Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archives/2021/October

Definition of "former" events

Hi. I've been looking on a number of articles about current and former players, and have noticed that we seem to have arbitrarily moved a number of tournaments from being "actual events" to "former" events. The tournaments in question are all tournaments which were not held because of a global pandemic. We do not have any source confirming that several of them are never going to be held again (eg China Championship, China Open, Riga Masters), so why are they now "former" events, when they are only temporarily off the calendar because of the pandemic? I feel that these should remain as "actual" ranking events and not be relegated to "former" status, with the requisite years marked as "Not Held (Pandemic)" instead of relegation as it currently is, because they are only not being held due to the travel restrictions in place preventing them from being held. Tagging @Nigej and @Lee Vilenski for sight of this discussion as well. Thanks. --CitroenLover (talk) 12:21, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, "former events" are events that have been held before, but aren't being held on the current calendar. This is in flux a bit, as any event can be removed/replaced or reborn at any time, as the British Open shows us. It is a bit confusing with the whole "former ranking, now non-ranking" or "former non-ranking, then ranking, now a former event" things that happen. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:59, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you. An event that simply misses a year is surely not necessarily a "former" event, especially at the current time. Perhaps we should have a rule saying that events only become "former" when they miss 2 seasons, unless there's a specific statement that the event has actually ended. Or is that too confusing? Maybe we've got to accept a certain amount of vagueness in the definition. Nigej (talk) 14:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Can I confirm we are talking about the "Performance and rankings timeline" section on player profiles? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:05, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I was assuming that. Do we have any long term plans for this section? I think readers like it, but it's basically unreferenced, unless you go to the original tournamant articles. Nigej (talk) 05:34, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah to confirm, its the performance and rankings section on player pages. I think a good definition of a tournament being “former” is when its not showing in the calendar for 2 consecutive seasons and/or there are statements from WST / broadcasters that confirm the tournament is not being revived.

Obviously tournaments that were former ones pre-social media are just going to be assumed as former because many old ones have been revived with newer versions, but some older tournaments that came back — as said, the british open — should probably be checked over. That being said, i think we should probably move all pre-pandemic tournaments that haven’t been held back to the appropriate section in player timelines, as obviously they’re active events that aren’t running because of circumstances outside control of the governing body. It would be accurate to consider them cancelled if the travel restrictions are removed and they don’t show up on season calendars ofc. —CitroenLover (talk) 23:25, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I have to say it'd be a bit awkward to have events from previous seasons in the "current events" section. Nigej is right though, maybe we need to look a bit further into the table in general. I agree that they are useful... but they have some major issues. These are often uncited, and that isn't really excusable. I have cited a couple in the past, but I think we need to come up with a better solution. I think this needs to be more of a template maintained centrally, but I don't know how that would work. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:45, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, it probably ought to be using Wikidata. You load up Wikidata with the data. eg 2021 Northern Ireland Open (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q106800918) would need an entry saying that Judd Trump (who is https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q313507) reached the quarter-finals. Or perhaps it's the other way round, Q313507 has an entry saying he reached the quarter-finals of Q106800918. Then you write a template in which you extract the data and produce the table, using the wikidata template. eg "{{wikidata|property|Q106800918|P580}}" produces "10 October 2021", the start date (property P580) of the 2021 Northern Ireland Open (Q106800918). All incredibly complicated. However, the main issue I've always had with Wikidata is how to verify that the data is referenced and ensure it stays accurate. After all, there's no one who has these things on their Watchlist. Or maybe it just shows that we shouldn't be doing this sort of thing at all. As to your other point, I suppose it depends what you think "former" means. I'd have thought "former" would be any event that couldn't plausibly take place in the nearish future, but that doesn't necessarily mean the current season. Nigej (talk) 18:00, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I'd argue that any event could be announced tomorrow.

