Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Athletics/Archive 6

Category:Year rankings in athletics

What do people make of these rankings articles? Is there a better way we could support this kind of information? Certainly no other sports topic area appears to keep these kinds of season articles. Lists tend to be of more broader, crucial information (e.g. List of Premier League players with 100 or more goals, or the athletics world record progression series). Perhaps a better approach might be a seasonal overview of the event instead, for example, 2010 in hammer throwing instead of 2010 Hammer Throw Year Ranking? SFB 19:50, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

We do seem to be very statistically oriented, reflecting the nature of the sport. With the requirements of the need to demonstrate notability, much less the dry encyclopedic format, we tend to lose the story. I've struggled with the developing advancements this year in the men's high jump. There is no place to tell the story except individual articles which doesn't really explain the broader significance of a crowd of athletes making a move into the Beamonesque league of Sotomayor in a non-championship year. Is there a better place? And if there is, if I haven't noticed it, I'm guessing the much less active members of the public haven't. And if we bother to make it, how will we attract the public to find it? Trackinfo (talk) 20:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
@Trackinfo: I've always thought the right location for this kind of info would be the "Year X in athletics". I noticed you tried something similar at 1968 in athletics. Ideally each year we would have a section on each broader discipline (e.g. sprinting, long-distance, hurdling, jumps, throwing etc) along the lines of sources like those at 2011_in_athletics_(track_and_field)#Further_reading. I've been meaning to have a go at building a "model" article for this type of thing, but haven't had the time to get around to it.
It's not just our project: you'll notice that all of the year articles (from 2013 in sports to 2013 in association football) are just collections of yearly stats rather than prose summaries on the most prominent aspects of the sport that year. I believe this happens because (a) it's a lot less time-intensive to collect numbers than summarise and abridge complex and sprawling areas of knowledge, and (b) most editors are generalists so simply don't have the knowledge-base to adequately approach the topic in a non-statistical way. You need to get to something like 2013 NFL season (a much more limited and predictable topic) to get to the point where the prose starts to dominate.
Saying that, in athletics we don't even reach that level very often: I made a bit of an effort to document non-stats elements of the 2013 World Championships in Athletics and a greater effort with 2010 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships, but this takes time. I'm very thankful that lots of editors have the desire to document athletics results and stats, but in comparison we are still lacking in the in-depth analysis department. I guess (given the small percentage of Wikipedia editors to readers) athletics is still too minor a field to get this kind of coverage. SFB 13:22, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
1968 played into what I keep finding myself writing things that put a statistic or a result into perspective. Maybe you see that in all the "analysis" things I've written at major championships. The "year in" articles should cover more of that. There are general strategies that are the result of administrative decisions. The absence of a major championship in 2014 makes it a year top athletes might be more interested in setting records, or taking time off, than an Olympic or World Championship year when competition results are more of a priority. Or the invention of the World Relay Championships, jockeying of the Diamond League schedule might affect who runs where vs whom. This also gets into the athlete's strategic minds, a lot harder to source than statistics. Trackinfo (talk) 17:20, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I am not a fan for listing the yearly ranking of every event per WP:NOTSTATSBOOK, particularly since it is typically (and should be) a mirror of what the IAAF has posted (WP:NOTMIRROR?). I might make an exception for an article that lists the top ranked man and women in a particular event for each year (e.g. Marathon year rankings). As noted above, I tend to like "Year X in athletics" in that it leaves more room for encyclopedic discussion of a topic. Location (talk) 17:40, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't think mirroring official sources for stats is a problem in itself, as long as the amount of listing is relevant and not excessive. For example, we list all the stats for world record progressions because any omission would be a detriment to the reader (in a way that omission of who ranked 50-100th in the world in 2002 would not). SFB 08:33, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
FYI - I have moved these ranking pages to "Year in x" names on the basis that the yearly ranking in a sport is not notable in itself, but a sport's events in a certain year is (and we have a strong history of this article type).
As an aside - I have nominated Category:Marathoning for a rename at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_July_12#Category:Marathoning. SFB 10:00, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing the way to the rename discussion. I've voiced my support there. On the subject of mirrors and stats lists: The actual record progression list within Marathon world record progression relies heavily on the IAAF record book and ARRS listing, but it is an article with discussion about the subject that does not simply mirror a list found elsewhere. This is similar to what you are suggesting above in that yearly top lists should be in context of other information about the event for that particular year. I support that idea. Location (talk) 19:32, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

DYK update Suggestion

The DYK on the front page of this project needs to be updated NickGibson3900 (Talk - Cont.) 17:42, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I will add (discovered while searching for the DYK) the entire box under Statistics links to a tool server that appears to be dead. Trackinfo (talk) 20:55, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
I went back and tried to pull up some history. I added a few entries but I left them hidden at the moment. I don't know how much I missed or if there is a more proper way of achieving such a list. There is a relatively new entry in there from another editor that does not appear. I don't know why it doesn't. What is very apparent is someone is feeding Paralympic DYK ideas (obviously with success) quite often, which gives that project a lot of exposure. Maybe we should be that aggressive. As always, by whose energy and how? Trackinfo (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
The DYK sections in Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics and Portal:Athletics have suffered due to lack of participation, and the pages themselves are hit relatively infrequently (they average about 10 and 20 hits per day respectively). I don't think it's really worth the effort into keeping them updated, so it's probably best just to scrap those sections for the time being. Location (talk) 20:07, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Back in the day I added a number of entries to the DYK subpage, but it's fairly hard work and the interest in this page is probably marginal, so in that respect I tend to agree with Location. The recent DYK list is worth something if it's kept current, otherwise it serves little purpose.
The full list of DYK entries within the scope of WP Athletics can be obtained through CatScan here (exactly 300 of them right now). GregorB (talk) 21:41, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
Personally, I have opted to deliberately neglect these areas. At avg. 25 hits per day, the athletics portal fails to register half the total hits of the project's 500th most popular article – effort is better spent on something like Blessing Okagbare.
The reason for such low portal viewing figures is cultural, not maintenance-related. For example, Man versus Horse Marathon got more views last month than Portal:Association football (4692 vs. 4542) – yes, that's the portal for the most popular sport in the world in a period involving the sport's biggest event! Portals are not well-linked in the article base or from the main page. Recentism is discouraged, even though many of our readers use the site that way, so portals have no real purpose currently – most readers don't want to see a "selection" of various good articles, they want the key topics and info on what's happening now. SFB 21:45, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree, this is a very good analysis. Portals sound like a nice idea, but they require a lot of work while attracting very little attention.
The same more or less applies to the "DYK announcements" section: it is of interest more or less only to project members. This may be useful as a some sort of encouragement or incentive for them, but DYK creation rate is already rather high. One day, Article alerts will support DYKs anyway. GregorB (talk) 22:05, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Parallel high jump

While researching Dragutin Topić I stumbled onto this video of the parallel high jump. It looks like a real crowd pleaser but based on google, it apparently is an exclusively Serbian thing. I don't find enough to justify it as a regular event. 2.18m under such circumstances is impressive. So I don't really know what to do with it. Trackinfo (talk) 08:28, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Very interesting! Worth a mention as a novelty variation on high jump if you can get any decent sourcing. SFB 21:45, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
I have 12 years coaching on NCAA Division I level in the United States. I was in the 1980 and 1980 Olympic trials as an athlete. I can assure you the Parallel high jump is not an IAAF event, Olympic event, an NAIA event nor an NCAA any Division Event. It appears that it is a crowd pleaser in Serbia on this particular day in the video, but a form of play and a spur of the moment thing a group of high jumpers just decided to do. If there is some kind of Serbian record in this event, they are making it up. It would be as absurd as saying if tomorrow you held a pancake in your left hand and boiled egg in your right and and then went out and high jumped, you would then have world record for the Pancake in Your left hand, boiled egg in your right hand world record, high jump world record. To claim such a world record would be absurd because its not a sanctioned event by any of the governing bodies of track and field or collegiate sports and is not contest in any of the organizations that sanction the sport of track and field.

talk 02:19, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Athletes at the World Champs

NickGibson3900 has recently started a new category type in the form of Category:Australian athletes at the World Championships in Athletics. This is an expansion similar to what is done for Category:Olympic athletes of Australia‎. What are people's thoughts on this?

I think national categories for the World Championships are a good idea, as are corresponding articles like the one Nick has started at Australia at the World Championships in Athletics. These articles are a solid base to build on for national results at the competition (as opposed to the time-consuming country at edition ones which are often poorly done).

