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Greetings, all, and welcome to my talk page! If you leave a message here, I will respond here. If we started a conversation on another talk page, I have watch-listed that page and will continue to respond there. -- Dirtlawyer1

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Questionable Rivalries

You asked me a couple weeks ago to consider which Big Ten rivalry articles might warrant further scrutiny.

• I think the bigger problem (i.e., the truly "low-hanging fruit") lies not in the longstanding series in the major conferences but with the non-majors and mid-majors where even true "rivalry" games are of questionable notability. Looking just at the Mid-American Conference, I find at least 16 rivalry articles, including such gems as Michigan MAC Trophy (3-way rivarly among the directional Michigan schools), CMU–WMU Rivalry Trophy, Battle for the Bell (Ohio-Marshall), Battle of the Bricks (Ohio-Miami), East Carolina–Marshall football rivalry, Marshall–UCF football rivalry, Friends of Coal Bowl (Marshall - WV), Anniversary Award (Bowling Green - Kent State), Bowling Green–Toledo football rivalry, Bronze Stalk Trophy (Ball St.-No. Ill.), Wagon Wheel (trophy) (Kent State-Akron), Steel Tire (Akron-Youngstown), Victory Bell (Cincinnati–Miami), Colonial Clash (UMass-N.H.), UConn–UMass football rivalry, and Boston College–UMass football rivalry. I'd be surprised if half of these could survive rigorous WP:GNG scrutiny.
  
• As for the Big 10, and putting aside the two you already brought up (MO-IL and IN-KY), the Big 10 rivalry rosters do not seem bloated with one major exception -- Penn State. Penn State's purported roster of rivalries has eight entries. Here are some that I think warrant closer scrutiny:

• Minnesota–Penn State football rivalry: yes, a trophy was created, but they have only played 8 times, and realignment has now placed them into different divisions.
• Alabama–Penn State football rivalry: traditional powers who briefly played an annual non-conference series for a single decade from 1981-1990. Not what I think of as a true rivalry, but it manage to survive an AfD in November 2011 which can be found here.
• Maryland–Penn State football rivalry: this has never been a true rivalry. The teams have played 37 times, and Maryland has one only once.
  

At least one non-Penn State entry probably requires some scrutiny as well: Colorado–Nebraska football rivalry: I don't know about the history, but the article suggests it wasn't a big deal until the 1980s and now they're not even in the same conference, so it was short-lived at best.

Maryland is new to the Big 10 and has 5 rivalry articles, which is on the high side, but I don't yet know enough about the Terrapins to offer an informed judgment on these. User:Strikehold would have been a good person to check with, but he hasn't been active for a couple years.

Michigan has five rivalry articles, but one (Chicago–Michigan football rivalry) is purely historic in nature. The other four (OSU, MSU, Notre Dame and Minnesota are solid.)

• Leaving the Big 10, but staying in the Midwest, Notre Dame might appear to be a bloated list with 10 rivalry entries. However, there's so much lore built up around Notre Dame that I doubt that any of these 10 series could/should be AfD'd. The Northwestern series was AfD'd a year ago (here), and Jweiss, PaulMcDoanald, Ejgreen, TonyTheTiger and I all voted "keep" after reviewing the sources.Cbl62 (talk) 21:26, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for the feedback, Cbl. Several of the non-Big Ten rivalries you listed above are already on my hit list, and I think your Big Ten weak sisters are dead on the money (and, yes, I've been around long enough to be familiar with Big Blue vs. the Maroons). I voted to keep Bama-Penn State in 2011; my level of scrutiny and my !vote would both probably be different now. You're right: the Notre Dame cluster is tough because it's a collection of active rivalries plus notable historic rivalries. I did the SEC first because I know it best, and also to set an example for everyone else; I will probably do another round of SEC (mostly SEC vs. non-SEC), and then look at the Big Ten and MAC. The ACC has a handful of weak sister "rivalries," too. The Big 12 has a bunch, but they have series names and trophies, which means somebody is attached to them, even if they aren't particularly notable per GNG. I expect to raise 20-25 more at WP:CFB, and then take the ones to AfD which a majority of WP:CFB editors give the thumb's down. I think it's a smart process for two reasons: (1) it's educational for all the CFB editors to clearly understand the NRIVARLY/GNG standard, (2) it creates a built-in consensus of 5-10 !votes at AfD, and (3) it allows us to avoid any obvious mistakes with a pre-discussion. I also think it's important that all of the regulars feel like they've had their say and their articles got a fair hearing. Apart from holding all of them to a strict GNG standard, I also think we can apply a certain measure of common sense to some of the relatively recent, short-lived series. Inevitably, there will be some squealing. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• You mentioned the sheer number of LSU rivalry at 7 as being indicative of overreach. Yet, there are almost as many supposed rivalry articles for Florida -- six. Do you think they all qualify as traditional, notable rivalries? When I think of Florida's rivals, I pretty much think of Florida State and Georgia. Sure, the Fulmer-Spurrier games were classics, but does that make it a traditional rivalry? Likewise, everyone gets excited to play Alabama, but can the Crimson Tide really have 8 current rivalries? It would show some real balance to include one or two of Florida's questionable rivalries in the next batch. Cbl62 (talk) 23:03, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

