Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Watford F.C. players/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Dabomb87 23:00, 12 March 2010 [1].

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List of Watford F.C. players

List of Watford F.C. players (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): WFCforLife (talk) 23:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Featured list candidates/List of Watford F.C. players/archive1
• Featured list candidates/List of Watford F.C. players/archive2
• Featured list candidates/List of Watford F.C. players/archive3

I am nominating this for featured list status as I believe it meets the criteria, and it has received a review. Discussion about the linking (or not) of players is likely to come up, and indeed I invite it, although I ask reviewers to read my comments on the matter at the peer review. WFCforLife (talk) 23:12, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Disclosure: I'm in the wikicup. WFCforLife (talk) 23:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment from Cptnono I am already a fan of the nominator's work and this list is great. I do want to make some comments to make sure there are not any loose ends before supporting:

• Wikipedia standards and what is best for the reader can create a gray area that are not always easy to work with. The notes are perfect in providing the information while still hitting aspects like WP:FLAG. Meeting the requirements of WP:ATHLETE is another beast that has been tamed in my opinion. Overall the layout is good and the information is thorough. Alt text, dablinks, and altviewer all check out.
• The first paragraph is a good overview of the club while the second gets into the players. Should there be a little bit more about players in the first paragraph since this is a list of footballers? Please disregard if the current format is standard for lists.

• My understanding from doing reviews and from previous nominations is that we should start by setting the scene for a complete novice. A brief outline of the league history is somewhat relevant to the players- making 50 appearances in 1977 could be considered a somewhat different achievement to making 50 appearances in 1983. It's not this list's place to make that judgement, merely to give the reader an opportunity to make that sort of distinction, if they deem it relevant.

• Cool.

• The lead might be underlinked for someone who is not English or not a fan. Consider wikied pipelinks to the game During WWI or the English league system.

:*I've linked the English league system. I'm sure the average reader will know what the First World War refers to without the need for a link.

• Oops. I missed the league system. I meant Association football during World War I up above not the war but that might be bordering on overlinking.

• Do the images need summary tables? I recall someone mentioning a proper description for images to meet featured criteria.Cptnono (talk) 10:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• I think you may be talking about flags. There should be a key if is used, but it's not required if Turkmenistan is spelt out (or has been previously spelt out). WFCforLife (talk) 16:58, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry I wasn't clear. A couple of the images do not have Template:Information. File:AndyHess2009.jpg is a example. It has a summary that might be sufficient but I am under the impression that the template is standard.Cptnono (talk) 23:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• I admit to knowing very little about the template. But judging by Awadewit and Eubilides' comments here, I don't think they're compulsory. WFCforLife (talk) 02:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 16:17, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments from The Rambling Man "1939–1945, when competitive football was suspended, " suspended as a result of? Done. "The club were also in the top division" perhaps "The club played in the top division" or "The club played in the highest tier of English football.."? I think an "also" is necessary, to reinforce that the Premier League is the top division. Hopefully my rewording has addressed this. "is the club record for an individual player" "for goals scored by an individual..."? Done. Should "most used" be hyphenated? Done. † and ‡ meanings are inconsistently full stopped. Corrected. Where are all † referenced? After being advised by both Brian and Struway that it was unnecessary, I've removed it altogether. Could link player-manager? Done. Remove spaces between text and superscript notes. I added the spaces to help the table render better at lower resolutions. If you still believe I should remove them I'll be happy to do so. Picky, but I would have thought DR Congo should sort ahead of Denmark as it's really Democratic Republic of Congo, isn't it? I've renamed the country :) I assume all unlinked players only played entirely non-WP:ATHLETE careers? Correct, with the exception of the six unlinked players who played during or after 1921. They are not linked because it would be impossible for me to guess the appropriate article name, and therefore a redlink could cause more harm than good. I would prefer Notes to be the column heading rather than N. B. Done, and removed redundant part of key. Holton's 104 being asterisked and purple is slightly misleading as this itself isn't the record... do you see what I mean? Moved to notes (same for Mummery). "first or second world wars" not capitalised? Done. Note 11 has no full stop, the others (of a similar construction) do. Be consistent. Done. Note 18 has no reference. Done. Refs 14 and 17 need accessdates. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC) I'm moving away from using accessdates without good reason, as a result of issues raised here. The question is whether the accessdate helps the reader. In cases where an author, date of publication and publisher is given, I don't think an accessdate helps. On the other hand, where the author is unknown and/or the content is subject to change, the accessdate is clearly important. WFCforLife (talk) 18:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC) Responded to most points, I'll have a think about the rest. WFCforLife (talk) 18:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC) I think that's all of them. WFCforLife (talk) 01:44, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Struway2

Resolved comments from Struway2 (talk) 09:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

