Talk:Roller derby/Archive 2

Rules

It should be noted that most of the rules are loosely enforced. Ive seen many roller derbies, and many allow the competitors to smack and elbow each other. Rolley Derby is by and large a very vicious and bloody sport. - Mdriver1981 (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Cite, or it didn't happen. kencf0618 (talk) 20:34, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

What is roller derby?

After reading this article, I still don't know WTF roller derby is. Do people just skate around in a circle? Where is the contact? How do you win? This article only makes sense if you already know what roller derby is.

Read the rules section, the short of it starts with: A jam is a 2-minute... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brentlavelle (talk • contribs) 00:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed--the introduction needs to be improved with some kind of statement about the goal of the game. For example, the first sentence of the article on Football reads: "Football is the word given to a number of similar team sports, all of which involve (to varying degrees) kicking a ball with the foot in an attempt to score a goal." AdRock (talk) 12:07, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I attempted to address the issue by adding to the lead sentence so that it includes an explanation that points are scored. I chose the words carefully to avoid introducing unfamiliar terminology and to account for historical forms of the sport, since the number of teams and number of players per team hasn't always been what it is now. —mjb (talk) 06:36, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I think this still needs improvement. You shouldn't have to wait to reach the rules section way down the page just to find out what the game is. I'm incredibly confused by this article and still have no idea what roller derby is. Mymindsmine (talk) 16:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what to tell ya. The lead has to be concise, and I just looked at a couple of other sports articles (basketball, hockey, ice hockey), and this article is very much the same as those, as far as how long you have to 'wait' to get to the rules. —mjb (talk) 19:27, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

"Blood on the Flat Track" is now available on DVD

Wasn't sure how to deal with that in the current context it is mentioned in.

Also, there's no mention of the Roller Warriors TV show or DVD boxed set? I wasn't sure where that'd belong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TimBRoy (talk • contribs) 07:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I squeezed the info in. I didn't add references, though. mjb (talk) 18:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

External links

I've added CWRDA's site in as WFTDA's and OSDA's are there. When I can find a UKRDA site, I'll add that as well. There doesn't seem to be a central web site for the Renegade Rollergirls.

Question, should national organizing bodies that sanction roller derby be added, if they at least have a blurb on their site about their involvement in roller derby?

Mostly I'm thinking of FIRS affiliate organizations like USARS, RSC, Skate Australia, etc. I'd include FIRS itself, but it doesn't seem to recognize or even know about roller derby yet.

For the majority of leagues that aren't part of one of the existing umbrella orgs, those are the organizations they go to for sanctioning, along with insurance (unfortunately many skaters think of this FIRS affiliates as insurance companies, which they aren't). —Preceding unsigned comment added by TimBRoy (talk • contribs) 09:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, this is a good question. External links in this article really should be about roller derby itself, either further explaining the topic or otherwise steering the reader/researcher toward info on detailed aspects that are too esoteric to cover here. Links to the various roller derby (or general rollersport or even general roller skating) organizations do probably fall into that category and are applicable to the paragraph that talks about them.

However, external links should not be added for anything which has its own article in Wikipedia. We should only link to those articles from our prose. So maybe they need to be talked about differently in the article. Maybe it's time for a "List of rollersport organizations" list article, akin to List of roller derby leagues? Then we could just refer people to that. —mjb (talk) 04:13, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd imagine that the existing FIRS page ought to cover this? Though like I've said, FIRS appears to be unaware of roller derby at the moment. TimBRoy (talk) 05:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Lead too short

User:Thumperward tagged the intro of the article with Template:Lead too short. Is there something particularly noteworthy in the article that is missing from the lead? It currently includes all of the following highlights of the article:

• It's a contact sport
• It was invented in the USA but is now played internationally
• It used to be a form of 'sports entertainment'
• A terse description of the game's essential play, very carefully worded to account for all variations, past & present
• Its current revival (in contrast to past incarnations) is dominated by self-organized amateur women
• Its current revival thus far emphasizes athleticism and expressions of punk & 3rd-wave feminism