However, I will say that I don't think we should start the related "by year" categories like Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Olympics‎. While an Olympic appearance may be a definitive aspect of an athlete's career, World Championship ones occur to frequently as to diminish them as defining aspects of an athlete (consider Susana Feitor and her 11 appearances). SFB 12:58, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I completely agree with SFB NickGibson3900 (Talk - Cont.) 22:46, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
Although I'm not likely to assist on building the categories, I agree on all points, too. Nice work! Location (talk) 00:28, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
Last year I created United States at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics and articles for several other key countries as well, sticking my toe into the fine tradition we have had. While I was very active keeping the event articles up to date (amongst a lot of activity and inaccuracies), I didn't have the time to keep the countries at articles up to date, and nobody else much cared to do the same. So we are a year out and it still has not been updated. I surmise there is not that much need for the cross accounting country articles. Categories are much easier to maintain, copy/paste, than an article, yet can largely deliver the same information. Save articles for the time that there is some real, prose related purpose--a story to tell. That said, a year attribution would be helpful though the wiki system seems to fight that. Trackinfo (talk) 03:41, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
To use Susana Feitor, a race walker, as good example or proof that making a world championships team would not be a defining moment of ones track and field career because they appear too frequently is incorrect. To a world class track and field athlete, the world championships is every bit as important to making an Olympic team. In fact, until quite recently, the World championships had higher minimum qualifying standards to be able to compete in them than the Olympics did. For example, in 1983, the first year the World Championships were contested, the requirements in the decathlon event, for example was a minimum of 7,900 points. Each country was allowed three entries if you met the standard. If you did not meet the standard and scored only 7,877, you stayed home. Unlike the Olympic Games in 1984, if you were the only decathlete in your country and your country wanted you to be in the Olympics and paid your flight, food and hotel, you could in fact compete in the Olympic games, even if your decathlon score only amounedt to 4,000 points, which is a terrible score. But in the Olympic games you there was NO minimum standard of excellence. Remember Great Britain's Skiing disaster called Eddie the Eagle? How about the Jamaican Bobsled team? These "Olympians" simply entered the Olympics with no record, skills whatsoever. So, for years, the World Championships was in fact a better meet competitively than the Olympic Games, because the standards were higher. That has changed in the last 10-15 years as the Olympic Games caved to pressure that the the IAAF and the World Championships put on them to letting only "the best," in the world in the World Championship meet. You have to ask yourself, have your ever in your life met anyone who could say they were, with now doubt the best in the world at what they do? This iw what Olympians are, and this is what qualifiers of the World Championships team are: the best in the world...no less than an Olympian. Do the Olympics get more media coverage? Yes. But what you dont understand is, a huge percentage the of members of the World Championships team are also, the next year the Olympians. A primary reason a person Susana Feitor can make 11 world championship teams and say, 10,000 meter runners or 100 meter runners dont? Compared to the the legions and thousands across the world that attempt to compete in the distance events or premiere sprinting eventss like the 100 or 200 meters, there might be 200-400 people world-wide who compete in a race walking event. By contrast, in the Boston Marathon or New York Marathon alone, you can have 15,000 participants. With exception of people like Usain Bolt, or Carl Lewis and a few other Savant-like athletes, few athletes repeat an Olympic team birth OR a World Championship team birth. It is very hard to be best in the world whether you are an Olympian or a member a world championship team. Why? Because whether you make a World Championship team, or an Olympic Championship team, the fact is: You are one of the best in that world that Year. The only difference between and Olympic team member and a World Championship team member is: one year you are call a world champion in a meet call the world championships, the next year you are called a world champion in a meet called the Olympic Games. To be the best in the world at anything, tiddly winks even, is a defining moment for anyone. Those who repeat wins at the world championships to the tune of eleven times, is akin to being in an Olympic team sport like: Team Hand ball...a sport, like race walking, that is not contested in high school, college, but for some reason it is at the Olympic Games. Have you ever been to a team hand ball tournament or race walking event in your town? Your state? In your region of the country? The world participation in team hand ball and race walking is a very, very, very, very small population. To use race walking as an example of it being easy to repeat a world championship team birth and conclude it is an easy task, nor that its not career defining moment may call for some additional research. Consider interviews with some world class track and field athletes and discuss the difficulty of making a world championship team. Speaking with people who have made, or failed to make the team, will confirm it is a defining moment in making team. Go to the IAAF website and you will see that 7'6" high jumpers and 27 foot long jumpers and 3:50 second milers don't make world championship teams. Making a world championship team is in fact a career defining event. I missed the World Championship team in 1983, the first year it was contested by 23 points in the decathlon. (had I finished one second sooner in the 1500, I would a made) It would have been my career defining moment, even if I did make an Olympic team. Why? Because it is the World Championships in non-Olympic years that defines and prepares athletes for the world championships we call the Olympic team. Both competitions measure the same thing: Who is the best in the world that year. Can you imagine a person discovering they arGernlarry (talk) 09:13, 24 November 2015 (UTC)e one of the best in the world at something and not finding it a defining moment in their life? It follows then, it certainly would be a defining moment in their running career to make a world championship team. SFB Gernlarry (talk) 08:47, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Tagging for WikiProject Athletics

Per instructions in my bot's page, the community should be notified for mass tagging to reduce errors. Tagging for WikiProject Athletics will start in 3 days in the categories given to me by User:Sillyfolkboy, a lead member of the project. The list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Categories. Please report any disagreements/doubts/concerns on my talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:34, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Task done. It took more than expected due to problems in category tree. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Well done. Thanks for taking care of this! Location (talk) 23:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Non-qualifiers notable

A deletion discussion around the usefulness of Category:Northern Mariana Islander sprinters has raised the matter of whether all athletes that compete at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics are notable. In the current notability criteria we state that anyone who competes is probably notable. However, this does not account for the athletes that do not get the qualifying time to compete properly, but are entered as a small nation's "non-qualifying entrant" per IAAF rules.

For example, Orrin Ogumoro Pharmin (100m PB 12.60) competed at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics on this basis. For comparison, his personal best would have ranked him outside the top 500 British under-15-year-olds in 2013 (he was 25).

Do we consider all World and Olympic competitors as notable? Or should we amend the first point of the notability criteria to from "Has competed in the Olympics or senior IAAF World Championships" to "Has qualified to compete at the Olympics or senior IAAF World Championships"? SFB 20:02, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I've participated in the discussion at WP:NSPORT where they play the semantic game of presumed notability based on the circumstance, therefore complying with WP:GNG. A few disingenuous editors have challenged that premise to try to shoot down the current standard. While I don't think the message has reached the depths of the stone headed, so far, challenge accepted and rebuffed. That as a preface, I would say anybody selected by their national governing body to represent them at the the World Championships or Olympics would qualify under WP:GNG. If we had access to the local press of those small countries, this person is the national representative and is a hero of sorts. A few years back, I recall American Samoa submitted their best athlete, Sogelau Tuvalu which I documented. IAAF, in their infinite wisdom, placed him into the preliminary round of the 2011 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 100 metres along with similar athletes from other small countries. Problem is, Tuvalu is a shot put specialist. He ran a PB of 15.66 in front of the worldwide audience. There's plenty of worldwide press about it. I chose not to spend my time writing his article, but he certainly would qualify under GNG. Finishing ahead of him was Orrin Ogumoro Pharmin from the Northern Mariana Islands who would have gained some global notoriety had not Tuvalu been there. Even without him in the more notable position of finishing dead last (only in his heat), Pharmin has almost 30 google hits just from results links and parallel IAAF reports. Sure it isn't a bio, but I would think that more than satisfies GNG. In his 12.60 seconds of fame he did something notable. Trackinfo (talk) 20:46, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Note that WP:NTRACK says that people who meet any of the listed criteria are presumed notable. The guideline apparently does not say what "presumed notable" exactly means, but I take it that it means more or less the same as in WP:GNG: "significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject should be included". So (and I'm perhaps being a wikilawyer a bit here), my understanding is that WP:NTRACK actually does not guarantee inclusion to e.g. Orrin Ogumoro Pharmin as it stands now, so a change in the criteria may not be really necessary.
One advantage of the current WP:NTRACK criterion #1 is that it is simple and easy to source: it shouldn't be too difficult to find sources that say someone competed at the OG or the WC, but it may be considerably more difficult to find whether he or she actually qualified or not. GregorB (talk) 22:13, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Minor question

Wondering about a potential move request: Belayneh Densamo or Belayneh Dinsamo? Thanks! Location (talk) 05:22, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd probably go with "Dinsamo" given IAAF usage and the fact that google results for that yield quality newspaper reports, whereas the "Densamo" yields mostly mirrors and forums. SFB 17:17, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree. The vast majority of book hits go with "Dinsamo". I'll see if I can find an admin to help with the move. Location (talk) 23:45, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Anna Alminova

