I think we have agreed a while ago on using "-" instead of "/" in article titles. – Elisson • T • C • 22:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It was touched on in the Standardisation discussion section above. I prefer "-", definitely. Qwghlm 22:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

And here earlier this year. – Elisson • T • C • 22:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Any concensus or decision to move them to "-" have been taken? -- Szvest 23:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Zbigniew Małkowski

Can a few of you add this to your watchlists? He is the current Hibs goalie, who had a stinker yesterday and his article is paying the price today. Thanks. --Guinnog 11:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's get all our 20 EPL club articles to GA status!

Although I am not a member of this WikiProject, I have read many articles on EPL clubs, and I find them to be of outstanding quality. I believe that most of them deserve at least Good Article status.

I am a member of the Good Articles WikiProject, and I believe that both WikiProjects would benefit if I succeed in my mission: that is to get all the articles on the 20 EPL clubs to at least GA status.

Currently, three articles on EPL clubs have achieved FA status: Arsenal F.C., Everton F.C. and Manchester City F.C.. Two articles on EPL clubs have achieved GA status: Chelsea F.C. (nominated by me) and Liverpool F.C.

Therefore, we have 15 articles to get to GA status or better. I checked the talk pages of the articles, and 2 of them - Reading F.C. and Watford F.C. - are rated B-class articles. The remaining 13 do not have a rating.

Please try and rate all the 13 articles by Sunday night (Singapore time). By Sunday night, please tell me which articles you think already meet GA standards, so I can nominate them. I usually nominate articles in batches of 3 or 4.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Few of the other current FA Premier League clubs (what is this EPL you speak of? ;-) ) are close to GA level. Lack of references is the biggest problem, followed by the plethora of lists that plague several of them, and a general trend of recentism. I don't think lack of references stops an article being B-Class, so they are probably all B-Class. Oldelpaso 17:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Lack of references, listcruft, recentism, and too much history while completely missing out important stuff such as supporters, crest/colours and stadium are the biggest problems. But as Oldelpaso says, I think all PL clubs are good enough to be B-Class. Will assess them shortly. – Elisson • T • C • 18:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

As you are aware of these problems, please try to address them. I suggest you agree on a common structure for all the articles as well (e.g. stadium, history, crest, supporters, rivalries, lists). It should be easy to determine which articles are sufficiently referenced once you have assessed all the remaining 13 articles.

Please nominate a list of 3-4 articles which are sufficiently referenced (or almost-sufficiently referenced) to me by Sunday night (Singapore time) so I can nominate these articles. Note that an article will take about a week to be reviewed; this should be adequate time to find more references for an article which is almost sufficiently-referenced. In addition, if an article is very close to meeting the criteria, but minor clarifications or improvements are neccesary, a reviewer may place the article "on hold", which will give you an extra week to address the concerns. In such cases, GA functions as a mini-PR by a single reviewer. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, who put you in charge? If you're so keen to get these articles to GA status then lead by example and start by working on them yourself. Don't ask us to do all the hard work assessing and reviewing them, just so that you can then put your name on their GA nomination. Qwghlm 13:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

In a WikiProject, different people work on different tasks. Some write articles, some copyedit articles, some assess articles, some promote the project, etc. My task in the Good Articles WikiProject is spotting and nominating articles which already meet the criteria, and encouraging others to do so.

The assessment will help you identify articles which already meet the GA criteria, or are very close to doing so, but are not GAs. Such articles should be nominated for GA because they deserve it. As you are members of WikiProject Football, while I am not, I believe you will be more qualified than I am to assess articles and address issues.

If a reviewer places an article on hold, and I can help address any issues the reviewer raises, I will do so, to help the article achieve GA status. However, there are several articles which I am actively working to improve to GA status. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I've heard it said that the reward for a job well done on Misplaced Pages is another three jobs, but this is ridiculous. Apologies if you regard this lot as insufficient to meet your quota. If you look at some of the links in the box on the right of this page you might note that we agreed on a common stucture for club articles more than a year ago, and if you look at Special:Contributions for any of the people who have replied, plenty of examples of addressing problems with football articles will become evident. Oldelpaso 19:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't regard this WikiProject's current FAs/GAs as insufficient. This WikiProject has done lots of great work; keep it up!

Since you have agreed on a common structure, ensure that all your articles on clubs follow that structure. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I actually think our efforts are better spent getting a (proper) national team to at least GA and preferable FA status; there are enough club articles at that quality right now. Alternatively, an FA on a lower league side (or even a non-league side) would be more of an achievement. Qwghlm 18:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

An article on a lower-league side, Sheffield Wednesday F.C., has achieved FA status.

As articles on clubs in the first tier of major leagues will attract more readers, making such articles GAs would be more beneficial to the project than making less-read articles on lesser-known clubs GAs. In addition, there will be more available sources on clubs in the first tier of major leagues, so it will be easier for these articles to meet the referencing requirements of the Good Article criteria.

Although I am currently focusing on EPL-club articles, once we succeed in making most of the articles on EPL clubs GAs, we can move on to articles on clubs in other major leagues, such as Serie A, and as you suggested, national teams. Not every article can become an FA, so GA is a way to encourage and ensure uniform standards. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 13:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe working on a broad range of articles - clubs, national teams, biographies, stadiums, competitions - would be a better way of demonstrating this Wikiproject's abilities, than concentrating on such a restricted set of very similar articles. Qwghlm 13:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. I dislike the way some here only care about how English football articles look. There's 1000s of articles on football in other countries that needs improving. I'd rather have every article be 'decent' than have 1 or 2 featured articles and 50-60 GA Dodge 14:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course, working on a broad range of articles would be beneficial to the project. I am not focusing only on articles on EPL clubs; I am only focusing on articles on EPL clubs for a start. After more articles on EPL clubs achieve GA status, we can work on articles on clubs in other leagues, national teams, etc.

However, we should place more emphasis on articles which are likely to attract more readers. This is why I have chosen to start with articles on EPL clubs.

As mentioned earlier, this is more about awarding the GA badge to articles which already meet the criteria, or are very close to doing so; rather than about getting stubs to GA status.

