Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian rules football/Archive 5

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Portal

Should AFL have its own portal? Cricket, rugby league, and rugby union do: see Portal:Cricket, Portal:Rugby league, Portal:Rugby union. . . There is lots of info at Wikipedia:Portal, if you follow the links. — Lindsay658 (talk) 00:39, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

A whatal? We struggle to keep most articles vandalism free and references are often few and far between, featured articles and lists are as rare as [insert Freo/Saints/Melb/Richmond reference], player/draft/debut lists are full of redlinks, so I think we have plenty of other work to do.The-Pope (talk) 04:53, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Actually, we have one already! Portal:Australian rules football, but like I guessed, it's not maintained or kept up to date. Anyone else can feel free to maintain it if they want to. The-Pope (talk) 06:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps it just goes to show that we were both right: (a) we need one, and (b) it takes up too much time. When I have a bit of spare time, I might have a look and see what can be done to get things a little more advanced than they seem to be (last real editing was done three and a half years ago), and then report back.Lindsay658 (talk) 06:14, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Anyone know how these things work? Portal:Cricket hasn't been edited since January yet the "In the news" section lists stuff from the last month or so, eg Sachin's double hundred. Looking at the history of the portals you would think would be the most popular ... the baseball portal has had only two edits this year, which was reverting vandalism. Association football only two, both by robots. American football hasn't been touched. Jevansen (talk) 07:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
I think they work with a lot of transcluded templates - ie the actual portal content doesn't change, but the content in each of the included templates does.The-Pope (talk) 07:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I've done a little bit of work on it, including linking to the Project quiz. I don't have that much time but I'll try to work on the Showcase stuff at least if I can. AFL-Cool 01:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Resources

For the Bob Rahilly article I have just created I am trying to find the following resources:

  • Inside Football : February 10th 2010 (page 29)
  • AFL Record, Round 19 2009
  • Everything you ever wanted to know about Australian Football but couldn't be bothered asking (Five Mile Press, 1982) written by Graeme Atkinson (page 125)

If someone has access to these and they are relevant to the page, could they leave me a message on my talk page?

Apparently this guy once hit the post four times in one game, which was some sort of record (at least as of 1982). Hack (talk) 08:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I know a guy who hit the post four times in one quarter once. Wish I could source it though! All I have at the moment violates WP:OR because I was there and that's all! AFL-Cool 10:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Some guy in the VFA hit the post seven times in a match - how unlucky... Hack (talk) 10:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah but was it all in one quarter? Sorry, couldn't resist. AFL-Cool 10:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

No top importance articles higher than B class?

I just reviewed the project listing of articles on the project page, and I was astonished to see that NO articles classified as Top importance are tagged as Good Articles. We've got 24 in B Class. I'm busy trying to work on options for the Portal (see above) but there are only 9 articles in our whole project that are GA or featured!

So here's a challenge for everyone in the project. Let's get some of these top importance articles from B to GA. It includes 14 of the 16 AFL clubs (Adelaide and the Bulldogs are the exceptions), the laws of the game, the AFL, the game, the AFL grand final, Fitzroy, and five players (Gordon Coventry, Haydn Bunton Snr, Jack Dyer, John Coleman and Polly Farmer).

And if one wants to look at the high importance ones why not work on those as well? AFL-Cool 10:43, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Why aren't Adelaide or the Bulldogs top importance? Surely every player in the team of the century should be classified as top importance? Aaroncrick TALK 10:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I assume they are top importance. They just aren't B Class. AFL-Cool 11:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
There was a guide somewhere - I think it's only HoF legends that are top importance. The thing about GAs and FAs is you need quite a few dedicated editors focussed on it and fully up to speed on the requirements. I've never seen the point of it when there is so much work to do at the other end - vandalism fighting, referencing, article creation, basic organisation, dabbing etc. I might go for an FL or two on the draft or debut lists, but the idea of having my work judged by others doesn't really appeal to me. The-Pope (talk) 11:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
GAs aren't that difficult, just need the info. However, I've got basically no AFL books, just ones on Sheedy, Hird, Carey and some other ones in general. But yeah, I get your point The-Pope. Aaroncrick TALK 12:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
What about Laurie Nash??? It seems to be a top-rate article. Also, what about an "interesting" article, such as Stan Reid? Or about some-one who was also eminent in another field, such as Brian Roet? Or, even, extraordinary events such as Colin Benham's famous "in-off the small boy" goal in 1934? — Lindsay658 (talk) 22:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Don't confuse importance to quality. Any article, on the President or an amoeba, could become a featured or good article. Completely independant from importance. The text on our cat pages say:
  • top = "Subject is a must-have for a print encyclopedia.",
  • High =" Subject is exceptionally important.",
  • Mid = "Subject contributes a depth of knowledge."
  • Low = "Subject fills in important details."
I don't really agree with those descriptions. WP:WA has their importance ranged as:
  • top ="Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to its specific field. Reserved for subjects that have achieved international notability within their field.";
  • high= "Subject is extremely notable, but has not achieved international notability, or is only notable within a particular continent."
  • Mid = "Subject is only notable within its particular field or subject and has achieved notability in a particular place or area.";
  • Low = "Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within its field of study. It may only be included to cover a specific part of a notable article."
Not sure if they are really that suitable either. WP:Cricket has a whole page on it - very detailed and very strict as to what makes it into the top and high classes that is a good guide IMO. WP:Australia has a very brief scale, but uses slightly different terms to the other pages. We probably should aim to knock up a Wikipedia:WikiProject_AFL/Assessment page ourselves.The-Pope (talk) 07:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Pope, I agree that it would take a dedicated editor. But it's interesting that Aaron was the one who commented on the effort required, when he has got a success story under his belt (York Park). That's one of the 9 articles in the top echelon that I was talking about.
I also agree that we should perhaps do an assessment sub page, although I think the importance examples that you gave do have some aspects that aren't great, but they also have some good points to make. AFL-Cool 08:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I've got nothing against going for GAs, it's just not something I'm into - for every Gary Ablett you need a Joel Corey, for every Dal Santo there's a Jobe Watson, for every Fev there's a Bradshaw. Inside/outside, groundwork/finishing, DYK/Vandalism fighting/GAs/FAs. We need 'em all.The-Pope (talk) 11:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Couldn't have said it any better :) Aaroncrick TALK 11:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Sports Notability

There is discussion ongoing at Wikipedia_talk:BIO#RFC:_WP:Athlete_Professional_Clause_Needs_Improvement debating possible changes to the WP:ATHLETE notability guideline. As a result, some have suggested using WP:NSPORT as an eventual replacement for WP:ATHLETE. Editing has begun at WP:NSPORT, please participate to help refine the notability guideline for the sports covered by this wikiproject. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 03:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Infoboxes

So far, I have seen {{Infobox AFL player}}, {{Infobox afl player}}, and {{Infobox afl player NEW}}. Has there been any discussion about which one is preferred? I am happy to help convert the others to help merge these if there is some consensus. It seem a bit much to have three that all do roughly the same thing. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 18:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That's my preference as well and we decided long ago that it should supersede {{Infobox afl player}}. {{Infobox AFL player}} has no consensus at all, at least not that I recall. I invited User:Aussieman92 to comment here on it but he wasn't interested. He does seem keen however to add it to as many pages is possible. Jevansen (talk) 01:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Definitely {{Infobox afl player NEW}}. {{Infobox AFL player}} uses terminology such as "Pld" when it really should be "Games" as that's the terminology most commonly used when referring to AFL players. Same goes for "Appearances". Also, I know it's an optional field, but having a total points scored column is really just unnecessary, and I have never seen a stat guides or site that refers to this. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 02:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I know it's not your fault that this contentious infobox is the way it is currently and being put onto players pages etc, but looking at the history it seems your originally created it back in 2007. Maybe wait a little bit for more consensus, but this may make it easier if we choose to delete it because you can I believe do a self nomination. Basically what it comes down to is that we can't/shouldn't have two active infoboxes. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 06:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
To understand where we stand, {{Infobox AFL player}} is on 112 pages, {{Infobox afl player}} is on 2311, and {{Infobox afl player NEW}} is on 1324 pages. There are bits of each I like, bits of each I don't. Start again with {{Infobox AFL footballer}} anyone?The-Pope (talk) 13:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Okay, so at least by numbers, it appears as though either {{Infobox afl player NEW}} or {{Infobox afl player}} is the preferred option. Are there any features in those templates which should be changed or modified? I am happy to merge all of these into say {{Infobox AFL footballer}} as suggested. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Top importance article expanding

As can be seen above, an editor has expressed how he's reluctant to improve an article to GA standard. However, is anyone in the project interesed in choosing and improving a top importance article significantly as a project? Aaroncrick TALK 09:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't say I'm reluctant, it's just that time is finite and I see other priorities. Luckily, everyone has their own priorities and interests. Looking at the list of top importance articles I'd suggest doing one of the legends, rather than a club, for vandalism reasons and likelihood of written biographies. The-Pope (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
As soon as I get some spare time to do a final review of Laurie Nash, I'm going to start the process of taking it through the FA hurdles. If passed, (unless I've missed someone/something), Nash would be the highest importance AFL related article at FA level. I'm also in the very early stages of expanding Nash's old team mate into at least GA status, although that's a while away yet. As ever, any input gratefully accepted. --Roisterer (talk) 14:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
And I hope no one minds that upon realising that Pratt didn't have an importance listed, I listed him as "high". --Roisterer (talk) 14:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

On The Pope's comment re an assessment page, I'm just wondering if there's an existing reference that explains how we graded the articles as they stand (ie, GA, B, C etc). AFL-Cool 00:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Most AFL articles are rated too high. Aaroncrick TALK 05:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
But where did they get those ratings? AFL-Cool 04:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, I meant graded. Aaroncrick TALK 04:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
That doesn't answer my question, Aaron. AFL-Cool 03:20, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I'm not too sure, sorry. Aaroncrick TALK 05:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
GA, FA, FL etc are all through formal applications to external reviewers (the things I'm not interested in). The others are basically self assessed. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Assessment for guidelines on what each level means.The-Pope (talk) 06:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Hmmmm. Okay, so I guess we need to formalise it a little more. I'll see what I can do with creating the assessment page in my user area. When it's done I'll get some feedback and we can go from there. AFL-Cool 13:42, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
There's a rather large gap betwwen GA and FA, and I personally think that going for FA is a waste of time. However, Roisterer has done some excellent work on Nash, and he could perhaps take the article to FAC after a copy-edit/peer review. Anyone can basically assess a stub, start, C or B class article, which causes some inconsistency. On a whole, AFL articles are a heap of crap that attracts a lot of vandalism and spam that goes unnoticed, despite the efforts of Jevansen (talk · contribs). Aaroncrick TALK 22:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyone got a skills book or something along those lines to ref these articles? Aaroncrick TALK 05:12, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The rule book would be a good reference for some surely? AFL-Cool 03:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
There is a glossary for a lot of the important stuff - page seven on this link...Hack (talk) 13:39, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm slowly going to be expanding the above article, and I was wondering how we would like it formatted. I was just going to have a brief summary on all matches and put it under the history... Any opinions? Aaroncrick TALK 08:07, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Would we include ANZAC Day traditions for leagues other than VFL/AFL? --Roisterer (talk) 04:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Nah, perhaps the article need renaming?
Do you need to have an introductory para describing the how, when, and why of Anzac Day?; and then, a brief comment on the manner in which it was observed in Melbourne (including the fact that the march was always in the early afternoon, rather than the late morning) -- which, then, leads on to the (then) extraordinary decision to have a sporting event on Anzac Day. At the moment, the article (I think unfairly) presupposes that the reader will already know all about those matters. Lindsay658 (talk) 04:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Good points, thanks. Aaroncrick TALK 22:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Are the Dogs a Football Club?

Yesterday, User:Guinea pig warrior moved Western Bulldogs to Western Bulldogs Football Club. I disagree with the move, as their own annual report plainly states that they are the Footscray Football Club trading as Western Bulldogs. The official club website does has Western Bulldogs Football Club in the title bar, but I think that that is due to sloppy web designers cut and pasting template-style across all 16 team sites that Telstra runs for the AFL. So, does anyone else have any evidence either way of what the club's full name is? The-Pope (talk) 11:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

At best Western Bulldogs Football Club should be a redirect. The actual club is registered with ASIC as Footscray Football Club Limited with the trading name of Western Bulldogs. A google search of the various names comes up with far more returns for Western Bulldogs without the FC bit, in my mind meeting WP:COMMONNAME... Hack (talk) 12:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
The user is making some controversial edits for the record. As an example he's claimed that Gold Coast was founded in 2009 on the basis of the license being granted then. The history of the club however clearly shows a 2008 formation. AFL-Cool 12:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Laurie Nash at Peer Review

I've finally got around to listing Laurie Nash at Peer Review. Pleased to get any feedback. Cheers. --Roisterer (talk) 11:45, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Good work :) Aaroncrick TALK 12:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Tom Harley for Good Article

It's taken awhile, but I've finally put up the Tom Harley article for good article assessment. Feel free to assess or make comments. Boomtish (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Alan Hickinbotham has recently died.[1]. I have created a placeholder article but perhaps some SA or Geelong footy fans could expand and/or inline cite this ... -- Mattinbgn\talk 05:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Regional Leagues

I've gotten myself involved in a discussion about an article about a regional Australian rule football team and I feel woefully uninformed. Are regional leagues such as the Riverland Football League considered professional or on par with bottom tier football (soccer) teams or American single-A baseball clubs? Would teams, such as Renmark Rovers FC be valid topics for articles? Thanks in advance for your help. Cheers. Movementarian (Talk) 12:57, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Difficult questions, with lots of answers. AFAIK, most regional teams have a couple of paid players, who might get up to a couple of hundred dollars per game, but most players on the would much less, if anything. They are not all professional footballers, they are farmers, teachers, electrians, policemen etc who earn some extra bucks on the weekend (and then probably spend it all at the bar after the game!) Compared to English soccer, there is no promotion/relegation system, nor any state/national cup competition. Compared to minor league baseball, these teams aren't linked to major teams, so there is no direct feeder system to the major league - that only happens in the major state leagues. So what should we do with them? I'll make up my mind and post it at the AfD.The-Pope (talk) 13:57, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. It seems close to the USL Premier Development League. Many of the clubs in that league have articles on Wikipedia, so I see no reason to exclude Australian football teams of similar stature. Cheers. Movementarian (Talk) 14:05, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
There is no simple answer. As mentioned above, these leagues vary from semi-professional to strictly amateur - though there is no definitive grading across the country. I would suggest most of the leagues would justify an article of their own but articles on the clubs would come down to a judgment call based on WP:GNG. Hack (talk) 07:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject AFL Member template

Hi guys, I've taken the liberty to do a simple re-design of Template:Afl-project-member. The previous version was stretched across the screen and quite cumbersome to fit on user pages. The current design is more consistent with many other similar WikiProject member templates. Boomtish (talk) 04:15, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Good jobs, cheers. Aaroncrick TALK 21:56, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Great to see an article on this; however, is this article specifically for the recent bid or for that and the one in the nineties? If so, I guess the article needs better organising and should be in a more chronicle order. Just checking before I go ahead and make changes. Aaroncrick TALK 04:50, 3 July 2010 (UTC) PS: shouldn't the article be renamed if it's about both bids? Aaroncrick TALK 04:51, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

  • Related to this, Template:AFL has a link to the bid page and 2015+ in brackets. Surely this is original research (and a bit optimistic) given the bid article has no reference to this date? Hack (talk) 14:18, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Agreed, this is what I thought. Aaroncrick TALK 11:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. I reckon we should have an article on this topic. It seems to be most relevant to AFL, in my experience. It's definitely notable. However, I don't have much knowledge of it myself. Who wants to help create this article? - Richard Cavell (talk) 09:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Caretaker coach issue at the Port Adelaide wiki

Please refer to the Port Adelaide wiki and the discussion/history of the wiki. Eathb (talk) 15:53, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Charles Cameron(s)

Hi. After about a years break I've started making AFL player articles again - I've started on the Fitzroy player's list found here. I remember a discussion a while back about the disambiguation of players with the same name - I recall it was decided that where there was more than one player with the same name middle initials will be used. There are 3 Charlie Camerons, and I have middle initials for two, so I'm assuming the three articles would be named:

  1. Charles Cameron (Australian rules footballer)
  2. Charles A. Cameron (Australian rules footballer)
  3. Charles J. Cameron (Australian rules footballer)


The only problem I have is that Charles J. Cameron is currently at Charles Cameron. I have no problem with moving pages, but I don't know how to clean up the links that point to where the page was originally located. Can anyone offer any help?