First, I did start making notes towards commenting at the peer review (would have been the first one I'd done in ages), got distracted, and ended up not doing so, for which I apologise. Much of this stuff could have been sorted there, but it's not your fault that your peer review only got one reviewer, albeit a good one. * In the references, The Independent newspaper should be italicised. If you're using {{cite news}}, just change it from publisher= to work=, or to newspaper=, which I discovered recently and which avoids the confusion between works and publishers. Done. Thanks for the tip. Perhaps you could tone down the red a bit. It says at WP:COLOUR that blue on red can be problematic, and I can confirm from personal experience that for at least some of your colour-blind readers, the lack of contrast between wikilink blue and that density of red makes the text damn near invisible :-) Swapped with the green, which seemed fine judging by comments below. Ashley Young has 7 international apps, not 6. Fixed, and sourced. As with most of the problems with the game, I blame the FA ;) I'm not sure about the green players. Is their having played pro/semipro football this season all that relevant? And even if so, how are you sourcing it? Soccerbase will verify them playing in the Football League and probably Conference, but won't do players playing abroad, or below Conference National. I personally felt it was somewhat relevant, but as Brian made the very same point, I guess I'm in the minority. "Professional or semi-professional" was largely aimed to get around whether Conference teams are pro or not. I've removed the classification altogether as it was unverified, and recycled the color to address your point above. The blacklinked notable players, Joe Johnson, Tom Davies, Jim McLaren etc, should be redlinked. I read your comment at the PR, but a title like Joe Johnson (Watford footballer) would be justifiable, in the absence of other disambiguators, and if someone created their article at a different title, it's easy enough to change the one used here. I tend to find that finding an article from scratch is easier than merging/deleting articles. The simplest solution will simply be to create those first, so I'll make those my priority for the next week. Don't really see any reason why that would be any more of a problem for these few than for any other of the redlinked players. People are possibly more likely to create an article for a different person at one of the straightforwardly-named redlinks. But I see you've linked them anyway... Have you checked the Southern League players for possible notability through playing for other clubs? I've now redlinked all players who have been at Football League clubs, according to the Watford Who's Who. Admittedly, that's not a guarantee that none of the other players meet WP:ATHLETE through playing for clubs without the author's knowledge, nor is it a guarantee that all of the redlinked ones played for their Football League club(s). Nonetheless, redlinked and delinked players tally with the information used to compile the list, which I think is appropriate. Couple more things (sorry). No problem! On accessdates, per your reply to TRM, where the content is subject to change, the accessdate is important. You may be unaware that the BBC are one of the worst offenders for refactoring pages with or without updating the date of last change, so any BBC page will need an accessdate. Done. I might archive the BBC links later anyway, just in case they decide to pull older content offline at some point in future. * Should the Ross Jenkinses not be listed just as Ross Jenkins, if they weren't actually known by their full name? Shortened, and removed the footnote.

• The sourcing leaves quite a bit to be desired. I'm happy with the book source covering the players up to 1996, and with Soccerbase for club appearances and goals thereafter. However, for players whose career runs after 1996, there aren't any sources for international appearances, or for specific playing positions, e.g. Helguson as Centre forward / Right wing where Soccerbase just has Forward. Ross Jenkins the younger is noted as an England youth international, but the note [nb 7] is referenced to the 1996 book, when Mr Jenkins would have been starting school. Similarly Scott Loach as an under-21 international, where note [nb 4] is referenced to the book.

• International sourcing should be fine now, for both senior and youth players. Helguson is a case in point (he played right wing under Vialli and the start of Lewington's reign, and that does need sourcing). Where we're giving multiple positions this should be sourced (and if it cannot be sourced, removed), but if a player has one position I think it's unnecessary. WFCforLife (talk) 23:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

• One of the many disappointments of the FA's website is that they can't provide proper profiles of their international players, the way the Scandinavian countries and others do, giving full details of appearances at all levels. It'd make life much easier... I might have added individual references for the under-21s to the notes column, rather than expecting the reader to click on the string of links at the end of note [nb 4] to see which one applied to a particular player. As to positions, possibly one reason why previous player lists stuck to the basic GK/DF/MF/FW positions was to avoid sourcing/OR issues.

• I take your point that I should go along with the sources, and have therefore changed post-1996 ones accordingly.

• You raise a wider issue though. For an editor to call wing halves "defenders" or "midfielders" involves a degree of original research. Some would consider them analogous to modern day attacking full backs, others that they were midfielders, others still that it depends on the formation a "wing half" played in. Similarly, deciding whether wingers are midfielders or forwards can depend on the system used ("The Pyramid"/2-3-5 vs 4-4-2), or even on what an individual decided to call a 4-5-1/4-3-3, which can depend on whether the writer wants to criticise or praise the team fielding that formation. For these reasons, I don't think I can roll the change out for other players. Unless the sources of previous lists made the decisions for them, they were wrong to ignore these issues. WFCforLife (talk) 03:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Have no problem with that. And the wider point is one I had considered, particularly in relation to centre-halves of the past. If someone were to write an article called Half-back (association football), I'd be more comfortable with linking centre-halves to that, than calling them the anachronistic centre-backs. Struway2 (talk) 09:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Even if that's all sorted, I'm going to have to Oppose on the number of redlinks. Although I've never understood what redlinks have to do with "visual appeal", much preferring the concept of "usefulness" which disappeared when the criteria were revised, current criterion 5(a) says there should be a "minimal number" of them, and 40% of the notable players (~100 out of ~250) isn't minimal. I think your stated approach of creating the player articles gradually, going for quality rather than speed, is absolutely right, and would respectfully suggest you bring this list back when the number is rather closer to "minimal". (Disclaimer: depending on what other reviewers think about "minimal" redlinks, obviously; wouldn't be the first time people have disagreed with me.....) I know saying "there's no hurry" doesn't always go down well, but there is no hurry. And sorry again for not having got to the PR. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• That's some fantastic feedback, which I'll attempt to action over the next few days.