I'm not entirely sure wikidata is the way to go - it's so much easier to be attacked by vandals. And, you do get the exact same issues with things not being cited. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:50, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Any event could be cancelled tomorrow too, in which case there's only 1 current event, the one in play. I'm still struggling to think that the Open Championship was a "former" event, simply because they cancelled it in 2020. They showed a clear intension to play it in 2021 and that was sufficient I think. Nigej (talk) 20:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Held over matches

Seems we have some disagreement over the status of "held over" matches, This has come up in relation to the high break at the 2021 Northern Ireland Open, where it seems Allen's 147 got him the high break prize (see talk discussion page there) and whether the 147 counts as being "qualifying" or not. My first thoughts are that these "held over" matches are not qualifying, since traditionally qualifying matches were held at different times/venue to the main event. I guess the main problem is that we often talk about "qualifying rounds" and that doesn't fit neatly into the idea of treating held over matches as not being qualifying, when the other matches in the same round are. Nigej (talk) 08:14, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

the WST counts these as being main stage centuries, so we should too. It's a bit awkward for when we want to put some prose in it, but that's why we have sources that make this sort of decision for us. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:21, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, but we have Allen's match in a section called "Qualifying", and probably have done similar things in the past. In addition, I guess we should try to avoid using the term "Qualifying round(s)", preferring "Qualifying match(es)". See eg Maximum break where we have the legend "(Q) Qualifying rounds". Confusing in this situation since Allen maximum was, in some sense, in a qualifying round but, it seems, it wasn't a qualifying match. One thing that does seem clear to me is that the "Highest break" in the infobox should relate to the winner of the "Highest break" prize, since surely that was the original purpose of the parameter, and still should be. Nigej (talk) 14:37, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

For an earlier example see 2018 China Open (snooker) where we have (for instance) Ronnie's break of 110 v Ross Muir in the "Qualifying" part of the century breaks. However the century appeared here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180411155529/http://livescores.worldsnookerdata.com/Centuries/CenturyBreaks/14008/fuhua-group-china-open-2018 ("Fuhua Group China Open 2018", described as "Heldover") not here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180504053228/http://livescores.worldsnookerdata.com/Centuries/CenturyBreaks/14007/china-open-2018-qualifiers ("China Open 2018 Qualifiers"). And similarly for other centuries called "Heldover" or "Pre Qualifiers". All the "Heldover" or "Pre Qualifiers" match results appear in the "Qualifying" section of our article. Nigej (talk) 15:20, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

template:infobox snooker player proposal

I've been removing a number of "nowraps" from the {{Infobox snooker player}} of player articles. Generally these have been added for those born in September (or some other month with a long name). See eg Martin Gould (nowrap removed) where the birth date wraps onto two lines. The reason this wrapping happens is that we're using the default of 20em for the infobox width. Some other sports override the default, for instance {{Infobox golfer}}, {{Infobox cricketer}}, {{Infobox NFL biography}} and {{Infobox AFL biography}} all use 25em and {{Infobox tennis biography}} uses 23em. Baseball uses a different style (eg Babe Ruth) which avoids the issue. My proposal is that we use 24em (ie add "| bodystyle = width:24em") - or 25 perhaps. See some test cases here using 24em: Template:Infobox snooker player/testcases. The increase in width is modest and in many cases we've been using wider infoboxes anyway because of the nowraps. Probably hardly anyone would notice the increase in width. Nigej (talk) 13:14, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Support - absolutely. We certainly don't need nowraps, but if it makes it look nicer, there's no issue there either. Just need to find the longest possible date and set it to that width. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:51, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Might depend on the font being used, I suppose, but "22 September 2000 (aged 22)" which is equal longest for me (all digits except "1" being equal), doesn't wrap for me with 24ems (see Ian Brumby testcase here Template:Infobox snooker player/testcases). We can try 24ems and see if we get any complaints! Nigej (talk) 14:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Jumping the gun, I know, but I've add the 24em. I'm only worried that someone is going to revert my removal of the nowraps without being aware of this discussion. Trivial to change anyway if this discussion leads elsewhere. Nigej (talk) 16:43, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Even without adjusting the width, using nowrap in this way is totally against the MOS, so there is no reason for it to be reverted. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:41, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

The trouble is that he's still doing it. See 2008 Premier League Snooker. Nigej (talk) 13:06, 30 October 2021 (UTC)