Terlob (talk) 05:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi mate. Good to have you back.
Unless wikipedia already have an article on a first/last name & middle initial combination (eg John F. Kennedy) then disambiguation isn't required. So the two initialed players could be named -
  1. Charles J. Cameron
  2. Charles A. Cameron
With the other bloke, as the title Charles Cameron (Australian rules footballer) could refer to any of the three I'd disambiguate with his birth year. So in this instance it would be -
  1. Charles Cameron (Australian rules footballer, born 1874)
If you want to move that page you mentioned, I'd be happy to update any links for you. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 09:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick reply! Those three players all have articles now, and they're all created. I don't have any birth date information for the uninitialled Charlie, so he's at Charlie Cameron (Australian rules footballer) at the moment, with some links to the other blokes. Feel free to move it around if you want. If you could clean up those links it would be great! Thanks.
Terlob (talk) 11:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
No worries. When AFL Tables doesn't provide the birthdate or birthyear, you can often find it by searching here. That's where I got the 1874 from for the 'uninitialled' guy. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 01:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Australian footballer vs. Australian rules footballer

Are we sticking with "Australian rules footballer" to disambiguate players? I'm going through the list of Fitzroy players I linked above - all the players that have names that already exist on wikipedia are disambiguated with "Australian footballer". I'm about to go and find and replace that with the correct phrase - if that's what we're sticking with. It'd also be handy if we started updating all those lists to reflect that change so we don't double up articles Terlob (talk) 11:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The "rules" on this are fairly loose. WP:NCDAB states that you should avoid proper nouns and should choose whichever is simpler. Partially because there has been some resistance to the name "Australian rules" and partially to "claim" football for us, I've tended to prefer (Australian footballer), as (footballer) is too likely to be taken by an English roundball player. If there is an Australian soccer player with the same name then I have no issue with (Australian rules footballer), but I'd never bother about changing any that already exist in either direction. Hack has given you one list that has only sporadically been updated - the category pages are the next best resource. As for the current status, there are 4581 articles under Category:Players of Australian rules football (and don't get me started on why it isn't Cat:Australian rules footballers any more!). 3603 don't have a qualifier, 519 have (footballer), 264 have (Australian rules footballer) and 149 have (Australian footballer) (the numbers include variations such as born 1899 or similar). Three who have gone punting in the USA have become (football player)s and 43 have some other qualifier, all unrelated to football, such as politician or similar. So, bottom line is - up to you. I like typing 6 characters less and not having to move the page if another footballer comes along. Looks like I'm in the minority (at the moment at least) though. The-Pope (talk) 12:24, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
The article I'm talking about is List of Fitzroy Football Club players. I'd be leaning towards having a standard that eventually every player adhered too - it just looks messy to have 3 or 4 different variants for the same thing. It's much much easier to go off the list shown here than the list here Terlob (talk) 12:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Australian rules footballer, while being a bit unwieldy, does the job best in my opinion... Hack (talk) 14:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
I agree it isn't ideal to have different variants like Terlob says but it's unavoidable. The first choice should always be the simplest (footballer) but if there's someone with the same name from another football code then the next logical step is(Australian footballer) and then if the person from another football code is Australian we need to use (Australian rules footballer) to avoid ambiguity. I'd prefer that we didn't go moving existing pages unless there was a disambiguation issue or it is to simplify the name. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 01:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
My two cents - I think that there is a real difference between 'Australian footballer', which means a player of football of any type who comes from Australia, and 'Australian rules footballer', who plays the Aussie code in any country. A person who plays FootyWild in South Africa who has never been to Australia is still an Australian rules footballer. I think (Australian rules footballer) is correct. - Richard Cavell (talk) 11:55, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
And in almost most cases, disambiguating to "a footballer of any code who is Australian" is sufficient, as you are only really trying to disambiguate from every other possible person, or else we'd name every article John Smith (Australian rules footballer, born 1940) from day one. If (footballer) (ie "a footballer of any code from anywhere") is ambiguous, then test (Australian footballer) "a footballer of any code who is Australian" and if it is still ambiguous, then go to (Australian rules footballer). IMHO. The-Pope (talk) 13:01, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Another two cents - the word 'footballer' grates on my ears a bit. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia. 'Football player' sounds better. However, I recognize the need to make article names as short as reasonably possible. - Richard Cavell (talk) 03:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
I've been doing a fair bit of disambiguating during my meandering compilation of lists of VFL/AFl debuts (currently almost finished 1988) and I've mainly gone to (Australian rules footballer) but there's no hard and fast rule for me (sometimes I'm just too lazy to type out "Ustralian rules footballer"). --Roisterer (talk) 03:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Two-time Brownlow medal winners

Hi. We have Template:AFL Brownlow Medallists and Template:Three time Brownlow Medal winners. What about Template:Two time Brownlow Medal winners? It would easily be a notable achievement to win two Brownlows. - Richard Cavell (talk) 08:36, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Perhaps we could merge the two and have Template:Multiple Brownlow Medal winners? ie List the three times winners on the first line and dual winners on the second. Jevansen (talk) 09:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me. Reyk YO! 10:29, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree. Any dissenters? If not, we'll do it. - Richard Cavell (talk) 11:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Please see the issue above first.

Now, along the same lines, I propose that Template:AFL Brownlow Medallists be renamed Template:Brownlow Medal winners. A few thoughts:

  • For most of its history, it was the VFL, not the AFL.
  • 'AFL' is not and has never been part of the name of the award. In fact, on the original trophy, the VFL logo was present.
  • There is no other type of Brownlow Medal.
  • It is actually the Chas Brownlow Trophy, not the Brownlow Medal. Because it is universally known as the Brownlow Medal, I think that the name 'Medal' should stay, but I feel that 'Medallist' is going too far.
  • 'Medallist' seems awkward to me. The winner should, by analogy, be called a 'trophyist', and that is not a word.
  • I also think that the present Template:Brownlow Medal is unsatisfactory, but we can deal with that some other time. - Richard Cavell (talk) 11:51, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Requested moves

Richard Cavell (talk) 03:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

While we're at it, I noticed that top South Australian full-forward Fred Phillis is currently at Dennis Phillis, his birth name. Dennis Phillis gets 879 hits while Fred Phillis gets around 306,000. I might move him to Fred (which is what he calls himself) if no one objects. --Roisterer (talk) 04:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Support that move. He was known as 'Fred' to everyone while he was playing, it seems, so that is his natural name. - Richard Cavell (talk) 04:51, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Support the above mentioned moves... they all seem to make sense Jenks24 (talk) 06:44, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done - they're all moved now. - Richard Cavell (talk) 04:12, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Notability (again)

It seems like the infamous WP:ATHLETE is gone and WP:NSPORT has taken its place. Have a lot at the suggested wording at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports)#Australian_rules_football and see if you agree, disagree or have any suggested improvements.The-Pope (talk) 13:59, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Season infobox

Hey, I've just tidied up the AFL club season infobox which was created by Allied45 last year. I think I've improved it enough that we should be using it on all team season articles (currently it's only on the Melbourne 2010 article). At the moment all the other articles are using the the soccer infobox and obviously it's not as useful to aussie rules articles. So unless anyone has any objections I'm going to start changing the infoboxes over in the next few days (or someone else can if they're feeling generous) and ask that if anyone starts a new club season article that they use the AFL infobox, not the soccer one. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 14:47, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Nice work! I don't think I exactly succeeded in making this template... – Allied45 (talk) 08:45, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Also, maybe an image and caption field should be added. – Allied45 (talk) 08:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Thanks :) Ok I've added image, image size and caption fields and updated the example. Take a look and tell me what you think. Jenks24 (talk) 12:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Perfect! Just how I envisioned it! – Allied45 (talk) 06:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Glad I could help. You did most of the work last year :) Jenks24 (talk) 06:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

AFL articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the AFL articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 00:02, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

RFC On Differing Football Nomenclature

Hello, i'm looking for input from the Wikiprojects on all the Football codes so we can get a standardized wording for each brand of the sport. Doc Quintana (talk) 18:48, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this code should be referred to as. Officially, it's Australian football. However, it could also be Australian rules football or Australian Rules football (uppercase 'R'). It's colloquially referred to as 'Aussie rules'. - Richard Cavell (talk) 07:31, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Are boundary umpires notable?

I saw an article on Adam Coote this afternoon and the question above came to mind. What does this project think?

I think that field umpires in the AFL are definitely notable - they've achieved the top of their game in a nationwide competition that is very frequently documented. The field umpires are crucial to the outcome of the game, and their biases and emphases are well documented. (I'm not being insulting towards the umpires - I'm saying that a field umpire can consciously modify the strictness of his interpretation of the rules to encourage compliance, safety, etc). One retiring field umpire was given a lap of honour at the MCG last week. What is the relationship between boundary umpires' careers and field umpires' careers? Do they 'graduate' from boundary to field? If not, then I'd say that boundary umpires are not notable. Their decisions are trivial and rarely commentated upon.- Richard Cavell (talk) 08:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Generally I'd agree that they aren't notable. They generally don't move from boundary to field, they stay where they are. This one, with the multiple grand final appearances, multiple borderline reliable sources from associated associations or local papers, and the running side, may just be notable. The fact that it is well written, neutral POV and well referenced helps a lot, even though we all know that quality of article shouldn't affect notability... it is hard to totally ignore it.The-Pope (talk) 08:51, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

New template for squads?

I've noticed that the St Kilda and Port Adelaide have a much better looking and more informative template (includes NSW scholarship players, senior and assistant coaches) in their wiki articles in comparison to other teams wikis. Do you think this template should be used for other clubs as well? Powerstiffs (talk) 12:03, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

My two cents - yes. It's much more informative. - Richard Cavell (talk) 21:50, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
It's nice, but I wouldn't use the term "First team squad" – Allied45 (talk) 07:12, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

White as a club colour

I'm getting a bit tired of seeing white being added and deleted to the club colours section on club infoboxes. Given the prevalence of white based clash jumpers, this issue will not go away. So are club colours any and all colours that are on any non-one-off jumper; or are they only the traditional colours, ignoring white if it's only used in a clash jumper, text (Carlton?) or other minor details?The-Pope (talk) 15:23, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion it is only the traditional colours that should be considered the club colours, not whatever alternate colour may be on a clash jumper for that season. Concerning the article in question, to reiterate what I said on the talk page, when the official club website does not include white as one of the team colours, then neither should the article. Jenks24 (talk) 15:36, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned the club colours are what the clubs say they are. Just because many clubs' clash jumpers include white this doesn't mean that white is somehow a crypto-"official" club colour. This really should be a "no brainer" as an issue. Afterwriting (talk) 15:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree, it's a no-brainer. The football clubs all have official colours. St Kildas' colours are red, white and black. Brisbane's are maroon, blue and gold, with no white. - Richard Cavell (talk) 14:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, Shall we confirm the colours then:

  1. Adelaide: Blue, Gold, Red (not white);
  2. Brisbane: maroon, blue & gold (not white);
  3. Carlton: Navy blue (not white, baby blue nor yellow);
  4. Collingwood: who cares Black & white;
  5. Essendon: Red and black;
  6. Fremantle:Purple, Green, Red and White;
  7. Geelong: Blue and White;
  8. Hawthorn:Yellow and Brown (not white);
  9. Melbourne:Red and Blue (not white);
  10. North Melbourne: Blue and White;
  11. Port: Teal, silver, white? - honestly not sure anymore!;
  12. Richmond: Yellow and Black, coz we're from Tiiii...ger Yellow and Black coz were from Tigerland;
  13. St Kilda: Red, white and black (not yellow);
  14. Sydney: Red and White;
  15. Dogs:Red, White and Blue;
  16. Eagles: Yellow and blue (not Ochre nor white)
  17. Fitzroy: Red, yellow, blue

All agreed?The-Pope (talk) 15:19, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

  • Agree – but I think Port might have black as one of their colours. Jenks24 (talk) 15:39, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Disagree - according to Aussie Rules: For Dummies (2nd edition, 2008) by Jim Main, which is claimed to be fact-checked by official sources, the official colours differ from your list in the following ways:
  1. Adelaide - red, navy blue, yellow.
  2. Brisbane - maroon, royal blue, yellow.
  3. Carlton - navy blue, white.
  4. Geelong - navy blue, white.
  5. Hawthorn - brown, gold.
  6. Kangaroos - royal blue, white.
  7. Melbourne - navy blue, red.
  8. Port Adelaide - teal, black, white.
  9. West Coast - royal blue, gold, white.

As to Fitzroy, see the article Fitzroy Football Club for a sourced explanation that the colours were most recently red and blue. - Richard Cavell (talk) 02:22, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

That is wrong, Port Adelaide's colours include "silver" which is even included in the song. Brisbane Lions use white in the numbers of the home guernsey. West Coast use to types of blue. GuineaPigWarrior (talk) 16:20, 9 October, 2010 (UTC)

It's a talk page. I like puppies. It is not as strict as other pages on being encyclopedic. In fact, you can be as unencyclopedic as you want here. Some people get grumpy about it, I think it helps build rapport and makes us actually enjoy being here a little bit. If the only thing I did was make smart alec, humorous or add personal opinions to talk pages, then by all means tell me to stop. But it's a very small part of what I do. This was never meant to be the definitive list... it was meant to be a starting point. The definitive list should be in the actual article. If you disagree, as you have, then I'm very happy to have the article different from my list. It's was a starting point. If you disagree with a lot of it, cut and paste it into your own list, with your signature under it. Don't change my words, that have my signature under them. I lied earlier. I actually prefer slightly older dogs, they don't poo or wee as much in the house. The-Pope (talk) 12:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

The question being ask is Should football be WP:DAB'd for all codes when the code is first mentioned in the intro? Gnevin (talk) 09:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

This discussion may be of interest to participants on this board. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 11:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:12, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Port Power/Magpies proposed merger and its possible effects on articles

Depending on who you speak to, Port Power and Port Magpies are due to merge before the start of the 2011 season. If it comes to pass, and we return to one Port Adelaide FC that has 1 AFL premiership and 36 SANFL premierships, will it effect related articles greatly? --Roisterer (talk) 01:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If it can clarify things and stop the POV edit warring, then great, But I fear it will just amplify the issues. Bilby just found some good refs that describe the uniqueness of the situation... maybe having a look at some of the NRL, NSL or NBL articles might be of use, some of them seem to appear/merge/fold with regularity! The-Pope (talk) 02:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Well, it's happened. I tink one of the key issues would be categorising only players who represented Port Adelaide in the SANFL from 1997 to 2010 as Category:Port Adelaide Magpies Footballers and all others as Port Adelaide Football Club footballers. I'm sure other issues will bob up that we will need to deal with. --Roisterer (talk) 08:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Ridiculous move

Some editor has moved Lou Richards to Lou Richards (footballer) and then changed the rediect at Lou Richards into an unreferenced stub. The footballer is clearly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but I don't have time to deal with this at the moment so can someone else please fix this, as I will probably be away for most of the next week. Thanks, Jenks24 (talk) 04:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Seems to have been dealt with. Thanks. Jenks24 (talk) 17:31, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Our garish colourful navboxes

Howdy all, User:Nouse4aname has been changing all the AFL club navboxes from the colourful way they were to the default "neutral" colour. S/he has been using WP:NAVI and WP:ICONDECORATION as the reasoning and I tend to agree, to an extent. (See my talk for longer reasoning.) Anyway, my compromise was in effect, this, so that, although the titlestyle remains colourful, the rest of the navbox is less harsh on the eye. Opinions anyone? (Or else I will just implement this change on all navboxes citing "consensus" here.... ;) Jenks24 (talk) 17:43, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Just adding that I think it's fine if the Brownlow, Norm Smith etc templates remain in the neutral colour as I can't see a reason for to be coloured. Jenks24 (talk) 17:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I think a bit of colour in the nav box is a good idea, but you need to maintain readability. For example, perhaps the Melbourne nav box should use white text in the heading instead of the red, but keeping the blue background and red border. I also don't mind if a bit of colour creeps into the body of the nav box, provided the text remains readable. Perhaps we should revert to the previous 'colourful' version of all the nav boxes, but then review text colours to ensure that it is clearly readable. Will be hard to get a good consensus in the off-season. Cheers, Matt5AU (talk) 23:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Yeah I realise this place is dead in the off season, and I agree, readability is the key. The problem is if you look at, for example, the Gold Coast template before it was changed. It was extremely hard on the eyes. Anyway there's no real rush for this, so any others comments are welcome, but yours seems to be a good idea. Jenks24 (talk) 05:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I think I may have been responsible for originally introducing these designs (as an adaptation of our previous club navboxes), however I originally created them so only the titlestyle was colourful, so I support your compromise, as that was how it was originally intended. However, I also agree that it isn't too much of an issue as long as the text is readable. – Allied45 (talk) 03:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Ok, well I've changed the all the navboxes so they have the team colours in the titlestyle, but none in the body (is that the right word?) of the template. If anyone feels they are stil to hard on the eyes, feel free to make them less so. Jenks24 (talk) 05:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Bookmark this please

Every year, around this time, many new articles appear for the new draftees. To help "discover them as they appear" bookmarking and regularly checking Special:RecentChangesLinked/2010 AFL Draft will let you see the articles being created, even if they aren't on your watchlist (you can actually watchlist redlinks - which is another way of ensuring that we don't end up with microstubs or "Tom Hill is going to be the next Adam Cooney and star for the Dogs, He rulz" type of articles that will just annoy everyone.The-Pope (talk) 13:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Jim Smith / Jimmy Smith

Is Jim Smith (Australian footballer) (linked from List of Sydney Swans players) the same person as Jimmy Smith (Australian footballer)? The dates seem to match up, more or less, but I'd like an expert to check please. - TB (talk) 17:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

No, they're not the same person. Both played in 1906, but for different clubs [2] [3]. Cheers. Jevansen (talk) 21:05, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for checking this. The 1907 gap in Jimmy's records coupled with Jim's brief appeaance in 1906 made me suspicious of the stats.rlegue.com records - perhaps a loan or trial with another club, coupled with a one digit data-entry error. Happy to be wrong. - TB (talk) 08:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The AFL Encyc of Players says that the Saints one retired as a player in 1906 to become an umpire in 07, but then returned to playing in 08. No info at all is given about the Swans one except games and goals. The-Pope (talk) 08:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
A database search on the official AFL website also reveals they both have different date of births and middle names. Jevansen (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Would the Saints' Smith be the James Smith who umpired 33 VFL games between 1907 and 1910? link Hack (talk) 08:47, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguated player name titles

When a player name is disambiguated eg. Chris Tarrant (footballer) should John Smith (footballer), John Smith (Australian footballer) or John Smith (Australian rules footballer) be used. I have seen all three used in different articles but I think the last one is the better option for all pages, as it clearly shows the sport the player is playing, rather than leading to confusion between the various football codes. Bozzio (talk) 11:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The policy - WP:AT - states that the article title should be recognisable, natural, precise, concise and consistent. Given that there aren't that many Australian soccer players, compared to Aussie rules players, I find that (Australian footballer) fits these criteria better than the other two. (footballer) is too likely to be ambiguous with a UK footballer (or rugby/gridiron or other football code - who is more than likely to be dabbed differently - (football player) for example, but it is still ambiguous. (Australian rules footballer) in most cases loses out on being less concise. But I definitely don't think we need to be totally consistent or move pages around, unless they start to become ambiguous with new pages being created.The-Pope (talk) 13:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Some stats: of the 4709 pages in Category:Players of Australian rules football, we have 3693 without a qualifier, 529 with (footballer), 271 with (Australian rules footballer) and 166 with (Australian footballer) and 50 with something else, normally not football related. In July 2010 it was 519 (10 less), 264 (7) and 149 (17). In April 2008 it was 335 (194 less), 157 (114), 14 (152). So, my favoured one is the least popular, but catching up, slowly! The-Pope (talk) 08:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Just to add to this discussion, granted almost a month late. For Gridiron players, we typically just use John Smith (Canadian football) or John Smith (American football). So maybe the easiest thing would be John Smith (Australian football)? Shootmaster 44 (talk) 00:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Templatecrucft?

I was thinking of sending these to TfD, but I thought I might get some opinions here first:

Thoughts? Jenks24 (talk) 16:23, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Not really fussed either way but I would have thought the seasons template would be pretty useful. Hack (talk) 08:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, at first I felt the same way at first about the seasons template, but then I realised that the seasons template is replicated in Template:St Kilda Football Club and that only three of the seasons actually link to St Kilda season, the other 100+ just linking to the VFL/AFL season. Jenks24 (talk) 12:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
I would support the deletion of all those templates. If you decided to take them to TfD, you should perhaps mention that they were created by a banned user and now prolific sockpuppeter BrianBeahr. That would presumably help your case. Jevansen (talk) 14:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Specifically regarding the club season template, is there a reasonable prospect that someone will write up all of those articles? Hack (talk) 11:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Interesting question. In the short term, I would say definitely not. In the long term, however, I guess there is a possibilty, as all the seasons would pass the WP:GNG. Also, one of my long, long term goals is to write an article for all of Melbourne's 100+ seasons, so I would say it's definitely possible, just not probable for quite a while :) Also thanks for the question, as I had completely forgotten about this :) Jenks24 (talk) 12:23, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't really care about the other templates (TFD?), I just think that the seasons template could be handy down the track. Hack (talk) 13:10, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'm going to send the other five to TfD, but I can see your point with the seasons one, so we may as well keep it, no harm done. Jenks24 (talk) 13:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

In case anyone here is interested:

Actually, while I'm here I might as well ask if anyone could comment (either keep or delete) on the TfDs I've started because they've been up for a week and are yet to receive any comments.

Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 10:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks like the last 5 templates listed above have already been deleted. Lindblum (talk) 07:24, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
You are correct. I guess they don't relist at TfD. Jenks24 (talk) 07:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

New state league knock-out competition

Will the new state league knock-out competition, scheduled to take place in 2011, be part of the 2011 AFL season article or be its own article? Calistemon (talk) 23:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Own article, as no AFL teams will be playing - at best a mention/link from the 2011 article. Will be a good excuse to check how the old NFL/Escort Cup comps from the 70s/80s are handled too. The-Pope (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Is it 100% confirmed yet? Hack (talk) 02:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Not sure, but apparently a scheduled is supposed to be released by the AFL before the end of the year. I think, the South Australian clubs are the only obstacles at this stage. Calistemon (talk) 05:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Looks like Escort Cup needs some work... Hack (talk) 02:43, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Just created a stub - League Championship Cup... Hack (talk) 03:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
Interestingly a "new" user has created a pretty comprehensive article in userspace - User:Mtiges/League Championship Cup... Hack (talk) 04:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
With the announcement of Foxtel sponsorship, this page is now at Foxtel Cup. The page could probably do with a bit of work... Hack (talk) 06:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Category:Australian players of Australian rules football

Anyone support getting this ridiculous category off player pages? Unless anyone feels like going through the excruciating WP:CFD process to try and give the category a more sensible name, it may be better (and easier!) to create a new category/categories to house these players.

Category:American players of American football for example has subcats for the US states, such as Category:Players of American football from Arkansas, and it is these subcats that go on player pages. So for example Matthew Pavlich would have Category:Australian rules footballers from South Australia instead of an entirely useless category which states he is an Australian Aussie rules player.

Is that workable?

I also noticed that all other football codes on wikipedia (NFL, Rugby, Soccer etc) categorise their players by position, such as those at Category:Players of American football by position.

If we decide we don't want have location categories, is that an option instead?

Thoughts? Jevansen (talk) 08:48, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

  • I agree with the state-by-state suggestion. The current one is laughably silly. Reyk YO! 08:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong support for the state idea. Not too sure about the positions one though as I can see a bit of pointless edit warring ocurring over which position some guys play. But basically I'll support anything that means that Category:Australian players of Australian rules football will stop appearing in articles. Jenks24 (talk) 11:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree, state or territory based would be much preferable. --Roisterer (talk) 22:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. Separating the players by state and territory is a very good idea. However don't agree with the idea of separating them by position, as some players have multiple positions, so would be too difficult to narrow down to one position for each player. Lindblum (talk) 02:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support separating by states. Not sure if there is a category for international AFL players eg. South African players of Ausstralia rules football. I think that a category by positions could be made to work, with players like Adam Goodes and Matthew Pavlich in multiple categories, or maybe just for All-Australian players? - Category:All-Australian full-backs, etc. Bozzio (talk) 03:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Of course I support it, good to see the switch over has begun. Now, should each of these cats be under a Category:Australian rules footballers by state of origin or Category:Australian rules footballers by state or <shudder> Category:Australian players of Australian rules football by state</shudder>. The last one will be the CFD crowd's "international consistency" selection, as it matches Category:American players of American football by state, but I think in this case, the use of the term "state of origin" has obvious links to our game. And it doesn't mean state of birth, or state of recruited from, it is flexible, so if someone moved around a lot, list them in a couple of states... who cares, as long as it's a reasonable time in each state, and not just from birth to 3 years old or similar. Opinions? And Jevansen... you naughty boy calling them footballers rather than Players of football, and where is the (Australia) dab for Victoria??? Come on, consistency please! There are probably a bunch of British Columbian Aussie rules players who will be all confused now! The-Pope (talk) 16:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

What's wrong with 17?

After spending the last few months trying to convert some to the idea that we have 17, not 16 AFL teams, an IP is now pushing for 18. Am I alone in thinking 17 is correct until the end of this year? The-Pope (talk) 04:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Unless something odd happens with GWS, it's not 18 until next year. --Roisterer (talk) 05:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh the irony :) But seriously I agree that it's 17 until next season. I also just reverted the IP on the AFL article, before I'd noticed that it was being discussed here. Jenks24 (talk) 05:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

AfDs

If anyone is interested, I have nominated three articles for deletion, as the players have been delisted and they have never played an AFL match:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joshua Donaldson‎
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Still
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jarrad Boumann

16:02, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Laurie Nash at FAC

Laurie Nash is at FAC. --Roisterer (talk) 08:14, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Good luck :) Jenks24 (talk) 15:59, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Byes in 2011

Just wondering, on the main 2011 AFL season page each week there is at the bottom of the fixture, Bye(s):Gold Coast which list teams who have a bye. For the individual teams season pages ala 2011 Brisbane Lions season, etc after the round title there seems to be just BYE in bold if the team has a bye. Is this the consensus, or is there another way that this should be done? Shadowmaster13 (talk) 06:49, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I doubt there is a consensus for this, merely someone being bold. Having said that, there is a almost certainly a better solution, but I have no idea what that would be. Any ideas would be appreciated. Jenks24 (talk) 08:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
What do you think of something like:
Round 1
Bye
Gold Coast
It's a bit unwieldy so if anyone has something better please put it here, personally I like the idea of something that looks like Gold Coast vs. Bye Shadowmaster13 (talk) 10:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
Is this perhaps what you wanted?
Round 1
Gold Coast v Bye
Jenks24 (talk) 04:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Prefer Shadowmaster13's versions - you don't "vs" a bye.The-Pope (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, I have no preference between the two, I just thought that I'd give the option. Jenks24 (talk) 05:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Adelaide's song

Hi guys, just noticed the Club songs section of the Adelaide Crows article. Firstly, I was wondering if someone could tell if someone could tell me if the 1991–1993 song is actually what the Crows' song was in those years, because it looks like a hoax to me. Secondly, is the 1994–present song a copyvio? Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 04:28, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

According to this site [4] it's true, however as to when the change happened i dont know.Shadowmaster13 (talk) 06:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
I've removed the lyrics as a copyvio, as my understanding is that reproducing the full lyrics to a copyrighted song is a problem. On the issue of the original song, yes, those are the correct lyrics. I still remember the "Here we go, here we go, Camry Crows" bit, and sometimes confuse it with the current club sing. :) - Bilby (talk) 06:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Hah wish they'd kept the original song, it was much more interesting :) And thanks for removing the copyvio (I wasn't 100% sure, but remembered a similar issue coming up on the Gold Coast article). Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 07:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

IP 'vandalism'

An IP (202.182.85.234) has changed the vice-captain and captain on all the AFL player squad templates and the AFL page. I have reverted some of these changes but other still need to be done. I would appreciate some help in this. IgnorantArmies 08:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Infobox TfD (to merge)

Participants of this project may be interested in Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#AFL player infoboxes, a proposal to merge the three infoboxes currently in use by this project for biographical articles. Jenks24 (talk) 03:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

IP 'vandalism'

An IP (202.182.85.234) has changed the vice-captain and captain on all the AFL player squad templates and the AFL page. I have reverted some of these changes but other still need to be done. I would appreciate some help in this. IgnorantArmies 08:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Infobox TfD (to merge)

Participants of this project may be interested in Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#AFL player infoboxes, a proposal to merge the three infoboxes currently in use by this project for biographical articles. Jenks24 (talk) 03:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Deletion Discussion

Hello All, I have started a discussion in the Talk:2007 AFL season results page about whether the 2007 AFL season results page should be deleted due to having duplicate data. Any feedback would be much appreciated. Lindblum (talk) 13:46, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

AFL Ladder template

Hello All,

Given the success of the new AFL Ladder template being used for the 2011 season, I am asking for permission to update the other ladders to reflect this new style. The appearance is identical to the old template, however by removing the unused text in the template there are huge savings to be made. For a comparison, below are two versions of the 2010 AFL Ladder and their template sizes:

Using 2011 version - User:Lindblum/AFL Ladder 2010 - 1434 bytes
Using 1995-2010 version - Template:AFL Ladder/2010 - 2140 bytes

If we change this ladder to the 2011 version. we can save 714 bytes (32.9%) in memory usage. Multiply that by 100 and there is a HUGE amount of data ready to be saved. I am prepared to update all the ladders myself, but I don't want to proceed until I receive feedback on this. Looking forward to hear what you all have to say. Cheers, Lindblum (talk) 13:39, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, you can do it if you want, but there's really no reason to. Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance comes to mind, but if you want to take the effort to do it, then that's fine with me. Oh, you also may want to ask McAusten on his talk, as I don't think he watches this page (I've never seen him comment here) and he can be pretty protective of those ladder templates. Jenks24 (talk) 13:47, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Hey Lindlum, just with the AFL ladders I believe that we should round the percentages off to save memory like for example Richmond's in 2010 was 73%. We should have it in this form rather that 73.00%, Same for example 121.5% rather than 121.50%. McAusten (talk) 01:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The "memory" saved from that is negligible. The reason, as I'm sure you must have seen in my edit summaries, that 73.00% is preferable to 73% is due to significant figures. 73.00 is more accurate than 73. Jenks24 (talk) 02:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

"Clash" articles

Just saw that we have an article on the Queensland Clash (the "rivalry" between Brisbane and the Gold Coast), which led to me to two questions:

1) Does this actually warrant an article? I mean the media's trying to hype it up a bit, but is it really notable?

2) If we do decide to keep the article, surely there must be a better name for it (I'd also like to see Anzac Day clash and Queen's Birthday Clash renamed). So, any opinions on what would be a better name and if the Gold Coast vs Brisbane article should be kept? Jenks24 (talk) 08:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like Geocities page at present, bit of blinking text and an animated gif and it'll be 1998 again.
I would say it is notable due to the media coverage, and also due to the fact this won't just be a once off - these games will continue for the foreseeable future. The Derby and the Showdown both have pages. From what I understand, the actual name of the game (or what they're trying to get it to be called) is The Clash ie. it's not just another generic name for a footy game. I see what you mean about the Anzac Day 'clash' - wouldn't Anzac Day game be better and simpler? IgnorantArmies 09:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm, yep see what you mean about the Showdown and the Derby, so I guess this one will probably be long-term notable as well. Also agree Anzac Day game would be better, but I'll wait for some more opinions before I start making any page moves. Thanks for your comment, Jenks24 (talk) 09:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
I always thought Anzac Day "clash" was a weird name, but it seems to be a well-recognised and used term (judging my a search of AFL news article), so I'm not sure whether another name is more suitable, as there is no one name that is officially used. All I know is that it's a lot better than Anzac Day "blockbuster"! However, Anzac Day game may be appropriate with more discussion. Thanks, Allied45 (talk) 09:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
1) Since the WA and SA rivalries have their own article, if we were to be consistent we should leave the "Clash" with its own article, which in my opinion is the best way to go about this.
2) Whatever name the majority of the press use this rivalry, we should also use, since in the press when they are referring to the WA and SA intrastate rivalries, they use the names Western Derby and Showdown. This will ensure a consistent approach for the naming of an article. In reference to the actual name of the article, on the Showdown article, it states that a sponsor gave it the name "Showdown" for promotional purposes, which is similar to the situation with the "Clash" name, so since we have accepted the name "Showdown" for consistency we should also accept "Clash", even though it is not the best word that could be used to describe it. Lindblum (talk) 10:06, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Squad template

Hi all, I don't know if anyone has looked into this, yet... I've changed a lot over to Rls templates lately, but I really think there should be a unique template for the AFL or Aussie rules teams. I've just created an AFL squad template based (on the Rls squad). I've made a couple of changes, columns 1 & 2 go down to r (18 entries), and the cruz roja for injured players is pre-included I'd prefer if it could have an automatic columns if it were to go with the Rls style. Or should players be arranged by positions?

It would need an <<player>>-style template to go with it. Does anyone have suggestions or want to look into this? I'll confess that I'm not an expert on Australian rules, so help would be appreciated
Cashie (talk) 07:48, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's a great idea. Automatic columns sound good to me, but I think it would be best to organise players by number (that's just a personal preference and others may disagree. A few things I'd like is if the fourth "optional" column could be automatically named Rookie list (with the wikilink). I'd also like it if you could pre-include " Upgraded rookie(s)" to the legend. Other than that, I think it's a great idea and if I can be of any assistance, please ask. Thanks for your efforts, Jenks24 (talk) 09:34, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Agree that it's a great idea to make one that we can customise to Australian rules requirements - but we probably shouldn't lock ourselves into the current AFL squad size thinking - ie allow 2, 3 or 4 columns, rookie list on or off, number order is almost certainly going to be the preference for most/all squads. What is the point of the list1a, list1b, list1c etc vs just using a bullet list - * - we don't have defined numbers/positions links, so linking players to a list2c position just makes it a pain if they become the 18th player, not the 17th. See List_of_current_AFL_team_squads for example of two column ones vs the three column ones (and the old style). The upgrade rookie symbol is a must. A link to the Captain (Australian rules football) for the (c) mark would be good too. I know a little bit about templates and a lot about AFL, so if you need any help, let me know. In a related matter, I think I'll be renaming all of the footer templates to include navbox in the title, to avoid confusion with these ones. The-Pope (talk) 11:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Ned Kelly played in the VFA?

Reading Sunday's Melbourne Age, there was a reference to Ned Kelly playing centre-half back for VFA club Williamstwon in 1873. It seems a big statement and the back pages of the Sunday Age sport section are sometimes known for their tall stories. Has anybody else heard about this? --Roisterer (talk) 01:43, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

According to one way of reading this confusing and very poorly written section [5], Ned Kelly was in gaol in 1873!.Lindsay658 (talk) 01:55, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
The Sunday Age article states that he was in gaol in Melbourne at the time, presumably getting temporary releases each weekend. Here's the article I'm referring to: [6] --Roisterer (talk) 03:33, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Not too sure about the accuracy of that story, to be honest. Without doubt, the Williamstown president has claimed that Kelly played for them, but I think it's probably a bit of wishful thinking. "Edward Kelly" is hardly a unique name and the fact that they found some unexplainable piece of metal when resurfacing the ground doesn't really add a lot of proof. At bigfooty.com and vflfooty.com there aren't a lot of people believing the story. The only other refs I could find about this was the Williamstown president claiming the same thing back in 2007, and in 2000 the same bloke claiming Kelly was Williamstown's number one ticket holder in 1873 and 1874 (when he was in jail!). In all, I wouldn't add anything about this to the article unless someone other than Seagulls president, Trevor Monti, claims it to be true. Jenks24 (talk) 08:15, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe the story either. Besides, the VFA didn't exist until mid-May 1877, so matches played by Williamstown prior to that year rank as 'social' or 'challenge' ones in my opinion. Have had a bit of a glance online at The Argus, The Age and The Herald for 1873-74 period and haven't found any evidence of Ned Kelly playing football then.RossRSmith (talk) 13:36, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Is this WIkiProject about just the AFL, or Australian Football in general?

At Talk:Australian rules football there has been a discussion about whether AFL is a valid name for the game. One editor there has used the fact that the AFL WikiProject talks about more than just the AFL as justification for his claim that "AFL" is a valid name for the game. To me, AFL is simply the name of the major league in Australia, not the game, but this project seems quite confused about it. HiLo48 (talk) 03:46, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