I would consider "decent" to be at least B-class to GA. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 12:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Watford F.C. is "my" article. It's probably one of the better football articles, but blimey it needs a lot of work before it's anywhere near GA status. It requires me looking up stats, reading a whole history of Watford and writing up a good summary of it, researching old grounds, kits, creasts, colours. It's a lot of work. HornetMike 22:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Completely agree with you, HornetMike. I too have put in cosiderable amounts of work into the page, including player articles, but it just seems to keep going - nothing before 1977. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, has anyone else noticed that pretty much all player articles are the same layout, but the teams ones are almost all completely different? Not really a bad thing - it varies the setup of pages, makes it more interesting - but confusing. Makes you think. Kingfisherswift 15:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Plesase vote for TFD for Template:Romania Squad Euro 2000

If fail to delete, it will have many Euro TP. Matt86hk talk 00:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

4th flight footballers

I have found some categories for players who have played in 4th flight football teams in England (and have not moved higher). Seeing as the guideline is for top flight football, does anybody mind if I went and speedied them? Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 06:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what you mean. What guideline are you talking about? And what do you propose speedying - the players or the categories? Qwghlm 07:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Notability (people) says that sports players should be in the top flight to get inclusion. It seems we have lots of people who are 4-5th flight and fall well below the bar. So, yeah, the player bios. Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 07:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The notability rule actually states they have to play in "a fully professional league" - Football League Two (the 4th flight in England) is a fully professional league, so under the rules as they stand, they should stay. I personally think someone who only played a couple of times for a 4th-flight side doesn't really meet any sort of level of notability, and may well agree with many of your proposed deletions, but they don't fit under the rules as they stand. Qwghlm 08:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

These articles definitely shouldn't be speedied - they aren't CSD A7 candidates. AfD would most likely result in a variety of opinions, some take Misplaced Pages:Notability (people) to mean one appearance makes a player notable, whereas my personal opinion is that it infers that players should be kept if they have had a significant career as a professional i.e. regular first team football for a number of seasons. Of course, WP:BIO is a guideline rather than a rule or policy, the main question is whether an article of any substance can be written using credible sources - and if the work of User:Kingjamie and User:Englishrose in taking Adam Boyd from cleanup to GA is anything to go by, it can definitely be done for a player who has played mainly in the lower leagues. Oldelpaso 20:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Probable hoax

The article Marcos Arelio Bognano definitely contains a lot of false information - the bit about a career at Arsenal and Liverpool certainly is. Can anyone confirm whether any of this article is true - if not I will send it to AfD as a hoax. Qwghlm 19:08, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

99,9% hoax --necronudist 19:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Turkish Manager of the Year

A known vandal has edited some information to Turkcell Super League, the article on the Turkish premier league. What he has added is probably nonsense, but some factchecking by someone who knows Turkish football is necessary. He has changed the name of the winner of last year's Turkish Manager of the Year title from Erik Gerets (Galatasaray) to Ertuğrul Sağlam (Kayserispor). Is this nonsense or not? Aecis 10:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like nonsense, Gerets was Manager of the Year according to (pdf) Oldelpaso 18:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Proper naming of commonly named football clubs

Is there a standard methodology for naming articles with frequently used football club names such as Al-Ahli, Al-Jaish and Al-Hilal? I have seen a few methods in use such as adding the city name (e.g., Al-Ahli Doha) and adding the nation name (e.g., Al-Ahli (UAE)), but none are used universally. Given that Libya has at least two clubs named Al-Ahli (Al Ahly Benghazi and Al Ahly Tripoli), maybe use of the nation name is insufficient?

I think it would be helpful to develop a standard methodology if there isn't one already in place. There are already 7 articles for clubs named Al-Ahli, 3 for Al-Hilal, and several others for clubs that share names like Al-Qadisia, Al-Jaish and Al-Shorta.

Thank you. Jogurney 15:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is a consistent naming scheme. For what it's worth, I think disambiguation by city rather than country is definitely the way forward, as the Libyan examples show, as it is precise and consistent with existing articles. Qwghlm 15:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

As an additional note, there is a similar city-level disambiguation already in place for Liverpool FC (Montevideo). Qwghlm 16:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

On a side note, we need disambiguation pages for all these clubs, like for instance Al-Nasr (disambiguation) and Al-Ittihad (disambiguation). Punkmorten 08:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the input. I've been adding disambiguation pages and hope to get them finished soon. Jogurney 16:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Football templates

With the general move towards fb start and fb end templates coupled with the standard colour scheme, I'm after adjusting the following templates Template:National football (soccer) super cups, Template:National football (soccer) cups and Template:National football (soccer) league cups. I've included the fb start and fb end bits within the templates. Would it be better to do it the other way ?

I would also like to say that all the football articles etc should move to a standard template system. This colour template and style is already being used by English, Italian, French and International articles. I just think that having each league use the same would be more please on the eye.Niall123 16:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You've completely missed the point with fb start and fb end if you include them within the templates. :) The meaning of those two tags are to group several navigational templates together on articles, by placing them between the same tags in the article. By placing them in the template itself, they can't be grouped with other templates. Read Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Football/Templates for more information. If you don't understand it all, ask here and I'll answer as quick as possible. – Elisson • T • C • 18:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. I've done both the Super Cup and League Cup templates properly. Give me a while to do the Cup one. There's a fair bit to be done there. Niall123 18:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Good work so far! – Elisson • T • C • 19:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

That's all 3 done. Just back to my original point. These fb start and fb end are being used differently everywhere. I used them in the Italian pages and I use them on the front of the page. On the Premier League though they are being used as sub-templates with the fb start and fb end being used in the master template. Added on to this, there are a lot of templates out there that don't match up to these standard templates. From what I could see, they only work so far with Premier League, Serie A, Scotish Football, Portugese Football, Belgian Football and Swedish Football. Niall123 19:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Football Derbies

Someone has submitted a page on 'The West London Derby'. It focuses on this derby being contested by Chelsea and Fulham. Does anyone else find this a bit fantasical? I'd say historically there's no such thing as The West London Derby, only west London derbies contested variously by Chelsea, Fulham and QPR. I've added a discussion to the actual page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.142.78.138 (talk • contribs) 19:12, October 20, 2006.