Anna Alminova has served a doping ban and had her results from 16 February 2009 annulled. I've tried to update her article, but I had to give up on the list of personal bests, lots of the records listed were from 2009 and 2010 and are no longer valid. I also removed the templates Footer WBYP 1500m Women and Footer European Champions Indoor 1500m Women, where she is listed for results from 2009 and 2010, but I haven't edited the actual templates. Any articles about the events where her results have been annulled also needs updating. --46.15.97.204 (talk) 12:43, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful that whatever we do reflects what the reliable sources (i.e. IAAF, in this instance) has to say. For example, we probably should not strike the Footer WBYP 1500m Women template since the IAAF still credits here with the top 1500m time in 2010.[1] Also, does "DSQ" in her Competition record accurately reflect what the IAAF has noted? In my opinion, I think we should leave things be with a footnote and citation next to an applicable result stating that it is as annulled mark according to the IAAF. Location (talk) 15:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Richard Thompson (athlete)

I'm trying to get Richard Thompson (athlete) to GA. However the previous editors have left the article in a bad state. The "career" section needs a massive revamp and help for one or two others would be good. I have worked a lot on the lead which is starting to take shape. If any one fills like helping me, message me at my talk page. Cheers -- NickGibson3900 - Talk - Sign my Guestbook 07:51, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

@NickGibson3900: It looks like you've made some good progress already. I think a summary of his college achievements would be useful. Normally I just include NCAA and conference championship info – Southeastern Conference (SEC) in this case – and try to summarise the overall achievements (e.g. number of division titles, school/conference records broken, total All-American honours, etc). American college profiles tend to go very in-depth so you really need to sort through the info and work out what is worth mentioning and what isn't! Give me a shout if you want me to check anything. The Walter Dix article may give you a good idea what this kind of good article looks like. SFB 17:24, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

References for 2014 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics – Results

Here is my problem. Can anybody help or has an idea? CroesJ (talk) 09:16, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

1) We don't have an explicit MoS but normally don't we just do medalists on the home page and make details pages for the rest of the competition? That would clean up the page considerably.
2) Call me sloppy. I would just make one link to the results page and that should suffice . . . that is until the LOC loses interest and kills the results pages. We need an archive. I prefer one link to 68 all going to the same master site.
Do we have a simpler program or system for formatting results like this from existing table layouts or PDF documents? I've tried to do it with some macros but invariably it breaks down to a lot of repetitive manual editing. I lose interest before all 40 some odd events from a major meet are done. Other editors follow the same pattern. 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics has a lot of results missing. The sources are there but its a lot of manual labor, people lose interest. Trackinfo (talk) 10:07, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Trackinfo.
1) I created 2014 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics and 2014 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics – Results. That's what you mean?
2) That's why I cited all 66 individual pages. Some archive servers scanning Wikipedia regularly, so there should be at least copies of the original pages. Another aspect: the master site is in Portuguese, and there might be problems to identify "Lançamento do Dardo" as javelin throw. Do you mean we need an own Wikipedia archive? And if, are there any copyright issues? CroesJ (talk) 12:16, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
First of all, CroesJ I have certainly noticed the excellence and consistency of your work. As I watch pages for vandals and the general lack of knowledge associated with Athletics, when I see your signature, I am pretty much assured anything you do is going to be accurate. What I was saying is we do not normally create one behemoth results page. We create a specific event details page. I created 2014 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics – Men's 100 metres from your work as an example. We would link that back to the main page as a small wikilink to "details." Thats been the unwritten MoS, which I try to follow. The slight mods I made were to make the width consistent 80& and reposition the reference. For the heats, I don't think I even found a proper place, just not as the very first thing. Ultimately it makes for a lot of smaller articles, the references are less cumbersome. To your original question, I don't know how to go directly to a link. Microsoft, or their site designer deliberately did something to make these kind of results harder to get to, or there is an error in their code, forcing a non-Portugese reader such as myself to guess. Your solution is awkward, but appropriate until someone else explains a solution to that.
To the point about archiving, from a wikipedia standpoint, you are doing everything correctly. The stance I have always taken on copyright of results are that the event holder has released these results to the public, to the press, specifically for the purposes of distribution. In doing so, they have released their copyright to this information. I've never had anybody question that stance. Even when we had the massive Darius Dhlomo copyvio situation, the stuff he copied from results sites is perfectly valid. What my concern is: if we don't capture this information soon after a major event, all this detail seems lost, or at best moved to another server that is even harder to find. LOCs in general, exist to build up to the event and have no long term plans to keep their operation or specifically these results alive in perpetuity after their domain registration expires. The slippery slope: dead links=unsourced=lets delete the article. No I've never seen it done with results, just that there are wiki idiots out there who might do something this stupid. Moreso in a BLP when an individual's one claim to notability (that we can find online) is an appearance at a major meet. When the meet disappears, so does our sourcing to prove their notability and yes those have gone to AfD. During the BLP deletion phase, thousands of articles were wiped out, though I did my best to rescue athletics articles. I was simply bringing up the issue here.
And my final question to you was, since you obviously copied and reformatted all these results from the sourced server; what program do you use to convert it to wiki format, or did you have to manually reformat all of this? If there is a simplified solution, we should make that public, so more results details can be captured and saved before the sites go down. Trackinfo (talk) 17:18, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
@Trackinfo: There was an intensive discussion (with your contribution) disregarding the use of specific event details pages for events other than "Olympic, World Championships, World Indoor Championships and European Championships". And the results article is in line with 2012 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics – Results, 2010 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics – Results,... So I don't see your point creating 2014 Ibero-American Championships in Athletics – Men's 100 metres.
Whenever we copy and publish the original (let's say PDF) sources on a Wikipedia archive server, then there might be copyright issues. Publishing of reformatted results should of course be no problem.
And of course there is no simplified solution for reformatting. I use a set of perl scripts interacting with Linux bash scripts and WikipediFS (no longer maintained). Of course, the input moduls have to be adjusted to the specific event. Nothing platform independent, no user interface, no documentation... Nothing secret, but just forget about it when you don't have fun in writing scripts. Although a lot of things are automated, the major work is to cross-check the output to ensure the reliability of what is to be published in Wikipedia.
Back to my original problem: Any better solution to get rid of this Microsoft error? CroesJ (talk) 11:56, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
This is a very unusual website design: it looks like certain database information is being cached when you load the results page - so when you haven't loaded that page yet you will not see the results. Your solution of mentioning this at the top of the references section is probably the best we've got. If you ever locate a full results PDF then we can link to that instead. Otherwise, the current solution is the best we have, I'm afraid.
In reference to the result page formats, my opinion hasn't changed and I agree with the current setup of combined results pages for the non-major competitions. The last thing I want to see is a deletion battle and/or laborious clean up process to maintain results of these events on Wikipedia. SFB 17:10, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Rick Wayne

The bodybuilding photo dtd 1967 is not Rick Wayne — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.183.56.140 (talk) 13:08, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

@Materialscientist: Can you address this? The image File:Rick Wayne 1967.jpg is from the 1967 Mr. Holland competition and is clearly a different person from Rick Wayne. Can you remove the image and try to find out who the competitor is? Thanks! SFB 17:28, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Relay champion template links

Hi. A discussion is ongoing at {{Footer Olympic Champions 4x100 m Men}} about what links should be included for the winning relay team. Potentially, this may lead to consensus about how links should be used on other relay champion navigation boxes. Please contribute to the discussion here. SFB 19:19, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Segmentation of Masters athletics