• With regards to criteria 5a, which I will get my claws into below on the FLC talk page, 100 (~80 by the time a three week review runs its course) of 340 items are redlinked. ~70% of the players are bluelinked or correctly delinked, and fewer than 10% of the total links are red. The statistics are all a matter of interpretation. All I will say is that 70% is a large majority, while less than 10% would be a minimal proportion, depending on interpretation of 5a. Argument against criterion itself moved to WT:FLC.WFCforLife (talk) 21:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• In my day, we weren't allowed redlinks, at least we knew where we were with that :-) but I'll leave the procedural arguments for those who like that sort of thing. If my interpretation of "minimal" differs from how it's understood by the community, then the directors will doubtless disregard that part of my opposition. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• I agree. Sorry about the long-winded nature of my reply. Far more important than this FLC, or even FLC itself, are suggestions that help improve our content. I really appreciate your feedback, it was excellent. Regards, WFCforLife (talk) 21:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• It's a pity you felt the need to remove the longer part of your earlier reply. Makes my response to the part that remains sound a bit sniffy, even for me..... Struway2 (talk) 07:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• Dude, as someone who would is leaning heavily towards supporting you still come across OK!Cptnono (talk) 09:09, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• I haven't looked at the list myself to maintain neutrality. However, I believe the criterion was left ambiguous so that reviewer consensus could decide what constituted "minimal" in each case. Let's see what other reviewers think about the redlinks. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• This falls within the balance of both meeting protocol (which is vague in this instance) and the need to provide thorough information to the reader that I referenced up top. I personally don't have a concern with the amount of red but I am not as familiar with the history like Struway is.Cptnono (talk) 00:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• Just for clarification of the numbers, so we're sure what we're on about. Surely criterion 5a applies to the listed items, in this case the players, not to total links. There are as I write 109 redlinked players, which is a third of the items on the list. Struway2 (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• For consistency, either all or none of your RSSSF refs should have accessdates. Also, that abbreviation should be spelt out on first use.

• Expanded the abbreviation on first use. Accessdate usage is consistent though- record appearances are subject to change, whereas past results are not. I've also corrected the title for the Northern Ireland results.

• Fair point. <rant warning>Though I do struggle with the time taken up in discussing things like the precise circumstances under which accessdates are not required, or whether citation templates are evil because they make copyediting prose more difficult, time which could be better spent in improving the encyclopedia, and discussions which generally come down to one or two editors with bees in their bonnet. A cynic might wonder if the decision to include or exclude the accessdate was original research...</rant> ;-)

• I don't know if you intend keeping the current players' appearances up to date after each match (I wouldn't, if it was me :-), but if so, you'll need to update the accessdate for Soccerbase 2009/10 in the general references list each time. It's out of synch at the moment. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing that out. Going forward, I plan to update whenever a player reaches 50 (Don Cowie is on 41 right now), at the end of a season, end of the calendar year(ish), and a few days after each international. As we've just had an international, I'll do an update on Saturday evening or Sunday (by which time I hope the Icelandic football association will have caught up), and I'll fix the accessdates then. WFCforLife (talk) 03:08, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments –

• There are a lot of redlinks in the table here. I won't oppose over it, but I'm not sure I feel comfortable supporting when so many of the notable players don't have pages. Some other editors, and I count myself among them, would have gone on a stub-creation spree before/during the nomination process. Your seeking to spend more time on each article is admirable, but unfortunately it is difficult as a reviewer to go off of anything other than the list's present condition.

• I understand. As I said previously to Stuway I'm disappointed, but if made to choose between the success/failure of this FLC, and the creation of stubs that I probably won't to return to, I'd choose failure. All I'll add is that I see your last two sentences as both an understandable interpretation and a damning inditement of 5a.

• The reason access dates have been used in references is to make finding links easier when they go dead. I normally push hard for their inclusion, but can understand leaving them off of links to printed publications, where removing the link and adding a page number leaves a perfectly valid citation. The question I have is whether these club/association pages have good archival systems or not (you'd know better than me). If there is a good chance that these pages will be gone soon, then I would suggest the access date for ease in finding a correct version. If they will stay, I won't complain too much. I do find it odd that you don't want the access dates for some of the news stories from websites, since they strike me as more likely to disappear than RSSSF pages and such.
• Prose looks very good overall, though I'm not a fan of "whilst" as a replacement for "while". Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• I'll consider your other comments later. Ironically the plan for the next few days is to spend my wiki time this weekend creating a few articles :-) WFCforLife (talk) 23:59, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.