• I hear you, but do remember we've already deleted Alabama-Florida and Florida-South Carolina. What makes Florida's situation problematic is two historical rivalries, both legit: Auburn (SEC cross-division, formerly annual 1927-1940, 1945-2002), Miami (in-state, formerly annual 1938-1942, 1944-1987). The four active rivalries are annual: Florida State (in-state, annual since 1958), Georgia (SEC in-division, annual 1926-1942, 1944-present), Tennessee (SEC in-division, annual since 1990), and LSU (SEC cross-division, annual 1953-1967, 1971-present). From my perspective, the only candidate is LSU -- it has the least character of a traditional rivalry. Tennessee, which you suggested, has been the second most important rivalry, after FSU, over the last 24 years. It is, of course, also the newest/youngest in terms of total games played. The most obvious Bama candidate for AfD is Penn State, as you suggested.

You know Florida football best, though I'm surprised you would rate the Tennesee series ahead of the "World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party," which I've always thought of as one of the biggest rivalry games in college football. I thought the "bigness" of the Tennessee series was limited to the decade from mid-90s to mid-00s when things were actually competitive. Cbl62 (talk) 01:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oh, I think the alumni probably have a greater emotional investment in the Florida-Georgia game, but the Florida-Tennessee game has had conference and national title implications more frequently since 1990. I chose my words carefully: the "most important," not the most popular, not the most bitter. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:51, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

That IP user

Hello, I happened to see your concern about the IP user who has been taking the country flag icons away. The other day, I saw an IP user doing the exact same thing, so I left a message on their IP user talk page, for what that's worth. -- (https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:173.48.43.111) -- I see that the IP user today has a different IP address than the one from a few days ago, but, perhaps it is the same person? Hopefully the situation will be resolved soon, as we put in a lot of effort to make these pages look good, and we don't need the flags taken down. Thanks for expressing concern. Johnsmith2116 (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Rikster2 (talk) 01:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

"Problems with concussions in high school athletes"

Thanks for thinking of me, but this is not really a topic that is of interest to me. Cbl62 (talk) 15:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for letting me know. There will be other days, and other articles . . . . Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

• Indeed. Cbl62 (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Still sort of on a break

I'm not nearly as active as I was before. But I guess I've been creeping back... Zagalejo^^^ 00:52, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• @Zagalejo: "Creeping," but in a good way. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:55, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!

Always nice to see someone willing to step up and really dig into an article to improve it when it's brought to AfD. Much appreciated. Cheers, --j⚛e decker 18:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

• Well, Joe, this was a subject about which I knew a little something. I'm a three-time University of Florida grad, and our Florida Gators women's gymnastics team is one of the two big rival programs of the Alabama gymnastics program (Georgia being the other). I work on a lot of different college sports articles, but of course I know the Southeastern Conference best. When I saw the Dana Duckworth article on the AfD list, and knew the subject was clearly notable, I figured I better do something about it because it was likely no one else would -- never a shortage of editors who want to work on SEC football articles, but try getting some of these guys to work on an article about NCAA gymnastics championships by the same SEC schools! Anyway, now that the Duckworth article is in pretty good shape, I need to spend some time with the article for the Gators' coach, Rhonda Faehn. The Faehn article is still a mess, and her team just won consecutive NCAA championships in 2013 and 2014. Cheers, Joe. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:58, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Latest sports GNG jackassery

This and the set of other D1 head coach articles AfD'ed by this user is another example of how messed up things are in this arena. Rikster2 (talk) 13:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

• No reason to get worked up over this one, Rikster -- it was well in hand about 30 minutes after it came up on my radar screen. The AfD nominator is not some anti-sports crusader; "GauchoDude" is UC Santa Barbara guy (with an interest in UCSB baseball, etc.) who is still learning the ropes. San Francisco State is obviously not the basketball program it once was, but it's still a Division I program located in a major urban area. And even if I had not been vaguely familiar with Phil Mathews' saga, I would have bet $100 that a 9-year head coach at SFSU would have satisfied GNG if not NCOLLATH, sight unseen.