AFL is the WP:COMMONNAME name for the sport, and is thus a reasonable alternative. This project covers all forms of Australian Rules Football. SellymeTalk 04:40, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
If, as you say, "this project covers all forms of Australian Rules Football", why is it not called WikiProject Australian Rules Football? That would be a much less ambiguous name. HiLo48 (talk) 05:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm not really sure, but I presume it was due to the COMMONNAME being "AFL". Also, Wikipedia's rules on not being pedantic apply here too. SellymeTalk 05:40, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Where did this idea of AFL being THE WP:COMMONNAME for the sport arise? Has it been discussed and agreed here? As someone from Victoria, the home of the sport, I don't think anyone calls the sport AFL here. HiLo48 (talk) 05:50, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Google 'AFL -wikipedia'. 132,000,000 results for me. '"Australian Rules Football" -wikipedia'. 5,130,000 results. If AFL is only the name of the competition, and Australian Rules Football applies to the sport in all formats, you'd expect AFL to have significantly less, not the other way around. SellymeTalk 06:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I really don't know what I'd expect from that Google search. It's not convincing either way. But you used the words "AFL is the WP:COMMONNAME name for the sport". On what basis? (Surely not on the basis of a Google search, which wasn't actually looking for the name of the sport anyway.) HiLo48 (talk) 07:02, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Actually, COMMONNAME says to use a Google search. SellymeTalk 08:03, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
But a search for what? Searching for "AFL" doesn't tell you the common name of the sport, because it has a very obvious and well known other meaning. HiLo48 (talk) 08:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
You'd expect it to. Look at "Cricket" versus "Indian Premier League", or "Rugby" versus "NRL". I optimized the results by added "sport" to the end. AFL turns up 30.5 million, Australian Rules Football 5.25 million. SellymeTalk 08:46, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
You say "You'd expect it to". Well, as I already said, I'm not sure what I would expect. It's not as if you're looking at mutually exclusive alternatives. No, what you have done is some original research. To claim that "AFL is the WP:COMMONNAME name for the sport" based on your own research is not valid in Wikipedia. I might try to search back in the history of this page to find out how it got the name, and why. HiLo48 (talk) 08:57, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
You have a point there. To put my 2 cents to the original debate (Should "erroneously" be included in the sport's article), I say it shouldn't. I'm sure everyone who uses "AFL" to mean Aussie Rules (Which is a lot of people where I live) is well aware of the difference, but simply cba to use the full name. "Erroneously" implies that it is a misconception. SellymeTalk 10:00, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
In my opinion, it is erroneous to call the sports AFL when that is the name of the league. Jenks24 (talk) 10:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
  • To answer the question, yes, this project covers all Australian rules football articles (check the scope on the project page). The project was gradually expanded to cover all Aussie rules articles (see archives) and it would be pretty pedantic to rename the project and it would be pointless to create a separate project. Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian rules football redirects here just in case. To add my $0.02 to the above argument, AFL is not the common name of the sport. If you actually checked the google results, you'd find that they are referring to the league, not the sport. Jenks24 (talk) 09:46, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
But it's precisely the absence of such pedantry that is being used by people back at Talk:Australian rules football to say that this project's name proves their point that AFL is the name of the sport. Pedantry is good in an encyclopaedia. Can this project simply be renamed to WikiProject Australian Football? It could then validly AND pedantically cover ALL levels of the game. HiLo48 (talk) 10:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I couldn't help think that I was the "people" you referred to above. I think it necessary to say that you have put words in my mouth - I am not saying the AFL should be the sole name of the sport, I am saying that AFL is a name used by people to refer to the sport, and this should not be considered incorrect due to the opinions of some editors. I do, however, agree that AFL is definitely not the WP:COMMONNAME of the sport. IgnorantArmies?! 11:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I would oppose renaming, as unnecessary. The project has functioned perfectly well (and validly) for years, without the need for a rename. Other people may have different opinions, however, and I would be interested to hear them. Jenks24 (talk) 10:14, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I also oppose renaming. The people who say AFL is the name of the sport are deluding themselves, it clearly is not. However, it's a somewhat acceptable alternative. And pedantry is NOT good in an encyclopedia. Read WP:COMMONNAME, it specifically says not to be pedantic. Saying AFL is the name of the sport is wrong, but that doesn't mean it's not a reasonable alternative. SellymeTalk 10:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
But you still haven't provided us with any evidence that AFL is THE common name of the sport. (What you say you do counts for nothing.) HiLo48 (talk) 10:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
It's not the common name, it's a common name. Look at the official Australian rules football governing body in Europe. Guess what they're called. AFL Europe. A lot of other international bodies use AFL as an acronym for Australian Rules Football too. SellymeTalk 10:37, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, you are misusing the word acronym. (Or should I say you are using it erroneously? ;-) ) Please look it up. Secondly, have a think about what you're actually seeing there. It's the league in Europe where they play Australian football, so it will logically be called the Australian Football League for Europe. It's a valid abbreviation using the correct name for the game, Australian football, not a usage of AFL to refer to the game. HiLo48 (talk) 22:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Err, no. It's not a League. In fact, the major international competition they run is the EU Cup. They definitely use AFL to refer to the sport, look around the site. SellymeTalk 01:32, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
You're right. I should have looked more closely, and so should you. It's a quite mixed up site. The first sentence of the "About..." page says "Over the last ten years Australian Football or Aussie Rules as it is often known has grown rapidly across Continental Europe." So, no sign of AFL as the name of the game. Later it says, about the name of their association, "...in October 2010 a vote was passed to change the name to AFL Europe". Sadly, it doesn't explain why. I might try to contact them. Later in that paragraph they again call the game "Australian Football". So we seem to have the game called Australian Football or Aussie Rules, but an association called AFL. Still no evidence the game is called AFL anywhere. HiLo48 (talk) 01:55, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, we'll have to see what happens when they reply. But I'm guessing they'll probably say that it was because "AFL" is a more widely known name for the sport, especially overseas. Although I'm certain they know it's not actually the name of the sport, but instead of the primary league, it's still a reasonable way of shortening "Australian rules football", yet retaining a phrase that everyone is familiar with. SellymeTalk 02:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, we can wait and see. I have sent a message. But I really think you need to move on. There is still no evidence that anyone correctly calls the game AFL. This seems to be your last vestige of hope of finding any. Can you not see how weak your case is? HiLo48 (talk) 02:13, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
No, I'm not saying that "AFL" is the correct name. Every time I've mentioned it I've said "Australian rules football" is correct. What I'm saying is that "AFL" is a reasonable alternative, one that although not the most accurate if you want to be pedantic, is still one of the most known, especially outside of Australia, and can be likened to the usage of the word "decimate". SellymeTalk 02:17, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
If it's not correct, it's incorrect, or erroneous, which is where we started. Unless you want to go off and find evidence in reliable sources that it's "a reasonable alternative". HiLo48 (talk) 02:20, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
The emphasis was on "the", not "correct". You keep implying that I'm saying "AFL" is the only name for the sport, when I am not. SellymeTalk 02:30, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Views expressed by editors that AFL used to refer to the sport should be considered incorrect would be considered original research unless supported by a reference from the game's governing body. Since such a source has not been provided, the words "erroneously" should be removed from the article. IgnorantArmies?! 11:13, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
  • This link also explicitly states that Australian football is the official name of the game, Australian rules football is just used by some and AFL is the name of the league. Common usage may vary, by geographical area, by age, by familiarity with the sport, but those are the "official" views. This project should be at WP:Australian football, but on wikipedia, that would be considered too ambiguous, just as Australian football is too ambiguous to use as the primary topic (I'm actually surprised to see it redirects to Australian rules football and not to Football in Australia). I would have no problem with moving this project to WP:Australian rules football, except that it would probably ruin some subpages, auto tracking etc etc and not be straightforward, so I'm fine to leave it where it is now. And all of that has little to do with the use of the word erroneous in the opening of the main article... which I do support. Using that word is wrong, incorrect and erroneous. You don't say that you play NRL/NBA/NFL/NHL/EPL/NBL etc etc unless you are actually playing in those leagues, and not just playing the sport, so our league/sport should be no different.The-Pope (talk) 13:37, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
No-one (At least, not me) is claiming that the official name is AFL. I'm simply saying that AFL is a commonly used abbreviation for a sport with a generalized name ("footy") so ambiguous. SellymeTalk 13:51, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I still haven't seen evidence of this. Please see my response to your earlier comment about Europe. HiLo48 (talk) 22:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Such a source was provided in this edit, and removed by yourself in this edit. Admittedly not the best source, but the only one I could find for either argument that wasn't in a footy forum or on other Wikimedia Projects. Wiktionary (here) and Wikipedia (here) both refer to this usage without describing it as incorrect. IgnorantArmies?! 07:38, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
I think you're misunderstanding what a reliable source needs to be on this matter. It needs to tell us that AFL is used as a name for the sport. That "source" you provided could simply be described as an essay containing a couple of examples of the erroneous use of AFL to describe the game. HiLo48 (talk) 08:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
An independent source where AFL is used as a generic term for the game is [7], where it is used throughout the article to refer to the sport. However, a simple Google search for "AFL is the best sport ever" or ""afl or australian rules football" brings up a lot more results. And how about the many governing bodies which use AFL in their title: AFL Europe, AFL Victoria, AFL Queensland (as opposed to the Queensland Australian Football League, a separate competition), AFL Tasmania, AFL Canberra, AFL Canada, etc. In fact, if you take a look at Category:Australian rules football governing bodies, you will notice exactly half of the governing bodies listed in the category use AFL in their title. There is no way that there can be any dispute over whether AFL is used to refer to the sport. Whether this is correct is a whole different argument.
Who is TopEndSports???? It seems to be a bloke's blog on his own website. Ever think that AFL Queensland means the "Australian Football" league of Queensland? Of course it is also a marketing/ownership issue for the AFL that they've encouraged leagues to include AFL into the names of their leagues. Google search is irrelevant as I would guess most Vic/WA/SA sources would simply use football, not Australian football or Australian rules football to describe the sport. The link I provided on the other talk page ([8]) shows that it is in common use in NSW and the fact it was highlighted in the article shows that the industry thinks it's wrong. My experience is that it is NEVER used to describe the sport, as opposed to the one specific league, in the southern states. Have you really ever heard anyone say "I'm going to play some AFL with my mates" or "Lets go to the AFL to watch Norwood/Subiaco/Burnie/Coburg".
But we shouldn't be discussing it here, unless we are still debating whether or not the project should be moved. Does anyone have experience with moving WikiProjects around? Is it complicated or simple? Does it stuff up some tracking lists/reports/etc The-Pope (talk) 14:30, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Have you really ever heard anyone say "I'm going to play some AFL with my mates"?
Short answer, yes. But I really can't be bothered arguing my point anymore, so if someone else wishes to take it up, good luck to them.
Re changing the project name, I'm opposed to it, as it would seem to be too much bother, and wouldn't really add anything to the project (just noticed WikiProject Football is for soccer! Those sneaky so-and-sos! :P) Conversely, Portal:Australian rules football uses Australian rules football (obviously!) A formal move request would be good if someone really wants to move it. IgnorantArmies?! 09:06, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Of course you're opposed to a rename. You're the person who wants to use the current name of this project as evidence for your case back at Talk:Australian rules football. We could hardly expect an objective perspective. HiLo48 (talk) 10:40, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
I've stated my reasons above why I'm opposed to rename, and also stated reasons why the word "erroneous" should be removed from the Australian rules football page. If you look over my previous comments on Talk:Australian rules football, I have not tried to use the current name of the project as evidence for anything, as Wikipedia articles are not a reliable source. I'm done with that debate, but if you want to move WP:AFL, a formal move request (you can use {{Move}} ) would be good, where I will again state my reasons why I am opposed to the move. IgnorantArmies?! 11:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Nobody, I repeat, NOBODY, has produced an independent reliable source telling us that AFL is a valid name for the sport. Examples from remote places don't help. If anything, they reinforce the view that it's simply an erroneous name. HiLo48 (talk) 20:28, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Using AFL to mean the game itself is commonplace in the non-heartland states, just as rugby is used to describe league in the opposite heartlands. If a lack of linkage or a dismissal of anecdotal evidence allows you to look the other way, well good luck to you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.198.117.139 (talk) 03:38, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I suspect you're right, but no-one seems to have written about it authoratitively. As a Victorian, I don't think I've ever heard someone here describe footy as AFL. I used to mix up the two northern codes, using the term rugby to refer to either. Then I married a Queenslander and leant that I had been wrong, or erroneous. Even when something becomes a bit common, like Daylight savings, or Melways, it's still wrong, or erroneous. HiLo48 (talk) 03:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

You mean like decimate meaning destroyed and haitch being a letter? I don't see either of those being described as erroneous. And they're truly erroneous (the person doesn't know it's wrong) as opposed to deliberate shortening for convenience, which is the case here. SellymeTalk 05:50, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's examine that "deliberate shortening for convenience" suggestion. AFL = 3 syllables. Aussie Rules = 3 syllables. Hmmm. HiLo48 (talk) 06:22, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Unless someone wants to start a requested move for the title of this project, can we please take this discussion to the talk page where it belongs? Thanks, Jenks24 (talk) 07:05, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
How does one rename a WikiProject? Is it a "simple" move as for normal pages? What are the practical issues, if any? HiLo48 (talk) 07:09, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Must admit I've never seen a WikiProject moved. That said, I think following the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting a single page move and starting a new section on this page would be the way to go. As to practical issues, the RM (if successful) would have to be closed and moved by an admin because admins have the ability to move lots of subpages in one go, whereas non-admins have to go one at a time. If the RM was successful a request at WP:CFDS would need to be made to move all the project's categories in line with the new name. Also, useful links like this would need to be updated and The-Pope mentioned something before about "auto tracking" which I confess to know nothing about, but sounds complicated. There are probably also a few minor issues that I haven't thought of. Jenks24 (talk) 07:20, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Hmmmm. Scary. May not push too hard. (Doesn't mean I like the current name.) HiLo48 (talk) 07:35, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
With regards to HiLo48's syllable comment, AFL = 4 keys, Aussie Rules = 14 keys. SellymeTalk 07:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Pre-AFL pre-season night series records

Just wondering if anyone has, or would know where to find, any information on the results (other than winners and runners-up eg. individual matches) of the VFL's pre-season night series, rather, competitions from 1983–87? A quick Google search didn't come up with anything, but I think they might have been published in some old Footy Records. Any help would be much appreciated, particularly for the 1987 season. IgnorantArmies?! 11:19, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

They can be found on the AFL Historical Statistics site (1987 series is here). – Allied45 (talk) 06:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Colour in AFL club navboxes

I've currently started changing most of the AFL club to navboxes include colour both in the header and in the main section. The previous consensus (here) was to have only colour in the header of the navbox. My opinion is that it is visually unattractive to have the teams' colours as well as the generic light blue and black in navboxes – once expanded, it looks horrible. The only problem I've had with readability is with the University Football Club template I recently created, although I think I have rectified this. The only other problems I can see would be with the Essendon and Melbourne colour schemes - could be some problems for colour blind people, maybe? I think I'd either prefer all-colour or no colour, as in-between looks horrible. Any thoughts? IgnorantArmies?! 12:26, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I started removing the extra colour from some of the templates, but I've stopped having seen this. To be honest, even with colour only in the header, this is probably a violation of WP:ICONDECORATION as "unnecessarily decorative". My personal preference is for the club colours to be used only in the header, as that demonstrates the club colours, but isn't distracting and the actual naviagation is easy to use (ie readability). For example, contrast this version with the current version of Template:University Football Club. My second choice would be for no colour, as I feel it makes the navboxes very hard to read when the team colours are actually used in the body of the navbox. That said, I'm happy to go with the consensus, so other opinions would be appreciated. Jenks24 (talk) 12:44, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Just for comparison, these are the three basic options:

1. Colour/colour

2. Colour/no colour

2. No colour/no colour

I guess the no colour one isn't too bad, and would conform with WP:ICONDECORATION. As long as it doesn't end up looking like this

,I'm happy with either outcome. It'd be good to hear some more suggestions. IgnorantArmies?! 13:47, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I prefer the colour/colour options far more, the colour/no colour just looks weird, and no colour/no colour is far too bland and undistinguishable, especially when next to multiple navboxes. SellymeTalk 14:26, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed changes to {{Infobox rugby league biography}}

Hi there. I'm a participant on WikiProject Rugby league, and I'm currently attempting to make changes to our biographical infobox. The two changes I'm trying to put through are a greater amount of flexibility with British rugby league terminology and, more importantly to you, using {{tooltip}} where column headers such as "Pld" and "T" use shorthand. You can see examples here. These changes would not affect the vast majority of AFL players, since they use a different infobox, but cross-code players who use the rugby league biographical infobox, such as Karmichael Hunt, will be affected by these changes. It looks a bit awkward having one part of the infobox with {{tooltip}} and the others not, but it wouldn't be fair for me to put through these changes when other sports WPs are covering the article. Would it be OK for me to use {{tooltip}} on the optional AFL section of the rugby league biographical infobox, elabourating "Pld" with "Played", "G" with "Goals", and "B" with "Behinds"? Also, please let me know if these terms are incorrect—I'm not familiar with Aussie rules. Thanks, GW(talk) 20:23, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for asking for our input, Ginger Warrior. Can't speak for the whole project, but using {{tooltip}} seems fine with me and yes the terms you used are correct. Just please don't add a "Points" parameter as we don't total the points in Aussie rules (had to remove that from the Hunt article once). Anyway, you didn't ask about that, so it all sounds good. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 06:44, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Ian Collins requested move

Hi guys, I'd appreciate some input from my fellow project members at Talk:Ian Collins (Australian)#Requested move. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 06:46, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Country footy & netball leagues

I know that the scope of this project is a bit of a bone of contention currently but this topic may interest editors who participate here.

Talk:Riverina Football League#Requested move is a bit of a test balloon to see if the amalgamation of football and netball clubs and leagues and the subsequest name changes should be reflected in their article titles in Wikipedia. Cheers, Mattinbgn (talk) 04:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I get the impression from the AFL Riverina website that the Riverina Football Netball League specifically refers to the netball competition and the Riverina Football League still refers to the football competition. Hack (talk) 04:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
The website doesn't explain it well but the two competitions and most of the member clubs are administratively united between both sports. A clearer example of this phenomenon would be the cross-border Ovens & Murray Football League (Ovens & Murray Football Netball League?) with their website clearly naming the organisation the OMFNL and with details of both sports.
Definitely agree about OMFNL. From their website:
"Before the commencement of the 2008 season a historic vote was taken to merge the football and netball competitions under the one banner and the Ovens and Murray Football Netball League was born." Hack (talk) 05:04, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
It's a bit of a general phenomenon in country footy in Vic and the Riverina but each circumstance is individual. For example (and these examples are entirely OR) the Picola & District Football Netball League is fully amalgamated but member club Berrigan Football Club is still separate from Berrigan Netball Club. On the other hand Tocumwal Football Netball Club is amalgamated but its leagues—Murray Football League and Murray Netball League—are still as far as I know separate bodies; although in practice they work closely together on draws, finals etc. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 05:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Player Infoboxes

Anyone know where we're at in relation to merging all existing infoboxes? That was the result of the discussion we had back in April. Has it been put in the too hard basket, forgotten about, or is it still in progress? Jevansen (talk) 12:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Given how different the fields are for each of them (games and goals the most obvious difference) I was always doubtful that it would as easy as those promoting the merge claimed. There are only 110 tranclusions of the NEW template and 259 of the player one, with over 2300 of the player 2 template... which doesn't even have a field for games/goals. hmm. Not sure how to progress. Do we push a bot/AWB/regex expert to try to merge all, or just do it ourselves manually/using AWB? Do we try to "improve" player 2 to have games/goals fields, not just make people put them in manually? questions questions questions. The-Pope (talk) 13:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Yep, it's still sitting in the holding cell. I think Magioladitis (talk · contribs) began merging some of the simpler parameters (e.g. |name= vs |playername=), but I'm not sure if he/she was ever planning to do the full merge or not. If Magio doesn't want to do it, we could maybe ask WOSlinker (talk · contribs) or Plastikspork (talk · contribs), both very good with templates, AWB, etc., if they want to help us out? If not, they could at least give us some pointers about what would be the best way of tackling the problem. If we decide to do it ourselves, I'm willing to try and help out, but I've never even used AWB before, so I'm not sure how much use I'd be... By the way, only 110 transclusions for NEW? I thought it'd be way more than that. Jenks24 (talk) 17:55, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Template:Infobox AFL player NEW has 2123 tranclusions, the 110 was the differently named Template:Infobox afl player NEW, which redirects there. Jevansen (talk) 00:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

AFL full-match templates.

What is the correct formatting for the goals list? I have seen three common examples.

Example 1: Each # on new line, no notation for 1 goal.

Round 19

Round 19
Sunday, 31 July 4:10pm Adelaide def. Port Adelaide AAMI Stadium (crowd: 40,586) Report
3.4 (22)
8.7 (55)
13.10 (88)
 16.15 (111)
Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final
1.5 (11)
4.9 (33)
9.10 (64)
 11.13 (79)
Umpires: Margetts, Schmitt, Hay
Television broadcast: Channel 7
Walker 4
Wright, Gunston, Sloane 2
Otten, Henderson, Jacobs, Doughty, Maric, Mackay
Goals Hitchcock 3
Schulz, Ebert, C. Cornes 2
Westhoff, Thomas
van Berlo, Vince, Thompson, Sloane, Johncock, Walker, Dangerfield Best Boak, Pearce, Hitchcock, Cassisi, Hartlett, Gray
Nil Injuries Jay Schulz (foot and back), Jack Trengove (knee swelling), Tom Logan (foot)

Example 2: Same as above, but with a 1 goal notation.

Round 19

Round 19
Sunday, 31 July 4:10pm Adelaide def. Port Adelaide AAMI Stadium (crowd: 40,586) Report
3.4 (22)
8.7 (55)
13.10 (88)
 16.15 (111)
Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final
1.5 (11)
4.9 (33)
9.10 (64)
 11.13 (79)
Umpires: Margetts, Schmitt, Hay
Television broadcast: Channel 7
Walker 4
Wright, Gunston, Sloane 2
Otten, Henderson, Jacobs, Doughty, Maric, Mackay 1
Goals Hitchcock 3
Schulz, Ebert, C. Cornes 2
Westhoff, Thomas 1
van Berlo, Vince, Thompson, Sloane, Johncock, Walker, Dangerfield Best Boak, Pearce, Hitchcock, Cassisi, Hartlett, Gray
Nil Injuries Jay Schulz (foot and back), Jack Trengove (knee swelling), Tom Logan (foot)

Example 3: All goals on same line, with the goals notation at the end of the list of players who got that many goals.