There are quite a number of very small and specific Masters athletics sporting articles. For example, there is an article for every age, sport and gender such as Masters M85 shot put world record progression. These don't appear to be article material. It seems a better approach would be to consolidate these smaller articles into broader articles that can explain their significance. M85, M75, M65, M55, M50, M45, M40, M35, M30, etc are similar in rules and history such that all the tables could be on a single page with significant results transcluded to an overarching article. But as it is, Masters M85 shot put world record progression doesn't appear to have enough context to stand alone. Even olympic sports are not broken down in such detail as separate transcluded articles. For example, the 100 metres article has numerous tables as well as a reference to Men's 100 metres world record progression. The substance of each of those articles is significant with both history and context. Shouldn't the Masters athletics sports record progressions have more meat on the bone, so to speak? --DHeyward (talk) 09:28, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I know User:Trackinfo has put a lot of work into these, but I agree that the material would be better disseminated in an article such as Masters shot put world record progressions. Location (talk) 12:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
@Trackinfo: has been very prolific in this area and I don't want to discourage the effort in any way and will help to consolidate as I am not content expert. I was not aware of Masters athletics and "New Page Patrol" brought me to his articles. Initially, my reaction was that these were A1 speedy candidates as no article contained context related to any encyclopedic value but before I ever do that, I look at editor, other articles etc. The articles recently created involved shot put so I suggested a merge to Shot put but after reviewing all the related Masters athletics sports and articles, I think consolidating them by sport and eliminating the distinction between age and gender is more appropriate. Even a broader article not just on progression (but including it) such as Masters athletics shot put and include a history section as well as all the segments and progressions. I think that's the only way to GA/FA and could be good for the entire category. Masters athletics would then have a section on each sport. I think there is enough info for that organization. Trackinfo, what's your thought on creating broader "by sport" articles that have the history of the sport in Masters athletics sport article and the progression tables? If creating small article tables is your passion, do you mind if I/we organize them into an encyclopedic article (either through transclusion or straight moves)? My first vision of the organization/story is:

Trackinfo, I don't want to hinder your page contributions which I realize are tedious and loaded with data but I'd rather like to help consolidate that data into broader topics that link back through a hierarchy to the main article and tell the reader about the topic without just landing on a disjoint table linked only by a list or category. Please give your input. I don't mind gnoming/transcluding your tables and data into broader subject categories without losing the detail you've created. All sport sub-articles would have a uniform format. My thought is the reader that lands on Master athletics and clicks progressively through topics for history the sports and record holders which makes it a compelling story for the curious. Readers that click "Random Page" should land on encyclopedic article with basic notability justifications, more than a stub or random table with no context. You've done the heavy lifting already, so this is about presentation. Do you mind consolidating as proposed above or have alternative view? Thoughts? --DHeyward (talk) 04:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. I see no value. I'll ask, what can be accomplished by consolidating these "small" list articles into one large article that contains up to 14 similar lists? It means using # sectional links then requiring the user to pick information out of a more complex article instead of the much simpler direct link. What difference does it make? Do we have a standard for the size of our articles? Do we have a standard of the amount of content an article must have? I think not. We have a standard of notability. These lists document claimants to the world record at various points in time, so that certainly is not an issue. Achieving notability with little additional information is how we end up with small articles like David Oaks (athlete). Do we make stuff up to make the article large? No. On wikipedia we report what we can source. As I explained on your talk page, we have an existing pattern as to how these kinds of information are treated, We link the supporting progression articles as small links off of the main records page. There is nothing outlandish in duplicating our existing pattern. That is how users will find these support articles, these are not otherwise common phrases people will hit directly by accident. You yourself found this through the new article creation page as I created the articles. That path already no longer exists. So do I need to create some content to paste onto these articles to satisfy your need for size or substance. While I know a few of these stories, I think the appropriate place to put the stories are the athlete articles which are linked. I've created quite a few new athlete articles specifically in support of these progressions. I'm very cognizant of the linkage tree. Do we need to double that content and repeat it in the list articles in order to satisfy DHeyward's need to have a larger article? Do we need to write a public article describing the historical chaos that is the governing bodies involved? I just don't get what positive effect you hope to achieve. Good articles or Featured articles? Are you kidding? You can go stroke your ego after those kinds of illustrious awards, I'm just trying to present information and to capture the history of this portion of the sport before the original source goes down (the main source announced they are no longer updating the site last year). ~14 or ~28 articles focused with small organization for the specific subject, or consolidated it into one giant, slower to load, confusing article of the same information mixed with other similar information under headers. I doubt you'll save a few bytes in the process. Trackinfo (talk) 07:26, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
At Masters M35 shot put world record progression I gave you an example of the kind of prose that could be added. Obviously there is a lot more to be said there in a well documented story in this age group, than there will be for other age divisions involving athletes who do not yet have articles. The first part about the specification can be duplicated across all articles. Trackinfo (talk) 08:11, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
I think that prose would be an excellent section header intro for Master athletics shot put#M35 world record progression. All the common prose would be in the lead. The specific information in the section. The article would then have encyclopedic article value of a broad topic instead of being list of connected but disjoint pages - i.e. it fixes the WP:NOT problem. The current format is not encyclopedic in nature but rather a database of sorts. No information will be lost by collating and weaving the sports together and making a coherent article on the broader topic. Random stat factoid pages are not encyclopedic in nature. If the sources do go away, a collated article is much easier to keep than random pages and tables. Putting all the Masters athletics shot put progressions in a single article with text, intro and tables is much easier to read than a navigation list to stub of stats. --DHeyward (talk) 00:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Speaking of NOT, DHeyward has not previously invoked WP:NOT and after numerous postings across several talk pages has not specified what is wrong with these pages that are in any way a violation of said policy. As with the previous groping probe to find a place to act as a repository, DHeyward is still searching for a problem to solve with his solution rather than the other way around. What is wrong with an article that focuses on a specific subject? These are a list. What will be added (other than confusion) by adding all these lists together in one article? As for maintaining the articles in the future, what will be maintained are mistakes and updates. Logically, the first place the update will go is the master page of records which these smaller articles are in support of. It is decidedly easier to go directly to the point of update (or error) on a smaller article, than to find it within a huge article or block of text. Part of the problem the world body World Masters Athletics has with their small volunteer committee is that they have to track 14 records across both genders in the 27 events they have assumed the mandate to keep record on (some 700 plus individual records) is it gets complex to track that information in bulk. They have typos and mistakes in their own listings, many of which these wikipedia listings have reported better than the source. How? By having it all posted now in event by event groups, easy to find and fix. While I have made a lot of the initial effort to get this onto wikipedia, I personally have learned more and have made more corrections based on the information from other users that this form of organization has encouraged. That's the positivity wikipedia brings by being a public source. The main article was greatly helped from essentially my original single table form when User:Kasper2006 came in more than two years ago and broke up the article into manageable, edit sized chunks. Certainly I'll maintain that pattern in a mass article, but by having more information in one place, you are obfuscating the capability to edit the information from members of the general public. That goes against the core principle that makes wikipedia work. Trackinfo (talk) 01:47, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Please see User:DHeyward/sandbox for example of consolidation. Please view the source as it's done through transclusion. No double placement of data so maintenance can still happen on the individual pages and will show up on transcluded page. I took two (M35 and M40) just to demonstrate but extending to the rest is easy. I also MOS's the references and lead of the individual articles. Translusion included the inline ref citations so articles can have different sources and stil lshow up properly in the reference list. --DHeyward (talk) 23:12, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

The consolidate page source is this:

__FORCETOC__
'''Master athletics shot put''' is a track and field sport within the domain of [[Masters athletics]].  Like other sports in Masters athletics, competition is restricted by age and gender.

==Masters M35 shot put world record progression==
{{#section:Masters M35 shot put world record progression|M35SHOTPUT}}

==Masters M40 shot put world record progression==
{{#section:Masters M40 shot put world record progression|M40SHOTPUT}}

==References==

{{Reflist}}

--DHeyward (talk) 23:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I see what you are building on your sandbox. If you feel having it all show as one conglomerated article somewhere, to steal a phrase "Have at it, Jack." It doesn't interfere with what I am advocating, which is a direct path to the specific information from the appropriate links. The more the merrier. Trackinfo (talk) 23:42, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
That was a compromise as you wished the separate articles. I think larger articles will have more context and easier to write. I can work around your method so as not to create duplicate work which no one wants. To make it flow more smoothly I have to rearrange some statements in the articles you have made but nothing is removed. --DHeyward (talk) 03:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Seeing the draft, I certainly agree that the single article works much better. It does provide better context, particularly in that the reader can see how certain athletes were record holders in multiple AG categories. That aspect is lost when there are multiple stubs. Location (talk) 03:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
The listing of the shot put masters records make quite a bit of sense as the lists themselves are not very extensive – I would oppose if the lists were longer, but most being ~10 or less entries long means these are very easily navigable when viewed on one page (TrackInfo's main objection). If an event has quite a few more records in each category then I don't think merging makes sense, but certainly that's not the case for shot put. I'm not sure about renaming these to "master's [event]" – that's a bit of a departure from our current approach (e.g. it's women's discus throw world record progression, not women's discus throw). SFB 10:46, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Just so you know, the demonstration is not complete. There are another ten age divisions (M45-M90) that would be expected to fit into that article if brought to completion. That would become a much longer and cumbersome article to both read and load. Trackinfo (talk) 17:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
I think we all realize that it would be longer, but I don't think it would be cumbersome to read or load. It is much more cumbersome to try to navigate from one AG record to another. Location (talk) 17:51, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Noted on the naming. I think "Masters" needs to be in the title so for this sp "Masters athletic men's discus throw world record progression" or if short enough, include both genders. Since these are also transclusions, and the main legwork is being done by trackinfo, I don't want to get in the way. Both articles can exist using the same source data with transclusion. At some point, categories will need to be sorted but that's a different time dicussion. I will fill out the mens page, check length and go live. --DHeyward (talk) 18:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Pluralize. Masters athletics. Also, to fit with Location's suggestion, we could put a link back to the new article, but probably as an EL outside of the transclusion zone. Trackinfo (talk) 21:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

tnx Trackinfo :) --Kasper2006 (talk) 17:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I did not read (or understand) the whole discussion. For a few disciplines I combined all progressions into one, like [[2]], which I think gives better information. It's a lot work to do it for all disciplines... WeiaR (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

