informing a group of Wikipedians on the matter).↔NMajdan•talk 13:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Individual game articles

As a result of the above AfD, there is now a broader discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability#Notability_of_individual_athletic_competitions_.28games.29. I have urged that the discussion should take place here, but either way I think that members of this project may want to be involved in the discussion. Johntex\talk 14:14, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Template Overuse/abuse

I think we need a solution for the head coach banners, particularly when a coach has been with multipule teams; the different head coach banners should combine into a single banner that takes up less space, or have the contents of each collapsed by default. Case in point: Frank Dobson (football). On that article, the templates are as long, if not longer than, the article itself. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 20:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing a couple months ago but I never did anything about it. It would probably require a code change to every template but I would almost like to see something like {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} applied to all of these.↔NMajdan•talk 20:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I concur. Could we use/modify the code from WP:Bannershell? I'd be glad to help change coaching templates. Вasil | talk 00:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
PS - If so, let't try to make it generic so we can use it on the WP:CBB coaching templates as well. Вasil | talk 00:39, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
It's currently not technically possible to have collapseable because the show/hide doesn't display well on the multi-colored backgrounds. So, we could switch to a standard color background which would allow this, but I like the colored backgrounds. So, I think the shell idea is better. MECU≈talk 12:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Observe: {{Chicago Bulls 1995-96 NBA champions}} —Disavian (talk/contribs) 23:12, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Sure, blue on red works (some may disagree), but what about blue on blue, or blue on black, or other background colors? This was a problem we discovered when I attempted to add the show/hide/collapse feature to the coach templates, you can see the discussion above or in the archives. MECU≈talk 01:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Ribbon for today's events

FYI, if anyone would like to add a ribbon to their user page in memory of those who lost their lives today, you can use {{Virginia Tech ribbon}} to place a small orange and maroon ribbon in the top right corner of your user page (similar to the {{administrator}} icon) or you can add Image:Orange and maroon ribbon.svg anywhere you would like. --BigDT 03:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks for letting us know about this - great idea. Johntex\talk 07:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines for individual game articles

OK, so it looks like we need to discuss some recommendations around "notability" for articles on individual games.

I personally think that we should allow an article on any individual game if and only if it is well-written and well referenced. Contrary to popular fears, this would not result in loads of "Rice vs. Harvard" articles anytime soon. People are by and large going to write about what they find interesting, and that is by and large going to be the more important games. If the odd one did appear and it was well-written and referenced, what would be the harm, anyway?

However, it looks like that may not currently be the majority viewpoint, so I would like to get us started thinking about some guidelines. I would like to propose a two part standard. I propose that an individual game article is to be kept if it meets either

A - it is being created because the individual season article exists, is getting too long, and is being split out in WP:SUMMARY style. To my mind, this is why WP:SUMMARY exists. There is an active proposal similar to this at Wikipedia:Television episodes. The basic idea is that they will usually try to build good articles on a season first, but then can create articles on individual episodes if length suggests they should. Good sourcing is stressed.

B - some games are notable by themselves. I propose that an individual game be considered notable for an article if it meets one or more of the following (several of these seemed to specifically get support at AfD):

  1. It was a bowl game
  2. It was a conference championship
  3. It was a meeting of a rivalry series which already has a Wikipedia article
  4. It set a major record for the game itself (most points scored, longest game, biggest-come from behind victory, ...)
  5. Something truly whacky happened (E.g. Fifth Down)
  6. At least 3 major national media declared it "The game of the century"
  7. It was the first meeting between 2 teams
  8. It was the first game in a brand new stadium
  9. A skill player had a stand-out game AND at least 3 major national media said that game was instrumental to propelling the player to win one of the top individual awards.
  10. The underdog won by 21 or more points.
  11. A team came from 21 or more points behind.
  12. It set a network broadcast record for viewership