As for the application of NCOLLATH and GNG to Division I football and men's basketball coaches, I think we both recognize that FBS football coaches will satisfy GNG with near 100% certainty, and we can say the same for the top 150+ Division I men's basketball programs, too. Where I am more inclined to go through the AfD analysis is for football and basketball coaches at Division II, III, etc., as well as secondary sports at Division I schools. Ditto for Division II and III football and basketball coaches. There is nothing like 100% certainty of GNG notability for Division I baseball coaches, let alone Division I women's basketball, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, softball, swimming, track and volleyball coaches. I just had to go through the AfD exercise for the new gymnastics coach at Alabama (one of the two or three premier programs in the country -- see here). Personally, I think a lot of BS was thrown back in 2008 by several sports editors who pushed the envelope and claimed that virtually all head football and men's basketball coaches are notable, regardless of the program size and history. Beyond Division I, that is not the case, especially the further back in time we go, and we have a lot of very marginal stubs for football coaches at Division II, III, NAIA and historically small colleges to show for it. Recently, I've seen that same AfD argument applied to athletic directors at smaller Division I programs, which may be true for most of the present holders of those AD jobs in 2014, but it certainly was not true historically (with the obvious exception of head football coaches who also held the AD jobs when that was the typical practice).

Anyway, I see an "educational" value for AfDs like the one for Phil Mathews, and it's one of the reasons that I participate with longer explanations at AfD. We've gone through a generational change of regular sports editors in my 5+ years on Misplaced Pages, and it's important that we educate the younger guys (e.g., GauchoDude) as to the applicable guidelines, policies and precedents. If we take the time with the newbies, we have a reliable base of informed !voters for future discussions. And half the battle in dealing with sportscruft is getting the new guys up to speed on what the standards are for new articles. Frankly, our newbies spend too much time on creating navboxes for marginal awards, lists of obscure stats, and barely "notable" rivalry articles, and not enough effort expanding and improving quality text for our core articles on teams, head coaches, All-American players and championship seasons. We need to figure out how best to bring the newbies into that "program." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:42, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

• • Fair enough. Pretty aggressive PROD activity for a new user, though (wholly inappropriate to PROD D1 head coaches IMO). As for WP:NCOLLATH, I don't disagree that it should be tightened. It should cover D1 football and men's basketball coaches, then indicate that many other college head coaches at other sports and divisions will also meet GNG. But today it states that college head coaches meet the standard. My point was mostly about this being another problem with notability standards in sports - in a "real" (not WP defined) sense, D1 men's basketball and football head coaches are pretty much always notable. A division 3 baseball coach usually won't be. But the standards are what they are. Sometimes laughably permissive and sometimes stupidly restrictive. But if I have to live with the ones that are too restrictive, I feel like others need to be the ones to live with those that are too premissive or undertake a good faith discussion to improve the guideline. Rikster2 (talk) 21:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Florida Gators gymnastics

Hi,

Thank you for this opportunity, it sounds brilliant. Yes, I would love to help with these articles, please tell me what I would be required to add. Theworldgymnast1 (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2014‎ (UTC)

• @Theworldgymnast1: Hey back, TWG1. Suggestions for starters:

1. new article to be created for Valorie Kondos Field, UCLA Bruins women's gymnastics head coach for 25 years, four NCAA national championships;

2. Suzanne Yoculan article to be expanded and improved, 26-year head coach for Georgia Gym Dogs, 10 NCAA national championships;

3. Sarah Patterson article to be expanded and improved, 36-year head coach for Alabama Crimson Tide gymnastics, six NCAA national championships;

4. Rhonda Faehn article to be expanded and improved, 11-year head coach for Florida Gators women's gymnastics, two NCAA national championships;

5. Greg Marsden article to be expanded and improved, 38-year head coach for Utah Red Rocks (Utah Utes gymnastics), one AIAW and nine NCAA national championships;

6. D-D Breaux article to be expanded and improved, 36-year head coach for LSU Lady Tigers gymnastics, perennial NCAA national contender;

7. Possible second new article to be created for Danna Durante, third-year head coach for Georgia Gym Dogs (article to be created only after thorough notability check);

8. All of the existing articles should include a completed "Template:Infobox college coach";

9. All existing articles should include a completed "Template:Persondata";

10. Review of categories included in all existing articles for consistency; and

11. All existing article leads should be rewritten to include (a) present position, (2) links to current team and university articles, and (3) brief summary of coaching career and relevant championships won (by total numbers) -- for a good example, see the Dana Duckworth article.

After that, the hard part starts when we read the university profiles and media guides to settle on outline career narratives, and then start looking for secondary sources in Google News Archive and Newspapers.com for articles to support all factual assertions in the rewritten and expanded text. After upgrading the coaches' articles, we should be in a much better position to upgrade the relevant team articles next.