My trusty friend in London informs me that Chelsea and Fulham is correct. Their stadiums are only a couple of miles apart. - Dudesleeper 18:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

In fact both stadiums are in Fulham (even Stamford Bridge). Doesn't mean that this is a valid football rivalry, especially considering the lenght of time Fulham were out of the top flight. Niall123 19:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

There isn't a particularly strong rivalry between the two teams. Matches between the two may be mentioned in passing as a west London derby in the same way that any match between two London teams might be termed a London derby, but its not really "The West London Derby", there isn't the intense buildup and high passion associated with a derby match. That the article itself describes it as one of the lesser known local derbies is telling. Oldelpaso 17:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

There is definitely a rivalry between Fulham and Chelsea, perhaps more of it perceived on the Fulham side of the divide, and not as passionate as the rivalry between Arsenal and Spurs, but there still is one - after Fulham beat Chelsea for the first time in 20 years, there was a pitch invasion - that doesn't happen that often these days. Qwghlm 14:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying there isn't a rivalry between Chelsea and Fulham. I'm just saying there's no such thing as THE West London Derby. For an encyclopedia article what our friends say, no matter how trusty, is irrelevant. Think back about 10 years to when QPR were good and in the Premiership, Chelsea were okay and in the Premiership and Fulham were rubbish and weren't. Would you have said then and for the 30 years prior to that "The West London Derby" was about Fulham v Chelsea? Phil.

Fernando Torres

Something needs to be done about this article. Every tom dick and harry are going into it, adding more and more transfer speculation. In fact, just about anything said in the British tabloids has been added to the list. I cut away about half the waffle 2 months ago and summarised it, but now its just as bad as ever. Such speculation (especially from British tabloids) has no place in such an article Niall123 11:32, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Timeline of English football

I've removed the Contents from this article as it had a link to every year, and added links to decades, if anyone feels this is incorrect please feel free to revert it. I simply felt a Contents over 100 lines long before you got to the article was a bit ridiculous. Chappy84 15:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion#Template:Original Premier League clubs

The above proposed deletion may require further agreement or not by people before any action is taken on this : {{Original Premier League clubs}}

--Chappy84 16:53, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Imminent AFD

I'm about to nominate Mickaël Le Mener, Delis Ahou, Alexandre Rosay, Julien Sourice, Emmanuel Bourgaud, Guy Moussi, Mahamat Saleh, Julien Sola, Abdoulaye Soumaré, Carlos Madiokoka and Jamel Zahiri for deletion as footballers who have never played in a fully professional league (as required by our biography guidelines). Last time I nominated French third tier players (see here) I received some objections, since this was a "significant enough league" (!). But this time let the sensible voices be heard - at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mickaël Le Mener. Punkmorten 07:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Also can we have sensible voices on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Ben Sahar, before they close it. It's hanging on because of a few idiots who seem to pop up on a few Afds at the minute and keep regardless of WP:BIO. HornetMike 08:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mark Wilberforce

I've created an AFD for Mark Wilberforce as even though he was at Leeds, he never played in the first team in any league or cup matches and is now in the Conference North for Scarborough which is obviously not a fully professional league. See here for the nomination Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mark Wilberforce. --Chappy84 09:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Can I ask people stop adding AfDs on the talk page? Just add it to the table in the main page - that's what it's there for. No point cluttering this talk page as well. Thanks. Qwghlm 11:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Probable vandalism

Could someone have a look at Scott Sinclair. A user has added "and had formed a prolific strike partnership with Lilly Clare in Bristol Rovers Youth Team.", which I'm 99.999% sure is nonsense - especially as the same IP vandalised Roman Abramovich and Bristol Rovers F.C. - but I thought I'd better get a second opinion before reverting just in case. Gasheadsteve 12:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Punkmorten has reverted it now. Thanks for that. Gasheadsteve 13:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

League of Wales

Should the entry entitled League of Wales be changed to Welsh Premiership as that is the official name of the top division in the Principality? Blogdroed 16:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Change to Infoboxes

I propose that the professional clubs section be changed to senior clubs to allow info boxes to be included in articles about footballers who were still amateurs throughout most of their career. This applies, for example, to Spain where football did not go professional until the late 1920s. Djln--Djln 22:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree with this. Also useful for some Irish players who started off as Amateur or Semi Pro Dodge 10:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This seems a sensible idea and I agree with it. Qwghlm 21:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Very sensible suggestion WikiGull 12:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Notability of football players

After having seen how the several football players deletion reviews are going, I think it's come the time to improve the current criterions behind these kind of articles. I've started a discussion here, now please join and tell your opinion too. Thanks. --Angelo 22:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

We certainly need a more precise standard. The problem is that 'playing for' is not defined and has been taken to be a single game which is not very meaningful. Further being in a squad, which can be 40 players big, has been devalued. Some articles have been created on the back of a single Carling Cup appearance which is also not meaningful when the top clubs field full reserve sides for these games.

I suggest the threshold could be:

• Played at least 6 games for a club in a fully professional league or in the the main cup competiton of the country for such a club.

I don't share your view about the "fully professional league". As I already said, even Serie C2 is considered a fully professional league here in Italy. In my opinion, Serie A, or Serie B at most, would be enough, but in the latter case we should consider a much more restrictive constraint than just "six matches". And about the "main cup competition of the country", take a look at the teams which took part in the 2006/2007 Italian Cup, keep in mind most of the teams play this competition with their backup players, then you'll understand why I don't agree about that part of your proposal. --Angelo 22:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you!!! However, my proposal is what I think will get through, not what I would ideally like to see, and at least deals with the Squad/Carling Cup issues. BTW the Cup qualification only applies for players in clubs for whom league games would make them eligiable. BlueValour 01:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, Angelo needs to put a message on the talk page of WP:BIO pointing interested folk here. (See the message I placed on WP:CORP for the English club notability for example). BlueValour 22:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think WP:BIO would be the right place where to discuss this topic, since we're talking about a possible change in a notability criteria which does not simply refer to football; indeed, the inclusion criteria talks generically about 'sportspeople'. That's why I did things this way. --Angelo 22:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Not necessary provided that you place a note on WP:BIO as suggested above; they will delegate to here; just use my form of words on WP:CORP. However, we are talking just about football, extending to all sportspeople would just bog things down and nothing would get done. Stick to football and we can get a specific guideline like we did with notability of clubs. BlueValour 01:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I support the idea for a number of games for notability, with a number from 5-10 as a qualifier. There's player articles like Francino Francis lying about the place which are simply not worthy of being in an encyclopedia. HornetMike 01:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure a specific number is the way to go, what is appropriate for football may not be appropriate for other sports, and creating football only criteria would be instruction creep. Also, the amount of citeable sources is more important than the number of appearances; verifiabilty (policy) is of higher value than notability (guideline). 5-10 games will often result in only trivial coverage, but could receive plenty. I'd prefer wording making reference to the amount of time playing at professional level, something which implies a career at professional level rather than the odd appearance here and there. Oldelpaso 14:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see why including fotballers under the current notability criteria is a problem, fair enough if this were a paper encylopedia, but it's not. Even a player who's played one league game for a Football League Two side is of potential interest to thousands of people (particularly when the article can be built up to show what else happened in their post-professional careers, most of you must have been to a game and seen a player remembered by many fans for simply not being good enough, so is notable for that reason)- contrast this with the articles on on small housing estates etc which I feel are of interest to very few. Anyway, to reiterate the point I came here to make, I don't see why it needs changing, though I agree with oldelpaso that it's what the article looks like or could look like that needs to be kept in mind. WikiGull 09:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Eheheh WikiGull, welcome in the NN,D world. I totally agree with you. But, you know this is Jimbopedia, the encylopedia everyone can vandalize. --necronudist 11:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Firstly I think that arbitrary game limits are a poor idea, because they are just that, arbitrary. Secondly I think that demanding that they've had "a career" is unworkable as plenty of players burst onto the scene and are instantly notable, even in the lower echelons. Also "players" like Ali Dia are notable. I personally made a page for Nabil El Zhar, who hasn't even played a professional game, but definitely will unless some terrible unforseen consequence arrives, which again would make him notable. Personally I think that the FIFA.com reference makes him notable. aLii 13:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I completely opppose a minimum limit on a number of appearances sufficient for notability. I agree with aLii that any arbitrary limit is completely unworkable (why would a hypothetical player who has played 4 times for, say, Manchester Utd or Real Madrid any less notable than a player who has made 5 appearances for, I don't know, Accrington Stanley?!!). I would also oppose the suggestion for an equivalent limit on the amount of time at professional level. I agree with WikiGull that the current criteria work fine.

