Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports Results/Archive1

I don't want to offend the anon editor/s User talk:85.165.200.37, User talk:85.165.198.135 and User talk:85.165.225.156 (possibly users User talk:85.165.217.156, User talk:85.165.229.54, and User talk:85.165.212.241 too) who took the trouble to create all the flags in the results tables, but I must protest that this causes the tables to become cluttered with redundant information. The nationality of each athlete is already in the table so I do not see the benefit of having the flag too. Look at the 1983 World Championship results before and after! Or the olympic results in their current form. I'm sorry, I really don't want to put down the work the anon users have done. I have tried entering into a discussion but the anon user just carries on adding flags regardless.

I think the flags are very appropriate for the medals table but they are not appropriate for individual athletes, I hope this page will help us reach a consensus on this issue.

Discussion that has occurred to date

Messages from the anon users talk page

On User talk:85.165.200.37 Re: Flags and Athletics World Championshup results
Hi, I see you are adding the flags to the results of several of the Athletics World Championships pages. We had a disscusion about it a few days a go where we decided to delete the flags from the results themselves and just have them in the medals table. The discussion can be found on Talk:2005 World Championships in Athletics , if you want to discuss the changes further. Evil Eye 14:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

On User talk:85.165.225.156 Re: Flags
I noticed that you are putting all the flags into the athletics world championship pages. Isn't this redundant with the country name that is already there for each competitor. In my opinion it looks really busy with the flags. What would be really useful is the performances as well as the positions. Most people are more interested in the times and distances. David D. 15:30, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Did you see my notes on the main pages of the WC pages? Why are you so determined to add flags to all the athletes? Why not just do it for the countries in the medals table? David D. 08:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Discussion from the 2005 WC talk page

Evil Eye, what do you make of the changes one user has made to all the other WC pages, for example, 2001_World_Championships_in_Athletics (note added later: here is a link to an old page for reference). All those little flags drive me nuts but the anon user is still adding them despite a message I left on each page to discuss the issue. It is a huge amount of work for that person so I hesitate to revert but I think it looks really cluttered and adds no extra information. With all that work the user could have been adding the results. David D. 23:34, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I like the idea of using flags, but it does make the page very clutttered and harder to follow (you have to spend more time adjusting your eyesight and then even more filing through the extra info). I agree with a comment you made on one of the pages that there should be no flags in amongst the results themselves, but that there are some in the medals tables. Evil Eye 01:04, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm hoping the anon contributor will respond. I resorted to leaving messages on the pages themselves since I got no response from his/her talk page. We'll see. I might add whom ever is adding the flags is also adding other good info so they obviously mean well. David D. 01:48, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's the same person who added them before, but someone hs begun to add flags back onto at least 3 of the pages again. I'm leaving it for now though to see what happens and see if other people have anything to say on the issue. Evil Eye 13:09, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Further discussion

First, here is an example of the two styles that are being discussed with respect to the results tables.

Style A

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
5,000 m	Eamonn Coghlan Ireland	13:28.53	Werner Schildhauer East Germany	13:30.20	Martti Vainio Finland	13:30.34
10,000 m	Alberto Cova Italy	28:01.04	Werner Schildhauer East Germany	28:01.18	Hansjörg Kunze East Germany	28:01.26
Marathon	Rob de Castella Australia	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha Ethiopia	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski East Germany	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg West Germany	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski Poland	8:17.03	Colin Reitz Great Britain	8:17.75

Style B

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
5,000 m	Eamonn Coghlan Ireland	13:28.53	Werner Schildhauer East Germany	13:30.20	Martti Vainio Finland	13:30.34
10,000 m	Alberto Cova Italy	28:01.04	Werner Schildhauer East Germany	28:01.18	Hansjörg Kunze East Germany	28:01.26
Marathon	Rob de Castella Australia	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha Ethiopia	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski East Germany	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg West Germany	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski Poland	8:17.03	Colin Reitz Great Britain	8:17.75

I will reiterated that I think we should have flags in the medals table but NOT in the results table. My reasons are out lined above. David D. (Talk) 15:57, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Detract from readibility

The flags detract from the readability of the table of results according to tested principles of usability and information graphics. The major issue is that multiple (more than 3) colors pull the reader's eye every which way and distract from reading the text. A secondary issue is that readers are often familiar with only a few flags, so flags are less effective to communicate many-country information than text. I concur to not use flags in detailed results tables. I also empathize with the user who took the time and trouble to add the flags, having done work like this before, only to also find that it wasn't as effective. -- Sitearm^Talk 17:31, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

Flag issues

I see some issues, some in conflict, if flags are used here. I'll list them below. (SEWilco 16:14, 5 August 2005 (UTC))

• The athlete's name should come before the name of the country.
• Having the flag separated from the name of the country seems somewhat undesirable.
• For Olympic events, another option for country identification is the IOC three letter abbreviations.
• Flags at the start of an entry create a consistent appearance, as opposed to the various placement following the variable-length text.
• Flags allow visual scanning for specific nations, but is easier if flags are in consistent locations.
• Flags, and country name|abbreviation, could be in a separate column.
• Another way to find specific country entries is similar to footnotes in the article Jew#Notes, where individual entries are linked to, in this case, a note for each country which has backlinks up to each individual mention of the country.