IAAF profiles

For a few days at least now, I've been unable to view the tabs "personal bests", "progression" etc. of athletes' profiles on the IAAF website. I know the project has had problems with the site before, but I just wanted to ask here, centrally, to check it isn't a problem at my end (i.e. browser issues). Are other members having problems accessing details? Jared Preston (talk) 21:41, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Just checked, didn't run into any problems. Sideways713 (talk) 12:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
OK. Having checked myself with IE, I now know the results just don't show in Firefox. So it is a browser issue; annoying problem. Jared Preston (talk) 13:52, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
If you can't get to the IAAF site, or get to the wrong place, that is a problem from the wikipedia side--a garbled link. If you get to the right place and IAAF doesn't work properly, that could be your browser or possibly an IAAF coding problem. Trackinfo (talk) 18:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Aliyah Johnson

Hello athletics experts. This article was submitted some time ago; I decided to keep it a while and see what would happen this season. Here are some things I found: [3] [4] [5]

Is it time to let this one go? Or should it be kept and improved? —Anne Delong (talk) 22:11, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Hm... I see that Trackinfo has been improving it, so it won't be deleted at this time. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Trackinfo, let me know if you think it's ready for mainspace. I saw the comment you left on the page. AfC works differently from AfD; because the pages are submitted by active editors asking for a review, the reviewers don't nominate the declined pages for deletion, but instead ask the page creators to make improvements, such as adding sources or removing promotional language. With over 2,000 pages in the queue, the few regular reviewers don't have time to improve them all themselves. Imagine if there were 300 or so AfD's listed every day, and thousands of discussions going on at one time! This works fine as long as the editors keep resubmitting, but some just lose interest, and the pages end up in the "abandoned" category, which I and several other editors look through for possibly useful material, such as this one. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Relevant Rfc at Talk:Sportsperson

The following has been proposed:

SportspersonAthlete – The content of sportspersonathlete; the content at athleteathlete (disambiguation)

-Location (talk) 06:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Apparently they took a consensus of the minority who participated in this discussion to think that (athlete) that we use for common disambiguation should be changed. @BD2412: has wholesale changed a swath of our disambiguated articles to more creative, more specific, longer names. Mike Powell (athlete) has become Mike Powell (long jumper), Kevin Young (athlete) has become Kevin Young (hurdler). As world record holders for the last two decades, I'd think these people would be treated more as celebrities but instead of having a primary position in the naming hierarchy, they are moved a further rung down the ladder. Personally, all these more specific disambiguations are going to be significantly harder for my small brain to be able to remember as I constantly refer to them. I've had enough trouble remembering one oddball we've had for years, the misnamed James Robinson (distance runner). My apologies, James is a far less significant athlete, who comes up less often in prose. On the other side of the pond, Andy Turner (athlete) became Andy Turner (track and field athlete). The remark was this is uncontroversial. It really bothers me. Anybody else? Trackinfo (talk) 19:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Trackinfo, Location A lot actually. An IP requested many to be moved and they all were. See this old dif. NickGibson3900 Talk Sign my Guestbook Contributions 07:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
NickGibson3900 My point exactly. One request from an IP, termed "uncontroversial" on an obscure noticeboard, and with no notice to the affected Wikiprojects, suddenly we find a couple dozen of our articles renamed. Hey, maybe I'm wrong and the other members of this project might like the idea. I think it sucks. It is out of our naming convention, unwritten as that policy is. Geez, do we have to formalize everything, to build more constraining structure here? The point is, in a secret back room, with no discussion from involved parties, a major change was made that will have us chasing strange names every time we mention these people, some of whom are the major figures in our world. That concept stinks. We shouldn't do this stuff in secret. Personally, I'm "watching" over 5,000 articles, including most major notice boards, playing defense trying to catch stupid things. The system should be much more proactive and should seek comment from knowledgeable parties before just acting on the advice of one IP. Trackinfo (talk) 08:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
There doesn't appear to have been any discussion on this subject here, and like Trackinfo, I am uncomfortable about the changes. I'm involved in many para-sport articles and I've already waded into Mateusz Michalski (athlete) being switched to Mateusz Michalski (parathlete). Parathlete isn't even a word. Now I've seen Aled Davies (athlete) being moved to Aled Davies (throwing events). That is a really jarring description of the athlete. Can we put the breaks on this before too many articles are incorrectly moved? FruitMonkey (talk) 13:26, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
"parathlete" is most certainly a word (USA)(India)(Bermuda) , and it isn't restricted to U.S. English, as Commonwealth English also uses it.
As this discussion is about the difference between "sportsperson" and "athlete", this should be occurring at WT:SPORTS
WP:RM itself is a well-attended noticeboard, and centralized discussion area for all move requests. The move requests are in line with the unopposed move at talk:sportsperson. Discussion there indicated that this would be uncontroversial, per discussion at the move request.
The move for sportsperson to athlete had notice was given to WT:SPORTS, so it was given to a well attended noticeboard.
-- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 09:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I commented at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Sports#Athlete. We need more comments from others who understand the question. Trackinfo (talk) 23:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Wheelchair racing

Are there any articles about that here? Plans? --KhalidAliHaji (talk) 15:36, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Little Athletics

Could a few Athletics editors please comment on this GA's peer review. Review page: Wikipedia:Peer review/Little Athletics/archive1. Thanks -- NickGibson3900 Talk 06:43, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

2012 Olympic trials

I am wondering if there should be an article titled 2012 United States Olympic Trials (marathon) or if the results of that should be incorporated into a sub-section of 2012 United States Olympic Trials (track and field) or some other article. Thanks! - Location (talk) 15:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

While it is a separate race on a different date in a different location, I think it all fits together with the T&F trials. its for the same purpose. Trackinfo (talk) 17:12, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Years in athletics name

Hi all. The yearly articles for the sport as shown on {{Years in Athletics}} (e.g. 2014 in athletics (track and field)) are in need of a rename, given that the main article name has changed some time ago. I propose 2014 in athletics (sport) in line with the main article. What do other people think?

On a related note, I've been cleaning up some of the remaining links to "Athletics (track and field)" and replacing these with more specific links to athletics (sport) or track and field as appropriate. Any help would be very welcome! (About 800 links still in mainspace). SFB 13:29, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Jenny Fletcher

Hello, athletics experts. Is this person a notable triathlete? Should the page be kept instead of being deleted as a stale draft? —Anne Delong (talk) 21:09, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:NTRIATHLON and WP:NMODEL are the relevant guidelines; she does not currently pass them. It looks like it could be tagged {{Db-g13}}. - Location (talk) 00:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Location. It's been deleted now. —Anne Delong (talk) 08:41, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

World Champs categories

Hi all - just a note to say I've completed the setup of national categories in Category:World Championships in Athletics athletes. These should be used where an athlete has represented that nation at the World Championships in Athletics (these are similar to how the Olympic categories work, such as Category:Olympic athletes (track and field) of the United States). Feel free to add the category on to suitable new additions, things your editing, or any existing articles. Cheers! SFB 00:27, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

