Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian rules football

Season article sequence

I propose to retain the article sequence for AFL season pages (e.g. 2023 AFL season) which has been in place previously. My opinion is that the three sections which 4TheWynne (talk · contribs) has elevated towards the top of the article are lower-importance sections which are list-like or statistical in nature, and less important in telling the story of the 2023 season; the article would be better structured stashed these parts away towards the end of the article. 4TheWynne's proposed sequence can be seen here. The sections in question are:

• Coach appointments
• Club leadership. (For this item, it has always struck me as a superfluous section, better suited to club season pages than the full league season page due to the information being overwhelmingly of interest to club fans rather than league fans. It does not have the importance to be placed so high in the article.)
• Win-loss table. For this item in particular, I find this table greatly inferior to the round-by-round statement of results, as a sprawling table of partial information (margins but not scores), and would prefer it demoted to second in article sequence.

Aspirex (talk) 04:42, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

I strongly believe that sequencing the events of the season chronologically is a far more logical way of sequencing the article, rather than just listing in order of importance (especially given our perspectives on which sections are "more important" could greatly differ). Listing coach appointments (which happen the previous year) and club leadership (decided before the season) before the season results just seems like a no-brainer for me, and then we would have sections like coach departures after finals given most happen during or after finals. I had moved the win/loss table up as well to act as a sort of summary for the season, having already reformatted the table to also list the results chronologically along with other little tweaks, but happy to discuss that element; I just don't think having it in the middle of the home-and-away season and finals sections works when the table incorporates both. I was hoping to make this widespread, which would be easier the further back we go given the shorter articles.

To clarify, here is my proposed sequence, as per AFL Women's season seven, currently a good article:

Proposed season article sequence (amended)

Lead Background (majority of the article's prose, covering the length of the season) Coach appointments Club leadership Pre-season (a link to the relevant series if it has a separate article or, in this year's case, a table of the official practice match results) Win/loss table Home-and-away season Results (incorporating both archived reports – not just the match centre – and statistics) Ladder Progression by round Home matches and membership (just covers the home-and-away season) Finals series Results (as above; additionally, splitting each game with their respective titles but placing notes at the end of each round as normal) Win/loss table Season notes (after finals given they cover the whole season, including finals) Milestones (not likely to appear in AFLW given the lack of sourcing) Coach departures Awards Major awards Leading goalkickers (covering finals as well, as the databases that we're sourcing also cover finals and don't stop at the end of the home-and-away season) Club best and fairest

Keen to get some thoughts, but yeah, my take is just because we're used to doing things a certain way, doesn't always mean we've been doing them right; "stashing parts away" and listing them out of order chronologically just doesn't seem logical to me. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 05:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Nobody? In that case, I've come up with a compromise: I'm happy to move the win/loss table down to after finals, as it's supposed to serve as a summary and doesn't necessarily have to be towards the top of the article, but as coach appointments and club leadership are decided before the season and I still think it makes far more sense to sequence events chronologically than to just relegate certain sections to the bottom of the article because one person deems them less important, they should be placed towards the top of the article. As for whether club leadership should be included at all, I think that because the season articles generate a lot more traffic than club season articles (which don't even exist for every club and/or every year) and there are plenty of readers who take a general interest in the competition as a whole rather than just the club that they barrack for, the table is very much still useful. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 13:05, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