Round 19

Round 19
Sunday, 31 July 4:10pm Adelaide def. Port Adelaide AAMI Stadium (crowd: 40,586) Report
3.4 (22)
8.7 (55)
13.10 (88)
 16.15 (111)
Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final
1.5 (11)
4.9 (33)
9.10 (64)
 11.13 (79)
Umpires: Margetts, Schmitt, Hay
Television broadcast: Channel 7
Walker 4, Wright, Gunston, Sloane 2, Otten, Henderson, Jacobs, Doughty, Maric, Mackay Goals Hitchcock 3, Schulz, Ebert, C. Cornes 2, Westhoff, Thomas
van Berlo, Vince, Thompson, Sloane, Johncock, Walker, Dangerfield Best Boak, Pearce, Hitchcock, Cassisi, Hartlett, Gray
Nil Injuries Jay Schulz (foot and back), Jack Trengove (knee swelling), Tom Logan (foot)

There's also a lesser-used example that seems to be unanimously wrong among the more frequent contributors, which has goals after every single multiple goal-scorer, like this.

Round 19

Round 19
Sunday, 31 July 4:10pm Adelaide def. Port Adelaide AAMI Stadium (crowd: 40,586) Report
3.4 (22)
8.7 (55)
13.10 (88)
 16.15 (111)
Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final
1.5 (11)
4.9 (33)
9.10 (64)
 11.13 (79)
Umpires: Margetts, Schmitt, Hay
Television broadcast: Channel 7
Walker 4, Wright 2, Gunston 2, Sloane 2, Otten, Henderson, Jacobs, Doughty, Maric, Mackay Goals Hitchcock 3, Schulz 2, Ebert 2, C. Cornes 2, Westhoff, Thomas
van Berlo, Vince, Thompson, Sloane, Johncock, Walker, Dangerfield Best Boak, Pearce, Hitchcock, Cassisi, Hartlett, Gray
Nil Injuries Jay Schulz (foot and back), Jack Trengove (knee swelling), Tom Logan (foot)

So which is correct? I favour examples one and three, three because it's compact (and on season articles that's quite handy), and one because it's convenient and easy to read. Your opinions? SellymeTalk 23:55, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Good question. In my opinion, it is the third example that's correct because (a) that's the formatting the AFL website uses and (b) that's the formatting everyone except McAusten uses. Jenks24 (talk) 03:32, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
And on the same issue, should the BOG award (Either by presentation or most DreamTeam points) be in the infobox? 2011 Adelaide Football Club season gives an example of this. SellymeTalk 08:33, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Bit of a judgement call. If the match had a clearly given BOG award (e.g. Norm Smith, Anzac Medal, etc.), then I think it's a good idea. I'm not a huge fan of using DreamTeam points like on the Adelaide article, but if someone goes to the effort of keeping the page up to date, I'm not going to remove their work. Jenks24 (talk) 08:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Port Adelaide

If Port Adelaide Football Club and Port Adelaide Football Club (SANFL) are now the same football club why do we need the two articles? The latter seems to be obsolete and should have the 1997-2010 SANFL info worked in to the main article. Hack (talk) 02:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

You found another Port Adelaide article. A while back they were popping up all over the place. Yes, I would think they could be merged. --Roisterer (talk) 13:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Project banner

We currently use the following project banner on talk pages

WikiProject iconAustralia: Australian rules football Project‑class
WikiProject iconWikiProject Australian rules football/Archive 5 is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
ProjectThis page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Taskforce icon
This page is supported by WikiProject Australian rules football.

This doesn't really tell people what this project does and was wondering what people thought of something like this:

WikiProject iconAFL
WikiProject iconThis page is within the scope of WikiProject AFL, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Australian rules football on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.

I think we need to be advertising what this project can do and give some exposure to some of the outstanding work required. Hack (talk) 03:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep, I also like the idea of giving us a bigger banner (as long as someone's willing to whatever work will be required). Also, in case anyone has missed, there is a requested move going on for this project near the top of the page (see #Requested move). Jenks24 (talk) 03:45, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
I've just created Template:WikiProject AFL based on the example I posted above. Any thoughts? Hack (talk) 04:50, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Not at all opposed so long as it adds articles to the correct categories, shows the rating which applies, and lists them under WPAU's scope. This would need a single additional parameter to give it an importance under AU. Orderinchaos 13:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Do you have another template in mind that does that? BTW I have add this template to Chris Bond to show proof of concept... Hack (talk) 01:32, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
If you're referring to categories - by categorising it as a WP:AFL article (which the template does) you're already categorising as an WP:Australia article. The hierarchy is as follows:

WikiProject Australia articles>Australia articles by WikiProject>WikiProject Australian sports articles>WikiProject AFL articles Hack (talk) 01:56, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved by rough consensus. All subpage titles have been properly updated. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 23:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


Wikipedia:WikiProject AFLWikipedia:WikiProject Australian rules football –. The scope of the project is the coverage of the sport of Australian rules football. The term AFL is ambiguous as the governing body of the sport and the primary football league share the same name, the former giving rise to a minority use of AFL as a synecdoche for the sport as a whole. Hack (talk) 02:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

  • Not really for or against. There's no doubt that Australian rules football would more accurately describe our scope, but I'm not sure if it's worth the bother. In any case, if this RM is successful (and I have a feeling it will be), all subpages will need to be moved (so could the closing admin please do that if successful?) and all our categories will need to be moved (probably via CFD/S). Jenks24 (talk) 03:41, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Oppose by WP:COMMONNAME. While Australian rules football is technically more correct, it is overly long, unwieldy, and AFL is used to refer to the sport even by official bodies. This has been proposed earlier, and several people presented links to official bodies using "AFL" as the sport's name, including a link I provided to the governing body of the entire continent of Europe, which plays "AFL". While "AFL" does refer to the "Australian Football League", that doesn't mean it can't also refer to the sport itself. While it would be just as correct for the project to be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian rules football, it is no more correct, making the move all but useless. SellymeTalk 08:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
    • At the time you last made those comments most of it was refuted. I do wish you would stop reposting such material. HiLo48 (talk) 08:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
It wasn't refuted at all. You dismissed it as being "remote" with absolutely no further reasoning, and I fail to see how geological distance matters at all to this discussion. SellymeTalk 09:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Support: using "AFL" to refer to all of the hundreds of state leagues is absurdist. The project name should match the article name, which applies to the whole sport, not just the AFL. IgnorantArmies?! 08:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Support AFL is not the correct name. Guinea Pig Warrier (talk) 08:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
No-one said it was. It's a correct name. Either can be used interchangeably, and quite often are, as evident by the multiple sources in the previous discussion on this. SellymeTalk 09:22, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
I have struck the above vote, as they have been indef-blocked for either being a sock of Guinea pig warrior (talk · contribs) or trolling and pretending to be. Jenks24 (talk) 10:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Neither for nor against, as while AFL is a corporate name for one league which plays Australian rules football, it's also come to colloquially refer to the game itself regardless of what league or teams are playing it, so both are correct. As this is simply a WikiProject title rather than an article name, I don't think it's too important to get it exactly right, and whether it changes or not it will be at a correct location with a redirect from the other location. Orderinchaos 13:33, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Just to clarify my position on this, I'm in the same boat as Orderinchaos. If this project was created at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian rules football I'd oppose moving it here. SellymeTalk 13:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Support as long as it isn't too much work, mainly for the world wide dab reasons - AFL means lots of different things to different people around the world, even if you ignore our "erroneous/no it's OK" use of it for the sport as a whole. I'm surprised that the Yanks who like indoor football haven't tried to push us out before. The-Pope (talk) 16:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Neither for nor against but lean Aussie rules: Common vernacular appears to be AFL. Academic texts I've read tend to refer to it as Aussie rules. I lean Aussie rules because of academic citations. Both names appear relatively recently as the game had previously been called Victorian rules in some of the older, pre-AFL sources. --LauraHale (talk) 18:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong support I have never heard of anyone going to see or playing a game of "AFL". Its wrong and is subtly exclusive of all the other leagues and should be fixed. Moondyne (talk) 00:08, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Lots of OR being posted here, so I'll add some too. I'm an older Victorian. Victoria is the home of the game. The names of the game here include footy, Aussie Rules, Australian Rules (Football), Australian Football (that's pretty recent) and football. Names here NEVER include AFL, and Victorian Rules. Nobody here would use the name of a league as the name of a sport. HiLo48 (talk) 00:14, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
      • This is however, not true for most other states. I have lived in SA and WA for most of my life, there AFL is used slightly more often than Aussie rules (With "footy" being more common than either). There have been sources provided for Queensland using AFL. The entire continent of Europe uses AFL to refer to the sport (Albeit inconsistently). Many, many other international organisations use AFL, as evident by the list of international competitions. Hack brings up a good point about ambiguity though, as does The-Pope. I suppose Aussie Rules or Australian rules football would be more clear to the everyday reader, but that does not mean "AFL" is wrong. I must admit I've never heard "Victorian Rules" in my life though, where'd you come up with that? SellymeTalk 01:01, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
        • Well put, and this reflects my experience too. And it's not inappropriate to have a certain amount of what's technically WP:OR on talk pages, in order to establish what is true. Just because it's true doesn't make it encyclopedic of course, but if something is not true then it's certainly not encyclopedic either. Andrewa (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I have pointed out before (and you have ignored the possibility) that AFL can describe a league where Australian Football is played. Such examples are proof of nothing. Misinterpreted examples are certainly not sources. HiLo48 (talk) 07:38, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - the rationale behind this request is that the Australian Football League article, which primarily deals with a single sporting league, sits below Australian rules football, which deals generally with the sport. The usage of AFL in the title of the project page is ambiguous while the suggested title is not. Hack (talk) 00:41, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Comment I think we are seeing a generational divide, as well as a geographic split. Obviously before 1990 NO ONE called anything AFL, and I would guess few if any would call the sport VFL, WAFL, SANFL, TFL etc. So for those of us who followed the game in the 80s or earlier, calling it AFL is blatantly wrong - to us. We know it is done now, but we still don't like it.
Victorian rules was used in the 1800s to differentiate the Australian game (another common term back then) from the Rugby rules or the British Association game (soccer). Search the old newspapers on Trove to see those terms (which is completely irrelevant to this move discussion, but answers the historical context and the specific question). The-Pope (talk) 01:52, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment. I've reworded the lead and scope of the project slightly to more accurately reflect what the supposed intent of the project is, while acknowledging that the AFL is the elephant in the room. Perhaps this discussion was drifting while that was less clear. Moondyne (talk) 06:07, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Importance ratings

Just having a look at the AFL articles by quality and importance, I was thinking it might be useful to introduce some rough guidelines as to what constitutes top, high, mid and low importance. These are just my ideas, and further input would be appreciated:

Clubs

Top: All past, present and future (as in confirmed to be entering, eg. GWS) AFL clubs.
High: Most SANFL, VFL (that is, VFA), WAFL and Tasmanian league (ie. the current Tasmanian State League, and the former NWFU and NTFA) clubs, with the possible exclusion of some turn-of-the-century clubs (eg. Unions Football Club) – although excluding these might be a case of WP:RECENTISM. State of Origin teams, if an article exists.
Mid: All AFLQ, AFLCanberra, NTFL, NEAFL and Sydney AFL teams. Low: The rest.

Leagues and competitions

Top: AFL High: SANFL, VFL, WAFL, Tasmanian leagues, AFLQ, AFLCanberra, NTFL, NEAFL, Sydney AFL, Foxtel Cup, AFL pre-season competition, potentially the O&M and the GFL, potentially the International Rules Series (does this count?)
Mid: Well-known regional leagues (eg. Ballarat Football League, Black Diamond, AFLCairns)
Low: The rest. Amateur leagues, low-ranking metropolitan competitions, etc.

Players

Top: Hall of Fame Legends
High: All other Hall of Fame players (ie. players in the Hall of Fame because of their playing ability, not for any other reason). All Brownlow Medallists.
Mid: All All-Australian players. All Coleman and Norm Smith medallists. All high-importance state league best and fairest and Grand Final BOG winners (Sandover, Magarey, Simpson, etc.). Possibly all State of Origin players. All AFL premiership captains. Low: The rest.

Coaches

Top: Jock McHale, as a Hall of Fame legend
High: All other Hall of Fame coaches.
Mid: All AFL premiership coaches. Other AFL and state league coaches which are significantly well-known for their contributions to the game or longevity (Rodney Eade springs to mind – 300+ games)
Low: The rest.

Umpires

Mid: All Hall of Fame inductees. Other AFL and state league umpires which are known for their longevity or other reasons (eg. Hayden Kennedy).
Low: The rest.

Administrators

Mid: All Hall of Fame inductees. Other AFL and state league administrators which are known for their longevity or other reasons (eg. Eddie McGuire :P).
Low: The rest.

Grounds

Top: MCG (arguable) High: All AFL grounds. Mid: All state league grounds. Overseas grounds which have hosted exhibition matches

Awards

Top: Brownlow, Coleman, Norm Smith High: Sandover, Magarey, Liston, Grand Final BOG awards, Leigh Matthews Trophy, Rising Star Mid: AFLPA Awards, Goal of the Year, Mark of the Year, Club best & fairests Low: The rest.

Other

Decision made based on content.

These are just my own personal thoughts and would only be rough guidelines. Further comments would be appreciated. IgnorantArmies?! 12:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep, generally agrees with my opinions. A few things, though:

Clubs: I think teams like Unions that only played for a few years in the should only be mid. On the same note, I would argue that University probably only needs to be high. Not sure about the Bears (possibly only high for them as well), but Fitzroy should definitely be top. Similarly, GWS should only be top once it's playing in the AFL. I'd also include TAC Cup teams as mid.

Leagues: I'd argue that we should bump up the WAFL, SANFL, TSL (maybe even VFA) up to top. VAFA should probably be high (they beat a combined Vic Country side this year and contests are pretty even between the two). GFL should probably be high (very important in its day), but I'm too sure about the O&M – include them and arguments could be made for GV, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, etc. I'd also include TAC Cup as at least mid.

Players. Think you might be a bit harsh here. I'd have all VFL/AFL club b&f winners. All VFL/AFL captains (and any that were captain for a significant amount of time in the SANFL, WAFL, VFA). Possibly even anyone who has played >200 VFL/AFL matches.

Coaches: looks good.

Umpires: Looks fine, except Jack Elder should be high (umpire of the century) and they do name an All-Australian umpire every season nowadays, so might be worth bumping them up to mid.

Administrators: Looks OK, except I'd argue that some VFL presidents should be high; William C. McClelland (26 years in charge) springs to mind.

Grounds: yep, except in my mind there is no doubt that the home of football would be top :)

Awards: Looks good.

In all, I think it's very good and wouldn't be surprised to find that this is generally followed already. Jenks24 (talk) 16:18, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

My comments are probably similar to Jenks - I personally generally put players to mid if they've played >100 games or been a full time captain and would be putting multiple AA, Colemans or Norm winners to high. But in the end it's not even noticed or known by most, so I would rarely worry about moving one level up or down. Keeping top to only the absolute cream is probably the most important thing to do. The-Pope (talk) 17:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
when I went through a spurt of classifying earlier this year I rated a few players who had played 100 odd VFL/AFL games and played in a premiership side as "mid". When I get a chance I'll go back over my edits to give an example. Generally though, this looks good. --Roisterer (talk) 02:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

WAFL resource

For those interested the WAFL has a spreadsheet detailing all WAFL/WANFL/WASFL/Westar premiership players from 1931 to 2009. Its real value comes in the listing of player middle names, many of whom have WP articles. Hack (talk) 06:08, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Good find. Roisterer (talk) 11:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Suspect names categorised as Indigenous

I note that Craig Holden and Andrew Taylor (Australian footballer) are both in the Indigenous Australian players of Australian rules football category. Sadly, I'm old enough to have followed their respective careers first hand and I don't recall either being referred to as Indigenous (and this list on the AFL site doesn't list them either). Is anyone going to complain if I remove the Indigenous category from their articles? --Roisterer (talk) 11:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Not sure about Holden but they've got their Andrew Taylors mixed up. An Aboriginal Andrew Taylor born in 1980 was briefly on the West Coast list about ten years ago. Hack (talk) 11:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks; I've removed the Indigenous reference from Taylor. --Roisterer (talk) 12:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
According to the North Melbourne website Holden is of indigenous ancestry.[9] This is a bit odd because he is not listed on the Aboriginal Football website (which isn't a reliable source by Wikipedia standards but is usually pretty on the ball in these sorts of cases). Hack (talk) 04:12, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Len Clark

Is the Len Clark who played 14 times for Collingwood the son of Len Incigneri referred here as 'Len Clark (Incigneri)'? I realise it was a pretty common name but just wanted to check... Hack (talk) 02:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Probably different people, Incigneri was in Queensland at the time of the Collingwood players birth... Hack (talk) 05:40, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

just to say that your sport is not in that great table, you should do something about--Feroang (talk) 02:29, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think there's an appropriate tournament that could count as a world championship. To use the AFL Premiership would be akin to including the baseball World Series. Neither would be valid inclusions. HiLo48 (talk) 03:48, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Wouldn't the Australian Football International Cup count? It doesn't seem that Australia is banned from sending a team, they just don't since the AFL view this as a developmental tournament. I would think this would be valid for the table. I mean if they include the IFAF World Championship for American football, where the United States participated in the last two and Canada debuted in the last one, but neither send anywhere near their best players, I'd think it would qualify. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 16:36, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Australia makes the rules and rules that we are not eligible for that comp - even a 3rd grade or junior team would dominate it. We're fine being alone in our own little corner of the world. Add it if you want, but stick a note on it saying that it is a developmental/amateur comp that Australia does not compete in.The-Pope (talk) 16:43, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
I was unaware that Australia was banned from the competition. Sadly, the competition gets no press here in Canada. I only can follow the AFL closely here. At any rate, if it isn't a truly open competition (meaning all countries could send a team or attempt to qualify), then it doesn't qualify. It would seem to be more an invitational competition than a truly "World Championship". Not to turn this into a forum, does the AFL ban all players from participating? If Mike Pyke wanted to played for Canada would he be allowed? If citations can be found this should all be added to the Cup's page. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 17:55, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
His club would never allow him to play- state of origin football can't even get support to return, as clubs see it too high a risk for injury. The-Pope (talk) 23:45, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Professionals can not play in the AFIC, so no. SellymeTalk 11:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Premiership templates

I'm just wondering what the general feeling is for which is the preferred format for premiership templates. I think it'd be nice to have all of them uniform.

