Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year/archive1

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List of Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year[edit]

List of Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list I am hoping for enough feedback to get this promoted and learn how to format other elements of this set of list. TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive by comments

Comments[edit]

  • "List of Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year is a list of" - no article titled "List of...." should start by restating the literal title or using the wording "this is a list of". Find a way to write a more engaging opening
  • "Football" isn't linked until something like the fifth use of the word. I would also suggest writing "American football" in full on the first usage, for the benefit of those of us who call a different sport "football"
  • "selected as the most outstanding of the annual Football Academic All-America selections." - what is/are "the annual Football Academic All-America selections"? Without any context/explanation, this is meaningless
  • "CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT" - what do all these codes mean?
  • Can't see any compelling reason for the district names to be written in all capitals
  • I found the explanation of the award extremely impenetrable and confusing. You start off by saying there were two divisions for a time before explaining what the award actually is, then you say what it is, then you jump back to talking about the two divisions. You say "Currently, each team selects Academic All-District honorees in eight geographic districts" - who are this team that do the selecting? Also, you set out how a winner is chosen for each district but then don't really give any explanation how we get from that to a single winner.
  • "From 1996 to 2011 one winner each was chosen from both the College and University Divisions" - the table says it was until 2010
    • The transition was the 2010-11 academic year. Some sports teams were named in 2010 and some in 2011. Football is a fall sport so 2010 is correct.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Most recently, effective with the 2018–19 school year, the College Division was split, with NAIA members now receiving their own set of awards" - there's still only one winner in that column for all subsequent years.......?
    • The split was effective for every sport. For most sports the only thing other than Division I, Division II and Division III is NAIA. For some sorts there are other sets of competitions. I will change this to reflect that for football it was a transition rather than a split.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:56, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also, the split was suppose to separate out Two-Year College, Canadian Institutions and any other institution not affiliated with the NCAA or NAIA. Canada seems to have been folded into the districts for the other 4 sets of awards for most sports. I think only the At-large awards for sports other than the main 5 for each sex have a 5th category.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:25, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is there an "other footnotes" section which is completely empty?
  • I would reiterate the comment above about colours/contrast. Some of the names are literally unreadable -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @ChrisTheDude:, I think I have addressed your concerns.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:55, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some further comments[edit]

  • "Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year are [plural] the annual most outstanding singular college football athlete [singular]" - this doesn't make grammatical sense
  • "For the Division I team" - what's the "Division I team"? Or for that matter, Division I?
  • "From 1996 to 2010 this team selection process was held separately for the College and University Division" => "From 1996 to 2010 this team selection process was held separately for the College and University Divisions"
  • "However, Football has incorporated" - football is not a proper noun so doesn't need a capital letter
  • "men's and women's at-large teams" - what is an "at-large team"?
  • "One of these twelve sport-by-sport Academic All-Americans of the year is selected as the Academic All-America Team Members" - how can one person (singular) be selected as the team members (plural)? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral by Gonzo_fan2007[edit]