IMO we should include the club leadership and coaching changes at the beginning, as they are pre-season (for the most part). The win/loss table (and for that matter also the ladder progression table) are in my eyes stats overkill and aren't needed at all. If included they should be at the end of the regular season section as they are a summary of the regular season. --SuperJew (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Things like the position by round graph that's been added in recent years, that's overkill (hence why I didn't include it when building the 2023 article) – not to mention it's a lot harder to read – but I think the win/loss and ladder progression tables are still incredibly useful, as both summarise the season in ways that you just can't get from having just the results and ladder (for example, the win/loss table can show you a team's win streak, and the ladder progression table can show you how that was reflected in their ladder position during the season). If by regular season you mean home-and-away, the win/loss table doesn't just summarise the home-and-away season, as it covers finals as well (at least, I think it does a better job of it with the tweaks I made to the layout), so having it after finals or before the season like I initially had it makes far more sense than going in the middle. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 01:06, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

sorry didn't realise it includes also finals. So same thing but at the end of all the season fro the table, though I still think it's unneccesary --SuperJew (talk) 09:38, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I would though put the ladder before the details of the individual rounds, as readers want to see the ladder more often. --SuperJew (talk) 12:18, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

If by that, you mean you want to move the ladder to above the results, I strongly disagree with that change. How would you know which specific sections readers want to see more often? 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 13:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Say you come to the article each round to see the results of that round (=how did your club do) and to see the ladder (=where your club is standing), then over the season you'll come one time to each round and 23 times to the ladder. Why do you strongly disagree? --SuperJew (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

It would be worth remembering that we write articles to be an encyclopedia, not a news service. Articles should be built in consideration of how readers will comprehend them five years from now. Aspirex (talk) 19:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

To which point are you replying Aspirex? I'm fairly certain also that when people go looking at old season pages and not current ones, the first thing most want to look at is the ladder as an overall of the regular season before (if at all) delving into specific rounds. --SuperJew (talk) 19:26, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm saying that articles should be written for the person who reads about an old season, not the person who visits 23 times a year. I still am very much of the view that the statistical cruft should be as close to the bottom as possible. Aspirex (talk) 22:07, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move on Sirengate

Seeking opinions on a requested page move AFL siren controversy to Sirengate. Aspirex (talk) 21:55, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Season ladders

Hey guys – hope everyone's doing well. As some of you guys might have seen, I've made a few tweaks to certain sections at the 2023 AFL season article with the view of making these the norm moving forward; another such change I made yesterday was the formatting of the ladder section. I understand the argument that the ladder is transcluded at the club season articles, but there's an easy workaround for that; to start with, though, compare the two versions, current to round 4:

Current version

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	D	PF	PA	PP	Pts	Qualification
1	St Kilda	4	4	0	0	364	227	160.4	16	Finals series
2	Carlton	4	3	0	1	329	288	114.2	14
3	Melbourne	4	3	1	0	457	305	149.8	12
4	Essendon	4	3	1	0	394	312	126.3	12
5	Collingwood	4	3	1	0	406	332	122.3	12
6	Sydney	4	2	2	0	376	298	126.2	8
7	Adelaide	4	2	2	0	394	372	105.9	8
8	Brisbane Lions	4	2	2	0	334	358	93.3	8
9	North Melbourne	4	2	2	0	305	341	89.4	8
10	Port Adelaide	4	2	2	0	342	388	88.1	8
11	Western Bulldogs	4	2	2	0	262	344	76.2	8
12	Richmond	4	1	2	1	299	286	104.5	6
13	Geelong	4	1	3	0	366	333	109.9	4
14	Fremantle	4	1	3	0	304	318	95.6	4
15	Greater Western Sydney	4	1	3	0	326	352	92.6	4
16	West Coast	4	1	3	0	312	402	77.6	4
17	Gold Coast	4	1	3	0	274	385	71.2	4
18	Hawthorn	4	1	3	0	227	430	52.8	4

Updated to match(es) played on 10 April 2023. Source: afl.com.au
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for