The two main styles I'm seeing are these:

Match scores, full club name, no premiership number:

No scores, club "squad", premiership number:

Personally I prefer the Sydney version, simply because it provides pertinent information in a clean manner, but since I've seen a bit of edit warring on a few of them, I was just curious as to what is preferred. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 13:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you, and also prefer the Sydney style, but I've long since given up trying to remove the whole "squad" thing. I also dislike the excess colour that's used in some similar to the Collingwood one (I think it's the Adelaide ones I'm thinking of). Anyway, yes, I agree it would be better if they were uniform. Jenks24 (talk) 13:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Navbox madness

For example, James Hird. The blob of templates at the bottom looks ridiculous and has gotten completely out of hand IMHO. The category shows 527!. I'm not against navboxes in general but many of these are trivial and don't really improve articles. Template:Richmond Leading Goalkickers for example, would work perfectly well as a category. There's so many though I just don't know where to start. If I'm the only person that's bothered about this I'll let it drop. Either way, I'd be grateful for some feedback. Moondyne (talk) 14:59, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I definitely see where you're coming from. Take {{Essendon Leading Goalkickers}} – clutters up Hird's article, but for players where it's their only navbox, such as Charlie Moore (Australian rules footballer), it's quite nice (IMHO). My solution is to collapse all the navboxes into one (diff) that can be opened by clicking [show]. What do you think? Jenks24 (talk) 15:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Leading goalkicker isn't so trivial - it's something noted on most, if not all clubs honour rolls. I think the best example of tidying them up, though, is on the Wayne Carey page. Separately collapsed for premierships, club honours, league awards, Australian representative, and All-Australian honours. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 04:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Yep, I agree that the Wayne Carey solution looks good. On a slightly related note, now that we have so many more navboxes, are the succession boxes useful anymore? They appear to just be duplicating the same content (and adding to what some could perceive as clutter). Jenks24 (talk) 02:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd argue for turfing the succession boxes on articles about individuals. Basically, if the templates are maintained, that information will be presented in a far more succinct and neat manner anyway. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 07:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
But wait, there's more. I think Brian may be back. The deletion discussion is here. The-Pope (talk) 14:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
How did we miss {{AFL Medalists from Latrobe Valley & Gippsland}} and {{AFL Players Drafted From Gippsland Power}}...and guess where Brian came from! The-Pope (talk) 14:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Superscripting of ordinals

I have noticed a significant number of occurrences of superscripted ordinals in AFL-related articles. Kindly note that this practice is discouraged in the relevant guideline. Thanks, --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:10, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed you going through and fixing this. I think this is largely my fault – when I was new, I saw superscripted ordinals in use somewhere and thought it was a good idea for some reason. Anyway, I've stopped and I don't think anyone else is superscripting ordinals anymore. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 02:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

Deletion discussion here on Carlton Football Club salary cap breach, if anyone's interested. IgnorantArmies?! 08:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Do we need another list?

Found List of AFL Shows tonight. Apart from it being completely unreferenced, incomplete, some recentism and some out-of-date-ism and the AFL/Aussie rules name issue, is it worth keeping/improving? Does Category:Australian rules football television series cover it enough? The cat doesn't allow for the hosts/channel/era to be listed, but referencing it all will be very tough. So should we nuke it or improve it?The-Pope (talk) 13:43, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

It's more useful than this list, which I just PRODed. I'm on the fence for this one, though – if someone was willing to have a go at referencing it, then there's probably no harm in keeping it, but if no-one is willing to, then it wouldn't a huge loss to let it go (an unreferenced article is little better than a category). As a side note, if we do keep it, it should be renamed – to List of AFL shows at the least, but possibly List of Australian Football League shows or List of Australian rules football shows And now I see you already mentioned the name issue :). Jenks24 (talk) 22:18, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Wow, what a mess, but a mess that some people have gone to a lot of trouble to create. It may be salvageable. To me, a better name would be "List of Australian rules football television shows" unless, of course, one wants to include radio shows as well. It does need that clarification. (At this time of the year the biggest "show" in Melbourne is the Royal Melbourne Show, commonly known as simply "The Show", so it's a bad name in that way.) Would program be better than show? As for content, it's obviously a young person's list. THE big footy show for a couple of decades when I was a kid was World of Sport, and it's not in the list at all. Won't even bother to add it until this discussion goes some way further. HiLo48 (talk) 23:05, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Program or programme? In any case you would need a qualifier like television or radio otherwise we could be talking about the AFL Record or Football Budget... Hack (talk) 06:24, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Hat notes needed?

I think that hatnotes (little line at the top of an article) at AFL Grand Final at Australian Football League should point 2011 AFL season while the Grand Final is recent. Maybe there is a special template that does this.--Commander Keane (talk) 06:00, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

The infobox at Australian Football League already points to 2011 AFL season, so I don't think a hatnote is necessary as well. That said, I think a hatnote or link from the infobox would be good from AFL Grand Final to 2011 AFL Grand Final. Jenks24 (talk) 06:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Extremely serious "Player Infobox" problem

Not all change is progressive! There seems to be a drive to impose historically incorrect "infoboxes" on players who played in earlier times, when players had day jobs, were free of tattoos, kicked stab kicks forty yards, and long before there was any sort of draft system. The direct consequence of this action is easy to see when you compare:

[10] with [11]

You will notice that not only has vitally important information on his first game played, opponent played against, and ground that the match was played at disappeared from the infobox, it has also, through this dastardly act, disappeared from the article (due to the fact that the previous version of the article only displayed the information on these matters in the infobox).

So, I suppose my point is this . . .

Given that it seems inevitable that this deliberate destruction of information and misrepresentation of fact will continue, due the view that everything must move ahead, can those responsible for what is, in my opinion, pointless vandalism (by the act of imposing the future upon the past), at least do the entire world the courtesy of incorporating the information that once was displayed in the infobox into the text of the article, before the beastly new version infobox is allowed to take the place of the correct original version?

And, as well, can whomsoever is (or are) responsible for all of the past vandalism trawl back through their convoluted pathway of destruction and make suitable adjustments to the texts of the articles.Lindsay658 (talk) 09:51, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I've just returned home from the pub, so there's a fair chance that I'm not seeing things 100% clearly, but I have to ask: is this comment meant in jest, or is it serious? Jenks24 (talk) 12:56, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
As I said during the TfD to consolidate the 3 different infoboxes that we use into one, I don't really care which one we use as long as all relevant and important info is able to be shown, and any irrelevant or misleading info can be hidden. I think your actions in coming here and exclaiming about "extrememly serious problems", "dastardly act", "deliberate destruction" and "pointless vandalism" are extremely uncalled for, given that you haven't addressed them first to the editor who made the changes. If you want first game to be part of the new, standardised infobox and someone was blocking you from doing so, then fair enough, come here to ask for opinions or support, but this isn't the best way to achieve the desired outcome of better infoboxes on all articles.
And I guess a better question is... why are details about the debut game such vitally important info that it needs to be in the info box? Why not last game? 100th game? # of (Grand) Finals? All of these COULD be just as important or more important than a debut game. I agree entirely that in general, the first game should be mentioned in the text (and as they are usually mentioned in the newspaper report, it is a great way to get a reference), but I'm actually starting to think that it SHOULDN'T be in the infobox. The-Pope (talk) 13:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
It was in jest (and sorry for what appeared to be intemperate language)! However, my main point stands firm: if the "new" infobox is to be used, and I have no problems at all with that at all, whomsoever is acting to convert the old into the new, must make sure, in each case, that the information contained within the infobox about their first game, etc. is inserted into the text in the body of the article, before they convert the existing infobox into the "new" infobox (thus, making it a two step process (a) check that information is in the article, (b) install "new" infobox). Otherwise, the important information (which, often, is not immediately available through any other source than Wikipedia) may "drop through the cracks" and be effectively lost.Lindsay658 (talk) 21:50, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Actually, for VFL/AFL players, AFLTables has information on every game played by every player, and is usually linked to in articles, so the information isn't lost, its just absent. IgnorantArmies 05:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
How are the details of the first league game played by any individual player anything more than pure trivia? One of the key reasons why Infobox 2 is vastly inferior to what is now called "Biography." The information is readily available at stats.rleague.com. I've been replacing the templates, and that's what I'm focusing on because it's more important that the two obsolete ones get phased out than having the "First game" details jotted down somewhere. It's something that can be gone back through and properly integrated into the body of these articles, if it's really that important (it isn't). Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 05:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Worth a redirect?

I've just seen Daniel Bass pop up on recent changes and I think it might be worthwhile to see if we can come to a decision about delisted players who never played an AFL match. Is it worth creating a "Delisted players who never played a senior match" section at List of Port Adelaide Football Club players and redirecting there? Or, is he not even worth a redirect? I can sometimes see the value in keeping a redirect if there's chance they might get back on an AFL list, but in Bass's case, he's 25 and there seems to be no chance that he could get back onto an AFL list. What do you guys think? Jenks24 (talk) 07:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this situation, not only with de-listed players who didn't play a game, but also with current players yet to play a game. I think there is a possibility, with all of the above players, that they would all pass WP:GNG, allowing the creation of articles. For example, the modern professional footballer plays under-18 either in the TAC Cup or for a colts side in one of the state leagues, perhaps playing a few senior state league games if in WA or SA. He then plays Under-18 football for his state. If he is talented enough (eg. Stephen Coniglio) he may be profiled at least once at the AFL's website, SuperFooty or another similar website. If he is then drafted, he is profiled again, on the AFL's website and the club's website. Considering even at worst a one-year career, he will probably play reserves/state football. Add in further articles on injuries, personal life, delisting, further career in state leagues, etc., etc., I'd say quite a few delisted players, at least from the late 1990s onwards, would pass the general notability guideline. Not sure what other people think – I know that our guidelines (ie. VFL/AFL player or notable "state league" career) is pretty well established, but this also should be revised IMHO to give a better indiction for clubs, leagues, grounds, etc. IgnorantArmies 07:54, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Reading back over this, I didn't even answer your original question :) I think in Bass's particular case, a redirect isn't necessary, but for other delisted players that don't warrant an article, that type of redirect is a good idea. Also interesting to note Bass didn't go through the draft system – pretty uncommon, maybe even unique, among current AFL players. IgnorantArmies 07:58, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
It was my impression that international players can bypass the draft process eg Mike Pyke. Hack (talk) 08:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Interesting comments. As a bit of a side note, I think Bass was drafted: this says he was selected in the 2010 Rookie Draft, and Pyke's article also says he was technically drafted, although I get the impression he had somehow signed with the Swans beforehand. I think that most first round draft picks would meet GNG even if they never play a game, e.g. even Luke Molan, Melbourne's first round selection in the "superdraft" easily would (still makes me feel bad to see who could have taken instead of him). And, yes, players such as Coniglio and Swallow last year, often become notable before they're even drafted. I don't really think that our notability guideline needs to be revised, we just need to keep in mind that players can pass GNG without playing an AFL match (and make sure we don't go down the path of the soccer project – it's practically impossible to convince them that anyone who fails their section of ATH passes GNG). Btw, in an AfD a write-up on the club's website (and possibly even the AFL website) would generally not be considered independent enough to contribute to meeting the GNG.

Speaking about redirects and Bass in particular, what would you consider the threshold for being (for lack of a better word) 'worth' a redirect? Bass played state football (even played finals for South Adelaide this year), so is it just that he now has no chance of ever playing an AFL match, or is that he was only on the rookie list and he had very little coverage at all? Jenks24 (talk) 08:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I also think that our current guidelines work fairly well. I think we should try to avoid making articles on ALL players before they make their debut, only do it for the clearly notable ones who easily meet the WP:GNG - the key things in it are significant coverage - ie not just a mention in a match report or inclusion in a list - and independent reliable sources - so not just the AFL/club website. The use of local community papers is generally not sufficient, which does give players to or from WA or SA clubs a bit of an advantage, as they are more likely to get coverage in the major (state) papers than someone from Melbourne. Back to the original query I like the "redirect" of all listed players, rookie or main, to the club's list of players - it allows us for some "completeness" in reflecting the tightly controlled AFL lists and also lets you add some other details if they are relevant, such as non-standard backgrounds. I generally dislike black-and-white rules, but I haven't come across too many articles that should break this convention. The ones which I do generally not mind are when the player is still on the list, then I'm happy to leave it be, but when they get delisted, then it should be redirected (and I know that this attitude is against the notability isn't temporary idea). And of course, in the other direction, there still are some WAFL/SANFL/VFL players who qualify under WP:GNG who haven't made an AFL list, and maybe, but less likely, from other leagues too. David Gault is one that I'll fight forever to keep, even without playing in the AFL or winning a major state medal (but looking at it, it needs some updating!) The-Pope (talk) 12:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I would have thought there'd be far less clearcut cases than Gault - playing over 200 league games and playing two premierships would have generated a fair bit of coverage. Hack (talk) 01:12, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Standardisation of premiership templates

Ok, so there was a bit of discussion between Jenks and I above about the premiership templates, which were really all over the shop in terms of format and design. So I went ahead brought all 115+ to the same standard of design. I'm mentioning it here in the hopes that if one aspect of said design is changed, that it then be applied to all 115+ of the other templates in the interest in uniformity.

For better or worse, I used the most recent template as the standard.

I added the nowrap template to prevent the messy effect that you would sometimes see, depending on your monitor/resolution/window/whatever size, where a player's number would be on one line and the name would be on the next. This is pretty straightforward, it's been added to all templates, so we only need to worry about in the last weekend of next September. Or the first weekend of October as it sometimes is nowdays.

Basically the notable features that I've applied to all templates are these.

  • A header of "XXXX Football Club (Clubs that incorporate the mascot into the trading name like "Sydney Swans," or even temporarily like the "Kangaroos" are presented as such) XXXX AFL Premiers (or VFL as the case may be)". The club name is linked to the club article, the year and "AFL Premiers" is linked to the article on the Grand Final, or in the case of the two exceptions, 1897 and 1924, linked to the article on the finals series and the season respectively.
  • The scores and location of the Grand Final, in inverse colours from the template's header. This is, I think, very valuable information to be presented at a glance for an individual premiership, and is pretty straightforward. The colouring itself is just a continuation of what was there - it might be considered a bit garish and even perhaps unreadable with colour schemes like Melbourne's, but in the interests of uniformity that's how I've done it. Again, in the two exceptional years, the details of the finals series takes the place of the Grand Final results.
  • The players listed captain first, and then in order of their numbers. This is pretty straightforward, although for the pre-number years, they've been kept in alphabetical ordering. If two players have the same surname, their first initial is used, and if they've both got the same initial, I've kept the full first names - the only examples of that are Melbourne's Cordners, and they were like that when I got there, so again I'm just working from the precedent. In some cases, I found that initials were used even when no one by the same name was in that premiership team - these have been docked, since it just overcomplicates things. Putting a "T" before Daniher in the '84 template doesn't make sense if Neale wasn't playing or whatever. It'd be like putting an "S" before Johnson in the 2011 template, because there was a rookie by the same surname on the Geelong list at the same time. Even more bizarre was the "S" before the Madden, even though "J" won his flags at a completely different club! This I've also applied to Sr.s and Jr.s - Barassi is just Barassi.
  • The coach in a separate bar at the bottom of the template. Again, a component from the latest template that is now applied to all templates. I decided to opt with listing captain-coaches twice on the same template - the visual distinction of the coach on the template is good, I think, and distances the roles of the coach and players, even if in some examples it's the same person.
  • I'm of the belief that the colours provide a great visual distinction for the templates - you can look at the bottom of someone's template and just visually you see which clubs an individual made his name at. By the same token, I'm of the opinion that since these are historical template, if they're going to be colour coded, they should reflect the colours of the team when they won the premiership. This doesn't crop up in many examples, but a good one that I've applied is Fitzroy, who switched their colours in 1908:
The only other example that I'm aware of of a club winning flags after they had changed their colours is the West Coast Eagles, who switched to a navy blue from their royal blue circa 1995. I changed those templates, but they've since been switched back to navy. It's a bit of a mountain from a molehill, but I just think it should either be respective of history, since they're historical templates, or not. So I guess I'm just asking whether I should switch all the Fitzroy templates to one colour scheme (which, oddly enough, would have to be something different from both of those colour schemes, if it were to reflect their last colour scheme). My question though, is this - should the template for Fremantle's inaugural team be switched to a purely purple and white colour scheme? I don't think so; it would be misleading.

Beyond this, I've also altered some of the combined templates and added a whole extra set. Basically what I've applied goes like so.

  • Numbers that were switched between premierships are noted, so for example if Joe Bloggs wore a 23 in 1934, but wore a 4 in 1935, he's listed as "23/4. Bloggs," with the most recent number dictating the ordering in the template. Also, if they switched from one number, but back again (this happens in few templates... in fact I can only think of the McHale juggernaut, so it's inconsequential), whatever was the most recent use of the number chronologically is listed last chronologically, if that is the case.
  • If one template of multiple premierships spans more than one coach, no coach is listed. I'm basing that on the precedent I found, which was the Hawthorn 88/89 template. Fair enough too, since players who played in one but not the other are omitted as well. Anyone who really wants to know can just click on the year anyway.
  • To that end, instead of linking "1943 VFL Premiers" just the year is linked. Back-to-back years are separated with a "/", nonconsecutive years are separated with a space.
  • If a certain individual held a position of note for only one or two but not all of the premierships covered by one template, then that year is specified in parentheses, e.g. "Captain (1986): 5. Poobah". This also applies to the coach, but I've only done it in two examples, one being John Nicholls and the other being one of the Richmond dudes. The rationale being that Nichols and the other guy have just that one combined template on their page, and it's important to note that they were a premiership coach within said template.
  • A one year gap is all that's justified for a combined template, to prevent anything mad from happening. The precedent for this is the Melbourne template for the "55/56/57 59/60" flags.
  • On a related topic, threepeat premierships don't spawn lesser templates for two back-to-back brackets, or the nonconsecutive bookends. Each block of back-to-back premierships in a template that doesn't involve nonconsecutive flags does have its own template, but not each block of nonconsecutive flags (best example of this is the Tuck-captained Hawks). What that means, in essence, is that if Geelong don't win next year, and the year after, that we would then make a triple nonconsecutive template for this 07 09 11 team, but not until then. I hope that makes sense.

So yeah, I hope you're sufficiently bored by now if you've got all that, but I've laid it all out here in the interest of uniformity. It took a lot of time getting these all into shame, and it would be very disappointing if some people just went around and applied a new design facet or principle to just their team's set of templates (so St Kilda, Freo, Port, and Footscray fans don't worry me much. Hardy har har.) I've done this in the hope of at least improving one aspect of Wikipedia's AFL coverage in terms of neatness, presentation, and uniformity, and while I'm not emotionally attached in any way to any of the principles and aspects that I've outlined here and applied to all these templates, I'd appreciate if there was some way that these could be codified, policed, and ultimately discussed at large before any wholesale change is made to the standard.

Cheers, Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 11:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

3rd opinion request

.... And I disagree as to how to best show the GWS trades. Pls comment at Talk:2011 AFL Draft. The-Pope (talk) 00:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

All-Australian cat

Hi all. I was thinking of splitting Category:All-Australians into two subcats, Category:All-Australians (1953–1988) and Category:All-Australians (AFL) (or perhaps Category:All-Australians (AFL era), to distinguish between the two different phases that the award has gone through. Any opinions? Jenks24 (talk) 05:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Yup, should be divided. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 10:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Good idea, they should be distinguishable. Jevansen (talk) 11:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Roy Zanders?