Does that sound like a working plan? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

• P.S. Don't forget to sign your talk page posts with the four tildes, i.e., ~~~~! The wiki code automatically converts the tildes to your signature after you click the "save page" button. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Sport Notability

DL - here are some of the main issues I see with sports notability. I am not suggesting solutions to them at this point, but I'll put some of those I see out there. If you are truly interested in solving some of these in good faith, I will take part (though I know we won't agree on every point). Feel free to add or respond:

1. standards probably too loose for HS players/coaches, particularly including recruiting coverage (and defining what recruiting coverage actually is)
2. Inconsistency of sport specific notability standards. For instance, I found out today that players who appear in at least one USL Pro soccer game are part of WP:NFOOTY - that is a third-tier league while in WP:NBASKETBALL only half a dozen leagues are included in the standard, excluding leagues in places like Greece and Turkey.
3. Better definition of coaches and ADs in WP:NCOLLATH. Clarity that at least Division I football and men's basketball head coaches are presumed notable, and make decisions on other sports and divisions.
4. Final decisions on what "local coverage" is and if it should be excluded when considering notability of college athletes.

Are there others you see? Are you interested in actually tackling these? Rikster2 (talk) 01:16, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

• I think those are all among the key issues to be addressed, and most of your comments are foursquare on point. I'll give it some thought, and ping you back in a few days. In the mean time, I suggest you ping User:GiantSnowman regarding the obvious disparity between the treatment of association football/soccer and that of other sports, and get his take on it. If you don't know him, he's English (Yorkshireman), a very knowledgeable and rational football/soccer fan, an administrator, and a good guy, and if anyone has widespread influence among the FOOTY guys, it's him. He's also been a valuable ally when we've had to deal with MOS, formatting and other project-wide issues that have impacted the various sports projects globally. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I probably won't reach out to Snowman. Looking at his comments at the archives at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues, it appears that he's pretty locked into the status quo. Rikster2 (talk) 00:06, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Maybe so. I do know that the FOOTY guys delete about 90% of the soccer player articles nominated for AfD; they like their bright-line SNG rule and they enforce it with a vengeance. Virtually no GNG passes for association football players, at least in part because their specific guideline is pretty wide open, but they will occasionally ding a player who passes the SNG, but not GNG. They also fight a lot about what constitutes a "fully professional league," which usually involves deleting an article about an east European or Asian player. I typically avoid their AfD discussions because the work required for me to back up my !vote as an American non-soccer guy takes too much time. I see you got involved in an association football AfD where the subject is an American former college player and current minor league pro. I've been watching that one for my own education, and I agree with several of the issues you raised. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:23, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Take a look at Jalen Brunson. He isn't one of the very top recruits, but he's fairly high profile. Do you think he meets GNG? Should be a good barometer for how high school player notability would go. As I have said, there are some editors who won't want to see a reduction in high school player notability standards. Rikster2 (talk) 13:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Fergie Ferguson