For the Olympics we specify the year. Are we going to do that with World Championship categories? Trackinfo (talk) 06:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
@Trackinfo: I'd like to avoid doing that for two connected reasons. First, a not insignificant number of athletes have competed at many, many editions. It's actually quite common for an athlete's career to feature numerous times if (a) they are of a reasonable standard and (b) they don't come from the handful of countries with a competitive national scene. I dread to think of how overwhelming Venelina Veneva categories would look if these edition categories were created (let alone Susana Feitor!).
Second, the edition itself is actually not that important a factor to the athlete. What's the difference for Jesús Angel García if he competed in Daegu or Moscow? Unlike the less frequent Olympics, where appearances at certain games can be definitive for athletes, the World Championships events themselves don't tend to carry much importance. Consider Bolt Beijing vs. Gay Osaka – many people wouldn't even know what I was on about with the latter reference. I think the per-edition info would be better stored on nation articles like United States at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, or even a potential List of athletes at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics article, rather than as a category link across thousands of pages. The point of categories is to connect related articles by something that is definitive to them. Does anyone need help navigating from David Bustos to Li Ling (shot putter)? I'm pretty sure I'm the first person ever to connect the two.
In comparison, the national level categories have the clear purpose of gathering people who have represented the same national team. In my opinion, these national categories should be navigation enough, alongside with Category:World Championships in Athletics medalists‎. SFB 18:34, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for Comment

There is a Request for Comment about "Chronological Summaries of the Olympics" and you're invited! Becky Sayles (talk) 07:33, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Draft:Leontia Kallenou

Hello, athletics experts! Is Draft:Leontia Kallenou suitable for inclusion in mainspace? --Cerebellum (talk) 16:21, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The references needs to be formatted properly, but I think notability is sufficiently achieved via status as a national champion and record holder as well as an NCAA champion. My crystal ball reveals that she will be an Olympian in 2016. -Location (talk) 22:18, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Awesome, thank you! --Cerebellum (talk) 12:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/DYK

I saw that Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/DYK was a bit out of date. If you are aware of anything that needs to be added there, please do so! - Location (talk) 04:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

WBYP templates/lists and doping

A related topic was (minimally) discussed above in the Anna Alminova section, but it didn't seem we had a clear standard. What happens when the WBYP is by somebody who tests positive so that the WBYP is affected? Should we nuke their result, should we let it stay, or should we report the situation as of the end of that year and not update it later (so if someone's caught immediately they're out, but if someone's caught in re-testing years later we keep them)? Or should we use some kind of system (footnotes, asterisks, etc.) to show both the annulled mark and the best non-annulled mark? Sideways713 (talk) 13:27, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Using the above mentioned example of Anna Alminova, I'd say:
  • In Alminova's case, per comment in the earlier discussion, it appears that in August 2014 her mark was still valid in the IAAF's list, but now it is invalidated, i.e. it appears in the "Rule 32.2 (b)" section.[6] I think we shouldn't nuke the result before IAAF does the same in their top list, but we must nuke it when they do (both regardless of how tardy they might be).
  • After the annulment, but before IAAF actually updates the top list in accordance, I think it is sufficient to use an asterisk with a footnote saying the mark is disputed, or something to that effect. GregorB (talk) 16:59, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree GregorB. For the most part, our lists reflect (or should reflect) what the IAAF sources state.
With that in mind, how are we populating our lists? 1500 metres#Women 5 notes Violeta Szekely as having the women's best 1500 in 2009 while the IAAF notes Maryam Yusuf Jamal has the top outdoor mark for that year[7] and Nuria Fernández has the top indoor mark for that year[8]. Not only does our information appear to be incorrect, we should be specifying outdoor vs. indoor marks if the IAAF does not combine them. -Location (talk) 17:23, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I noticed SFB is the guilty party for removing "outdoor" with this edit. Ha! - Location (talk) 17:34, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
IAAF doesn't even follow their own standard for world records. Men's Pole vault here shows the correct name, but remember that 6.16m ? It might have been a slightly better mark, perhaps a little more significant. It just happened in 2014 in a facility with a roof. Sarcasm aside, we should be consistent with the marks IAAF nukes. Beyond that, personally, I think we should highlight any marks that were made by anybody with a doping history. The IAAF and WADA only go back as far as they can prove someone cheated. In my book, once a cheat, always a cheat. That would be a mark on a lot of Olympic medals, but each cheater puts a taint on those results. Other statisticians do the same thing. Can anyone seriously say that Astapchuk was dirty in 2005, clean in 2007-2011 and dirty again in 2012? And she's going to be eligible again in 2016--no lifetime ban? Trackinfo (talk) 21:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
You're looking at the outdoor record; this link shows Lavillenie's indoor record of 6.16.
I definitely do not think we should highlight the marks of athletes with a doping history if there isn't something similarly noted in the IAAF lists. - Location (talk) 23:49, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Agree with Location, this kind of inductive reasoning is a slippery slope. The IAAF deals with hard facts regarding doping: either a certain result is disqualified, in accordance with the rules, or it isn't, and there is no middle ground. Everyone is entitled to their personal doubts, but how to quantify these? What is more likely, that Astapchuk was clean in 2007-2011, or that the Chinese runners were clean in 1993? If I had to bet, I think I'd actually choose the former proposition. But of course, it's all arbitrary and we shouldn't go there. GregorB (talk) 01:26, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree that highlighting to show athlete doping on IAAF-valid marks is not a good idea. The biographies do a good enough job of indicating this kind of information.
In terms of indoor vs. outdoor marks, I made that change because it reduces complexity by avoiding the need to specify when a top outdoor mark was bettered by an indoor one and avoids cruft by discouraging separate listings of the top indoor marks for the year (I like stats, but even I find that trivial). I think it makes sense to have a list of the best marks of the year and show have an i notation when it is an indoor one, as we currently have on 1500 metres. Is there agreement to manage the lists in this way? In terms of athletics importance, I'm not sure why a person would consider 3:57.00 by Sifan Hassan of more importance than 3:55.17 by Genzebe Dibaba on the basis of a preferred infrastructure type. There is major precedent here as Track and Field News provides absolute (indoor+outdoor) top lists. SFB 13:01, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
Outdoor and indoor track events are literally different, indoor ones being invariably "harder". That's why it would make sense to indicate an indoor mark as the best if it's better than the corresponding outdoor mark. So, before edit conflict, I was about to write that would be slight OR, as I believe the IAAF keeps them separate regardless, but what Track and Field News does makes sense and provides a precedent.
Field events OTOH seem almost completely equivalent (the only difference is that you cannot have following wind in indoor jumping events), and indeed (if I'm not mistaken) the IAAF now treats them that way, so e.g. Lavillenie's mark is now an "absolute" WR. No dispute there I suppose. GregorB (talk) 13:38, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
SFB, I reverted the removal of "outdoor" because I thought it was done inadvertently. I have not verified to see that this list is even correct, so feel free to revert it back while we sort this out. Another possibility is to have dual columns for outdoor and indoor marks like this:

Sorry for the outdent. Not sure how to make headers to say "outdoor" and "indoor"

Year Time Athlete [Indoor] Location Ref Time Athlete [Outdoor] Location Ref
2013 3:27.72   Asbel Kiprop (KEN) Monaco [1] 3:34.78   Galen Rupp (USA) Boston [2]
2014 3:27.64   Silas Kiplagat (KEN) Monaco [3] 3:35.0   Mohamed Moustaoui (MAR) Stockholm [4]
Whatever the case, I cannot say that I am interested in doing this work. It takes a lot of time to harvest the data across many different pages. Does the IAAF not keep a similar list? - Location (talk) 16:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

() @Location: There doesn't seem to be an authoritative source that collates the top list data together across years. Indeed, this is one of the really useful things we can do here. I am also not interested in gathering all the best seasonal indoor marks. Most of them are not really of any lasting importance, or an indication of that athlete's dominance. I'm more interested in getting more (and better sourced) historical data for outdoor best of year marks. I still think there are much more useful and important tasks to be getting on with than indoor marks. SFB 23:59, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

 

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

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Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Article assessment

There are more unassessed than assessed articles within the scope of this WikiProject. Might it be worthwhile to have an assessment blitz? FunkyCanute (talk) 12:24, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@FunkyCanute: That sounds like a good idea. I recently requested bot assistance to add a project banner to every article that fell within Category:Athletics (sport), hence the large number of unrated ones now. I've been periodically adding ratings to things that appear highly on Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Popular pages so we have a rating for the most popular targets within the project scope. Have you done anything like this before? If so, do you have any advice on what's the best way to approach this? SFB 16:53, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
@Sillyfolkboy: I've never looked into it before. Your approach sounds sensible. Once that's done, however, we're left with looking at Unassessed Articles (when it's working). I'm wondering if we can get a bot to copy across any quality assessments from other project banners (eg Olympics) if there's an assessment on a page where there also appears an athletics project banner without one. Ultimately, it seems to me that a quality assessment for one project should count across all projects. Importance would be a separate matter. FunkyCanute (talk) 20:51, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Example: Ellie Greenwood (one I created). FunkyCanute (talk) 21:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Request move - Estádio Nilton Santos (Rio de Janeiro)/Estádio Olímpico João Havelange