  • Comment I am generally opposed to the overuse of table coloring to convey non-essential information. This list, imho, takes this to an extreme, presenting color schemes (specifically college sports team colors) that are not notable to almost all readers. I am suspect of any decorative coloring in tables, even on the table header, but would oppose this list outright based on the current overuse of colors. I am sticking to just a comment for now, because I don't plan on performing a full review. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am not aware of any polling that team colors are not notable to readers. However, I do have life experience that many sports fans confuse teams when solely refered to by name. Furthermore, Wikipedia:COLOR seems to support alternate referents to teams where it says "Ensure that color is not the only method used to communicate important information". This indicates that school name and school color could jointly convey the team information. Most sports fans feel very strongly about their school colors. Sometimes it is a strategic element of the game to have all the fans attend wearing school colors. In my experience I have told people that I am a Michigan Wolverines men's basketball and had them tell me about the legend of Tom Izzo. I have had people say they saw the game last night on a night when Michigan did not play. To clarify what team I root for I say we are blue and they are green. Some people mix up all the Michigan schools (Michigan Tech, Michigan State, Michigan, Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Northern Michigan, Eastern Michigan), but if you tell them the color it is a second way to communicate the information. I have trouble keeping track of the Texas schools myself. Also all the Cal State -- XXX schools. Additionally most list that you might see are only NCAA Division I, but in this case there is much more room for confusion because this list incorporates almost all collegiate sports divisions.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also, the tables need to be sortable. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:13, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am trying to get help with the sortability at Wikipedia:Help_desk#Sortable_tables.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further color on team colors for athletics. On WP we place a high priority on affiliating players and teams with team colors in general. E.g. every sports team has clear presentation of its official colors. This is very abnormal for business and commerce in general. Try to find official colors on pages like Interpol, United Nations or any Fortune 500 company like McDonald's or Apple Inc.. In non-athletic business, official colors are not a thing. For athletics they are. Any bio of a player who is currently affiliate with a team has all kinds of automation presenting the official colors of this automation. Thus, whereas in general WP:FL may frown on highly colored list tables, affiliation of players and team is its own genre on WP. Presumably we do this not because affiliation is "non-essential information". Presumably this is a high priority interest to our readers. This list is attempting to uphold the broad consensus on WP that in athletics affiliation is preferably presented in prose and in color.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further commmentary on why color for this list is appropriate: Yes {{Infobox basketball biography}} and {{Infobox NFL biography}} are examples of very widely used templates used in WP:BLPs of current athletes. Other sports have similarly popular templates with equally prominent color usage. In general, team affiliation is considered a piece of information of extremely high encyclopedic importance. When a player is in the news regarding a trade or a signing, it is often highly contentious with edit warring and special sets of rules. Often page protection has to be invoked. We have seemed to condition the readers to assess team affiliation with both text and color presentation of the team affiliation. This is broadly done and commonly accepted across all sports on wikipedia. Others who spend a lot of time on sports might be able to give you more "color" (semi intentional pun) on this issue.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • MOS:BOLDLINKAVOID needs to be followed.
  • Half of the names don't have {{sortname}} (first table the College Division Winner column) and there are some random ones missing in the second table.
  • I am opposing primarily based on the color and WP:FLCR 3c. MOS:COLOR states: Links should clearly be identifiable as a link to our readers. - this table fails this. There are so many different colors for the text, you can't identify a link. From an accessibility side, some of the text colors on top of background colors are difficult to read: Susquehanna and Eastern New Mexico particularly. Regarding the use of color, it should be complementary. The use of team colors can be beneficial in a lot of ways. As example would be Buccaneers-Packers rivalry, the table at the end has coloring to show who won and lost, who led a specific decade, etc. We also utilize coloring to better identify a specific team, like the infobox of Green Bay Packers or the {{Green Bay Packers}} template. This is minimal, but complementary use of color. What we have here is a ridiculous number of different schools and colorschemes. The really bad part is that there are so many different colors, that they can't be easily differentiated. Dartmouth, Oregon, Northwest Missouri, Illinois Wesleyan, Ark Tech, and Slippery Rock all have green background, with subtle differences in shade, with white text. From a quick pass, I can't differentiate the schools from each other, so what is the point of the colors? It doesn't help the reader at all. There are countless other examples of almost identical color schemes. Since the color serves no purpose, it is purely decorative (there is something like 73 different schools on this page, each with its own colors). Weighing the decorative nature of the coloring versus the current legibility, for me, it is detrimental the overall ability to read and understand the table. Colors can definitely be helpful, differentiating between two things, highlighting different awards won by people in a table, etc, but not like this. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:FLCR, I am a bit confused on this objection.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:38, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • MOS:COLOR, I have been pondering this one along several dimensions. First, I confess to have often used general colors when colors did populate well or a tertiary school color was necessary for better contrast. I.e., rather than getting the exact hex color shade for a school for red, blue, gold, etc. I just used that word. Thus, many schools have one official hex and one general color for their color combinations. Second, I really contest whether it is useless to have a broad array of colors rather than a handful. I think the best format for the colors can be seen in the 2018–19_Big_Ten_Conference_men's_basketball_season#Rankings section of this article. I know this is not a list article, but it is the inspiration for my current vision of the page. The colors are not decorative. They ARE helpful to the reader. There are more than a dozen color schemes there with half of them being shades of red, scarlett and maroon. Colors can be used to identify a specific team even if more than a few different colors exist. Note that the section I am pointing to on that page uses the two colors as the background and cell padding. The text is usually black or white. I think that would be the best format for this page.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:38, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • TonyTheTiger I think the single color strip, albeit still superficial and not extremely helpful, would at least alleviate my primary concern. I would still oppose with the secondary color included as you have in your sandbox. One question, I understand the bolding of the names, but why are the schools bolded? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:16, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have removed the bolded schools artifact from the prior format, which I believe predated my involvement with the school color element.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:30, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          • I still think the colors are distracting and superficial. That said, I have stricken my oppose and will remain neutral. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility review (MOS:DTAB)[edit]