These are all good points. A possible compromise is to add the flags before the country name. In this way they are in the same location and with the country name. For example, the style could be similar to one of the options below:

Style C

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
Marathon	Rob de Castella Australia	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha Ethiopia	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski East Germany	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg West Germany	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski Poland	8:17.03	Colin Reitz United Kingdom	8:17.75

Style D

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
Marathon	Rob de Castella AUS	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha ETH	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski GDR	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg FRG	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski POL	8:17.03	Colin Reitz GBR	8:17.75

I still think this looks a bit cluttered and agree with the comments made by Sitearm above. Specifically, "The major issue is that multiple (more than 3) colors pull the reader's eye every which way and distract from reading the text". With regard to the country names, that is another issue of style that we have discussed and decided to go with the long names since they are unambiguous, whereas a flag and three letter abbreviation can still leave you unsure of the countries name. David D. (Talk) 17:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I was just reading the discussion here and I'd like to show you the format that has been used on the 2005 World Aquatics Championships page. I think it worked quite well, perhaps you would consider using a similar style for athletics pages as well. Javacava | leave a message! 14:50, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

If a country abbreviation is used, it can be linked to the country's Article. This lets people check the meaning, and in some browsers a mouseover the link will display the article name. USA (SEWilco 17:11, 6 August 2005 (UTC))

Trying separate country columns. Notice that the browser deals with adjusting the number of lines needed for an entry. (SEWilco 17:11, 6 August 2005 (UTC))

Style E

Event:	Gold:			Silver:			Bronze:
Marathon	Rob de Castella	Australia	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha	Ethiopia	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski	East Germany	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg	West Germany	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski	Poland	8:17.03	Colin Reitz	United Kingdom	8:17.75

Style F

Event:	Gold:			Silver:			Bronze:
Marathon	Rob de Castella	Australia	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha	Ethiopia	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski	East Germany	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg	West Germany	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski	Poland	8:17.03	Colin Reitz	Great Britain	8:17.75

Hi SEWilco, I've been playing with the mouse over technique and that works very well. Using those templates it is possible to use the three letter code and yet see the full country name by mousing over the flag or the name!! This seems like a great compromise and could be uitlised in one of the two formats below. I'm still of the 'no flag' tendancy but if we do have a flag either one of the styles below would work well. The second of the two is my favoured choice and this also is compatible with the 2005 World Aquatics Championships, although, they do use the full names without taking advantage of the 'mouse over' templates.

Style G

Event:	Gold:			Silver:			Bronze:
Marathon	Rob de Castella	AUS	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha	ETH	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski	DDR	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg	DEU	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski	POL	8:17.03	Colin Reitz	GBR	8:17.75

Style H

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
Marathon	Rob de Castella AUS	2:10:03	Kebebe Balcha ETH	2:10:27	Waldemar Cierpinski DDR	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	Patriz Ilg DEU	8:15.06	Boguslaw Maminski POL	8:17.03	Colin Reitz GBR	8:17.75

I just want to point out the style differences that are being discussed here with respect to User talk:85.165.200.37 who is continuing to add flags to Olympic, European and World championship pages. I am of the opinion that we will be using the mouse over style templates GBR {{flag|GBR}} as above. The format that is being used by User talk:85.165.200.37 is the following Great Britain [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|20px]] Great Britain. While they look the same at first appearance the flag using the template has infomation regarding the full country name (mouse over) as well as providing a link to the country in question.

The other style issue is with regard to the location of this information. I think the examples above represent two alternatives. An advantage of having an extra colomn for the flag is that the flag colours are retricted to that colomn. This is good if you want to scan the name colomn since the flag do not compete with the names. Despite what I have said above, I am now leaning towards a three column table with one specifically for flags. I think this may work the best on a full size table. David D. (Talk) 19:47, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Thinking some more, if the flag colomn is moved before the athletes name it is possible to scan the name and time without making eye contact with a flag. This would be preferable for people like me, since all I care about is the athletes name and time. The nationality is not as important.

Style I

Event:	Gold:			Silver:			Bronze:
Marathon	AUS	Rob de Castella	2:10:03	ETH	Kebebe Balcha	2:10:27	DDR	Waldemar Cierpinski	2:10:37
3,000 m Steeplechase	DEU	Patriz Ilg	8:15.06	POL	Boguslaw Maminski	8:17.03	GBR	Colin Reitz	8:17.75

Having the flag first does seem to make the text flow together, so does have a different appearance. I happen to like it. There may be an issue with apparent priority of having athlete or country first. However, I'll also note that the proposal is oriented toward competitions with national teams. Although some sports don't have national teams, the nationality of competitors is quite visible. Several major auto racing series are examples. (SEWilco 04:33, 7 August 2005 (UTC))

I experimented putting the flag after the time but it did not scan well. My tendancy is to look for the result on the far right and the flag interferred with that. With regard to auto sports I presume that colomn could be used for their car number or team name. David D. (Talk) 12:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I note that Style C is currently being incorporated into the 2005 WC tables. I'm going to wait and see how it looks. Maybe after that we can put these style options up for a vote along with the pro's and cons for each. David D. (Talk) 16:48, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Still going!

