Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive-Dec2006

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< Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

1 Team Infoboxes
2 Texas Bowl
3 When to create yearly team pages?
4 A bot we need - football links instead of university links
5 Team season article format changes
6 Tennessee Volunteer Football
7 Bowl Championship Series
8 More help! Player page being attacked
9 Coaches article
10 Awards?
11 Bowl game articles
12 Request for comment: {{cfb}}
13 Heisman Trophy
14 AFD Notices
15 Graphic Lab
16 How to handle a situation: LSU-related vandalism of USC's 2003-related pages
17 Notability for College Football People
18 Criteria to have an article in WP:CFB
19 Template:USFBullsCoach deletion?
20 College football article being considered for deletion
21 Notability for College Football People
22 Criteria to have an article in WP:CFB
23 Template:USFBullsCoach deletion?
24 College football article being considered for deletion
25 2006-07 Bowl Game Template
26 Infobox for college bowl games
- 26.1 Oops
- 26.2 See also
27 Need recommendations for college coach infobox
28 Need of "peer-review" section for the WikiProject
29 May go for Featured Article
- 29.1 Article nominated for FA
30 It's probably in our best interest to...
31 Auto archive of this talk page
32 Wikipedia Day Awards
33 Cool Trick
34 Coaches year-by-year record template?
35 Please Review
36 Fifth Down for GA (almost)
37 Infobox National Championships
- 37.1 Hang on
- 37.2 NCAA Division I-A national football championship
- 37.3 Possible approaches
- 37.4 New Idea
- 37.5 Brand New Idea
38 Schedule Template?
- 38.1 New Problem?
- 38.2 Collapsible?
- 38.3 Attendance

Team Infoboxes

Alright - I've noticed as I've been editing team articles that there are a gigantic amount of different infoboxes for each article.

I've seen a total of seven (so far) different types of team infoboxes, and I think it's about time we began to standardize a bit. Some of them can be broken down into categories of similarity, others stand alone, but I'm linking to the team pages which have which.

The Loose Styles:

Loose Icon-Only Style
Penn State Nittany Lions football

Loose Icon and Title Style
San Diego State Aztecs football

Loose Icon and Title with Helmet Style
LSU Tigers football

Loose Icon and Title with Helmet Style with Labels
Hawaii Warriors football

The Block Styles:

Block Style without Title
Michigan Wolverines football

Block Style including financial info without Title
Ohio State Buckeyes football

The Stand-Alone Block:

Different Block Style with Title
Iowa Hawkeyes football

Some of these are radically different than others - from looking around, the majority seem to be with the 'block style', though many football articles still lack one. I ask that we reach a consensus before we add more infoboxes for us to change in the near future. Which should it be? --Nomader^Talk 01:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up, this is exactly what the project is for. I like the Michigan one the best. I think financial info shouldn't be on there, or if it is, at the bottom. Ohio State's was WAY too long too. I think Michigan's should be the base and we can add a bunch of info/fields from there. --MECU≈talk 02:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I havent had a chance to go through all of them closely yet but I must say I do like the Michigan one but I really dislike the grid lines inside of the template. Thats my personal preference.--NMajdan•talk 03:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you in that Michigan's is the bestat the current moment in time and with the fact that the grid is ugly. Perhaps we should make a fusion of Michigan's good information and Penn State's rather classy looking infobox? I like Penn State's, but the lack of a title and some information is a big downside. --Nomader^Talk 04:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Nomader that the Michigan and Penn State's should be combined. Just my two cents. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 04:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree with the above that we should combine the two. We need a standard order of presenting the information as well, i.e. do rivals go before or after stadium in the infobox? It would be nice if we could transform this into a template where we can just do something like rivals=Oregon Ducks|Stadium=Reser Stadium etc. etc. VegaDark 06:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

(reset) I fully plan to make a template, once we get some agreement on what needs to be in it. I'll probably do it next week sometime unless someone beats me to it. --MECU≈talk 17:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I really don't care for the Michigan box, but I think it's mostly the lines that cause that. I really like the look of the Penn State one, though. I figure we'll need team logo, name, coach, home stadium (seating capacity), colors, mascot, nickname, fight song name, conference championships, national championships, number of all-americans (maybe), over-all record (with maybe breakdowns by era too), maybe athletic director. I'll keep thinking, but I bet that would cover most of the info we want.z4ns4tsu\^talk 17:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't like the 'look' of the Michigan one either, but it has most of the information we'd need in the infobox - yet, the Penn State one just looks classy. One big thing I do like though about the Penn State infobox is that it lists the championship years on it, instead of having large annoying lists in the pages. If we could somehow incorporate that into what Michigan has now, I think we'd have a good infobox. --Nomader^Talk 20:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

So I think we've agreed we want the content of the Michigan box with the appearance and layout of the Penn State box.--NMajdan•talk 22:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

With a title thrown in there as well - the one main problem other than info on the Penn State box. Other than that, I think that's the consensus. --Nomader^Talk 22:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hope you haven't started on one Mecu cause I threw one together today. Was a slow day at work. I'm currently debugging an issue with the school colors but other than that, I think I got it. Let me know what you think and if there's anything that should be added/subtracted. {{NCAAFootballSchool}}--NMajdan•talk 21:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No I haven't. Looks good. Some suggestions: Center the Italicized headers? Or push them out a little more? Also, maybe add a Conference Record under Team Records? Perhaps Conference Titles shouldn't just be a number, since then you could specify what conference(s) it was? ie, 2 Big 12, 5 Big 8, etc? Also, maybe a field for starting year of football? Or number of years (less useful). But really, it does look good. I've see the same color problem on other templates too. --MECU≈talk 22:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Mecu. I moved the italicized headers over a little more. I can still move it more or just center it. I think conference titles should be a number because win I visit more athletic sites, thats how they list it. But technically, anything can go there. Its not like that field invalidates any number or has some isnumber() function attached to it. I will add the starting year for football as well. Also, I moved your comment to the template talk page as well so we can switch this conversation to the proper place.--NMajdan•talk 22:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Texas Bowl

Is the Texas Bowl in any way, shape or form connected to the EV1.net Houston Bowl? If they aren't, I assume we should split the Texas Bowl article. Or, do we keep Houston Bowl results in the Texas Bowl article. Your responses will help resolve a dispute on if previous results from the Houston Bowl should or should not be kept in the article. Thanks If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 06:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

When to create yearly team pages?

While going through some of the yearly team pages, I noticed the 2007 Oregon State Beavers football team article has already been created when there is still over a month left in this football season. I worry that if we start creating these articles too early, we may have more people questioning the need for these articles than we already do. Even the 2006 Texas Longhorn football team article was questioned for being created in early June 2006 and they were defending national champs. Personally, I think at the very earliest, the creation of these articles should wait until at least National Signing Day when a mostly full roster for that year's team has been determined.--NMajdan•talk 17:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 19:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I see no reason to have most team pages, unless the team is stellar, was ranked in the top twenty-five for more than a few weeks, or has another reason to be there (see the 2006 Miami RedHawks team). Obviously, the Miami team I cited is none of these, and doesn't even have a winning record, yet already has an article. Change is needed... bad. --Nomader^Talk 21:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Like I mentioned above, this WikiProject needs to have a manual of style to have a clear-cut set of guidelines for notability in relation to teams, bowls, players, etc. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 01:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should say it is discouraged to create the next season prior to the spring practice game, or at least national signing day. But, since the 2007 Oregon page is already created, then we should allow it. It contains stuff that we would have to re-create anyways... it's just that we wouldn't want it already. But, per discussion before, any DI-A team season page is acceptable, as long as it's well sourced and written, regardless of how they perform. --MECU≈talk 01:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree it's a bit early to be making the 2007 season articles. But, since it's already made, along with 2007 Washington State Cougars football team (which was made back in October) no point to try and get them deleted since the information is accurate and will just end up being recreated in a few months. We should, however, discourage making these until at least national signing day as said above, or there won't be much to say other than the game schedule. VegaDark 01:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I support the creation of any well written team article as soon as the old season has ended.

Immediately after the season, there is already information to report, such as the upcoming schedule. Some things can already be written ahead of time, such as how many times the two teams have faced, and what the series record is. Recruiting information follows soon after that. Sometimes there are coaching changes to report, or new contract extensions to keep coaches from leaving, or stadium expansions, or new video systems installed, etc. etc.

I feel we have been over this ground already and decided that well-written articles should stay. I see no reason to revist that decision so soon.

Readers will be interested in information about next year as soon as this year is over, maybe sooner. For that reason, informative articles about next year should be allowed to stay even if they are created this year. I think it would be wrong to say that Wikipedia should wait until later to be a resource for this informaiton. Johntex\^talk 02:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

In the grand scheme of things, considering that Category:Future sporting events has some way out there events like the 2032 Summer Olympics and 2012 NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey Tournament, ok ... but I really think we should worry more about some of the important 2006 teams that don't have pages ... like Wake Forest, for example. BigDT 04:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

A bot we need - football links instead of university links

I'm trying to start using the pages of the form Name Nickname football. But because they're fairly new, most links for all kinds of stuff -- college teams' opponents, NFL players' alma maters, etc. -- have links to the school instead of the football program. I change these manually here and there, but I think it would be good to have a bot to do this systematically. If I get a chance I might write something but if someone else wants to do it, more power to them. - PhilipR 15:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

How will you differentiate between the two? For instance, if I said "NFL Pro John Doe graduated from the University of XYZ," I believe it should go to the school's wiki article. If I said "NFL Pro John Doe played for the University of XYZ," then it should go to the football page. But a bot wouldn't be able to make that decision. Also, what if there is no 'Name Nickname football' article? By guidelines set by the CFB WikiProject, you first try to link to the year-team page, if available and applicable (2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team), then the 'Name Nickname football' article (Oklahoma Sooners football), then school athletics article (Oklahoma Sooners), then school article (University of Oklahoma). --NMajdan•talk 17:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep. Before this would work we would need to make an article about the football teams for each school. There are many schools that still don't even have articles about their athletics, let alone their football team. But I agree that it would be nice, in the long run, to link to either the football season or the football team articles in many cases. VegaDark 18:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

See above section "Bowl Games" for more opinions on this subject (my opinion is listed there also). If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 00:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Team season article format changes

There is a straw poll being conducted here to come to a consensus on what the format of the season schedule chart should look like, please add your input. VegaDark 18:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Tennessee Volunteer Football

An unregister user keeps changing Tennessee's national championships to 6, which is in correct. Is there anything that can be done about this? Dlong 20:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll block unregistered users from editting it temporarily. Hopefully they will quickly lose interest. Johntex\^talk 21:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Haha, just gotta be aware and keep track of the article's history. College football articles (especially schools) are prime targets for vandalism.--NMajdan•talk 22:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not clear-cut vandalism, as the user is claiming that some extremely minor polls, which voted Tennessee #1 in these years, count as national championships. See http://www.ncaa.org/champadmin/ia_football_past_champs.html. However, the additions are pretty stupid; anyone want to claim Florida State won the national championship in 1994? (not PSU or Nebraska). So, if I could do a favor and ask some of you guys to watchlist it, as the guy will likely return after the sprotect is expired. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree it is not clear-cut vandalism. So I did not block the user or warn the user about vandalism. My intention would be to leave the sprotect in place for about a week. In that amount of time, the editor will hopefully either (a) lose interest completely (b) realize they have to discuss and gain conensus instead of just reverting (c) at least register a user account which will make enforcement of WP:3RR somewhat easier. Johntex\^talk 16:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This probably isn't or won't be the only instance this will occur. Schools probably claim a different number than the NCAA recognizes plenty of times. Perhaps the best way to deal with it is to include both ideas (aka, NPOV). Something like: "The NCAA officially recognizes Tennessee with 4 national championships in 19xx, 19xx, 19xx and 19xx. However, Tennessee claims 6 with the additional years of 19xx and 19xx. In 19xx, the yyyyyyy poll and in 19xx the zzzzzzz poll voted Tennessee the national champion. These polls are not commonly referred or claimed and the general consensus is that Tennessee has just 4 national championships." I know, literary works of art. (copied to Talk:Tennessee Volunteers football) --MECU≈talk 17:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I like this general idea, but I have two concerns: (1) I don't think the NCAA officially recognizes ANY football championships. They may list them, and refer to them, but I don't think they really recognize or sanction them. (2) for the purposes of team infoboxes and tables listing multiple teams, I think the WikiProject College Football should adopt and stick with a standard of which polls we will use. Beyond that, I think it is fine to include prose in each team article that explains discrepencies and counter-claims (with sources of course). (copied to Talk:Tennessee Volunteers football) Johntex\^talk 18:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