  • Tables need captions, which allow screen reader software to jump straight to named tables without having to read out all of the text before it each time. Visual captions can be added by putting |+ caption_text as the first line of the table code; if that caption would duplicate a nearby section header, you can make it screen-reader-only by putting |+ {{sronly|caption_text}} instead.
  • Tables need column scopes for all column header cells, which in combination with row scopes lets screen reader software accurately determine and read out the headers for each cell of a data table. Column scopes can be added by adding !scope=col to each header cell, e.g. ! Year becomes !scope=col | Year. If the cell spans multiple columns with a colspan, then use !scope=colgroup instead.
  • Tables need row scopes on the "primary" column for each row, which in combination with column scopes lets screen reader software accurately determine and read out the headers for each cell of a data table. Row scopes can be added by adding !scope=row to each primary cell, e.g. | 1987 becomes !scope=row | 1987 (on its own line). If the cell spans multiple rows with a rowspan, then use !scope=rowgroup instead.
  • Ignoring how the mix of colors is garish, Illinois College, MIT, and Colorado Mines fail accessibility standards for color contrast. You can check colors at [1], but in general gray text on a color is unreadable to people with poor or reduced eyesight. Please swap those text to white.
  • Please see MOS:DTAB for example table code if this isn't clear. I don't return to these reviews until the nomination is ready to close, so ping me if you have any questions. --PresN 15:17, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comment: Not to beat a dead horse too much here, but the colors here are plainly unacceptable. MOS:COLOR plainly states that pages should meet at least WCAG AA standards, which require a 4.5:1 contrast ratio between normal text and the background. Some glaring examples: Valdosta State has #000000 text on #CC0000 background, which has a contrast ratio of 3.56:1. Carnegie Mellon has #000000 on #990000, which is a ratio of 2.35:1. Susquehanna: #3366CC on #651C32 for 2.21:1. These are just the obvious examples; it's not fair to expect reviewers to check all of the color combinations. RunningTiger123 (talk) 01:32, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please consider using this format:
Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year (1987–2010)
Year University Division Winner School College Division Winner School
1987 Kip Corrington Texas A&M Grant Jones Denison
1988 Paul Sorenson Dartmouth David Gubbrud Augustana (SD)

That way all contrast issues are avoided and links can be their normal color. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 02:52, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Football Academic All-America Team Members of the Year (1987–2010)
Year University Division Winner School College Division Winner School
1987 Kip Corrington Texas A&M Grant Jones Denison
1988 Paul Sorenson Dartmouth David Gubbrud Augustana (SD)
    • Wait. That is only pulling a second color that may be the secondary color. In 2 of the four cases it is pulling something other than the secondary color. More tinkering to come.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:05, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]