Amended versions

Amended version 1 Updated to the end of round 4, 2023. Qualified for finals Top eight # Team P W L D PF PA % Pts 1 St Kilda 4 4 0 0 364 227 160.4 16 2 Carlton 4 3 0 1 329 288 114.2 14 3 Melbourne 4 3 1 0 457 305 149.8 12 4 Essendon 4 3 1 0 394 312 126.3 12 5 Collingwood 4 3 1 0 406 332 122.3 12 6 Sydney 4 2 2 0 376 298 126.2 8 7 Adelaide 4 2 2 0 394 372 105.9 8 8 Brisbane Lions 4 2 2 0 334 358 93.3 8 9 North Melbourne 4 2 2 0 305 341 89.4 8 10 Port Adelaide 4 2 2 0 342 388 88.1 8 11 Western Bulldogs 4 2 2 0 262 344 76.2 8 12 Richmond 4 1 2 1 299 286 104.5 6 13 Geelong 4 1 3 0 366 333 109.9 4 14 Fremantle 4 1 3 0 304 318 95.6 4 15 Greater Western Sydney 4 1 3 0 326 352 92.6 4 16 West Coast 4 1 3 0 312 402 77.6 4 17 Gold Coast 4 1 3 0 274 385 71.2 4 18 Hawthorn 4 1 3 0 227 430 52.8 4 Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for Source: afl.com.au Amended version 2 Updated to the end of round 4, 2023. (Q) Qualified for finals Top eight # Team P W L D PF PA % Pts 1 St Kilda (Q) 4 4 0 0 364 227 160.4 16 2 Carlton (Q) 4 3 0 1 329 288 114.2 14 3 Melbourne (Q) 4 3 1 0 457 305 149.8 12 4 Essendon 4 3 1 0 394 312 126.3 12 5 Collingwood 4 3 1 0 406 332 122.3 12 6 Sydney 4 2 2 0 376 298 126.2 8 7 Adelaide 4 2 2 0 394 372 105.9 8 8 Brisbane Lions 4 2 2 0 334 358 93.3 8 9 North Melbourne 4 2 2 0 305 341 89.4 8 10 Port Adelaide 4 2 2 0 342 388 88.1 8 11 Western Bulldogs 4 2 2 0 262 344 76.2 8 12 Richmond 4 1 2 1 299 286 104.5 6 13 Geelong 4 1 3 0 366 333 109.9 4 14 Fremantle 4 1 3 0 304 318 95.6 4 15 Greater Western Sydney 4 1 3 0 326 352 92.6 4 16 West Coast 4 1 3 0 312 402 77.6 4 17 Gold Coast 4 1 3 0 274 385 71.2 4 18 Hawthorn 4 1 3 0 227 430 52.8 4 Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for Source: afl.com.au

I explained my reasoning here, but to expand, I wanted to:

• make some of the columns (position, points for, points against and percentage) sortable, which doesn't seem to be possible at the module;
• remove the green for finals qualification until teams actually qualify; the key would be hidden initially and then become visible once teams qualify, and also renders the "qualification" column unnecessary;
• change from "point percentage" and "points" to "percentage/%" and "premiership points", as the latter terminology is more widely also used in the sport and distinguishes from "points for/against";
• slightly reduce the article size (the amended version is nearly 1,000 bytes smaller), as the article is over 80,000 bytes in size already; and
• use the more widely used "Updated to..." instead of "Updated to match(es) played on...", so that we can be more specific.

When it comes to club season articles – there are only seven at the moment, and I'm not sure of any other articles which transclude the ladder in its current form – all you would need to do is copy a small portion of the ladder across (e.g. two positions either side), put that as the ladder section, and simply update at the end of the round. For example, at Collingwood's 2023 season article, you could have:

#	Team	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	%	Pts
3	Melbourne	4	3	1	0	457	305	149.8	12
4	Essendon	4	3	1	0	394	312	126.3	12
5	Collingwood	4	3	1	0	406	332	122.3	12
6	Sydney	4	2	2	0	376	298	126.2	8
7	Adelaide	4	2	2	0	394	372	105.9	8

All it takes is an agreed-upon way to highlight the relevant team and one simple copy-paste edit at the end of the round for each article – is it really that much of an inconvenience, given the articles are updated after each game anyway? I strongly believe that this formatting is an improvement on the current version, so keen to get some thoughts; as alluded to, I'm happy to be the one to update the ladder after every game, both for AFL and AFLW, so no need for anyone to worry about manually updating more of the columns (it's easy to do anyway). And Global-Cityzen, as for "personal fiefdom", I know change can be a wittle scawy sometimes, but at least I'm trying to make improvements instead of just going with the status quo 100% of the time. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 05:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Sortability, I oppose. The ladder is an ordered list by both definition and convention, not a statistical table to be sorted.