I have serious reservations about the contention at Fergie Ferguson Award that Ferguson was an All-American in 1941. There is considerable evidence to the contrary. First, the NCAA guide does not reference him as an All-American. Second, and more significantly, not even one of the sources cited at 1941 College Football All-America Team lists him as having been a first, second, or even third-team All-American. Third, and this is the clincher for me, the 1942 Seminole states that Ferguson won All-SEC honors in 1941 but makes no claim that he received All-American honors. It states: "Forest Ferguson - 'Big Ferg' ... All Southeastern ... best pass receiver in Florida history, third best in nation in 1941 ... led team in scoring with 36 points, in time played with 420 minutes ... defensive bulwark ... colorful ... unpredictable." (approx. p. 161) If Ferguson had received All-American honors, it is highly unlikely that such honors would not have been mentioned in the write-up in the Seminole. Cbl62 (talk) 19:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Cbl, I've been checking on this for some time, but I have hesitated to call foul because he's listed in the media guide. The media guide says he was a Collier's (Grantland Rice) and NEA first-teamer. I've found newspaper clips for those 1941 All-America first teams, and he wasn't on them. On the other hand, I have found several second-team, third-team and honorable mention All-American honors from 1928, 1929 and 1930 that the media guide does not list (see List of Florida Gators football All-Americans); you helped create new articles for three of them. All of which tells me the media guide is not 100% reliable for the 1920s and probably some later years as well. I think Norm Carlson or someone in the SID probably reconstructed the AA honors list in the late 1950s or early 1960 from old newspaper clippings when Gators started to get AA honors with some frequency. Why? Because I did find clips from Ferguson's 1954 death that said he was a Collier's first-teamer in 1941. Ferguson did make two out of three lists of All-SEC first teams, and was a second-teamer on the third. I also suspect he was a Collier's honorable mention, but I cannot find a copy of the full 1941 magazine article on line (I have found other years, and Collier's usually had a long HM list). I think whoever was doing the after-the-fact list reconstruction conflated the obituaries with the first-team All-SEC honors, and presto, Ferguson became a first-team All-American 15 or 20 years after the fact. You will note that I very scrupulously omitted Ferguson from the List of Gators All-Americans because of my suspicions. I've wanted to put a thoroughly documented package together and send it to the Florida SID guys for review. I would prefer to send them the newspaper clips for the 1928, 1929 and 1930 second-team, third-team and honorable mention honors first, before raising the Ferguson issue -- which I expect will be sensitive. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The claim in the media guide (a non-independent source) that Ferguson was a Collier's and NEA first-teamer is directly belied reliable, independent sources. The Collier's and NEA first-teams are identified at 1941 College Football All-America Team, cited to reliable sources, and Ferguson was not a first-teamer as named by either organization. Even if he were an "honorable mention" on Collier's, that doesn't support referring to him as an All-American, and we don't even have evidence from a reliable, independent source that he even received that notation. Given the present state of the evidence, I really think it's inappropriate to assert in the Fergie Ferguson Award article that: "Ferguson was an All-American in football in 1941." Cbl62 (talk) 20:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I was in the process of replacing the purported AA honors with the documented SEC honors when you edit-conflicted me! If I can substantiate my suspicions regarding the HM mention honors, I will restore the reference as "received honorable mention All-American recognition" with a footnote. In the mean time, I agree with you. When I'm layering in the AA and conference honors into the player bios, I usually omit second-team and lower honors when the player also earned first-team honors in the same year from the infobox. I inherited 250+ Gators football player articles when I started editing Misplaced Pages in mid-2009, and the overwhelming majority of them were complete messes. While many of them still require substantial work (especially on their pro career sections), and several others still need to be AfD'ed, they're in a lot better shape when I started imposing the uniform WP:NFL formatting, rewriting the leads and college sections, and adding appropriate footnotes. It's been a process. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:43, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Understood. There are a lot of Michigan player articles that are also a mess. Only so much that can be done at once. The 1942 Seminole does not list Ferguson in its section on graduating seniors. Do you know how solid the sourcing is for his receiving a bachelor's degree in 1942? Cbl62 (talk) 22:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Another interesting tidbit from the 1942 Seminole. It lists "Jack Youngblood" as the treasurer of the "F" Club that year and includes a photo. Was THE Jack Youngblood a second-generation Gator athlete? The chronology would be about right with the younger Youngblood being born in 1950. Cbl62 (talk) 22:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Pretty solid: the online alumni directory of the University of Florida Alumni Association, as well as the TCPalm.com article I just added. In 1942, he would not have been eligible for OCS without a degree; the Army lightened up later in the war when there was a shortage of second lieutenants, and they started accepting more prior enlisted guys with no degree. FYI, he did not letter for the baseball team; he might literally have been "filling in" for an injured player for a few games, as suggested by the yearbook. The anecdotes about Fergie as a great natural athlete are almost unbelievable -- he was the kinda guy who could pick up a lacrosse stick without ever having played before, and be instantly competitive. Completely consistent with his D-Day actions; you can't find the gruesome detail in any of the contemporary newspaper stories -- but he took a headshot while leading the frontal assault, and then tried to keep leading his platoon. He was in a coma for two months afterward. Mind you, this is the same wound that killed the guy 10 years later. Unbelievable. The guy did more with his life in 25 years than I have in 49. BTW, there was a stand-alone article for Fergie previously (prior to me joining Misplaced Pages in 2009), but it was converted into the award article because the people working on it thought there were insufficient independent reliable sources to demonstrate his notability as an individual. Thank you for pulling the trigger on this.

Regarding Youngblood, I would not rule it out, but it strikes me as odd that I've never seen it referenced before. I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that Hall of Fame Jack was a first-generation college grad. Jack was barely recruited by Florida -- and no one else -- and it was only because of the persistence of the baseball coach, Dave Fuller, that Jack was even offered a scholarship. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• BTW, I found the online Collier's magazine site again: it's linked in the footnotes for the Forest Ferguson and Dale Van Sickel articles. The site is not particularly user-friendly, but it apparently has all of the old Collier's All-America team issues. You may want to use it for the annual College Football All-America Team articles, rather than random newspaper articles that reported Collier's All-America selections second-hand. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:07, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll check it out. Cbl62 (talk) 00:16, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Matthew Smith American Football player