Please remember that this proposal (or whatever we end up deciding upon) does not mean that anyone is under an obligation to go out and create all the possible articles. It only means we would support their existence IF they were well done. I look forward to feedback on this methodology. Is this basic format a good start? Johntex\talk 07:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Another thing we could consider adding is if the game had the national Pontiac game changing performance play of the week in it. Also I'm not so sure about the "first meeting between two teams" stipulation. That would imply that every team could have an article back in 1890 when they first played an otherwise non-notable team. Also, let's say Duke has never played Idaho. If say next season they had a regular season game, that would be deserving of an article? Not in my opinion. VegaDark 10:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Vega. The teams involved have a lot to do with the notability. Thus, items 7-12 could be a terrible article if they involve perennial losers. I especially don't like the "underdog" item. What's that mean? The bookies were wrong or a team got lucky? That's notable? Perhaps "National level game" would summarize it? If a game is so important that it's national-level, it's clearly notable. Division II championship, bowl games, USC vs. Notre Dame in 2005. Games whose story transcends the actual play. I also support WP:SUMMARY breakouts. MECU≈talk 12:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is getting a little out of control with the whole notability thing. I think it should just be common sense. How good are the teams? How are they ranked? What is their record? How much publicity did the game receive? etc. But, this isn't easy to put it words and set as a hard guideline so some editors would overlook common sense since there isn't a guideline. But as far as actually setting criteria, I definitely agree with 1-6, don't agree with 7 and 8 and I'm on the fence on the rest.↔NMajdan•talk 13:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Conference Championship Games

User: BigDT changed the name of the ACC Championship Game article to ACC football championship game. I don't like the new title but if there's concensus to have all Conference Championship articles like that I wouldn't fight it. Just thought I'd bring it up here because if the ACC's article has that title format then the rest should. Seancp 21:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I like the new name, it's more precise. Especially when there's a basketball championship, a volleyball championship, and so on.... The page should be a disambig then. MECU≈talk 00:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with making a disambig page. The football championship game differs from other conference championships in that it is only 1 game, while the others are tournaments. For an example: SEC Tournament is a disambig page for all the various SEC tournaments, including basketball. If within a group of sports fans someone says, "Florida won the SEC championship game" people are not going to think basketball. They'll automatically think football. If someone says, "Florida won the SEC tournament" then they'll automatically think basketball. So I think a disambig of SEC Championship Game to the various tournaments would not be helpful to the average reader. Seancp 13:38, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
He does have a point. Sure it may be the biggest but we can't assume the other sports don't have a championship game as well. Until there are three or more sport championship games (like Mecu said; football, basketball, baseball, etc) then I think the ACC Championship Game article (and other conferences) should redirect to the football article. If there are two sports, then it should redirect to football with one of the {{otheruses templates}} at the top. If three or more, then a disambig page.↔NMajdan•talk 13:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for reassessment

I just gave the article for Mitch Mustain, the poster-child of Arkansas' incredibly dramatic late-2006 off-the-field shenanigans, a significant overhaul (particularly the college section). Is it possible to get a reassessment? --Bobak 17:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Well done. I have upgraded the assessment to B quality. I hope you continue your work and get this article GA quality.↔NMajdan•talk 17:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt update. I'm not sure I can take it to GA (that now famous book in the references would be a start), I hope for more good articles as the transfer story progresses. --Bobak 18:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Portal notice

I have selected the Selected Content for the CFB Portal for May. I selected an image that I think is of good quality but one that did not go through the nomination process. I have selected Image:2006 Clemson at Virginia Tech celebration.jpg in honor of the VT tragedy of last week. If anybody has any issues with me selecting an image that didn't go through the process or an issue with this image in particular, please let me know and I will either select a different image from the VT football category or from among the approved nominations.↔NMajdan•talk 18:15, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

  • It looks great NMajdan - good idea, thanks. Johntex\talk 18:29, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

More on notability

There is some discussion 2 sections up about notability guidelines for individual games. I have re-activated the page Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Notability which was started by BigDT. I have added the information about individual games to that page (I took out any criteria that were not supported in the above discussion).

I marked this page as a "guideline" because I think it captures how we are currently working. I am relisting this here to get some more eyeballs on it and so we can have more discussion as neccessary. Johntex\talk 19:29, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Assessment help

I'd like to keep our unassessed articles category empty so I would appreciate any help is assessing these articles. Thanks in advance.↔NMajdan•talk 13:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)