Greetings! I have recently listed a requested move discussion at Talk:Estádio Nilton Santos (Rio de Janeiro)#Requested move 11 February 2015, regarding a page relating to this WikiProject. Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, Hack (talk) 01:17, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Template for 60M dash

Hi. There is a template at AfC for the US National Championship winners in men's 60-meter dash. Someone from this project might take a look at it, and if you like it, approve it. Onel5969 (talk) 02:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I looked at it. Made a few little mods to it. Looks good to me. Since its in the formal "Drafts" condition, is there anything prohibiting us from just taking it live? I've never submitted anything to Draft, I "just do it" (no association to Nike, Inc. intended by this remark, offer void where prohibited). Trackinfo (talk) 07:11, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
@Onel5969 and Dnd25: Looks like good work to me. I see absolutely no problem with moving this to mainspace immediately. Dnd25: I think it's clear you've got the hang of the basics and are producing good material so feel free to move your work to mainspace whenever you feel the article has reached a presentable state. If you like to do a succession of edits to build an article, userspace is also a good spot to do this (e.g. User:Dnd25/sandbox) if you don't want the hassle of interruptions when you're still working on the basic structure of an article. Good stuff! SFB 00:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Indoor and outdoor records: terminology

1. For events that can be constested indoors or outdoors, if a performance is described as a world or national record, with no further information, then is it always understood that it may have been achieved either indoors or outdoors?

2. If the indoor record in an event exceeds the outdoor record, then must the outdoor record be termed "outdoor record" or can it just be termed "record"?

3. In a situation such as this what is the best terminology to explain that an indoor record is also an overall record? Is there such a term as "overall national record", for instance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.157.10.148 (talkcontribs)

This is a relatively recent change, so it stands that most world records were set outdoors. However, from the IAAF point of view the "world record" is simply the best mark set, regardless of stadium type, so point 1 is correct. For clarity, if the indoor mark is better, then in a way there isn't officially an "outdoor record" – there are now "indoor world records" and "world records" (which may be set indoors). Still, saying something is an outdoor record in an article would still be fine in my book. For point 3, we're getting into national level territory: it's important not to forget that national bodies control those records so they may choose not to follow the IAAF's lead on terminology (which relates to world records only). In terms of the specific case, we should state that Katarina Johnson-Thompson is a British indoor record holder and nothing more. SFB 20:31, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I am reminded now that there is a paragraph about this at List of world records in athletics#World Records. Unfortunately that paragraph contains confusing and contradictory information, first saying that the rule change has so far only affected the men's and women's pole vault, and then saying that "numerous women's records were set indoors and ratified as world records". Someone (not me) added an "i" legend to the men's pole vault record, which I suppose means "set indoors". I added an explanation in the Key to that effect. The women's pole vault record does not have a similar "i". Should it? Are there others that should have this "i"?
I don't quite understand what you are recommending should be done in the KJT article. Currently it says "High jump – 1.97 m (2015) NR; Long jump – 6.93 m (2015) NR". From what you say, "NR" for high jump is correct. However, should "NR" be "NIR" or something? 86.155.201.148 (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
NR is the standard abbreviation in athletics for a national record of any form (outdoor, indoor, absolute). I was more suggesting how you could go about discussing the record in prose, but it seems fine as is. As for the absolute world records set indoors after 2000 (the date of rule change), it's only Lavillenie's pole vault and nine women's pole vault world records (see the ones prefixed i at Women's pole vault world record progression). Feel free to clarify the main world record article text with this info. SFB 21:24, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
I think "High jump – 1.97 m (2015) NR; Long jump – 6.93 m (2015) NR" is confusing and misleading. Inevitably it appears to put the two records on equal footing, whereas actually they are not. How about just putting "(indoors)" after the second "NR"? On the other point, just to confirm before I delete it, you mean that the sentence "Numerous women's records were set indoors and ratified as world records, as recently as 2004" is just wrong? 86.155.201.148 (talk) 21:47, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
As I implied earlier, these records are on equal footing as they are both just British indoor records. British Athletics does not follow the IAAF world record pattern: it has indoor and outdoor records[9], not absolute ones. Katerina Johnson-Thompson is a British indoor record holder only. It is best to avoid thinking about absolute records outside of an IAAF world record context. In terms of the world record article, I would change that misleading sentence to say something like "nine women's world records have been set indoors, all in the pole vault". SFB 21:05, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I see that someone else has fixed the confusing sentence in the world record article. As far as the other is concerned, I'm afraid I am sticking with my position that "High jump – 1.97 m (2015) NR; Long jump – 6.93 m (2015) NR" is confusing to readers. From what you say, it sounds as if both should be marked "indoors". Ideally there should also be a way of noting that one of the indoor records actually exceeds the outdoor record. Regardless of technical definitions by British Athletics, this information is of significant importance to readers. 109.151.39.1 (talk) 14:15, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
I think we can assume that readers will understand that a record in a section marked "indoor" will be an indoor record. If you're looking to find an abbreviation that expresses the idea that "this indoor mark is a national record in the context of indoor competition and exceeds the national outdoor record, but the national governing body which certifies those records does not follow the same protocol that applies to indoor and outdoor records forming an absolute record in the context of the IAAF rule change to subection 260.18a in 2000", then no doubt you're going to struggle! :) On the other hand, we fortunately have prose sections where the ins and outs of such record minutiae can be discussed freely. SFB 22:38, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
My apologies; somewhere between the start of this thread and my last post I lost sight of the fact that it was in a section marked "Indoor". 109.151.39.1 (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
In my country the IAAF practice is not followed, so I added a word 'outdoor' at Wilbert Pennings WeiaR (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

American athletes categories at CfD

Please see the discussion here. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 07:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Regional disambiguation of the term "Athletics"

I figured I'd post here as a courtesy. I moved the formerly disambiguated Athletics (U.S.) and Athletics (sport) pages to Athletics (American) and Athletics (European) since there's a clear regional specification for the topics as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary (see the first sentence of either article for the reference). It was necessary to change these titles since the previous parenthetical DAB for the North American "Athletics" article was too limited (U.S.) while the article on the British version had an ambiguous scope which didn't differentiate it from the North American version (both definitions cover sports as their scope). Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 06:40, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

So what about athletics in the rest of the world - all those shapes on the map that are not labelled "America" or "Europe" -where 80% of the planet's human population live? This is one of the most chauvanistic and racist moves ever seen on the English Wikipedia - absolutely unacceptable!!! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
"chauvanistic and racist" - this made me rofl.  
Did it occur to you that the parenthetical disambiguation, being based upon definitions in different regions, is referring to a particular language–geographic localization as opposed to just a region (e.g., "American" vs "America" for the DAB term)? "The rest of the world" is basically Australia, South Africa, and a handful of other countries. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 07:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
A handful of other countries meaning a country of 1.2 billion and another two each of over of 180 million (i.e. three of the most populous countries in the world)? Even Ghana has just as many English speakers as Australia. In most of these countries English is the lingua franca and the main method of communication between those of different languages (of which there are many in such nations). I believe Roger's accusations of chauvinism and racism lies in the fact that the current arrangement (and your argument above) discounts this large (non-white) population for whom Athletics (British) is a term they feel they own themselves as much as it does to the British. (Though I'm very certain this wasn't your intention). SFB 22:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
You may want to re-read the page that I linked to twice to get your figures straight. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 00:56, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Oh my heavens. Do we need to go through this again? Please change Athletics (British) back to Athletics (sport). - Location (talk) 01:47, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
@Location: FYI - I've suggested some alternatives at the talk page, given the known limitations of the previous name. SFB 19:41, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Nationality of British athletes