As much as I like the idea that the WP:CFB determine what is valid, it's not our job: that would be original. We can just reference the NCAA and then the University and put it all out there. For us to decide that we'll only go along with the NCAA I think is to ignore a side to the story. We could certainly say that in the infobox, only the generally recognized (aka common, NCAA published) NCs should be listed and others claimed by the school should be talked about in the article. But to say we will only put out what the NCAA publishes isn't being very NPOV, I think. (text not copied) --MECU≈talk 15:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that you may have misunderstood me and I think that we may actually be in agreement. I am saying that for the purposes of infoboxes and combined tables where lots of teams are listing, that we can stick with one or more of the most generally recognized polls. We have to make some sort of determination about what to include there. That is not NPOV, it is a reflection of the reality of the situation that some polls enjoy more wide-spread acceptance than others. In the text of an article on an individual team, we should be able to go into any amount of detail and discuss any polls that some author feels is relevant to discuss. Johntex\^talk 17:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It does sound like we agree. I'm on board with that then. --MECU≈talk 18:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool. I'm sure, if we have to, we can find sources that stipulate that some poll are more recognized than others. It shouldn't be too hard. -Patstuart^talk|edits 20:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Bowl Championship Series

I requested semi-protection of the Bowl Championship Series page and it was granted. I think it should stay until at least a week after the National Championship game on January 8, 2007. If the vandals find their way to other pages and it becomes too much, you can request semi-protection as well at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. There should be several IPs and have occurred frequently over the recent period. --MECU≈talk 02:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

More help! Player page being attacked

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Wilhoit they are going after this article. Some people still don't get it.CJC47 22:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Will you guys just take a look at this? Let me know if you disagree with my opinion. CJC47 16:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Coaches article

Just stumbled across an article that appears to have been created about a month ago: List of Current NCAA Division 1-A Coaches. Could use a little help filling in the gaps. It is also an orphaned article so could face deletion in the future.--NMajdan•talk 14:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I moved it to List of current NCAA Division I-A coaches. I think this is a good time to plug the Master Team Table. --MECU≈talk 15:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Moved to List of current NCAA Division I-A football coaches for accuracy before any more links get created. AUTiger ʃ ^talk/_work 00:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone think it might be a good idea to have a by year version of this article? Taking it a step further, we could even have something like List of NCAA Division I-A teams, 2006 could have team/coach/bowl/record/conference. That's probably something useful to have for each year, if for nothing else, than as a central point of reference for articles. BigDT 01:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I can pretty much buy that; sounds like a useful reference. But I think it's almost a subsection (except for the size issue) of 2006 NCAA Division I-A football season so perhaps it's 2006 NCAA Division I-A football season results? Section it by conference with each table containing team/coach/record/notes(includes championship games, bowl, anything notable to highlight.) AUTiger ʃ ^talk/_work 02:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Awards?

Should we do awards for the best 2006 team page? Best additions by posters and the like? CJC47 19:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not big on that stuff. If you think someone has done a good job, give them a barnstar, but beyond that, I really think we've done a good job of keeping the team rivalries out of here and it would be nice to see it stay that way. BigDT 19:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Bowl game articles

Following the naming convention used for 2006 Rose Bowl I have created stubs for two of the upcoming bowl games: 2006 Alamo Bowl and 2007 Rose Bowl. I would love to see us have an informative article for every single bowl game, but that may not happen. Therefore, I am not going to systematically create a stub for every game. I created these two because I personally plan to contribute to them.

We already have a page for BCS National Championship Game 2006. (Note that the naming convention we used there is different from other bowl games, where we have previously put the year after the title.)

Our project is active enough and has enough members that I think we should certainly create 2007 Fiesta Bowl, 2007 Sugar Bowl, and 2007 Orange Bowl so I will go ahead and create stubs for these. Beyond that, I think the creation of bowl game articles should be dependent upon whether someone is willing to take the initiative and make a good article. Johntex\^talk 18:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well you know z4ns4tsu and I will be on the Fiesta Bowl article.--NMajdan•talk 18:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I just created the above-mentioned BCS bowl articles. Someone please double-check me. In the copy-and-pasting, I don't want to have Louisville playing in more than one bowl! Also, I'm not sure which team is home and which is away for all these. So, I added an invisible comment that we need to check on that for each one. Johntex\^talk 19:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we might want to create a template for head-to-head games. I notice that in addition to a couple of past bowl games, there are a few individual college football games in Category:notable college football games. A head-to-head template could be used for games like these, as well as bowl games. Some things it might include:

 |Name=(name or nickname if any - E.g. 2007 Rose Bowl or "The Play"
 |Date=
 |Visiting Team=
 |Visiting Record=
 |Visiting Team AP rank=
 |Visiting Team Coaches rank=
 |Visiting Team BCS rank=
 |Visiting Coach=
 |Home Team=
 |Home Record=
 |Home Team AP rank=
 |Home Team Coaches rank=
 |Home Team BCS rank=
 |Home Coach=
 |Type=(conference, non-conference, conference championship, bowl game, national championship...)
 |Stadium=
 |Result=

What do you think? Johntex\^talk 20:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I like it, but am not totally sure how it should look. I don't think it should look like the standard infoboxes, something more prominent centered at the top. I also think it should use

{{Linescore Amfootball|
|Home=
|R1= ||R2= ||R3= ||R4= ||RT=
|Road=
|H1= ||H2= ||H3= ||H4= ||HT=
}}

and maybe even some stat columns? See [1] for an example (oh to use logos! but no, won't use them here, sigh) Perhaps there should be a box-score summary template as well? --MECU≈talk 20:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

(Sigh) someday hopefully we will be cleared to use logos in the way that other major media sources use them. I do kind of like the idea of having the linescore immediately at the top. The box score might be better further down the page? Other info I've thought of to consider for the info box is Attendance and Weather. Johntex\^talk 21:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Yah, I didn't mean to imply the box score at the top as well. Just thought there might be a need for it and standardizing it would be good for Wikipedia. Though it would have to involve start and end templates which I'm not yet good at, but all the more reason to go for it and learn. --MECU≈talk 22:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look and provide some feedback: Template:NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader. My thoughts are to eliminate the white background so it's more transparent looking. I'm not so sure about the blue outline (maybe a different color? maybe involve school colors somehow?) I use a 1600x1200 monitor, and I tried reducing the size and seeing how it looks, but I'd like some input from others that use smaller sizes. Is it too big? Should I take the "nowrap" off of the middle column? Are the fonts just too big? Should I go smaller overall? Any comments are appreciated. Thank you. --MECU≈talk 20:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have moved the template so it can begin being used on pages: {{NCAAFootballSingleGameHeader}}. --MECU≈talk 18:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment: {{cfb}}

Soccer pages have a nifty little template Template:Nft that lets you easily specify the name of the country and produce a link to such-and-such national football team. It requires a redir for countries like the US and Australia that don't have that as the name of the article, and I think transcluding it is highly deprecated, but other than that it seems to work great. I created similar at Template:Cfb. Sadly everything will require a redir because there's no way to intuit the school nickname which is in each article's title. If there are any nuances of MediaWiki template markup that I'm missing, please advise me. Cheers, PhilipR 18:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I decided we were better off with {{cfb2}}, which lets you specify the team nickname to avoid redirs. And be sure to use them with subst: so that we don't create a mess of transclusion. - PhilipR 17:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Heisman Trophy

Can someone knowledgable about it give Heisman Trophy a once over? It has been vandalized quite a bit with partial reverts mixed in. I just want to make sure that I haven't missed anything and that there aren't any little pieces of mis-information vandalism. BigDT 21:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I do take a slight issue with the third paragraph. I don't know if the trophy serves as a representation of a player's chances in the NFL. Look at some of the more recent winners: Jason White, Eric Crouch, Chris Weinke, Danny Weurffel. Granted there are some big names but the number of big NFL players and NFL busts are about equal. Just my opinion. But overall the article looks good.--NMajdan•talk 15:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

AFD Notices

From here on, if anyone comes across an AFD regarding a college football project related item, please list it here on the Project talk page so that the members of the project can assist in assessment of the article. Thank you. --MECU≈talk 03:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Wilhoit they are going after this article. Some people still don't get it.CJC47 22:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Will you guys just take a look at this? Let me know if you disagree with my opinion. CJC47 16:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kory Sheets of Kory Sheets. Borderline IMHO, but still keep as starting RB for Division I team. --MECU≈talk 15:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this one: John Fitzgerald (Offensive Guard, NCAA All-American). Is it worth keeping or should we AFD it? --MECU≈talk 16:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
- Iffy ... leaning delete. If it is kept, it needs to be renamed and cleaned up. I take a dim view of autobiographical articles. Also, the article says that he was on the all-centry team for the entire state of Oklahoma (meaning, including OU and OSU). But the link says it was UCO's all-century team, not for the whole state. BigDT 17:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Graphic Lab

Just came across this new community on Wikipedia. May be worth checking out in case we need something in the future. Graphic Lab.--NMajdan•talk 14:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the addition. I had a photo that I have wanted fixed for quite a while. CJC47 23:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

How to handle a situation: LSU-related vandalism of USC's 2003-related pages

I need advice from the more experienced editors: I think everyone, outside of a few seemingly tireless, fringe (not normal) LSU fans, have moved past the 2003 split-title fiasco, but the edits keep on coming. For the past year they've been the occasional anon IPs, now I have two new users abusing this over and over for the past few days on University of Southern California Trojans football, 2003 NCAA Division I-A football season, NCAA Division I-A national football championship, and USC Trojans (thank heavens for the "user contribution" button!). What should I do? With these new accounts it's seems to have become a little different than when it was merely anons, but I feel a little uncomfortable handing out warnings since I'm self-professed USC alum and "Watchlist Guardian" for many of its articles. --Bobak 19:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Talking is usually the best thing. Try to get all involved people to talk in one location. Try to make a compromise that everyone (or most) can agree on. Is their viewpoint that LSU isn't a co-NC? I couldn't really tell what the problem was easily. Involving some of the dispute resolution processes may be needed if you can't talk it out. --MECU≈talk 19:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't call myself an "experienced" editor (I generally just fix typos, bad links, and revert vandalism), but I'm intending to treat this as vandalism and give the standard warnings. I've already notified one user about this. Dlong 20:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability for College Football People

Seeing some of the AFDs for college players, I'd like to get some discussion going about Notability for College football People, and eventually get this as a guideline or policy under the Notability. Thus, here are my thoughts:

See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Assistant coaches notable enough for articles

Coaches
- Head coach
  - Of a Division I-A team for any length of time (1 game, 1 day) (must be officially recognized by school as head coach. For example, .
  - Of a lower division, if they win the national championship.
  - Any division, won a major national award (Coach of the Year), or in the College Football Hall of Fame
- Assistant coach
  - Of a Division I-A team, an offensive or defensive coordinator (or similar title that means they are a "head" assistant, not simply "running backs coach") for a minimum of 5 years at one school/team
  - Of any division, won a major national award (Top Assistant Coach)

Players
- Division I-A
  - Won a major national award (See {{College Football Awards}}), or in the College Football Hall of Fame
  - Holds a current NCAA record
  - A team leader (ie, quarterback, defensive leader) (aka, Standout player)
  - All-Americans by at least two sources
  - Finalists for major awards (Heisman watch list)
  - Considered a NFL draft prospect for the next draft cycle
- Lower divisions
  - National news item about player (non criminal)
- Recruits
  - Top 5 ranked Nationally overall (Not top 5 in position) by at least one source

Specifically not
- High school players
- No national sources discussing player

Players not likely to need an article (most linemen fit in this category, except award winners per above) because information is lacking to fully support more than the basic information that is possible to be obtains on season/team articles. Need more than date of birth, name, height, weight, high school and a basic stats ("In 2006 he had 7 sacks"). An article should contain enough content that including it into a team/season article (or anywhere else) would not be appropriate.

I by no means imply that my listing above is perfect. Your help is appreciated. --MECU≈talk 15:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Head coaches: Any coach, any team, any conference, in college sports. This includes NCAA Division I-A, I-AA, II, II, and NAIA. I feel being a college coach, regardless of the college, is worthy enough of an article.

Assistant coaches: You say minimum of 5 years. Does that mean they've served in the capacity of OC/DC for five years or that they've been a coach for five years and are now OC/DC? For instance, let me use Oklahoma since that is what I know best. Brent Venables has been DC for 8 years...worthy of an article. Kevin Wilson is in his first year as OC but has been an assistant coach for nearly 10 years...worthy? And of course, an assistant coach may have an article if they are significant for another reason. Once again using Oklahoma as an example. Josh Heupel was the qb for the national championship team and is now a quarterback coach but he has an article. I say he is notable. Same for Major Applewhite.

Players: I agree with all your criteria except for Recruits. I do not feel these high school players are deserving yet. Especially considering they will probably be redshirted their first year and won't even play in their first season thereby leaving an article without any updates for a year. Lets wait for these recruits to meet the other criteria first (All American, team leader, etc).--NMajdan•talk 15:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think some recruits merit articles if there is a lot of hub-bub over their recruitment. Jimmy Clausen is one that I can think of. There have been articles in USA Today and Sports Illustrated CJC47 15:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know of him. Still, I think an article should wait until, say, he is actually playing and making an impact. There's not point in creating an article for someone like Clausen if they sit on the bench the first year. If they come out their true freshman year and make a significant impact on the team (like Adrian Peterson did his true freshman year, then the article should be created. If he's a big-name recruit then he should make an impact immediately and then they'd be notable enough for an article.--NMajdan•talk 16:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Division II, II or NAIA head coaches are noteworthy. But if enough disagree with me I would be fine with it. I just don't see them as having enough possible information for an article and they are mostly local. Even I-AA is questionable, but I'd be more fine with including them.

