Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Figure skating

Authorship

This style sheet was written by User:Figureskatingfan and User:Henni147. See here for discussion about the further development of this document. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 15:52, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Figure skating bios pages: order of sections

@ErnestKrause, Yolo4A4Lo, and Figureskatingfan: I moved the discussion about the section order here to keep the FAC discussion at reasonable length. I hope, that's okay. The question is the following: If a skater finishes the competitive career (at amateur level) and turns professional, shall the skating technique section be placed before or after the professional career section?

I think, this is individual for every skater. My general suggestion is:

• If the pro career has nothing to do with skating anymore, then I would place the skating technique section before the professional career section to have a clear cut. I think, this is Yolo4A4Lo's idea as well.
• If the person continues skating as a professional, then I would place the the skating technique section after the pro career section. Usually it's the technical difficulty that gets significantly watered down from amateur to pro level, while quality and style don't change that much.

Hanyu is a special case, since he has announced that his skating philosophy, athletic approach, and attitude towards practice hasn't really changed by turning professional. He still has multiple types of quadruple jumps in his arsenal, even aims for a quad Axel, and managed to skate a clean run-through of his winning free skate from the 2018 Winter Olympics. So in that case, it definitely makes sense to place the pro career section before the skating technique and note that he kept all his jumps as a pro (even landed a clean 4Lo+3T combination in practice that has not yet been ratified in international competition yet).

If the difference between amateur and pro skating technique or style is significant, the skating technique section can be written in a comparative style or (in extreme case) be split into two sub-sections. However, I can't recall any skater, where the difference between amateur and pro tech/style is THAT big that it requires two separate sections.

That's my personal suggestion. What do you think? Henni147 (talk) 08:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

I will just copy-paste my reply on the FAC page here. For me, it's case-by-case with general guide as follows: Anyway, the way I see it, when skaters have a professional career that is still related to figure skating, either as ice show skaters, choreographers or coach, it's an extension of their career as whole. I don't know how to put it in words, so let me show you an example. Let's say we have a skater who turned into an actor then a politician. So, their career is basically:

Career

• Skating career
• Acting career
• Political career

But, before they turned into acting, they turned professional first, so:

Career

• Skating career
  • Competitive career
  • Professional career
• Acting career
• Political career

In that case, to maintain the order of the article, whatever subsections related to figure skating (except the list or table-heavy ones) goes under Skating Career. However, there will be too many levels of sections given career in FS most of the time divided based on the seasons, so we move up the levels on some subsections:

• Competitive career (chronological)
  • 2001-2001 season etc.
• Professional career (chronological)
• Coaches and choreographers (summary)
• Skating technique (summary)

--------------------------------- Figure skating ends here

• Acting career (chronological)
• Political (chronological)

--------------------------------- Career ends here

• Other ventures/in media/ public life etc. (summary)
• Personal life (summary)
• Impact/Legacy (summary, if covers all of their careers, not certain career)

---------------------------------- Other non list or table heavy sections end here

• Records and achievements (Lists)
• Programs (Tables)
• Competitive highlights (Tables)
• Filmography (Tables)

and so on.

For reference, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dwayne Johnson, Manny Pacquiao. -

Yolo4A4Lo (talk) 09:50, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Henni and Yolo, I'll chime in and share my opinion about the structure of FS bios. I agree with Henni; it depends upon the bio and it depends upon the skater. For example, Evan Lysacek, which is a GA but probably could use a GAR, doesn't have any content about Lysacek's life and career after skating. I suspect, though, that after more research is done about him, those sections would be added. Hanyu's article is complicated because his amateur career was long and he just retired. That being said, I like Yolo's suggestions above as a general rule that could be adapted as needed. I think that they should be presented as suggestions and not as any hard-fast policies, and that we should leave the structure of FS bios up to the discretion of the editor(s). There will be sections that are always required, of course, but any additional sections should depend upon sources and upon the skaters' lives and careers. I agree with Henni and Yolo that sections about skaters' different careers should be separate, but that lists and tables should be placed at the end of their bios. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:43, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Yolo's articulation of this issue should be taken as well written and to the point. My suggestion would be to mainly use only biography articles which are peer reviewed for purposes of the discussion here, like Hanyu and like Tara. The Arnold article above is not peer reviewed while the Dwayne article Yolo links above is peer reviewed. Discussing policy should be oriented to Peer reviewed articles at the GA-level and FA-level. ErnestKrause (talk) 14:21, 27 August 2022 (UTC)