Hi, I'm asking here because I doubt there is much traffic at the article's talk page. At List of European records in athletics, the nationality of some British athletes is shown as "Great Britain", while in other cases it is "United Kingdom", apparently at random. Is there some logic to this that I am missing, or should they all be changed to the same, and if so, which one? And do we just overlook the problem is that neither of these is actually a "nationality"? The nationality would be "British". 109.153.236.250 (talk) 14:42, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I suppose it depends whether we should use the sporting nationality (Great Britain) or the country of the athlete (United Kingdom). I have no strong feelings either way, but agree that it should be consistent. Anyone else have any input? SFB 11:43, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
I suggest doing what the relevant governing body does. Similar to the IAAF, the European Athletics Association abbreviates athletes competing for Great Britain and Northern Ireland as "GBR".[10] Stating "Great Britain" is not fully accurate, but noting "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is cumbersome and these lists likely do not contain any of the athletes from Northern Ireland. (SFB: In my opinion, the "sporting nationality" is "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" aka "United Kingdom" and the "country of the athlete" is either Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or England. You would know better than I, but I believe "sporting nationality" is the same as "country of the athlete" for the Commonwealth Games.) - Location (talk) 13:54, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
It's a classic problem of unknown context and many definitions. Maybe it's a statistician's way of seeing it, but on as the list is governed by European Athletics, I'd be inclined to take Great Britain and Northern Ireland as the sporting nationality in this context. I suppose we could abbreviate to   Great Britain & N.I. using {{flag|Great Britain & N.I.}}? I think that is a much broader discussion than this page though and covers perennial arguments around Great Britain at the Olympics and its seeming exclusion of Northern Ireland. Maybe one day royalty will be disposed of and the question will be thrust upon the populace! SFB 23:51, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
I like the abbreviation you have suggested above, however, I think the casual reader might be confused. It would also be a lot of work given the number of relevant pages. - Location (talk) 00:40, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

How to follow Athletics related AFDs

I was wondering if there is anyway to follow athletics AFDs? I'd like any athletics AFD to get sent to my watch list. MATThematical (talk) 17:51, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

@MATThematical: Nominations and actions of this kind are regularly updated at Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Article alerts. Anything with the project tag that goes through admin/discussion type processes will show up here. This is a real incentive to tag article talk pages with the project banner and I think the added attention is an even more important outcome than the ratings (which appear to be the focus of the banners, superficially).
Perhaps the Article Alerts could be highlighted in a better way? I really think this kind of service is crucial for people to give input on articles they are interested in. I know @Trackinfo: has previously raised concerns around such discussions happening in a hidden-away manner, due to the way discussions are barely advertised. It's funny that we can get a watchlist of thousands of minor article edits, but struggle to give users a feed of such articles being deleted! SFB 18:03, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Recent changes to the graphics for Template: Medal

There is a template talk page discussion regarding the graphics used for medalists in infobox medals tables occurring at Template talk:Medal#‎Changing from gold/silver/bronze to 1/2/3. As this discussion is within the scope of WP:Athletics, you are invited to make your comments on the recent graphics changes there. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:37, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Ancient Olympians

An interesting question has come up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pantacles of Athens about whether Ancient Olympians should automatically be considered notable. Please comment over there if you are interested. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 17:43, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

George Washington Dixon FAR

I have nominated George Washington Dixon for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Athletics (British) listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Athletics (British) to be moved to Sport of athletics. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:29, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Boston Marathon bombings listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Boston Marathon bombings to be moved to Boston Marathon bombing. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 23:19, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!

  • What? Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to document and photograph LGBT culture and history, including pride events
  • When? June 2015
  • How can you help?
    1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here
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    3.) Contribute to an LGBT-related task force at another Wikimedia project (Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage, etc.)

Or, view or update the current list of Tasks. This campaign is supported by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, an officially recognized affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit the group's page at Meta-Wiki for more information, or follow Wikimedia LGBT+ on Facebook. Remember, Wiki Loves Pride is about creating and improving LGBT-related content at Wikimedia projects, and content should have a neutral point of view. One does not need to identify as LGBT or any other gender or sexual minority to participate. This campaign is about adding accurate, reliable information to Wikipedia, plain and simple, and all are welcome!

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the campaign's main talk page.


Thanks, and happy editing!

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Need help with a draft re: notability

I'm willingly ignorant of the sports section of Wikipedia, could someone from here have a look at this draft: Draft:Soh Rui Yong, and help determine whether the person meets notability criteria? — Jeraphine (talk) 10:19, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

He's in a bit of a grey area with respect to NTRACK, because he has competed in the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships. NTRACK includes the criterion "Has competed in the Olympics or senior IAAF World Championships", and I've always taken the latter to mean IAAF World Championships in Athletics exclusively; but the link actually goes to a dab page that includes the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships as well, so it's not clear if he meets that criterion or not.
In any case, the more important question is whether he meets GNG. I don't think it can be safely assumed based just on his results that he meets GNG, but it's quite possible that he does, and a quick Googling shows he's received some coverage at least. Sideways713 (talk) 14:26, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
In my opinion, this one passes. While not explicitly stated by WP:NTRACK, the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships is the equivalent of the various events at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. I also believe that national records holders for whose marks have been noted by reliable sources should receive a pass, but I acknowledge that there is no consensus for this. - Location (talk) 15:06, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
I'd say there is not enough here to warrant notability (certainly from the sourcing). The times are not of an elite standard - over twenty five British club runners bettered his marathon best at just the 2015 London Marathon. He has also not achieved any level of success at a regional level and his 10,000 m national record is several minutes behind the standard of the Southeast Asian region (which is already low by global standards). There was some previous discussion around whether the NTRACK World Championships participation criterion should require having qualified on performance, and not having been selected as part of the IAAF's international outreach program (as Soh was). I don't see how individual coverage of this level of athlete is useful. Presence in the results and records lists is enough in my opinion and sourcing suggests so too. SFB 21:35, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

NOTICE: Persondata has been officially deprecated

Persondata has been deprecated and the template and input data are subject to removal from all bio articles in the near future. For those editors who entered accurate data into the persondata templates of Olympic athletes and other bio subjects, you are advised to manually transfer that data to Wikidata before the impending mass deletion occurs in order to preserve accurate data. Here are three examples of Wikidata for notable swimmers: Ryan Lochte, Mary Wayte and Dara Torres. If you have any more questions about the persondata removal, Wikidata, etc., please ping me. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:54, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

Could anyone help determine if she passes notability guidelines already? Draft:Katie Kelly. Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:25, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I would assume since she has won two world paratriathlon titles, those would both qualify as notable achievements. Trackinfo (talk) 20:43, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
If I'm reading the article correctly, Kelly appears to have won one paratriathlon title (which was the second running of the event). Michellie Jones is the two-time champion for the non-paratriathlon title. -Location (talk) 20:51, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
[edit conflict] I think she is clearly elite within her sport, but she probably does not pass the guidelines as they are currently written. If WP:NTRIATHLON were extended to parathletes, she would pass #2 on the basis of winning the ITU World Paratriathlon. In order to pass WP:NOLYMPICS, she would have to medal at the Paralympic Games but it appears she has not yet qualified. Paratriathlon at the Summer Paralympics debuts in 2016, btw. Equivalent notability criteria for other sports indicate she would need to be ranked in the top 10; she is currently ranked 12th in the world.[11] At the very least, I would support a redirect and mention within Michellie Jones. - Location (talk) 20:51, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

t&fcalc

What kind of algorithm was used to design this metric-to-imperial converter? It is not in agreement with those used by Track & Field News' Big Gold Book. For instance, the Triple jump page converts Jonathan Edwards' world record of 18.29 into 60 feet, 0 inches. However, BGB converts it to 60 feet and 1/4 inch. Similarly, the women's world record of 15.50 is converted to 50-10, but BGB converts it to 50-10 1/4. It also is in disagreement with the conversions on USA Track & Field's conversion calculator at http://www.usatf.org/statistics/calculators/markConversions/ Ernesttubb (talk) 16:01, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

@Ernesttubb: The logic is as the documentation states: "The accuracy of performances in feet and inches is down to the nearest whole quarter-inch." So, 18.29 is no 60 foot plus a quarter inch (it's 5/64 of an inch). This is in line with IAAF/AFTS standard (e.g.) not T&F news standard which tries to compensate for possibilities of the metric measure being down to the nearest centimetre. The template calculator shows the minimum the measure is in imperial units given the idea that the metric mark is the "true" measure. You will get some inconsistencies where the original measure was imperial, then converted down to metric, then converted by our template to imperial again. Unless we get a contemporary report of every single mark from the competition officials, then this is always a possibility. SFB 21:28, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

World's Greatest Athlete

(Also posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics) I notice that some (though not all) of the Olympic decathlon champions have a succession box on their pages for holders of the title "World's Greatest Athlete". Since this is a completely unofficial title, and synonymous with the less ambiguous "Olympic decathlon champion", might I suggest either that these succession boxes be renamed, or that they be removed altogether, since they are merely duplicating information also provided by Template:Footer Olympic Champions Decathlon? --Walnuts go kapow (talk) 17:35, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

@Walnuts go kapow: That seems like a good move. This is quite an inappropriate and convoluted way of referring to Olympic decathlon champions which a great deal of readers will not understand. The Olympic footer navbox is much clearer and conveys the same (and more) information. SFB 19:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).--Lucas559 (talk) 16:09, 2 July 2015 (UTC)