5 years at one school, where they were also the OC/DC at one point. For your Kevin Wilson example: Yes, if he has been at Oklahoma for 5+ years (you said he was a asst coach for nearly 10 years, but if those weren't at OK, then no). I should perhaps have the disclaimer that if someone is currently an assist coach (for example), but they qualify for notability under being a former player (or former head coach, for example) then their current status does not affect it. They have achieved notability.

I think guys like Willie Martinez at Georgia could merit an article if they are in the news a lot and replacing a high profile guy like Brian VanGorder. Thoughts? CJC47 16:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Recruits, I originally had top 10 at position and then top 10 overall and now put top 5 overall. This is for the Jimmy Clausen types. These guys may redshirt, but typically they will be a top standout at their school eventually so having an article stagnant for a few years I'm fine with. Plus, I believe it is especially notable to be one of the top 5 ranked players out of all the thousands and thousands of high school football players each year. --MECU≈talk 16:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe lower division coach if they are fine. I don’t think there should be an article for everyone but if they won a national title, member of the Hall of Fame or President of the American Football Coaches Association they should have an article. They could also have an article if they do some exceptional like a very high number of victories. 09er 17:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Everyone here may want to read something I wrote about this a while ago, located here. That being said, I have to agree with much of the originally proposed list so far. For All-Americans I would change "by more than one source" to simply school-recognized All-Americans. That eliminates people who are only AA's on lower tiered lists. For "Holds a current NCAA record", what happens when someone breaks it? Do we put it to AfD since they no longer hold it? I don't think this should be an automatic criteria for inclusion because of that reason. I would guess most people who hold NCAA records were All-Americans, so they would fall into that inclusion criteria. For those who weren't AA's, perhaps allow articles on them on a case-by-case basis. I disagree with allowing articles on a "Team leader". Who is the team leader for Duke or Temple? Odds are they are not notable enough for an article. Perhaps allow team leader articles for teams that reached the top 25 during the season. Not sure about finalists for major awards. Once again, someone here will probably be an AA. If they weren't and didn't win the award, I'm not so sure they deserve an article. I would limit "considered a prospect for the next NFL draft" to a first round prospect. There are tons of players who get drafted and end up never playing in a game in the later rounds. I also think All-Conference should not be enough for an article to be made. VegaDark 19:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

My thoughts: if the person is the subject of multiple non-trivial works (per WP:BIO), I say make an article on them. If there is enough information out there for an article, I don't really think we need too much rule creep. That said, I don't really like having recruits at all unless they are notable purely on the basis of what they did in HS (ie, setting a national record, committing multiple felonies during a recruiting trip to UF, etc). Too many all-everything kids out of HS never play a down in college and four years later, they are at a local community college and nobody remembers who they were. I draw the line at being the subject of non-trivial published works. If all you have is his stat sheet and school bio, we probably don't need an article ... but if there's enough information out there with which to create an article, I say go for it. BigDT 19:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I've got to go with BigDT here. WP:BIO has pretty good standards already. Maybe, in stead of considering this a list of criteria for notability, consider it a list of people who may need articles created. If you know that XX player from YY school was a standout this year and is really being hyped in the draft or won a national award but doesn't have an article, they need one. Also, I'm not sure that having set rules for notability is really helpful. A lot of people that fit the literal definition of notability don't pass what I call the "gut test" for notability. That is, if you are thinking about creating an article for a person and you feel in your gut that they might not be notable enough, even if they fit the minimum requirements, maybe we don't really need that article and your time would be spent better somewhere else. That said, I can't think of a lot of lower-division coaches that need articles and I would probably have voted delete on an article for AD before his freshman season (had I been involved with WP then), even though he was the number one recruit nationally in 2004. z4ns4tsu\^talk 17:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with DT and Z4 here. Although it changes all the time, the WP:BIO policy currently seems pretty good. I don't see any need to try to define more specific criteria at this time. I might feel differently later if WP:BIO changes. Currently, as I read it, it allows creation of articles on college players if there is enough stuff written about them to make an article, and precludes an article if there isn't enough stuff written about them. I don't think we need added rules about their stats or what conference they played in, or anything else. Johntex\^talk 18:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Criteria to have an article in WP:CFB

Was there ever any criteria set for someone/thing to be part of the WP:CFB? I find article where the guy is a NFL player, which 99% of the time means he was a CFB player. But should he be in the WP:CFB? Same for some coaches that were assistant coaches somewhere in CFB but are now NFL coaches. If someone is in the NFL project, should they probably not be in the CFB project? There will be exceptions, like if JoePa went to the NFL, but generally. Any advice please. --MECU≈talk 13:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

My view is almost the exact opposite. If they played football in college, and we have an article about them, then they should be part of WP:CFB. Part of their article needs to be about their college career and we should step up to trying to improve at least that section of those articles. The fact that they moved on to other things (be it the NFL, or a careeer in real estate) does not change the fact that college football was a part of their lives and they were a part of college football. Johntex\^talk 17:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:USFBullsCoach deletion?

Template:USFBullsCoach is up for deletion. I do see their point since there has only been one coach, but one of the stated goals of the project page was to have a coaches template for every team. Someone even made a chart. I believe there are three templates that only have one coach South Florida, FIU and FAU. FIU will be getting a new coach soon. Since I did a lot of work to get one for every 1A team (I made 40 to 50 of them), I would like to keep it so please go to the Deletion page and comment one way or another so we can get this resolved. Thank you 09er 13:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The link to the discussion is Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 December 15. Johntex\^talk 16:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

College football article being considered for deletion

Georgia Bulldogs football under E. E. Jones is an article that I created in accordance with the discussion at above. It seems to me that presentations of the historical records of teams is important in light of the state goal: To make Wikipedia one of the premier online resources on college football. I have followed the format of combining all seasons under a coach into one article - unfortunately, this particular coach only coached one season. In any event, please comment one way or the other at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgia Bulldogs football under E. E. Jones so that this can be resolved.--Tlmclain | Talk 04:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability for College Football People

See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Assistant coaches notable enough for articles

Coaches
- Head coach
  - Of a Division I-A team for any length of time (1 game, 1 day) (must be officially recognized by school as head coach. For example, .
  - Of a lower division, if they win the national championship.
  - Any division, won a major national award (Coach of the Year), or in the College Football Hall of Fame
- Assistant coach
  - Of a Division I-A team, an offensive or defensive coordinator (or similar title that means they are a "head" assistant, not simply "running backs coach") for a minimum of 5 years at one school/team
  - Of any division, won a major national award (Top Assistant Coach)

Players
- Division I-A
  - Won a major national award (See {{College Football Awards}}), or in the College Football Hall of Fame
  - Holds a current NCAA record
  - A team leader (ie, quarterback, defensive leader) (aka, Standout player)
  - All-Americans by at least two sources
  - Finalists for major awards (Heisman watch list)
  - Considered a NFL draft prospect for the next draft cycle
- Lower divisions
  - National news item about player (non criminal)
- Recruits
  - Top 5 ranked Nationally overall (Not top 5 in position) by at least one source

Specifically not
- High school players
- No national sources discussing player

I by no means imply that my listing above is perfect. Your help is appreciated. --MECU≈talk 15:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think guys like Willie Martinez at Georgia could merit an article if they are in the news a lot and replacing a high profile guy like Brian VanGorder. Thoughts? CJC47 16:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Everyone here may want to read something I wrote about this a while ago, located here. That being said, I have to agree with much of the originally proposed list so far. For All-Americans I would change "by more than one source" to simply school-recognized All-Americans. That eliminates people who are only AA's on lower tiered lists. For "Holds a current NCAA record", what happens when someone breaks it? Do we put it to AfD since they no longer hold it? I don't think this should be an automatic criteria for inclusion because of that reason. I would guess most people who hold NCAA records were All-Americans, so they would fall into that inclusion criteria. For those who weren't AA's, perhaps allow articles on them on a case-by-case basis. I disagree with allowing articles on a "Team leader". Who is the team leader for Duke or Temple? Odds are they are not notable enough for an article. Perhaps allow team leader articles for teams that reached the top 25 during the season. Not sure about finalists for major awards. Once again, someone here will probably be an AA. If they weren't and didn't win the award, I'm not so sure they deserve an article. I would limit "considered a prospect for the next NFL draft" to a first round prospect. There are tons of players who get drafted and end up never playing in a game in the later rounds. I also think All-Conference should not be enough for an article to be made. VegaDark 19:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Criteria to have an article in WP:CFB

Template:USFBullsCoach deletion?

The link to the discussion is Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 December 15. Johntex\^talk 16:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

College football article being considered for deletion

2006-07 Bowl Game Template

It seems {{Bowl Games}} is to be used generically on bowl game articles, even though the header states it's for the 2006-07 season. Would anyone object to making this season specific, such that it would be named "2006 NCAA bowl games" or something similar, where then, for each season we would have another template that would link only to the year-specific bowl games (2007 Rose Bowl, not just Rose Bowl). Then, this template could be used just to link to the generic bowl game articles (Rose Bowl). Any thoughts? --MECU≈talk 19:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying then that each of these articles would have two seemingly identical templates, one that links to the generic bowl game article and one that links to the year-specific bowl game?--NMajdan•talk 00:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox for college bowl games

I've created an infobox for college bowl games. It can be found at {{collegebowl}}. Feel free to edit and make better! I'd put all the templates into the various bowl articles, but I'm too lazy right now. I'll do them within the week if no one else does, though it'd be nice to get some help. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 02:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oops

I made this infobox: {{Infobox CollegeFB Bowl}}, before I saw yours. An example of it can be seen at BCS National Championship Game 1998. I suggest yours for upcoming bowl and this one for past bowls. What does everyone think? CJC47 20:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Need recommendations for college coach infobox

Somebody brought up an issue with Template:College coach infobox (talk, links, edit). I'd love some input on how to resolve. I'm worried that it would be a lot of extra coding and complicating of the infobox to satisfy a very tiny percentage of the overall numbers of articles that would use it.--NMajdan•talk 15:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

My initial thought is the same as yours - a lot of trouble for what may be a small number of cases. Plus, I suppose the argument could be made that playing careers and coaching careers, if both are noteworthy, deserve separate infoboxes.--Tlmclain | Talk 16:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Need of "peer-review" section for the WikiProject

The offseason is fast approaching, and with it comes the termination of the weekly updates that many of our pages require. With this "extra time," I believe its time for us to stop focusing on updating pages and start focusing on improving the quality of existing articles. I propose that we establish a peer review section similar to WP:MHPR. Its time for the project to start concentrating improving its WP:GA and WP:FA numbers. If we do this, I can try to add a peer-review and old-peer-review field to the Talk page banner. This, of course, is just a first step. Feel free to discuss further improvements to the WikiProject.--NMajdan•talk 13:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

As someone quite new to the Project and fairly new to Wikipedia overall, I am wondering how this relates to the already existing Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Assessment. In other words, if the group is actively assessing and reassessing articles as part of its mission, is a separate peer review section also needed?--Tlmclain | Talk 16:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The Assessment department assessing the quality and importance of existing articles. The peer review department would review articles before nominating for GA or FA. Since you're new to Wikipedia, go view the Military History Wikiproject. It is much larger than ours and has a broader scope so implementing a lot of their features into our WP would be extreme but you can see how things are done.--NMajdan•talk 16:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, now I see the relationship and agree that it probably is needed. By the way, I have very cautiously been assessing a few articles. If you run into any where I seem to be off-base, please let me know.--Tlmclain | Talk 16:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Done and done.--NMajdan•talk 22:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