If there is an appetite for change then I would suggest that, as both WikiGull and Oldelpaso have alluded to, the emphasis should be on the quality (or potential quality) of the article itself, rather than any criteria based on stats. A full, verifiable and interesting article about a player who played a mere handfull of pro-games for a run-of-the-mill Division 4 outfit before turning out for many of the big non-league clubs, doing a spot of coaching here and there and going on to do x and y after football... etc. would be significantly more worthy of inclusion than much of the content elsewhere in Wiki.

-- MLD · T · C · @:  15:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

There's no "quality" to improve in articles about one-minute-played-in-life players. That's why I strongly support deep changings to the current notability criterion, which absurdly allow footballers who played just one minute in a Serie C2 match to "deserve" an article here. Not every guy in a football team is notable to stay here in Misplaced Pages, and players with experience only in third division and youth teams are not. --Angelo 16:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Rather than have one-size-fits-all criterion for a player (or indeed sportsperson), perhaps it's better to come up with a set of conditions that, if a player fulfils any one, they can be considered inherently notable (along the same lines as WP:WEB). We can thus raise the barrier from "ever been a professional" to something much higher, but have several different qualities a player may be able to fulfil. Some would be obvious (e.g. played an international match for their country) and others more debatable - e.g. how many matches in a professional league they have played. On that latter point, perhaps a sliding scale of sorts could be introduced, e.g. if any of the following are satisfied:

• 10 matches in continental competition
• 50 matches in domestic top-flight league competition
• 100 matches in domestic professional competition beneath the top flight

These are all open to discussion - I'm just making some suggestions here. The main point is that a single criterion is never going to be agreed upon. Note also that I use the word inherently - players can be notable through other means, some unique players (e.g. Ali Dia mentioned above) who have achieved notability (or notoriety) through other means would still be admissable outside the criteria, but on a case-by-case basis. This would be a more intelligent and sensitive to various circumstances unique to different places and times. Qwghlm 00:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree, but I think it's reasonable. --necronudist 10:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

IFA and FAI international football teams

Hi. I'm having a debate with another user about the best way to use Categories in relation to the somewhat unusual history of the Ireland international football teams teams (main articles Ireland national football team (IFA), Northern Ireland national football team and Republic of Ireland national football team). Discussion is at Category talk:Football in Ireland#IFA and FAI international teams if anyone cares to read and/or contribute. Thanks. jnestorius 01:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Professional leagues

With the current WP:BIO guidelines, it's important to know which football leagues are fully professional. I therefore request a list or category called "Fully professional football (soccer) leagues". Anyone interested in creating it? Punkmorten 12:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

If I'm correctly interpreting why you want this, you'd also need to know which clubs were in these leagues at certain times (for example, the numerous clubs in the mostly professional Conference National who were until recently Football League clubs). WikiGull 11:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's quite tricky. But with the current guidelines we have to know it. Punkmorten 12:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

But how do you propose to use it if you don't have the complete information? I can't see how that can work. WikiGull 12:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Naming of Football Stadiums

Just wondering what is the standard on such. For instance, the San Siro is officially the Giuseppe Meazza and the article is named as such. But the Nou Camp is actually called "Estadi del Futbol Club Barcelona" and yet it's articles name is the Nou Camp. Just wondering but shouldn't we be doing it one or the other. My personal preference would be to use the most used name. Niall123 23:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I can see a problem with this. Some stadia are named after the surrounding areas, e.g. the Boleyn Ground and Arsenal Stadium are more usually known as "Upton Park" and "Highbury", but there already exist articles with those titles, about the geographic areas. I would generally go with the rule that the common name should be used, but if it clashes with the name of another place or structure, then using some form of the official name is an acceptable alternative. Qwghlm 14:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyone object of the moving of Stadio Giuseppe Meazza to San Siro, Stadio Luigi Ferraris to Marassi and Stadio Renzo Barbera to La Favorita on the basis that these are the commonly used names for these stadiums on the president of the Nou Camp article ? Niall123 11:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Oriundo...

created! Check it if you can. --necronudist 13:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps using a table would look nice? Punkmorten 14:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm totally dumb with tables...sorry. --necronudist 14:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Premier League team season reviews