I don't think the author cares since the article says Smith created it himself. If that is true, then it is Hey let's have fun on the net time! Postcard Cathy (talk)

• It certainly has the feel of a Misplaced Pages autobiography, doesn't it? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Article assessments

DL, I've noticed you've been tagging the talk pages for a number of college football articles with Florida-related project templates. In the process you seem to have changed the existing class assessments for WikiProject College football, e.g. Talk:1995 SEC Championship Game. With two sentences of prose, that certainly looks like it should remain a stub. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:43, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. That was an "oops!" moment. Having now reviewed a lot of the SEC CGs, bowl games, etc., I've got to say that many of the CFB importance assessments don't seem to make a lot of sense -- I was already planning on pinging you about it. The quality assessments are usually obvious (two sentences = stub), but if there's a coherent WP:CFB importance assessment grading scheme, it's lost on me. My major mission was to get all Florida Gators-related articles tagged for WP:Gators and WP:UF so they can all be tracked; that's largely been completed, and I'm down to tagging Gators-related photos. There was certainly no intent to upset the WP:CFB grading system. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:57, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I figured it was an oops moment. Just wanted to give you the heads-up. While I'm pretty experienced with quality assessments, I haven't done much in the way of importance assessments. There is a chart that lays out a WP:CFB importance assessment grading scheme here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_College_football/Assessment. I believe that Cmadler took the lead on putting this together a couple years back. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:02, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Multi-article AfDs

Yes, it's a college team. But they put there team in the same league as the others. Kingjeff (talk) 17:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

• @Kingjeff: Thanks for the head's up. It never occurred to me that an American university sponsors a franchise team in a non-NCAA sports league. I have never heard of such a thing before now. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
• Yes, but I think one reason why this league exists is because it helps university and college players keep their amateur status. Kingjeff (talk) 17:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: CFB single-game articles

I am not nearly as versed as you are in WP policies relevant to AfD, and I would like to thank you for undertaking this unforgiving and long-overdue purge of single-game articles. On you question of my opinion on the 2000s articles, for Bama I would say all but 2011 LSU vs. Alabama football game and Kick Bama Kick are simply WP:ROUTINE in nature and I would support AfDs for the others. For the rest of the 2000s articles, I would suggest the following as being likely AfD candidates:

• The individual 2005 Texas games. I am not suggesting this as a reason for a keep, but these were created as a result of a WP:SPLIT associated with a WP:FA review. This raises another potential issue for discussion.
• 2006 Michigan State vs. Northwestern football game
• 2007 Missouri vs. Kansas football game
• 2007 Texas vs. Oklahoma State football game
• 2008 Oregon vs. Oregon State football game
• The 2008 Texas games

I would also throw in 1985 Oregon State vs. Washington football game and Bo Over the Top as it probably means nothing to CFB fans outside of the state of Alabama. Patriarca12 (talk) 00:51, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

• @Patriarca12: Thanks, P12 -- this is exactly what I was looking for. Your thinking on point is very similar to my own. Have you reviewed the Bama games you have recommended above, and compared them to the Iron Bowl memorable game summaries? I don't want to lose any truly memorable highlights that should be memorialized in the relevant season or rivalry articles. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:53, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:FOOTY matches

Um no, not that I know of - finals of major tournaments are normally assumed to be notable, so get a freer pass, but normal matches need to meet WP:GNG i.e. significant coverage. GiantSnowman 07:46, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Jack McDowall

Would you happen to know of any more sources for him? Neat to see the first great NC State player was from Gainesville. I also started Rainey Cawthon. Cake (talk) 18:06, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I've got nothing on McDowall, Cake. Probably went to Gainesville High; I believe that was the only high school in town before they opened Buchholz. The Gators could have used him in the mid-20s; they had some pretty good teams then. BTW, that's an odd spelling of McDowall -- normally spelled with an "e," not an "a".

I saw your Rainey Cawthon article; I'm somewhat concerned about satisfying GNG, and I've been checking for newspaper sources. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:14, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

" that's an odd spelling of McDowall" I noticed that too - sources are mixed in their spelling. I had started an article already with the "E" before realizing the article existed with the A. Cake (talk) 21:48, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Hope I'm not being a bother. Just found this. 1903 was the Cumberland Bulldogs best year at least of which I know. The Bridges brothers were on that team. Then one finds this. Are there any Bridges as assistant coach or something of early Florida football? I know that's not the name of Florida's coach in 1906 as implied. Cake (talk) 01:20, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Not at all, Cake. The modern University of Florida was created by an act of the state legislature, the Buckman Act, in 1905. The Buckman Act mandated the merger of four pre-existing state entities to create a new entity called the "University of the State of Florida"; this is/was the modern university. The pre-1905 history of the university's four predecessor institutions is complicated:

"The four existing institutions that were merged to form the new University of the State of Florida in 1905 were the University of Florida at Lake City (formerly known as Florida Agricultural College until 1903), the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, the St. Petersburg Normal and Industrial School in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the South Florida Military College in Bartow, Florida. After consolidation of the four schools into the new entity, only the new Gainesville campus would remain open after 1905. In 1909, the name of the new university was simplified to its present form, the 'University of Florida.'" (Text cut and pasted from footnote no. 38 of Andrew Sledd.)