Anyone got a copy of The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers handy? We have an article, Roy Zanders, but I can't find any references to him online. All the stats sites have him listed as Jack Zander (and the official AFL stats site appears to be down). So, can anyone figure out what the deal is? Jenks24 (talk) 00:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers has him listed as Roy and just says "Ex-Bayswater". Trove isn't much help, he's referred to as Roy in this 1933 article but it says he's from East Burwood, not Bayswater. This 1937 article calls him Jack. Both however use Zander, not Zanders. Who knows... Jevansen (talk) 09:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
The stats site for Jack Zander ([12]) gives his date of birth as 6 July 1910. A genealogy site ([13]) says that there was an Otto Roy Zander born at Stockwell, South Australia, in 1910, and it seems that he was known as "Roy". There is also mention of a Roy Otto Zander at Angaston Cemetery ([14]) — who, it seems, died in 1959 (very likely the same man). In relation to the "Jack" . . . given the attitude to Germany in the 1930s it may well be that he was an "Otto" who preferred to be known as Jack. Not sure if that gives you any help.Lindsay658 (talk) 21:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Article titles: Middle initials, born XXXX and commas

For those interested in how this project is arranged, Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Australian rules football articles by quality log is a useful page to watchlist and keep an eye on. It logs each article added, removed or renamed into the project. Yesterday's renaming log was interesting in that apart from a sponsored name to the unsponsored name and a commonname move, the other three moves, made by Jevansen, Jenks24 and myself, all involved moving ambiguous names to or away from article titles with middle initials. I moved Nick G. Stone to Nick Stone (footballer born 1972) (and created Nick Stone (footballer born 1981)). I totally understand the argument against using DOB, as you are unlikely to know them, but unlike cricket, where the "DK Lillee" or "SK Warne" is fairly well known, in AFL/VFL you are generally even less likely to know their middle name/initial.

Jev moved Jim Stewart (Australian footballer) back to Jim L. Stewart, with the comment that there are 4 Jim Stewarts who played VFL (and a Scottish footballer too). He was born in 1917, the other 3 were all in the 1880s - see this list. Unless we get lucky, or they were unlucky enough to enrol for the war, I doubt we'd find middle initials for the other 3,(of course after I post this I check out the "lists of players" and sure enough, they are already listed a F., A. and H. - and F./1884 has an article!) so they'll probably end up at Jim Stewart (Australian footballer born 1884), Jim Stewart (Australian footballer born 1888) and Jim Stewart (Australian footballer born 1889).

Jenks24 moved Paul O'Brien (Australian rules footballer, born 1950) to Paul F. O'Brien, to match Paul J. O'Brien (born 1961) and Paul S. O'Brien (born 1948). There is also an actor and rugby league player (probably born late 1950s, but not stated) - amazingly all 5 Paul O'Briens notable to be here are Australian! I'd probably prefer to see them all at Paul O'Brien (Australian footballer born 1950) or similar.

So should we standardise which way we dab, unless it's a very complicated one? I'd lean towards footballer (or Australian footballer) born XXXX as the first option for "double dabbing" and only go to initials if that doesn't work (ie duplication or not known)? Whatever we choose, we should start "booking out" the redlinks on the dab pages, with a blue link to the relevant List of Foo Football Club players, like I did at Peter Stephens (disambiguation) and am about to do for the Jim Stewarts, to stop well meaning external editors from undoing our prep work for future dabs.

Finally, I see that we've used a mix of (footballer born XXXX) and (footballer, born XXXX), whereas a check of English soccer players shows that they never use a comma. The examples given at WP:QUALIFIER also don't use commas, but I'm not that fussed about this part, but won't be using them myself. The-Pope (talk) 16:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I am that "well meaning editor"! I note your comments on choice of disambiguator. There is considerable freedom here and I don't mean to be prescriptive, but the article naming guidelines give some direction here, with reasoning. Basically, they discourage use of years of birth as disambiguators, for the simple reason that "readers are more likely to be seeking this information than to already know it" (WP:QUALIFIER). Having said that, the guideline then goes on to offer an example where three "Andy Gray"s – each with a middle name – are disambiguated using years. Also highly relevant is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople). This page discourages use of middle names or initials as disambiguators unless they are widely known. I think it's probably worth looking at the suggestions for other sports too as this might give some relevant pointers. I don't know much about this game, but positions or roles played in or teams played for might be good alternative disambiguators if a particular player is strongly associated with one or the other. From the descriptions I have seen on DAB pages, it looks like players are frequently associated with a single team, so perhaps team name might be a better choice in many cases?
I realise that as a non-Australian unfamiliar with this sport I am not at all well-placed to actually select which disambiguators to prefer, but I hope my comments may assist you in your choice. --MegaSloth (talk) 11:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. It's often good to get an "outsiders" view to make sure we aren't too closed in our thinking. Our sport doesn't really have prescribed positions (especially in the modern game), so positional dabs won't work. A lot of players move around so club based ones often won't work either - but this is probably the most often used in the real world - in real world discussions, Nathan Brown is either the low key Melbourne one, the current Collingwood one or the flamboyant Bulldogs/Richmond one, but we use the generally unknown YOB. But, using team names also can cause problems with ambiguous team names or changes. It just gets difficult when they play for multiple clubs (and they may have a long, notable career in one league, but only a short on in the more "major" league) - or have multiple players at the same club. We already have a mix of (footballer), (Australian footballer) and (Australian rules footballer) in general use (generally in that order of preference) so this is just another layer of freedom! In the end, I don't think we'll come to any "rules", but I think if we can start to lean one way or the other, it would help the flip-floping of page naming that sometimes happens. The-Pope (talk) 12:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I know I've been guilty of muddying the waters by inconsistently applying both the birth and middle initial disambiguation to various articles, as we haven't really got any guidelines on this, so I'm glad this has been brought up. While it would be much easier to have a standard DAB for players of the same name, it doesn't mean that it's going to result in the best disambiguation for each individual case. For example, recently East Freo player Jack K. Clarke was moved Jack Clarke (West Australian footballer), to avoid ambiguity with the Essendon player of the same name. I think, for that case, it works perfectly and is a better solution than a DOB or middle initial. So I think that, while the birth and middle initial won't always result in the best DAB for each case, we could at least come to a decision over which of the two takes precedence. For that I'd vote for the birthdate one, because, as mentioned above, the middle initial seems to be discouraged. Jevansen (talk) 01:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting to see that Tommy Walsh (Kerry footballer) uses team name, which is appropriate so far, as he hasn't made his AFL debut yet. There is another Irish footballer called Tommy Walsh, so we can't use that. Australian footballer is obviously out too...if he becomes an AFL star at Sydney, I'm not sure what would be the best name.The-Pope (talk) 15:49, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Northern Football League

Guys, I have a problem. There's an IP trying to add controversial information to this page and he refuses to admit that a problem exists and won't produce back up evidence. The details are on the talk page. I can't revert his latest edit because I'll violate 3RR. I'm about to report the IP for it, and I may also ask for the page to be protected. I need someone to revert him back. Parkside's 2009 Division 3 premiership is not a proper premiership under present verifiable evidence per the NFL By Laws. Footy Freak7 (talk) 00:47, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Help please (1938 VFL team)

I am wanting use the photograph at [15]. All of the team members are listed at [16]. Of the ten VFL players shown, I can easily identify, from left (1) ----, (2) ?possibly Des Fothergill, (3) ----, (4) ----, (5) Dick Reynolds, (6) ----, (7) ----, (8) Jack Dyer, (9) Phonse Kyne, and (10) ? possibly Ron Todd. Can anyone help me with the identification of the others? Thanks.Lindsay658 (talk) 04:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Lindsay. I think 2 might actually be Percy Beames[17]. 6 looks most like Wilfred "Chicken" Smallhorn[18], but it's hard to know for sure.Jevansen (talk) 00:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Don't think (6) is "Chicken" Smallhorn, because "Chicken" was something like 10cm shorter than Dick Reynolds, and they seem to be the same height in this photo; also, in relation to (2), Percy Beames had quite a different face and skull from the man shown here [19]. Lindsay658 (talk) 03:57, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Have sorted them out a bit more (1) ----, (2) ?possibly Des Fothergill (Collingwood), (3) ----, (4) ----, (5) Dick Reynolds (Essendon), (6) Jock Cordner (North Melbourne), (7) Jim Park (Carlton), (8) Jack Dyer (Richmond), (9) Phonse Kyne (Collingwood), and (10) Norman Ware (Footscray). Any thoughts on the others? Lindsay658 (talk) 07:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

This page or others in Trove might be useful to help you. The-Pope (talk) 07:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. If the image was published in the newspaper it would have been one of the pages that have not yet been digitized. I'll recheck in another couple of weeks. Lindsay658 (talk) 08:17, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedians to the Games

Not directly related to Australian rules footy… though some Paralympians and disability sport athletes did play the game before they became disabled… Wikimedians to the Games is a collaboration drive to improve Australian Paralympic articles, with the most active contributors having an opportunity to go attend the Paralympic Games and to cover the Games behind the scenes with a press pass. The top two contributors will get their airfare and accommodation paid for. :) The drive official starts on 10 January 2012. (If this works out well, it might be a good way for Wikimedia Australia to try to develop a similar partnership with an AFL team.) --LauraHale (talk) 09:55, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Notability of female and international players

I stumbled upon a couple of articles of female footballers and was wondering if there were any specific notability guidelines. A couple of articles in Category:Women's Australian rules footballers appear to be notable under WP:GNG - Shannon McFerran and Joanne Butland - while others like Daisy Pearce seem less clearcut. Hack (talk) 06:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

A similar doubt exists over players in the International Cup games - have a look at most of the names in Category:Irish players of Australian rules football and tell me who apart from the AFL listed guys would meet the WP:GNG. It seems wrong to blanket rule them out, but the quality of play in the cup is lower than most amo leagues and the coverage is normally on the ex-AFL players coaching, a feel good puff piece about sport breaking down international barriers or the novelty value of AFL expanding to conquer the world. The-Pope (talk) 06:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Being a bit bored, I took up your challenge. The following playing in the Irish players category appear not to be notable:

Alan Coomey Brian Currane Brian Shortall Cathal Corr Cian Quigley David Stynes Derek Mulligan Diarmuid Griffin Donal Boylan Fearghal Purcell Fergal Bradshaw Joe Cunnane John Lack O'Sullivan Liam O'Connor (Irish footballer) Michael Currane Roch Hanmore Hack (talk) 15:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I should point out that I am all for expanding Aussie rules internationally and to have women play it too. But I sometimes wonder if minor sports - which we all must admit that Aussie rules for women and internationally is - use wikipedia to increase or prove their notability, not just reflect the notability. This also applies to sports like ice hockey or gridiron in Australia, rugby league in the USA, and lots of other minor sports - and even the paralympics that there is a big push on at the moment. I understand that minutes of TV coverage or newpaper inches (or google news hits) isn't the only determinant of notabilty, but unless you have very good, comprehensive, reliable and complete statistical coverage like we have, the Olympics have and cricket has, it does make the WP:NSPORTS guidelines a bit too much of a free pass.
A lot of those Irish players played in the International Cup, some were in the All-World Team named after the tournament. To most people involved and to a lot of foreign editors this would appear to be a no-brainer - of course they would be notable having played in a "world championships". But we know that it is not really that notable. To link this back to the original question - what you think of Australia women's international rules football team?
It would struggle to meet WP:GNG - there appears to be very little independent coverage. Hack (talk) 00:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
According to some guy at WT:GAA all but David Stynes, Donal Boylan and Fearghal Purcell are non-notable under their notability guidelines. Hack (talk) 03:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Infoboxes, again

Hey guys, there's a TfD that you might want to have a look at, see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 February 1#Template:Infobox AFL player. I've already left some questions there, so hopefully we can some response on whether the merge from 10 months ago is going to happen. Jenks24 (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Stat boxes

What do we all think of these? - you know, the ones on the Selwood and most Geelong articles. I'm a strong fan, but the Pope has a differing opinion. Aaroncrick TALK 10:50, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I've already registered my opinion on my own talk page, but basically: they're not all that difficult to maintain/update; the alternative riff I've used on Ricky Dyson and a few others is even more compact and neat (rather than the Selwood one repeating the same info in the first few columns for both totals and averages; they provide valuable and objective information at a glance for the reader, and I think that having both statistical and ideally in-depth biographical information is one of the key assets of being able to cover footy players on Wikipedia. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 22:15, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
There is a template for statistics, Template:AFL player statistics start (kudos to Allied45 for creating it), which is in use in a few articles. It seems a lot neater than a table – Mark LeCras#Statistics and Cameron Ling#Statistics are good examples of it in use. IA 08:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Ah, fantastic. Wasn't aware of that, thanks for the heads up. Far more functional than what I've been doing as well. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 23:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Quick question though, what is preferable? Should we be listing years when players did not play a game, as is the case of Marcus Drum? I'm not sure that it's of huge benefit and makes the table look incomplete, but I'm not sure what the consensus is? Maybe I'm just depressed about what Gumby's table would look like. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Strange cat

I think I understand the intention behind Category:Australian Football League Awards Seasons Voting, but I can't think what it should be renamed to (the current title is awkward at best). Or maybe it should be deleted entirely and the articles in it upmerged to Category:Australian Football League awards? Jenks24 (talk) 03:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:AFL Dream Team league

For anyone who is interested and has a spare league spot, I thought that we could have a Wikipedia based AFL Dream Team league. I've got an empty league called WPAFL #850244 that you can join to see who will come second behind the Popestars. I'm not doing Supercoach as my 1-man protest against the Herald Sun paywall (I know that Supercoach is still free, but it's the principal of the thing!) Get in quick, I think the leagues are finalised before the Swans/Giants kick it off this weekend, but it might be delayed until next week when the full lockout occurs. The-Pope (talk) 14:45, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Neat idea. I'd be willing to do such a thing. And yeah, to hell with HS's paywall. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
And I'm in. Belzoni Nightflies. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 22:55, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Last chance to join up (I think), I'm guessing leagues close at the full lockout at 7:50 PM AEDT, FRI 30 MARCH. The-Pope (talk) 15:36, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Hamish McLaughlin

I see he's been keen to add some detail to his own bio. Someone check it out. Causing much amusement on BigFooty. 58.26.155.10 (talk) 01:35, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed Made a half-decent article out of it. IA 03:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Greater Western Sydney style

From a housekeeping perspective, we need to get Greater Western Sydney into the table on the main page. A decision needs to be made on whether or not to style them as 'Greater Western Sydney' or 'GWS' in the common short form; and, when a preferred style is to determined, to then specify when it is appropriate (if at all) to use the other form.

I know it lends to a potentially annoying scenario with two different rules, but I'd like to see them styled as 'Greater Western Sydney' in text, but as 'GWS' in tables and lists. One reason is aesthetics - 'Greater Western Sydney' is so much longer than any other team name (except Woodville-West Torrens) that it makes the 'teams' column really long and introduces a lot of otherwise dead space into the table. But even without that, I feel that it matches with common usage - commentators or journalists would be more likely to use 'GWS' when reading a score, but 'Greater Western Sydney' would be the more formal alternative when writing about the club.

We would need to establish separate {{AFL GWS}} templates for the two options to go down this path. Aspirex (talk) 11:38, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

For consistency, I'd honestly rather prefer that we use "Greater Western Sydney" and damn the aesthetics. Journos call it GWS because it's a mouthful but we have no such issue. I really think that consistency should be king, but that's just my opinion. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 23:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

18 month old hoax?

Maxwell Final Eight System. Am I wrong? Judging by the quality of most of the other edits by the article's creator, I think we've been had. Well played Llama-Blimp, you won (until now). The-Pope (talk) 16:36, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, definitely a hoax. But having a quick Google for it, it's amazing how many sites copy content from Wikipedia. Jenks24 (talk) 03:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
John Maxwell-Edmonds is a dead English poet. Obviously someone having a laugh. Hack (talk) 03:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney

Hi. I've uploaded a few pictures, admittedly not great, of players at yesterday's match in Canberra. They can be found at commons:Category:Gold Coast Football Club players and commons:Category:GWS Giants players. They are sorted by players. When players weren't back on, they weren't identified. Anyway, help choosing the best ones and putting them into relevant articles would be much appreciated. --LauraHale (talk) 03:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Great! Images of any sort on AFL articles are rare, and quality, well-annotated images are even rarer. I've started to sort through and add images to relevant articles, and I might crop some in future to better focus on individual players. Thank you! IA 08:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Old photos, old players, old rookies

With the sad passing of Charlie Sutton I started to look through some Trove newspapers for some old photos that we could use in his article (the article itself needs expansion). Everyone should be aware that, (AFAIK I'm not a lawyer, do your own research disclaimer etc disclaimer) all pre-1955 photos are public domain in Australia, so can be uploaded here with a {{PD-Australia}} copyright tag. But they can't be uploaded to commons, they need to be pre-1946 there, as that is the US equiv date for PD images. As I read it, the date of the original photograph is all that matters, so ANY photo that is republished now that was taken in 1954 or earlier - ie any 1954 Grand Final photo, should be public domain and can be uploaded here freely. The Trove newspaper photos are often very poor quality scans, so keep an eye out for any decent, clearly dated images on the news/AFL websites.

When you search the old newspapers, you find some absolute gems for predictions... like this one from 1951 by Hugh Buggy "Recruit shines. Officials are pleased at the excellent showing of young Ted Whitten, a rangy youth of 17, who played at centre half-forward for Braybrook last year." source Yep, I reckon they would have been pleased for quite a while longer too! The-Pope (talk) 08:28, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Full Points Footy... dead!

Just clicked through to check something out... and it's gone. No more. read the reasons Hopefully the old info is moved across and auto redirects put in place, other wise we'll have a few hundred dead links to deal with. I think some of the info was published in a book that is at least partially on google books, but again it's the effort needed to change the links. The-Pope (talk) 16:49, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a shame. Devaney was excellent in his commitment to presenting a non VFL/AFL-centric view of Australian rules football history. I have the Tasmanian volume in hard copy, but none of the rest. Aspirex (talk) 11:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Does anyone know what's going on here? I loved this site and am eagerly waiting the return, which originally said mid-April and now late-May. It's now mid-June and still nothing on it. Anyone?? (118.210.149.205 (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC))

So apparently the whole site was archived by the National Library...[20]...might be able to give life to a few dead link. IA 15:32, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

archive.org has most of the old full points footy articles archived too, but the new http://www.Australianfootball.com is now up and running too. I haven't had a good look at it yet but an IP editor linked a nice and detailed john Nicholls bio to his page today. The-Pope (talk) 16:17, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Looks interesting. IA 16:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Season articles for lower level leagues.

Whilst trying to clean out some old cleanup tags (feel free to help out!) I've come across quite a few barely notable, unreferenced, deadlinked or poorly, non-independently referenced lower level league season articles. Luckily, we have Category:Australian rules football competition seasons to hold them, which includes AFL, WAFL and VFL subcats (no sign of any SANFL ones yet!) The remainder includes:

Tassie Leagues: OK (might need to expand the acronyms, NTFL especially):

NEAFL: OK, recent, has coverage

Women's Nationals: probably OK at the high level of final results only, not game by game

Junior National: OK, given the high level of coverage

TAC Cup: maybe OK, prefer the high level of final ladder and finals results only

Canandian: doubt we'll ever find independent reliable sources, so I think we should nuke em.