The, er, tireless AlexWilkes (talk · contribs) has been busy creating a series of "2005-06 reviews" for FA Premier League clubs (e.g. Arsenal season review 2005-06, Aston Villa season review 2005-06) which are in (IMHO) very poorly written, full of speculation and his own personal commentary as well as being an unnecessary duplication of material already found in e.g. History of Arsenal F.C. or Aston Villa F.C.#History. They have been prodded then deprodded. So suggestions please - nominate for deletion (my preferred option)? Merge into larger articles? Cleanup? Thoughts welcome. Qwghlm 09:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I think tiresome may be a better description! He's now started on the same for 2004-05 so if something's going to be done it should be done quickly. Personally I agree with the above deletion suggestion (or at least merge anything new, which I doubt, into existing articles and then delete) WikiGull 13:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Stop the loonie quick and get those articles afded, I say! HornetMike 13:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I was going to say that I have nothing against these articles in principle, but then I read the Liverpool season review 2005-06. Ew! What an awful article! I'd vote to delete them. aLii 13:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Panic nominate for AfD! – Elisson • T • C • 13:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Can an admin put a temporary (half a day) block on him while we decide what to do? Failing to respond to comments left on his talk page is probable just cause. Qwghlm 13:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually I spoke too soon - he decided to contribute but then retracted it moments later. Qwghlm 13:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think he has done anything that merits a block. Not even declining to respond to comments on his talk page would be reason enough. – Elisson • T • C • 15:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I would say they're all definate Afd's. there's no point in them long-term, they're simply recentism. --Chappy84 13:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we should set up guidelines on how to treat season reports for individual clubs. We had a short discussion on this before somewhere, and IIRC, I proposed that in case people really need to have that sort of article, then we should minimize the number of articles by grouping seasons into lumps of five or ten, that is, for example having Arsenal F.C. seasons 1980-89, Arsenal F.C. seasons 1990-99, and so on. That would also make the articles sort of an even more detailed division of History of Arsenal F.C. instead of just a series of disorganized pages that noone will actually make complete. – Elisson • T • C • 15:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Most club history articles are not long enough to need splitting off into daughter articles anyway. I think a good rule of thumb would be to keep the daughter articles as large as possible, and to only split them into two or three articles, covering major eras in a club's history, rather than ten articles for each decade - which is rather an arbitrary system of division.

Furthermore if a club's history does have daughter articles (e.g. History of Template F.C. (1945-1970)) then the main History of Template F.C. article should just become a disambig page between the various parts - a summary of the history would already be present in Template F.C.#History, and it makes no sense to have three levels of pages covering the same topic. Qwghlm 15:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really mean that the decade seasonal articles should have even more prose than the "History of ..." articles, but rather contain what people seem to like to add, which is full match results, squad, lineups, player transfers, and other non-prose material (although I realise now that I did not make that clear enough as the originally discussed articles were plain prose). Such info doesn't really fit very well into the history articles but as some people seem to want it, bundle it in decadewise articles, and slap a {{see also}} with links to proper "information" articles in sections of the history article. – Elisson • T • C • 16:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, didn't see this discussion. Actually I came here since I wanted to tell you that I've nominated these articles for deletion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Arsenal season review 2005-06. jaco♫plane 16:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• I am happy with the concept of organic growth - you start with the club article then split off a history article when there is enough material then resplit as the material dictates. This is the way that Misplaced Pages grows. I don't think that we should be prescriptive as to how the splits should be organised; that is a matter for the Talk page of each article. Season by season reviews are common in many sports see 2006 Miami Dolphins season, Middlesex County Cricket Club in 2005 (there is one for each county) and so on. A view probably should be taken on the articles in Category:Dundee United F.C. seasons, also. BlueValour 16:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Squad restrictions

As far as I can see, there hasn't been any mention of squad restrictions (i.e., the number of substitutes/substitutions permitted, non-EU players permitted, etc.) throughout the different leagues and cup competitions of the world. I'm not that familiar with these rules myself, so I was wondering if anyone would be willing to provide the necessary information? - Dudesleeper 17:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Greek Football Seasons

I noticed that Greek Football seasons before 2005 is not created yet, and 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons need to be cleaned up, I only wished that Greek Football seasons will look like English football seasons, so I need help on creating new articles of pre-2005 greek football seasons. Rakuten06 19:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

List of English Football League managers by date of appointment

Following this discussion I created List of English Football League managers by date of appointment. I think it needs a better lead, and possibly needs to be moved to a better page name, but otherwise it's ripe for FLC canditure. I've created a to do list on the talk page for the few things that are missing.

Seeing as it was quite a big project and I'm bound to have made a mistake somewhere I'd appreciate it if people could just random things. So yeah, that's all really. HornetMike 19:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks good by my eyes (though that's not saying much). I appreciate the effort you put into the list. - Dudesleeper 19:44, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Great job! BlueValour 03:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that since this list is going to be pretty large, to me it makes to sense to create a template that includes your major table headings? Then it will be very easy to change to formating instead of editing the monster sized table :) In any case, good job on this so far. // Laughing Man 15:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It's done now. I deliberately limited the criteria in the name so it only included managers from the top 4 leagues. Otherwise it gets a bit sprawling. HornetMike

External links on Torino F.C.

An IP user is continuously adding a link to a Google-automated English translation of an Italian fans' website into the Torino FC article. I don't think it could be notable in any sort, but I'm not going to revert it since I would break the three revert rule. Tell me what to do. --Angelo 14:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Break it. If you are scared in making good actions the problem isn't yours. --necronudist 16:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Errr? That's a very bad advice. I've already reverted the addition, BTW. – Elisson • T • C • 16:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Stick to WP:3RR even though I think using it in cases like this is overzealous. With any luck, you can wait a week and the anon user will have forgotten all about it and you can remove the link then with little extra trouble. You might also want to raise the issue on Talk:Torino F.C. and gain consensus there, to give your reversions a reasonable foundation. Qwghlm 16:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The 3RR, NN, NPOV are bad ideas. Not the vandalism revertion. This is one of the n problems of Jimbopedia. --necronudist 16:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

What? NN and NPOV are bad ideas? We are building an encyclopedia here, and not a playground. – Elisson • T • C • 17:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Using the standard spam templates ({{spam}}, {{spam2}} etc) usually gets the message across. Oldelpaso 18:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

International squad templates

International squad templates are simply getting out of hand. World Cup templates I could live with, but now theres Asia Cup, European Championship, Confederation Cup.. simply over the top. Player articles are becoming swallowed up by them.. I think something should be deicded here on the wikiproject. -- Mattythewhite 17:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete them! Punkmorten 19:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC) (seriously, they clutter articles and set a bad precedent).
• Keep World cup and the winners, runners-up and semi finalists of Euro, asia cup etc. Delete the rest. к1иgf1$н£я5ω1fт 20:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I support the idea we should just keep winning squads. But there's not much we can do, we've been consistently outvoted on this on Tfds. HornetMike 20:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure I'm following you here, Romania Squad Euro 2000 was recently deleted. Punkmorten 21:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh really? Good-o. Every time I've seen squad templates up for Tfd they've survived.HornetMike 21:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think we should keep every WC template, and ONLY winners and MAYBE runners-up in regional competitions (European Championship etc). None for Confederation Cup and similar. --necronudist 22:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree we should delete them all. But if we do not succeed in deleting these (again) then I would at least suggest a redesign. One of my biggest bugbears is the size of these things, as well as the enforced spacing in between them. If we did some cleverness like we have with club navboxes with templates such as {{fb start}} and {{fb end}}, we could merge the boxes together. Coupled with a smaller font size, and we could get for e.g. Thierry Henry:

