Talk:2019 Washington Nationals postseason

Unintended consequence: Article split, then immediate proposed deletion

@Onetwothreeip: @Muboshgu: Wikipedians, we have collectively stumbled into a bit of a mess.

For the first time, the Washington Nationals advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs in 2019. Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball classifies just about all baseball team season articles as "start" class, requiring more information to be complete. The project provides no guidance on the content of a postseason section for a team season article, but does identify the need for one. Lacking any other obvious way of adding additional information to move the article beyond "start" class, I began to generate game summaries (generally four or five paragraphs) for playoff games a few seasons ago. This seems appropriate, as a postseason baseball game generally is considered a significant event in the team′s season and even in its overall history.

Obviously, a deep run in the playoffs will result in a longer article if we are to maintain consistency across season articles because there will have to be more game summaries and linescores. This has resulted in a longer-than-usual 2019 Washington Nationals season article. Someone placed a "too long" template on the article recently, although there is no extant guidance on how long a baseball season article should be, especially when the team goes deep in the playoffs. That merits further discussion, although no such discussion has begun.

Meanwhile user Onetwothreeip made a good-faith edit to try address the "too long" template by splitting the entire "Postseason" section of the article into a new 2019 Washington Nationals postseason article. It may or may not be the best solution – personally, I prefer a holistic season article where a reader has one-stop shopping for a complete description of the team′s season rather than separate articles requiring additional clicking to get to the history of the season – but it is a reasonable idea. Only three minutes later, Muboshgu well-meaningly placed a deletion template on the 2019 Washington Nationals postseason article, citing its similarity to various other playoff series articles and a concern that it merely was the equivalent of one or more newspaper articles. I dispute both of those contentions – because the section is intended to capture details of the 2019 Nationals season which would not be expected in a general article about any particular playoff series and because the section is not written as a series of newspaper articles but rather as a lasting history of what happened in the games, and that distinction is what is most important – but that is something for WikiProject Baseball to consider, and I do not see any discussion of that having started on the project page. Wholesale deletions based on the application of Wikipedia guidelines without specific rationalization against WikiProject Baseball′s goals seems at best premature, even though the proposal for the deletion was well-intentioned. The format of baseball team season articles needs to be established before any one editor or administrator can judge what should be kept and what should be deleted.

Meanwhile, an uncoordinated series of good-faith actions – a "too long" template which led to a good-faith article split, which in turn led to an almost immediate proposed deletion of all the information that was split off – has led to a very undesirable outcome. No one involved intended such an outcome, which would destroy hours of research and writing, remove information germane to the 2019 Nationals season entirely from Wikipedia that otherwise would be included in it and is included in similar articles, and deter further attempts to expand baseball team season articles in ways that would make them more complete and something more than a "start"-class article (something I don't think any of us wants). We cannot have a situation in which article size is arbitrarily limited in an ill-defined and non-topic-specific way AND we try to reduce the size through article splits AND those splits get recommended for deletion. Something's got to give.

I recommend that we correct this problem by returning the content of 2019 Washington Nationals postseason to its former place in the 2019 Washington Nationals season article. Once it is returned, additional edits can be made on the section there to improve it without deleting its contents from Wikipedia, and readers will still have the history of the season all in one place. Mdnavman (talk) 15:53, 26 October 2019 (UTC)mdnavman

Mdnavman, classifications of "start" or "C" are often meaningless, and not updated. The 2019 Nationals article got too long and the content needs to be trimmed, not split, per WP:NOTNEWS. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:51, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Muboshgu: A number of points need to be addressed: 1) If "Start" or "C" have not been updated – and I could see how that could happen – then step one is not trim the article, but rather to reassess it in its latest form. What good does it to to trim it back to an earlier state if that would make it less complete – and how do we know how well it meets the standards of WikiProject Baseball if it not reassessed first? A reassessment by editors with particular interest and expertise in baseball may draw a different conclusion about what to do with the article. 2) We have no definition of "too long" with which to guide us. I understand that you believe it to be too long, and I believe you make that assessment in good faith, but it is a subjective judgment. It is both likely and desirable that some articles be much longer than others depending on the subject and circumstances. What objective criteria does Wikipedia have for the length of a baseball team season article for a year with a lengthy postseason? There isn't one on the WikiProject Baseball page to guide us. Such criteria need to be forged and agreed to by a fairly broad group of editors and users before we can assume any given length is ideal or too short or too long. Perhaps instead of deleting any of the postseason section we should reduce other parts, or perhaps the afrticle actually still requires additional information in order to be deemed complete. We don't have any way of judging the consensus on that yet. 3) The article was well organized and very easy to navigate as it was, so I question the concern over length anyway. 4) I understand and respect your reference to WP:NOTNEWS and believe that you make it in good faith, but WP:NOTNEWS merely provides us with a general guideline and not a definitive answer. I do not believe that it applies very well to this case, because the article as written did not read like news reporting or like a diary, included information necessary for capturing the history of what has been a very historic season, and did not describe every game, but rather those generally considered in the baseball world to be the most important ones (i.e, opening day and the postseason), consistent with the coverage of such games in articles for previous seasons. Again, deleting wholesale parts of the article just for the sake of a subjective limit of length should not be done lightly or based on any one editor′, and it merits considerable discussion beyond the citation of WP:NOTNEWS in order to take into account other factors. How do we foster that discussion?

Incidentally, if the 2019 season article needs to be trimmed, then how do we handle the potential deletion of the all the postseason information transferred to the 2019 postseason article that you propose to delete? Should we return that information to the oriiginal article and then edit cinstructuvely from there? That seems a better approach to me that wholesale deletion. It's the difference between taking a scalpel to the article and taking an axe to it. Mdnavman (talk) 18:09, 26 October 2019 (UTC)mdnavman

Mdnavman The article is most definitely too large, so what do you propose happen to rectify that? Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:44, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Mdnavman, just like this reply, the page is too long to navigate and comprehend. 2019 National League Wild Card Game had no content on the actual game, until I copied the text from 2019_Washington_Nationals_season#Wild-Card_Game,_October_1. Now, we can trim the excess content from that section. That's how this can work. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Muboshgu, I don't think it's too much to ask to spend a few extra minutes navigating my answers and working a little harder to comprehend them. I'm trying to think through ways ahead, equities, and consequences of different choices, and I think you should, too. I am trying to address your concerns, and I ask you to consider and address mine. In my view, single sentences are not enough for that. I am contemplating how best to address the issues you bring it up, and will get back to you about them soon with something more concrete. Meanwhile, if there are specific issues you don't understand, please let me know and I'll try to do a better job of explaining them. Mdnavman (talk) 16:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)mdnavman

Mdnavman, check out how I trimmed the section on the wild card game. That I feel is inappropriate level of depth. The full detail that was on this page before was not on the wild-card game page, and is now. Tell me what you think of that. I believe that trimming along those lines throughout this page will bring it back down to a readable length. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:36, 31 October 2019 (UTC)