Clearing the colours out and highlighting green only upon finals qualification, I oppose. Mostly due to local convention, as Australian references always highlight the top eight somehow during the season and this approach would make Wikipedia stand apart from all of its references.

Change from PP to %, I Support on your reasoning.

Change from Pts to PP, I oppose. I disagree with your argument, plenty of references including afl.com.au use Pts.

Slightly reduce article size, no opinion, but I don't see this as justifying the change.

Updated syntax, support, its slightly better.

As for your response to the personal fiefdom comment, Steenkamp clearly told you that you broke a bunch of pages, and you pressed ahead and rebroke them and are now doubling down when called out on it. BEBOLD isn't an excuse for that and others in the project are right to be tetchy with you given the circumstances. Aspirex (talk) 06:19, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I still believe sortability would be useful, as not every website/database (including afl.com.au) gives you the ability to sort columns, and I still think it would be beneficial to be able to sort by points for, against, etc. and get other angles on teams' performances (e.g. best attack or defence) throughout a season outside of just their finishing positions. I have no opposition whatsoever to still highlighting the top eight throughout the season (see above), more that I just think it should be done differently to how it is currently. I do think, however, that it doesn't make sense to have "points for" (PF), "points against" (PA) and "points" (Pts), whereas "premiership points" distinguishes from the first two. And no, I didn't believe Steelkamp was clear initially – I actually thought that they might have been referring to previous season articles, as club season articles weren't mentioned until they reached out on my talk page – which is why I initally went "What do you mean?", but eventually I understood what they meant. I don't believe any of this warranted "personal fiefdom", as I was trying to make a genuine improvement and didn't understand the reason for the revert initially, so I took (and still take) umbrage at that comment; Global-Cityzen has disagreed with other edits of mine previously as well, so I don't think it only came because of this one instance. Nevertheless, still keen to keep it friendly and get some other opinions, as I'm very keen on this change. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 07:05, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not really fussed as to which table is used, as long as the transcluding onto the team season articles still works, which is why I had to revert the changes initially. I now realise that it is the <onlyinclude> and </onlyinclude> tags which allow that functionality. Steelkamp (talk) 07:31, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

After reading through your reasoning and sample ladders, I opppse your proposed change on one ground alone; lack of trancludability.

Your ladder offers more functions than the existing one and takes up less space with the removal of the "finals qualify" column. In short, I prefer it (though why you want to change the clearly identifiable "Pts" tag to a confusing "PP" label is a mystery).

However if I am reading you right, your version cannot be automatically transcluded onto club-specific articles, and I for one think making an already-underutilised part of Wikipedia, that will provide useful historical information going forward, require further editing from others on a weekly basis, isn't in the best interests of the project. If that issue can be resolved I'd switch from oppose to support. Global-Cityzen (talk) 08:00, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Steelkamp, as above, I was only talking about one extra edit per week for each editor that goes out of their way to create/maintain a club season article. If you really wanted to, you could just put {{:2023 AFL season#Ladder}} – this would obviously just copy the whole ladder and not enable you to highlight the relevant team or make other changes, but there's one less edit...