May go for Featured Article

So I'm thinking about taking the jump and nominating Oklahoma Sooners football for WP:FA. I'd like whoever can to read the article and give me advice on what can be done to improve the article. Mostly, I'm looking for advice on how to lengthen the lead and strengthen the wording and content.--NMajdan•talk 21:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Image:OU-Logo.PNG needs a fair use rationale in order to be used on that page. There are also a decent amount of redlinks in the first few paragraphs that might hold it back from being featured. All of the All-Americans with articles should be wikilinked. VegaDark 21:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- Ok, easy stuff. I don't understand the issue with the image, although there's a lot about Wikipedia and fair use images I don't understand. That is the logo of the school and the sports teams. Its the logo that is on the helmet of the university. Its not like there is a separate logo for the school and the athletic teams. I may just remove those red links in the first few paragraphs until I can get around write an article for them. I'll go through and find what All Americans can be wikilinked that haven't already been in the article. Thanks for the fast input.--NMajdan•talk 21:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  - For the image, the general tagging of a specific type of fair use claimed is not enough for Wikipedia. All images that are claimed as fair use must have an additional written explanation as to why they should be allowed as fair use for each individual article they are used in. See for instance every image on a featured "list of TV episodes" list, like Image:208 cartman flailing.gif. That's actually probably a little less detailed than some of the better fair use claims I have seen, you might be able to find a better example going through the featured articles and seeing if you can find a fair use image. Images uploaded after May 4th, 2006 are actually speedy deletable if tagged with {{nrd}} and fair use rationales haven't been added for 7 days. It is an aspect of Wikipedia that a lot of people don't know very clearly, but is imperative if you want to get an article to featured status. VegaDark 22:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
    - I was going through the fair use images and, of course, most of them don't state their FUC. However, I went to University of Michigan (an FA) and the logo on that page (:Image:Umichigan color seal.gif and :Image:Michigan BlockM.jpg) does not have any criteria either. Same thing for Michigan State University.--NMajdan•talk 22:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
      - Hmm, I'm assuming those became featured a while ago before this became a standard. You are free to not add one until/unless someone comments about it on your FA nomination. VegaDark 22:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I think there should be more pictures. It gets a little too wordy in the bulk of the article, and there should be plenty (cough) of free images, or at least fair use images you can use in the middle sections. Perhaps make the references two columns? Also, for the intro, are they a squad or team? there are "many" hall of fame players and coaches... it would be better to give an exact number as it seems wishy washy. And what does being an "elite" program mean? Who says that (I mean that literally, what reference?) and why are they elite? Existing for 110 years is commendable, but have they played football all those years (my guess is no) and would be more interesting to say "The program began 110 years (or ".. in 1896") ago and has played football for 108 seasons." It does get a little listy and long at the end, so perhaps using two columns would make it better and shorter too. Maybe some navigational templates or "see alsos" would help at the end too. Good luck. --MECU≈talk 22:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- All great advice Mecu. I'll make some changes. As far as images go...no, I don't know where to get free images that pertain to those eras. I don't want to just throw in random images of the university in a football article and I don't know where to get free images of Switzer or Wilkinson or anybody else. I've got a couple images from before 1923 and I've got images that people have taken and given permission. That is it. And yes, the program started in 1895 and has played at least one game every season since. I'm using all the navigational templates that I know of that are relevant. I removed several 'See Also's earlier because they were now wikilinked in the new infobox. I do need to get rid of the 'squad' word but I don't like 'team' either. Those words convey a single instance of the team and I'm trying to convey the whole history of the program. I'm already using program at the end of the sentence. I may have to reword that whole sentence.--NMajdan•talk 22:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  - Ok, I took step one and altered the lead. I still need to work on lengthening it. I'm using New England Patriots as sort of a guide as its the only football team specific article that is Featured.--NMajdan•talk 22:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
    - I like the intro much better. I think you should give the number in the HOF. You could go count the number on the lists that Wikipedia has. But I like it overall much better. --MECU≈talk 14:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Since the intro will get the first bit of focus, I just made a few minor edits to it that I hope you think are OK. However, with respect to the sentence The program began in 1895 and is considered the best program of the modern era (post World War II), you may want to say something like The program began in 1895 and is perceived to be one of the best programs of the modern era (post World War II). The reason for my proposed change is that your current sentence is likely to draw negative attention from fans of other programs and perhaps viewed as violating NPOV (even if the statement is 100% accurate). Plus, I'm not sure the source cited is either NPOV or unequivocal. Another suggestion I have is to add dates to the era's to help the non-Sooner reader, i.e., Pre-Owen era (1895-1905) and so on.--Tlmclain | Talk 14:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
- Ok, made some more changes to the lead. I removed the sentence you mentioned and instead mentioned verifiable numbers. Also added the years to the section headers as you suggested.--NMajdan•talk 14:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Article is now up for a broader peer review here.--NMajdan•talk 19:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm.... no comments yet. If I don't get any comments by noon, I'll probably remove it from peer review and go ahead and nominate it for FA. I feel I'll have more time to edit it today and tomorrow and maybe next week than if I waited a few weeks.--NMajdan•talk 13:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I contacted OU's Western History Collection about using photos and they charge a $50 use fee. HA! Don't need images that bad.--NMajdan•talk 20:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
On the theory that the fewer red links you have in your article, the better, I went after the first one I saw. I have just started a stub article on Lewie Hardage. You may want to clean it up a bit. --Tlmclain | Talk 14:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm only hitting Wikipedia lightly today, but I have 3 small comments on your article. 1. Note #2 is broken. 2. Somewhere in the text is a contraction - I think its couldn't which should be could not. 3. In the section where you talk about the beginning of Bedlam you may want to add a little more text so that the reader unfamiliar with OU football will not have to click the link to figure out that Bedlam is a reference to the Bedlam Series between OU and OSU. --Tlmclain | Talk 16:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you. I made fixed those issues.--NMajdan•talk 16:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Article nominated for FA

I got impatient at the lack of responses on the peer review. I feel I'd have more time today and tomorrow to make whatever changes the FA reviewers will request so I have nominated this article for FA. Please follow the progress here.--NMajdan•talk 16:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Not looking good.--NMajdan•talk 13:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

No, but we are learning a lot. Thanks for trying.--Tlmclain | Talk 15:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we are learning a lot. I have to admit that some of the comments and objections on there really don't make sense to me, especially the one about the mother in Africa, but I think that most of them are going to lead us to a lot better of an article. My main concern is that we won't be able to satisfy some of their concerns about NPOV and POV because the article must have a positive slant when the history is mostly positive. Anywho, I added my two cents to the discussion without voting since I'm not really a neutral editor. z4ns4tsu\^talk 17:16, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It's probably in our best interest to...

...add our templates/infoboxes to the list at Wikipedia:Infobox templates#Sports. I've already added {{collegebowl}}, and I'm sure the rest of our templates should or could be added to the list. Merry Christmas! If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 03:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Didn't know about that page. I added {{College coach infobox}} and I'll try to add more later if somebody doesn't beat me.--NMajdan•talk 04:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Auto archive of this talk page

Would anyone object to my setting up auto-archiving of this talk page? What would be an appropriate time? 30 days? --MECU≈talk 14:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you explain to me how the auto-archiving works? Yes, this talk page needs to be archived but how does the bot determine what to archive? Will it archive everything every 30 days, including ongoing discussions or can the bot see which sections haven't had an active post in x number of days? I don't think that sections that have had a comment within the past 14 days should be archived.--NMajdan•talk 14:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Good questions. I was planning on using Werdnabot and you can learn more about it at User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Howto. If it was set for "30" days (for example) only sections that hadn't had a comment in the past 30 days would be archived. The bot would come through once a day and check. It gets the "unused"-ness by reading the dates that people sign with using the auto-sig feature. I would put to archive into YearMonth form so everything archived in December 2006 would go into /archive/December2006archive, for example. I'd be fine with 14 days too. --MECU≈talk 17:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, ok. I think I'd be ok with a bot archiving discussions without a comment for the past 14-21 days.--NMajdan•talk 17:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The timeframe may need to be at least 30 days. In what has been a very active discussion (Proposed new minimum guideline for individual team seasons), there was a break in the from 25 October 2006 to 8 December 2006.--Tlmclain | Talk 17:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we could add a "highlights" section that is self-maintained (the bot wouldn't do this) at the top of this talk page. If an items gets archived and someone thinks it should be "highlighted" then they put a link in there to it. Someone with more questions (as was the case there) could ask the new question here and refer to the archived discussion, unless they believed the archived disuccsion needed revival, but then they should post here they are starting it up again on the archive page, or is that even appropriate? The proposed new minimum... should definately go on the highlights box; items like that. --MECU≈talk 18:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I've set the page up to auto archive and set it to 30 days. Once an item is archived, probably tomorrow, we can setup the "highlights" section. If anyone knows a template or table setup I can use/copy, I'd appreciate a link. --MECU≈talk 17:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebration of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool Trick

I discovered this cool trick that making linking easier: If a link has a ( ) in it for disambig (or whatever) reasons, you can link like this: [[Blah (darn brackets)|]] and it will show up as "Blah" (no "(darn brackets)"!). For example: [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|]] looks like: Dan Hawkins. Awesome, huh? --MECU≈talk 03:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Another thing I just discovered about this, is that when Wiki saves, it will change the link internally from [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|]] to [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|Dan Hawkins]]. So, when you edit it again, it will look like normal. So, changing them from the displayed way to the | formatted way is useless since it will just put it all back anyways. --MECU≈talk 15:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Very neat. Thanks for the tip! Johntex\^talk 15:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm.....thats interesting. That may make templates easier to create, correct? Now, instead of having, say, a coach's display name and a coach's link, we would only need to ask for the link and then have all coach's links fed into that format. Since [[Dan Hawkins (coach)|]] and [[Bob Stoops|]] will both link to the correct article.--NMajdan•talk 16:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It would seem that way NMajdan, but until I see it work, I won't put it in. And, it may be less clear for non-advanced editors like us. The extra coding for that is minimal. --MECU≈talk 19:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Related to this is another cool trick I just discovered. Instead of linking to templates like this: {{tl|NAME}}, you link like this: {{[[Template:NAME|]]}}, and the Pipe trick will know that just NAME should be the displayed link, so when it saves it will look like {{[[Template:NAME|NAME]]}}. Why is this way better? Because it doesn't force wikipedia to make a inclusion of the {{tl}} template, so for pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/MasterTeamTable where that's hundreds of times, it starts to drag on the server. While this way is better, there's nothing wrong with using the other way once in awhile, on a page that doesn't get used a lot or talk pages like this. Seems like there should be a template that does this, subst: the tl template doesn't work. --MECU≈talk 22:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Coaches year-by-year record template?

Is there any sort of template to be used for display a yearly record log for coaches? I'm working on one for Joe Paterno to tidy up the one already in that article and want to make sure I'm not duplicating efforts already completed elsewhere. PSUMark2006 20:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I have seen many. Some are broken up into time at one school. Others are for entire career. Some have conference record and others don’t. It would be nice to have a standard that included the following: School, Year, Record, Conference, Conf record and place, Post season (bowl or playoffs) and Remarks 09er 22:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Really? Where?--NMajdan•talk 22:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and created a more streamlined table format for season-by-season records at the Joe Paterno article. Anyone with more template expertise than me is more than welcome to mess around with this in the hopes of making a template out of it. PSUMark2006 22:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I like that one. The only thing I can think to add would be conference record? In a template, would have to make Ties optional since newer/new coaches you could then omit it since they will never have a tie. Would have to do it like the succession box I believe. --MECU≈talk 13:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a bit too compact. That makes sense for someone like Paterno, who's been around forever, but I prefer tables as part of the article, as in the Jim Tressel article. I think it gets more information across more clearly.

I proposed at Talk:Mark Richt using that table as more of a standard, with some modifications. I got some good feedback from User:Autiger, who suggested looking at Tommy Tuberville, which I also like. With that in mind, I would like to propose using the Tuberville-style table as standard, with the following modifications:

List final conference or division ranking (as in Tressel)
Possibly list final poll ranking -- and if so, which ones?
Possibly give bowl game column (outcome, opponent) (also in Tressel)

Any thoughts? --SuperNova |T|C| 22:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I do like the Tressel version of the table - my biggest complaint about how we had it on the Paterno article was that it was too tall considering how narrow the table was. But, if we're able to populate it with more information, like conference/divisional rankings/standings, national polls, etc., then it'll be much more useful to have it within the article. I'm still a bit concerned about having it in-text for someone who's coached for decades, but as far as establishing a standard for the majority of coaches to whom this won't apply, this is a great start. I'm going to be bold and take the initiative in developing a template for this over the next couple days and report back when I have something somewhat workable. -- PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 23:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Please Review

Hello, I am getting ready to propose 2005 Texas Longhorn football team for consideration as a featured article. The article has had one reveiw already and I believe all issues raised there have been addressed. I have also used the semi-automated review script to look for small things that need to be changed. The article is meticulously referenced with 121 in-line sources. It contains both free-use images and appropriate fair-use images. It attempts to follow the standards set out by the relevant wiki projects.