It's been a couple of years since I last looked at this element of Florida's pre-history, but I'm pretty sure that Marvin Bridges was one of the two pre-merger coaches of Florida Agricultural College/University of Florida at Lake City; the other coach was James M. Farr, an English lit professor and later the vice president of the new university. To the best of my memory, I believe the other was Bridges, but I'm away from home tonight and do not have my copy of Tom McEwen's 1974 book, which is my best reference to the pre-Gators/pre-UF FAC teams of 1902, 1903 and 1904. Another of the predecessor institutions, the East Florida Seminary in Gainesville, also fielded pre-Gators/pre-UF teams for three or four seasons before 1905, but its sports records are even sketchier.

After the 1905 merger of the four schools, the colors changed, the nicknames changed, the location of the school(s) changed, and there were no carryover players from the pre-1905 teams of the predecessor institutions. The modern university traces its athletic traditions to the 1905 merger, and fielded its first football team in the fall of 1906 under coach Pee Wee Forsythe.

I did check several online references, and Alpha Eta is the University of Florida's chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha, and the chapter was founded in Lake City in 1904 -- prior to the 1905 Buckman Act merger, so that much of the story is consistent. BTW, this "pre-history" is the reason that UGA claims an extra win in the Florida-Georgia rivalry: a team from UGA beat the crap out of a pre-UF team from FAC/UFLC in 1904. Hope this clears up some of the history -- or at least doesn't confuse you further. I'll check my copy of McEwen regarding Marvin Bridges when I get home later today. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 09:06, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Invitation for a discussion: Serbia national basketball team

Hey, I would like to invite you for a discussion here: Final disscussion: Results/medals history. Please, participate.--AirWolf 13:35, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: Tampa Tribune

attempting to characterize The Tampa Tribune as right-wing is just plain nuts (I grew up in Florida, reading the Trib -- it's always been a moderate paper that endorsed more Democrats than Republicans...

The source in question is a right wing paper, and the column itself is written by a man who both refers to himself as a conservative and a climate change denier. As another editor said on the talk page, you must have it confused with something else. As for the so-called "conspiracy", it's really not. Heartland and Discovery, and even the National Review, have been extremely open and explicit about why they think this misquote matters. They all say the same thing: "If Tyson cant be trusted to cite a quote about Bush effectively, then how can he be trusted to communicate climate science and evolution?" Now, it's possible that you've missed this or you got confused in some way, but if you can't acknowledge that this is a classic, fallacious manufactured controversy whose only purpose is to do a runaround on climate science and evolution by attacking the messenger, then I suggest you do some research. Heartland and Discovery have been at this game for a long time now. Viriditas (talk) 00:28, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

No confusion on my part, nor misplaced misapprehensions about either end of the American political spectrum. Regards. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:01, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I see that you failed to do the research as I suggested. If you did, you would discover that "80 percent of op-ed columnists featured by the Tampa Tribune are conservative" with the paper itself describing its own editorials as "more moderate to conservative" than other regional newspapers. . So, it appears you were confused. As for Heartland, their own people publish the Federalist, which pushes a fringe perspective on climate change denial while hosting similar attacks from Discovery Institute creationists on its own site. They have been at this since Tyson rebooted Cosmos and began talking about climate change and criticizing creationism on the television series. There are numerous reliable sources on this. Viriditas (talk) 03:18, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Ignoring, of course, that if Dr. Tyson had not spent six or seven years publicly disparaging a former president of the United States on false grounds there would have been no room for anyone to attack him? Or if he had simply acknowledged his "error" in the first week or so after the story had broke, instead of denying that he had done anything wrong, that it would have had zero traction?

I'm sorry, Viriditas, but your perspective in these matters carries the taint of an angry partisan, and it colors every comment you made on the WP:BLP/N talk page, and even those immediately above here on my user talk page. As a previously uninvolved party in the "quotegate" controversy, I am appalled by the level of political partisanship on open and obvious display, and saddened by the twisted manipulation of our BLP policy to achieve a desired partisan outcome in a run-of-the-mill content dispute. No one on Misplaced Pages knows my personal politics, because I choose not to share them. I pride myself on keeping my politics to myself on-wiki, and believe that it's a damn shame that other editors do not at least try to do the same.