Global-Cityzen, I explained in my last comment why I wanted to change from "Pts" to "PP" (to distinguish between "points for/against" and "premiership points"), so it shouldn't be a mystery. If you think that only one extra copy-paste edit a week for each season article – currently totalling seven for 2023, each updated by a different editor – "isn't in the best interests of the project" (even though it's for a version of the ladder that you just said you prefer), then that's very concerning... 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 09:54, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't have an issue with most of the issues brought up here as positive points by 4TheWynne - sortability, the colouring, the terminology, the slight size change. These are mostly minor issues which imo are not worth it as for consistency they should be changed in previous seasons too. Regarding the "update" syntax, I think the "matches played on" is much more accurate, not when the editor happens to get around to editing. The main reason I oppose to this though, is the table formatting is much more annoying for the average editor to use, especially opposed to the module which is a lot more intuitive. Another reason to oppose is the lack of trancluding on other articles which use the ladder - your comment of "only one extra copy-paste edit in a week" is quite lacking - there's no need to bundle editors with extra edits if there is no need for it --> the whole point is that you don't have to copy-paste edit same information. --SuperJew (talk) 21:01, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Btw, regarding the colouring, your suggestion of having the top 8 in blue until a team has qualified for sure and then colouring in green is a more complicated solution to something the module already adresses - using statuses in which you can have a (Q) next to the teams already qualified which is much neater and less work. --SuperJew (talk) 21:04, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

If we want to compare it to an outside site, say the official AFL site: Sortability - the ladder on AFL site isn't sortable by columns (I also really don't see the need for it), Colours - as I said above - also AFL site has "Top 8 go through to finals!" marked to differentiate top 8 from the rest even after 4 rounds, Terminology - AFL site uses "points" and "%". The rest are wiki issues and I've addressed them above. --SuperJew (talk) 21:35, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I object to only one thing - the heading on the last column. It's not Premiership Points, as you claim, but PP. Been a fan for three quarters of a century, and had no idea what PP meant until I read the explanation. "Pts" works for me. Maybe "Points" in a smaller font. HiLo48 (talk) 21:24, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Not a fan of the change away from using the module that is adapted across multiple sports articles, back to a template table. Seems rather regressive. The transclusion issue is especially worse with this new table. Storm machine (talk) 01:59, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

HiLo48, what I've now done as a compromise is reverted back to "Pts" but kept the long form as "premiership points", as I still think there's a need to distinguish between "points for/against" and "points"; at least this way, people will see "Pts" and think "points", but then if they look into it further they'll know it actually means "premiership points" (the AFL does formally refer to them as "premiership points", even though they're often referred to informally as points; even the NRL formally refers to their equivalent as "competition points") – hopefully that resolves this particular issue.

SuperJew and Storm machine, I still think the transclusion issue isn't a great argument when you can either just transclude the whole ladder (just without the ability to highlight the relevant team) or only take a few seconds to make a simple copy-paste edit; if some of you guys are so tightly wound about this particular element, I'll make the edit to the club season articles each week – would only take maybe 2–3 minutes at most to do them all. SuperJew, regarding the highlighting of finalists as opposed to just the top eight during the season, I've added another amended version (see above; of course, the top eight colour's not set in stone – we can agree on one if we went down that path), but you make a lot of these things sound like so much more work than they really are – you either add | status_<team> = Q, change the background colour or add '''(Q)''' – neither is "less work" (or "much neater", for that matter) than the others. In a previous discussion around statistics tables, you said "Wow do I hate copying the stats line from the previous season and then having to manually change the bg colour" – I don't really understand the pushback over only a couple of seconds' work. Regarding the syntax, how is "Updated to match(es) played on 15 April 2023", which can refer to any of the games played on that day without being specific, more accurate than "Updated to Melbourne v Essendon (round 5, 2023)."? At least then you would know exactly which match any given section is updated to. And Storm machine, if this gives us the ability to make minor improvements and add more functionality to the table without it appearing any more or less basic/changing the shape or size, then I don't see this as being regressive at all. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 04:37, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Moving away from the module creates an issue that the module catches automatically – potential data entry errors. I know I appreciate that the module will catch errors upon preview when updating the ladders in other articles. If you're willing to make changes, why not make the changes via the module to the table headers? Further, I agree with the other editors regarding the sort functions being unnecessary, and if there are savings to be made in the bytes of the season articles that are light on prose as it is, I'm not sure that this is the way. Storm machine (talk) 05:30, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