In watching the nomintaion of the OU football program, I see that the OU article has received some objections on the grounds of supposedly being overly positive and for listing too-many awards. I have reviewed the 2006 UT article in light of those objections and I am prepared to argue that every positive thing said is relevant and attributed to a specific source. As for the awards and accomplishments, I think all the ones listed in the UT article are notable and justifiable, but I'd like to get more feedback from other editors so I invite you to review the article if you please. Johntex\^talk 09:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I have requested peer review here. Good luck to everyone still playing college football as I head into the off-season. Have a Happy New Year! Johntex\^talk 00:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

My request for a Peer Review has generated a few comments. I would welcome a lot more. Some of the comments made so far I have agreed with and already acted upon. In regard to certain other comments, I disagree with the suggestion given and I have attempted to explain my reasoning. I am hoping other people will chime in on these to help me know if my view is unique or if it is supported by others. Thanks again, Johntex\^talk 01:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Fifth Down for GA (almost)

I'm ready to try and put Fifth Down up for GA. I had a peer review on it a month ago and believe I covered everything quite well. I'd like some looks from some more CFB oriented folks before I try. Any comments are appreciated. Thank you. --MECU≈talk 14:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. It might be better to wiki Colorado to Colorado Buffaloes football--Tlmclain | Talk 14:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
- Fifth Down has made it to GA as of today! Who hoo! --MECU≈talk 00:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  - Congrats!--Tlmclain | Talk 20:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Infobox National Championships

An issue I've encountered time-and-again with respect to infoboxes in program pages is what number to include in the national championship section. A number of pages have ludicrus national championship counts because users have used a number reflecting every single year that at least one usually obscure selector chose the program in question as "national champion." Michigan's page, which claims 11 national championships when most credit the Wolverines with just 7 (and certainly no more than 9), immediately comes to mind. We need to settle on some kind of uniform standard for purposes of the infobox. Otherwise, if we allow a number to be used just because it's what the university claims, when it is a number that is not given credence in the college football world, we risk turning these pages into nothing more than pulpits for propaganda. Seeing as how Wiki has an article on Division I-A national championships that has a table of recognized national champions, I suggest we bring the program pages into conformity with the numbers in that table. Clearly some solution is needed because right now many readers coming to Wikipedia for information about a particular program are instead encountering hype from its public relations department.-PassionoftheDamon 03:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

There was some discussion about this here, above, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Tennessee Volunteer Football but in there is also a link to the page where a little more discussion occured. I believe that should satisfy your questions. --MECU≈talk 15:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm not sure that discussion really settles the issue, as the NCAA does not officially recognize any national champion and its listings merely list every poll or ranking that selects a national champion, including the very obscure sources we are all hoping to filter out of the infobox equation. [2] For example, if we allowed schools to claim national championships for every year they are listed in the NCAA listings, Oklahoma could claim a national championship in 2003, Florida State in 1996, Miami in 1988 and 1986, etc., even though each of those teams lost in their bowl games to the accepted national champion and no one in their right mind would consider them national champions. My point is that we need to settle on some reliable source for purposes of listing recognized national championships in the infobox. Perhaps cfbdatawarehouse.com?-PassionoftheDamon 17:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea, and looking at [this page makes it clear that LSU and USC should only be the "recognized" champs while Oklahoma received some "also-rans" votes. But we should remain impartial on this and merely selecting CFBdatawarehouse.com isn't valid. I guess it's time to find some sources as to what "selectors" are the major and what should be considered "respectable" sources for NC declarations. This page might cover it, but it's also like saying we should trust CFBdatawarehouse.com because they say to trust them (even though I do anyways). --MECU≈talk 17:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

1936-present is easy. The AP poll should be for 1936-present and the Coaches from 1950-present. The question is what is a valid source for declaring national championships before 1936. Personally, I have no problem using the same sources that CFBdatawarehouse.com uses (National Championship Foundation, Helms Athletic Foundation, and College Football Researchers Association [3]).--NMajdan•talk 17:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of using NCF, Helms, and CFRA as the sources for pre-1936 championships listed in the infobox and tables in program articles. References to other claimed/non-widely recognized "championships" could still be made in the body of the article, but the problem of misleading/using the infobox and tables as advertising tools would be solved. If the number listed is simply allowed to be the number claimed by the school, we are effectively allowing the schools to violate WP:COI policies.-PassionoftheDamon 09:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be good to come to a consensus for the project on how to handle this situation. If we can reference a consensus decision for the project it should hopefully resolve content disputes similar to the one occurring on the Michigan Wolverines football page. I believe User talk:PassionoftheDamon has started this discussion as the next step in resolving a content dispute.

I will contribute to the discussion that I also believe that the school info boxes should conform to the criteria cited on the NCAA Division I-A national football championship page to avoid breaking the WP:COI guideline. Terryfoster 15:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's another thought: we could modify the infobox to specify wire national championships, so only AP and Coaches national championships would count for purposes of the infobox and article tables. Then, within the body of the article, references could be made to claimed pre-1936 national championships. I think this would promote uniformity and reliability across infoboxes, mostly resolve WP:COI concerns, and allow us to remain impartial as to weighing the sources. The way I see it, the current proposals are to (1) use the sources CFDB uses to count national championships, or (2) count only AP and Coaches national championships in the infobox. Thoughts, guys?-PassionoftheDamon 22:11, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with that.--NMajdan•talk 22:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

As no one has voiced any opposition, I've gone ahead and altered the template to specify wire national championships in the national championship field. If anyone objects, please do let it be known.-PassionoftheDamon 20:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed this interesting (and commendable) idea was being put into force (first time I've paid attention). As you all know, this is semi-problematic because the wires didn't start awarding championships until 1936. As soon as I saw the adjustment to the USC football page, I tried to make a happy medium by writing "7 wire<br>(11 claimed)"; do you all think that would be a problem? I think it will certainly help find middle ground with programs that get extra-defensive about this sort of thing. (doesn't Bama claim something like 16 championships?) --Bobak 20:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Also: if this is considered a good idea (and it may not), it would also be a good idea to removed the "Wire" in front of the "Wire National Champsionships" --Bobak 21:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary because the school can still make reference to its claimed national championships within the body of the article. The goal is to increase reliability and eliminate WP:COI concerns in the infobox national championship field, since it has unique prominence. We can't say USC is in fact an 11-time national champion, but we can say unequivocally that USC has won 7 wire national championships.-PassionoftheDamon 21:01, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

(the Elis are going to be crushed by this) but onto the current big boys: how is it a COI to clearly demarkate "Claimed" vs. "Wire"? The over 60 years of college football played before 1936 get a bit of a shaft here. In the alternative: There should at least, the very least, be a wikilink on "Wire" to something that explains exactly what a "Wire National Championship" is --since I think it's safe to assume that many non-cfb fans may not know what that refers to. The other suggestion would be to place "(post-1936)" but that would get crowded. --Bobak 21:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The pre-1936 era doesn't get a shaft because pre-1936 national championships are still represented within the body of the article. Putting "claimed" national championships in the infobox raises serious WP:COI because it allows the individual schools to be the arbiter of how they are perceived; a school is held out as an X-time national champion simply because the school says it is an X-time national champion. It's also important to remember that most of the pre-1936 national championships are retroactive, i.e. claimed well after the season in question. Thus, we're not ignoring anything that the players actually earned on the field during that season. By making the field specify "wire national championships" we give a number that is concrete and verifiable, instead of allowing these infoboxes to essentially become the product of a school's public relations propaganda. We can say definitively that school Y is an X-time wire national champion. I do agree, however, that it would be a good idea to define "wire national titles" within the infobox. Perhaps somebody with the syntax know-how could put a symbol next to the phrase, followed by small text at the bottom of the infobox explaining what wire national championships are. Alternatively, I could just rephrase the template to read, "AP/Coaches National Titles," rather than "Wire National Titles."-PassionoftheDamon 22:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Hang on

I’ve been out of town, so I am just catching up on this discussion and have several concerns. First, a limitation to “Wire National Titles” is too esoteric for the non-college football fan. One of the things that we learned from the comments in the recent FA nomination for the Oklahoma Sooners article is that we have to write the articles for people who are not college football fans. We cannot expect the non-college football fan to know that “Wire National Titles” excludes anything before 1936, is limited to one poll from 1936 to 1950 and limited to two polls after 1949.

Second, the idea that, from 1936 to 1949, the only “national champions” that will be recognized in the info box are those who were selected in the AP poll will lead to a conflict between the College Football Data Warehouse (if not other sources) and Wikipedia.

1936 CFDW recognizes Michigan and Pittburgh, but Wikipedia would only recognize Minnesota.[4]
1938 CFDW recognizes Tennessee and TCU, but Wikipedia would only recognize TCU. [5]
1942 CFDW recognizes Georgia and Ohio State, but Wikipedia would only recognize Ohio State.[6]
1946 CFDW recognizes Army and Notre Dame, but Wikipedia would recognize only Notre Dame.[7]
1947 CFDW recognizes Michigan and Notre Dame, but Wikipedia would recognize only Notre Dame.[8]

In each of these years, I think that the CFDW approach to joint national champions is pretty well accepted.

Even after 1949, the planned approach would leave Wikipedia at odds with CFDW. For example, the planned approach would allow only one school to list itself as national champion in 1950 (Oklahoma), when CFDW lists two (Oklahoma and Tennessee).[9]

Third, notwithstanding the fact that a school can explain these discrepancies in the body of the article, the limitations in what can be included in the info box does have an effect on the article and the perception of the school. The purpose of the info box is to provide a summary of information at a glance. Using these new criteria, Tennessee will no longer be able to list 4 national championships in its info box, which conforms with CFDW, but will only be able to list two (1951 and 1998). This seems to create unecessary confusion – why would/should Wikipedia diasgree with other sources? The problem is even more pronounced when a school like Notre Dame is considered. CFDW lists them with 12 recognozed national championships, [10] but, under the new criteria, Notre Dame can only claim 8 in the infobox. 1924, 1929 and 1930 are all ruled out because of the pre-1936 rule, which means that none of the three national championships under Knute Rockne can be included in the info box summary. In 1953, even the CFDW recognizes Notre Dame and Maryland as co-champs, Wikiepedia would disallow the listing in the infobox (Notre Dame was named #1 in over 20 polls, but not AP and UPI).[11]

In short, I think it is more misleading to limit the National Titles in the info box to “Wire National Titles.” There is no easy solution (after all, that's why we went to the BCS), but I have two proposals. #1 Agree that the CFDW data (or some other objective source) is as good a solution to the problem as any, have the info box match the number of national titles listed by the CFDW and provide a link to the CFDW page for the school. OR #2 Discontinue the practice of listing the number of national titles in the info box altogether – I’d rather have people be required to read the article to figure out the national title question that to give partial or misleading information in the infobox.--Tlmclain | Talk 00:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we should be concerned about a difference between CFDB's listing and the infobox. Is CFDB some kind of official authority? I think not. If we use CFDB's number in the infobox, it would essentially be taking sides and saying that CFDB is THE national championship authority. That's pretty darn arbitrary, especially when you consider your 1953 Notre Dame example: Notre Dame doesn't even claim that national championship because it only counts wire national championships post-1936. Using "wire national championships" as the infobox criteria provides a reliable standardized number without "invalidating" pre-wire national championships. I much prefer listing so-called wire national championships in the infobox to arbitrarily filtering out pre-1936 sources based on what CFBD says. And simply not listing national championships would be the worst idea of all considering everyone agrees on the legitimacy of AP and UPI national championships. Of all the ways the problem of counting national championships could be attacked, I think the wire idea is by far the fairest.-JDD18 04:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not suggesting that CFDB is THE national championship authority. However, CFDB seems to be a well-regarded source of information for college football data and I do think that it is relevant to discuss why our Project should elect to take a different approach than that taken by CFDB. Perhaps it is correct to conclude that "wire national championships" is the way to go in the post-1936 era because schools such as Notre Dame only "count" "wire national championships" in their self-tally of national championships. Unfortunately, I do not think that all schools are in agreement on that particular point. For example, Tennessee claims 6 championships in its media guide, not just the two "wire national championships" and Michigan's website asserts 11 national championships, including 1947, when Michigan was listed #1 by 28 selectors and Notre Dame was listed #1 by 10 selectors (including the AP). (By the way, I am NOT advocating that a school's media guide should be the determining factor). The point that I am trying to make is that the limitation in the infobox to "wire national championships" seems to create some inconsistent results as well. Additionally, this still leaves a gap in the infobox as to pre-1936 national championships. --Tlmclain | Talk 14:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the internal inconsistencies that you speak of. The national championship article has explicit sections on most AP and most UPI national championships. I also think you misunderstand the rationalé behind using wire national championships: they're being used not because schools like Notre Dame and Oklahoma only count wire national championships, but because they are the most widely accepted national championship selectors. Nobody disputes the legitimacy of an AP or UPI national championship the way they do with those other claimed sources. For better worse, the AP and UPI polls are the accepted determinants of Division I-A national championships. Nothing equivalent existed pre-1936, but that's not our fault. If non-wire championships are listed, we're confronted with 2 problems: (1) allow the schools to dictate how many national championships they've "won" by going with the claimed number, which allows for counting fictitious retroactive national championships and conflict of interest problems, or (2) start listing "recognized" titles, which involves making a subjective determination of who the championships need to be "recognized" by. I also know that if we were to list pre-1936 national championships, even based on CFW's numbers, we're going to have a ton of edit warring. Fans of the school in question will revert again and again to their claimed national championships if it's a larger number, while fans of rival schools will probably revert to a different number, creating a sort-of arms race. I find the wire approach by far the most appealing proposal.JDD18 20:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I must have been writing my new comments when you posted this, so I missed it. Some of the inconsistencies are outlined in my comments below under the new heading. Clearly AP and the Coaches Poll are widely recognized, but I don't think the inquiry ends there. Its interesting that the NCAA has chosen to resolve this issue by not resolving it at all - they do not list national champions and provide all information regarding who was voted #1 by which poll in each year. My point is that if we are going to move beyond what the NCAA is willing to do we should be uncomfortable in saying that the only national champions that we are going to recognize are the ones reflected in the AP poll since 1936 and the AP and Coaches poll since 1950.--Tlmclain | Talk 20:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree entirely. We are not only "recognizing" wire national championships right now; we're only listing wire national championships in the infobox. The current infobox takes a completely neutral stance to non-wire national championships. If we do as you suggest and adopt the CFW number, we will, in fact, be invalidating certain pre-1936 national championships. As such, that's the more troubling approach. I also strongly contest the claim that listing wire national championships is somehow misleading. It's not. It would be misleading to keep the field "national championships" and then proceed to list only wire national championships (or CFW recognized national championships); it's not when the field claims to represent only wire national championships.JDD18 22:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it may all come down to what information is supposed to be conveyed by the info box: If it is supposed to be a summary of the contents of the article, then limiting the national champ info to "wire" championships is potentially misleading. If the info box has a different purpose, then perhaps "wire" championships is not potentially misleading. My overall concern relates to the perspective of the reader - i.e., what does the casual college football fan think/expect is included in the infobox regarding national championships? When it says "Wire National Titles," you and I know what that means and I'm not worried about us. But do people who are not members of this Project know what it means? It seems pretty clear that you and I will not resolve this issue by ourselves - we really need to hear from others. If the final solution is to leave "Wire National Titles" in the info box, then there has to be an explanation of what that means. A decision will also have to be made with respect what to do about non-compliance with whatever standard is adopted in the end.--Tlmclain | Talk 22:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm for using wire national championships, as well, and I think the lack of edit warring on articles like Alabama, Notre Dame, Michigan, and USC football since the change was instituted is testament to its utility, fairness, and acceptance.-PassionoftheDamon 01:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I certainly understand the appeal of setting a simple standard on what goes into an infobox and agree that "wire national championships" provides such a standard - Either a team is listed #1 in a wire poll or it isn't. However, I am concerned that picking "wire national championships" as the standard is itself a bit arbitrary. By definition, it means that no national championship prior to 1936 can be listed in the infobox only becuase there were no wire service polls prior to 1936. If the goal of college football infoboxes is to provide a summary of a football program, isn't a limitation to "wire national championships" misleading? While "wire national championships" might mean something to those of us who are involved in this Project, does it have any meaning to a casual college football fan who is looking to Wikipedia for quick information? Would a non-football fan know that they need to read the entire article to understand that Notre Dame has 11 national championships, not just the 8 shown in the infobox? Even though it may be difficult, shouldn't the Project be trying to create a infobox that reflects "consensus" national champions? 1947 provides an example of what I am talking about: Michigan was listed #1 by 28 selectors, while Notre Dame was listed #1 by 10 selectors. However, since Notre Dame's selectors included including the AP and the AP was the only wire service in operation in 1947, the proposed policy would only allow Notre Dame to include 1947 in its inbox tally of national championships.