We deliberately omit historical details, including the watershed events of the 1930s and past incarnations, because there was consensus to keep the main article focused on what roller derby currently is, and to use the History of roller derby spinout article, and its summary in the main article, for everything else. There's not much else that needs to be in there, is there? Trademarks, literary, and documentary film & TV references don't seem notable enough to include in the lead. —mjb (talk) 18:54, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, the thing is, the lede isn't supposed to be an exercise in brevity. Devoting half a sentence to each page of the article is simply too terse. For a 40k article the lede should be three paragraphs long. "Contemporary roller derby", a topic which takes up two pages of the article, is given one sentence in the lede, mostly about the cultural aspects which are only given a short treatment in the body. As it is, the reader doesn't really get enough insight into the subject through reading the lede, whereas it should be expected that for a good, comprehensive article like this that the lede can almost serve as a mini-article in itself. I do try to work on these things myself, but tagging them reminds me. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

What insights does the reader need that are currently missing from the lead? It sounds like you're not sure anything was missing, but you think something must be, because the word counts aren't in proportion between the lead and the body. This sounds like a matter not of content, but rather of preference of style – a style dictating that long articles must have long intros. WP:LEAD#Length may support this, but it's also just a suggestion, deliberately vague and more intended to impose a maximum rather than minimum length requirement. It's not there to make intros longer than necessary, just for the sake of keeping word/character counts in proportion.

Matching proportions are a great rule of thumb, but is it safe to assume the body of an article necessarily gives an appropriate amount of emphasis to each subtopic? A long section may only contain a couple of highlights amid tons of relatively unimportant detail, and how much text it contains can depend on the amount of citable sources and whether it happens to be an editor's pet topic; likewise, a short section can be rich in important points, about which not much more needs to be said, or it may just be awaiting further expansion. The lead needn't mirror such imbalances. If anything, it's a great place to rectify them. Also consider that the article was once much longer – several sections were spun off into their own articles, in part, as I said, to keep the focus on what roller derby currently is; "contemporary roller derby" is relatively short compared to all that content.

Nevertheless, I'm happy someone who can write well is interested in improving the article. I'm interested to see what you come up with. —mjb (talk) 00:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

As I say, I'm going to try and work on this myself. I do believe that the lede presently elides a little too much material, but by the time I'd gone over it comprehensively in here I could have just written a new lede. Anyway, I'll see what I can do. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:38, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Ndykman recently expanded and edited the lead, and I've been making some adjustments to it, mostly minor. This should take care of the concerns in the preceding discussion topic. —mjb (talk) 06:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Simultaneous offense and defense

I removed the mention of simultaneous offense & defense being "unique" to roller derby. The world's most-played team sport, soccer, can be said to have simultaneous offense & defense, as can net sports (volleyball, tennis) and combat sports (paintball, martial arts), regardless of whether they involve teams. Team road races (cycling) have simultaneous offensive and defensive aspects as well.

It's not even at all intuitive what "simultaneous offense & defense" means. The claim will need to be written with more clarity if it's restored. I think the intent is to say that derby differs from traditional team sports in that normally, each roller derby team has at least one player (two in old-school formats!) attempting to score points at any given time, rather than only one team at a time having such a player (depending on contact with a ball, for example).

But then I have to ask, why is that even noteworthy? Is it more complicated to have that situation? Is it more impressive somehow? I don't get it. Why point it out? —mjb (talk) 06:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Point taken. It's a matter of definition, I suppose. —kencf0618 (talk) 03:35, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Upon further reflection and asking around, the salient difference is that there's no trade-off, no toggling between offense and defense in roller derby. Inasmuch as both jammers are in play, offense and defense occur simultaneously. Whether this is unique in sport I can't say, but I've cited the bare fact of the matter since it accounts for the fast-paced, information-overload nature of the game. YMMV, in which case I'd be happy to take it to Wikipedia's Third Opinion if need be. kencf0618 (talk) 18:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I've included two citations now. kencf0618 (talk) 00:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with mjb--saying "offense and defense occur simultaneously" is too ambiguous--changing the language to "both teams play offense and defense simultaneously" would be a (slight) improvement. But even so, why bother mentioning it? If you don't know the rules of roller derby, the statement is confusing. If you already know the rules, the statement doesn't give any added insight into the game. --RSLxii 14:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Simultaneous offense and defense is a hallmark of roller derby, and as such deserves prominent mention in the article. If one doesn't know the rules or salient features of roller derby, an encyclopedia article would be a good place to start, after all! kencf0618 (talk) 01:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Contentious edits reverted