Country Vic: Local paper would cover, maybe the small print in the Age, but not "significant coverage", and not online anymore (sportingpulse is awful to try to reference over multiple years). Maybe prune them back to final ladder, finals and award winners only, or nuke? The (West) Gippsland FL ones are probably the closest - finals only and at least try to have refs. The NFL and BDAFL ones are far too detailed and all the links are dead. I know more than most that dead links can still be valid refs, but these aren't independent, nor likely to be archived.

And a weird half completed combination, that I've already prodded.

So what do we do? Prod all that are overly detailed and almost certainly unable to be referenced? Trim most back to bare minimum details? Notifying most of the initial contributors would be useless as few still contribute. The-Pope (talk) 13:37, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much agree with everything you've said: AFL, WAFL, SANFL, VFL, NEAFL, TSL easily sourced (not that they are sourced). Same for TAC Cup and under-18, especially for recent years. Struggle a bit for coverage with under-16s and women's (which goes from 1998–2007). I'm going to say delete for those two, which are basically just rankings and results. Other leagues should be pretty much gone. Sporting Pulse results and local papers doesn't really cut it for me, particularly in their present state. IA 14:09, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Including games played in various leagues in table

In the tables accompanying player articles, I have started to include the matches played in non-AFL/VFL leagues (SANFL & WAFL) in the player table (to see what I mean, check out David Hynes). With Hynes I'd also add whatever games he played for South Australia & Western Australia, and while I wouldn't be including games he may have played for Grong Grong Matong or whatever, I'd also look to include any international rules matches played and perhaps matches in other state leagues. What do people think? Is how I have listed the matches in the table ok? Other thoughts? --Roisterer (talk) 12:41, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

For players with significant and/or notable WAFL/SANFL/VFL careers, I'd agree, if you can find reliable refs to back up the stats. But, I wouldn't suggest we add "East Perth 1 game" or "South Fremantle 1 game" to Chris Judd or Matthew Pavlich's infobox. A bit like the Talk:Australia Royal anthem discussion - technically it's correct, but it's irrelevant in the big scheme of things. Hynes won a Simpson medal & premiership at South, so it is appropriate for him. South have published detailed player lists online (they disappear from view every now and then though) and the WAFL site is pretty good, but by no means complete. Obviously offline sources are OK, and for things like this related, non-independent sources are OK too.
I notice that you've been adding Category:Port Adelaide Football Club players to a few SANFL Magpies players (ie Hynes and Clive). Whilst I understand that the clubs are now merged, they weren't back then, and as that Cat is a subcat of Category:VFL/AFL players, it really shouldn't include non-AFL Port players, they go in Category:Port Adelaide Magpies players. If you think that we should rename them Category:Port Adelaide Football Club AFL players and Category:Port Adelaide Football Club SANFL players (or similar), then I wouldn't object. There is also an upper level cat of Category:Port Adelaide players which combines the two, but probably needs to include the words "Football Club" in it somehow. The-Pope (talk) 16:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
re: the Port Adelaide categories; to be precise, the only people that should be under the Port Magpies category are those that played for Port Adelaide in the SANFL between 1997 & 2010 (when the SANFL & AFL teams remerged). So, for example, Clive Waterhouse played for Port in 1995 & returned in 2004, meaning he played for both Port Adelaide and Port Magpies.

I notice, for example, Robert Nash (Australian rules footballer), who played for Footscray in its VFA days, is categorised as Cat:Footscray Football Club (VFA) players. Perhaps the best result would be categorising the pre-97 Port players as Cat:Port Adelaide Football Club (SANFL) players (or similar), Port AFL players as Cat:Port Adelaide Football Club players and those that played for 1997-2010 SANFL Port Adelaide as Cat:Port Magpies players (Gavin Wanganeen for example would have each of these three categories). --Roisterer (talk) 23:48, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree in principle to listing games for VFA/VFL, SANFL, WAFL, TANFL, NTFA and NWFU where that player is a senior listed player at the club. But I have the following comments: 1) I'd order the clubs chronologically, rather than grouping them into leagues. If necessary, sub-totals for the different leagues can be included at the bottom of the list. The Hynes article clearly demonstrates this, as the way the box is constructed implies the VFL has hierarchial precedence over the SANFL/WAFL (particularly with the 'AFL total' being in bold), but the fact that we've summed the numbers suggests they should have hierarchial equivalence. 2) Adding the games together to produce a final total directly implies equivalency between the games, so we need to clearly define when this can and cannot be done, because there is a point at which the SANFL/WAFL/etc. matches cease to be equivalent to VFL/AFL matches. I would suggest that 1987 for Western Australia and 1991 for South Australia, grandfathered, would be the appropriate cut-off (i.e. a player who starts an SANFL career prior to 1991 gets to count that entire SANFL career as equivalent to the VFL/AFL, including any years played after 1991; but, a player whose career began in 1991 or later could not consider the two leagues equivalent. In Hynes' case, his SANFL games would have equivalency to his VFL/AFL games, but his WAFL games would not). The VFA - clearly games are equivalent prior to 1897, but although I feel they should retain equivalency for some time after that, I can't think of any other non-arbitrary way of specifying it. Other questions to be answered are:

  • Are Tasmanian games ever equivalent? TANFL, NTFA and NWFU? Is the NWFU only equivalent after it entered the state premiership in 1950? Do they cease to be equivalent after the merger into the NTFL in 1986? Before then? Is there a non-arbitrary way of stating it? Given that the AFL Hall of Fame doesn't give typically give any importance to Tasmanian stats, it probably says that we can't ever consider them equivalent.
  • WA Goldfields games, back in the early days when there was still a WA state premiership should probably be equivalent to the WAFL, becoming non-equivalent after the state premiership ended.
  • I also read somewhere that extracurricular matches (e.g. night series) were counted amongst SA and WA senior match tallies, but not amongst Victorian. If that's true, then adding the senior tallies together has a significant pitfall.

Essentially, to be consistent, we need to unambiguously define what is and isn't "top level football"; and since I don't believe the AFL has an officially sanctioned definition, I think we're setting ourselves up for trouble. I'm still 100% in support of listing all of the above leagues in the infobox, except where a player is assigned only as a reserves player. And, where it is obviously equivalent (SANFL before 1991, WAFL before 1987), adding the three leagues together for a total. Aspirex (talk) 06:46, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The template used on the Hynes article should be phased out anyway. Personally, I think it should look like Choco's page. The formatting is debatable of course, but that's the template that should be used. It's chronological according to first league played in, and allows separate tallies to be kept (which is important - the biggest danger here is people mixing games totals from separate leagues.) Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I think that makes sense. The main body of the text can add them up, because it is easy in prose to make it clear which games are included; and, unless it's someone with more than 350 or 400 games, it's unlikely to be worth commenting on. Aspirex (talk) 06:41, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Which of the infobox templates is the most current? Hack (talk) 08:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Template:Infobox AFL biography. Jenks24 (talk) 20:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Is it worth looking at converting over to the current infoboxes? Hack (talk) 08:32, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Port Adelaide players

I've been mening to follow up on this but following the discussion above re: categorising Port Adelaide players, I will start changing the category of any Port Adelaide SANFL player to Category:Port Adelaide Football Club (SANFL) players, which would put them in line with the categories for footballers who played with the VFA incarnations of VFL/AFL clubs (eg. Category:Footscray Football Club (VFA) players as well as avoiding the problem of having Port players from the early 20th century being categorised as Category:Port Adelaide Magpies players, when only those players who represented the SANFL Port from 1997-2010 should categorised as such. --Roisterer (talk) 14:45, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

football stadium

I was wondering if there were any special design concerns for an AFL stadium? If so, then perhaps an article should be written for it? Australian football stadium or somesuch (this would be separate from that for the playing surface article Australian rules football playing field ). 70.49.127.65 (talk) 22:21, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm finding it hard to work out what you're getting at. If it's not the playing field you're referring to, what is it? The stands? Spectator facilities? I can't think of any way in which they differ much from other sports or from common sense. Is there an example from another sport that you have in mind? HiLo48 (talk) 01:28, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I was thinking of a situation analogous to baseball park or soccer stadium. 70.49.127.65 (talk) 02:52, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Or cricket. Might be something there but it would really, really need development before talking about it. Maybe thinking of somehting like a list of stadiums, attendance records, sponsorship at parks, multi-use facilities and how they prepare grounds, etc.? --LauraHale (talk) 03:34, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that would be good also. List of Australian football stadiums (and redirect Australian football stadium to it, until some fuller article can be written). 70.49.127.65 (talk) 04:13, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Derby/rivalry articles

As some of you may have noticed, a few AFL rivalry articles (including QClash, Sydney Derby (AFL), Western Derby and Showdown (AFL)) were nominated for deletion and subsequently speedily kept. As they stand, the articles do not meet WP:NRIVALRY as they do not show the rivalrys' importance in multiple non-trivial, reliable sources. I believe that the Western Derby and Showdown articles should be able to comfortably meet the criteria but I wonder if the QClash and Sydney Derby pages are premature given the limited coverage of the actual rivalry. Any thoughts? Hack (talk) 08:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Totally premature. And really, we're only supporting AFL marketing by having these rivalry articles at all. But some people get excited about them, and rationality goes out the door. HiLo48 (talk) 08:15, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree re Qld and Sydney article being premature, but also point out NRIVALRY is just a guideline. There's no doubt that these intracity matches do develop into something more than just another fixture, even if that is manufactured by the AFL publicity machine. We shouldn't get carried way because some soccer warrior thinks he was hard done by. Moondyne (talk) 08:40, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yeah, may as well delete Anzac Day clash, it's just advertising, right? But seriously, if anyone wants to make a serious (i.e. not 'payback') AfD for any of these articles then that's fine. I must admit I did hesitate over closing the QClash and Sydney Derby AfDs because a reasonable case could probably be made that they aren't notable, but Mack's very disruptive behaviour meant that I did. As to Western Derby and Showdown, those are huge games in WA and SA, I'm sure significant coverage could be found. Same goes with Dreamtime at the 'G, always gets a bunch of articles in the Age and the Sun in the weeks before and after the game discussing the actual Dreamtime at the 'G theme, not just the normal stuff. Similar story for Queen's Birthday, which is added to because (what feels like) every few months I see a full length article about how the Dees don't draw a big enough crowd to deserve it. Jenks24 (talk) 08:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I support your close for no other reason than the noms were done in bad faith. Good work. Moondyne (talk) 08:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
AFD shouldn't be used for cleanup. This project is actually pretty good at cleanup with cleanup tags on less than 9% off our articles compared to well over 20% for most other projects. Label it and we'll fix it. But to force us to fix it in a week under the threat of deletion just isn't fair. The whole idea of "just an AFL marketing ploy" could also rule out virtually every TV show, musician tour article and a lot more promotional articles.The-Pope (talk) 11:41, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I remember having to delete a "Notable Sydney Derbies" section in the Sydney Derby article, because it basically stated the result of the first match with a statement to the effect of "this is notable because it's the first one" (just did similar on QClash). The only important content on QClash or Sydney Derby at the moment is the name of the game and the name of the medal they win, and I'd support a redirect to the relevant section of AFL team rivalries (an article which, of course, has its own problems with showing the importance of context of rivalries using reliable sources). Aspirex (talk) 01:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The encyclopedia of AFL footballers one of the most referenced books on Wikipedia

Interesting to note that The encyclopedia of AFL footballers by Holmesby & Main is the 21st most referenced book on Wikipedia, which is a damn good result considering Australian rules football is hardly the biggest topic out there. Only one sports related book (Wrestling Title Histories) has more references. --Roisterer (talk) 12:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Only 877 citations??? We have over 5000 player articles... lets go for No 1! 4000 should do it! And for those who have their own copy (any edition) you can make it easy on yourself by using the template form of {{Ref AFL Encyc|4th|706}} where you simply put in the edition number that you have and then the page number, and bingo it expands like magic: Holmesby, Russell; Main, Jim (2002). The Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers: every AFL/VFL player since 1897 (4th ed.). Melbourne, Victoria: Crown Content. p. 706. ISBN 1-74095-001-1. The-Pope (talk) 14:14, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Great, now I have to find out which footballer you just referenced. --Roisterer (talk) 02:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Lupus purpleus, of course. The-Pope (talk) 16:29, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Ahh, good ol' Lupus; underrated Freo half back flanker. --Roisterer (talk) 23:59, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
The unco one was no half back flanker, he was a ruckman. You may have him confused with the Prince of Pockets. The-Pope (talk) 06:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
A sheep in wolf's clothing? BTW Is there anything in his entry that isn't in his article? Hack (talk) 06:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Articles with a lack of notability and verifiability that involve this project

Having come into contact with members of this project recently, I have come across multiple articles that have a severe lack of verifiable, independent sources. Remember that something that exists is not inherently notable, it requires significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Rather than run into more problems by creating deletion debates, I have written up a list of articles that I believe lack notability references so that this project can improve them, or if they aren't notable, list them for deletion or merge where appropriate as per WP:N. Right now many of them appear to be simple listcruft. A list still requires the topic of the list to be notable. In general I only tagged and article if it had less than 5 independent reliable sources. I also excluded biography pages as I am less knowledge about the process for those type of pages. Macktheknifeau (talk) 18:49, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Anyone thinking this has all been done in good faith, note that I have had to remove notability tags from History of the Australian Football League, List of Brownlow Medal winners, AFL Tribunal, List of Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees‎, Interstate matches in Australian rules football, Brownlow Medal, Coleman Medal, Melbourne University Football Club.
I assume it was an oversight that Australian Football League wasn't tagged as well. Jevansen (talk) 22:59, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
It looks like a classic case of Wikipedia:Tag bombing. StAnselm (talk) 23:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I thank you for your interest, like I said I tagged articles with fewer than 5 references. If you feel a handful don't warrant the tag I can agree, but there is clearly a lack of references for vast tracts of this projects pages, I'm merely applying tags as I see fit for the individual articles. The alternative would seem to be ignoring these pages lack of notability and simply hoping that like magic someone will come along and show that they are notable. Remember that just because something exists, it does not prove notability. But since your project has a few dozen articles with major issues, we can always come back to these 'borderline' articles at a later date. I don't know why you would say that Australian Football League wasn't tagged as it has 70 or so references. As for your concerns about it being 'in good faith', I shall explain my reasons for those articles. History of the Australian Football League has 1 source. Brownlow Medal has 1 reference (which isn't enough to qualify for notability), and as such it makes the list of winners listcruft if the original article isn't notable. AFL Tribunal only has sources about specific incidents, and no references about the notability of the actual tribunal itself. List of Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees has the same issue as Brownlow Medal, in that the parent article Australian Football Hall of Fame has only has 2 independent references making the list simple listcruft if the subject itself is non-notable. Interstate matches in Australian rules football has no reliable sources, only 2 references by what appears to be a fansite, it has not established notability. Coleman Medal is just listcruft, it has no references to establish notability. Melbourne University Football Club has but one reference. Just because these subjects exist does not make them inherently notable for wikipedia, they require sources and it is not disruptive to tell everyone involved with this project that they lack sources, so I would hope you refrain from accusations of bad faith conduct in the future. Macktheknifeau (talk) 06:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
No, I'm quite happy to repeat it. You are doing this in bad faith. Good example of WP:POINT. Jevansen (talk) 07:00, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
"POINTY" behavior is making edits which he or she does not really agree with, for the purpose of discrediting a policy or interpretation thereof. I completely agree with articles requiring references policy. Your argument is invalid. Macktheknifeau (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • thanks for your concern in our project. Please note, however, that at 8.9% of our articles tagged for cleanup we are the most successful large people based WikiProject at addressing cleanup issues. You may want to help out the football project reduce their 22% of articles with cleanup tags or request that the Australian football (soccer) task force be interested enough in cleanup to actually register at svick's clean up list to track their cleanup tasks. Regards The-Pope (talk) 00:04, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • The huge number of articles without sources I found in only my small survey seems to suggest this project is are only the best at cleanup issues because it ignores that dozens of the articles aren't tagged appropriately. If you have anything to say to the Football task force, I would suggest you discuss that at their talk page. This issue has nothing to do with them. Macktheknifeau (talk) 06:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Well that little soccer tagging run was sort if fun, but I much prefer improving articles and removing tags. Each to their own, I guess. The-Pope (talk) 07:51, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I look forward to the work you do on all non-notable unreferenced articles this project has under it. Macktheknifeau (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps both of you could actually try to find some reliable sources for the articles instead of slapping a tag on them and telling the other WikiProject to deal with it. IA 15:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Do you mean actually non-notable articles or unreferenced articles, because surely after 6 years here you know that notability is determined by whether sources exist anywhere, not just if they are in the article. That is the whole point of WP:BEFORE. And I've done a bit of work on cleanup, wikification , dead link fixing & referencing this year, how about you? The-Pope (talk) 15:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
It's okay IA, I'm not going to start being petty, I welcome the help on WP:FOOTY artile tagging, and have already cleaned up several of the articles he tagged. Some have less than stellar references or potential for them, so I will be bringing it up with the WP:FOOTY Task Force and it may lead to deletions in the future as per guidelines.Macktheknifeau (talk) 15:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you guys ought to know that Mack has just reported afl.com.au as an unreliable source, arguing that it isn't independent when we know from Media Watch that it is as of last year I think. I think this guy is trouble TBH. For your info. Footy Freak7 (talk) 10:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Fort the purposes of WP:SOURCES, it's not a third party source. Hack (talk) 12:56, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
for articles written this year I'd argue that it is. Considering the sponsorships, personal alignments, playing/supporting/presidenting history of most other footy journos/newspapers, Jeff Kennett was probably right when he said there are no truly independent AFL journalists or news organisations anymore. Shall we delete the whole project? The-Pope (talk) 16:46, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
An article written or commissioned by the body organising the competition is hardly third party or independent, regardless of the reliability of the information. I don't see an issue using these sources to verify information - it's just not relevant in proving notability. That said, pretty much all of the articles cited above by mack seem to have sufficient coverage in independent reliable sources to cover WP:GNG. Hack (talk) 04:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Since when did (for example) the AFL run the Suns and the Lions? They don't, so they are a third party and are therefore a logical source for notability. The independence of the site is already proven to the extent that it can - not withstanding that I personally consider Kennett's view on any matter to be unreliable FWIW. Footy Freak7 (talk) 04:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
AFAIK, AFL Media run both the AFL website and each of the 18 club websites. The AFL issue the licence to the clubs, so **if** you consider the league and the media division to be aligned then they can't be considered independent. Not sure if you've seen the media watch story, but they claim to have compete editorial independence and have and will publish articles critical of the AFL, not just positive spin. They are only lacking a 100 year old masthead and lots of dead trees. Why is the ABC still a reliable source for Australian government stories? Why would we still trust the Wall Street Journal to report accurately about all businesses, even News Corp? Do we trust Fairfax reporting about the mining boom given Gina's shareholding? Would it have been different if instead of building up their own journalistic empire they entered into a partnership or joint venture with am established news organisation who had a history of editorial independence rather than start up a new group? The-Pope (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Round of applause for the Pope, ladies and gentlemen! Footy Freak7 (talk) 23:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)