FYI, Media Matters is not exactly what any politically sophisticated American would call an objective, non-partisan evaluator of the political proclivities of newspaper editorial pages. But I suspect you already knew that, right? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:44, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a pattern to your comments up above. Whenever I bring up evidence directly addressing your point, you distract from the point and go ad hominem. For example, you questioned the assertion that the source was conservative, even though the paper itself notes it is more conservative than other papers in the region, and that an independent, data-driven report also notes it is conservative. Faced with this evidence, what did you do? You attacked my motivations and then you attacked the motivations of the report. The report itself simply notes who identifies as conservative and who does not. How could that possibly be politically motivated? Further, your comments are quite telling. You claim I am an "angry" political partisan, which is simply hilarious, as 1) I have nothing to be angry about, and 2) I do not support any political party, nor have I expressed any support of any political party here or anywhere else, and 3) you erroneously argue by implication that climate change and evolution are political topics, which is simply false, they are scientific facts. So, your own comments give your agenda away. It is the Heartland and Discovery Institute who have spent lots of money trying to promote the false notion that climate change and evolution are politically motivated. Viriditas (talk) 04:05, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Viriditas, you are a guest on my talk page, who for some reason feels compelled to discuss right-wing conspiracy theories to which I do not subscribe. You jump to nonsensical conclusions about me -- that I have an "agenda," that I "support the Heartland and Discovery Institute," that I "believe that climate change and evolution are political topics," etc. You know nothing about me, and yet you draw these conclusions in much the same way you found a grand conspiracy against Dr. Tyson for having made some very foolish statements. And, unsurprisingly, you are wrong on all counts. I have four university degrees -- three from American universities, and one from a British university, so you can safely assume that virtually all of your conclusions about the character and sophistication of my political beliefs are completely wrong. And so now I ask you, as a good talk page guest, to drop the stick, give it a rest, and perhaps return on another day for a more open-minded chat. G'night. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:17, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion regarding The Federalist, et al

It might be best to leave them to it. You tried to give an uninvolved viewpoint, and were attacked as a partisan who didn't understand BLP. It's basically par for the course when anyone tries to challenge draconian, wrong-headed applications of BLP policy. I honestly think it's done (mostly) in good faith, as many people think simply declaring a passage (no matter how well-sourced or neutrally-worded) a "BLP violation" means that passage can never appear in that article again. It doesn't matter if they can't explain how a given passage violates BLP policy or not--it's enough that they've declared it "contentious" or whatever. For an even better example of this than the NDGT quote thing, see the HUGE debate that was had over including the well-referenced name of Chelsea Clinton's child. It was beyond surreal. With that said, though, I think you're going to be shouted down about this, as the people who normally provide the clearer heads at BLPN have not chosen to weigh in much on this issue. As such, you might do best to consider just letting the "BUT IT'S A BLP VIOLATION!!!1!!1!" crowd have their way, knowing that the "arguments" (such as they were) were completely without merit. LHM 03:23, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

• Sadly, LHM, these are some of the same editors who believe that it is unnecessary to have in-line footnotes for a list article composed of living persons, and that simply linking to another Misplaced Pages article is an acceptable way of sourcing a list of BLPs. Strange times in which we live. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:50, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

You, sir, have far more patience than I. And I must say I do enjoy to read your well-reasoned comments. Arzel (talk) 15:58, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Arzel. I have intentionally avoided political content discussions on Misplaced Pages for five and a half years, and in the space of the last 30 hours (and participation in a single political content discussion), I have been falsely accused of virtually everything short of beating my mother for raising good-faith questions regarding the misapplication of BLP policy and related guidelines to a run-of-the-mill content dispute. I am appalled if this is standard operating procedure in on-wiki political content discussions. My only response is to answer incivility with civility, policy complaints with policy-compliant solutions, and false accusations with reasoned defenses. And ignore all attempted provocations. Apparently, two or three involved editors do not like this approach. Not much else to say, I suppose. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:12, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I have existed on the periphery of such discussions in my last four years on the project. But I previously edited under different user names, which I detail on one of my user subpages, and I can say it's fairly par for the course. Far too often, people dig in their heels on political articles, and refuse to budge, accusing anyone with even minor disagreements of being vile partisans. LHM 16:18, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Apparently so. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:24, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Half Barnstar
	For your work with Mr swordfish on loosing the Gordian Knot at the discussion on the Federalist. LHM 19:05, 14 October 2014 (UTC)