Regarding the edits by Garagehero and 24.24.171.84, both of whom, if they're not actually the same person, apparently have an axe to grind...

Changing devolved to evolved was a good edit, so I kept it. Devolve implies regression and really doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. It was only being used here inappropriately to cast judgement.

All the other edits were reverted because they were inappropriate for the article.

1. The history section in this article is only a summary of the history of roller derby article. All changes to this section must reflect content in that separate article. Furthermore, all but the most benign of statements must be properly attributed to reliable sources.
2. Capitalization of Roller Derby: do this only if you are referring specifically to the Leo or Jerry Seltzer-run organizations. If referring to the sport and/or sports-entertainment spectacle in all its incarnations, from early match races to the current DIY revival, then it's just roller derby. The "Roller Derby" trademark was canceled, as mentioned in the article; sentimental attachments to it have no place here.
3. References to "modern aspects" and "many of the basic concepts" of the sport and sports entertainment formula are too vague. What are these aspects and concepts, and from what reliable source you getting this information? And as mentioned, this info must first go into the history article before it is summarized here.
4. Changing the text to say that the current form of derby is known today as a form of sports entertainment would've been OK if this were 10 years ago, but nowadays that's an extremely dubious claim that directly contradicts what is written about derby daily in newspaper after newspaper. Do a Google News search for "roller derby" right now and read about how it's far more sport than entertainment, and how every single DIY/amateur league is deliberately distancing itsself from what was going on in past decades and from what the "pro" leagues do. That there are some vestiges of showmanship left in the sport can be discussed, but needs to be attributed to reliable sources like newspapers or books about derby.
5. Appending "arguably, the most famous and succesful [sic] roller derby team in history" to a mention of the Los Angeles Thunderbirds is a violation of several Wikipedia policies: WP:PEACOCK (blatant puffery), WP:WEASEL ('arguably' attempts to disguise an opinion as fact), and WP:V (the claim can't be verified).
6. The addition of the following text to the paragraph about post-Seltzer-run incarnations of derby had several unfixable problems as well: "though none of these nor the newer itiderations [sic] of the sport have matched the popularity or financial success of the 70s versions. Indeed, a 1972 interleague match between Roller Game's Los Angeles Thunderbirds and Roller Derby's Chicago/Midwest Pioneers set a roller derby attendance record of 50,118 at Comiskey Park in Chicago, a record which has yet to be matched." — Several attendance records are mentioned in the history article already, but they aren't noteworthy enough or crucial enough of info to mention them in the main article. The argument that it was more financially successful back then is not supported at all; sure, 50,000 people went in the gate, but how many tickets were actually sold, and how much did it cost to put on, and how can such an atypical event at an atypical venue be considered an indicator of how much money either organization was regularly getting net, not gross? More importantly, attendance records are only one measure of how popular roller derby once was. Who's to say what's more popular: the incarnation of the sport that only had several dozen participants in 2 leagues and that on rare occasions drew crowds in the low tens of thousands, or the incarnation that has something like 10,000 participants in nearly 800 leagues worldwide and regularly draws crowds in the low thousands? Go read Jerry Seltzer's blog for his fairly regular ravings in support of the latter measure. So I can't accept, on the basis of the Comiskey Park match alone, that derby was necessarily "more popular" or "more financially successful" in 1972. —mjb (talk) 05:48, 6 March 2011 (UTC)