Which I think is a lot more acceptable and takes up much less space. What do others think? Qwghlm 11:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Eureka! --necronudist 11:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I've !voted delete in each of the TfDs so far (and would do so again), but if they end up being kept, this looks infinitely preferable. Oldelpaso 11:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That template looks fine but you'll have to fine tune each template so that you have the correct squads for each player. Niall123 13:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

We could even merge them completely with the other templates using {{fb start}} and {{fb end}}. This makes the templates narrower and thus "higher", but on the other hand we could add one of those flashy / thingies and make the hidden position the default. – Elisson • T • C • 13:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I did a collapsable template for previous squads already but a lot of people didn't like the idea. In fact I had changed all the Italy templates to the format below. I personally like them as they use up so little space.

Template:Fbc start Template:World Cup Squads Template:Fbc end Niall123 14:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a massive fan of the collapsible boxes, for usability and accessiblity reasons. I think a merge with {{fb start}} and {{fb end}} is a good idea, though. Qwghlm 21:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Talking of fb start and fb end, here is the collapsable template using {{fbc start}} and {{fbc end}}

Template:Fbc start Template:World Cup Squads Template:World Cup Squads Template:Fbc end

User:Niall123

On the comment above about "winning squads only" - I think it depends a lot on the nation. For Australia, neither the squad in 1974 or 2006 came anywhere near winning, but both squads are hugely notable - they are the only two times Australia has qualified. The same goes for other nations whose teams have only qualified once or twice - so it would need to be a per country decision.. -- Chuq 05:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Club squad Template

Recently User:Rossoneri3 add club logo to all Serie A tp, and the tp became higher. And the image not applied to fair use . Matt86hk tc 15:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the process of reverting them and have left a message on his talk page. You can revert them too you know ;-) Oldelpaso 15:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Aaaagh they're everywhere! Just removed logos from all the templates for Scottish Premier League clubs. Oldelpaso 12:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Naming Policy of Club's article

F.C. to FC

Did anyone get anywhere with the admin/bot request to move all football clubs from Example F.C./Example A.F.C to Example FC/Example AFC? Yorkshire Phoenix God's own county 13:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm bumping this. I for one am tired of the dots in Norwegian club names. Punkmorten 13:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Full name of club

Should Real Madrid to Real Madrid C.F. ? no dots or even CF? The other Spanish not use full name, such as Real Racing Club. The Uruguayan clubs were not full name but Argentine and Brazilian club do, expect Uruguay. Matt86hk talk 12:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

My view is that FC and CF should be avoided. The only exception should be when it is uses to disambigute, e.g Barcelona and FC Barcelona. Otherwise adding adding CF is pointless. Club is most commonly referred to as as Real Madrid. Check the what links here section for the number of links. Djln--Djln 22:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The club's official names include these FC's and such-forth, therefore the articles should use the official name. Look at the Real Madrid official badge, and many many other football club badges (see FC Barcelona, Chelsea or Liverpool's badge), they all include FC, AFC, CF or whatever the appendix for that club is on their badge as it's part of their name. I think they should be included, The Galatasaray article was recently moved to Galatasaray S.K. as that's it's full name. I think the articles should include them as they're part of the clubs name. --Chappy84 22:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think looking at the logo is a perfect solution; Arsenal and Man Utd don't have any suffix on their badge, Atlético Madrid and Wolves don't even have the club name. I should point out that User:Everton has been changing a lot of Spanish club article titles recently, so it seems most do now have the full name. When non-English-named clubs are involved it becomes difficult. Personally I can't decide between full ceremonial name and just the plain common name that an Anglophone would use. e.g. Espérance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne and Association Sportive Nancy-Lorraine seem right but they're not as practical as Troyes AC and AS Nancy for remembering or (speaking as an editor) wikilinking. A reader may find that seeing the full club name is a lot more practical, although this should be included in the club infobox regardless of the article name.  sʟυмɢυм • т • c  23:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agree with slumgum. --necronudist 08:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, don't think my point came across correctly, I was trying to say that they should include the suffix, e.g. FC (or CF in real madrid's case) but obviously writing say Leeds United Association Football Club is a bit too much, I was trying to say it should be something like Leeds United AFC instead of just Leeds United and so forth, so in the case of AS Nancy I would think it should be AS Nancy-Lorraine. Although obviously having other versions of the name forward to the correct page is a good idea. That's just my opinion anyway. --Chappy84 08:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Slumgum misses the point. We should use abbreviations like FC, CF, FK, PFC and so on in all cases. Troyes should be ES Troyes AC, obviously. Punkmorten 08:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

A general guideline, that is easy to follow and that has some sort of "authority", is to use the same name that uefa.com uses on their club pages (only available for top-level clubs though). Troyes AC should be on ES Troyes Aube Champagne () and AS Nancy on AS Nancy-Lorraine (). And of course Real Madrid should be at Real Madrid CF (). – Elisson • T • C • 11:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Worse thing in lower FIFA ranking countries likes Category:South African football clubs. Matt86hk talk 14:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but most of the "standards" found at uefa.com can be applied to other countries as well. A quick look at the SA clubs tells me that most, if not all of them should have an "FC" in the article name. South Africa is no problem really, it is much worse with other African and many of the Asian clubs, as info on them are very hard to find, and if found, generally in a language you do not understand. – Elisson • T • C • 14:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

on short form, i think use FC, AC, AS, CD, CF is better, the Template:Fc is useful. Matt86hk talk 14:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The entry for Porthamdog has them as Porthmadog FC but the official name of the club is C.P.D. Porthmadog i.e. it's in Welsh, the club doen't have an official title in English. Blogdroed 11:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely agree with Matthew_hk on using FC as initials, else article titles get very long very quickly. As for Porthmadog, perhaps the article should be moved to the Welsh title and Porthmadog F.C. becomes a redirect?