There are also internal inconsistencies within Wikipedia on this point. NCAA Division I-A national football championships lists both Michigan and Notre Dame in 1947 and does not follow the "wire championships only rule." --Tlmclain | Talk 14:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Ehh, I wouldn't go as far as saying the lack of a edit war over a change instituted over a holiday weekend is a testament to its utility, fairness and acceptance. If it makes it through maybe this week you could say that, but i'm sure i'm not alone in coming into work today and finding this change put in place without a consensus. Watch out for edit wars and try to direct any opposition to this discussion so they can voice their opinion.

I agree with Tlmclain that articles need to be written for non-football fans. I also agree (now after seeing Tlmclain's explaination) the article needs to agree with the info box as it should summarize some points of the article. The big problem here is any method of counting National Championships is going to come under scrutiny and the important thing is to provide an easy way for the reader to understand how that number was reached. I'm not sure why the NCAA Division I-A national football championship article should or would be exempt from this discussion as it also lists "recognized" national titles. The rational listed on the NCAA Division I-A national football championship article may agree with the method CFDW uses, but there doesn't seem to be as much conflict over this listing. I really don't think there's anything wrong with that listing of championships and it would be easier to make the individual school/team pages agree with that article than to devise an entirely new recognizing system. If we change the "National Titles" header in the info box to link to the NCAA Division I-A national football championship article then the reader should be able to follow that link if they have any questions about the number displayed. Terryfoster 14:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Does anybody else feel that CFBDW may be incorrect in following its own rules? According to this page, it clearly states that to be a CFBDW "Recognized National Championship" after 1936, it has to be selected by the Associated Press Poll. The Helms and CFRA end at 1935 and AP starts at 1936. So why in the world is Pitt a CFBDW Recognized National Champion in 1936 when it wasn't selected as the NC by the AP? Same thing for Army in 1946. I think we should follow the CFBDW's criteria but obviously with more scrutiny.--NMajdan•talk 22:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at this several times and still don't know what to make of it. The actual policy statement is: The following selectors are utilized for determining National Championships throughout this site. These selectors are recognized by College Football Data Warehouse as the most acceptable selectors throughout history. The first sentence makes it sound like the list is exclusive. The second sentence seems to back off from it. A literal application of the first sentence would mean that the ONLY authority post 1950 would be the Coaches poll. Clearly, CFDW uses some other criteria in determining National Championships. It seems to me to be based more on whether there are multiple selectors making the selection. That would explain the 1947 National Champions. Notre Dame was listed #1 by 10 selectors, including the AP and Michigan was listed #1 by 28 selectors. CFDW names both as National Champs.[12] In summary, I don't know if its clear what the CFDW criteria are.--Tlmclain | Talk 23:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I emailed the admin on CFBDW requesting clarification on the matter. We'll see if I get a response.--NMajdan•talk 14:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is the response I received from CFBDW:

“

I think everyone that puts a list together like I have is mostly personal opinion. No one controls a master yearly National Champion List because there has been no authority for it. I think it is safe to state all AP and Coaches Poll Champions should be on the list but beyond that is opinion.

What I have failed to include in the notes on my site is I have added additional teams to the list outside of that criteria stated. I reviewed each season from 1869 and added 10-15 teams. The reason they were added was quite simply because I thought they should be based on this revised criteria:

Any team receiving 25% or more of the selectors for any given year would be added. I added Pittsburgh (1936), Army (1946), Arkansas (1964), and others. For example I have listed 37 selectors for 1937. Minnesota was voted #1 by 17 selectors for 46% and Pittsburgh was selected by 11 selectors for 30%.

I am surely not saying my list is the best or only one out there but this is just how I chose to do it. I am always open to suggestions and would like to review your list when you complete it.

”

— David of CFBDW, email

His 25% rule confirmed what I had guessed he was doing. I like his approach because the thing that I found troubling about the "all or nothing" approach of AP/Coaches was that it occasionally left a team out that had convinced a significant number of selectors that they were deserving of a #1 ranking. Requiring a certain percentage means that a team with one or two votes would not be able to list a Nat’l Champ. in the infobox, but they could still talk about it in the main article. The other thing about an approach like this is that it provides certainty – a team is either #1 in AP, Coaches or 25% of the polls. Although I haven’t researched it thoroughly, my impression is that there will be very few close calls (i.e., a team complaining that 25% is arbitrary because they were #1 in 23% of the polls). I am in favor of using these criteria.

If we use something like this, we would need to explain it clearly in the inbox template instructions. I also think that the NCAA Division I-A national football championship article will need to be redone in a manner that is consistent with this approach. This means that its year by year and other charts should be developed based upon the AP/Coaches/25% rule and the criteria should be spelled out. Finally, I think that we need to provide an additional chart that is developed from the NCAA & CFDW charts that shows the selections of all selectors in each year. This is a great off-season project!--Tlmclain | Talk 15:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of complicating things further, I would actually like to up the percentage to something like 33% (⅓). 25% seems a little low to me. I honestly don't know if this would affect anything at all but it might.--NMajdan•talk 15:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It may matter. Maybe an example will help. Lets look at 1936. AP selected Minnesota. According to the NCAA site, the votes were:

LSU: Williamson Minnesota: AP, Billingsley, Dickinson, Dunkel, Helms, Litkenhous, National Championship Foundation, Poling Pittsburgh: Boand, Football Research, Houlgate. This is a total of 12 selectors. Pittsburgh got 3, which is 25%. Under the 25% rule they would be in and under the 33% rule they would be out.

But, CFDW lists more selectors. According to CFDW, the votes were:

Alabama: Cliff Morgan, Mel Smith, Ray Bryne Duke James Howell LSUSagarin Ratings, Soren Sorensen, Williamson System Minnesota Associated Press, Billingsley Report, Bob Royce, Century Football Index, College Football USA, Dickinson System, Dunkel System, Edward Litkenhous, George Trevor, Harry Frye, Helms Athletic Foundation, James Whalen, Jim Koger, Montgomery Full Season Championship, National Championship Foundation, Newsweek Magazine, Nutshell Sports Football Ratings, Poling System Northwestern Bill Libby Pittsburgh 1st-N-Goal, Angelo Louisa, Boand System, Bob Kirlin, College Football Researchers Association, Earl Jessen, Esso Gas, Houlgate System, Jim Koger, Loren Maxwell, Patrick Premo Santa Clara David Wilson, Massy Ratings. This is 38 selectors. Pittsburgh got 11 or 29%. Once again, they'd be in under a 25% rule and out under a 33% rule.

So, is 3 out of 12 or 11 out of 38 enough? I think probably so. However, this little exercise points out another decision to be made - in calculating the 25%, do we use the NCAA list or the CFDW list? Since the NCAA list only includes selectors accepted by the NCAA, I think that list makes the most sense. However, in the early years, there are only 3 or 4 selectors. I think in those early years, it takes at least 2 votes AND 25% in order to have a Nat'l Champ. So, my new proposed criteria: AP or Coaches or at least 2 votes and 25%, all based upon NCAA records.--Tlmclain | Talk 15:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I can see the compromise like this AP and Coaches polls existed, but prior to 1936 when neither polls existed if a school can site the organization that rated them number one, the national championship should be allowed in the infobox. This rule shouldn't necesserally extend to today's era in college football because even though oklahoma was rated number one in a poll in 2003, not even the school claims that year as a national championship. We may have to come to the realization that an arbitrary number or a single rule will not work for the entire history of college football. General125 17:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

NCAA Division I-A national football championship

As suggested by Terryfoster, NCAA Division I-A national football championship should be a part of this discussion. I have spent some time looking at that article and it seems to be full of related problems. For example, after seeming to conclude that the College Football Data Warehouse is authoratative here, it goes on to ignore CFDW in a number of places. Here are just two instances: #1 the article asserts that Notre Dame has 13 national championships here, when CFDW only claims 12 for Notre Dame and Notre Dame itself only claims 11 in its Wikipedia article or in its 2006 media guide; #2 the article lists Wisconsin as a national champion in 1942 here, when CFDW instead recognizes Ohio State and Georgia as National Champions and Wisconsin was named #1 in only one poll and did not even win the Big Ten Championship.

In order to achieve our Project's stated goal of making Wikipedia one of the premier online resources on college football, I think we are going to need to make sure that complete information regarding national championships is made available and understandable (to even the non-football fan) in the various relevant articles and in team infoboxes. This will not be easy, but we cannot limit the definition of national championships to "wire champions only" on the one hand and we cannot expand it to include any team that is named #1 in even just one poll. I remain opposed to the "wire national championships" approach and think that NCAA Division I-A national football championship ought to present a listing of consensus national champions (including pre-1936) AND also present all possible national champions as reflected in the various polls. The article could explain how the consensus champs are named (CFDW represents one way, there may be others). Team infoboxes should match the consenus national champs that are in NCAA Division I-A national football championship and any differences between the team infobox and the number of championships claimed by the school itself (if any) could be explained in the article and/or in notes.--Tlmclain | Talk 20:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

For the reasons outlined in the discussion above, I am categorically opposed to any weighing of the sources and attempting to divine a "consensus" champion. Not only does this suggested approach raise serious OR concerns, there is no accepted way to define a "consensus" national champion to begin with. This proposal is bound to result in tabulations subject to considerable controversy and edit warring. I believe this suggestion raises far more problems and controversy than it figures to solve.JDD18 22:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

There's also been a lot of negative sportsfancruft vandalism on that page (i.e. LSU fans deleting USC's '03 share, etc). Frankly, when it comes down two it, I think it's pretty acceptable to all parties involved in this extensive, important discussion to have a combination of "(wire) national titles" and "Claimed national titles". That would allow each page to sort out the arguments for the disputed claims. --Bobak 23:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible approaches

This topic is beginning to wear me out, but I thought it might be helpful to summarize some of the possible approaches so that we can start to move this to a consensus. There seems to be at least two issues in play at the moment: (1) what should be used in the info box for each team; and (2) what should be included on the NCAA Division I-A national football championship page. Some of the possible solutions include:

Wire National Champions. Advantages: easy to determine; everyone at least acknowledges the AP and Coaches polls to be authoritative; perhaps the most defensible. Disadvantages: Does not address pre-1936 champs; effectively determines that all other polls are invalid, even when the majority of other polls agree.
- Blended approach. More than one website seems to blend the Wire National Champions approach from 1936 to present with pre-1936 approaches to provide full coverage. See this website and this website.

NCAA list.[13] Advantages: easy to determine; “official” record for college football; completely inclusive; addresses pre-1936 issue. Disadvantages: All possible national champs are listed, even if only named #1 in one poll; NCAA provides no interpretation of who is a consensus champ; would have 5 or more “champs” in a given year. This approach seems to be the one taken by Sports Illustrated in 1970 when it concluded that Notre Dame had 17 national championships. See, here at page 176

CFDW “Recognized National Champions.”[14] Advantages: easy to determine; addresses pre-1936 issue; seems to be based upon some sort of objective criteria; does not seem to include teams that won only one or two polls. Disadvantages: determination method is unclear; does include non-AP champs from 1936-1949 and does include non-wire champs after 1950 in some instances.