You can copy-paste a lot of things - that doesn't mean that's the way Wiki wants to go. This isn't about you, or about me, or even the project, it's a Wiki-community direction, trying to have as little copy-pasting and hardcoded repetition of same information. Regarding the highlighting and colours, sure you can make the table look like the module, but then why change it? My point wasn't which fmt/colour looks better, but that there already is an easy solution for the problem you claim exists. A couple of seconds' work for you can be more for someone else, it can build up (second plus a second plus etc is more time editing Wiki), and also the less friendly it is, the more it pushes away new editors trying to get into it. We're trying to build an encylopedia, not code. Regarding the "update" syntax, my apologies - I didn't understand that meaning - I thought you were saying to change to "Updated to date/round", as in making it less specific, not more. Either way I think is fine. As I said though, my main issues are the tranclusion issue and the intuitivity and ease of editing. --SuperJew (talk) 09:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

OK, if all of this really only comes down to ease of editing, what would be wrong with going and editing ladders (and club season articles) for previous seasons and simply avoiding the change in-season? If ladders are still viewed by readers but otherwise never edited again after each season, and we can make minor improvements and add more functionality but not have to worry about pushing newer editors away by waiting until post-season (and of course it's not simply about making them look similar to the module), could simply using the module in-season and then changing later be a reasonable compromise? In the meantime, I've restored the "Updated to..." text but otherwise continued to update the ladder using the module (with | update = set to "complete" to hide the syntax below). 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 04:07, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

The whole just feels like a lot of work for little gain, especially if it's changed only post-season - what do you feel is actually gained? BTW, also post-season has it's own problems, as building new pages many times editors will copy the base from a previous season, but this is less. Also, it can cause a consistency issue between seasons. --SuperJew (talk) 05:47, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Tasmanian AFL bid/team article

Just wanted to draw attention to a comment I made at Talk:Tasmanian AFL bid#Differentiation from AFL team article. The announcement is likely to occur in the next couple of days - thought I'd notify this WikiProject as it will be a lot cleaner if the split is carried out in a planned way. -- Chuq (talk) 14:24, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

North Melbourne women's team template

I've made a bold change on changing the AFLW NM template to display 'Kangaroos' instead of 'North Melbourne'. It is my understanding that the team is the North Melbourne Tasmanian Kangaroos officially, and that all references which are treating the situation appropriately (e.g. AFL match centre) are calling them 'Kangaroos' only. Many sources do use North Melbourne, but imprecisely - so of course there's a COMMONNAME argument which could be made - but I think this is the right thing to do. I've also created an AFLW Kan template. I suggest we start using the AFLW Kan template, gradually change (or ask a bot to help) with changing all existing AFLW NM templates to AFLW Kan, and that then frees up the use of the AFLW NM template for a potential future state where the North Melbourne-Tasmania partnership ends and AFLW NM and AFLW Tas are distinct. Aspirex (talk) 00:02, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, dunno about that – will mean more work making changes to accommodate something where I think the COMMONNAME argument holds up, plus we haven't exactly made a point of formatting absolutely everything the same as how the AFL/AFL Media does; even broadcasters still use "North Melbourne". 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 02:14, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I thought we don't use the nicknames. Some media uses the nicknames, some the place name, and some a mixture. Is this any different (I am asking honestly, not as a jibe or anything)? --SuperJew (talk) 18:38, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Generally not, but past examples of mixing it up include the Kangaroos between 1999 and 2007 when they dropped the North Melbourne from their name, or the NRL's Dolphins. Not identical, but a reason why an exception could be made. Aspirex (talk) 21:27, 6 May 2023 (UTC)