Amazing. Since I added the following invitation to discuss this issue to all the World Championship pages as well as the anon user talk pages:

There is currently a dispute with regard to adding flags to the results tables. Before adding more flags can we first try and reach a consensus on this issue? I have set up a special talk page to try and address this issue. David D. (Talk)

User 85.165.200.37 is continuing to add flags to the results tables. Here are the latest edits to the '91 results and the '93 results. David D. (Talk) 17:27, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I've posted another message on the users talk page to try and get their attention to the situation as it may have been possible that they had missed the messages you'd posted on the WC pages.Evil Eye 17:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Possibly they don't speak English? I think the IP address traces back to Scandanavia, maybe Norway.. David D. (Talk) 17:38, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I added a symbolic request to come here. (SEWilco 19:21, 4 August 2005 (UTC))

Earlier I got a Norweigen friend to tranlate a sentence into Norweigen for me. I posted it on their talk page just in case they are from Norway.Evil Eye 19:35, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I just got a message on my talk page from User talk:85.165.200.37 It is quite cryptic but seems to be saying can you help me add more flags. S/he wrote: "Sondre Hello there! I'm sorry but can you add flags to the pages within. 22. August 2005 that would be fine but that's allright. from Sondre"

David D. (Talk) 12:36, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

One might look for Sondre or the same IP addresses in non-english Wikipedias. (SEWilco 16:26, 5 August 2005 (UTC))

Anonymous Talk notification

I think I recently saw mention that anonymous users do not get notified when Talk page messages exist. (SEWilco 19:23, 4 August 2005 (UTC))

I did consider that, which is why I put the message in green (box above) on all of the relevant pages too. David D. (Talk) 19:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Revert

There are two issues present: Style decision on results tables, and ongoing edits by a minimally communicative editor. Should the flag-adding edits this week by anonymous editors be reverted? (newcomers: that means deleted through replacement of a previous version) That will deliver several messages, if noticed, although several misunderstandings may exist until reaching this discussion. The possible problem of a non-English-speaking editor being active in en: is more general than these specific edits. (SEWilco 16:23, 5 August 2005 (UTC))

User talk:85.165.200.37 is continuing to add flags to Olympic, European and World championship pages. There is no doubt that if we do decide to use flag icons in the tables they will not be in the style that user is currently doing (Flags in fornt of athletes names). I am also of the opinion that we will be using the mouse over style templates GBR {{flag|GBR}} rather than the format he is adding to each page GBR [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|20px]] GBR. the former has the advantage of being able to mouse over the flag and determine the country as well as providing a link to that country. For this reason I have now started to aggressivly revert the changes since I want to encourage this user to respect that other users disagree with his style choice. As of this date he has blatantly refused to discuss this issue i am at a loss as how to get him to sit down and discuss this issue. David D. (Talk) 19:35, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Situation?

So what is the situation now? Do we still not add flags? As in the 2005_World_Championships_in_Athletics article, many people have added flags, and the tables look good. - Nick_C 18:35, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I am just going to wait until the end to see how it looks once it has filled out. If we really must have flags then I prefer the three letter coded flag in a separate column since it makes it easier to pick out the athletes names from the country names and flags. David D. (Talk) 19:17, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Discussion should be held in WikiProject Sports

Note: the following thread of the discussion took place before the page was moved to the present WikiProject's talk page. --Wernher 21:12, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Hello, folks. Thanks to the 'flag-discussion notice' which has recently appeared on some the relevant pages, I just became aware of the fact that such a discussion was indeed taking place. But the discussion should ideally be held with a much wider audience of sports-interested Wikipedians. Looking at the Olympic Games articles, I observe that not even there is there a real concensus regarding the use and placement of flags and country codes/names. As this issue concerns articles on most competitive sports, I therefore suggest we move this discussion to the top-level forum for such questions, namely Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports. --Wernher 21:47, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean put a note on that page or create another discussion page. Sorry for being dense I'm new at this. David D. (Talk) 22:13, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Not to worry; I should've been more precise. I guess a note would be OK as a start. If there is any interest in the issue, which I'd reckon there is, a descendant WikiProject might be in place (named, say, Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Results). --Wernher 03:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, I left a note on the main page as well as creating the page you suggested. Could you please let me know if that is what you had in mind. And feel free to adjust it as appropriate. David D. (Talk) 05:20, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Phew. Done for now. --Wernher 21:12, 8 August 2005 (UTC)