AFC vs A.F.C.

Hi. I don't know much about the history of this debate, but I've been helping out with page moves. We recently moved Leeds United A.F.C. to Leeds United AFC, with people citing consensus from this project. Others noted that there were still such articles as Sunderland A.F.C. and Workington A.F.C., so I went ahead and moved both of those to "AFC" titles. Both were moved back, with the reverters citing "no consensus" as the reason. Is there, or isn't there, a consensus to be consistent about AFC vs A.F.C.? -GTBacchus 21:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally, AFC (and FC, CF, CD etc) looks much neater, and is easier on the linkage. So consensus here Superlinus 21:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if consensus has been reached on this issue, but seeing as the official Sunderland site spells it Sunderland AFC, I don't see why Misplaced Pages shouldn't. As SuperLinus says, it looks neater and is easier, but that doesn't mean it is always right. Fore example the official F.C. Copenhagen site spells that club name with full stops, so that would seem appropriate in their specific case. Poulsen 22:04, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it better to follow each club's preferred format, or to follow a consistent format in all our AFC articles? -GTBacchus 23:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Be consistent. For starters, clubs can change the full stops as and when they please - would it mean we have to rename them every time they change them? What if a club is inconsistent in how they use full stops? Qwghlm 00:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Most clubs have PR and merchandise departments who are in charge of streamlining their image, and the name of the club is a part of that. I think it's safe to assume that official papers of a club bear the same club name. You can always imagine individual inconsistencies and typos, but as far as a homepage goes, I would imagine the static content has been proofread. It isn't always possible to find the exact club naming conventions on the home pages, but I wouldn't mind if the article naming was in accordance with the official line of the club, whether it be with or without full stops. Poulsen 01:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That might apply for the likes of Manchester United but not for the hundreds of smaller clubs who cannot afford it. We should not put such faith in club's copywriters and instead rely on Misplaced Pages's own conventions for initialisms (look at how articles such as BBC, NASA or indeed FIFA all do not use full stops in them). Qwghlm 08:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to be "the likes of Manchester United" in the PR department, to spell your club name properly on your official homepage. The club's own copywriters/webmasters are the ones closest to the club and is much more authoritative than any band of random people passing judgement on Misplaced Pages. But I can see how a common Misplaced Pages standard might be a good thing for further editing efforts. That BBC, NASA and FIFA all are without full stops is irrelevant as I see it, as these entities spell their names without full stops themselves. Poulsen 12:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

In many cases the producers of a website are not those closest to a club - for example many English clubs subcontract their websites out to Premium TV (e.g.) rather than produce it in-house. This is a minor question of style, not verifiablity or NPOV, so we do not need to defer to a club's particular preference. Qwghlm 12:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me rephrase it then - they are closer to the club than us random people at Misplaced Pages, and as I said, much more authoritative (than us). I like the argument for a common naming standard as the nicest and easiest way to go in view of future editing, but saying we at Misplaced Pages should defer from the official spelling because the clubs might or might not be inconsistent in naming themselves, is pretty speculative. Poulsen 13:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that UEFA's official page on FCK uses no dots. – Elisson • T • C • 16:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

UEFA is a secondary source. FCK is the primary source of information on FCK. Poulsen 12:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I came to think about WP:RS: "In general, Misplaced Pages articles should rely on reliable secondary sources." Punkmorten 12:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but please look at the entire paragraph in WP:RS. The sources are listed according to (potential) reliability and thereby authority; primary, secondary, and tertiary. "Misplaced Pages articles may use primary sources only if they have been published by a reliable publisher and may use them only to make purely descriptive claims", which is why we unpublished people should use secondary sources in general. However, a name is a descriptive claim, so the primary source has authority. As I see it, we standardize the naming convention on full stops for our own editing pleasure, and citing "UEFA's (or BBC's, or ...) authoritative claim on full stops" seems a tacked-on excuse to me. Poulsen 14:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Then apply WP:NCA sentence There is no consistent rule about periods—in general, avoid them, unless the preferred usage is otherwise (for example, U.S., but UK). The preferred usage, as far as I can tell from looking at the most popular Danish newspapers, the Swedish newspapers, as well as BBC and Uefa, is to use no periods. I haven't found one single news source that uses periods. Searching on google for "F.C. København" and going through the first 100 or so results, return a large majority of hits without periods. – Elisson • T • C • 14:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The places I've found where this question has been discussed before are here, here and here. -GTBacchus 01:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

At least the Norwegian clubs should be moved from F.K. to FK and so on - will a bot take care of this? Punkmorten 07:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe. If you make a request at WP:BOTREQ, someone might pick it up, but they might want to see evidence of consensus first. How many Norwegian clubs are we talking about? -GTBacchus 07:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, all of them, I've never seen any Norwegian club use dots. Some like Alta IF might use dots in their badge, but not elsewhere . I have no idea why the dots were put there in the first place. Unfortunately, there is no consensus about this issue, simply because no-one seems to care. I have tried to address the issue in this forum and at the Norwegian notice-board before, to no avail. Punkmorten 08:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the best solution is to go through, one country at a time, take all the clubs for that country to WP:RM at once, let the discussion happen in one place, and then do the moves, with or without bot assistance. I'm pretty familiar with WP:RM, and far less so with football. Shall we list the Norwegian clubs as a batch move there? -GTBacchus 08:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Do all the clubs at once. I don't see the point in wasting time by doing it by nationality. Qwghlm 08:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is why I suggested doing it by nationality. If we can get consensus to do the same thing with all of them, I'm certainly for that. -GTBacchus 08:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

For the sake of consistency across the whole of Misplaced Pages I think to do all at once is best. Qwghlm 09:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so all football clubs move from titles with full stops to titles without? If that gets listed at WP:RM, where should the accompanying survey be? Here? With links on the talk page of every article that's subject to move? -GTBacchus 09:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Weird - just coming to this argument late but having also just requested a move of A.F.C. Wimbledon to AFC Wimbledon (actually a revert of a previous move the other way!). The page was originally moved without any discussion about it. Should a discussion have been held on it I would have suggested that the page remain at AFC and not be moved to A.F.C. for the following reasons:

• • Firstly, all English acronyms are commonly printed without full-stops.
  • AFC Wimbledon do not use full-stops on the club's website , or on my season ticket.
  • The press most commonly spell the club's name without full stops, eg South London Press.