Hickcock Sports National Champions.[15] Advantages: easy to determine; addresses pre-1936 issue; seems to be based upon some sort of objective criteria; does not seem to include teams that won only one or two polls. Disadvantages: determination method is unclear; does include non-AP champs from 1936-1949 and does include non-wire champs after 1950 in some instances.

Whatever conclusion is ultimately made by the Project, I feel very strongly that we need to communicate it in a way that is understandable to the college football fanatic, the person who is crazy about his or her team, the casual college football fan and the person who knows nearly nothing about football. Let me give a personal example: From 1980 until now, as a Georgia football fan, I have taken it as certain fact that the Bulldogs had two recognized national championships: 1942 and 1980. The "Wire National Title" approach would require the Bulldogs infobox to reflect only 1 Wire National Title (1980). If thats how it works out, fine. However, other Georgia fans visiting Wikipedia for the first time may be expecting to see 2 titles and probably have no idea that there was only one recognized wire service in 1942. So, how do we present information in the info box and NCAA Division I-A national football championship in a way that doesn't confuse such future visitors?--Tlmclain | Talk 02:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I like the blended approach. It is too difficult to determine the one national champion especially before 1936. We should not get into the business of what is and what isn't worthy of determining who is a national champion in a sport where the title is purely subjective. Granted some years it's easier to determine than others, but it's been a problem debated in the sports pages even as recently as 2003 with USC and LSU. My solution is if a school can find a source that awarded them the best team in the land and reference it prior to 1955, they can place that NC in the infobox. I selected 1955 because the AP poll and the Coaches poll submitted their final ballot prior to the bowl games. In 1955, the FWAA submitted their ballot after bowl games. In 1958, the coaches final ballot was after the bowls, and in 1965 then 1968 to the present the AP submit their final ballot after the bowl games. Are there any arguments about national championships after 1968? General125 22:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

All I have to say with the way this policy was instituted was "Thanks for the non-stop edit battle on University of Southern California Trojans football!" :-p --Bobak 03:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I am glad that you mentioned that the change to "Wire National Titles" has been causing edit wars at USC football. Do you have a view on what we should do? In other words, do you think that any of the suggested approaches (or any other approach) would quiet the edit wars?--Tlmclain | Talk 04:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we can please everyone, and some readers will act before they are even aware of whatever we decide. Therefore, I doubt we can prevent all edit wars. We just need to pick one and stick to it. I am not sure yet which option I prefer. I need to re-read this discussion. Johntex\^talk 04:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Nothing we do will prevent edit wars. However, we may be able to slow them down. Changing the template to "Wire National Titles" didn't seem to take care of it. Of course, I tend to believe that the reason it didn't work is because of everything I've been arguing (how's that for myopic). I think what we are working against is that people see "National Title" in the info box and do not naturally assume that it is limited to "wire titles," particularly in the case of older programs that count titles before there were wire services. And I still think we need to make an effort to gear the info box to the non-football fan.--Tlmclain | Talk 04:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a completely subjective subject. Since there is no one authority on what constitutes a "national championship" in college football, all nat champs should be labled as "claimed" or understood to be that way. I don't expect there to be much abuse because not even the OU athletic department claims the 2003 Sargain NC. If we come up with some arbitrary way to count NC, I doubt it'll be followed and it will only encourage edit wars. If a school can back up a #1 ranking and reference it, they should be allowed to place that NC in the infobox. This issue has been debated for decades and is one of the unique aspects of college football. We are not the final authority on what exactly constitues an NCAA Div I-A Football NC. No one source is. General125 04:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi General, I would like to disagree with three of your statements:

This is a completely subjective subject. - I agree there is a component of opinion that goes into discussing the solutions, but that is not the same as being completely subjective. It is not like we are taking our own straw polls to determine who had a championship, we are discussing the merits of various sources, just as we do about all sources of sources, all the time.

I don't expect there to be much abuse... - I disagree completely. I have seen long edit wars between USC and LSU fans over 2003. Notre Dame on their website claims a huge number of retrospective titles.

We are not the final authority on what exactly constitues an NCAA Div I-A Football NC. No one source is. - Remember that we are not a primary source. We are really a tertiary source. We report what others have reported. We do have the freedom and responsibility to choose our sources. So, while the rest of the world may or may not follow our example, we (and I mean the big we are all Wikipedia users - not just those who are a member of this project) are the final authority on what is deemed credible to report in Wikipedia.

We need to do our best to chose a well-reasoned solution and then to stick with it. Johntex\^talk 04:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, please remember that I think we are poised to try to agree on well-reasoned solutions for two issues: (1) what should be used in the info box for each team; and (2) what should be included on the NCAA Division I-A national football championship page. I think there needs to be a consistent approach to both.--Tlmclain | Talk 05:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

JohnTex, you caught me using hyperbole while trying to make an empassioned persuasive argument :). I know that this is not a completely subjective subject, but since there is no one single source of determining a true national champion in Div I-A football, how can we determine how many polls or #1 awards constitute a national championship? There is no one place or even reliable multiple sources we can cite that say here are your national champions for Div-IA football. Most college football websites apply their own method of determining a national championship. We should allow schools that can cite the source of their national championship awarded to place that in the article and the infobox. General125 00:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree entirely with the contention that use of "Wire National Championships" has not slowed edit-warring considerably. There still appears to be some reverting on the USC Trojans football article due to misunderstanding of the term, but it is substantially less so than before. Likewise, edit-warring has been all but non-existent on other articles where the national championship tally would otherwise be called into question (ex. Notre Dame, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, etc.). The lack of edit-warring is testament to the efficacy of specifying "Wire National Championships."-PassionoftheDamon 06:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Upon reflection, whether "Wire National Titles" slows or ends edit wars is not the central issue. In fact, would could end the edit wars altogether by narrowly defining the field as "AP National Titles" or "BSC National Titles." I doubt anyone is in favor of making it even more narrow. The central question is whether limiting the infobox to "Wire National Titles" as opposed to a broader, well-reasoned approach (assuming there is one) is appropriate. I feel very strongly that we have to keep the average reader in mind when designing infoboxes and that the average reader expects the infobox to summarize the article. Moreover, now the the discussion has expanded to include things like the year by year list on the the NCAA Division I-A national football championship page, "Wire National Titles" does not provide a overall solution. As Johntex suggests, we need to do our best to chose a well-reasoned, integrated solution and then to stick with it.--Tlmclain | Talk 13:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think we should have two listings in the infobox: CFDW (or another, similar site) National Titles, and "Claimed National Titles", and then expand on this info in the article. Dlong 22:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the statement that the edit warring re NCs on the USC Trojans football is "substantially less so than before"; I police that article and it's been just a seesaw mess since this was instituted. Normally I'd be reverting the occasional opposing-fancruft that you get with most sports programs, now it's all about an infobox. I'm keeping policy in line, as are others, but when people continually break policy --it sometimes says something about the policy. --Bobak 17:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I can confirm what Bobak has witnessed on the USC Trojans football page. Whether due to ignorance of the meaning of "Wire National Title" or due to disagreement and protest, there has been a sudden and steady surge of edit warring since the 'Wire' policy came into effect. Why this has been limited to the USC Trojans football page is beyond me. We should strongly consider some of the compromise ideas listed in the section below.--HistorianCP 20:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I still believe we should have one field for the number of titles the school claims via a source backed by the school and another field that is one we determine (I'm still partial to using teams that were voted #1 by 2/3rds of the voting agencies).--NMajdan•talk 22:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

New Idea

Since it looks like it will be difficult to reach agreement, I have a suggestion for the infoboxes. Why don't we just have two line items? The first would be Wire National Titles and the second would be Other National Titles Claimed. Does that work for people?--Tlmclain | Talk 21:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I think "Wire National Championships" (though I dislike Wire, but I can't think of a better term) in the infobox, with the text explaining wire and how many they claim and by what sources. Let the user decide if a 1950 NC from "Jimbob's" is really worthy of their consideration if the school claims it. This topic (of generally recognized NC's vs. school claimed, vs. others) could be a great expansion topic on Mythical National Championship, or perhaps on the NCAA DI-A NC article as well or instead. --MECU≈talk 22:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The reason I was proposing two line items is that there appears to be disagreement as to whether it is appropriate to list Wire Titles only in the infobox. Since it may be very difficult to gain a consensus, I was suggesting the two line items as a compromise. Quite simply, in my view, "Wire Titles" do not tell the whole story - they did not exist before 1936 and there are quite a few years after 1936 where teams can stake a significant claim to a Title (not based just on "Jimbob's Poll and Barbershop."--Tlmclain | Talk 22:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

What if we just report what the school claims? There's only the issue of WP:COI then. But then it's verifiable, not up to us (so not WP:OR) and requires only one line. We could state some kind of disclaimer that this is the school's view/claims and they are generally recognized as having #, if it was different. --MECU≈talk 22:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Or we could have both. Wire National Titles and National Titles Claimed.--NMajdan•talk 23:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

MECU: By default, I think that was the effective policy before this first section of this thread (the part above the heading "Hang On") resulted in changing the infobox to "Wire Titles." Thus, I'm not sure that the group will embrace this idea. Beyond that, it may be difficult to determine exactly what a school "claims." For instance, take a look at this page and tell me whether Georgia claims 2 or 5 national championships? As a Georgia supporter, I only argue for two (1942 & 1980), but think the other three are interesting to note.

NMajdan: I beginning to think that may be the best compromise.--Tlmclain | Talk 23:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I still feel if a school can cite the source of their claimed title, it should be allowed. Perhaps the best compromise is to have two lines in the infobox. Maybe we can call it National Poll Championships and then have a line that says Total Possible National Championships. We could then have the Total Possible NC line link to the Mythical National Championship page. If the world of college football has a hard time deciding how to get a NC, we are going to have a hard time agreeing too. General125 00:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

That GA page also says "the official NCAA Football Record Book". We need to find that book. (PS, I would say 2 consensus)... so maybe that's what we say "Consensus National Titles" and "Total National Championships"? -MECU≈talk 00:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

This looks like what that page is referring to. There are no mentions of 1-A championships, though, as far as I can tell - just 1-AA championships. -- PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 00:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, my bad - on pages 73-81 they list a section on "consensus national champions" indicating the selectors used. This may indicate that these are the indicators recognized by the NCAA - a good starting point, if nothing else, for us. -- PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 00:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the NCAA really provides no help other than to limit the number of polls to be considered. In fact, on this page, they state: "The NCAA does not conduct a national championship in Division I-A football and is not involved in the selection process. Since 1998, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has conducted a contest between it's two top-ranked teams to determine a national champion. A number of polling organizations also provide a final ranking of Division I-A football teams at the end of each season. Below is a year-by-year history of Division I-A football national champions as determined by the BCS championship game and these polling organizations."--Tlmclain | Talk 01:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone said before that the NCAA keeps the Div I-A poll list ambiguous on purpose. I agree with that completely. They declare a champion for all college sports, except Div I-A football. General125 01:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Brand New Idea

Oh, how the ignorance has become rampid! To solve the "title dispute", all that must be done is give credit where credit is do (meaning give the unviersities the amount of titles that THEY THEY THEY---did I mention THEY CLAIM!!!!!) Forget all this business about wire championships, because that limits the years, what about college football's early years, do those champions not deserve to be recognized? My point is twofold: 1)ELIMINATE THE WIRE CHAMPIONSHIPS and revert back to NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS and 2)stop worrying about what other people think and give the university credit for whatever it is that they claim.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.181.133.254 (talk • contribs)

We don't wish to simply list what they university claims as this violates WP:COI. Please try to be civil in your contributions.--NMajdan•talk 22:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not how does is this a conflict of interests......who's interests?......why not give give credit to the university if they claim x amount of titles?....please answer these questions specifically Alex Huntz—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.181.133.254 (talk • contribs)

Schedule Template?

Per the recent discussion on my talk page, [16] and [17], and also the discussion regarding the standardization of the season page schedule table at (somewhere? if you know where, provide link please, I can't find it right now). Do we need a standard template form for the season schedule used on team season pages? It would be similar to the succession box and it's very doable, but do we need it? A template form would force them all into a standard form which would be good, but it seems we were generally unable to come up with consensus on what should be the standard. If we come up with a standard, I'd be fine with development of a template for it, but without one, I'd be worried that it would be unused except be those that agreed. --MECU≈talk 04:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that making the season schedule table into a standardized template would make maintaining consistency across so many different pages so much easier, especially as more and more users begin to develop "their" team's past/present season pages. --PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 04:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Since I more or less started this, I guess I should chime in. First, there is additional discussion on this topic here. I was originally just trying to figure out a way to make what I was doing easier, but now see the implications for the Project. To summarize, I have been working on the very early years of Georgia Bulldogs football and have been developing pages like this one and like this stub. So the bigger question is do we want to try to standardize these historic schedules like was done for the current season schedules? As PSUMark2006 says, it may help with maintaining consistency.--Tlmclain | Talk 05:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
A standardized template would help standardize all schedules across the project, but the only problem is we definitely will lose some flexibility. For instance, the template would have to have a set number of columns. You could leave Rank and TV blank, but the columns would have to be there. I think it is a good idea if we are 100% decided on the format for all schedules, schedules for games that took place within the last few years and schedules for games that took place a long time ago. I may start developing something but given the holiday season, it may take some time to complete.--NMajdan•talk 13:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I take that back, there is a way to leave off columns.--NMajdan•talk 14:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I have started working on a header for the schedule template. See the progress here: {{User:Nmajdan/CFB Schedule Start}}.--NMajdan•talk 14:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Coming along quite nicely: User:Nmajdan/Schedule.--NMajdan•talk 15:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Thanks for starting on this. With respect to your comment about the holiday season, you are right about it being potentially difficult to get things done - I am starting a Wikibreak sometime today. A few comments/suggestions/questions. Should we take a position on whether it is appropriate to use team colors in the header and footer (if there is one)? Personally, I like doing it (here's a sample), but there may be others who strongly oppose it. Also, for these older games, do we want separate PF and PA columns? Again, I think its a nice feature to have them in separate columns with totals (this is also in the above sample), but am not totally committed to the idea.--Tlmclain | Talk 15:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'm against using team colors. I like the idea of all schedules looking the same. And some team colors would not look good in a template. Then you have to take into consideration font color as well. It can make a template get real complicated if you allow any color to be used as a background. Also, most people do not know what PF or PA means. My FA nomination is taking a hit because I didn't write it for non-football fans enough apparently. Having a simple score column is something that every person has come across before. Besides, what benefit does having PF and PA provide? If you look at that yearly team article format page I sent you, you'll notice there is a stats section. PF and PA would be best served in the statistics portion of an article. (And for anybody reading this that does not know what PF and PA stand for, PF=Points For and PA=Points Against. Just separates the score into two columns.)--NMajdan•talk 15:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried to break the example/test, and I did. The time of the game may not be known, so I think it should be an "optional" field, mainly for historical purposes. I'm against the team color usage in the header. While it looks nice for some pages, like on Colorado Buffaloes football, others, like on the Georgia example it's just too much and distracts from the real purpose of the article. --MECU≈talk 15:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You didn't break it. Its behaving as expected. Time is an optional field. But, it has to be defined as optional in the CFB Schedule Start template. On my page, it is included, which means on the entry pages, there has to be something there, whether its a time or TBA. If you turned off time in the header, then you can not have anything in the time field on the entries. Go look again.--NMajdan•talk 15:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You guys just don't like Georgia red!! All kidding aside, both of you are probably right about leaving the color out of the schedules. Not only is there potential for color clash, it also gets pretty busy. I also agree on the PA, PF columns. After the holidays, I'll start fixing all the "Georgia Bulldogs football under X" pages that I have done. Of course, I'm now wishing I had asked somebody before I spent all that time adding the color!--Tlmclain | Talk 16:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Haha. It would seem that way, huh? Mecu is against it yet employs it on the Colorado pages. I'm against it all together. If you're wanting to use the templates that I'm working on, don't modify your schedules just yet. I dont want you to remove the color on all of them and then go back and add the templates. Just wait until the templates get more feedback.--NMajdan•talk 16:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

No worries, I'll wait. I tried your template here with the UGA 1892 season and found three things that I want to mention. First, is there some sort of "neutral" | away=? In these early years, many teams played away from home but not at their opponent's field - some teams didn't even have fields. Second, whne you leave |site_stadium = blank, it inserts a dash in front of the city name - can the presence of the dash be dependant upon the presence of a stadium name? Third, is there a way to turn off the rank column? Better still, for these early years when there were no rankings, could we have an option to drop the rank column and the entire footnote regarding rankings?--Tlmclain | Talk 17:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for testing. I knew I wouldn't remember everything. I'll work on adding something for neutral sites. And I'm pretty sure I can fix the stadium issue, I guess I just didn't think of a situation where there would be no stadium. But I guess in the early days, they just played on fields. I'll work on the ranking issue as well, but its low priority as it can just be blank.--NMajdan•talk 17:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the first two issues (neutral site and dot before city/st).--NMajdan•talk 17:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I took care of the ranking issue. I haven't made a guide yet, but you can see how it works in Example 3 on User:Nmajdan/Schedule. I'll work on a guide eventually, but basically just add "rank=no" to all the templates.--NMajdan•talk 01:46, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

(reset)I don't use it on the Colorado pages, I just didn't remove it. Another user put it in and I thought it looks good (which it does) but I didn't think about the applicability of all colors. I'm gonna leave it for now, and I'm not sure we should force schedules that already exist to switch to this format. If they match it, why switch? I guess I wasn't as smart as I thought I was Nmajdan. I think it's ready for publishing and use, you can still tweak the minor parts later. Be sure to update the season template to using this. --MECU≈talk 02:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Templates have been created. I may try to implement them on the OU article whenever I find the time. {{CFB Schedule Start}}, {{CFB Schedule Entry}}, and {{CFB Schedule End}}. As always, keep looking for bugs and let me know so we can get it resolved.--NMajdan•talk 17:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I have replaced the schedule on the 2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team article with the new template so you can go there to see the template in action.--NMajdan•talk 16:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Are those red/green colors the same as the ones used on the rankings pages? I think they should be if they're not (and they don't look like it to me). You could use the "template" I created {{CC}} "Color Chooser". The only bad thing about that is all the colors would be available then, including the yellow that shouldn't be on the schedule page. Also, does this comply with the schedule info discussion? Could we get some agreement from that discussion folks that this table information/layout is acceptable to everyone? --MECU≈talk 18:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the colors were not the same. But they are now.--NMajdan•talk 04:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Example #2 and #4 in Template:CFB Schedule Entry show some empty cells. They would likely be there even if it wasn't colored, but they just show because they are colored. It's probably because it's just displaying the fields because the header isn't there to remove the empty, unwanted fields. You could cheat and subst: them and then edit them to hide this, or just leave a note of something to this effect that it's simply an artifact of using this template without using the header will cause these problems. Also, I made some changes to the entry template to remove some redundant #if calls (had to restore one because of the use of brackets, if those were eliminated it too could be removed). I recently re-read the Help:Templates and discovered that using {{{variable|}}} means if "variable" exists, use that data, if not, use the default value of "blank". So {{{variable|blah}}}'s default value is "blah" and if variable wasn't defined, it would output "blah". This reduces the need to use the "standard" {{#if:{{{variable|}}}|{{{variable}}} }}. Reduces server load and complexity. However, for any instance that something else comes along with the variable, like you want to "preformat" a # sign with a number (like a ranking), you still have to the the #if method, which means we could force the user to have to format things, but I'd rather keep formatting out of the user entry method and in the template itself, allows less chance of the user forgetting to put the # (for example) and keeping everything the same. --MECU≈talk 17:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The empty cells in examples #2 and #4 are associated with the TV column. They disappear if you enter the word "no" in the tv field when using Template:CFB Schedule Entry.--Tlmclain | Talk 18:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Minor problem - In implementing the new schedule template in some early years for Georgia football here, here and here, I have noticed one minor problem. When there are no opponent ranks, the opponent column still reads Opponent#, with the # representing a hold-over reference to the rnaking source. Can the # be dropped when there is no ranking information included?--Tlmclain | Talk 22:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Another minor tweak needed. Since this is being used with older games as well, we need to have a feature allowing for a Tie. For the more recent games, you may want to have an overtime designation.--Tlmclain | Talk 14:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I think I resolved the opponent ranking issue and overtime issue. Now, when you have rank=no in the start template, it also removes the '#' from the Opponent cell. Also, I added an overtime field to the entry template so you would say either 'overtime=OT' or 'overtime=2OT' in the template. I added this new field to one of the examples so you can get a better idea. Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to also add the overtime field to the 2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team page so you'll be able to see it there as well. I'll see what I can do about ties.--NMajdan•talk 14:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I got it. I didn't know what color to use for ties as I don't think that was ever discussed, but I went ahead and used the same color we use on the rankings articles for schools just entering the polls (#FFFFE6). This can always be changed later but I think it works fine. In the w/l field, use a lowercase 't' for ties. Let me know if you run into any more bugs.--NMajdan•talk 14:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Everything is looking great.--Tlmclain | Talk 15:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Rank -- Is there any way to get the wikilink for the Rank column header in Template:CFB Schedule Entry to link appropriately to the I-A rankings instead of I-BS rankings if the rankyear is 2005? Billma 18:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

New Problem?

Is there something about these schedule templates that limits how many times they can be used on a page? I have started an ambitious project to list all games play by the Georgia Bulldogs here, but the {{CFB Schedule Entry}} seems to shut down once a certain number of entries are made.--Tlmclain | Talk 20:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

First of all, WOW. Second of all, there might be. I clearly see where it is breaking down when you view the whole page yet it works when I only preview that section. I see nothing wrong with the code itself. I'll look into it some more and ask around.--NMajdan•talk 20:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Mecu found the problem. Yes, there is a limit and Congratulations, you reached it. If you look at the generated HTML source code of the page, you will find the following:

<!-- 
Pre-expand include size: 2046188 bytes
Post-expand include size: 53101 bytes
Template argument size: 17905 bytes
Maximum: 2048000 bytes
-->

So, of a maximum 2,048,000 you are at 2,046,188. Looks like you'll need to split the page if you wish to continue using the template.--NMajdan•talk 21:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Splitting the page sorta defeats the purpose of trying to create a list of all games played by a team. The way I was doing this was copying the schedules from the various historical articles on Georgia, like Georgia Bulldogs football under W. A. Cunningham, and then just dropping them into the correct decade in Georgia Bulldogs football (all games). Doing it that way wasn't too bad, although I was still doing a lot of clean-up to reduce repetitive wikis. However, if I can't use the templates, cutting and pasting is out, and the job becomes too massive. Anybody got any great ideas or was it just plain insane of me to imagine that I could put the results from 1135 games on one page?--Tlmclain | Talk 21:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

You can try subst'ing them instead. Of course, I'd try it on a sandbox page first. For instance, look at my test page: User:Nmajdan/Test/Georgia. So, you could complete a decade with the template and then after you've doublechecked your data entry, go back and subst it.--NMajdan•talk 22:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

It should work a-okay now. Apparently, having all that documenting text on the same page as the template made it larger than it needed to be. Putting it on a subpage made it much smaller. News to me too. Keep hacking away then and when you reach the limit again, we'll figure something out. Here's the new numbers:

<!-- 
Pre-expand include size: 352571 bytes
Post-expand include size: 69799 bytes
Template argument size: 28016 bytes
Maximum: 2048000 bytes
-->

:::--MECU≈talk 22:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, who knew. And that /doc subpage trick is new to me. Glad that fixed the issue.--NMajdan•talk 22:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Gentlemen thank you for figuring this one out. I like this partnership of you make it, I break it. Also, thank you for being diplomatic and remaining silent on my insanity plea.--Tlmclain | Talk 22:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Collapsible?

Does it make sense to make these collapsible? I tested adding collapsible to the class in {{CFB Schedule Start}} and it seemed to work, but I am generally afraid to touch these templates. --Tlmclain | Talk 03:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely positively not collapseable. At least, they should always be forced open and have the hide/show option so someone could collapse them if they wanted I guess, but this data is generally important to whatever article it's included in. --MECU≈talk 03:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that would really be necessary - a team's schedule is generally a pretty important component of a yearly article, and it's not like they're exceedingly large so as to warrant collapsing them down. I can see how that sort of thing would be more useful if you were listing multiple schedules on one page, or when using the yearly record templates to describe a team's entire yearly history or a coach with a long tenure, though. -- PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 03:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Attendance

Nmajdan: it looks like you added the attendance functionality, but the Schedule End template doesn't span correctly if I have both attendance and rank. Example: 2002 Penn State Nittany Lions football team -- Billma 18:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll fix that, thank you. I was wondering if that would be an issue but I couldn't find an instance where it was. Thank you.--NMajdan•talk 18:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Categories: Wikipedia talk archives

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive-Dec2006

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Contents

Team Infoboxes

Texas Bowl

When to create yearly team pages?

A bot we need - football links instead of university links

Team season article format changes

Tennessee Volunteer Football

Bowl Championship Series

More help! Player page being attacked

Coaches article

Awards?

Bowl game articles

Request for comment: {{cfb}}

Heisman Trophy

AFD Notices

Graphic Lab

How to handle a situation: LSU-related vandalism of USC's 2003-related pages

Notability for College Football People

Criteria to have an article in WP:CFB

Template:USFBullsCoach deletion?

College football article being considered for deletion

Notability for College Football People

Criteria to have an article in WP:CFB

Template:USFBullsCoach deletion?

College football article being considered for deletion

2006-07 Bowl Game Template

Infobox for college bowl games

Oops

See also

Need recommendations for college coach infobox

Need of "peer-review" section for the WikiProject

May go for Featured Article

Article nominated for FA

It's probably in our best interest to...

Auto archive of this talk page

Wikipedia Day Awards

Cool Trick

Coaches year-by-year record template?

Please Review

Fifth Down for GA (almost)

Infobox National Championships

Hang on

NCAA Division I-A national football championship

Possible approaches

New Idea

Brand New Idea

Schedule Template?

New Problem?

Collapsible?

Attendance

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