I have no idea why it was seen fit to move the page in the first place. Please see here to add to the discussion. -- MLD · T · C · @:  14:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand... why should we remove all full stops? I know this is an English wikipedia but you know, in Italy we use full stops (nobody will ever write AC Milan) in Spain don't. FC Barcelona is correct, A.C. Milan is correct, why should we create (invent?) a standard...? Standards exists and they are: in Italy use dots, in Spain don't use etc... It's like sayin' "ok, every name should be write in English standard, no-more Michelangelo or Raffaello". It sounds a little fascist...like Louis Armstrong who became "Luigi Fortebraccio". FC Barcelona is correct, F.C. Barcelona is wrong, A.C. Milan is correct, AC Milan is wrong. Simple. Or not? --necronudist 14:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that UEFA's official page on Milan uses no dots. – Elisson • T • C • 16:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Necronudist, your point is erroneous - we're talking about punctuation, not actually rewording the title to the English translation. It's not as if we're proposing change the Milan article to FC Milan. Also, if you're going to get worked up about this, you should also get worked up about the articles for Chinese, Japanese, Israeli etc. clubs whose articles are all titled using the Roman alphabet rather than their native script. Qwghlm 16:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

UEFA uses no slavic accents, so let's remove'em on the players' pages. However, I'm just sayin' that AC Milan is an error as in Italy we use dots and has no sense to create a standard ad-hoc as there are many different standards accepted in each country. Another Italian example: SPAL is usually written without dots but its official name is S.P.A.L. (Società Polisportiva Ars et Labor) and it's definitively an error to write SPAL or Spal (as in Italian wikipedia) also if you don't wanna use dots. However, it's not important/vital for me... I'm just sayin' my opinion. I will not destroy wikipedia servers if you'll decide to remove dots :-) --necronudist 17:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That point is erroneous as well, necronudist. It is not like UEFA has left out the dots for the same reason they left out some of the more complicated Slavic accents. And I don't see your other point about SPAL? You say it is an error to write SPAL or Spal, while the actual website of the club shows (1) a club badge with text "SPAL", (2) a site header with text "Spal", and (3) a contact address with text "SPAL". Besides that, the actual article on the Italian Misplaced Pages is at "SPAL", so I guess at least some Italians prefers no dots. – Elisson • T • C • 19:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

necronudist, if "A.C. Milan" is more common in Italy, then the article should be at "A.C. Milan". However in England, "FC" and "AFC" are far more common so for English clubs only the pages should be kept at "<clubname> FC" or "AFC <clubname>". I would be in favour of a country by country approach. -- MLD · T · C · @:  17:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly oppose a country by country approach. It will only make things even more complicated. What if the usage differs between the clubs of the country? As seen above, in Denmark, FCK prefers "F.C." on their website while for example Brøndby prefers plain "IF" on theirs. How to do then? Club by club approach? Won't be possible to do for the tens of thousands of football club articles we have. I say, move everything to titles without any punctuation. If it is good enough for UEFA, it is good enough for Misplaced Pages. – Elisson • T • C • 19:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sincerely I don't care about the UEFA site on this matters. UEFA has adopted his own standard, like you wanna do now here. Maybe dots were difficult to manage in their databases like the slavic accents... I don't know, however there isn't an European standard. I don't care neither about the SPAL site, SPAL is an acronym (hope it's the right word) and so it must be written as S.P.A.L. also if it's commonly used SPAL, even in the logo (many Italian football teams don't have dots in their logos..but this doesn't mean anything, we're not emblem-fanatics as in England, unfortunately). I think that a country by country decision is the only (and the best) solution. Otherwise you can blind your eyes and shoot. You'll do things quickly but wrong --necronudist 19:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at what UEFA (etc.) use as their naming conventions gives us a starting point here, but they shouldn't be taken as gospel. We know what the clubs are named — this isn't an argument about that. We are merely discussing setting a naming convention for them. This reminds me of an argument I once had about album titles (See Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions#Album titles and band names). The argument was about whether we should use "Bridge Over Troubled Water" or "Bridge over Troubled Water". A minor point, but similar to what is being discussed here. I think we can almost all agree that FC is superior to F.C., past discussions on this page have come to that conclusion, but the problem has been finding anyone willing to put in the required work to move all the pages! aLii 13:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so I strongly oppose the creation of a standard for clubs naming. Instead, I'm in favour of a country-by-country approach. --necronudist 13:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Your argument for that being what? As I've already said, a country by country approach is not possible as standards differ inside each country as well. – Elisson • T • C • 14:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

My argument is that there can't be a unique standard as I said above, but I think at the end we'll do what Elisson want, as always. Hail to the King. --necronudist 15:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Voting?

Using fullname is too long, likes Association de la Jeunesse Auxerroise, most people would against that. Only the abbreviation is worth to discuss. Likes:

• AC = Associazione Calcio
• AFC = Athletics and Football Club
• AS = Associazione Sportiva
• CA = Club Atlético
• CD = Club Deportivo
• CF = Club de Fútbol
• FC = Football Club
• RCD = Real Club Deportivo
• SSC = Società Sportiva Calcio
• US/UC = Unione Sportiva/Unione Calcio

Except very notable comon name Likes Real Madrid, Deportivo La Coruña, Celta Vigo And consideration of disambiguation, normally i suggest have CF/FC and no dots. The Template:Fc can easily to change and the move can using bots. - Matthew_hk tc 08:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

(a) Voting is evil and (b) We haven't finished discussing yet, so let's hold off for now, shall we? Qwghlm 09:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There should be no exception for "very notable comon name". Why on earth? Who decides what is a common name? Punkmorten 09:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course there should be expceptions for common names, infact it is wikipedia policy to use the most common name. As for who decides such things, well it's you, us, the media, society. There's no need to get pedantic, it's only a few article names. aLii 10:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Active Part In...

I know we have a "Current sport event" template, but have been musing whether Wiki needs a "This team are currently participating in Competition X, Y, Z" - for example the FA Cup, Leage Cup, European cups etc. A kind of "status board" at the top of each article. Does such a thing exist; or should it? doktorb _words 11:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Definitely not - it's borderline cruft, and Misplaced Pages is not a news service. It would also create yet more workload for us, as would have to continually maintain it. The thought of putting it at the top particularly fills me with dread - it would be ugly and a semi-permanent feature: the {{currentevent}} template is only intended to be used temporarily - most football teams compete nine months of the year, every year, on the other hand. Qwghlm 11:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Qwghlm except for the "cruft" term, too nerdy and ridicolous. --necronudist 12:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)